HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 and NT -- from a user(?) perspective
Date: 27 Aug 92 18:00:57 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <BtMv54.8ur@lut.fi> jahonen@lut.fi (Jarmo Ahonen) writes:
>1) be stable enough to allow useful work to be done. 
>2) have enough capabilities to allow productive work during even 
>   when other things are done, i.e. multitasking (but not like in
>   Windows which seems to have problems with it :-( )
>3) HAVE USEFUL APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE. (this is the most important part)
>
>Currently, I regret to say, neither OS/2 or NT fulfill these requirements.
>OS/2 does, however, have some programming languages etc already, and
>those tools are good enough to be given to our users. To 
>me NT does not exist, but OS/2 does (although it seems to be
>buggy). So, if I have to buy something something NOW, there seems to be no
>alternative to OS/2. Or can I get NT with SmallTalk from somewhere
>and let our departments use it? (I can do it with OS/2, however)

OS/2 1.3 is rock-stable if you remove DOS compatibility from it.  And
SmallTalk-V is available for it as well.  You can also get PM-Word
1.1, and PM-Excel 3.0 for your mundane computing tasks.

You can still get version 1.3 fro IBM, although I don't know what the
price is.  And it will run on your '286 computers (after giving them
6MB of memory).
-- 
   |)  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.
From: feustel@netcom.com (David Feustel)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks! (was Re: Windows NT 'Alpha')
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:46:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.c8an=xf.feustel
Organization: DAFCO: OS/2 Software Support & Consulting

I 've purchasedd a number of software development toolkits from Microsoft
and I've never failed to find after receiving the kit that some
significant deficiency or additional requirement was included that
made the kit much harder to use than the advertising blurbs indicated.
-- 
Dave Feustel N9MYI <feustel@netcom.com>
 
Given Civil Seizure, from the DEA's point of view, winning the War on
Drugs would be killing the Goose that lays golden eggs.

The Drug War is a government-sponsored, taxpayer-financed,
full-employment program for psycho/socio-paths, wannabees and
gonnabees.

It's not surprising that the Republican Administration has done
nothing to stop the "ethnic cleansing" going on in Yugoslavia. Ethnic,
political and religious cleansing is an implicit plank of the
Republican platform.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: richk@grebyn.com (Richard Krehbiel)
Subject: Re: X is a hack?
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 21:25:34 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.095754.8705@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>You're right in the sense that X was intended not as a GUI, but a base
>for a GUI.  It falls short here too.  Why can't I get a list of fonts,

The command "xlsfonts" will print a list of available fonts.  X
applications may query the X server to obtain a list of fonts.

>why is there no printer support?

Why is printer support necessarily a GUI feature?  The Mac system,
Windows, etc. are more than just GUIs.  Printer support is simply not
within the domain of X.  I take it you're saying it should be.
-- 
Richard Krehbiel                                 richk@grebyn.com
OS/2 2.0 will do for me until AmigaDOS for the 386 comes along...
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: MLONG@isucard.card.iastate.edu
Subject: Re: win-os/2 tweaks
Organization: CARD
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 14:20:54 GMT

In article <1992Sep1.183730.42709@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>                           
thompson@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:                                             
                                                                                
>In article <16855D0D7.MLONG@isucard.card.iastate.edu>, MLONG@isucard.card.iasta
>> In article <1992Sep1.153905.17566@news.iastate.edu>                          
>> TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu (Timothy I Miller) writes:                         
>> Nice to see another Iowa State'er out here.  Answer to #1 is that WINOS2 only
>> uses DPMI, not EMS or XMS.  So you want to have these small so that OS/2 does
>> not try to allocate this memory which is not needed.                         
>> Mike Long                                                                    
>> Iowa State University                                                        
>> CARD / Economics                                                             
>A question.  If Win-OS/2 only uses DPMI memory, why do you need to             
>set the XMS memory limit to 64k?  Why not 0k?  Is the 64k for DOS?             
>                                                                               
>--                                                                             
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>|  Charles A. Thompson               |  thompson@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu         | 
>|  University of Kansas              |  thompson@ukanvax.cc.ukans.edu        | 
>|  _Avid_ SkiBum                     |  OS/2 2.0 is for YOU!!!               | 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>|  Look for Recipe Pro(tm), an interactive recipe database, coming soon...   | 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>                                                                               
I think that the 64K is either so you can load DOS high in the HMA area, or so  
that WINOS2 has a 64K area to do some swapping or slush space between its con   
ventional memory and the non-conventional memory.  I could be wrong, but I thin 
k it is mostly for DOS to go high.                                              
Mike Long                                                                       
Iowa State University                                                           
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: drxmann@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Dustin R. Christmann)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Inside OS/2
Date: 2 Sep 92 03:09:49 GMT
Reply-To: drxmann@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Dustin R. Christmann)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Originator: drxmann@dewey.cc.utexas.edu

Hey, kids!  Guess what I bought today.  _Inside OS/2_ by your favorite reader
and poster on c.o.o.a and mine, Gordon Letwin.

I have only read a few pages of it so far, but it looks like a pretty good
read.  What's more, it has really neat picture of Gordon on the front (or is
it a member of ZZ Top?).  If you really want to dazzle people at cocktail par-
ties with your knowledge of OS/2, get your hands on this book.

Waiting for the inevitable brickbats for giving $$$ to MS Press and Gordon Let-
win...  :-)
-- 
Thanx,			|   Team OS/2	| Internet: drxmann@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Dustin R. Christmann	| (I was there) | Bitnet: DRXMANN@UTXVM
  Editor-in-chief of the ARAPOUT: All the news that is fit to print...NOT!
	Alpha Rho Chapter - Alpha Phi Omega - The University of Texas
"My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60.  She's 93 to-
day -- and we don't know where the hell she is."	-- Ellen DeGeneres
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: richk@grebyn.com (Richard Krehbiel)
Subject: Re: X is a hack?
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 12:16:27 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.174255.2025@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.212534.27425@grebyn.com> richk@grebyn.com (Richard Krehbiel) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug27.095754.8705@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>>You're right in the sense that X was intended not as a GUI, but a base
>>>for a GUI.  It falls short here too.  Why can't I get a list of fonts,
>>
>>The command "xlsfonts" will print a list of available fonts.  X
>>applications may query the X server to obtain a list of fonts.
>
>Name the call that one can use in X that makes it so that a Wordprocessor
>can get a list of fonts suitable for the creation of a "Font" menu.
>"xlsfonts" simply gives you a list of font filenames.
>
>Any X app you have that gives you a font list has "rolled it's own".
>Even X11R5 has not fixed this (when I went to USENIX this summer,
>I took a tutorial that was taught by a guy from the X consortium,
>I asked him this specifically, so I feel certain of my facts.).

In my Xlib reference here it shows the function calls XListFonts and
XListFontsWithInfo.  I don't know why these aren't the function calls
you're asking for.

>>>why is there no printer support?
>>
>>Why is printer support necessarily a GUI feature?  The Mac system,
>>Windows, etc. are more than just GUIs.  Printer support is simply not
>>within the domain of X.  I take it you're saying it should be.
>
>Ah... I see, X defines GUI, not Macintosh, Windows, Xerox or others that
>came before X.  One of the original major purposes of GUI was to do WYSIWYG
>software.  Printer support is essential if you want to do WYSIWYG.

I was thinking that GUI defined itself, more or less, as a "Graphical
User Interface".  But I realize now my fallacy; software systems are
never quite so easily defined.

>In a modern sense, sound support should be included as a part of a GUI
>too. To the best of my knowledge X is the only modern GUI that does not
>define sound support.

Prior to the Windows multimedia extensions, sound in X was defined as
well as in Windows.  You get to say "beep", and you can alter the
period, duration, and volume (though attempts at volume control
don't work on PCs).

>>Richard Krehbiel                                 richk@grebyn.com
>>OS/2 2.0 will do for me until AmigaDOS for the 386 comes along...
>				^^^
>Do Amigas define printer support? I know they have sound support.

Yes.  There's a text programming API, where you control the printer
using a standard set of ANSI control sequences that the printer driver
interprets and translates into the printer's native control sequences.
For graphics, you render your imagery into a bitmap (B&W or color) and
ask the printer to print it.
-- 
Richard Krehbiel                                 richk@grebyn.com
OS/2 2.0 will do for me until AmigaDOS for the 386 comes along...
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: mdw@hojo.larc.nasa.gov (Mike Weisenborn)
Subject: Re: Misinformation about os2-dos HW access (was Re: I've seen NT......
Organization: NASA LaRC
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:55:16 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.184141.17294@hellgate.utah.edu>, brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>
>My whole point was that to have C2 security, either IBM would have to
>disallow that (leaving things as they are under NT), or else have a switch
>that would allow the current DOS compatibility scheme but not have C2.
>I.E. the user could decide.  It is impossible to do both arbitrarily.

So if Microsoft was willing to add a switch that disabled their 'C2
security' in NT then they should be able to provide the same level of
compatibility that OS/2 does for DOS sessions.  THAT would be a good
thing, since I would imagine that many people don't need full 'C2
security' but would love to be able to run more than the top 100 DOS
programs. (I know, it probably will run more than that, but you see my
point)

But perhaps that is not the only issue preventing NT from having the
same excellent DOS compatibility that OS/2 has . . .

Mike Weisenborn
m.d.weisenborn@larc.nasa.gov
From: bill@snoopy (Bill Poitras)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: X is a hack? (was Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks!)
Date: 26 Aug 92 17:17:56 GMT
Reply-To: bill@msi.com
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Brian Sturgill (brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu) wrote:
: In article <47470005@hpfcmgw.FC.HP.COM> glen@hpfcmgw.FC.HP.COM (Glen Robinson) writes:
: From a personal standpoint, NT is closer to what I want, as the features I
: have always wanted was a combination of Unix and Macintosh/Windows
: 3.0.  NT fits this bill very well. I.E. tons of neat, cheap GUI apps on
: 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
: to buy into a multimedia API that no one will develop for.  It is also
: not clear that it will have a good app base.
: 	     	      Oops insert ^ native :-)

1) Why is X a hack?
2) At what level do you need multi-user?
3) What native apps would you like?


--
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+
| Bill Poitras    | Molecular Simulations Inc.    | Tel (408)522-9229       |
| (bill)          | Sunnyvale, CA USA             |                         | 
|                 | FAX (408)732-0831             | bill@msi.com            |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+
From: unruh@physics.ubc.ca (William Unruh)
Subject: Re: Tex Advantages (was Re: TeX an archaic religion?)
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 22:44:30 GMT

rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:

>OK.  Take your TeX output.  Print it on an HP LaserJet, a QMS 810,
>a Sun SPARC printer and a Varityper 600.  How many different font sets
>would this require?  Three (3) - 300 dpi, 400 dpi, and 600 dpi!  You
>do not consider that device dependence?  How many would FrameMaker
>or PageMaker require?  One!  And thrown in with that one font I can also
>output to a 35mm slidemaker at 2K, 4K, or 8K resolution and imagesetters
>at 1200-2500 dpi (neither of which work very well with TeX).  Device
>independence, that is the name of the modern typesetting paradigm.
>TeX is extremely device dependent - it belongs to a previous typesetting 
>paradigm (bit-mapped page description versus the more current object-mapped
>page description).

dvi is device independent. The dvips converter may well be dependnent (
although dvips will generate the bitmaps on the fly if they don't exist-
That is after all what all of the machines have to do as well- some do
it in the printer, Newsprint does it on the workstation, dvips does it
in the dvi translator) So yes, I consider that device independence.
We compiled ( in less than a day ) Tex3.14 and dvips over a year ago,
and have not touched it since. 

Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:4831 comp.os.os2.misc:28882
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: Win-OS/2 performance tweaks
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:29:52 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <92245.073244ANDY@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> ANDY@MAINE.MAINE.EDU (Andrew T. Robinson) writes:
>
>  I also can not believe, on the other hand, that WINOS2 could ever load
>  more quickly than Windows (tm) on identical hardware configurations.
>  The native operating system, running standalone, should be faster than
>  in a virtual machine.  That's not the point, though.  OS/2 really does
>  run Windows programs (on my machine) at a very acceptable "speed" at
>  the same time it runs OS/2 and DOS applications.  And even though I
>  don't torture my OSs, I feel safe in saying that OS/2 is a significantly
>  more stable platform for running ill-behaved DOS applications than
>  Windows is/ever will be.

Load times for Windows vs. WIN-OS2 could go either way, by intuition.
When you start a WIN-OS2 session, you first have to boot DOS (load the
session), so you have to add that time to the load.  On the other
hand, you don't have to load all the memory management software, since
WIN-OS2 hooks OS/2 instead of installing its own (the way Windows
does).  So, what loads when you start WIN-OS2 is significantly
different from what loads when you just load Windows.

What's the timing to just run WIN-OS2 without loading the DOS session?
Try opening a full-screen DOS session, and type "winos2" from the
prompt.  Time the loading from there.  This number should be compared
with the time from typing "win" from a DOS prompt.

I'm curious to see how they fare.

>  I wish people would stop worrying about Windows compatibility and
>  write OS/2 versions of popular programs, instead.  OF course, we can't
>  expect Microsoft to do this out of sheer sour grapes, but I personally
>  can live without MS.

Yep.  As soon as Lotus releases Ami Pro for OS/2, I'll probably be
dumping Word for it.  As for Excel, I am quite satisfied with version
3.0, which is out for PM (and I use it), so I wouldn't be upgrading
that.  



-- 
   |)  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.
From: wcn@cs.brown.edu (Wen-Chun Ni)
Subject: Re: Re: Windows NT Shareware Contest for COMDEX 92
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 08:22:08 GMT

In article <47470007@hpfcmgw.FC.HP.COM> glen@hpfcmgw.FC.HP.COM (Glen Robinson) writes:
>This is has really gone to far.
>Why don't all of you NT zealots start up comp.os.nt.advocacy and get the
>hell out of here.
>
>Or perhaps comp.os.os2.anti
>
>Glen - R


I hate to see this too. But the OS/2 people did the same thing to 
Windows 3.0 people before. As long as we are consistent, nothing
can be prohibited in this group.



Wen-Chun Ni
From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Misinformation about os2-dos HW access (was Re: I've seen NT......
Date: 26 Aug 92 19:22:26 GMT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <BtLtw4.MwB@news.larc.nasa.gov> mdw@hojo.larc.nasa.gov (Mike Weisenborn) writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.184141.17294@hellgate.utah.edu>, brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>
>>My whole point was that to have C2 security, either IBM would have to
>>disallow that (leaving things as they are under NT), or else have a switch
>>that would allow the current DOS compatibility scheme but not have C2.
>>I.E. the user could decide.  It is impossible to do both arbitrarily.
>
>So if Microsoft was willing to add a switch that disabled their 'C2
>security' in NT then they should be able to provide the same level of
>compatibility that OS/2 does for DOS sessions.  THAT would be a good
>thing, since I would imagine that many people don't need full 'C2
>security' but would love to be able to run more than the top 100 DOS
>programs. (I know, it probably will run more than that, but you see my
>point)
>
>But perhaps that is not the only issue preventing NT from having the
>same excellent DOS compatibility that OS/2 has . . .
Yes, that is correct... I assume Microsoft Marketing will cover it by
saying that this is not in NT's focus (which is true).  Still it would
be nice if I could run my DOS games without booting DOS.
One caveat, only the administrator could flip the switch.

