From: devolder@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Eric DeVolder)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Re: A personal perspective on choosing OS/2 2.0
Date: 8 Apr 1992 11:02:41 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu

In article <1992Apr1.151555.16822@b11.ingr.com> ross@kaos.b23b.ingr.com writes:
>>There must be some reason why the OS/2 discussion groups are the fastest
>                                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>growing and most active both here on USENET and on the commercial services such
>>as Compu$erve.  It may not be the multi-threading and the pre-emptive multi-
>>tasking per se, but it probably is the performance gains which are due to those
>>features.
>>
>>Let's face it:  A lot (most?) of the Windows users are people who got it free
>                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>with their PC (or their mouse), tried it, and trashed it for one reason or
>                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>another (usually instability or lack of performance).  Many of these people are
>                                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>looking for a 32-bit system that can fully take advantage of their powerful PC
>>systems TODAY, *N*ot *T*ommorrow.  Windows can't do it, both because it is 
>>still a 16-bit system and because it rests on top of DOS, as well as countless
>>other reasons.  OS/2 can do it, and will do it for those who give it a try.
>>
>>John W. Linville
>>
>John, where do you get these "statistics"???  You're selling, but I"m
>not buying.  Why do all these OS/2 "advocates" want me to totally
>change my hard drive, go through all the hell of reloading all my apps
>for the only reason of "It's a better OS than DOS/Windows".  Horse
>Hooey.  Who cares???  I'm perfectly stable, getting very acceptable
>performance, and love all my apps.  I don't sit around contemplating
>the intricasies of the OS while I'm doing my job.  I just want to do
>my job and use my computer for the reasons I bought it.  It's doing
>that now.  I don't need multi-threaded pre-emptive this and that.  I
>need to learn Excel better and how to quick and dirty tables with
>W4W2.0 faster.  I need to be able to learn and use all the tools in
>CorelDraw and Arts and Letters better and use them in the right place.
>I don't give a rats butt about formatting disks in the background.
>ALL MY DISKS ARE ALREADY FORMATTED!  Sorry for sounding emotional, but
>I'm damn tired of hearing all this crap about operating systems and
>who's better.  Sounds like schoolboys comparing their manhood in the
>lockerroom.  
>
>Ross Erickson
>Intergraph Corporation

The obvious difference between you and the other people out there is that
they REALIZE that their OS, (presumably and predominantly DOS), is retarding
THEIR progress!  You on the other hand, seem content with the Windows/DOS
approach.  Most people, such as myself, are too familiar with the powerful
computing of a multi-tasking OS, such as UNIX and OS/2, that will allow them
to do several tasks at the same time, without trying to load DOS multitaskers
and third party software and TSRs so that they can just two things at once,
ie, download a file in the background and edit a document in the foreground.

True, Windows supposedly allows you to do this also, but we know that Windows
is not as stable as it could be, and Windows still requires a bit of work
from the enduser to keep it running.

Unless you installed Windows, which I doubt since it usually comes with the
PC nowadays, there will ALWAYS be some amount of work in getting a new software
package, be it an OS or an application, up and running successfully.  I have
yet to install software that doesn't require customizing, re-adjustments, etc.

The simple point here is that if you are satisfied with Windows/DOS, then fine,
but most people who read these groups are familiar with mulitasking OS's such
as UNIX, and despise moving back to a PC that has a single-user, single-process
OS retarding their productivity.

So when a new OS that is backwards compatible to DOS, presumably faster, and
can increase people's productivity is introduced, YES, there is going to be
alot of hype!!!  People want to be productive and use their machine to its
fullest capabilities!!!!


-- 
Eric DeVolder                         Actual Consulting Call:
devolder@matt.ksu.ksu.edu                "The Ethernet System is a piece of
KSU Computing and Network Services       crap!" - not sure   2/5/92