Re: Running XY-Write under DOS vs. Windows.

[mp newsroom@xxxxxxxx]

At 10:12 PM 5/24/00 +1000, you wrote:

>I have no intention of giving up. Given that I tend to distrust extra
layers of
>complexity on any computer, I'm not sure, when I think about it, that I would
>fully trust a dual-booting system, anyway.
>   Does anyone have any opinions about whether XY-Write should be run on pure
>DOS, or do they find it quite satisfactory with Windows?
>
>             Regards,
>             Michael Edwards.
>

I am right now using XyWrite on a pentium 200mmx with 32Meg memory
using dos 6.3 (the IBM version) under windows 3.1.

I do use several windows programs, and (except for the QNX hybrid)
using the WWWeb is not very satisfactory uner Dos.

Under 3.1, however, XyWrite acts quite responsibly, even with more than
one copy loaded. I try not to have too many "DOS" windows open, and
do not need more than one copy of XyWrite (even with 9 windows,
or safety sake I close any I'm not currently using: opening them is
not slow) but I have experimented.

Occasionally I have 2 other dos windows with Lotus Agenda in each
because of the slowness in opening two Agenda databases, but again, try to
close anything I'm not using. Like you, I find complexity causes problems,

Nevertheless, the extra memory means moving between these applications
is fairly fast and straightforward. I have even used the windows
cut and paste clipboard to transfer information -- although being ascii,
XyWrite files (up to 64k) are accessible as notes in Agenda. (If any of
you don't know agenda, I can outline it later. With XyWrite, these are what
should have been the two killer apps for DOS -- especially for writers and
academics, which is where they seem to have lodged in the last8-9 yrs.)

As for Dual boot -- you might talk to some Linux people. Dual booting
seems to work there and has been used for several years with all versions
of windows. The instability is on the windows side, not the Dos or Linux side.
Using Linux as an Op system is also an option, as DOS and Win 3.1 can be
emulated, (but I am told are slow)

One final possibility is going to DR DOS. Caldera now distributes this
under the "open source" licence and it includes multitasking under
DOS. I don't know the implications under windows 95/98 but this is the
program that I understand the Anti-Trust people were able to show was
directly killed by predator MS in Europe because it was direct threat to MS
Dos.

btw: I find IBM's Dos 6.3 (above) to be more stable and smooth than
MS 6.22. IBM also went to DOS 7 but I never tried it.


regards
-pjd