HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Interesting tidbit from September 7, 1992 PC Week
Date: 11 Oct 92 21:53:50 GMT
Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC

In article <7548@lib.tmc.edu>, jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
> In article <1992Oct11.140950.5785@ais.com> bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright) writes:
>>I don't entirely understand this thread.
> 
> Apparently.
> My argument isn't that $69 is a bad price for a developer; my argument is
> that a $69 "developer's release" with no developer qualification isn't a
> developer's release at all. It's really a beta release, let loose on the
> public by MS when the success of OS/2 seriously panicked them, in an effort
> to slow OS/2 down. I'd just like MS to admit as much.

It really isn't packaged very well as a general beta release -- too
much stuff missing.  On the other hand it is packaged reasonably as
a developer's release (which is not mutually exclusive with being a
beta release ... but it isn't consistent with being primarily a 
general-user beta release).  It's also being publicized in a manner
that is more consistent with a developer release than a general-user
beta release.

Actually the way I interpret this isn't exactly flattering to Microsoft
either, but for a different reason:  vendors who feel they are in a
very strong position aren't usually this lenient with developers --
the infamous MS $2600 OS/2 developer's kit is really more the _rule_
rather than the _exception_ amoung big companies that feel they are
in a very strong position.  You might get a pre-release at a discount
off `list' from such companies, but even in the workstation market
list price is a convenient fiction -- you can often get the actual
released product from third-party dealers for less than the developer's
discount (but you have to wait longer for it).  The only way you ever
get something on loan for free is if you have something that the
vendor feels is so hot that they _need_ for you to get it running on
their new platform.

The way I see it, the $69 kit is intended to make sure that the kit
gets into the hands of anyone who _might_ want to be a developer, the
better to grease the skids for the release when NT comes out.  They
wouldn't be doing this if they weren't afraid of something ... and
you and I both know that what they're afraid of is that if they don't
play their cards just right, OS/2 will win.  It's a very smart move,
and I don't fault them for it;  but I think it is rather revealing.

Bruce C. Wright
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Date: 12 Oct 92 21:25:07 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <wept6zC00WB3EubGRE@andrew.cmu.edu> jyri+@CMU.EDU (Jyri Virkki) writes:
>petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:
>> >  
>> > >     Why is Zachmann more credible?  He clearly has an agenda.  So do
>> > >his editors.
>> > 
>> > Because he has little to gain by making up such an incident.
>> 
>> That makes him more credible?
>> MS's gains are of an understandable nature, purely financial.
>> Zachmanns gains are of a personal nature, hardly understandable.
>> He obviously has some sort of thing to gain by slamming MS every
>> chance he gets.  He has shown this in many of his articles.  I
>
>Wild idea: Have you ever thought that maybe he criticizes microsoft
>products because they are, in his professional opinion, trash? No,
>couldn't be, since anything produced by microsoft has, by definition,
>to be the best in it's class, therefore any criticism must be
>purely for other, hidden reasons. Right?

     Mr. Zachmann is entitled to hold his own opinions about any
product.  I believe that he is free to do so, and free to sell
columns bashing whoever he likes to any publication that will buy
then.


>Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with the case. I just find it hilarious
>how people can assume 'hidden reasons' when they see their product
>being criticized, instead of entertaining the thought that maybe the
>product is simply bad.

     The "hidden reason" crowd are those who actually believe in
some Microsoft/Ziff-Davis conspiracy to surpress Zachmann and his
ideas.

				-Phil
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Date: 11 Oct 92 00:57:09 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Oct10.233819.303@microsoft.com> petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:
>> Because [Zachmann] has little to gain by making up such an incident.
>That makes him more credable?

Yes.

>MS's gains are of an understandable nature, purely financial.
>Zachmanns gains are of a personal nature, hardly understandable.

What gains?

>He obviously has some sort of thing to gain by slamming MS every
>chance he gets.  He has shown this in many of his articles.  I especially
>like the one where he told people to go out and buy a word processor that
>wasn't that great because it would keep money out of microsofts pockets.

As someone accused me of doing, you don't believe him just because you don't
like what he has to say.
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
    Vote for a REAL change on 3 November: Throw out the check-bouncing,
  tax-and-spend Democrat Congress! (obviously, not an opinion of UTHSCH)
From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Multiuser
Date: 9 Oct 92 21:49:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: mksol.1992Oct9.214906.11549
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <1992Oct08.184554.29579@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:

>In article <1992Oct8.15852.11153@ms.uky.edu> sam@ms.uky.edu (Mike Mills) writes:
>>
>>Ok, Phil.  Have you ever administered Unix?

