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RxDOS vs DOS-C (Announce)

posted by tom Homepage, 29.10.2007, 11:23

> > Maybe ... first I wonder whether RX was already available at that time
> > under the GPL ... is YES, then DOS-C was chosen because of a sort of
> > C-purism only ?
>
> As you can see from this
> announcement,
> RxDOS was released under the GPL in 1999. I think that this was just at the
> time when it was discussed which kernel to choose for FreeDOS - DOS-C or
> RxDOS.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/kernel/old.2/beta1932.zip]
dates back to 13-Jul-1998

anyway, I didn't choose it. It just was *the* FreeDOS kernel when I entered the game 2001

> DOS-C was chosen exactly because it's written in "C". The argument was
> that much more developers know "C" than Assembler. In my opinion, all
> systems programmers must know Assembler.

I agree. They must *know* Assembler.
They even have to be able to write *some* Assembler.

But the FreeDOS kernel *proves*, that you can write a significant chunk of system code in "C", with very little size overhead (if any at all).

And it was probably written in much less time then a comparable project in ASM.

> But to adapt the kernel to the
> developers is a fundamentally wrong philosophy. Anyway, all the FreeDOS
> kernel developers I know actually knew Assembler rather well.

I *know* Assembler quite well. But I refuse to write anything longer then a few jundred lines in Assembler.

> Another possible argument could be that "C" programs are more easily
> maintained.

Right.

> Then I wonder why MS-DOS, DR-DOS and PTS-DOS are all written
> in Assembler MS/DR-DOS were started at a time when no reasonable "C"
> compilers were available; at this time the size overhead would have been
> considerable.
After that, it was probably a bit too late to switch.

> and could be maintained.
> Everything is ultimately a question of good organisation.
Maybe putting some money (in the form of fulltime working, payed programmers)
helps even more then a good organization.

You're comparing apples to oranges here.

BTW: a significant portion of MSDOS 6.2 (outside of the kernel) is written in "C"

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