From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Ian's Outlook on OS'es
Date: 27 Sep 92 22:31:53 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <279@mindlink.bc.ca>, Ian_Upright@mindlink.bc.ca (Ian Upright) writes
:
>
>Ian's outlook on OS'es and OS/2:
>
>MS-DOS:
>
>   It's character based apps are hard to learn, awkward, archaic, and on a
>   486-50 shockingly fast.  A good quality DOS app is still popular, why?
>   Because for the most part, it does what you want it to do, does it fast,
>   and works with most of your existing hardware & products.   Whats the
>   catch?  It does what you don't want it to do.. You have to bend over
>   backwords to do anything really neat, it's stuck in 16 bit and 32 bit yuk
>   and somewhere swapping inbetween, and just isn't easy..  For a user that
>   does a variety of things, and intermixes many applications, its simple
>   hell.  For a user that uses PC-Write and types a small letter once a month,
>   why use a 40 meg os & a machine that costs 3 times as much to do the same
>   thing??

No arguement here.
>
>MS-Windows:
>
>   It gets rid of some of the uneasyness factors.  Although, it still isn't
>   an easy OS, especially if you're into editing your WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI
>   files, when all you've used is a microwave.  It's quite useable on a 486-50,
>   and a S3 video card, and has lots of apps.  486's are dropping in price,
>   and Windows 3.1 will still be popular for some time. Why?  Lots of apps.
>   Over 3 years of good quality apps anyways.  Why not use it?  It's a kludge.
>   An it's amazing it really works.  It's not full 32-bit, and lacks the
>   reliabilty & stability of a more solid enviroment.  It's ugly.  It's
>   architecture is far from ingenious.  Would you put your trust in a company
>   who first couldn't see that a file dialog box is used in nearly every
>   application, and therefore should be a part of the system??   That's gotta
>   be beyond blind, beyond the blatently obvoious.
>
Or here.

>The Mac:
>
>   Although it is deeply hated from many high-schoolers using some crappy
>   Mac Plus with 40 users on a 250k network, System 7 on a decent Mac machine
>   is really good, and things are definitely picking up for Apple..
>   It's still by far, the easiest & most complete GUI around (contrary to
>   popular belief do to many pig-headed people) Unfortunately, "Third-Party"
>   is what makes the world go around, and Apple doesn't have one. (yet,
>   although IBM is beginning to become a companion)  The world is INTEL based,
>   and System 7 for Intel machines to my knowlege isn't available. :)
>
Or here.

>OS/2:
>
>   It's definitely a step up above Win 3.1.  It is full 32-bit, and right
>   now the closest thing to System 7 on the Intel machines.  In several
>   respects, it's better than System 7.  It has DLL's, it has a command
>   line for the MS-DOS techies, and it's better at multitasking and
>   doing repetitive tasks & scripting with REXX & the like.  Curretnly,
>   it lacks a peer network, namely Lantastic, but that's soon to change.
>   Inexpensive networking will be a requirement of the future.
>
Got one here.  There are peer to peer networks availlable.  Netware Lite for
one.  Granted, I haven't seen one as good as Lantastic, but they are
availlable.

>   Currently it lacks sound drivers into the system.  Who cares about
>   integrated multimedia & graphics. Thats a whole different bag.  Most
>   people don't need it.  The two top GUI's do come with sound support:
>   System 7 and Win 3.1.  If IBM doesn't see sound drivers & multimedia
>   as two seperate things.. IBM's in trouble..  I'm sure a third party
>   would develop a new standard sound driver, possibly shareware, and
>   complicate things all the more.  Thus the more complicated, the
>   more pathetic the enviroment. IBM should just get with the program, like
>   the other two top GUI's and include sound driver support in the standard
>   release, pronto!   Unlike Windows, OS/2 is pretty..  Why put in the
>   bell and leave out the whistle?
>
Very good point.  One thing, the new beta appears to have drivers for Win 3.1
multimedia.  I don't have a sound card so I can't comment too much, but there
does appear to be at least Windows sound support now.

>   Curretnly, it lacks a useable shell..  WPS is fine, but it is just too
>   slow to be readily useable.  For moving files around, I like to use
>   a SHAREWARE product more than I like to use the WPS.  It just doesn't
>   compare in speed to System 7's shell.  If Apple can do it well on a
>   68000 286-quality computer, surely IBM should be able to get it even
>   useable on a 486-50!!  IBM needs to again, take a good hard look at the
>   things that work well in this world, like System 7.  If IBM doesn't
>   provide a quality shell like ND, I'm sure someone else will.. But WHY
>   BOTHER confusing the world with some using WPS, some using ND, some using
>   some other shareware product and the like!  It would be far easier if we
>   could all just standardize on a good useable shell made by IBM.  There
>   isn't any other successful Mac finder replacements, because simply, there's
>   no need for one.  Unfortunately, I can't concieve IBM completely revamping
>   it's shell, so OS/2 is already going to be damaged by having multiple
>   shells. :(

I vehemently disagree here.  I find the WPS to be a quite usable, good,
intuitive shell.  Heck the WPS is much more useful (IMO)than NDW.  You are getting
a bit carried away with personal preferences.  IBM has done nothing damaging
whatsoever.  There really isn't any need for another shell.  The reason that
no one has come up with a finder replacement is that Apple would sue the pants
off anyone who tried.  (Until recently that is)  The reason that there is a
market for third party shells for Windows, is that the Windows shell is such a
pain that is becomes almost unusable.
>
>   The nice thing about OS/2 is that it's still a lower level enviorment.
>   It's much like System 7, not extremely portable, but yet unleashes
>   the power to the programmer, and yet retaining it's flexability.
>   Because it's not engineered to be extremely portable, it's not a big
>   hog.  IBM doesn't see it that way.. IBM sees it as oh..  We're not
>   portable..    For the most part, most people couldn't give two
>   squats if their Lotus 123 runs on some $10,000 RISC machine.  That's
>   nice.. But I surely hope the moron who thinks he really needs to run
>   123 on his RISC processor would slap himself in the face and buy a
>   486-50, which would probably do the job just as well.  Meanwhile
>   compromising 500% efficiency in being portable.  A "SUPER-SERVER"
>   on some RISC machine might as well be partly hand coded in machine
>   language anyway.  It's not such a big deal.  With aids like zApp and the
>   like, lets leave the porting to the programmer, and not sacrifice too
>   much to the user.
Ahh, but it has been engineered to be portable.  That is one reason why much
of it has been done in C.  IBM looks like they plan to port it sooner or
later.  I have even heard something about then combining it with AIX.
(Whether this is good or not, I'll leave to you)  Being portable doesn't
necissarily mean a loss of 500% efficency.  It will only do so if it isn't a
well thought out system.
>
>   I don't see the difference..  Do you see the difference?  Price is the
>   difference.  For the most part, people will buy the Raw OS/2.  If it
>   doesn't have sound support, they'll get it some other way.. If it doesn't
>   have network support, they'll get it some other way.. (Lantastic, etc.)
>   And probably for a better price too.  If IBM really wanted to lay the
>   law down, and include networking & multimedia for basically the same
>   price, it would stomp down pretty badly over Microsoft, even given
>   its problems listed above.

Come on.  MS has too much marketing muscle for that.  A lot of people really
still don't know anything about OS/2 and thus will listen to anything MS tells
them about it.
>
>Windows NT:
>
>   Where is it?  It's still not here.. And when it comes, its going to
>   be a very big hog.  But a very portable hog it will be.  5 years down
>   the road it will be very useable on cheap RISC machines with 64 megs.
>   When it gets released?  The later the better.  Then we can afford
>   the processing power to use it.  How much is NT going to cost us?
>   Surely not a $49 upgrade.  So what do we get, everything we want?
>   Probably.  We'd get the sound support, the networking, a little better
>   enviorment in some ways, some more unix style power, and we'd all need
>   a nice P5 or RISC to run it smoothly.  I'm sure thats why microsoft
>   is so certain it has to be completely portable.  But for Joe, the
>   123 user, he doesn't need a RISC when a 486-50 running another
>   OS does the same job.  (maybe even, arhh. Win 3.1!)  Nobody wants to
>   upgrade their computer incredibly to support an OS that is inneficient
>   and you end up with the same thing.  What's the point?  NT will be
>   a portable server platform, and 5 years down the road, a very useable
>   enviroment with lots of apps.  NT will not be a viable platform of
>   choice in the near future for most people, but down the road it COULD
>   be.  Much is still to be known about this enviroment, and only time
>   will tell on how dog slow it really is.  If NT turns out to be nearly
>   as fast as OS/2, it may be a close race. (assuming IBM cleans up some
>   of the earlier mentioned problems)

I think you are pumping out FUD about NT, but I'm sure there are others who
are much more enthusiastic supporters of NT who will be much more willing to
blast you on this.
>


Stacy John Behrens
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