From: bstone@acs.ucalgary.ca (Blake Stone)
Subject: Re: is NT really NEW technology?
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 17:12:28 GMT
Organization: The University of Calgary, Alberta
Keywords: NT Unix OS2 DOS Blither

>>>You say that NT will lose because UNIX and X can do a lot of
>>>the things that NT can do, well, I say it's the other way
>>>around.  NT can do the things UNIX and X can do, and MORE!!!
>>>(blatant advertisement just to fan the flames ;)

>>Yeah, whats the "alot more?".  

> Over X: / Over most X:

If UNIX was limited to running X-Windows as a front end I'd
agree.  It's doomed.  On the other hand, some of us are running
NeXTstep which I'll address instead.

>         Speed.

NeXTstep is much faster than X and more than a match for anything
we've seen from NT to date.  No real comparison can be done until
NT and NeXTstep 486 are both out.

>         Size.

NT takes up 80 megs of disk space.  So does the standard edition
of NeXTstep 3.0.

>         Ability to list fonts.

Full font family, style and size support for Adobe type 1 fonts
in NeXTstep.

>         Printer support.

Support for postscript and non-postscript (bitmapped) printers in
3.0 based on printer definition files.

>         Multimedia support.

Sound, image and text compression, live sound mixing, full Adobe
display postscript.  Built in microphone and speaker on every
NeXT.

>         Pen support.

You got me.  I'm convinced, however, that the pen will find its
real usefulness not with desktop machines but with things like
Apple's Newton.

>       Source and binary compatiblity with a GUI currently in
> 	the hands of a horde that even the most skeptical
> 	number at 4,000,000. (Win32s)

Win NT is NOT binary compatible with all Win 3.1 apps, nor is it
source compatible.  NeXTstep runs its own apps (I haven't counted
lately, 600+ apps?), XWindows apps, Macintosh (via the Executor
emulator), MS-DOS (via Soft PC) and soon will run Windows
acceptably (Soft PC 3.0).

>         OLE

NeXT's distributed object system provides the basis, while their
Copy / Past and Link provides a simple to implement mechanism.
3.0, of course!

>         Scripted GUI testing program.

Oh joy.  Journalling is built into NeXTstep, but is it really all
THAT useful?

> 	        Scalable fonts.

Adobe, type 1.  Scalable (to fractional point sizes even),
rotatable, skewable fonts.

> 	        A single defined user interface (i.e. no
> 		Motif/OpenLook wars).

Yup.

>         Fast hyper-text help system.

Built into NeXTstep 3.0.


> Over Unix:
>         Ability to fsck gigabyte volumes in a few seconds.

Like most systems, NeXTstep doesn't fsck unless it needs to.
Does Win NT take care of the same array of problems that fsck can
fix?  Impossible to tell until it's too late.

>         Ability to run Windows 3.X applications.

As mentioned above, Soft PC 3.0 provides excellent performance
(by providing a Windows "device driver" in native assembly for
display and only emulating the '386 for application code).

> 	        Ability to run OS/2 1.X character mode
>		applications.

I'll let you know when this starts keeping me awake at nights.

>         Base package comes with C2 security.

True enough, although NeXT is working on this they've announced
publically.  We'll see who delivers first.

> 	        Printer support such that the spooler understands
> 		the capabilities of the printer.

NeXTstep 3.0.

>         Fully integrated internationalization abilities.

Like you wouldn't believe.  3.0 makes it sooo easy to write
internationalizable apps it isn't funny.  Even shareware is being
written using it.

> 	        Access control lists for most system objects.

Damn.  You're right, it would be nice.  Once Object Design's
object database is integrated, we'll probably be abl to touch
this, but not until the end of next year.

> 	        No system table limits (i.e. no limits on proc
>		table size, etc.).

Not sure offhand.  Any Mach bigots out there who can answer?

> 	        Sparse address space support.

No problem.

>         Per process control of page attributes.

Such as?  I'll try to answer this one with more info... (I've got
the NT developer's kit on the other side of the room, so I'll
look it up once I've sent this).

>         Object-oriented, from scratch, design.

Of the OS only, not the GUI.  NeXTstep is working on the OS side,
and has the GUI down pat.

>         Defined E-mail API.

Yup.

>         Named Pipes over networks.

Mach ports addressable via the nameserver.  Pipes are soooo
passe.

>         Common adapter interface for ethernet cards.

Ethernet on the motherboard (NeXT systems only), support for a
wide variety on NeXTstep 486.

>         Dynamically loadable/unloadable file system drivers.

Yes.

>         B-tree directory structure (large directories have fast
>	lookup).

Not sure offhand, but since NeXT is looking at dumping the
filesystem entirely and moving to an object database to emulate
the filesystem...

>         Installation program easily licensable from the OS
> 	vendor.

It comes for free with NeXTstep.

>         Cost.

Please.  Win NT is still looking like $600 list, plus the
compiler etc... yes?  It's not that different.  NeXTstep 486
lists at $995 and includes FAX support and so forth that's
missing from NT.

> Over most Unix:
>         Define tape API.

Standard tape drivers come with NeXTstep, along with the usual
dump / restore commands.

>         Asynchronous I/O.

To what?

>         Dynamically loadable/unloadable device drivers.

Yes, courtesy of Mach.

>         Memory mapped files.

Yes, courtesy of Mach.

>         Ability to write platform independent device drivers.

Errrr... not platform indepdant.  Any platform, so long as it is
from Microsoft!  NeXTstep drivers work on any platform, so long
as it is from NeXT.

>         Threads (and corresponding syncronization methods).

Yes, courtesy of Mach.

>         Adminstration easy enough for the average user to use.

Yes, beautiful NeXTstep front ends for most administrative
activities.

>         MicroKernel design.

To some extent.  More in the future.

>         Ability to run DOS apps.

Yes.  More so than NT.

>         A defined interface to system statistics and quotas.

Yup.

>         Symmetric multiprocessing.

Not yet, but real soon...

>         C2 level security.

As mentioned above.

>         Base package contains peer-to-peer file and printer
> 	  sharing.

Yup.

>         Global (i.e. combined I/O and VM) cache.

Not sure.

>         Majority of kernel code pageable.

Not sure.

>         Support for PC networks such as Novell, Banyan Vines.

Novell built in.  So is EtherTalk.

>         Remote booting.

Yes.

>         Remote installation and maintenance.

Yes.

>        Access Control Lists. *
>        Internationalization support. *
> * Repeated from above, but in the general case.

Dealt with above, in the general case.

Blake