From: mjp3783@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: OS/2
Reply-To: mjp3783@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 15:09:08 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.104111.13819@sarah.albany.edu>, tw5232@albnyvms.bitnet (Teddy Wang) writes:
>In article <13603@mindlink.bc.ca>, George_Lin@mindlink.bc.ca (George Lin) writes:
>>> Quentin Snow writes:
>>> An Operating System that takes 4+ megs just to run at a suficient speed??
>>> This seems a bit rediculous to me..  I dont care how "great" os/2 is, to
>>> take that much memory -- there is no excuse except .. IBM ..
>>
>>Amiga + Unix > 4 Megs
>>In fact, when I used to work for Commodore, the Unix boxes we had were all 16
>>Megs.

Unix >4 meg. The Amiga OS that happens to boot it doesn't enter into it. How
big is MS-DOS? Now if I boot the multi-meg BSD distribution for that machine...

>
>Yes but take a look at the size of some of the executables which your UNIX
>boxes take up!  GNU Emacs is over 1.5 megs, anything using X is at least over a
>meg.  You really cannot compare UNIX with a micro operating system like the
>Amiga, the only real advantage the Amiga would have over such a portable, fast,
>universally accepted OS is in hard disk space saved!
>
>>
>>OS/2 is a great OS.
>>It is extremely stable.  (definately much more stable than AmiDos 2.0)
Sorry, no. I have YET to crash 2.0 except with a faulty program that I wrote.
OS/2, on the other hand JUST (within the last 15 seconds) crashed on my
room-mates machine running JustWrite? He now claims it to be a faulty printer
driver. Nice.

>>
>>The multitasking is very smooth.  Of course, the video on my 486 still seems
>>slower than an unaccelerated A2000, but the overall speed and compatibility
>>(with DOS, Windoze) is incredible.
>>Things that I've done for years my Amiga, such as formating one floppy and
>>reading from a second floppy drive, I can finally do on my PC.
>>

This is true - give an inefficent OS enough processor and it WILL perform like
a champ.

>
>Don't forget that OS/2 is also a full 32 bit OS, like modern UNIX.  But I'd
>think twice about saying OS/2 is EXTREMELY stable.  I've crashed OS/2 on 
>several occasions (But then again I crash DECStations regularly.)

Like AmigaOS. I also crash Decstations (and Suns, and Vaxes, and...)

>
>>One thing I really like about OS/2 (compared with AmigaDos), is that OS/2
>>doesn't run out of memory.  If RAM is full up, then the OS will cache unused
>>programs to the HD.
>
Ram is $30/meg ($60 for GVP 32 bit!). Hard drive caching is (in my opinion) not
as useful as it used to be when ram was >> in price. 

>So Commodore, when are you going to bless us with virtual memory?!?!?!  Windows
>has had it since v3.0, OS/2 has had it since v1.3, and Macintosh has even had
>it for a year!  
>

If you decide to (C=), MAKE IT AN OPTION! I really don't want to have to use it
because I don't need it (or the slow down).

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| Michael Phipps == mjp3783@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (R.I.T.)            |
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations