Back in 16-bit Windows,
MS-DOS cast a long and dark shadow.
The really ugly low-level munging was very much in the MS-DOS spirit.
You opened files by setting up registers and issuing an int 21h ,
just like in MS-DOS.
Although the interrupt went to Windows instead,
Windows maintained the MS-DOS calling convention.
Process startup followed the same
"real men write in assembly language" philosophy.
All the parameters to a 16-bit program
were passed in registers.
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