>     No, I haven't.

I have.

>>  It is EXTREMELY useful to have
>>multiple users logged into separate xterms.  I can be logged into my account
>>in one (actually, several) windows, root in another, and operator in another.
>>All doing their little tasks, with their appropriate privileges.

>     Can each of these xterms open new windows?  Can they obscure
>windows owned by another user?  Can they kill windows opened by
>another user?  If so, how can you claim to have any kind of security
>if these things are allowed?

Yes.  No, they only show windows owned by them.  No, since they can't
see them they can't kill them (with root, who can kill anything, as an
exception because he can go out and kill the process associated with
the window).

People seem to be acting as if there is one 'display' and everyone's X
windows must come up on it.  I've never seen things done that way.  It
does, however, appear to be the NT model.

>>Examples:
>>
>>1.  Root doing software installation/maintenance
>>2.  Operator doing file restorations
>>3.  Me handling help requests
>>
>>...all at the same time.  You seem to be saying NT can't do this at the
>>console, and that you don't see a need for it?  

>      I believe that in the current architecture, Windows NT requires
>the console to be owned by a single user ID.  Whether or not there
>will be provisions to run sub-processes under another user ID I do
>not know.
>     BTW - if you are logged in as root, why do you need to be logged
>in as anyone else?

Because a good administrator only uses the root ID for things that
require it.  This is both safer and helps ensure that things that get
set up work for everyone and not just root.  Most administrators I
know of do this sort of thing all the time.  I routinely log in, su to
root in a single window when I need to do something as root, and the
rest of the time don't use that ID at all.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: pshuang@athena.mit.edu (Ping Huang)
Subject: Re: Don't Compare with Amiga!
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	<1992Oct10.223900.5743@gw.wmich.edu>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 03:10:37 GMT

In article <1992Oct10.223900.5743@gw.wmich.edu> x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu writes:

 > 	This is incorrect, Desqview aware programs alone are capable of
 > telling DV that it doesn't need time but the processor still switches
 > to it and has to be told this.  DV is cooperative not preemptive, it
 > is just a lot better at it than Windows and has the ability of acting
 > almost preemptive which windows programs parently do not do.

Windows 3.x programs are multitasked cooperatively within a single
system "DOS box". That means that one Windows program *HAS* to make one
of a subset of system calls before the scheduler can run another Windows
app (some exceptions related to timer callbacks and other esoteria
apply). When running in enhanced mode, Windows 3.x can preemptively
multitask *BETWEEN* different DOS boxes. This is a major source of
confusion as to whether Windows 3.x is really multitasking or not. A
Windows app that decides to be misbehaved and not yield the CPU will
appear to halt other Windows apps, but DOS boxes should remain alive.

However, just because there *EXISTS* a system call in Desqview that
allows Desqview-aware programs to give up the CPU does not mean that
Desqview is not preemptively multitasking. It *IS* preemptive, when used
with QEMM-386 (or on a 286 with LIM EMS 4.0 memory or equivalent in
hardware). If your DOS application runs under Desqview, it does not have
to be Desqview-aware to allow background tasks to run, it simply wastes
more CPU cycles than an equivalent Desqview-aware app would. [Note that
there are a number of shareware utilities (TAME is one I know about) on
the market for Desqview and which also work to some extent under Windows
and OS/2 to help reduce this wastage of CPU cycles. They load as TSR's
from the DOS box command line and make the call to yield the rest of the
timeslice on behalf of non-multitasking-aware applications if the
applications polls the keyboard more often than an user-set limit, which
usually indicates that it is sitting there doing nothing.]

From the first sentence quoted above I think you believe preemptive
multitasking requires that there be the equivalent of a sleep() system
scheduler call exposed to application programmers, which is not true IMO.

--
Ping Huang (INTERNET: pshuang@athena.mit.edu), probably speaking for himself
From: thg@cam-orl.co.uk (Tim Glauert)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Multiuser
Date: 7 Oct 92 09:17:32 GMT
Organization: Olivetti Research Ltd, Cambridge, England.

In article <1992Oct6.123731.25876@ms.uky.edu>, sam@ms.uky.edu (Mike Mills) writes:
|> It seems rather silly that NT supports symmetrical multiprocessing, and gives
|> that power to all of one user at a time.

