Dear readers,
   
   In <http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month0498/msg00762.html> I wrote:
> Being dissatisfied with the fact that his ugly "DPMI Version 0.9" still
> contained hints toward its original purpose and didn't completely subvert
> to his ideology, he [Bob Moote] set out to write a spec that would not
> contain a single word by Ralph Lipe and instead would be geared fully
> toward Phar Lap's DOS extenders. The result is commonly known as "DPMI
> Version 1.0". I still wonder why did Bob waste his time on writing it, as
> it was clear even to a porcupine that it would never be implemented,
> since its alleged purpose was light years apart from the real purpose of
> DPMI (which started being accepted by the industry, partly because
> Microsoft and Borland compilers used it). It is a grave mistake to treat
> "DPMI Version 1.0" as an improvement upon "DPMI Version 0.9", it is
> merely a further move away from True DPMI.
   
   Actually as I think more about it, it seems to me that the "DPMI 1.0"
farce owes more to Bob Smith from Qualitas (the author of 386Max) than to
Bob Moote. A couple of days ago when I was re-reading _Unauthorized Windows
95_ for the n-th time my sleepy eye (as usual, it was way past midnight)
was caught by a note that 386Max implements "DPMI 1.0". When I started
thinking about it, I recalled my round of phone conversations about DPMI
two years ago (which included Murray Sargent, Ralph Lipe, Bob Moote, Dan
Spear, Bob Smith, Al Tang, Jon Durell, and a few others). When I remembered
Bob Smith's question "What's wrong with DPMI 1.0?" interspersed in his
extremely long and unfriendly tirade in response to my inquiries, as well
as Bob Moote's remark about it being a joke, everything fell in place.
After all, the only reason Bob Moote cared about DPMI was because Win386
doesn't support his dirty VCPI tricks and offers DPMI as the only way of
writing protected mode software. Given this, it would be very strange if he
engaged in writing a version of DPMI that he knew Microsoft would never use
or implement.
   
   Actually Bob Moote has some very interesting personality traits. Sure,
he is the one who has stabbed True DPMI in the back, but it's possible to
find a common ground with him. He has actually helped me significantly in
my quest for True DPMI two years ago, although his contribution has to stay
secret. Bob Smith is not like that. I have talked to him only once, and I
have no desire to talk to him again. (I think you can also guess that I'm
not a 386Max user.)
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 440-449-0299
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: msokolov@blackwidow.cwru.edu