From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: I am giving up on the Amiga
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16e (7/4/92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 24 Jul 92 19:12:23 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

In article <1992Jul23.212941.15921@ctr.columbia.edu> jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
> ata@hfsi.UUCP (John Ata FSO) writes:
> >
> >What functionality/usefulness does OS/2 posess that AmigaDOS 2.04 does
> >not?  I am talking about the operating system here, not what runs on top
> >of it.  Also please stay clear of VM/non-VM issues as there are clearly
> >tradeoffs as to which approach is desired.  The same can be said for
> >memory protection as well.
> >
>
> Sure, John, exclude OS/2's superior features from the discussion, and
> AmigaDOS starts to look pretty powerful indeed!  Get serious -- there
> are *no* OS features which don't involve tradeoffs, and the usefulness
> of *all* of them can be debated away, including that of pre-emptive
> multitasking and GUI's.  There are people who'll tell you that DOS is
> the most useful OS because it allows their homebrew data acquisition card
> and software to run at the highest rate possible on the machine, doesn't
> allow nasty other processes to interrupt its operation, consumes less than
> 40K RAM, and doesn't care where in extended memory the card maps its
> hardware registers.  So I hope you don't mind me counting VM, MP, and
> resource tracking in OS/2's favor.  After all, they are useful to me.
>

I must admit that after seeing OS/2 in action, it is competitive with
the Amiga's OS.  But it is doomed (see below), which counts for EVERYTHING.

> >
> >Other than these issues, OS/2 has better
> >capabilities and functionality than AmigaDOS 2.04 because:___________
> >
>
> ... It has virtual memory.
> ... It has memory protection.
> ... It has resource tracking.
> ... It has device-independent graphics.
> ... It has a real graphics library; one that supports splines, paths, etc.
> ... It has an object-oriented GUI which is more powerful than Workbench.
> ... It has built-in support for DOS executables.
> ... It has built-in support for Windows executables.
> ... It has a better file system (HPFS).
>

The real problem with OS/2 is that it is an orphan product.  It is made
by IBM, and nobody buys from IBM (well, hardly anyone).  It's main claim
to fame is its ability to run DOS and Windows apps.  However, the August
1992 Byte reviewed of OS/2.  The title of the article: "OS/2 2.0: A Mixed
Blessing".  Specific gripes listed including poor performance on a PS/2
model 70 25-MHz 386 with 6MB of RAM using HPFS, less than intuitive WPS
interface, elimination of a more popular shell from 1.3, and lack of
compatibility with significant Windows 3.1 apps.  The article also
claims that the WPS is eminently crashable.

To quote:  OS/2's strengths are excellent DOS multitasking, reasonable
support for windows 3.0 software (note 3.0 not 3.1), and the native OS/2
environment which features robust protection, a 32-bit flat memory model,
demand-paged VM, and threaded multitasking.  It's weaknesses are performance,
stability, and ease of use.

I have heard that you need at least a boot partition just for OS/2,
and from others that ALL partitions OS/2 access must be OS/2 format.
I have also heard that development of DOS software using OS/2 is
not a good thing to do (hard to test for true compatibility).  Same
is true if you develop Windows apps.  As well, when Windows 3.2 (or
whatever) comes out, you are going to have to wait for IBM to scurry
to be compliant/compatible again.  And MicroSoft is likely to do many
many things to sabotage OS/2 compatibility as time goes on.  And finally,
the DOS emulation requires config.sys and autoexec.bat garbage for
each command.com run...

> Before you set your flamethrower to "Extra Crispy", let me say now that
> the usefulness of all the items listed above is *IMHO*.
>

I am not using a flamethrower...

> >
> >John G. Ata                     | Internet:     hfsi!ata@UUNET.UU.NET
> >
> --
> +-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
> | Jerry J. Shekhel  | Molecular Simulations | Time just fades the pages      |
> | Drummers do it... | Inc.  Waltham, MA USA | in my book of memories.        |
> |    ... In rhythm! |     (617) 890-2888    |              -- Guns N' Roses  |
> +-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
> |           ...! [ princeton mit-eddie bu sunne ] !polygen!jerry             |
> |                            jerry@polygen.com                               |
> +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024