HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dwightm@microsoft.com (Dwight Matheny)
Subject: Re: Microsoft bashing (was: Re: Some more misconceptions...)
Date: 04 Sep 92 18:09:24 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.
Distribution: na

<<  I think I said exactly that in my original posting--MS wants to
<<   force people into a particular environment.  It's definitely
<<   a business choice--I just don't agree with it.  MS has a variety
<<    of wonderful products, but in the long run I think they're slitting
<<   their own throat by saing "We only support our own operating
<<   environment."  People (will) want cross-platform support so they


What about being the #1 supplier of apps for the Mac?? What about the 
recent announcement that MS will develop apps for Power PC??? To me that
says that our apps guys will develop for platforms that they think
will make money. Look at the latest SPA data for June '92 that shows
OS/2 apps $$ volume FALLING 75% over June '91 and Windows apps $$ volume
increasing 155% over June '91.

-Dwight

Not speaking for MS.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: slumos@bobby.cs.unlv.edu (Steve E. Lumos)
Subject: Re: Microsoft bashing (Well, not exactly....)
Reply-To: slumos@bobby.cs.unlv.edu (Steve E. Lumos)
Organization: UNLV Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 01:05:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.222632.242113@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>, lbv2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (m.l. gore) writes:
) 
)     I am tired of reading about NT, and how 'great it is'. OK, fine its not
)     vaporware, but I don't have : a 486 processor
)                                   80 megs of so of disk space to kill
)                                   a CD rom drive
)     But hey, those are just minor additions to my system that are practically
)     standard, right.

Not to mention "under $1000"! I really have trouble figureing out where the
NT advocates are comming from. Has MS changed their mind from when they said
NT would cost "under $1000.00"?! G'zzz, by the time NT is released, you will
be able to get the minimum NT hardware for that much :-)

)     Advocacy, to my understanding, means, support, or even admiration. Why
)     does it seem as if MS has undercover people that constantly send proMS,
)     boo-OS/2 stuff everywere.

It was my understanding that this group was created as a place where people
could go to bitch and moan and fight about OS/2 vs. Windows so that they would
stay out of the groups where people are trying to exchange worthwhile
information. 

TTYL - Steve

-- 
Steve Lumos - slumos@cs.unlv.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: MS-Word 5.x  (was Re: THANK YOU, Microsoft!)
Date: 9 Sep 92 19:37:38 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <8SEP199215373840@zeus.tamu.edu> wjb5106@zeus.tamu.edu (Walter Barnett) writes:
>In article <1992Sep7.234947.116676@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>, sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS) writes...
>>In article <1992Sep07.103709.118680@rrz.uni-koeln.de>, MVOLPERS@CIPVAX.BIOLAN.UN
>>I-KOELN.DE (Markus Volpers) writes:
>> 
>>>Yes, WORD 5.5 runs fine under OS/2 2.0, but you cannot use the mouse while
>>>in graphics-mode, so it's more or less useless for me. (This problem is
>>>also reported in the WORD-Documentation by MS).
>
>What you are describing is running Word as a DOS program.  If you run
>Word as an OS/2 program you cannot use the mouse in graphics mode.  What
>use is there for graphics mode other than print preview (where the mouse
>is nearly useless, anyway)?

Note that this is only for editing text in graphics mode or for the
print-preview features.  If you run it in a VIO window, you can still
use the PM mouse to pull down menus and select text.  Of course, you
have NO print-preview mode in a VIO window - that's only available in
the full-screen session.


-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "LECTURER, n.  One with his hand in your pocket,
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   his tongue in your ear, and his faith in your
 ((|,)                          patience."
  ~|~                              --- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: jahonen@cs.joensuu.fi (Jarmo Ahonen)
Subject: Re: >16Mb support 
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 10:01:08 GMT

ak@ananke.stgt.sub.org (Andreas Kaiser) writes:

>The DMA controller's address width is *not* the limiting factor, since
>only floppies use it. Even IBM PS/2 machines have the DMA controller
>limitation. Neither IDE disks nor SCSI controllers use plain DMA (just
>XTs did use DMA for disks). It's the ISA bus address width, which
>limits bus-master addressability to 16MB. If you have an EISA system
>and an EISA bus-master disk controller such as AHA174x, there is not
>16MB limit. If you have an AHA154x, you won't be able to use more than
>16MB for programs, no matter if the system is EISA or ISA.

>		Gruss, Andreas
>  
>:::::::::::::::::::: subnet:  ak@ananke.stgt.sub.org
>:: Andreas Kaiser :: fidonet: 2:241/7220.9
>::::::::::::::::::::

I found the following from software.watson.ibm.com:

**********************  IBM Unclassified Use   *************************
* :nick.GT16MB     :sec.IBM Unclassified Use          :disk.OS2TOOLS
* :title.Fix for OS/2 2.0 on systems with Greater Than 16 MB.
* :version.1.01    :date.92/07/15   :summary.PACKAGE  :support.N
* :oname.Irv Spalten  BPC Technical :onode.BCRVMPC1   :ouser.IRV
* :aname.Irv Spalten  BPC Technical :anode.BCRVMPC1   :auser.IRV
* :ops.OS/2 2.0 GA code
* :kwd.os20ga
* :abs.This will help in allowing access to machines that have more than
* 16 MB to that memory. May not be final fix, but we think it should be
* unless we get problem reports back. UnZIP file and read README for
* Install instructions.
************************************************************************
*
* Special Instructions for Marketing Reps, SEs and Field Support:
*
* The files contained in this package may be distributed to
* IBM customers who are already licensed owners of OS/2 Version
* 2.0, or by IBM marketing/service personnel authorized to service that
* customer.
*
*************************************************************************
      GT16MB   ZIPBIN   *


So I think that the issue is not so bad as one would think :-).
No, I have not tested the fix yet, but I will do that soon.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jarmo J. Ahonen
Computing Centre, Lappeenranta University of Technology, P.O.Box 20,
SF-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland. email: jahonen@kannel.lut.fi(9) sisu.lut.fi
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 23:46:57 EDT
From: Jerry Bryan <BRYAN@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.5

In article <1992Sep3.234501.28636@hellgate.utah.edu>,
brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) says:
>
>                Advanced form of setuid().
>                        This allows servers with appropriate privileges
>                        to impersonate a client's identity to
>                        so that work can safely be performed on behalf
>                        of a client.

It seems like it would be nice to use a less emotionally loaded word
than "impersonate".  This kind of facility is often called a
"surrogate" facility in a security system.  A surrogate facility
is vital to the success of servers in a secure environment.

This list is GREAT.  Keep up the good work.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: hafting@Lise.Unit.NO (Helge Hafting)
Subject: Re: >16Mb support
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 10:24:39 GMT

In article <Bu1sEA.6yJ@resmel.bhp.com.au>, paulg@resmel.bhp.com.au (Paul Gallagher) writes:
 > >NT can generically use more than 16 megs of memory.
 > >        OS/2 only uses the memory above 16 megs as
 > >        a form of fast cache.
 > 
 > As I understand it, and this is straight from the horses mouth - Dr Mike
 > Kogan (I hope he doesn't mind being called a horse, and I hope I'm not
 > miss-quoting him): OS/2 2.0 only does this when the machine has only
 > got a 24 bit DMA controller (or it can't ascertain that a 32 bit one
 > is installed), otherwise it uses memory >16Mb just like that <16Mb.
 > Funny, but I don't see how NT could get around this problem either,
 > so *is* this a product difference at all?
 > 
 > 
 > regards,
 > paul (trying not to be too pro-OS/2) gallagher
I don't understand why os/2 (or NT) should have any problems using
>16MB just because the dma can't access >16MB.
It might make it impossible to swap out programs loaded into the high area, but
the solution is simple, just don't swap things out if they are located over
16MB.  There is also the possibility of loading things into low ram, and use the
CPU to move it up.  This is slow of course, but disk accesses are slower anyway.
-- 
 |  |      ^         |  |      /   ^   o
 |__| _   /|  _  _   |__| _   /|  /|   |    _   _
 |  |/_| / | / \/_|  |  |/ | /-+-/-+- /| /|/ | / \
 |  |\__/  |/\_/\_   |  |\_|/  |   \_/ |/ |  |/\_/
            __/                /              __/
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: <None>
From: ghdai@vax1.umkc.edu
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 22:22:38 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City

>In today copy of InfoWorld an artical talked about undocumented calls
>that Microsoft is using for it products (exel, Word for Win 2.0, etc)
>
>My question: Does any one have excel or Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0
>running under OS/2?

Both of them can be *started* under OS/2.  But I never used them further
because I'm a WordPerfect 5.1 expert and a dBASE III specialist.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.5
Date: 4 Sep 92 17:36:30 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <1992Sep4.224845.12170@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>In article <1992Sep3.234501.28636@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>BRIEF EXPLAINATION OF WHY I SHOW THE BASIC SYSTEM PACKAGES FIRST
>>
>>The base features of an OS make a lot of difference in what sort
>>of apps will be developed for it.  For example a recent freeware
>>program for the Macintosh used sound clips from a recent Bush speech
>>to randomly generate new speeches.  If it were not the case that
>>all modern Macintoshes have sound support in hardware and software,
>>it would have been much less likely the author would have gone to
>>the trouble.  Another example, suppose there is a telephone package
>>that answer/logs/places calls using a specialized board.  Under NT
>>everybody has RPC, so it would not be surprising to find such a
>>package having a feature that could alert another system via RPC
>>that a call has come in, likewise it could send the notification
>>(or even a WAV file of a saved voice-message) via e-mail as there
>>is a built-in Mail API in NT and the MM features are there to play
>>back the message under a Windows 3.X or NT system.
>>
>>As OS/2 currently markets features such as MM and RPC as options, how
>>likely do you think it is developers would use them in main-stream
>>applications, especially low-end ones?
>
>I don't disagree with your point, but I think network support was a
>bad choice of example.  The Mac software makes use of all this because
>not only does the system support the sounds, the necessary hardware is
>built in.
>
>Networks involve hardware outlays.  Your example doesn't seem to carry
>as much weight, since lots of money is spent by installations to get
>the hardware necessary to use NT.  Of course, that hardware would have
>to be purchased for OS/2 as well, so NT is still cheaper in that
>regard.

Ethernet cards only cost about $150.  And the cables can be bought cheaply
pre-made.

There is an additional point here, too.  Because everybody has the networking
features then a program that tries to use the network will simply fail on 
hat feature.  Under OS/2 you would need two different binaries, one that
tried to dynamic link to the network, and one that didn't.

But as you say, MM features are a stronger example.

Brian
-- 
C. Brian Sturgill                       *** OS/2 2.0 is for YOU! ***
University of Utah                  Microsoft needs some competition, but
Center for Software Science        -I- want to be one of the many using NT.
brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373           :-) :-) :-)
From: Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Interesting tidbit from September 7, 1992 PC Week
Date: 13 Sep 92 01:55:44 GMT
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange

In article <1992Sep12.162609.14785@wes.on.ca> tomh@wes.on.ca (Tom Haapanen) writes:
> 
> And I thought that Zachmann had denounced PC Week and quite in a public huff
> earlier this year (because they didn't want him praising OS/2 and denouncing
> Windows).  What happened?  Is he still there?  (I don't get PC Week myself...)
> 
> [ \tom haapanen    "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]
> [ tomh@wes.on.ca                   "trust the programmer" -- ansi c standard ]
> [ waterloo engineering software      "to thine own self be true" -- polonius ]

So did i.....what happened? Is he back at PC Weak? (spelling intentional)
 
Steve

-- 
Steve Withers - Wellington, New Zealand | End the two-party duopoly. Vote 
Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz         | for the Mixed-Member Proportional 
withers_s@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz            | (MMP) voting system on Sept. 19th. 
**** Happy user of OS/2 v2!! ****       | Give yourself a vote that *counts*!
Organization: Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Wien, Vienna, Austria
Date: Thursday, 3 Sep 1992 15:25:44 CET
From: FLATSCHER Rony <RONY@awiwuw11.wu-wien.ac.at>
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.apps
Subject: SOMFIX.ZIP, WPS, drive-object, HPFS


Yesterday I got somfix.zip from software.watson.ibm.com which fixes some
troubles with the WPS. It even seems that some functions (opening folders)
are a little faster, still not sufficiently fast, comparing it to Win 3.1.
This may change with 32-bit-GRE and 32-bit-HPFS (will it be in the fall-
CSD ???).

The biggest problems of the user-interface is the speed and behaviour of
the drive-object, to which almost every user is exposed to. Speed still is

by no means comparable to Win 3.1 file-manager. On my machine (486/33MHz,
16 MB memory) it still takes seconds (!) until a drive-object is filled
with the directories of the root (no matter whether icon- or tree-view).
The screen's contents while building the tree, constantly flasheds even if
subdirectories were added which are not displayed in the window. The good
thing is that once you opened a drive-object, close it and reopen it, the
speed increases a lot. The weirdest thing is, that it seems that FAT-direc-
tories are being displayed **faster** than HPFS-directories ! So this
leads to the question: HPFS - where is the beef for the user-interface ???
Will there be a 32bit-HPFS in the next CSD to improve HPFS-performance (it
seems that FAT is faster on large partitions !) ?

WPS-Find/Locate: If I use the locate-function and decide to use drives to
locate the file (object) to be searched it takes 10-15 seconds until all
available drives are shown (drives C:, D:, E:, F:, G:, H:, I:, J:). It
seems that there is one thread only which sequentially goes over each drive,
displays it, looks for subdirectories in it and proceeds. Again FAT-drives
seem to be processed faster than HPFS-drivese ("high performance file system"?)
Besides: The Locate-function is presented so complicated that an end-user is
overkilled by it (although I admire the functionality available).

As the user-interface is the piece of OS/2 a user is exposed to all the time,
he/she concludes by the interface-speed the speed of the operating system
itself. Therefore it does not surprise me that end-user perceive Win3.1 to
be faster than 32bit OS/2 ! Take looks at the speed of Win3.1, Aplle McIntoshes
and Nexts and improve the speed and feeling of the WPS-interface (probably an
improved HPFS would work wonder for it, if retrieving EA's and file/directory-
information would be improved by it).

---rony
From: lbv2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (m.l. gore)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Microsoft bashing (Well, not exactly....)
Date: 7 Sep 92 22:26:32 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

>Look at the fact that that was over a year ago.  Over a million copies of OS/2
are out there
>and the phones at IBM are ringing off the hook with vendors who want to develop
 for OS/2.
>
>How about PFS:Works for OS/2?
>How about Micrografx Draw for OS/2?
>How about Borland ObjectVision for OS/2?
>How about all Lotus apps for OS/2?
>How about Microsoft Mail for OS/2?
>
>Mike Kaply
>
    One step further: How about everything for OS/2?

    Seriously, there are well over a million copies out there, but it seems as
    if nothing will get done until engough people continually bug and pressure
    developers to balance winDoze developement with OS/2.

    I am tired of reading about NT, and how 'great it is'. OK, fine its not
    vaporware, but I don't have : a 486 processor
                                  80 megs of so of disk space to kill
                                  a CD rom drive
    But hey, those are just minor additions to my system that are practically
    standard, right.

    Please...lets stay in the real world. Why waste time comparing the phantom
    features of one OS with the real life features of another. If I was to
    follow this argument, sure NT beats OS/2, but so would any other OS that I
    just make up as I go along.

    I know, I am going to get flamed by someone with the "I've seen NT"
    written everywere.

    Maybe these people should be but on the news right after the segment on
    the gentleman who has seen the Virgin Mary. (Just a thought)

    Advocacy, to my understanding, means, support, or even admiration. Why
    does it seem as if MS has undercover people that constantly send proMS,
    boo-OS/2 stuff everywere.

    I don't think my feelings are unique. Isn't there some sort of comp.os.nt
    line these people can join..or is there some rule stating you can't have a
    usenet for something that does not exist in the REAL sense.

                                                            just mho,

                                                            bvl
-- 

   ---------------------------------
  | Brian Van Lieu                  |         Let the MS Gods know
  | Lehigh University               |     they cannot rule the application
  | lbv2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu          |     world anymore.
  |                                 |         Tell Gates that he must make
  | ' You can't change the world    |     good on his promises for support.
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Date: 14 Sep 1992 17:34:41 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Sep14.164413.19321@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>If NT requires more than 8MB, it'll require 20.  Most motherboards
>only have 8 SIMM sockets.  Which means pulling 4 1MB SIMMs and
>replacing them with 4 4MB SIMMS.  These are expensive (about $120 each)

Actually, this varies from motherboard to motherboard. Some motherboards will
let you install SIMMs one or two at a time. Some won't. David's right about
the price, though; I just ordered 4 at $118 (70 ns, 4 meg x 9, Nevada
Computer, (800) 982-2924).
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
 "Keep in mind that Amateur Radio As We Know It Today will cease to exist
            at midnight tonight." -- Dave Newkirk, WJ1Z
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: eletanjm@nuscc.nus.sg (TAN JIN MENG)
Subject: Price of NT vs OS/2
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 02:09:20 GMT

There's been a lot of argument in this group about prices. 
Let me ask something...

Suppose I want to set up a network of say 16 nodes plus 1 server.
I want file/printer sharing, email and peer to peer.

Does this mean that I'd have to buy 17 copies (or a licence for 17) of
NT priced at ~$500 (== $6500)? for NT equipped workstations? And 17
copies of OS/2 plus 1 copy of LAN Server 3.0(?) (plus TCP/IP? What's the
equivilent anyway?) for OS/2 equipped workstations
(I'm not sure how to price this - does the requester come automatically
or do you have to pay for 16 copies of the requester?)?

It other words does the fact that when you buy NT you get the whole kit
and kaboodle, you end up paying much more for the NT equipped LAN?????

I confused with pricing.

jin meng
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Brian, your bias is showing ( was Re: OS/2 vs NT features
Date: 6 Sep 92 04:28:39 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Sep4.172454.11340@nosc.mil> discar@nosc.mil (Joe Discar) writes:
>In article <wiegand.715613319@lido16> motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net writes:
>>Actually its not impossible if the hardware supports it (I don't believe
>>Intel micro do). You need a two level address lookup with a small page
>>table that is always present. This is used to page the main page table.
>>This is somewhat slower than a single level lookup, but can be usefull
>>for computers with very large memories where the page tables are too
>>large to keep in memory.

The 386 has provisions for multiple page tables.  I think you could
get this scheme to work.  I believe it's used by Unix/386, since Unix
does this on all other platforms.

>Well, wouldn't it also be possible if the page swap area is not part of 
>the file system?  For example, it is its own partition (that may or may
>not have an entry in the OS's filesystem).  But being its own paritition,
>the OS can simply write to it in abandon when a page fault occurs.  The
>code to do this would be simple and very small (aside from the administrative
>structures of course).
>
>The filesystem code itself, then, could be made swappable... although it is
>highly unlikely that in any software will need so much real memory that the
>OS would need to swap out something as integral as the file system.

This will work as long as you have a swap VOLUME, or swap DEVICE,
instead of a swap FILE.  Unix uses a swap volume, and it can do just
that.  The file system usually wouldn't be swapped, though, since lots
of system events (like cron, and various sundry daemons) access the
file system on a regular basis.
-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "TELEPHONE, n.  An Invention of the devil which
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   abrogates some of the advantages of making a
 ((|,)                          disagreeable person keep his distance."
  ~|~                              --- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy