From: stevey@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Yegge)
Subject: Re: Windows 3.1 Review
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 92 16:20:38 GMT

In article <44316@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> rusbasan@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes:
>
>I'm surprised no on has reviewed Windows 3.1 yet.  Since I've had time 
>to play with it for a while, I thought I'd do the honors...
>
>Windows 3.1 is not without its share of problems, and since many of 
>them came up during or soon after the installation, I thought I'd 
>discuss them first.
>
> < stuff about installation deleted >

>There have been a number of negative posts about Windows 3.1.  I was 
>about ready to add my voice when I first installed it, but after 
>making these tweaks my mind was completely changed.  Windows 3.1 is 
>*great*.

>It is incredibly faster than 3.0.  Almost without exception, 
>everything is *significantly* faster.  Windows 3.1 is a joy to run.  
>Everything is so fast and smooth compared to 3.0...
>
>I tried all kinds of programs, and I just kept minimizing them and 
>opening new programs.  I never ran out of system resources, and things 
>never really slowed down, even though I was well into my swap file and 
>had literally dozens of programs open (on a 4M 386sx-20).  Task 
>switching is also improved.  Alt-Tab switching now brings up a little 
>window with the name and icon of the program you'd switch to.  This 
>happens *instantly*.  It is a very fast way to switch among programs.  
>When you switch from a DOS program to a Windows program, there is no 
>more painfully slow redrawing -- everything SLAPS onto the screen 
>almost instantly.  DOS programs run better too.  You can use the mouse 
>with windowed programs, which works very nicely.  The text cursor 
>doesn't even appear -- you just use the Windows pointer.  This makes 
>DOS programs seem almost like Windows programs, especially if they're 
>menu-based.

  NetHack for the PC now runs fine in a DOS box.  Just thought
I'd add that--pretty important stuff, here. :)
  
>Windows 3.1 is, from what I've experienced so far, much more stable 
>than 3.0.  And no, it's not just because they "renamed away" UAE's -- 
>besides, to be fair to MS, since you can recover from almost any error 
>now, they were correct in renaming them since they are no longer 
>"unrecoverable."  I haven't experienced any errors at all since I 
>changed to the new mouse and video drivers, and most of the time I've 
>been playing around a lot, so I've had dozens of applications open.

  Well, I agree with all the stuff I deleted about how nice it is,
but I have a story to share that might wipe the smile off your face.
:-).  Windows 3.1 will NOT necessarily let you kill a bad WINDOWS 
application.  I found this out within (yes) 1 MINUTE of having 
completed installation.  I run CLOCK.EXE minimized from win.ini,
so it appears as an icon when I start windows.
  The icon looked a little funny, so I double-clicked on it to
maximize it--and the system hung.  The window appeared for clock
but never got to repaint itself.  I ctrl-alt-deleted a couple of
times, and finally got the (fullscreen) message:

    Windows has either become busy or unstable.  You can return
to Windows and wait for it to finish or press ctrl-alt-delete
again to reboot your machine.  Press any key to continue.

I had to reboot.  Less than a minute after installing 3.1.  Yes.
I have a very special message for all you microsoft programmers.
Can you guess what it is?  I'd better not repeat it on the net.

>
>Windows 3.0 really made it clear that it was a non-preemptive 
>environment (I'd say "operating system," but then a bunch of anal-
>retentive weenies with nothing better to do would freak out, change 
>the subject to "Windoze an OS?  (Was: Windows 3.1 Review)",  crosspost 
>it to the OS/2 groups, and flame away).  While 3.1 is still non-
>preemptive, it almost *feels* preemptive.  It is much faster and 
>smoother.  Task switching has been improved in this regard too.  For 
>example, the system doesn't stop while you're alt-tabbing through 
>apps.  When opening or saving a file, in Windows 3.0 you had to sit 
>there and watch, but in 3.1 you can just alt-tab into something else 
>most of the time.  You hardly ever seen an hourglass.   There are all 
>kinds of little changes that just give the whole environment a much, 
>much better feel that's hard to put into words, but once you 
>experience it, you'll know what I'm talking about.
>

  Yes and no.  If I find another stock windows app that crashes my
system I'm returning it.  I've already ordered OS/2 2.0 for all
you os/2'ers that are laughing at me.
  Granted, it's faster (especially with 32-bit disk access enabled),
prettier and has better support for DOS applications.  I just can
not believe that it doesn't have the *basic* (for most real OS's)
feature of being able to kill a bad application.  Amazing.

>SmartDrive has many more features and may account for much of the 
>improvement in speed.  Since it works better and caches floppies, and 
>since Windows doesn't have to switch in and out of protected mode to 
>access disks, there is a big speed boost.

Yep.  One program I wrote for windows 3.0 (a NeXT-style application
launcher) used to audibly 'grind' for each of the 16 bitmaps it read
off disk.  Now the whole program loads in about 2 seconds (as opposed
to about 8 before.)

>
>I'm very impressed with TrueType.  I uninstalled ATM and plan to stick 
>with TT unless I have some burning reason to use PostScript fonts (as 
>many people do).  TT is faster and the text doesn't flicker as you 
>type.  It seems to print a little nicer on my printer also.  As soon 
>as there are a lot of TT fonts out there, I'll be happy.
>

I ordered the truetype fonts.  Very impressive, except that they 
didn't exactly tell me in bold typeface that '44 fonts' really 
meant '10 or 12 fonts with italic and bold for each.'  Lame.  And
don't try to tell me that I should have known.  I'm a programmer,
not a printing-press operator.

>In summary, Windows 3.1 is much better than 3.0.  Along with the major 
>changes (like TT), there are many little changes that make it a better 
>environment.  It is faster and more robust.  It is more fun, and I'm 
>sure it will increase my productivity just as soon as it quits being 
>just a little TOO fun for me (the urge to play can be overwhelming).  
>It uses memory better, so you can have many more applications open 
>than before with much less slowdown (right now I'm using about 4M of 
>disk space as memory, and I honestly haven't noticed any slowdown at 
>all; under 3.0, switching to another app would start the hard disk 
>thrashing and pop up the hated hourglass).  I have not had any 
>significant problems (not even with PC Tools, made by Incompatibility, 
>Inc.), and it seems to be much more stable than 3.0.
>

  Well you have to admit that even though the hourglass stays
on the screen for less time (provided it doesn't hang :0 ), you
still can't DO anything while you're waiting for it to finish
the operation.  I use NeXT's at school occasionally and I'm
always impressed when I get the spinning optical disk (i.e.
wait icon) and I can still launch other apps by clicking on them,
highlight text by dragging on it, etc.  When I want the mouse
I get an arrow; when I'm not doing anything it goes back to the
wait icon.  (Actually, the "thinking" icon would be more 
appropriate.)  Windows doesn't *feel* preemptive to me AT ALL.


>In short, I heartily recommend it.  I am very happy with it.  It is a 
>great environment in which to work.  The only glaring defect is the 
>lack of a decent file system.  Besides that, I really don't have 
>anything to complain about.

I guess if you're a die-hard windows user you should get it.  I
used to be a die-hard windows user.

>
>-- 
>   =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>  / Bob Rusbasan                |       Dance to the tension       \
> /  rusbasan@sage.cc.purdue.edu |        of a world on edge         \
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Steve Yegge
stevey@cs.washington.edu