From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: superVGA  (and misc top-blowing)
Date: 13 Aug 92 19:44:41 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Aug12.125401.18428@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jensen.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>Why then, does IBM not provide seemless windows support for 8514... is
>it not a standard?  Perhaps I should contact the manufacturer? :-)

Seamless Windows was gotten working almost at the last minute.  They
only had one driver for it availabe at GA.  The other resolution
seamless drivers will be out with the corrective service pack.

>Why does the ATI Ultra (which can do 1280x1024) driver stop
>at 800x600?

Ask ATI, it's their driver.  If you want 1024x768, use IBM's 8514/a
driver. 

>It's a sad day when you have to consider buying new hardware to match
>your operating system, when the hardware you have is already reasonably
>modern (< 2 years old).

I haven't had to buy any hardware.  My generic 386/25 with an ATI VGA
Wonder and a 210MB IDE hard drive have worked just fine.  Maybe you
just got unlucky and bought hardware from companies that don't care
about what you're running on it.

>In another thread people keep bragging about the fact they don't use Windows
>apps... to me this in inconceivable... why restrict yourself to
>Describe, Object Vision and free/shareware.  I find it hard to believe
>that anyone can't find at least one Microsoft app they really like
>(I very much like Word and Visual Basic).

Have you seen what's out in shareware?  Seriously, if it wasn't for
Word 2.0, I'd be erasing Windows from my drive immediately.  I program
in C (and use gcc for this).  I use Excel 3.0 for OS/2 as my
spreadsheet.  I use Procomm Plus for DOS as my comm package.
Everything else is either a game (Lemmings runs - that's my only
non-shareware game) or something I downloaded.

I don't think I'm an unusual class of user in this respect.  For
someone who doesn't want/need to upgrade to Word 2.0, version 1.1 is
available for OS/2.  For me, this would eliminate all need for Windows
compatibility.  (Well, there's Minesweeper and WinGif, but...)

>Back to the point here... I am (hmm... I probably should start saying
>was) a big fan of OS/2, but IBM has let its whole user community down
>by not having issues such as super VGA solved by now.  OS/2 2.0 has
>been out for over 4 months now, and the best IBM seems to be offering
>is that 2 months from now, we'll finally be getting the fixes that
>ought have been there from the start.

Remember Windows 3.0?  There were no drivers of any sort for almost a
year.  I remember complaining bitterly that ATI only had Windows 2.1
drivers avilable.  Their 256 color Windows drivers didn't come out for
almost a year after their 16-color drivers.

New products take time.  As for Windows 3.1, it's a little different.
ATI got their Ultra drivers out in time for the computer I use at
school.  The one on the table next to me, however, is using the
Windows 3.0 Paradise drivers because the 3.1 driver causes the monitor
to lose synch.  I'm not calling Windows 3.1 a piece of trash because
of this, though - I blame Western Digital for releasing a bad driver.

>I can only hope for OS/2's sake that plentiful superVGA driver
>support is there by then... Windows NT's pre-beta comes with as good
>a selection than that CURRENTLY available for OS/2 2.0.

It'll come when the board manufacturers get on the ball.  The fast
ones (like Trident) are going to clean up in this respect.

>Oh, another thing that kills me is people knocking Windows 3.X
>for "shipping" 12-17 million, with only maybe 4-8 million in actual
>use.  How many of the (finally confirmed numbers from IBM!) 1,000,000
>that's been shipped of OS/2 2.0, are actually in use?

Well, considering that all 1,000,000 of the OS/2 shipments were either
requested or paid for, I'd say it'll be a lot larger that the
percentage of Windows installations in use.  Most Windows 3.x
installations are given away free with hardware purchases by vendors.
I know of only one vendor (IBM) which is pre-installing OS/2 on
systems.

>At home and at work I have a total of 4 copies of OS/2 2.0.
>Only 2 of these copies are in use.  My guess is that this is far from
>untypical.

Why did you buy two more copies than you're using?  You couldn't have
gotten them for free unless you have OS/2 1.x installations to
upgrade. 

>Further as things stand... if NT is half as good as promised
>NONE of these may be in use when NT's first beta ships.

You'll trash a working system (which will have its bugs fixed by then)
for the first beta of a completely new system?  I fail to see the
logic, but that's your problem.

>Oh... one other thing... Borland has now said that the compiler for
>OS/2 will not be available till year's end.  It's about to enter
>beta.  Borland said at the NT developers conference that they will
>have the NT version out within 2 months of NT's release.

Which compiler?  Borland C++ for OS/2 has been in beta for a while
now.  They make a large number of compilers, including C++, Turbo C,
Turbo C++, Turbo Pascal, ObjectVision, Turbo Assembler, etc.  I think
you are thinking of one of the Turbo lanuguages.


-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "I don't even represent myself
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   sometimes so NJIT is right out!.
 ((|,)
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