If that were the case, it would be rather silly.

|> Didn't someone mention that Sequent was interested in NT?

DEC, that well-known supplier of single-user systems, is pretty committed to
NT too, and Silicon Graphics actually ship an NT machine. Now, either these
manufactures, along with Olivetti and others, are happy to ship a single-user
OS or your perception of NT is wrong. I know which option I go for.
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: INTERESTING TIDBIT FROM S
Date: 8 Oct 1992 15:04:35 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Oct7.122244.9671@itsmail1.hamilton.edu> jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph Malloy) writes:
>Your trust in Zachmann is, alas, sad.  Would you have as much faith in
>him if he were a Windows booster?  No, I didn't think so.

If he were a Windows booster, we wouldn't have heard about MS trying to
silence him.

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
    Vote for a REAL change on 3 November: Throw out the check-bouncing,
  tax-and-spend Democrat Congress! (obviously, not an opinion of UTHSCH)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: PowerPC or (P5 & P6)? [really P5 & P6 == RISC]
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 18:45:36 GMT

In <1992Oct5.211000.9779@odin.corp.sgi.com> mash@mash.wpd.sgi.com (John R. Mashey) writes:

>A QUIZ:
>With carefully-done CMOS, you can "optically shrink" from one
>generation of technology to the next, i.e., shrink (at least) the interior
>of the die uniformly, if you've been careful.  Smaller CMOS transistors are
>faster, so this is goodness.

>Can you do that as easily with BiCMOS? If not, why not?
>(An interesting question for both P5 & SuperSPARC).

Hmm, I didn't even think that this was necessarily possible for CMOS
anymore.  I vaguely recall seeing somewhere that feature sizes on at
least some devices were getting small enough that quantum effects were
starting to rear their ugly heads.  However, I have nothing to do with
the SC side of the business (and I do software, anyway, so what do I
know from hardware?), so I can't guarantee exactly what that related
to.


-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: Interesting tidbit from September 7, 1992 PC Week
Date: 12 Oct 92 21:15:07 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Oct9.174033.25293@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>
>Well, I'd say that someone in this discussion doesn't understand
>simple economics, but I don't think it is Jay on this one (and that is
>a professional opinion).  The original price being bruited about for
>NT was $600-$900.  This was met with a lot of, "Well, I certainly
>won't pay that for it, so if it costs that much I just won't use it,"
>from a lot of quarters.  The latest statements are on the order of
>"under $500".  Now, think about it for a moment, Phil.  Given that the
>less expensive people think NT will be (i.e., the better value it is
>expected to be) the more likely they are to wait for it instead of
>going with something else, wouldn't MS have to be pretty stupid to
>name a maximum number that was much above the expected price?  That
>just encourages more people to look for other alternatives (the people
>whose positions on the indifference function leave them with
>insufficient utility gain at that price).

     OK, Fred.  Your argument seems to be "Microsoft would announce
the lowest possible price for the product."  I will assert that this
would be bad business practice.  Which do you think would garner
more criticism:  Microsoft announcing "less that $500" and releasing
a product that sold for $100, or Microsoft announcing "less than $100"
and releasing a product that sold for $150?


>>     Just what is your definition of FUD, anyway?  Please explain how
>>competitive pricing of the Windows NT SDK is FUD in any way.
>
>Personally, I think MS has put itself into a bind here.  Statements
>have been made that NT will be priced at less than $500, which leaves
>the impression that it will indeed be in that range.  This means that
>people to whom it is not worth that much are not going to wait for it.
>However, having sold the SDK for $69, it will be very hard for MS to
>justify putting that kind of price on NT.

    It's interesting to note that the $69 SDK comes with _no_
paper documentation and requires a CD-ROM drive (as I'm sure you're
well aware, Fred).  The final release will likely not have those
restrictions.

					-Phil

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Date: 09 Oct 92 17:47:13 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <7527@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>In article <1992Oct07.205644.4204@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>     This is a valid interpretation.  I happen to believe that it is
>>incorrect, but it is at least internally consistent.  It all depends
>>on how important you believe price to be in the success of Windows
>>NT.
>
>How is it incorrect?
>
>The importance of price in the success of WinNT will widen the window of
>price, but I can't see it widening it as much as $100 ($400<x<$500).

      Still a valid interpretation.  OS/2 2.0, however, has shown
that competitive pricing can really help to sell an OS - I expect
Microsoft will learn something from that.


