HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: terryfry@access.digex.com (Terry Fry)
Subject: Re: Os/2ers whine again
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Distribution: world,local
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 03:59:50 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.144716.1@violet.ccit.arizona.edu> f67700241@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin) writes:
>But it would be a ringing indictment of IBM if OS/2 2.0, with a
>year's head-start on NT, got blown away in market share by NT.
>I mean, it isn't behemoth Microsoft against Itty Bitty Machine
>Corp. here.  IBM is the biggest computer company on the planet.
>Am I being asked to "root for General Motors"?

I for one have hated IBM for a long time, they controlled the PC
market with little idea of what they wanted, they made standards
of pathetic systems with no concept of upgradability and MS-DOS
was a stupid move.  Period.

BUT, OS/2 has redeemed them.  Ever since 1.21 its been a fantastic
platform, has improved my entire departments thoughput and abilities
to a point not ever thought possible.  2.0, is rough, and its going to
need a revision or more to become as rhobust as 1.3.2.

Microsoft lost it when I called and was told to call a 900 telephone
number for support (MASM).  That's pathetic, compared to the free
EE upgrades I have received from IBM since 1.21.

>Rest assured, if the bulk of Windows developers feel constrained by
>writing apps for the Win API, they will probably junk it.  I don't
>feel they've reached that point yet.  To a user today (me being a
>sample), Windows apps simply are not THAT inferior to OS/2 apps.  Yet.

Winapps are THAT inferior.  That api is full of holes & headaches,
I don't know how you can do it.
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: X is a hack? (was Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks!)
Date: 27 Aug 92 20:00:37 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Aug27.002214.12477@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>and MSC works much easily under Windows 3.1 than under OS/2 (you
>have to use the OS/2 1.X version and not quite everything's there.)

I don't know.  I installed MSC 6.0 under OS/2, and all of it was
there.  Of course, if you try to run 7.0 under OS/2, much of it will
be useless, but 7.0 isn't an OS/2 compiler.  I don't know what Mr.
Sturgill was missing.

With my installation of MSC 6.0, I got everything except for the font
editor and the dialog editor and the on-line API references.  The 1.2
version of <os2.h> was there, as was the 1.2 version of os2.lib.
Everything you need to write OS/2 16-bit code.  They even include
nmake, lib, exehdr, and rc.  What was missing?  The Windows SDK stuff
(like headers and libraries) was missing, but at the time 6.0 was
sold, you were supposed to buy the SDK for that.

Interesting how MS gave away most of the OS/2 SDK with C 5.1 and 6.0,
only to swap it for the complete Windows SDK (sans printed manuals)
for version 7.0.

-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "I don't even represent myself
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   sometimes so NJIT is right out!.
 ((|,)
  ~|~  Hi! I am a .signature virus, copy me into your .signature file.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 w/o WPS
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 21:38:33 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <4381@drsrv1.hmi.de>  pfr@drsrv1.hmi.de (Fritsch_Wolfgang) writes:
>
> I am all enchanted by this feature of EPM and would like to add a few more
> "shell" lines to choose from. Being not a programmer I would like to do it
> the short way. Could please someone tell me which line I have to add to the
> above set in order to start, say, the OS/2 program e:\emtex\latex.cmd in a
> window, where the current file (the one EPM is editing) is input (for latex.
> cmd)?

I think adding the following to the previous stuff will do it:

 'buildmenuitem default 1990 1998 Latex_this       0 0 rx latexme'

if you create a LatexMe.erx in your path containing:

/* Start an OS/2 session to call LATEX against the current file */
'extract /filename'
'os2 e:\emtex\latex.cmd' filename.1

Actually, a more generic version would be to have the menu command be:
   rx execute e:\emtex\latex.cmd
and have EXECUTE.ERX do:
  /* Start an OS/2 session to the given command against the current file */
  'extract /filename'
  'os2' arg(1) filename.1

Enhancing this to allow plugging the filename in at an arbitrary point in
the command string (perhaps replacing a placeholder) is left as an exercise.
:-)

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: shabby@Athena.MIT.EDU (Chris Shabsin)
Subject: Re: shells
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: comp
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 08:09:00 GMT

Let's see...

oh, there are ways in REXX I'm working on implementing and making PD
(or at least DonationWare) that will let you do all kinds of DOS
Setting stuff with CMD.EXE as your shell, instead of the WPS...  I'm
still considering the best way to do these things, but hopefully I'll
be able to send it out within, say, a month.  It would basically allow
you to create REXX scripts to dynamically attach EA's to a program
file object and then start that program, I'm currently thinking...  

Look for it...

-Chris Shabsin
-shabby@athena.mit.edu
-member, SIPB, PWLCSBHNM, MITMB, VWA, MITCC, PWN
-founder, Gations, Inc.
-"You got the power, you got the might, get ready for battle, beat
	that Black Knight!"
					-Black Knight pinball game...
--
-Chris Shabsin
-sig under construction
From: ameline@vnet.ibm.com (Ian Ameline)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 15:18:09 EDT
Subject: Re: Goddam the Goddam IBM C Set/2 Install!!!!!!!!!
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Organization: C-Set/2 Development, IBM Canada Lab.
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not those of IBM

In article <7221@lib.tmc.edu>,
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>
>In article <l9gnzvm.feustel@netcom.com>,
>feustel@netcom.com (David Feustel) writes:
>>This is a horror story. Type n now if you don't like horror stories
>
>[horror story deleted]
>
>In article <19920830.182331.454@almaden.ibm.com> ameline@vnet.ibm.com (Ian
>Ameline) replies:
>>    Something very weird is going on -- It's not supposed to do that.
>>If you send me your phone number in a note, I'll have the guy who wrote
>>the install program give you a call and try to straighten things out.
>
>...to which I reply:
>
>Yet another example of IBM's support. This is *not* uncommon for the mainframe
>guys; I'm tickled to see that the same culture is shining through in the OS/2
>groups.
>
>Now the advocacy part: I expect to get this from IBM. I don't expect to get it
>from Microsoft. Guess who I buy my PC OSes from?
>
>[Followups directed to .advocacy, where they belong.]
>--
>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.
> "Keep in mind that Amateur Radio As We Know It Today will cease to exist
>            at midnight tonight." -- Dave Newkirk, WJ1Z
>

   We found the problem -- It turned out to be a downlevel version of
unpack.exe on his system. Once it was renamed, everything worked fine.

Regards,
Ian.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks! (was Re: Windows NT 'Alpha')
Date: 26 Aug 92 12:29:35 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <1992Aug26.170708.29552@cgrg.ohio-state.edu> bpowell@osc.edu (Brian Powell) writes:
>Brian Sturgill (brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu) wrote:
>: ...
>: a "real" system.  X is a hack, so no Unix ever really fit the bill.
>: OS/2 2.0 came close, but it is not multi-user enough, and I'm not about
>: ...
>
>X is a hack?  If X11R5 is a hack, it is by far the best, most stable
>and robust hack I've ever seen.  I've NEVER crashed an X11 session on
>my Sun SPARCstation, and I sometimes do some pretty strange things on
>it.  Compared to Windoze, X11 is stability incarnate :-) Even OS/2
>(a very stable PC system, IMHO) can't match the stability of X11.

Windows on DOS is a hack too, though as a GUI it is superior to X11.

X11 does not have the ability to get a list of fonts, most X versions
do not have scalable fonts.  No X has printer, mulitmedia, or pen support.
There is more... see some of my earlier posts.

If you think X11 is stable, then you must only run xterm and apps that came
from Sun.

Brian
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: tdukes@eng.auburn.edu (Todd J Dukes)
Subject: Re: Draw - Word 2.0 OLE
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 17:12:57 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.002214.12477@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>
>W.R.T. Windows my wife would strongly disagree... the 8514 driver
>doesn't support seemless windows, OLE between Draw and Word 2.0 doesn't
>work, and things were generally slow (this on a 486SX with 8 megs, she

I have used OLE with Draw and Word 2.0 quite a bit and only had trouble 
when I migrated. I called microsoft and they said to install Word again but
to only install the Draw part. It has worked fine ever since.

Todd Dukes
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2's Future
From: Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 11:26:47 GMT
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange

In article <1992Aug27.124931.17710@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
> 
> >Interesting echoes of MS strategy with WIN NT and CAIRO, except 
> >that OS/2 substitutes for Windows and CAIRO is not currently 
> >projected to be added to DOS (at least the rumors I read a while 
> >back).
> 
> Now their talking... OS/2 has a lead over Microsoft in this area... I'm
> glad to hear they're going to exploit it.  Now the big question is
> why do I, someone on IBM's developer mailing lists, need to find this
> out from USENET?  Also, why didn't the trade press report this?
> Hmmm maybe they don't believe it yet... in fairness they don't say much
> about Cairo either.  Oh, well at least things are looking up.

Why on USENET? I think USENET is acting as a sort of fast-acting information
short-circuit between otherwise disparate groups and competing interests.
 
USENET is common ground - and easily accessed by users. IBM's internal forums
are.....internal. So would MS's be - no doubt - if they exist. But USENET is
where the employees of these compnanies  (and others.....) meet and mingle
with the people who actually use thier products ON A GLOBAL SCALE.

I think USENET is unique. I frequently gain information from USENET on a whole
range of topics that takes a good while longer to "trickle down" through the
more usual channels.
 
Given the nature of USENET, finding things out here first is likely to become
the norm rather than the exception - if this is not already the case.
 
Welcome to the future.
 
Steve

 
-- 
Steve Withers - Wellington, New Zealand | End the two-party duopoly. Vote 
Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz         | for the Mixed-Member Proportional 
withers_s@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz            | (MMP) voting system on Sept. 19th. 
**** Happy user of OS/2 v2!! ****       | Give yourself a vote that *counts*!
From: eletanjm@nuscc.nus.sg (TAN JIN MENG)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.3
Date: 3 Sep 92 02:38:14 GMT
Organization: National University of Singapore

aci10@eng.cam.ac.uk (A.C. Innes) writes:
: In article <1992Sep1.222800.17703@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
: >
: >OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.3
: [ A feature of NT that is lacking in OS/2 ]
: >#	Asynchronous I/O
: >		OS/2 1.X had this feature but for unexplained
: >		reasons dropped it in 2.0.  While you can do it
: >		with threads, you can also multi-task in DOS...
: >		all you have to do is write the code that intercepts
: >		the timer interrupt and swaps the processes.
: >		Apparently the 16-bit API DosReadAsynch, DosWriteAsynch
: >		still exist in thunked form.
: >		Deitel and Kogan don't mention them... anybody
: >		know why they're being phased out?
: 
: This is neither a flame nor a correction, but rather a simple request
: for information.  Could you (anyone) please give an example or
: explanation as to why asynchronous I/O is "better" (easier to use,
: more efficient, whatever) than using synchronous I/O in a separate
: thread?  Perhaps I simply misunderstand the reasons for wanting to do
: async i/o, but why would it not be just as easy (or easier) to spawn a
: separate thread to handle "background" writes or reads as to set up
: signal handlers to respond to read/write completion events (presumably
: by initiating more async read/writes)?  In other words, isn't async
: i/o something that was provided to make up for the lack of
: multi-threading, at least for one particularly useful application of
: threads?

I agree that async IO is not necessarily better [as opposed to one
thread per I/O for eg.]. 

1) For a system with cheap threads, memory overhead may not be that high
( even for 100 threads or whatever). In any case, memory is cheap and
getting cheaper. System board memory is doubling every few years.

2) You can have different priority for each I/O. eg. in a file server,
each file I/O request can have a priority based on the requesting
client's priority (passed in the request).

3) Out of band messaging/event signalling has [potentially] better
response. Potentially better fault tolerence too.

4) System design for a server that is intrinsically multithreaded in
concept is much easier to design and potentially less buggy.

5) Error reporting and handling is easier to design, code and debug
[probably] also.

: 
: Any insight would be appreciated.
: 
: --
: Andrew Innes (aci10@eng.cam.ac.uk)
: Engineering Dept.
: Cambridge University
: Cambridge, England.

jin meng
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Brian, your bias is showing ( was Re: OS/2 vs NT features
Date: 3 Sep 92 12:30:18 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Sep02.184426.28244@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>>	All but 60K kernel is pageable. (Microkernel design)
>>
>>So will installable file system code be pagable?
>
>      I really, really like this question.  :-)
>      I can't answer it, but it did give me grins.  Of course,
>IFS code isn't technically part of the kernel, is it?

The IFS code may well be pageable.  But it'll probably never get paged
out anyway, since it is necessary for so many critical features (quite
probably for the paging process!) that something else will get paged
out first.
-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "TELEPHONE, n.  An Invention of the devil which
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   abrogates some of the advantages of making a
 ((|,)                          disagreeable person keep his distance."
  ~|~                              --- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
From: bjorn@ludd.luth.se (Bjorn Fahller)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Os/2ers whine again
Date: 26 Aug 92 19:57:22 GMT
Organization: Lule} H|gskolas datorf|rening ( Ludd )

In <1992Aug26.190732.18244@tamsun.tamu.edu> bdubbs@cs.tamu.edu (Bruce Dubbs) writes:

>In article <1992Aug26.091123.1@violet.ccit.arizona.edu> f67700241@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin) writes:
>>In article <92239.084655TURGUT@FRMOP11.BITNET>, Turgut Kalfaoglu <TURGUT@FRMOP11.BITNET> writes:
>>> Phil: If Microsoft is not responsible for dropping OS/2, and is
>>> not responsible for my personal loss of $1000 for purchasing two
>>> of their dud compilers (I thought they would continue supporting
>>> OS/2 when I bought them), who is?
>>
>>Well, you are.  You gambled $1000 on the (remote) possibility of a 
>>successful OS/2 1.x.  The rest of us hoarded it until MS Windows came 
>>along.  Don't blame MS for the choices of a free market.
>>
>You're kidding right?  In 1987-1988 MS was hyping OS/2 almost as hard
>as they're pushing NT now.  They said (correctly) that the
>capabilities of OS/2 would far exceed MS-DOS.  20/20 hindsight says
>that OS/2 1.x was not successful.  When people listened to MS then,
>they were encourged to buy $3000 SDKs for OS/2 and windows was some
>secondary project.  Don't blame MS for someone believing what they
>actually said?  Why do you think so many experienced people wnat to
>get away from MS dominated systems?

What I guess he's trying to say is that Microsoft is not responsible
for being unreliable, but their customers are responsible for believing
that they were reliable. I guess one can see it that way if one wants
to, but I don't. Just imagine generalizing that to for example crime?
"Put the bank clerk in jail, he's guilty of having been robbed!"

>    -- Bruce

>--
>Bruce Dubbs                   |  Oxymorons of note:
>bdubbs@neuron.tamu.edu        |  Honest Politician, Political Science,
>bdubbs@sadis01.sa.aflc.af.mil |  Scrupulous Lawyer

				  Add "militay intelligence"

   _
/Bjorn.
-- 
Bjorn Fahller     Phone:              |The opinions above are not necessarily
Trollnasvagen 3A  Intl:+46 920 226870 |those of... Hey! Wait a minute. Do you
S-951 61 Lulea    Natl:0920-22 68 70  |seriously expect Me, a student, to carry
Sweden            << space for rent >>|the official voice of the University?
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: db3l@ans.net (David Bolen)
Subject: Re: ICC optimizes out tail-recursion!
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 17:24:23 GMT
	<1992Sep03.175310.21377@microsoft.com>
Organization: Advanced Network & Services, Inc. - Elmsford, NY

In article <1992Sep03.175310.21377@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:

>     The idea of relying on the compiler to clean up bad programming
>practices is really not one that any sane person should be considering.

