From: jws@iastate.edu (James William Shoemaker)
Subject: Re: Here's some Advocacy for you.
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:24:42 GMT

>>>        Yeah, great.  That's what I call *real* efficient programming.
>>>        You must be kidding.  4 megs for a shell and an OS?  What a joke.
>>       I agree, 6 Megs for a shell and an OS? What a joke. (Based on Msoft's
>>claim of 8Meg==2 left over for Apps)

>        (That includes networking)

>        Even so, I do agree.  I think *both* of them are pigs.  
>        Just because NT is a slightly bigger pig, does that make
>        OS/2 less obese?  NT weighs in at 600 pounds, OS/2 at
>        400--is there really any difference there?  

	Yes, there is.  OS/2 Will currently fit in the machine I use and own
NT would take a $560 invenstment to get comfortable on the same machine (at
the $139 price I am currently being quoted for 4M/9 60's)

>>    OK, How do you explain that NT will unseat UNIX on these same platforms


>        Who said NT would unseat UNIX?  MS, in that regard, is out of their
>        gourd.  OTOH, not all MIPS, Alpha and Clipper machines will
>        necessarily be UNIX machines--what's the 486 running in lots of
>        1000, $400?  Do you have any idea what the new SPARC from 
>        TI runs in similiar quantities?  How about the PA RISC?  
>        The Alpha?  The only thing preventing very fast, very cheap 
>        power in the PC world right now is the need to have applications
>        to run on the platform--the problem that killed any number of
>        technically superior PC's (NeXT [Cube--not '030], Amiga, Acorn 
>        [to a limited extent], etc).  If applications weren't important,
>        we wouldn't be using Intel based PC's.  The R4400 is 
>        much better in terms of bang-for-the-buck, and NT licenses
>        these platforms by virtue of delivering, along with the 
>        NT kernel, a slew of applications.
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	From Where??????????

>        I don't think it takes a great stretch of the imagination
>        to imagine a point--in the near future--where you can purchase
>        a nice R4400 based PC (single processor, 16 megs of ram, video,
>        etc) for about the same price as a high-end brand-name PC
>        clone--and dropping from there.  NT has been demoed on MIPS.

	And OS/2 on POWER.

>        If anything, this *alone* gives NT and OS/2MACH a good reason
>        for existance.  How much do you think the pentium is going to 
>        run when released?  >$1000, chances are (at first).  

	Around the same price as the inital offerings of the 486 CPU.

>        We've been arguing SMP for awhile now, but I think that all
>        sides of that argument can agree that next to the possibility
>        of these very fast chips finally becoming available to the
>        end user (end users do not run UNIX, period) is more important,
>        in the short term, than SMP.  

	Moving to a new platform would be fine with me, except for the reason
I am running OS/2 instead of UNIX: APPS.  I require the ability to run Intel
apps.  In fact OS/2 gives me better ability to run DOS apps.  I have several
apps that do not work under newer versions of DOS (Setver doesn't help) and
With OS/2 I can boot the version they require.  Can NT do that?  on MIPS?

	NT on MIPS may be successfull, but it won't replace INTEL machines
for the same reason very few people changes to OS/2 1.2 Inability to run 
existing DOS apps.  Your arguement against NEXT..... can be used against
NT on MIPS.  Sure a simple re-compile of the code will work just fine
from INTEL to MIPS.  At work we have code that won't go from SPARC 1 to
SPARC 2.  Also, I agree this will be minor but I think it will be significant
Will ALL software developing houses want to go out and buy $????? MIPS 
machines to develop for this splinter sliver of a market.  Even if they 
can cross-compile from INTEL to MIPS they will still need to have machines for
testing, integration, support.........

>        People are always babbling about how cheap the Intel-based
>        PC world is (there are budget 486 boxes for <$1000 selling 
>        local, now--three months ago these were SX systems), but what
>        they don't realize is that it's scale and competition--almost
>        0 profit motherboards and pricing as low as they can pull it.  
>        Used to be you could put a system together cheaper than you
>        could buy, but these days I wonder if that's true anymore--
>        a friend picked up a 486 motherboard for ~$300 at a swap
>        meet the other day, but that's pretty rare these days.  

	Yep, What is your point?

>        <Wish someone would do *something* about monitor prices, which
>        are either staying stable, or going up (better monitor for new
>        standard resolution)>

	Actually they are dropping a 17 is substantially lower than it was
2 years ago.

>>      Show me the 32-bit motherboard that can take RAM 24-bits wide.  Almost
>>all 386 and higher motherboards must be filles 4-SIMMs at a time.

>        I retract the statement, but I submit that it's rather pointless--
>        machines selling now, that will run NT--it's foolish to purchase
>        with less than 16 megs if you're going to choose OS/2 *or* 
>        NT--the difference in system price is ~$300.  

	Most OS/2 Sales do not involve a new Machine.  They involve someone
who is disgusted with the Abilities of the currently available options:
DOS+Win, Desqview on their 486 PC's.  NT will have more trouble selling to
those same users with its current requirements.


				JWS
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy