HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: best target platform: OS/2 1.x!?!
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 00:58:54 GMT


Consider the following little table:

                             Target Environment
Apps               DOS     Win   OS/2 1.x   OS/2 2.x   Win NT
-------           --------------------------------------------
DOS                Yes     Yes    1/2         Yes       1/2
Win                 -      Yes     -          Yes       Yes
OS/2 1.x text       -       -     Yes         Yes       Yes
OS/2 1.x PM         -       -     Yes         Yes        -
OS/2 2.0 PM         -       -      -          Yes        -
Win NT              -       -      -           -        Yes

From this, it should be apparant that OS/2 1.x text-mode apps are
supported on as many different platforms as Win apps are.  For apps that
don't require graphics, (especially vertical market apps, where the
users don't really care what OS is being used), OS/2 1.x looks like an
excellent target to write for.  Not to mention family mode apps...

This brings up a question:  my company makes vertical market text-mode
apps.  Thus, I'm curious:  who is selling OS/2 1.x?  How much does it
cost (per station)?  What kind of networking is available, and what kind
of mix of OSes can I have on the available networks?  I guess that an
email reply would be best for these rather commercial questions.

Also, a question to MS:  I understand your decision to not support OS/2
2.0, since that is an IBM product, but are you going to support OS/2 1.x
as a target platform with any of your development tools?  Doesn't MS
still sell OS/2 1.x?  Since NT is going to support OS/2 1.x text mode
apps, wouldn't it only be reasonable to add support for *building* OS/2
1.x text mode apps back into, say, the C compiler?  I'm perfectly
content to use MSC 6.0a at the moment, but I really can't see any reason
why OS/2 1.x support shouldn't be there.  It's not much different than
DOS support (unlike OS/2 2.0 support).

Will the NT compiler be able to generate OS/2 1.x text-mode apps?  It
can run them, why not add the ability to build them.  That might be
enough to persuade me to buy and use NT and its development system.  :-)

Inquiring minds want to know.  :-)
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
From: varmint@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Samir Varma)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: MS's misconduct!
Date: 7 Oct 92 21:56:27 GMT
Organization: Center for Particle Physics, University of Texas

In article <1992Sep30.201520.16617@microsoft.com> gordonl@microsoft.com (Gordon Letwin) writes:

>Very few of the readers here - and nearly none of the posters - have much
>understanding of reality.  Let me clarify three important points:

>[stuff deleted.....]

Hi Gordon, where have you been?  Welcome back to comp.os.os2.advocacy.

I don't think anyone would take much issue with the points that you
made.  I suspect, (and this holds for me), that most people are sick
of the following things:

1) The statements from MS (specifically Bill Gates, ---they've been posted
numerous times, so I'm not going to repeat them) about how "OS/2 is destined
to be the most important operating system ever".   To then have support for
OS/2 dropped by MS, especially when it is removed from current products (such
as MS C 7.0) after a lot of money, time and effort invested on the basis of
MS's statements is a bit too much to swallow.

2) The WPS is liked by many people, and a lot of people I know think it is
conceptually superior to the Windows shell and much easier and more 
productive to use.

3) If one was to compare shipping products, ie Windows 3.1 and OS/2 2.0, most
people with the necessary hardware are going to think that OS/2 is better.

I think you did a fabulous job with OS/2 and HPFS, I just wish you guys were
still supporting it.

Samir Varma
From: kitchin@avo.hp.com (Bruce Kitchin)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.01 Beta
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:01:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: scd.Bw69yC.Es0
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Clara Division
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.3 PL6]

Phil Lafornara (philipla@microsoft.com) wrote:
: 
:       Is this "most" an official IBM statement?  If so, it's one of
: the better moves that their marketing people have made.  "Most" is so
: ill-defined that it's laughable - if your app doesn't work, they say
: "Oops, most apps don't have that problem."  It's a definite win for
: IBM.

If that is what IBM said, they may have been inspired by Microsoft's
statement about Windows 3.1 supporting Windows 3.0 applications.
The announcements certainly created a far greater expectation than
the reality proved to be.  As for reality, my experience (and others
have certainly had different experiences) I have found that 'most'
for OS/2 turned out to be everything I wanted even some new things
I've picked up since OS/2 2.0 GA.
From: mhuth@byron.u.washington.edu (Mark Huth)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Date: 16 Oct 92 19:45:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct16.194539.17926
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <7561@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>In article <1992Oct12.212507.28868@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>     The "hidden reason" crowd are those who actually believe in
>>some Microsoft/Ziff-Davis conspiracy to surpress Zachmann and his
>>ideas.
>
>Hardly. Microsoft and Ziff-Davis' reasons are transparent: MS wants to silence
>a respected critic, and ZD wants to keep getting MS ad dollars.

Yet John Dvorack keeps writing nice things about OS/2 without any suggestion 
that he is being censored by ZD.  Heck, he even writes things that attack 
Microsoft and he doesn't seem to have any trouble with Ziff.  I'd suggest that
Will may have problems with his editors which have little to do with Microsoft.
Indeed, if you've followed Will's posts on Compuserve...will appears to be very
sensitive to any suggestion that he may be wrong and reacts very strongly.  
In one set of posts, he accused me of being a "flunky" for Microsoft!  Amazing.
I've spent far more on os/2 and os/2 products in the last year than I've spent
on Microsoft products and I've certainly never received any money or products 
from Microsoft to influence me...yet Will made it clear to me that he thought I
was biased for Microsoft because of some need on my part to justify my previous
decisions to purchase Microsoft products.  Kind of silly logic...and he's busy
making decisions about my motivations without knowing me at all.  

Perhaps the scene with Will and his editor went something like this...Will, 
I'm concerned that you've been blasting Microsoft products without using them.
Maybe it would be a good idea for you to temper your attacks on Microsoft with
some facts...after all they pay a chunk of your salary with their
advertising dollars.  I just had a conversation with (big microsoft person) and
they are irked that you don't show any signs of balance in your columns.  
Couldn't you write columns which show that there might be two sides to the 
issues?  
-- 
Mark Huth                         * Is it too wild to want to get into 
Mhuth@u.washington.edu            * Space someday?
Compuserve 70346,563              *
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: amitp@ruf.rice.edu (Amit J Patel)
Subject: Re: MS ready to release 32-bit Word & Excel?!?! Read on...
Reply-To: amitp@owlnet.rice.edu
Organization: Rice University
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:16:29 GMT

In article <1992Oct07.190919.1227@microsoft.com>, philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
|> >  Don't
|> >be a fool!  If I buy Word for OS/2 now and I liked it.  There would be
|> >no reason for me to spend $499???
|> 
|>      Please provide a source for your $499 figure.
|> 

To me, it sounded like $249.50 for NT and $249.50 for Word for NT.  :)


		Amit
From: jyri+@CMU.EDU (Jyri Virkki)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Date: 11 Oct 92 17:56:27 GMT
	<1992Oct11.102700.7755@microsoft.com>
Organization: Masters student, Information Networking Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:
>  
> I'd suggest you go read some of his articles.  You may see what I mean.
> I'd suggest that you read them assuming both Zachmann and myself are

Anyone has a list of when and where were these published?

--
Jyri J. Virkki | DoD#561 | jyri+@cmu.edu | Carnegie Mellon University | MSINI
From: saf@netcom.com (Steve A. Feinstein)
Subject: Re: Open letter to Gordon Letwin
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 06:47:53 GMT

In article <3s57RB2w165w@cybernet.cse.fau.edu> wayned@cybernet.cse.fau.edu (Wayne Desmond) writes:
>
>Dear Mr. Letwin,
[...]
>
>Your practice of airing IBM and Microsoft's "dirty laundry" on
>the Internet only confuses developers and users alike.  Everybody
>loses, IBM, Microsoft, and most importantly, customers of both
>companies.  That practice is counter-productive and only
>depreciates users confidence in both Microsoft and IBM. If you
>want to remain competitive in the operating systems marketplace,
>I'd suggest you do just that, compete.

	It's eerie with a minor edit, this would make a great letter
to Clinton, and Bush. And unfortunately it doesn't look like the
bickering is going to stop anytime soon.  As the presidential
candidates have found out.  Negative campaigning (advertizing) works.

-- 
 Steve A. Feinstein | saf@netcom.com | When a man points a finger at someone
  360 Cowper Street |================| else, he should remember that four
Palo Alto, CA 94301 |                  fingers are pointing at himself.
     (415) 326-8224 |                                          - Louis Nizer
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.01 Beta
Date: 13 Oct 1992 01:12:35 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Oct12.211654.28451@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>     What is OS/2's claim?  Does IBM claim 100% DOS compatibility?

OS/2 claims to support all DOS apps that do not violate two documented
restrictions: VCPI and direct disk manipulation. Is NT willing to commit to
this level of support? If so, then why is MS just claiming the "top 100" DOS
apps?
-- 
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: 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 15:28:45 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Oct8.034843.13472@netcom.com> xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) writes:
>In <1992Oct07.184621.304@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>      Can you provide some examples of betas wherein the primary
>>purpose of the release was putting new features in the hands of the
>>users while not providing any testing?
>
>Sure!  How about the NT SDK?  :-)

And the OS/2 2.0 pre-release SDK.


-- 
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: jinx@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Guillermo J. Rozas)
Subject: Re: PowerPC or (P5 & P6)? (still!!!)
Followup-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Reply-To: jinx@zurich.ai.mit.edu
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
	<DOCONNOR.92Oct2081116@potato.sedona.intel.com>
	<21622@global.hacktic.nl> <1992Oct7.113943.1@wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 13:26:41 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.113943.1@wharton.upenn.edu> poe@wharton.upenn.edu writes:

|   What exactly is a 386.5? Why not a 436? 
|   What are the other differences besides cache size?
|   The bottom line is : Is it true or false that the 486SLC and 486DLC implement
|   the COMPLETE i486sx instruction set? If it's true, then please explain to me
|   how is it functionally different from an Intel 486sx.
|

Surely you don't want to distinguish them only by functional behavior.
Otherwise a 386+387+emulator for missing instructions (very few) would
pass for a 486 as well*.  As people have already said, functionally a
486 is a 386+387 (just faster) but that is only a partial description.

If you target a compiler for a 486, you look at the cost in cycles of
various instructions.  My understanding is that the 486SLC is more
like the 386 than the 486 in this respect.  The choice of instructions
for both would be different, even though the same instruction
sequences would work on both (and a 386sx for that matter).

* I don't remember whether the 386 implements the alignment bit.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly)
Subject: Re: MS's misconduct!
Date: 07 Oct 92 10:16:57 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.

In article <1992Oct6.084217.28802@netcom.com> msmith@netcom.com wrote:
> In article <1992Oct5.215925.6501@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>
> 
> Regardless of the drivel below that underestimates the multi-user and 
> file protection mechanisms of UNIX. Be it true or not, it does not actually 
> address the question that was asked. 
> 
> IS NT multi-user.
> 
> In the traditional and widely held ( non-MS  ) view of multi-user I.E 
> CONCURRENT MULTIPLE USERS ON A SINGLE MACHINE/CPU not Win NT 3.1 is 
> NOT!!! multi-user.
> 
> 
> Martin Smith
> msmith@netcom.com 
> 
> 
Okay, I guess I've had my head in the sand or something.  I have yet to
see anyone use a multiuser system as you seem to think it is.  How
does one hook 5 mice up to a computer so 5 people can use it.  How does
one hook 5 keyboards up.

THE SCREEN DEVICE OF NT ONLY ALLOWS ONE USER TO HAVE OWNERSHIP OF IT.

Everything else is pretty much multiuser.  Each process has it's own
user/security context.  I can run processes on someone elses machine
when they're logged on.  These processes run under my security context.

What is more multiuser than that?  having 5 keyboards and 5 mice
hooked up and one screen so 5 people can type on the screen at one time?

SHEESH.

petesk@microsoft.com
My Opinions...
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2:386 comp.os.os2.misc:32742 comp.os.os2.apps:7109 comp.os.os2.programmer:5628
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2,comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.programmer
Subject: Re: Utils dont work in a window - WHY?
Date: 13 Oct 92 14:45:40 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Oct9.042331.5787@nmt.edu> mystical@nmt.edu (Gurupartap Davis) writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.185143.25299@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>>If your app is window-compatible and doesn't have this flag set (like
>>PKZIP2.EXE), you can set the flag with IBM's MARKEXE.EXE program
>>(included in the toolkit) or Microsoft's EXEHDR.EXE program (included
>
>Where is this toolkit available?  Is that the actual name "Toolkit" or does
>everyone shorten it from something (eg. OS/2 WPS Development Toolkit)?

The full name is the OS/2 2.0 Developer's Toolkit.  It is published by
IBM.  Its list price is about $120, but it can be gotten for about $80
from many discount places (like Programmer's Paradise 1-800-445-7899
for info, ordering, and to get a catalog).  It contains many useful
utilities, on-line programming documentation for most of the API, lots
of examples, headers (for ICC, but can be made to work with GCC), a
debugging kernel. resource editors, and a few other things that I
forget about.

-- 
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"
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2:392 comp.os.os2.misc:32990 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:27024
From: mrice@mozart.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM (Mark W. Rice)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2,comp.os.os2.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Third floppy under OS/2
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:09:19 GMT
Organization: Your Organization Here

In article <1992Oct13.152952.27438@njitgw.njit.edu>, dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:

|> ....  DOS thinks
|>                  there's a D: (unused cable position) and any access
|> to D: results in not-ready errors after hanging for a minute. 
....
|> ... and the
|> "phantom" F: which still hangs the system before returning not-ready.
|> -- 
|> David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing

I believe, when using DOS you could easily use the "assign" or "subst" commands
to re-assign the "phantom" drive to be a second occurance of your drive a:
or b:. 

Your phantom drive would still be there, but access to it should be just like
you're looking at the one you assigned it to  (e.g. a:) (ie. you would either
get a file listing of a floppy in diskette a: or an abort, retry, ignore...
but no annoying timeout.)

-- 
-----
mark rice           mark.rice@ColumbiaSC.ncr.com  -  My views only
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.networking
From: thomas@datamark.co.nz (Thomas Beagle)
Subject: Re: Telnet hogs CPU
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:48:17 GMT
Organization: Datamark International Ltd.

In article <1992Oct06.171553.19898@ans.net> db3l@ans.net (David Bolen) writes:
>
>I think this is a problem with "telnet.exe", but I don't think it occurs
>with any of "tn.exe", "vt100.exe" or "vt220.exe".  I'm not sure if telnet.exe
>adds anything special (maybe linemode?), but you might try just using one
>of the other emulators.

Next question:

When telnetting into the machine, how can I use vt100.exe instead of
telnet.exe?

-- 
    Thomas Beagle | thomas@datamark.co.nz  or  thomas@cavebbs.welly.gen.nz
Datamark Intl Ltd | 
 Technical Writer | I don't need a disclaimer, I live in a sane society.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.networking
From: John-Marc.Chandonia,.,.,@f1.n100.z60.wlink.nl (John-Marc Chandonia, , ,)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.networking
Subject: NFS Security (or lack thereof)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 01:22:16 -0100


In article <1992Oct12.171504.11372@waikato.ac.nz>, hamish@waikato.ac.nz writes:
> In article <1992Oct11.144549.16279@husc3.harvard.edu>, chandoni@husc8.harvard.edu (John-Marc Chandonia, , , ) writes:
>> In article <1992Oct11.090253.21863@netcom.com>, badboy@netcom.com (Jay Keller) writes:
>>> The problem:  my OS/2 users are in danger of getting kicked off the net 
>>> because of how easily any of them can defeat the security of NFS and
>>> potentially do mischief in the Unix world.  All an OS/2 user with IBM TCP/IP
>>> has to do is set the UID and GID to anything he or she wants it to be, and 
>>> then mount anywhere in the Unix file system with read and write privileges.

> An NFS server WILL NOT ASK FOR A PASSWORD!! Some implementations of NFS for
> insecure systems (ie the humble PC) will communicate with a password server
> (pcnfsd) that will return a UID/GID for that username/password. 

