Wilner informed me that:
> Everything except boot-up depends upon the O/S. Nothing is below the "O/S
> layer," nor does one speak of such a layer unless one intends "application
as well as
> layer" and doesn't know an application from an O/S, nor can a single byte be
> sent or retrieved over a device (networked or otherwise) unless an O/S is
> relied upon, nor can a single access to memory, disk, or what-have-you be
and more.
This is all quite surprising to me. Even though I like
to do so when I'm moody, it's not common practise to refer
to MS Windows 3 as an application. Most people would call
it an (however able or not) Operating System. And yet,
Windows 3 is in every way running on top of DOS.
With Windows 95, Microsoft has tried to make it less
appearant that DOS is still required. They even remap the
video adapter's base address during boot, so as to hide the
familiar DOS black-screen. In fact, Microsoft in some ways
tries to convince their customers that the windowed environment
is nothing but an alternate shell (GUI) to the operating system.
To this end, you can choose to start WITHOUT activating the
"GUI" by putting a statement "BootGUI=0" in a configuration file.
This will render you a text-only shell which looks very much
like a DOS-prompt. No wonder, it *is* a DOS-prompt (in almost
every detail equivalent to DOS version 7), and nothing
else. You don't have long-filename support, you don't have any
network facilities, you can't even use your printers.
Unless you type "win", to start Windows 95. As a matter of
interest, this is exactly what happens if you change the
"BootGUI=0" to "BootGUI=1" - "win" is inserted into the command
queue after all other statements in Autoexec.bat has been
executed.
Now suppose I wanted to use Drivespace, an MS technique to
compress harddisks on the fly. Or even better, Stacker, a 3rd-
party equivalent. Either of these would install themselves
BELOW Windows 95 (and even more interestingly, in some respects
even below DOS) but ABOVE the ROM-based BIOS (binary I/O OS).
To Windows 95 (and to DOS), the compression activities would
be transparent, ie Windows would not *know* about them. Which
of course is the whole point.
I don't think there's any point in mentioning utilities that
halt the computer when a virus is detected, or when battery
status is low, or when the Debug-mode button is pressed, or
when a source-routed packet arrives.
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