Win3.1 code in Win8 base?
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Win 3.1 was not a true OS, it was just a UI layer on top of the underlying DOS and it employed co-operative multitasking model which required that apps willingly yielded CPU and other resources back to the OS once they were done with them. This OS later became what we knew as Win 95, Win 98, Win ME, etc. Windows 8 takes its codebase from Windows NT which was the first OS in the Windows Family to employ true pre-emptive multi-tasking. This OS progressed later into Windows 2000, Win XP, Win 7 and eventually to Win 8. Since Win 8 seems to have a lot of bugs, I'm sure some old code must be lingering around.
Shameel wrote:
it was just a UI layer on top of the underlying DOS
IMO I see it in a similar light as the desktops on Linux. E.g. Gnome/KDE/Unity/etc. They add lots of GUI stuff, but leave most of the "true" OS things to the Linux kernel itself (i.e. multi-tasking / memory management / IO / etc.). But they do some things for themselves which the kernel didn't implement - e.g. GPU acceleration (well perhaps that's the X11 graphics core). Methinks DOS did a whole lot less than the Linux core does, e.g. it didn't do any multi-tasking at all, no network, no drivers, etc. It was in effect not much more than GRUB is today. So perhaps you could state that W3 wasn't only a desktop as it did have to sort out stuff like virtual RAM, task swapping, etc. I think the 1st W3 version where DOS was "removed" (ahumm "hidden") was the infamous ME. As for the NT branch, they built that on top of OS2: http://windowsitpro.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story[^] Perhaps there's some OS2 code left in W8? But there certainly could even be some W3/DOS stuff, you do still get the CMD console (which is quite a lot like DOS). It would just be surprising to find any W3/DOS stuff in the kernel!
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Shameel wrote:
Win 3.1 was not a true OS
Contentious argument that. I can't make up my mind whether I agree or not. It depends how you define operating system.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
I would expect an OS to provide at the minimum a file system, security, etc. Windows 1.0-3.1 all depended on DOS to handle the FAT file system and had NO security. The Win 2.1/Win386 system had preemptive multitasking, but only between DOS VMs, the GUI was still cooperative. This was back when a 286 12 MHz was considered a solid machine. Due to a bug in program, I once wrote a utility under 3.1 to directly extract information from a different process's memory!
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I was just thinking would there be any piece of code that is dragged along all the way from Windows 3.1 till Windows8 ? Or the latest OS code is completely rewritten from scratch to exploit the new hardware resources? A simple MessageBox Api's code really needs to be changed at the base? Of course the UI has changed considerably. And there would be some edits to port the code from 16 to 64bit. Except these would there be any ruins of Win3.1 really left over in W8? Possible to spot something like this on the Windows 8 base code:
/**********************
Author: Bill Gates
Function : GetDiskSectorData
Module : FATreader
Date Created: 1/5/1990
Last modified: 2/4/1991
*******************/:)
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
It's unlikely. Windows 3.1 was the codebase used and eventually upgraded to Windows ME. Windows 8 is based off of NT, which was completely separate product from the 9x line. It's possible there is some code-reuse at the Windows Application level (tools like notepad for example) but I would be surprised if there was anything from 9x like what you've mentioned; the Kernel's were entirely different; Even between 9x and Windows 3.1 Applications needed to take special care to work on both. Also, Windows No longer has a "MessageBox" Function. Windows NT uses Wide and ASCII versions for those functions, so we have MessageBoxA and MessageBoxW; consequently they both are almost certainly changed internally as a result.
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Shameel wrote:
Win 3.1 was not a true OS
Contentious argument that. I can't make up my mind whether I agree or not. It depends how you define operating system.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
It's simple - there is only one way describing an operating system. It's all about controlling resources - that's the OS - all the other stuff is just programs that is able to run on that OS.
Emil Hempel, TachoData
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I was just thinking would there be any piece of code that is dragged along all the way from Windows 3.1 till Windows8 ? Or the latest OS code is completely rewritten from scratch to exploit the new hardware resources? A simple MessageBox Api's code really needs to be changed at the base? Of course the UI has changed considerably. And there would be some edits to port the code from 16 to 64bit. Except these would there be any ruins of Win3.1 really left over in W8? Possible to spot something like this on the Windows 8 base code:
/**********************
Author: Bill Gates
Function : GetDiskSectorData
Module : FATreader
Date Created: 1/5/1990
Last modified: 2/4/1991
*******************/:)
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
Vunic wrote:
/********************** Author: Bill Gates Function : GetDiskSectorData Module : FATreader Date Created: 1/5/1990 Last modified: 2/4/1991 *******************/
I don't think Bill Gates was still writing code in 1990 - at least not code that made it into a product.
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I was just thinking would there be any piece of code that is dragged along all the way from Windows 3.1 till Windows8 ? Or the latest OS code is completely rewritten from scratch to exploit the new hardware resources? A simple MessageBox Api's code really needs to be changed at the base? Of course the UI has changed considerably. And there would be some edits to port the code from 16 to 64bit. Except these would there be any ruins of Win3.1 really left over in W8? Possible to spot something like this on the Windows 8 base code:
/**********************
Author: Bill Gates
Function : GetDiskSectorData
Module : FATreader
Date Created: 1/5/1990
Last modified: 2/4/1991
*******************/:)
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
The Windows 3.1 and Windows 8 are not from the same family, Windows 3.1 evolved up to Windows ME and Windows 8 descends from Windows NT, which curiously also had a 3.1 version, so if you refer to this NT 3.1 version then most likely the answer is yes, otherwise it would be no. Terms aside, some system programs from Windows 3.1 still should work on Windows 8, but I haven't tested farther than Windows XP, where sometimes I liked to run the Program Manager just for fun.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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I was just thinking would there be any piece of code that is dragged along all the way from Windows 3.1 till Windows8 ? Or the latest OS code is completely rewritten from scratch to exploit the new hardware resources? A simple MessageBox Api's code really needs to be changed at the base? Of course the UI has changed considerably. And there would be some edits to port the code from 16 to 64bit. Except these would there be any ruins of Win3.1 really left over in W8? Possible to spot something like this on the Windows 8 base code:
/**********************
Author: Bill Gates
Function : GetDiskSectorData
Module : FATreader
Date Created: 1/5/1990
Last modified: 2/4/1991
*******************/:)
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
I think the simple calculator comes from Windows 1.0. The scientific one possibly comes from Windows 2.11 but it now has a sqrt button. Up to XP, the scientific calc didn't have a sqrt button. Don't have a Vista machine to check.
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I would expect an OS to provide at the minimum a file system, security, etc. Windows 1.0-3.1 all depended on DOS to handle the FAT file system and had NO security. The Win 2.1/Win386 system had preemptive multitasking, but only between DOS VMs, the GUI was still cooperative. This was back when a 286 12 MHz was considered a solid machine. Due to a bug in program, I once wrote a utility under 3.1 to directly extract information from a different process's memory!
englebart wrote:
I would expect an OS to provide at the minimum a file system, security, etc.
That however has nothing to do with OS in general and didn't have much to do with OSes in general during the period of 3.1.
englebart wrote:
The Win 2.1/Win386 system had preemptive multitasking,
Again something that doesn't define an OS.
englebart wrote:
Due to a bug in program, I once wrote a utility under 3.1 to directly extract information from a different process's memory!
And now there are APIs to do that.
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Well, I'd argue that it was clearly nothing more than an operating environment - a mere GUI if you will. Otherwise, wouldn't you be asserting that Win3.1 boxes had 2 operating systems running? DOS and Windows? The machine would start without Win3.1, but not so if DOS was missing.
"Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin
enhzflep wrote:
Well, I'd argue that it was clearly nothing more than an operating environment
Definition of an Operating System from "Modern Operating Systems" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum which is certainly an accept authority for me. "...operating systems perform two basically unrelated functions...The Operating System as an Extended Machine...The Operating System as a Resource Manager". Windows 3.1 certainly did the second and would seem to have also done the first although it isn't necessary that an OS do a lot of either. And although it relied on DOS is no more relevant than claiming that DOS relied on a BIOS or than the original C++ relied on C (since it compiled to C) and a linker.
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enhzflep wrote:
Well, I'd argue that it was clearly nothing more than an operating environment
Definition of an Operating System from "Modern Operating Systems" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum which is certainly an accept authority for me. "...operating systems perform two basically unrelated functions...The Operating System as an Extended Machine...The Operating System as a Resource Manager". Windows 3.1 certainly did the second and would seem to have also done the first although it isn't necessary that an OS do a lot of either. And although it relied on DOS is no more relevant than claiming that DOS relied on a BIOS or than the original C++ relied on C (since it compiled to C) and a linker.
I dont think I have that book, nor can I find my old ones from Uni. But yet again jschell, you've proved to be a source of good and pertinent information that has been garbage-collected or never added to my mental heap. Thanks teach! ;P If you don't stop making such inconvenient, sensible points, I'm gonna turn into a wiser person! :laugh:
"Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin
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Shameel wrote:
Win 3.1 was not a true OS
Contentious argument that. I can't make up my mind whether I agree or not. It depends how you define operating system.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
I'd certainly expect any OS to contain all the code required to boot up the system and perform at a minimum basic filesystem operations and to allow you to run applications. Take a PC with a single unformatted drive (or even a blank formatted one) and a set of Win3.1 floppies. Good luck installing it without installing an OS (in this case DOS) first. Windows up to v3.11 (v4 if you used ICL PCs) was a GUI not an OS
