Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Date: Fri,  9 Oct 1992 13:02:35 -0400 
From: Carl B Jabido <cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT

Once again, I'm sorry, read on you'll find my responses calm and inquisitive.

Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.mac.advocacy: 9-Oct-92 Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2
and Window.. by Daniel N. Johnson@vccnw0 
> How do you set ALL the fonts in the WPS like that? Ya know, set it
> so that all yer menus show with font xyz, or all windwos have thus-and-such
> a background color. Etc.
  
If you press alt while dragging, you do a system wide change on whatever
part.  Example: press alt while you drag a font to the title bar, and
all title bars now have that font.

> Apple Events are also standardized. It would be better if they were SUPPORTED
> too. But Apple Events do (officially) provide a standard way to manipulate
> somebody elses data (which I dont understand, its very obscure :( )

So what apps do use it now?
  
> I dont doubt you, but it is certainly possible. Perhaps the
> networking board (whatever it was) and the video board were tyring to
> use the same memory for something.

Yes it's possible, though I've never heard of anything like that happening.  
  
> |>  OS/2 will run if you have
> |> XGA, Trident Svga, Tseng labs SVGA, VGA, IBM VGA, 8514, ATI 8514.
>  
> Of course, on a Macintosh we can ignore this stuff since the video
> must either follow Apple's instructions for video cards (in which
> case the OS knows what to do with it, you need no driver regardless
> of tis size, depth, etc); Or it must provide a driver (that wya
> you can use accelerated graphics boards, and wierd thigns like
> the pivot display)

Yeah, same thing OS/2's case.  Internally, OS/2 can handle VGA, 8514,
and XGA.  Currently, these are the only "official" IBM video standards. 
The os does know how to handle these.  However, a few years after VGA
was released, PC users begged for more, and IBM gave them 8514, which
was incompatible, expensive etc.  So, video manufacturers went on their
own and within a year or two, SVGA was produced.  Today, there are
basically only two different ways of doing SVGA.  The two address
different areas of the PC market.  The first, Trident, is probably the
cheapest way to get 1024x768 with 256 colors; it only costs $60 with one
meg of ram.  The other way, Tseng labs ET4000, addresses those who are
willing to spend more, but also get more performance. ET4000 is
sufficient for 1024x768.  Now of course, ET4000 is getting cheap enough
that it may become the new SVGA "standard."  Of course, because it's not
an IBM standard, IBM technically does not have to support it.  In
return, IBM produced XGA but I'm not sure of its specs except that it
has a max of 1024x768.  In the latest update, OS/2 2.01, it's speculated
that OS/2 will now come with SVGA drivers for the more popular brands.
And, like Macintosh land, if it's some wierd exotic thing, the
manufacturer has to produce the driver.

> Except that you have parts of the monitor bezel in the middle of it. :(
> That happens ont eh Mac too, of course. :) But at least the apps
> are (or at least should be. I dunno 'bout microsoft apps :) ) know
> about this stuff (its standard stuff, ya know) and acts accordingly
> (for instance not zooming out to cover all teh screens, but isntead
> covering one). Also, that particular 4-monitor setup requires
> all 4 monitors. So you need the whole setup, all at once. Wouldn't
> a big monitor be easier, and cheaper? Also, its only 4 bits deep. :(
> It leaves something to be desired, imho.

About the big monitor, that's what I said in the beginning of the whole
Multiple monitor topic.

> |> > >HIG in IBM world is CUA (Common User Access), current spec is CUA 92.
> |> >  
> |> > So?  In CUA 92, have they finally figured out whether the menu
> |> > item that closes an application should be called "exit," "quit,"
> |> > or "close" (all of which are used by various Windows apps)?  
> |> 
> |> Yes.  When you double click on a document, all you are doing is really
> |> just opening another view of it.  So, what does logic tell you to do
> |> with that view?  Exit? NO.  Quit? NO.  Close, ah yes, you close that
> |> view of the document.  Well, is that simple enough?
>  
> I should take that to mean that they DID fix this problem. I do like
> OS/2s basic approach to this stuff. Its spiffy. System 7 is close,
> but not as good as this imho. You still have to quit apps.

Yay!!  Score one for OS/2.
  
> Before you flame me to death, I dont think OS/2 looks so bad,
> cosmetically, but...

Flames aren't for you Dan.
  
> |> HAHAHA!!  Chicago font is a piece of SHIT!
>  
> Well, I like it fine, but then I have to taste. :)
> To each his own. Im surprised you find this so improtant. I thot
> Mac users were the people with font fixations. :)

Yeah they are, but how could you live with a font _that_ ugly?!?!?
  
> although you dont mention that the scrollbars (and some others) are now
> 3-dish); Don't bother me (or I'd fix it), but then I dont mind Chicago
either.

Scroll bars are nicer than before, but still not that great.  It's a
nice look though, and I do like it.
  
> |>  Scroll bars are
> |> proportional, Mac can't touch that without some hacked up program that I
> |> saw, but it also crashed my friend's system.
>  
> This is true. Apple decided not to use these things cuz' it confused
> new users. (according to _Tog_on_Interface_) Id rather have proprotionals,
> but its no big deal. It SHOULD tell you something that you CAN get
> them. Something about how flexible the Macintosh is.
>  
> Extensions are fun. Does OS/2 have such a facility?

There should be a way, considering that you can do it in Windows.  Just
no one really wants to write it I guess.
  
> |> > >Of course, OS/2 has quite a bit of features that MacOS doesn't have:
> |> > >pre-emptive MT, memory protection, multithreading, OO GUI, REXX, etc.
> |> >  
> |> > Ooh.  So, I guess that "threads package" thingie on my Developer's
> |> > CD was just a dream, right?  Just like MacApp, TCL, and all the
> |> > other object-oriented development tools that existed for the Mac
> |> > before the IBM PC world could even say "OOPS."
> |> 
> |> Couldn't touch memory protection could you?
>  
> <poke> Sure I could! [sorry...]
>  
> Actually, he probably could if he used A/UX but this is as bad
> a processor and memory hog as OS/2, and expensive to boot. So its
> not widely used.

Exactly, A/UX is too expensive for the person who's only gonna run his
word processor and spreadsheet, and maybe a shareware game or two.  
  
> However, I at least never said OS/2 didn't have something going
> for it (several somethings in fact)

Mac is getting some of these things to right?  So you're not too far
back, at least not as far as Windows. UGH.
  
> |> Threads?  Maybe you have it, but no one else uses it.  Remember what was
> |> told to us about standards?  THE APPS HAVE TO USE IT TOO!!!!!!!!
>  
> I agree. So where are the OS/2 2.0, WPS apps, eh?

They're coming they're coming.  But don't forget, OS/2 has had thread
since its inception, so 1.x apps will have threads too.  I don't have to
wait for WPS apps for threading.
  
> |> Yeah, but Finder isn't OOPS is it?  It's just a wanna be.  
>  
> I presume you mean "Object Oriented Psomething Ssomething", right?
>  
> The finder isn't internally object oriented. It does behave
> object oriented anyway, but it doens't manage printers (still
> got that ikky chooser), and apps still split off into layers.
>  
> Does pretty good other than that. Of course its still not officially
> "object oriented", but it doesn't seem to me that the internals matter
> so much. (or did you mean something else? It might help if you 
> defined your acronym. Perhaps my responce  was totally irrelevant)

I was just getting technical.  Just to push the arrow in farther. . .
Of course, we're not in battle. . .

Carl Jabido
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy