From: bill@snoopy (Bill Poitras)
Subject: Re: I am giving up on the Amiga
Reply-To: bill@msi.com
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 17:36:45 GMT

mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes:
: The real problem with OS/2 is that it is an orphan product.  It is made
: by IBM, and nobody buys from IBM (well, hardly anyone).  It's main claim
: to fame is its ability to run DOS and Windows apps.  However, the August
: 1992 Byte reviewed of OS/2.  The title of the article: "OS/2 2.0: A Mixed
: Blessing".  Specific gripes listed including poor performance on a PS/2
: model 70 25-MHz 386 with 6MB of RAM using HPFS, less than intuitive WPS
: interface, elimination of a more popular shell from 1.3, and lack of
: compatibility with significant Windows 3.1 apps.  The article also
: claims that the WPS is eminently crashable.

1) Nobody buys from IBM?  Are you nuts.  IBM is a multi-billion dollar
company.  And I guess the 700,000+ copies of OS/2 is in IBM's
imagination too.

2) The Byte article you quote isn't the last word.  John Dvorak in PC
Magazine starts his columns with "I was reluctant to move to OS/2 2.0,
but now I can't imagine using anything else."  Thats a pretty strong
endorsement if you ask me.

3) True OS/2 doesn't run very well on a system with less than 8MB of RAM.

4) The "non-intuitive-ness" of the WPS is subjective.  I have heard from
others that they find it very intuitive.

5) What Windows 3.1 apps were they talking about?  Excel 4.0, and....
Hell, OS/2 2.0 runs Windows 3.0 apps better than Windows 3.1 does is some
cases.

6) The lack of stability of the system I will give you.  However, it is
very rare to get an error that kills the whole system.  Even if WPS
crashes it comes back up.

: To quote:  OS/2's strengths are excellent DOS multitasking, reasonable
: support for windows 3.0 software (note 3.0 not 3.1), and the native OS/2
: environment which features robust protection, a 32-bit flat memory model,
: demand-paged VM, and threaded multitasking.  It's weaknesses are performance,
: stability, and ease of use.

The performance you are talking about is opening windows, and starting
Windows programs from the OS/2 desktop.  DOS programs are much faster
under OS/2 2.0, even faster than native DOS.  Windows 3.0 programs are
comparible, once you get them running.

: I have heard that you need at least a boot partition just for OS/2,
: and from others that ALL partitions OS/2 access must be OS/2 format.

You heard wrong.  OS/2 doesn't require the boot manager, not does it
require you to use HPFS partitions.

: I have also heard that development of DOS software using OS/2 is
: not a good thing to do (hard to test for true compatibility).  Same
: is true if you develop Windows apps.  As well, when Windows 3.2 (or
: whatever) comes out, you are going to have to wait for IBM to scurry
: to be compliant/compatible again.  And MicroSoft is likely to do many
: many things to sabotage OS/2 compatibility as time goes on.  And finally,
: the DOS emulation requires config.sys and autoexec.bat garbage for
: each command.com run...

1) Some companies use OS/2 for DOS development.  Compatibility is no
problem because OS/2 can boot any version of DOS from floppy or a disk
image.

2) Win-OS/2 is based on Microsoft Windows code, so there isn't any
compatibility there.  Again you heard wrong.

3) Windows 3.2?  What's that?  I'm still waiting for Windows NT.  Anyway,
by the time Windows 3.2 comes out, there won't be any reason for an OS/2
user to use those apps.  They either will be happy with Windows 3.1 apps,
or OS/2 2.0 apps.  No Steekin' Windows 3.2 need apply.

4) DOS emulation does NOT requite the config.sys and autoexec.bat garbage
for each command.com to run.  I can just type command.com from the OS/2
prompt and get a DOS prompt.  Each DOS session can be configured with
many of the same options config.sys supplies, but in an easy to use
dialog box.  That includes loading session specific device drivers.  Each
DOS session shares that same autoexec.bat, so there is only one.

There is however a config.sys that OS/2 itself uses, but that is not
directly tied to DOS emulation.

: I am not using a flamethrower...

How about brains?

--
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+
| Bill Poitras    | Molecular Simulations Inc.    | Tel (408)522-9229       |
| (bill)          | Sunnyvale, CA USA             |                         | 
|                 | FAX (408)732-0831             | bill@msi.com            |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+

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