You're right, I was thinking of pcnfsd when I said the NFS server
would ask for a password.  Actually it is your local NFS client
that does the asking, so you could be defeated by an older client
that didn't know about pcnfsd and therefore didn't bother to ask.

The client that comes with IBM's TCP/IP nfs software (1.2.1, level UB01822)
seems to know about pcnfsd, so I get asked for a password when mounting
a disk on any local machine running it.

Depending on what level of security you need, you could either
1) run pcnfsd on your unix machines, which would prevent users
of IBM's mount program from logging in as root (although
they could still find older software somewhere and circumvent this), or
2) not export NFS drives to any of the OS/2 machines, only to
the (presumably secure) unix boxes.  This would prevent NFS
access without actually "kicking them off the net."

As someone else mentioned, you could use kerberos (sp?) which
provides more security and is supported by IBM's software.

JMC
-- 
chandoni@husc8.harvard.edu    | I will not yell fire in a crowded classroom
John-Marc Chandonia           | I will not yell fire in a crowded classroom
Graduate Biophysics Program   | I will not yell fire in a crowded classroom 
Harvard University            | I will not yell fire ...
From: ccusekh@prism.gatech.EDU (Kevin Hodge)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.networking
Subject: advice on setting up an EtherLink II/16 card from 3Com
Keywords: EtherLink II/16
Date: 7 Oct 92 13:24:02 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology


     I am getting ready to install an EtherLink II/16 card on a Gateway 2000 
486DX2/50 EISA machine.  I will be running IBM's TCP/IP for OS/2.  Before I 
get started I wanted to see if there was anything that the manuals don't tell
me that people have learned from experience.  For example, I noticed that 
the default interrupt setting for the EtherLink II/16 is 3, which is the 
same interrupt assigned to COM2 and COMl.  Will that be a problem or is
a different interrupt preferrable?  Any advice/tips/warnings will be most
appreciated.  Thanks in advance.      
-- 
Kevin A. Hodge                |   "I'll show you a life of the mind!"
Engineering Psychology        |            Madman Mundt
Georgia Tech                  |
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.networking
From: badboy@netcom.com (Jay Keller)
Subject: NFS Security (or lack thereof)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 09:02:53 GMT

First the disclaimer, I'm a beginner, but I have been responsible for
over 50 machines running IBM's TCP/IP for OS/2 for over a year now (we've
been using it since the early days when we had access to internal IBM  software
due to our unusual relationship to IBM - they used to own us).  So all I know
is from running this stuff, no prior knowledge just "learn as you go".

At present our OS/2 machines are hooked into our campus internet which in
turn is linked to our corporate WAN.  Although there are other DOS and OS/2 
users, the vast majority of machines on the network are Sun and HP/Apollo
Unix boxes, with some IBM and Siemens mainframes and some SCO Unix PS/2's
thrown in for good measure.  A fairly big net.  

The problem:  my OS/2 users are in danger of getting kicked off the net 
because of how easily any of them can defeat the security of NFS and
potentially do mischief in the Unix world.  All an OS/2 user with IBM TCP/IP
has to do is set the UID and GID to anything he or she wants it to be, and 
then mount anywhere in the Unix file system with read and write privileges.
The DOS users, who now run the UID/GID flavor of FTP, Inc.'s IDRIVE, can
do the same thing.  Since a lot of these people do have accounts on the
Sun side, they can read /etc/passwd to get valid UID/GID pairs and easily
get access to just about anything that can be had without root password
(at least that is what it seems like to me, please tell me I'm wrong!).

All it will take is one malicious disgruntled employee to abuse this system
and I can be sure that the DOS and OS/2 users will be kicked right off the
network..

So, what's the story?  Is NFS really so bogus?  Can we do something to
close this hole?  Is it not the NFS server's problem, even though they want
to blame the OS/2 and DOS clients?  Are these dumb questions?

I'd appreciate any comments.  Thanks.

Regards,

Jay Keller
ROLM, a Siemens Company

badboy@netcom.com
kellerj@scrvm2.vnet.ibm.com