"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote in message
. 3.70...
"Bob La Londe" fired this volley in news:i2posm$35v$1
@news.eternal-september.org:

Ok, I'll bite. Is it really free?

Is it time limited or executions limited?

Is it share ware?

Is it cripple ware?

I visited the page and noticed there is "PD Sales" link, but no price.

I noticed it's "dino-ware". It runs under DOS with VESA drivers, for
criminy sake!

It sounds like a 1980s platform that someone has been performing
artificial respiration on; has kept adding to and "improving" it without
ever adding any abstraction layers. He even states that it "talks
directly to devices".

That might make it very fast and capable of driving hardware accurately,
but would also make it impossible to keep up-to-date, and would tend to
keep the interface so very primitive as to scare off almost everybody but
die-hard hardware types.

I know none of this for sure, having not run it. But it looks from the
docs to be very primitive.

Besides, I don't have any old 8088-based DOS3.1 machines to run it on
G.

LLoyd


LLoyd

No, but I have some 98SE machines on the shelf, and I am sure my old gammer
has a VESA card in it. You can still run a 98SE machine in DOS mode. I
even have a DOS box I use regularly in the office (PC DOS 7) for remote
programming certain types of phone switches and some other equipment.