Microsoft people are you listening?  Comments?
>
>Mike Weisenborn
>m.d.weisenborn@larc.nasa.gov

Brian
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: bpowell@osc.edu (Brian Powell)
Subject: Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks! (was Re: Windows NT 'Alpha')
Organization: The Ohio Supercomputer Center
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 01:09:19 GMT

Brian Sturgill (brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu) wrote:
: 
: ... though as a GUI it is superior to X11.
: 
I won't argue with this since it is a subjective opinion.


: 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.
: 
I run MIT X11R5 (A *fine* freeware product) and it has scalable fonts, a
very nice fonts lister called "xfontsel that will display fonts and their
names graphically.  X11 has third party multimedia support from at least Sun.
Pen support? (I'll just skip that one... sheesh!).  Sun provides a print tool
with Open Windows (which runs quite well under X11R5) that allows
drag-and-drop files from other tools to be printed.

: There is more... see some of my earlier posts.
:
If you have more "reasons", I'll have more answers.  I maintain that there
is nothing that Windoze can do that X11R5 (over UNIX) cannot provide (except
pen support for all of those UNIX and VMS pen based computers :-)


: If you think X11 is stable, then you must only run xterm and apps that came
: from Sun.
:
Actually, I run a multitude of X11 applications *freely available* off the
internet/usenet.  I end up running very few Sun products (except their
mail reader, which is nice).  Of all of te kludgy, buggy programs I've
compiled and run under X11, none has ever crashed the Release-5 server.

-- Brian
-- 

o------------------------The Ohio Supercomputer Center------------------------o
|  Brian S. Powell                                           bpowell@osc.edu  |
o------------------------"My other computer is a CRAY"------------------------o
From: "bill dehaan" <bill.dehaan@canrem.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: ms gave up on os/2?
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:36:12 EST
Reply-To: "bill dehaan" <bill.dehaan@canrem.com>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Canada Remote Systems

In message <199223.2712.4138@dosgate>, "robert fielder"
<robert.fielder@canrem.com> writes:

BD>Yes. Two million was the quoted number. However, OS/2 has barely reached
BD>half that number,  and that's including  the original new  release spike
BD>and the marketing "blitz" we all know and love.

RF>Thanx, didn't remember the actual number.  Actually, that number sold
RF>came before the current marketing "blitz", didn't it?

The one  million number  was quoted  as of  July 31st  in the press. The
numbers come from IBM.

BD>Other than  the average  user and  the press,  you mean?  Gates is still
BD>considered _the_ major computer name  in the nontechnical press. IBM  is
BD>still  an  inpersonal,  faceless  corporation,  so  far  as the world is
BD>concerned.

RF>Pure marketing.  A book to read: "The OS/2 Notebook", a compilation of
RF>about 50 article from the Personal Systems Developer magazine, edited
RF>by Dick Conklin (sp?).  It includes an interview with Gates and
RF>Reisweig (sp?).  If everyone remembered all the positions that Gates
RF>took on OS/2, he would be the laughing stock of the industry....pure
RF>marketing!

A moot  point. The  question was  why do  people believe  Gates, and the
answer is that he promotes  himself, his applications, and his  company.
IBM, of course,  only opens its  mouth to change  feet. The reason  that
everyone from my accountant on down has heard of NT is because Gates and
Microsoft have  been pounding  the pavement,  getting the  word out. The
reason that no one outside of  IBM and the computing industry has  heard
about OS/2  is because  IBM simply  hasn't bothered  to market  it. That
isn't Microsoft's fault; it's IBM's.

----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
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Software Consulting and Gator Pit | Eradicate Hunger - Eat the homeless
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Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy