From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Here's some Advocacy for you.
Date: 15 Dec 92 02:38:09 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Dec12.125543.27280@wam.umd.edu>, rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
 writes:
>In article <1992Dec12.094334.21925@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> mlevis@ringer.cs.utsa.ed
u (Mike Levis) (OS/2) writes:
>>The good thing about OS/2 2.0 (with WPS) is that it uses four megs, which
>>leaves me four megs for apps on my eight meg machine.  Although I would
>
>
>       Yeah, great.  That's what I call *real* efficient programming.
>       You must be kidding.  4 megs for a shell and an OS?  What a joke.

And NT is better?
>
>
>>NT for the Alphas may be successful as long as DEC still survives (and for
>>as long as OS/2 3.0 does not run on Alphas ;-), but NT for the Intels seems
>
>
>       Probably pretty unlikely, since the Mach3.0 OS/2 won't be around,
>       even rabid OS/2 fans wil admit, until long after NT.  While I don't
>       believe that NT will unseat DOS/Windows, and I do think it will
>       pretty much finish off OS/2's sales, I don't think it's likely
>       that OS/2 could *unseat* NT once it's the standard OS for a system.
>       After all, NT offers clear advantages over OS/2, but OS/2 mach
>       only catches up.
>
You're idea's about NT finishing off OS/2 need a good shot of reality.  First.
NT does not run very well, (certainly worse than OS/2) on desktop system.
This is a fact that will not be easy to hide no matter how good MS's marketing
is.  Second, OS/2 currently runs both 16-bit DOS and Windows apps better than
NT.  Given that NT is going for security over compatibility, this is not going
to change.  This means that people will have to give up more of their current
investment to move to NT.  (at least in theory)  Third, NT lacks a user
interface that is worthy of the system.  A great many people think that the
WinGUI is not even good enough for Win3.1, much less NT.  Fourth, not everyone
wants to move to NT.  Virtually every person I've met who uses Unix, when I ak
them about moving to NT, they laugh.  Many of the people who currently do not
have the machines to run either system are more interested in OS/2 than NT.
OS/2 provides a very real and useful alternative.

NT will NOT become "the standard OS".  It will simply be one more big player
in the field.  There are too many other systems that are just as capable for
real world work as NT.  Given NT's continually slipping "ship dates" this
doesn't exactly impress the very corporate types that are critical to it's
success.  MS has this bad habit of making very conservative announcements up
front and then promising everything under the moon behind the scenes.  This
seems to work well enough for them in the mass market, but the corporate
market is a whole different ball of wax.  This practice tends to go over like
a lead life preserver with them.

Finally, NT to stop OS/2 first has to catch up.  OS/2 is right now somewhere
around 2 million copies ahead and it looks like it may very well reach 3
million or more before NT ships.  That is a big gap to make up.  Sure some
people will go for NT, but it sure as hell won't be everyone and there really
isn't much of a chance of it every starting to eclipse OS/2.  OS/2 has too
much going for it and NT has too many problems for that to realisticly happen.

>
>>to take too much memory.  Whenever NT can run in four megs or less...
>
>
>       Are you guys nuts?  This is the same type of argument used
>       by DesqView and Windows fans in the last year against OS/2.
>
>       If memory really was such a big deal, you wouldn't be using
>       OS/2.  [Besides, even if you pull all 8 1 meggers and
>       pop in 3 4 meggers that's only about $420, not $600...
>       and 12megs NT == 8 megs OS/2]

Yes but there is *no* way for me and a good many other people to get 12 megs
on our machines.  The upgrade looks like this:

    8 - 1meg simms = 8MB
    4 - 4meg simms = 16MB

There is nothing in between because usually we have to add SIMMS in banks of
4.  There is no way around this.  4 - 4meg SIMMS cost around $500.  ($125 per
SIMM x 4 SIMMS = $500)
>
>       Can't anyone out there make a better argument than formatting
>       floppies (stupid) or 1/4th greater memory requirements?
>
Yes, see above.  I've got plenty more too.  NT is good but it is a *long* way
from perfect.

>
>--
> Snout: O Bottom, thou art chang'd!  What do I see on thee?
> Bottom: What do you see?  You see an ass-head of your own, do you?
> ---"I despise mystics, they fancy themselves so deep, when they----
> ----aren't even superficial"    --Nietzsche   ---------------------
>


-- 
Stacy John Behrens
*===)-------------
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they
serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not
legitimacy.                                  [Albert Einstein]
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy