Wengier
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“新DOS时代”站长
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注册 2002-10-9
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『楼 主』:
Is there life without Microsoft（转帖）
（转帖自国外论坛）
Is there Life without Microsoft? Well, there must be, or I couldn't be writing this-- you see, I don't have any Microsoft products on my computer.
A few months after Win95 was released in late 1995, the dire predictions began: DOS, my OS of choice, was dead; soon there would be no new software available for DOS, no support for existing DOS software; the whole world was going to Win95, and if you didn't want to get left behind, you'd better get on the Win95 bandwagon. Not only that, but (gasp, shudder!) if one wanted full graphical access to the InterNet, it was impossible without Win95 and Netscape.
It was that last sentence that got me. I wasn't too concerned about DOS software or support, because I had bought and registered the DOS programs that I liked and used the most, and I had been using them so long that _I_ could do tech support on them. But the InterNet access was a different story; I definitely wanted it in all its multimedia glory.
So I briefly succumbed to Win95, against my better judgement. The performance of my machine went from excellent to poor, with glitches and mysterious crashes, etc., etc.. Through all of this, my old DOS programs performed like the champs they are-- never once did a DOS program crash my machine under Win95. But programs written specifically for Win95 sure did crash, as did Win95 itself-- on a regular basis, no less.
Several hardware/memory upgrades didn't help at all. I was becoming more and more frustrated. The only real reason I had Win95 on my machine in the first place was for the graphical InterNet access. Apart from that one activity under Win95, I spent the rest of my time on the computer at the DOS prompt or in my reliable DOS software. (I realized that I couldn't rely on Win95, nor on Microsoft to fix the problems.) Meanwhile, more and more people were beginning to complain about Microsoft and the government hauled the company into court.
One morning in early November of 1997, I made my coffee and sat down to watch the news on CNN. In a news story about the October computer convention in Las Vegas, the reporter gave information on a _graphical_ web browser for DOS, called Arachne. That was all it took. Ten minutes later, I was at the Arachne site to download it. After testing it for a couple of weeks and finding it worked very well, I formatted my drive to remove Win95 and I went back to MS-DOS briefly.
Then Edward from IACT found me in the Arachne list, I met Diane through email, and things haven't been the same since. Through IACT, it wasn't long before I found Caldera with its _free_ (for individual users) DR-OpenDOS, and I was formatting my drive again-- now every last vestige of Microsoft was gone from my machine. This felt very strange at first, and a little frightening. I kept waiting for the sky to fall on me, to find something that couldn't be done without Win95 or MS-DOS. It never happened....
Do you want/need to multitask? It's built right into DR-OpenDOS. Do you want/need a "high end" graphics program? Get NeoPaint shareware, only $45.00 to register. Want/need an excellent graphics viewer and conversion program? Try the _freeware_ Picture Viewer 1.70, much better than the older and more expensive Graphics Workshop. If you rely on the InterNet, you might wish for a program that will show you a map and tell you what time it is in any part of the world-- try the DOS version of GeoClock 7.0, shareware for $35.00. Want/need to easily transfer data from your laptop or notebook to your desktop machine? Try LapLink! Mine is version 5.0, but I must admit it was so long ago that I bought it, I don't remember how much it cost.
-{Editor's Note}-
LapLink V is the current and last version for DOS (DOS-without-Windows). In this volatile software market, LapLink V for DOS might be found with a list price of up to $150, the same as the current version for NT.
I could go on with more examples.... The point is that lots of great old software for DOS is still around and new DOS software is coming out every day. Moreover, it's much easier to find now with the InterNet as a tool. The InterNet also makes it easier to find user groups, help, and support for this software.
For me, life without Microsoft has turned out to be a very good life indeed. It's much less costly, not just financially, but in many practical ways. For example, my hard drive is 850 megs, and even with all the programs I mentioned in the last paragraph, plus many more, I still have over 600 megs of free space on my drive. At the same time, all the strange anomalies have vanished, the mysterious crashes have disappeared completely and with the few crashes that have remained, the cause is easy to trace and correct.
As great as all this is, it's not the best part though. The best part is that I'm in control of my own computer again. No longer am I driven by the whims and fancies and requirements and greed of Microsoft. Not only do I get to decide where I want to go today, I also get to drive!
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Wengier - 新DOS时代
欢迎大家来到我的“新DOS时代”网站，里面有各类DOS软件和资料，地址：
http://wendos.mycool.net/
E-Mail & MSN: wengierwu AT hotmail.com （最近比较忙，有事请联系DOSroot和雨露，谢谢！）
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