From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: X is a hack? (was Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks!)
Reply-To: sip1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 03:18:04 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.195452.941@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>1) Why is X a hack?

About X -- one thing that distinguishes it from both NT and OS/2 is
its ability to run distributed, across a network (to have remote X
displays).  OS/2 is adding this feature, incidently, in two ways.
First, in the near future, OS/2 will have both X client and server
(only server is available now).  Second, Distributed Presentation
Manager has been demonstrated.

>>3) What native apps would you like?
>Well at home my wife and I have Word for Windows, PFS:WindowsWorks,
>Visual Basic, Borland C++ 3.0 w/Applications Frameworks, MSC 7.00,
>Excel 4.0, Windows Draw, Star Trek, Might and Magic II, Super Tetris
>for Windows, Wing Commander, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, Red Baron, Vette,
>Home Lawyer, Alpha 4, Turbo Tax for Windows, Object Vision (for Windows),
>a selection of freeware Unix look-a-like commands, and some freeware games.
>Brief 3.1 is on order.
>The only shareware we have registered (and thus that we use) is
>a CD-ROM CD-player program.  I'm currently re-evaluating WinQVT, but
>it's still buggy, so I'm not sure i'll buy... zmodem transfer works well
>though.
>At work for testing reasons I have a copy of most major Windows packages, and
>a copy of any user-level programming package I can get my hands-on.
>I also have copies of the professional programming packages for the platforms
>we support.
>I'm not sure what you wanted for the answer.
>We'd like some household packages like meal planning w/recipes, but have
>not found what we want.  As we now have a CD-ROM drive and a SoundBlaster
>Pro... MM packages are being evaluated. Anybody know where I can
>get the New York Public Library Desk Reference on a CD-ROM?
>I'd also like recommendations on an Atlas program.
>Any nifty music packages for non-musicians?
>The sorts of things we like (except for games) are in general available under
>Windows.  Under OS/2... usually no.
>Under NT I expect I'll be using 16-bit versions of low-end things for a while,
>but as it's likely they'll have been developed under NT, I doubt there will
>be compatibility problems.

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.  :-)

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).

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
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
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