Since when has the idea of recursion been a bad programming practice?  There
are a good number of algorithms that are either very elegant, or best to
implement using recursion.  The fact that most people code out the recursion
is due more to the real-world necessity of how expensive recursion can become
on many modern architectures as opposed to the fact that it is bad code.

>                         (...)                            Even if
>you plan on using OS/2 (ah - managed to slip in some OS/2 content)
>for years and years, _eventually_ you'll move on to something else,
>and will probably want to take your code with you.

Well, assuming that I have a purpose for the recursion, why not write the
code the "right" way, and then later if I have to move to a platform that
can't handle it, take care of reworking the recursion.  Why pay the penalty
for an "inferior" environment now when I don't need to?

And it's not definite that the code won't work - other platforms may have
larger (or fully growable) stack space, or may also optimize out the
recursion.

One can argue that in order to be the most portable, it should be recoded now,
and that may well be true (unfortunately, coding to the least common
denominator makes some things very difficult), But I think the original
poster's point about it being reasonable to implement a lisp system (heavy in
recursion) without working very hard under OS/2 is still quite valid.

For example - I've got a recursive descent parser I coded a while back to
use as an expression evaluator.  It's very portable code, but under DOS
may run into stack limitations for very complicated expressions.  I'd
rather have the compiler or OS properly handle my recursion (or in the case
we are talking about optimize it out) rather than having to change the
algorithm used in the code.

--
-- David
--
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------\
 \              David Bolen             \  Internet: db3l@ans.net      /
  |   Advanced Network & Services, Inc.   \   Phone: (914) 789-5327   |
 / 100 Clearbrook Road, Elmsford, NY 10523  \   Fax: (914) 789-5310    \
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------/
From: "bill dehaan" <bill.dehaan@canrem.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: csds
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:36:13 EST
Reply-To: "bill dehaan" <bill.dehaan@canrem.com>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Canada Remote Systems

In message <1992Aug21.185918.8835@njitgw.njit.edu>,
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:

DC>It's a great design, but it was pushed out the door in order to meet
DC>the much-published deadline.  It would have been much worse for IBM if
DC>they slipped the release date.  I'll be very upset if these things
DC>aren't fixed in the update pack, since they claim it will fix these
DC>bugs, and there is no release date other than "fall" for these patches.

Actually, the much  ballyhood CSD has  _never_ been formally  announced.
IBM has not committed to anything. So although everyone from Reiswig  on
down can talk about the fall  CSD, it's about as meaningful as  the June
CSD that they all talked about - it will be nice if they make it, but it
was never committed to.

----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
Deus Ex Machina                   | Internet:   bill.dehaan@rose.com
Software Consulting and Gator Pit | Eradicate Hunger - Eat the homeless
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Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: IS IBM UK STILL IN THE STONE AGE???
Reply-To: sip1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 04:16:20 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.103539.29202@donau.et.tudelft.nl> linstee@dutecaj.et.tudelft.nl (Erik van Linstee) writes:
>>First let me say that I agree with you, that IBM's OS/2 2.0 should
>>support Hercules.  LAN servers, for example, don't really need color
>>monitors.
>>However, in my original reply I did point out that the remedy is as
>>little as $25 away, which is not likely to break anyone's bank
>>account.
>Not to put too fine a point on it but $25 for a video card doesn't cut it,
>you still need a monitor to go with it.

No, that is not correct.  I refer you to my original reply to the
person asking about Hercules support under OS/2.

(Hint: get an ATI EGA Wonder or Paradise Monochrome EGA card.)

-- 
Timothy F. Sipples      | The OS/2 FREQ. ASKED QUESTIONS LIST is avail. from
sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu | 128.123.35.151, anonymous ftp, in /pub/os2/all/faq.
Dept. of Econ., Univ.   | Or from LISTSERV@BLEKUL11.BITNET (send "HELP").
of Chicago, 60637       | Clinton's Arkansas: 49th in Per Capita Tax Burden