I mean a computer, not a window, Vignesh. I've got a machine dedicated to running those applications that work really well under DOS, but don't work well at all under Windows. In making the move from Windows 3.x to XP or 2K, MicroSoft has robbed us of the use of the PC hardware, unless we're willing to use what few drivers are provided.

As a result, when I'm anxious to put out a schematic, I don't fire up Windows and OrCAD Capture, or PCAD or the like, I fire up the DOS machine with the old 1980's version of OrCAD SDT. If I need to simulate something, I use the old PSpice v5 for DOS. Palasm and XACT don't like Windows either.

The problem is the I/O handlers. PALASM doesn't like the way Windows does with memory, so its extended memory version doesn't work. Windows doesn't allow talking directly to I/O, so whenever XACT tries to talk to its dongle, the system crashes.

If you have an old 486 box lying about, still functional, put an old drive in it along with a decend display adapter and an I/O board, and use that for your development tasks. You can even run the old Borland 'C' or PASCAL compilers there and expect reasonable results, including I/O.

If you're going to write your own display routines for this logic-sampler, you might as well have the advantage of not having Windows to interfere with what you're doing.

If you're more comfortable with VB, maybe Windows won't be such a problem, but I don't like it.

RE