>>     Nonsense.  Zachmann has provided _no_ evidence to support his
>>claims, at least that I am aware of.  Can you tell me where the
>>preponderance is?
>
>The preponderance is in the evidence of the witness himself: he's simply more
>credible than either his employers or MS. As someone else pointed out, it's a
>swearing contest - Zachmann's word against MS and ZD's - so the relative
>credibility of the witnesses, as well as what they have to gain, is what
>decides the case.

     Why is Zachmann more credible?  He clearly has an agenda.  So do
his editors.
     It seems like your only measure of credibility is which party
it would make you feel better to believe.

					-Phil
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: Multiuser
Date: 09 Oct 92 18:32:42 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Oct9.003741.15136@ncsu.edu> linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville) writes:
>In article <1992Oct07.210012.4348@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct6.203618.4322@ncsu.edu> linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville) writes:
>>>  Heck, with IBM TCP/IP for OS/2, I can even support 
>>>simultaneous telnet (no access restriction) and ftp (restricted access to 
>>>directories) sessions coming into my machine.  Can NT do that?  Oh, I forgot,
>>>NT, the 'server OS,' only supports TCP/IP client stuff.
>>
>>     Would you care to provide a source for this little tidbit?
>
>How about everyone on the net that I have heard speak of it (including C. Brian
>Sturgill) as well as the people that I know who have NT?

     Your source is what you read on the net and the contents of a
pre-release SDK?  Really?  Did it occur to you to look for some
even marginally official statement from anyone with some control
over the contents of the final release of the product?

     You know, I heard over on alt.alien.visitors that Elvis was
kidnapped by little purple men from the planet Zarquon.  Must be
true.

					-Phil
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Interesting tidbit from September 7, 1992 PC Week
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:27:00 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Oct05.185642.23419@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>
>     How can a person prove that they are a developer?

On IBM's questionairre for the OS/2 betas, they asked what you were
developing and if it would be ready to demo at COMDEX.  This had the
effect of turning away the non-developers, since most didn't want to
lie on the form.

-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: OS/2 because! (was NT: Why?)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 12:32:43 GMT

In <1992Oct15.180912.22691@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:

>In article <1992Oct14.212953.5821@gw.wmich.edu> x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu writes:

>>   We all talk
>>about NT and it is valid because it is a real live prodcut that a lot
>>of people have.  

>     I still see several posts a day reminding me or another poster
>that we shouldn't be talking about Windows NT, since it is
>"vaporware."  Some sort of consistency would be nice - that's all
>I'm asking for.

Phil, there are a *lot* of people posting to this group.  Some of them
seem to support the "can't talk about NT, 'cause it's vaporware"
position, some (including me) don't.  Consistency is *far* too much to
ask for out of a disparate group of individuals with differing opinions.
We can't agree on which 32-bit OS is the best to use, why should we be
able to agree on which are "acceptable" to talk about (and when)?

>     It really is a fuzzy issue.  Since it doesn't appear that anyone
>is going to come up with a consistent definition that works, I propose
>that we drop the "vaporware" cry entirely and let people discuss
>whatever they feel like discussing, whether we have it running on
>our desktop or not.

Some people (myself included) will only cry "vaporware" if that call is
legit.  Comparing NT to OS2Win3.1 is valid--both are beta.  Comparing NT
to OS/2 2.0 GA is suspect--OS/2 2.0 GA is a released product, available
for end users at shopping malls.

I agree that some people cry "vaporware" about NT, and then turn around
and discuss WinOS23.1 as if it were a released product.  These people
are wrong.  But just because some OS/2 advocates misbehave, that's no
excuse for the NT advocates to misbehave.  Some of us will ignore or
flame the misbehavors from both groups, while listening with great
interest to the "right-acting" advocates from both groups.

So, no, no one is going to drop the "'vaporware' cry".
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: goyal@utdallas.edu (Mohit K. Goyal)
Subject: Over 300,000 orders placed for $15 IBM CD!!!
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 04:46:36 GMT

It has been reported in the FIDOnet OS/2 echo that IBM has sold over
300,000 copies of the $15 CD-ROM disc they are offering.

This disc has a few hundred megabytes of stuff on it.

What stuff?  Hell, I don't know.

I'm sure a bunch of other people know exactly what is included.

My question:

How long has this CD been offered from IBM?
(I know it hasn't been very long, maybe since August?)

Finally, I've heard that IBM will be issuing a updated CD soon.

Anyone know when?

Thanks.

Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy