RE: E-Tesla6

["Sarah Thompson" <sarah-at-xxxxxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

Sorry for the late reply. E-Tesla6 (assuming its still similar to E-Tesla 5
when I was doing nasty things to it in the interest of even more speed) is
not a DOS application.

In the old days, MSDOS was a truly 16 bit operating system, which was very
simplistic, and to be honest, nasty. Early versions of Windows, right up to
Windows 3.1 and later Windows for Workgroups all sat on top of DOS,
providing a pretty interface and a more fully featured API called Win16.
However, old Windows applications were still 16 bit, just like DOS, but with
some extensions so that they could access more memory than a standard DOS
application.

When Windows NT originally appeared, Microsoft decided that it was time to
leave their 16 bit API behind, and introduced Win32. Win32 has nothing
whatsoever to do with DOS - you can't even call DOS entry points without a
lot of very hacky fiddling around. Win32 was mainly introduced to replace
Win16 from the point of view of implementing applications with windows,
dialogue boxes and so on. However, there was still a need to be able to
write text based, non-GUI applications. In the old days, the choice was DOS
or Windows - DOS for text, Windows for GUIs. With Win32, DOS was out, so a
new kind of application, called a Win32 console application, came into
being.

A long story yes (which I've actually oversimplified in some ways -
apologies to any Microsofties on the list), but ETesla is basically a Win32
console application these days. That's why it will run on any 32 bit Windows
variant (NT, 95, 98, ME, 2000, etc.), but since DOS doesn't support Win32,
it won't run on DOS. My advice is not to try to make it run on DOS - this
will prove a pain long term in terms of maintaining the code, and will
without any doubt cause a significant slowdown due to working within a 16
bit environment. I hope this ends the mystery!

Sarah

PS: I have an on-topic question. We have a dead microwave oven here that
we'd like to take to pieces to get at interesting parts, such as the MOT and
the cool magnet out of the magnetron. It has been disconnected for nearly a
year. Are there any specific safety tips I should know about when
dismantling this thing? Are there likely to be any caps charged to scary
voltages? (I once blew the end of a screwdriver working on an audio power
amp that had been disconnected for nearly a month, so forgive me for being
over-cautious here!). My other microwave oven is also nearing death, I
think - I caught a potato emitting a 1.5" brilliant white streamer
yesterday. Very weird. This probably means that I'll have a couple of MOTs
soon, so I can finally think about having a go at building a coil.

PPS: I've just been playing with some neodymium-iron-boron magnets today. If
you've not tried that, I'd strongly recommend giving it a go. Dropping one
into the end of a 6 foot section of 0.5" copper water pipe, with the pipe
vertical, took 15 seconds for the magnet to fall out of the other end.
Amazing.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
> Sent: 23 November 2000 16:52
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: E-Tesla6
>
>
> Original poster: Hollmike-at-aol-dot-com
>
> In a message dated 11/22/2000 6:46:17 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:
>
> >
> >  It does run just fine, however, on my Win 98 Pentium II, by just
> >  double clicking the .exe file from Windows Explorer.  Anyone got
> >  any idea why it doesn't like my old 486?
> >
>
> I have heard(but don't really know absolutely) that in Windows 98 the
> so-called DOS operating system doesn't really exist, but Windows
> 98 uses a
> virtual DOS that really just appears to be such and can run DOS based
> programs.  If the E-Tesla 6 program was written on a computer
> with Windows
> 98, it may not actually be a DOS program.  I am sure someone on the list
> knows more than I, and can tell you if this is really so.
> Mike
>
>
>
>