Good DOS binary file viewer?

[Dave McGuire]

On May 1, 2007, at 2:45 AM, Jim Leonard wrote:
>>> It's nice to see LIST getting the votes, but it's very slow on  
>>> 808x  hardware, which was Dave's target platform.
>>   Buh??  I don't think I've ever seen a lighter-weight piece of   
>> software than LIST...I used it daily when my 8MHz V20-based PC  
>> clone  was considered a screamer, and it was never any slower than  
>> "instant".
>
> An 8MHz 8086 is more than twice as fast as Dave's target hardware  
> (a 4.77MHz 8088).  On such a machine, it would be tolerable.
>
> Look, it's a nice viewer, but view a file out of a ramdisk on a  
> 4.77MHz 8088 if you don't believe me.  There's a 5-second minimum  
> startup delay to fill a buffer, then another delay when you cross  
> memory windows.  If you're trying to inspect more than a handful of  
> files at the same time, it gets frustrating.

   Hmm.  Well admittedly that was twenty years ago; it's certainly  
quite possible that there was frustration involved that I don't  
recall now.  I have nothing but fond memories of LIST.COM, and I tend  
to be not very forgiving about stuff that frustrates me.

> Don't confuse small size and age with "lightweight".

   Um...I *wasn't*; I based my comments on having used the program  
all the time on what was then considered current hardware.  Please  
keep in mind that some of us here (yourself included of course) have  
actually used this stuff before it became "antique".

>   A Boyer-Moore search algorithm written in Pascal will outperform  
> a REP CMPSB in assembler.  LIST is flexible but it's not the fastest.

   Understood.  And I've certainly not run it on a 4.77MHz 8088.

        -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL