I design and build data acquisition and processing instrumentation for
labs and continue to use DOS and Quick Basic. The main reasons are
development speed, simplycity and 9 out of 10 times it is a single
tasking operation. In no way is DOS outdated or to be phased out...

There are too many situations where simplicity is the goal. Most control
systems that i design only provide 1Mbyte RAM, floppy interface and a
basic LCD and pushbutton interface, here Windows(TM) would be an
unwanted overkill and have too much overhead to warrant it use...

The other matter is cost. A simple DOS based x386 controller is really
cheap and there are lots of excellent low cost tools available,
FirstBasic, Pacific C, Turbo Pascal. For data acquisition and process
control do you really need a PIII with 128 Mbyte ram and 12 GB harddisk
and Win95/98 ???

John Waters wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> As a system integrator, I used to build control systems for customers using
> industrial/embedded PCs, but as Windows has replaced DOS in the commercial
> sector, unless I packaged my product as a proprietary system, many of my
> customers will query if they are advanced enough since they are still
> running on DOS. However, to me, I still find DOS the most economical and
> programmer friendly o.s. to use in many industrial applications, especially
> when a graphical user interface is not needed.
> Am I making a wrong decision of retaining a phasing out o.s. in my product?
> Or can anyone suggest me some ways to make my customers confident in my DOS
> based systems?
>
> Cheers
> John

Just present them a development cost comparison which takes into account
the system and on going maintenance costs... Once you've done this you
may find that for your design requirements DOS is fine and reasonably
robust... If you can, get a hold of 'Embedded Systems Programming' a
Miller Freeman Publication. This magazine provides a very good overview
of development tools and methods for embedded systems...

Cheers
Nino
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* Antonio (Nino) Benci                               *
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