HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Impressions of the July NT Release
Keywords: NT
Date: 27 Jul 92 17:02:52 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Jul23.184328.17409@infonode.ingr.com> bbrown@infonode.ingr.com (Bailey Brown) writes:
>
>The reason for Win 3.0's success was v86 mode, which OS/2 didn't have until 2.0.

Well...  Windows 386, version 2.1x could multitask DOS apps in
windows.  I don't know how well it worked, though, since I didn't have
a 386 until last year.

One thing that always bothered me about Windows was that under Windows
2.03, I could multitask "well-behaved" apps in a monochrome text
window on my 286 (and I've done it on an 8088 PC as well).  Most
notably, if I set Procomm version 2.4.2 to BIOS screen writes, I could
run it in a window on a 286.  When I upgraded to Windows 3.0 (I had to
in order to run Excel 3.0), I could no longer do this.

-- 
   |)  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: henshaw@emperor.gatech.edu (Andy Henshaw)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Portable?
Date: 24 Jul 92 19:34:54 GMT
Organization: CERL-EE, Georgia Institue of Technology

Please excuse the previous post, fumble fingers.

Andrew Henshaw
andrew.henshaw@ee.gatech.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: thayne@unislc.uucp (Thayne Forbes)
Subject: Re: Origins of IBM / Microsoft rift
Organization: Unisys Corporation SLC
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 23:41:16 GMT

From article <1992Jul21.101259.2488@cs.hw.ac.uk>, by neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite):
> In article <BrJMAD.41E@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> cebarton@laplace.waterloo.edu (Casey Barton) writes:
>>
>>    My understanding is that Bill Gates has stated that MS will begin
>>developing for OS/2 2.0 once sales hit the 2 million mark.
> 
> Ford will start making parts for General Motors, and the Devil will Ski
> to work ....
> 
Don't bet on it.  Mrs. Gates didn't raise no fools.  Recall that until
about '86 Microsoft was making more money selling Mac apps than DOS.
My guess is that Bill will not let any market with 2 million users fall
by the wayside.  Just MHO.

-- 
           "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
                            -U.S. Vice President J. Danforth Quayl[e]
Thayne Forbes
thayne@unislc.slc.unisys.com
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Subject: Re: IBM MARKETING
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 11:08:41 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.171749.15432@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
> In article <1992Jul26.131646.19395@actrix.gen.nz> Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz writes:
> > 
> >"I am just a little person. I have little requirements. I want a little
> >system to run my little programs." 
> > 
> >If you make OS/2 appear to be "too big" (ie. complicated, full of features)
> >they get scared. It's too intimidating. We don't sell all the Windows software
> >we could for the same reason! Windows scares hell  out of some people......
> > 
> >I spoke to several people this week for whom the DOS prompt is a modern
> >version of magic and mystery. 
> 
> I'd like to know why these people got a computer in the first place.
> Did they think it'd be like on Star Trek, where you can just talk to
> the thing and make it do whatever you want?

They get them so the kids can play games, they can write some letters to Aunt
Jane, they want to run a DOS-based cashbook program for a small business. They
want to "do some desktop publishing". They want to create interesting
newsletters for the local Lions Club branch newsletter. They want to do the
sorts of things that the XT was made for.

They don't really *need* Windows or OS/2. If they want to make a hobby out of
it - or they get enthusiastic - then they can go for a multi-tasking OS. But
most folk seem to do things one at a time and only occassionally at that.
 
The OS/2 display attracts a steady flow of interested people. The showroom
guys are having a great time installing *everything* under OS/2 so they can
tell me "such and such crashed OS/2 when I installed it!". It hasn't happened
yet, but they are trying real hard. They couldn't get a program called AVA to
work.......so came and told me OS/2 was borken. i turned the
video_retrace_emulation off and it worked just fine after that.....:-)
 
Most people comute on a pretty basic level and approach computers in a very
pragmatic way.
 
Steve
-- 
Steve Withers - Wellington, New Zealand | "But the glory kept shining
Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz         |  and bright in my eyes, 
withers_s@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz            |  And the stars going round in 
**** Happy user of OS/2 v2!! ****       |  my head." R. L. S.
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:3149 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:1513 comp.sys.acorn:8001
From: dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.acorn,comp.sys.mac.mis
Subject: Re: New MultiTOS PC (Atari Falcon)
Date: 23 Jul 92 14:29:18 GMT
	<Brt4uK.Its@comp.vuw.ac.nz>
Organization: Computing Department, Imperial College, London, UK

In article <BJDBoB28w165w@mantis.co.uk> mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
wrote:

>Believe it or not, some of us don't want a 3 button mouse.

It doesn't take an expert in HCI to appreciate which part of the human
body has the greatest amount of motor neuron processing power devoted
to it - the hands.  Given that, Apple's (or was it Xerox's ?) and
Mathew's choice of a one-button mouse seems most restrictive.  Like a
one-button piano. :-)

>Especially not without standardisation over which button does what.

Another win for RISC OS!  (And pianos :-) I was particularly struck by
this when I downloaded the MineField game recently.  I knew
"instinctively" what the three mouse buttons would do.  (Don't get
this game BTW, it will ruin your life :-).

Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower) asked:

>Do menus stay on screen when you take your finger of the mouse?

and Mathew replied:

>Better than that, I can tear off menus and use them as tool palettes.

I like this idea a lot and do it for dialog boxes in my programs.  The
simplest way is to open the box as a normal sub-menu type window if
the user moves over its arrow in the parent menu item or to open it as
a permanent window if the user clicks its parent item.  Slightly
non-standard but simple (no "pins" or extra options required) and VERY
useful.  Not so easy for sub-menus though (no close button, no window
handle etc.).
--
Denis Howe <dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk>
Does this question have an answer?
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: Portable?
Date: 24 Jul 92 17:53:17 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Jul23.041926.5955@news.Hawaii.Edu> tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen) writes:
>
>So?  In case you missed the earlier part of this thread, it all started when
>the implication was made that NT is less buggy than OS/2, because NT was
>coded in C, whereas portions of OS/2 were translated by hand from assembly
>to C.

     You must have missed the earlier part of this thread.  I started
it.  It had nothing to do with Windows NT.  Nothing.

     This whole thread was started in response to the periodic postings
of "when Portable OS/2 comes out."  I questioned that, and asserted
that IBM would be introducing new bugs into the code when they did
the translation.  End of story.


>[text about something or other deleted]
>Stop spreading FUD, and stop trying to conceal it by going off on tangents.

     It's not FUD - it's a fact of life.  If Microsoft was doing the
same translation, they would likely introduce just as many new bugs.


>If Microsoft can deliver a product with fewer bugs in less time, more power
>to them.  But if their programming is as bad as their probability statistics...

     Actually, the probability statistics were posted by a non-MS
employee.  Have you been reading this thread at all?

					-Phil

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.


Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:3439 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:1697
From: jarober@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (DE Robertson james an 410-740-9172)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Origins of IBM / Microsoft rift
Date: 31 Jul 92 12:04:54 GMT
Organization: Johns Hopkins University

soh3@quads.uchicago.edu (min-woong sohn) writes:
>developing for windows is one thing and developing for os/2 is 
>an entirely different matter. From the users' point of view.  
>And a lot of developers seem to appreciate this fact.  

>2) You're missing/ignoring the developers' viewpoint also.  
>They would surely do some extra  work if that is likely to make them a
>lot of money.  I believe once a Windows app is written, 
>it is relatively a short step from there to a full-fledged os/2 apps.  
>IBM will even release (or has it already done so?) migration
>toolkit that will help developers to migrate their apps to os/2.  On the

	Having been developing OS/2 apps for a few months now, I'd say that 
Windows is far easier - because there are TOOLS available.  For OS/2,
you have to do EVERYTHING by hand.  There are no decent prototyping
tools available, which slows things down.  The API may well be cleaner, but
without tools, it almost doesn't matter.

	As to porting, sure it's an easy port - so long as you don't
want to do it right.  If you ignore the user freindly multi-threaded 
approach, it can be a fairly easy port. Your app will suffer the same
limitations as a windows app though, so why bother to use it -
Lotus Notes is a good example of this.  Whenever it exchanges files,
it LOCKS the cursor.  This is HIGHLY anti-social when facilities (ie
threads) are available.  So long as developers do this, what's the advantage
in using an OS/2 app ?

Jim Robertson
jarober@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: morton@qucdntri.ee.queensu.ca
Subject: Re: OS2 Good news and Bad news  (OS2 & a little windows too)
Organization: Queen's University EE Department
Distribution: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 21:41:15 GMT

In article <yeates.711750372@beryl17>, yeates@rtsg.mot.com (Tony J Yeates) writes: 
> Is it time to buy a Mac?  (WOT! - No command line?! No character-based shell?!
> How do you program the darn thing?  Drag and drop a wysiwyg word processed files
> to a compiler icon? )
> 
Yep, I think so! I've been a staunch DOS user for many-a-year, but now that
I'm in Electrical/Computer Engineering, I'm more educated, and although
OS2/2 is pretty nifty, I want to know why wysiwyg applications still 
crawl on my 80386 when they were pretty fast on the 68000's. Within the 
next couple of months, I'm going to do some serious looking into
whatever Mac it is based on the 68030 and 68040. 
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:3261 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:1572
From: woan@soda.berkeley.edu (Ronald Woan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Origins of IBM / Microsoft rift
Date: 26 Jul 1992 03:55:03 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

So you are saying that if IBM can prove that there are around 2 million users,
MS will develop OS/2 2.0 native applications? Has there been an official
statement to that effect?

-- 
+-----All Views Expressed Are My Own And Are Not Necessarily Shared By------+
+------------------------------My Employer----------------------------------+
+ Ronald S. Woan                       woan@cactus.org or woan@vnet.ibm.com +
+ other email addresses             Prodigy: XTCR74A Compuserve: 73530,2537 +
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:3307 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:1593
From: bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Origins of IBM / Microsoft rift
Date: 27 Jul 92 12:40:24 GMT
Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC

In article <1992Jul24.171248.27457@njitgw.njit.edu>, dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
> In article <1992Jul23.073024.2366@unislc.uucp> thayne@unislc.uucp (Thayne Forbes) writes:
> 
>>           "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
>>                            -U.S. Vice President J. Danforth Quayl[e]
> 
> This guy is almost as profound as computer dealers...

The Quayle quote sounds like a somewhat flawed paraphrase of chess
grandmaster Robert Byrne's dictum that "If you aren't winning, you're
losing".  Or maybe Byrne was quoting Tartakower or Tarrasch who were
also fond of witty sayings.  The original quote makes sense if you
consider that in chess anyway, you _could_ in principle also be drawing,
but his point was that if your attitude is to play for a draw, you're
most likely not going to try as hard and end up losing.

I suppose you could make a similar tricotomy in life, that you could
also be `breaking even'.  But that's not the way it's usually expressed,
and the paraphrase manages to lose its implication of an individual's
or a society's _attitude_, which is what the original quote was talking
about, not really trying to say anything profound about the final result.

So I think I know the thought that our illustriuous VP was trying to
express, but in the process he only managed to show his infacility with
his mother tongue.

Bruce C. Wright
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: cdaigle@bnr.ca (Christopher Daigle)
Subject: Personal evaluation of OS/2
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Richardson, Tx.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 21:05:21 GMT

I have been using OS/2 2.0 for about 5 weeks. As a prior Amiga
user, I am very pleased with my conversion to this OS. My only
problem was initial installation problems with my mouse. As for
all of this "NT vs OS2" stuff, I find it very ridiculous. 
Competition between companies will only benefit the consumer. 
If NT proves to be a technically better and reasonably priced
product I will switch(providing that I don't have to spend an
arm and a leg for more hardware). My machine config is as follows:
    Clone 386/33 DX
    8 megs
    SVGA 

-------------------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are strictly my own
-- 
-------------------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are strictly my own
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:3178 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:1533
From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Iskandar Taib)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT hoax or about Microsoft ethics (was Re: MS grasping at straws?...
Date: 24 Jul 92 02:14:20 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

In article <1992Jul14.134444.19331@engage.pko.dec.com> ewanco@kalvin.enet.dec.com writes:

>BTW I think your definition of vaporware is too broad. Simply because someone
>preannounces a product -- for whatever reason -- does not, to me, indicate
>vaporware.  The product has to be substantially behind the point the developer
>seems to indicate.  For example, is Quattro Pro for Windows vaporware? Certainly
>it was announced in advanced, and clearly to head off Lotus 1-2-3/W. And
>QP/W is late.  But is it so late that it's vaporware? I can guarantee you that
>the product does in fact exist and will ship, so I hesitate to call it vapor-
>ware.  Now MS C++ was vaporware for a long time.


I always thought "vaporware" was something that has been promised for
a long time but will never ship for some reason or other, so far from 
delivery that it might as well not ship. As far as net flame wars go
this would be the only definition that would matter unless one wants
to engage in pointless name calling. If something is delayed, even 
seriously delayed, call it a delayed product. Calling it Vaporware
implies it will never ship. 











-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iskandar Taib                          | The only thing worse than Peach ala
Internet: NTAIB@SILVER.UCS.INDIANA.EDU |    Frog is Frog ala Peach
Bitnet:   NTAIB@IUBACS                 !
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:3027 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:1464 comp.sys.acorn:7972 comp.sys.mac.misc:13531
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.acorn,comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: New MultiTOS PC (Atari Falcon)
Followup-To: alt.newbie,misc.test
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 92 11:55:40 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower) writes:
> In article <1992Jul16.045114.16745@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jyoung@nyx.UUCP (Jeff
> >You CAN do that but much easier to buy OS/2 to run on Atari Falcon with
> >386.  Also Mac emulator will be fast too.  NextWorld magazine said
> >NEXT OS might be ported to Falcons!!!  So all the best operating systemes
> >in the world can run on Atari Falcons.
> 
> Not until it can run Risc-OS 3.1 !!!

*Snigger*

RiscOS?  Yeah, I just LOVE seven letter filenames.  !And !All !Those !Stupid
!Exclamation !Marks !All !Over !The !Screen.


mathew

Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen)
Subject: Re: Portable?
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 22:49:15 GMT

Phil Lafornara writes:

>> So?  In case you missed the earlier part of this thread, it all started when
>> the implication was made that NT is less buggy than OS/2, because NT was
>> coded in C, whereas portions of OS/2 were translated by hand from assembly
>> to C.

>     You must have missed the earlier part of this thread.  I started
> it.  It had nothing to do with Windows NT.  Nothing.

I said that "the implication was made".  Perhaps you didn't intend to imply
it, but I certainly inferred it, and I'm confident that many other readers also
inferred it.

>      This whole thread was started in response to the periodic postings
> of "when Portable OS/2 comes out."  I questioned that, and asserted
> that IBM would be introducing new bugs into the code when they did
> the translation.  End of story.

And I asserted that the probability of introducing bugs was increased, but
not 100 percent.  Once again, you're using "would be" as though it was
absolutely guaranteed that portable OS/2 will be buggier than "something
not translated from assembly" (insert Windows NT here if you feel that it
has been implied).

>> If Microsoft can deliver a product with fewer bugs in less time, more power
>> to them.  But if their programming is as bad as their probability
>> statistics...

>     Actually, the probability statistics were posted by a non-MS
> employee.  Have you been reading this thread at all?

Yes I have been reading it, which is why I know that Phil (you), Pete,
and Raymond (all Microsoft employees) have all insisted that translation
of assembly into C *WILL* contain more bugs than C code written from scratch.
Once again, I state as I have all along that translation provides an
opportunity to introduce bugs, thus for programmers of equal talent the
probability is increased, but the probability is not 100 percent, and a
good programmer could potentially translate assembly into C with fewer bugs
than an average C programmer writing C from scratch.

Actually, in certain circumstances, translation could be easier than writing
from scratch, because the algorithm already exists.  Coding a new concept,
depending on the complexity of the concept, could be much more time
consuming.  I know from my own experience that when I need to do a
particular task, it is sometimes faster to use published examples of code and
translate into my language of choice rather than attempt to fully understand
somebody's word description of an algorithm and then code it from scratch
myself.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: maynard@ept.msc.cornell.edu (Maynard J. Handley)
Subject: Re: OS2 Good news and Bad news  (OS2 & a little windows too)
Organization: Cornell-Materials-Science-Center
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 23:35:43 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.180308.8662@njitgw.njit.edu>, dic5340@hertz.njit.edu
(David Charlap) writes:
>In article <9207231723.AA16633@data.src.honeywell.com>
>bergstro@src.honeywell.com (Pete Bergstrom) writes:
>
>>If you're comparing screen performance of the Mac Plus/SE type of
>>machine to your 386 pc, there are a heck of a lot fewer pixels to
>>sling around the screen.  They also are only 1 bit, rather than the
>>more typical 4-8 bits on pc's.
>
>True, OS/2 flies like lightning if you install the CGA driver.  At
>monochrome, 640x200, scrolling is fast, and windows just pop up like
>that * (<-- pretend I snapped my fingers here...)  But I wouldn't
>really want to run anything this way!
>
>Seriously, though, the hi-res and hi-color monitors for Macs are
>usually coprocessed.  A fair comparison would be against an 8514/a,
>ATI Ultra, or XGA system.

This is not at all true. I have 8 or 24 bit color on my SE/30 and it's not
co-processed. The color of most Macs (LC, si, ci, and Quadra) is not
co-processed. My experience has been that supposedly equivalent platforms
(say LC vs 386sx) will give the Mac faster color. I guess this is because
the Mac can address the screen as one long array without having constantly
to shuffle 64K banks around. Also Macs don't require a driver for the
screen- the screen nature is built into the ROM. This seemingly inflexible
scheme seems to have led itself to substantially more flexibility than the
PC world scheme- for example my SE/30 drives a color screen and the
internal BW screen, treating the two as one large screen. When I drag a
color window to straddle half in the B/W and half in the color screen, the
B/W half is dithered to draw itself as best it can. Anyway, I don't know
quite what PC screen drivers do, but there may also be a performance hit in
the overhead of communicating to the driver.

Maynard Handley
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: schow@bqneh3.bnr.ca (Stanley T.H. Chow)
Subject: Re: New Name for OS/2?
Keywords: The Integration Platform
Organization: Bell Northern Research Ltd, Ottawa
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 19:47:34 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.043400.25662@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> mlevis@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Mike Levis) writes:
>:From: sip1@quads.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
>:(2) Intuition 1.0.  OK, so perhaps this name stretches credibility.  I wouldn't
>:    call Windows intuitive.  When my PC starts asking _me_ the right questions
>:    I'll spring for intuitive.  The name also sounds a bit squishy, if that's
>:    an adjective.  But it isn't too bad.

Sorry, Commodore called their Amiga system Intuition. (Intuition is
the kernal portion, as opposed to the AmigaDOS portion).



--
Stanley Chow            InterNet: schow@BNR.CA
Bell Northern Research  UUCP:     ..!uunet!bnrgate!bqneh3!schow
(613) 763-2831
Me? Represent other people? Don't make them laugh so hard.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy