Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 08:03:23 12/04/97
Go up one level in this thread
On December 04, 1997 at 10:37:09, Fernando Villegas wrote: >Hi all: >As much as I begun the now long thread about CMP7 and DOS obstinacy, I >feel entitled -if you don't mind- to draw some conclusions on the ground >of all what has been said here. >A) Maybe DOS is a better OS than Windows in terms of this or that >technical criteria and even in terms of the speed it gives to this or >that program, BUT nobody buy a PC just to run one chess program and >getting more hash tables to that ONE chess program. Efficiency has many >meanings according what you are using as a measure. As much as you have >many programs in your computer, each of them loaded with many >instructions and specific push buttons, efficience has less to do with >speed that with overall and easy usage of all the computer and all the >bunch of programs loaded in it. Efficience means simplicity, not to win >or not a fraction of nanosecond or a Mb more or less for hash table. >B) I have been, too, a wizard, more or less as all of you, with special >floppy disk to launch this or that program and even delighted to >tintekering with all that things, but in the same degree as I own more >programs, more years of life, more serious work t do and more duties to >accomplish, chessic or non chessic, the only thing I want is the most >simple way to go into the task I want to do. >C) As much as chess programs are stronger and stronger, the need and >anxiety to get more speed and hash tables becomes something of a >maniatic urge, senseless and even pedantic. Are you going to tell me >that you always win to genius 5 IF you don't give to it an additional >Mb? Rebel 9 needs 32 Mb in hash instead of perhaps 8 to wipe us as shit >without problems? Now that strenght is guaranteed, the focus of >attentions is usability, frills and all that things that "elitist" >thinks are only for vulgar, idiots, etc people like me that has enough >comon sense for not mixing means with ends. I don't care a shit if >Windows suck a large shunk of memory, as much as gives to me a more >comfortable usage. Of course, I would like a better Windows and, as I >have seen in my beta test of w98, this will happens. But, in the >meantime, I insist that chess programmers should abandon this obstinacy >and think a little more in us, the idiots not interested anymore -o >never before- in techies hoopla and blabla. I am not one of those kids >that like to disable radios. Purcharsers are adults with money to buy, >not genius kids toying with software. They have no time for that. They >have no time for configuring anything. And like them I want just to play >and I demand the more comfortable program to do that. >I think Chris know this, Ed know this, almost all know this. A pity that >Marty seems not to know it. >Fernando Here's my take on this, as en end-user. My kids play all sorts of games on my P6/200 at home. I run both win95 and linux on this machine. When they play games, we typically have problems, because many games (falcon, the need for speed, etc.) run only in dos. And they require oddball setups that are a pain to manage. Compare this to a windows application where you simply "click and play" and don't have to worry about whether or not the application will work with your video, with your sound system, with your memory manager, etc. I agree that for the most part, windows offers solutions to all of these at what should be a very small (if any) performance hit. Let windows worry about the printer type you have, the video, the sound, the joystick, the oddball mouse, the video capture, etc. Get it working *once* and then leave it alone. *that* is the big benefit of windows. Sure, knowledgable people can get most games to run under dos. But not without a little work. None is required in windows...
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