Umm Amerigin, maybe it is time I start getting to grips with Linux after all.

Joe, I've wondered about compatibility for years. It seems to me to be a double edged sword and I'm not really sure what is right - the advantages of compatibility are obvious but there are problems. As an example, the old DOS limit of 64K still rears its ugly head - try Notepad. There must be performance losses buy trying to cater for old and new, building on the old probably leads to a lot of redundancy, etc.

I think overall, I reckon that DOS and the PC as it stood then should have been scrapped when it became obvious that the 64K architecture just wasn't enough.

Amos, perhaps one reason for seeing better from Windows now does stem from this 64K bit. Windows 3.x, I believe set shared resources between programs for things such as a Window/ dialog box to 64K - I think there were 2 main 64K chunks - called User and GUI. You could have 1GB of RAM but only this small section could be used for certain purposes and you would run out of system resources - a Microsoft marvel - particularly with a leaky/lossy OS!

I'm not sure what the state of play on this issue is but I believe 95 allowed more space, at least for some resources and 98 made further improvements.

Jon