From: stevey@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Yegge)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Win 3.1 not THAT great.
Date: 9 Apr 92 18:07:07 GMT
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Apr8.204645.15482@cis.ohio-state.edu> chawdry@cis.ohio-state.edu (rehan nisar chawdry) writes:
>Yesterday, I went into our local Micro Center where they had all the
>Windows 3.1 boxes lying around.  I anxiously hopped over to the nearest 
>computer and with great pleasure noticed that Win 3.1 had been installed.
>So, I booted it up....the screen came up and my first thought was "This doesn't
>look much different from Win 3.0".  I randomly opened and closed windows just
>to test the speed of the graphic driver.  Someone previosly had posted that
>on his Paradise board, Win 3.1 was MUCH, MUCH faster than 3.1.  In all 
>objectivity, Win 3.1 graphic speed was about the SAME as Win 3.0 on my non-
>coprocessed, interlaced, Tseng ET4000 card with the newest drivers ( I assume
>that the board on the computer I tested on was a Paradise...the slowest garphic
>cards I've seen).  This was at 1024x768x16 resolution.  This computer was a
>486-33 4 megs RAM.  My computer with the Tseng card is a 386DX-20 with 3 megs
>RAM.

  I installed 3.1 fully expecting that I would be unimpressed with the speed.
I told myself, it's going to be the same, I'm not going to notice any difference
and I'm not going to be disappointed.  (I use 1024x768x256 on an Orchid
Prodesigner IIs BTW.)
  It was faster.  I didn't even have to look closely.  It is clearly faster
than 3.0 was, at the resolution I'm using.  Combined with the 32-bit disk
access it really smokes.  Well, it's still not as fast as a coprocessed
card would be, but I don't have to go to sleep when I'm using a terminal
program or a DOS window and I'm scrolling text.

>
>Pressing onward, I double clicked on the new File Manager. Prettier and faster
>than the old file manager, but functionality is the same.  Why oh why can't we
>have an integrated file system with icons as in Program Manager?  Much to say,
>File Manager also didn't impress me.  Until Microsoft combines Filemanger and
>Program Manager (which in my opinion serves no purpose except solely to run
>programs) I will continue to bitch.  Oh, I don't own a Mac, just use one 
>occasionally, if you were wondering.

Yep.  I sh*tcanned the PM and FM immmediately; I think they're both the 
biggest waste of screen real-estate imaginable.  I use my own versions
of Backmenu and AppDock that I wrote with TPW for desktop managers (tailored
to 1024x768 resolution.)  I don't care how pretty the icons are, personally.

>
> <multimedia stuff deleted>
>
>After my initial observations, I didn't think Window 3.1 was that great.  
>The functionality was the same.  Sure it gave you some more memory here and
>there and was faster in many areas, but pure functionality had not changed.
>It's the same way I felt about DOS 5.  Everybody raved about how I needed to
>get it and how it was absolutely fantastic.  But, after getting it, I soon 
>enough realized that it was still DOS.  Same parallelism with this version

   What???  You've already used up that extra 30k for your apps that DOS
5.0 gave you?  You HOG, you.  :-)

>of Windows.  It seems like everybody is oohed and aahed so much by small 
>advances in speed and memory usage that they forget that when considering 
>Windows in a bigger respect it's not all that great.  On a 286 system, I 
>would recommend Windows 3.1 (tough one though because Geoworks is spades ahead
>of Windows in speed, but it just doesn't support anything, including DOS apps).

   It will pretty soon.  (I hope)

>On a 386, you have to be all but blind not to consider (read CONSIDER)
>OS/2 2.0.  I'm no fan of IBM and have never bought an IBM product, but for $49
>I couldn't resist.  Plus, even if I don't want it, Windows 3.1 and its apps
>will be able to run on the same screen as OS/2 (by June 92, update is free).

   What do you mean, free?  You just said it was $49.  That's what it's
costing me.  Most people (truly, most) don't have OS/2 1.x and don't want
it, even if they want 2.0.  Can I get it for free?  I think not.

>My all-time favorite program Ami Pro will be converted into a multithreaded,
>multitasking monster word processing app.  Stacker will be available soon, and
>so will a 32-bit SVGA graphic engine.  I just hope OS/2 is closer to my
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Umm, could you be a little more specific on this one?  I'd pay a lot of money
for a 32-bit-per-pixel Windows accelerator.  Or do you mean a fast 256-color 
(translation: lame) board?

>expectations than Windows 3.1 was.
>
>		-- Rehan --
>

Steve Yegge
stevey@cs.washington.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms