From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: X is a hack? (was Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks!)
Date: 27 Aug 92 00:22:14 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <1992Aug27.031804.5031@midway.uchicago.edu> sip1@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.195452.941@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>
>Well, don't be so sure.  I wouldn't try running Wing Commander under
>NT, for example -- something OS/2 does quite well.  And that is of
>CRITICAL importance.  :-)

I agree!  In one of my other ramblings I even said as much.. Without a change
in its current focus, I doubt that NT will ever handle DOS games well.

>
>A surprising number of your applications are available in OS/2
>versions today, notably Alpha Four, PFS:Works, Excel (but only 3.0
>right now), ObjectVision, Brief, and scads of Unix utilities.  The
>rest, including most of the games, run fine under OS/2 2.0, and many
>of them are in progress for OS/2 2.0 (Borland C++ and Draw, for
>example).
As OS/2 1.X apps?  I'm not sure why that would be a benefit.

Object Vision is out for OS/2 2.0, but I think that's the only
one that's 32-bit.  As to the ones on the way... well all the larger
companies will be on OS/2 as they are on Unix... as the port to
NT is easy for most of these I suspect I'll get them soon enough.
To go back to OS/2 would allow me to use my network more effectively
but would largely kill the MM stuff, 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.)

A major part of my objection would be the cost... if I stick with the
Windows ones I'm safe even if NT fails and OS/2 rules the world.

If I get OS/2 ones, 1) I'm stuck with only being able to use them
under OS/2, and 2) at the moment most of them cost more, and sometimes
there is not an upgrade path.  For example, I could not figure out
a way to upgrade my Windows ObjectVision to the OS/2 one.  Perhaps
that is available now, but I still haven't seen it.
Certainly Borland never sent an offer, and they usually do.

In the case of Brief I did buy the OS/2 1.X version as it is known that
it works under NT as well as OS/2. "vi" is starting to seem too
primitive (and despite trying three times I just can't like emacs).
(NOTE: Please, Please, oh Please, don't let us start an editor war here!
If you like emacs, I'm very happy for you. Viva la _insert_your_editor_.)
Brief has a big following so I thought I'd take a look
(Borland's selling it cheaply these days).

>
>There's no stigma in running DOS and Windows applications under OS/2
>2.0 -- it works extremely well, and you can add native OS/2

DOS of course is great under OS/2.

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
has an ATI Ultra card).  Things are very much faster under Windows
3.1.  At first we put up with problems of OS/2 as there would be a CSD
in June.  The last straw occured when I reported back to her from the
NT dev conf about NT and about the same time it became clear that OS/2
would not be up to snuff till September.

I switched over mainly because I want to get up to speed for NT
development.  I use windows apps less than she does, so only the &@&#
VGA was annoying and as most of my stuff is done from the command line,
OS/2 is much more pleasant than 3.1.  On the other hand, having
switched after a long period of OS/2 use... I only really notice it if
I'm doing something like installing while using a terminal program.
The fact that I CAN install while using a terminal program shows that
3.1 is a great improvement over 3.0.

>applications into the mix as quickly or as slowly as you wish.  (Your
>Alpha Four, PFS:Works, ObjectVision, and Brief, for example, could be
>updated today, but even that isn't necessary.)
>-- 
>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").
>Chicago, 60637          | Hey GOP: The Economy, Stupid!

In short, barring Microsoft majorly screwing up, I doubt I'll ever use OS/2
again except at work.


Brian
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2,comp.os.os2.misc