Hi Maurice,

 PK> However I agree, DOS apps have inherent 
 PK> limitations and should be avoided wherever possible...

 MK> As far as output being compatible with DOS apps any OS 
 MK> can be if it really wants to be.  

Not really, a DOS app has the limitation that DOS has no concept of
Resource Sharing. Yes, you CAN Network and multi-task with DOS (using
add-ons), but DOS relies on the Networking environment itself for resource
management and provides ZERO inter-application management either. All
multi-tasking OS's are Resource Sharing aware (they HAVE to be), but DOS
isn't and this can bite the unwary.

 MK> Also made the move to a 
 MK> larger harddrive on the 486 and there was bios issues 
 MK> that OS/2 couldn't resolve whereas Linux could (lilo).  

From DOS 3.3 I have used nothing but SCSI (except OS/2 1.3 which I ran for
about 9 months, I used an RLL drive for that as a SCSI driver was not
available without a cost) and never had that sort of issue. Each step that
IDE took seemed to require the user to upgrade r change something else
(BIOS, HD, Re-configuration of the Motherboard, etc) to keep in touch, and
it invariably introduced strange incompatibilities along the way. I now use
IDE for CD Readers but thats about it (my CD writer is SCSI and my next DVD
writer will probably be IDE).


 MK> I tried my best to do a multiple boot with OS/2 and 
 MK> Linux but I couldn't get it to work at the time.  

I too found that one tricky, early Linux (RH V2.0!!!) seemed to require
Primary partitions for everything so I flagged that. My next look was at RH
6.0 and that was much better, but I still was not grabbed by the Linux apps
of that time.......;-) I picked up an ISO of ubuntu 6.06 the other day,
when I find some spare time (big joke here at the moment.......;-)) I will
take a look at that...


 PK> per week app that was non-critical for me. Since then its been 100% 
 PK> OS/2, so no, OS/2 people are NOT attracted to DOS at all, they are 
 PK> attracted to OS/2........;-)

 MK> Then why the native DOS apps?

Well I certainly don't use any DOS apps and most of the other OS/2 users I
know dont use them either, but those that do run DS apps simply find OS/2 a
better DOS than DOS.......;-). 

 PK> You will note the app I suggested has both OS/2 and DOS versions...

 MK> No Linux?  Tsk, tsk.

And no source code either.......;-(

Cheers.............pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01