Slashdot Mirror
DesqView/X: Night of the Living Dead Codebases
Pazuzues writes "I found something that you could say peaked my interest. It seems Symantec (purchasers of former company Quarterdeck) has release DeskView/X into public domain and can be downloaded now. DesqView/X was a GUI and OS extender that installed into DOS very much like MS Windows does. This little GUI can run X-Windows and MS Windows 3.x software and can even gateway serve MS Windows applications to remote X terminals. It was way ahead of its time and is a pretty decent toy to play with if you have a old 486 laying around. Anyways there is a petition being started that is petitioning Symantec to release the source code as OpenSource. I think this is a really good idea and could possiably help alot of other existing projects like WINE for example. It can load X and rexec X apps with 16mb RAM for Pete sakes!"
I remember having to use DESQVIEW to multitask when I was running my BBS off of MSDOS.. Ahh, full screen ANSI menu's and RIP graphics to boot. I want my bbs, and I want it now.
BTW, i'll "deffentntnetnly" check this out.
Actually, one of the most usefull features of DesqView/X was the ability to remotely access serial ports on another machine. I used to work in a customer service group who's application was only avilable via an RS232 connection. Each workstation was limited to two physical serial lines that had been run from X.25 nodes. A number of us installed DV/X and shared our ports out when we weren't working. This allowed you to grab unused remote ports and open 4 or more serial connections with our mainframe apps. Very handy.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Back in the day...
:) I wouldn't have all these wasted brain cells which know every single bug in DOS/QMM. :)
... my "modern" first computer was a 386DX... basically because it was 32 bit and had a math coprocessor. Damn that thing was cool. I had computers before that but this was the first one I thought was da bomb.
After a while I would tweak DOS to get the MAXIMIM amount of conventional memory 640k out of it. Quarterdeck Memory Manager did an AMAZING job of moving things around and forcing them to load in the correct memory segment.
It was always amazing to see how well it would increase your memory.
I would run QMM, DesqView for multitasking and Norton Commander as my filemanager, and QModem to get into my neighborhood BBS.
QMM was needed with DesqView because it required a lot of resources.
I was S000 37337!
Man I wish I had Linux 2.4 and Debian back then !
Kevin
By the way, Windows (NT) doesn't load on top of DOS. Nice try, though.
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email jamie@mccarthy.vg.
To whoever decided to moderate 10 of my old posts -1 instantly in the span of 2 minutes: you are a loser. Zapping my karma to zilch hasn't ruined my day a bit. Maybe I'll go over to Kuro5hin where people can carry on an intelligent, unbiased conversation.
--cscx
Desqview learned me to do proper programming. It's true. When I used it the first time, all my self-written C programs (and pascal too) bombed because of uninitialized pointer references.
:-)
I had to walk through everything to fix it and it learned me how to threat pointers properly. A lesson learned which will never be forgotten
bash$
A few minutes after the article was posted, the first couple of sentences were removed from it.
Possibly too fast, depending on the applications you want to run.
Last year I was assigned a seemingly trivial "upgrade" project for a customer that runs an old DOS-based app. First of all, I had to find a new PC with an ISA slot -- not as easy as you might think, considering hat the customer wanted a "name-brand" PC with full warranty.
I finally found an HP model with a riser card for ISA support. PC-DOS loaded fine, but when I tried to start the customer's application, the machine locked up tight. After checking with the application vendor, I was chagrined to hear that the program will not run on anything faster than a Pentium 90.
Many DOS-based programs that ran on the ragged edge of (then-current) technology used hard-coded timing loops that simply can't cope with the clock speeds of today's processors.
So maybe DOS will boot super-fast on your Athlon, but there's no guaranty that it wil run many of your "vintage" programs...
Here is my petition to Symantec.
xxxxxxxxxx O xxxxxxxxxx H xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx W xxxxxxxxxx E xxxxxxxxxx L xxxxxxxxxx L xxxxxxxxxx.
I applaud and commend you fine folks at Symantec for allowing the free download of DesqView/X. When this software was new, it was far ahead of its time. I believe it contains technology that much new software would do well to have. In that light, I'm asking you to consider releasing the source code to DesqView/X, so that software such as Linux might benefit from its innovative features.
xxxxxxxxxx O xxxxxxxxxx H xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx W xxxxxxxxxx E xxxxxxxxxx L xxxxxxxxxx L xxxxxxxxxx.
It probably won't happen though.
xxxxxxxxxx O xxxxxxxxxx H xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx W xxxxxxxxxx E xxxxxxxxxx L xxxxxxxxxx L xxxxxxxxxx.
Of course, many companies use that excuse because they don't want to tell you the truth. Nvidia for example.
Me: I'd like any documentation on how to program your fine chips.
Nvidia: We can't open source our drivers because they contain 3rd party IP that we don't own.
Of course, they didn't answer the question I asked. The real reason they won't release any kind of info (docs or the source to their drivers) is that their plan is to segment the market via driver tweaks. The only major difference between their Quadro line and their Geforce line is the drivers. The Quadro drivers support accelerated anti-alaised lines. The Geforce drivers dont, even though the hardware does.
Since Nvidia wants to be the graphics hardware in all those Linux boxes that are replacing SGIs on animator's desks, they can't risk a bunch of GNU hippies writing drivers that let professionals use Geforce cards as if they were Quadros.
Rule #1 in dealing with businesses. If they have any reason to lie to you, they will. Plan for it.
Oh, and to all the people who think that DESQview/X could be useful in WINE... DESQview/X never ran Windows programs. It could run Windows 3.0 or lower (or Windows 3.1 in real mode) inside a DESQview/X window, much like DESQview could. It also, I believe, had a display driver for Windows to allow Windows apps to run across the network in a DESQview/X window. However, no emulation ever took place.
I used to be a heavy Desqview (no the X version) user. Nice product for its time. When desqview came, the whole product line was dying anyway. Even if you don't use it, you can download for the X11 (Type 1) fonts. They work really well with X11.
Quarterdeck actually received a patent for the "overlapping windows" concept they used in this product.
8 2/
Caused quite a furor at the time -- even had MS worried because Windows used overlapping windows.
http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/txt/ep/0344/0
Given that the base HW req's for DV/X are so low (by today's standards), this might let us nip two persistent problems:
... I ran DV on my 386DX-25 for two reasons: I had 8MB of RAM and DV let me use ALL of it, and it let me do modem-intensive apps in the background. I never "up" graded to DV/X, though - hadn't the $$, and I fell into Linux in the 0.99 days.
1. How do we make old computer hardware useful?
2. How do we get low-cost computers to lots of people?
Set up a bunch of 486s, or P-Is running DV/X, give them each a Gnome or KDE desktop running on some other server, and let people surf, or whatever. One high power machine, lots of terminals.
ObPine:
I remember drooling over DV/X back in the day
Do any of y'all remember TSX-32? Well, I shouldn't say "remember", as it is still alive and well. I first found out about the TSX-32 Operating System back when I was in high school in 1992. The neat thing about this OS was that it was multi-user and had virtual consoles way before I had even heard of Linux. Anywho, it's still around and you can download the shareware version from their Web site.
Chris