From: mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas)
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000/Atari Falcon
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 23:17:32 GMT
Organization: StarNine Technologies, Inc.

In article <1992Aug11.185853.22855@ctr.columbia.edu> jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>jmt@sactoh0.sac.ca.us (Jon M. Taylor) writes:
>>>
>>> Most Amiga users are totally ignorant of IBM's OS2 2.0.
>>>
>>Well, I do, and in my opinion it is a nice-looking, slick piece of *SHIT*.
>>I'm running it on a 486SX/25 with 8 megs of RAM and a fast ~200 meg hd,
>>and here are some things I've noticed:
>> 
>>     1.  It's tar-slow at multitasking DOS apps.  I tried to run jut TWO 
>>dos apps at the same time (WordPerfect 5.1 and Procomm downloading at a
>>measly 1200 bps), and it would take ~5 seconds for typed text to show up
>>in WP.
>> 
>
>That's funny.  I run it at work on a 20MHz 386 (PS/2 80), and it's damn fast.
>With Procomm downloading at 2400 bps in the background, characters typed in a
>DOS text editor appear instantaneously.

Big deal.  An Amiga 500 does the same.  How about with a ray trace
happening in the background?

>>
>>     2.  It's eminintly (sp?) crashable.  I've brought down the WPS doing
>>lots of different things, one time to the point that the system refused to
>>boot and I had to reinstall half the fucking system.
>> 
>
>The WPS is buggy, but this is a first release.  Ever see AmigaDOS before
>1.3?  It crashed every time the wind blew in Chicago.

1.3 didn't add much over 1.2... autobooting enhancements mainly.

And 1.2 - 1.3 was relatively stable.  Many used it successfully for years.
How do you think all the products were developed before 2.0?  Yep, 2.0
is better, but as far as stability, 1.2/1.3 wasn't that bad.

AND... OS/2 has the might of IBM behind it.  Still can't get the
bugs out, eh?

>
>>
>>     3.  It's command-line system seems to be an almost exact clone of
>>MS-DOS, except maybe for some extra commands.  You'd think that for as
>>much effort as IBM put into the WPS, thay could have at least made their
>>CLI a little more powerful.  It still uses that crappy old drive-letter
>>naming system, also.
>
>DOS compatibility was a design goal for OS/2.

'nuff said.

>>
>>Even if it gets reworked and recoded (it's ridiculous that OS/2
>>needs a machine with as much power as it does to even function barely
>>adequately),
>>
>
>And how much of a machine do you need to run UNIX with X11?  Sun decided
>that the 680x0 line was not fast enough, and sells most of its Sparcstations
>with at least 32MB RAM.  What about Mac System 7?  It's a joke on anything
>less than a IIci w/8MB RAM.

System 7 is a joke anytime.  bigtime.  quicktime.

>Don't compare OS/2 2.0 to AmigaDOS -- AmigaDOS
>isn't even close in terms of functionality,

Of course it is... pre-emptive multitasking, GUI based system.  Probably
better than OS/2 in real-time response.  Addresses 1.8 GIG of memory.
Multi-media capable... make that natural.  Less buggy (by your own
admission above... YOU compared it to pre-1.3 AmigaDOS).  Full
Command-Line capability (WITHOUT the great "design goal" of being
DOS compatible).

Actually, DOS capability (including Windows :-() is only an emulator
or BridgeBoard away (for the masochists in the crowd).

Auto-configuration for peripherals.  Graphics, mouse support, CLI
can support multi-user via AUX: device.  Shared libraries.  Resident
commands.  Many shells available.


Lessee... OS/2 has VM & MP.  

>so it shouldn't take Sherlock
>Homes to figure out that it requires less hardware.

Yeah.  I have both 2.04 AND 1.3 installed on my hard disk in less than
8 meg (my 2.04 partition is 6 meg and has 3 meg free).

From what I understand, OS/2 needs something over 30 meg, minimum?
'Zat right?
>
>>
>>even if all of the bugs get worked out, and even if it
>>becomes better and more powrerful in the future, it still *HAS TO RUN ON
>>INTEL-BASED PC'S*, and _that_ is what's gonna hamstring it.
>>
>
>More bullshit .advocacy whining.  Intel-based PC's now have cheap EISA,
>blazing fast local-bus video, inexpensive sound cards, and more support than
>you could shake an A500 power cord at.

All kludged in.  All Intel byte-swapped garbage.  Specialized CPU registers
(how many general purpose ones?).  No sound or video-support out of the
box.

Recently, I had to change some hardware in my PC at work.  What a pain!

Lessee... My DOS 5.0 only installs from drive A:.  But it came on
3.5" disks!  And I've got 5.25"!  Got to install a 3.5"...oops...
have to make it A:, so I have to switch floppy cables.  Oh yeah,
don't forget to run config at boot up, so I can tell DOS what I did.
(can't figure ANYTHING out on it's own, eh?).

I had to replace a hard drive once.  Got stuck cause I didn't know 
the "drive type" of the new HD.  Had to find another PC that had the
same kind (don't think THAT wasn't fun) to get this value.  The magic
number turned out to be... 47!  (Hmmm... close to the answer to the
univers in Hitch-hikers Guide!).  (can't figure ANYTHING out on it's
own, eh?)

So you can keep your cheap EISA, IDE and all the other crap.  I'll
take my Amiga 3000 SCSI2 anyday.  It even tells me what kind of
drives, sizes, manufacturers of Mac hard drives.  I have yet to
install a single driver in my A3000, and I had one of the first.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy