MiNiDOS wrote on 2024-05-04, 18:33:The memory management side of DOS became back in the day of DOS primetime, a matter of availability and obscurantism:
Only a fe […]
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The memory management side of DOS became back in the day of DOS primetime, a matter of availability and obscurantism:
Only a few options were locally known and available. You must consider that the internet was not as widespread and
common as it is today. We had mostly Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and our local computer club/computer
buddies/computer libraries, and that was it. So you probably had the memory manager which came with your DOS or
hardware (if any), and then a couple more to choose from. Reputation by word of mouth and available conventional
memory was all that mattered when selecting from the few that you knew and could get your hands of.
Well, that's right as far as most people are being regarded.
But technically, there also were online services, FidoNet and the early internet places (Usenet). Radio amateurs had their own Packet-Radio network, too.
CompuServe was notable insofar, as it had been popular as some sort of international BBS.
All the popular tech companies were around here. Microsoft, Intel, IBM or Apple.
So users had looked/asked for help there, if they had issues with their computer or software.
It also offered a chat room (CB Simulator) long before IRC or ICQ were around.
It also had offered international e-mail exchange since the 80s.
Most readme files that come with DOS programs of the 80s have a compuserve e-mail address being mentioned.
Even here in Europe CompuServe was known very well, despite CompuServe being pretty much an US-only service between early 80s and early 90s.
In order to access CompuServe, we had to use a gateway available in our country to access CompuServe mainframes located in the US.
Often, the major online service in a given country had offered an X.25 gateway to other "databases" around globe (CompuServe being on of them).
In my country, it was T-Online (aka BTX, Datex-J), an Videotex member, which had offered X.25 access.
That being said, Datex-P was the better alternative in my country, though; it was a pure X.25 packet network.
Speaking of online services, there were other online services such as Genie, Q-Link, Prodigy, and many more.
Here's an article of zdnet about the early online services:
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/network … nline-services/
Again, there's nothing wrong with what you said. It's just that many people seem to forget or don't know about this part of history.
Communication technology was there since the C64 days, to those people that really had a need for it.
Normal citizen weren't the main customers, of course. But ATMs, banks, power grids or communications companies. Such things.
Likewise, internet and e-mail exchange had existed since the 70s, but it wasn't open to the public yet.
But still, research facilities, universities and students had access to it early on.
So researchers could exchange information internationally globally early on.
Independently of the internet, there also were the international "databases" around the globe.
They were being based on telephone networks, using X.25 protocol.
They used virtual connections, essentially.
So a permanent computer connection could be held, despite the physical connection being changing.
So if you're watching original Tron movie, it's not about the early internet, but X.25 networks, maybe.
X.25 networks were popular circa mid-70s to late 80s.
Edit: Big libraries might have been another "customer" of early networks.
I remember connecting to the library in New York many years ago, via telnet.
I assume that big libraries had a similar access for X.25 many moons ago.
Because, in order to access X.25 networks, a serial terminal and an acoustic coupler/modem was all it needed. It was not different to a telnet experience, all in all.
The local gateway, the X.25 PAD, did all the baud rate conversion and hand-shaking stuff.
During connection, merely a dot (.) and return (enter) had to be typed in (for auto-baud detection).
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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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