PocketDOS Opinions?

If it pleases the court, I'd like to open this thread to solicit a discussion about the pros and cons of PocketDOS.

So far, I'm interested in running PocketDOS on my J-720 to use two programs--an old Leading Edge Word Processing program which has all my electronic work up until 1995, and maybe RCOM, a Psion DOS program that would allow me to backup/restore my Mako, should my Jornada and the Mako be alone on the road.

Since I have my Leading Edge work saved to *.txt files, and the convolutions needed to connect a Jornada and Mako via DOS are extensive, I can do without PocketDOS. But I'd like to be convinced.

It's not the money, it's the effort behind bringing in another OS.

If PocketDOS is worth the trouble, I'd love to hear it from other users.

Jake

I haven't personally messed with pocket dos, but have read of some that messed around with it then installing windows 3, but it sounded like a major pain, and more of a hobby interest in what they could do :-)

Remembering back to my dos days, I didn't like it then so doubt I'd like it now :-)

I've always saved as ASCII .txt files from the old days as I have a ton of study stuff. When I was doing commodore, the transition to Dos programs was expensive and a ton of work.

You can easyly read/alter/save your txt files with PocketWord or any of the NotePad clones for Jornada. I am not familiar with RCOM and Mako - so I have no comment.

Yes, I can't imagine anyone would want to run Windows 3.0 now. Most people didn't want to run it then! I guess if someone had old Windows 3.* software (remember WinWord?), that might be intriguing.

As for DOS stand-alone programs, even if I could find my old copy of WP 5.1, it can't beat Textmaker, especially on a Jornada.

I've culled the 'net for DOS programs, and found a couple of cool fax programs, but I already have a good fax program on my J. As for running Norton Utilities, again, why?

I find that a lot of the PocketDOS posts are about gaming, not my bag, but that may well be the appeal for the program's steady following.

There is no Windows 3.* involved here, just 3.0. PocketDOS / XTCE are purely AT / XT emulation. So nothing higher than a 286 can be emulated. 3.1, 3.11, WFW and 3.2 will not run.

Pocket DOS is all about the Games, oh yea!
Console gamers don't know they're born.

Haha yes, us console gamers are borns, PocketDOS is great - but I am yet to salvage an old copy of windows or office. I would like to try out DOS text editors and see how they compare!

You've not lived until you've used Word for DOS 3.
Ahh, that takes me back to the 80's

ARGH, kill it! Kill it, noo the horror.. the big hair... the tacky clothes... argh..

Hey, at least the 80s aren't the 70s.

And one have not lived life dangerously if he has not used WordStar on a floppy ... and I mean those floppies that are floppy!! ...

Those were the days when WYSIWYG was yet to be heard off ... and when it arrived, it was like *THE* technology!!

WordStar on floppies? It was already NT (New Technology)! Have you ever used those very first 9" or something floppies? I was always saving my work to at least 3 copies (3 floppies), hoping that one of them will still work next day...

Jake,
When you put it like that, so delacatly.... I fold, cave completly and offer full repentance for associating the 80's with horror over the 70's

8 inch floppies, gotta love em. A whole 320K.. my... we'll all be running up to our attics and garages next to pull out the punch card / ticker tape programs we wrote in days of old.

Now I would like to see someone get a 8" floppy working with a H/PC... humm.

When it comes to PocketDOS, we all race to install Windows on it first time, most don't succeed. Those of us (un)fortunate to do so innevitably realise within a few minutes that we just wasted the best part of the day in doing so.. as there is absoloutly nothing what so ever that you can do with it.

I want to see how pDOS handles with a dos shell like 1DirPlus. Trouble with HVGA's here is that everything gets a little pokey when reduced 50% in height.

Yup, can't impress C:Amie with those 5 1/4 in. drives...even if they were made in 1978 and you had to get one heck of an adaptor to hook it up...all at the great price of $7!!!

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2005-02-20 4:27 AM

I had a Leading Edge Model D desktop computer, and I was so in love with it--and DOS 3.3--that when I got posted to Chile, I took the entire system onto the plane as my carry-on. As if it were a laptop.

I staggered through Santiago's airport, monitor and keyboard hanging off me, a crazed geek, and of course, it was immediately seized (Chile was a military dictatorship then, and though there still wasn't e-mail, the machine's ability to communicate nonetheless obviously alarmed airport officials). It took forever to excise the Leading Edge from the military, and I pined like the French Lieutenant's Woman on the shores of Chile's coast.