Why I Work in DOS

There is no commercial software available under any operating system which would enable me to create imagery the way I do. To follow my path in algorithmic art I had to build my own tools. This was no hardship, since I'm a programmer and I get as much pleasure from programming as I do from making art. When I need to use commercial software like Netscape for going on the Internet, or Adobe Pagemaker for printing images on my inkjet printer, I use Windows, since it supports those programs. Windows is not such a bad environment for the end user, though it could be a lot better, but for programmers it's like slavery. (I know this is not a popular opinion, but I feel the same way about the MAC OS.) From a programmer's point of view, writing for a GUI (Graphical User Interface) imposes a tyrannical restriction over an area that has nothing to do with the application, forcing me to a style where all programs have to look alike and everything has to be done "their way". By comparison DOS is total freedom. It doesn't do much for me, but then it doesn't restrict me much either. I get to do it all my way including the look of the interface.

DOS is dead but so what? DOS is dead only if you want to put software on the market. In every other respect it's alive. It still works fine on the latest Intel and (Intel clone) hardware. Right now I'm running a 450 MHz Pentium II on which I can dual boot to Windows 98 or to DOS. I've I've written a library to address extended memory in real mode, so I don't need a DOS extender in order to take control of my total machine.

Some people may think I'm simply being perverse by resisting present trends in operating systems and they may even be right, but who cares? If I followed the crowds I wouldn't be making art by writing programs either. I live in the modern world, but I'm basically old-fashioned. I grew up in the era of radio, before television, and I think of that as a blessing. I like jazz and not rock and roll, hip hop or rap. I like DOS and not Windows. I make art by a totally radical method but it isn't multimedia, it's not interactive, and it's not animated. However radical the method, the end result is old-fashioned, 2D, hang-it-on-the-wall imagery that just sits there and doesn't move. My software has a text-based interface. My website has more words than pictures. I like reading more than television. But at the same time I love movies, computers and the visual stimulation of art. And I'm glad I have lived into the age of cheap powerful computers as this has liberated my creative impulses.

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