HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: thg@cam-orl.co.uk (Tim Glauert)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT Destined to Succeed??
Date: 5 Jan 93 16:17:07 GMT
Organization: Olivetti Research Ltd, Cambridge, England.

In article <1993Jan5.115147.1833@actrix.gen.nz>, Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz writes:
|> In article <1993Jan5.094805.23389@cam-orl.co.uk> thg@cam-orl.co.uk (Tim Glauert) writes:
|> Is there an NT newsgroup? It must be new, or my site doesn't carry it
|> (we have 2,242 newsgroups at last count).

comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 is what you need. It's not an obvious
name, but I thought that it had been mentioned here before.

|> > a half-hearted attempt to try NT (you didn't even install it yourself) and
|> > then spreading tales on this group about how awful it is. OS/2 haters were
|> > rightly criticised for doing this when OS/2 first came out.
|>
|> I would have liked to install it myself, but the CD and the CD-ROM drive
|> were not available to me. So I had to take a pre-installed NT.

This is not strictly true.  If the disc is big enough your friend could have
copied the NT installation files onto the hard disc and you could have
installed from there. It is very straightforward, though slower than a CD-ROM
install.

|> Nothing half-hearted about it....I went to a lot of trouble to get it
|> .....The tone of my post was more a measure of my disappointment at what
|> I saw.

I am sorry that you had a bad experience, but all you seem to have proved is
that an installation that didn't work on you friend's machine doesn't work on
yours.

|> > There are plenty of bad things about NT. But constant crashes is not
|> > one of them, on the vast majority of systems used by Beta testers.
|>
|> This is a contentious point. For every "NT is rock steady" posting, I read
|> another that says it falls over every "X" minutes.

But you just said that you don't read the NT group. Nobody is going to post to
an *OS/2* group just to say "By the way, NT is solid on my machine". For one
thing, they would get flamed to death for posting to the wrong group.  Now
that an OS/2 advocate has brought up the issue, I can say that NT has been
very stable on both the clones I have installed it on. But, to be fair, I had
no real problems with OS/2 either.

Maybe I read different groups, but I have seen very few "NT crashes every X
minutes" postings. Most of the complaints are from people who can't get the
system going in the first place. Once it is installed properly it seems to be
stable for most people. I had problems until I resolved a conflict of address
spaces for different peripherals, but I consider that to be my fault, not
NT's. (Actually, I consider it to be IBM's fault for infliciting the dreadful
PC architecture on us :-)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: ckincy@cs.umr.edu (Charles Kincy)
Subject: Re: OS/2 Commercial
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 22:34:47 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla, Rolla, MO

In article <1993Jan4.030602.22059@news.weeg.uiowa.edu> rahayden@news.weeg.uiowa.edu (R Andrew Hayden) writes:
>petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:
>
>
>>Nintendo will probably have it on SNES is a few weeks anyway....And it will
>>probably be a lot more responsive as it will be running on dedicated game
>>hardware anyway.
>
>It's out.  I saw it at a Walmark outside of New Orleans over Xmas.  I
                          ^^^^^^^
>don't know how good/fast/interesting it is, but it is almost depressing in
>a certain sense.

Walmark?  Is that like a cross between Lexmark and Wal-Mart?  
A new subsidiary of both companies?  *grin*

It's not as depressing as you think.  WC came out in 1990.  It's now
1993.  PCers get the best games first!  :)

cpk
-- 
"The WHITE ZONE is for loading and unloading only.  If you gotta load or un-
load, go to the WHITE ZONE.  You'll love it.  It's a way of life!" --Zappa

Technology always seems to keep one step ahead of human wisdom.
From: spexet@math.lsa.umich.edu (D. Robert Spexet II)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT Destined to Succeed??
Date: 7 Jan 1993 06:26:12 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan, Mathematics Department, Ann Arbor
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: supernova.math.lsa.umich.edu

In article <1993Jan06.223236.11604@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>     Because it's false.  Windows NT _does_ run in 8 megs - it
>just didn't do so for Steve when he tried it.

Then in Steve's case, your statement is a falsehood, and you should clarify
it as such.

>>If his own personal experience was such that NT didn't run with
>>8 megs of memory, the above statement is not *false* and certainly
>>not *blatantly false* as you think.
>
>    Of course it is false.  All it takes is one counterexample.
>I've _seen_ Windows NT running in 8MB.

Perhaps we should clarify our terminology here.  8 megabytes, unfortunately,
means many things to many people.  Not all machines have 8192K free.  Some have
a few more kilobytes available, and some have slightly less.

When you say "Windows NT will run in 8 megabytes", perhaps you could state
more specifically how much this is, and how strict the requirement is.  Does
"8 megabytes" mean 8192K, or does it mean 8192+256K?  Will NT run in slightly
less than 8192K, or does it require 8192K, or even slightly more than 8192K?

This question may be difficult to answer, given the nature of the product in
its current state of development.  In this case, perhaps it would be better
for you to state what the projected target is.

>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.


-- 
D. Robert Spexet II, N0OKR   Internet:  spexet@umich.edu, dspexet@attmail.com
Department of Mathematics    BITnet:    user68xr@umichum.bitnet
The University of Michigan   UUCP:      uunet!mailrus!math.lsa.umich.edu!spexet
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109    ATTMail:   !dspexet
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: dlcogswe@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Dan Cogswell)
Subject: Re: SGI-GL in Windows NT??
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 04:10:12 GMT

furballs@sequent.com (Paul Penrod) writes:

>When did 3D graphics become a necessity for a good OS ? :)

With that attitude, I guess you'll be sticking with DOS. :-) :-)


-- 
Dan Cogswell               Or as we say in Michigan:  "Dee-troit"
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: SGI-GL in Windows NT??
Date: 7 Jan 1993 12:29:49 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <dlcogswe.726380388@vela> dlcogswe@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Dan Cogswell) writes:
>A guy I work with told me today the Microsoft has bought the rights to
>include SGI-GL with Windows NT and will be including it in an upcoming
>release!  This is quite an  advantage over OS/2 and brings NT to
>workstation level, in my opinion.  If NT will have GL standard, I will
>most likely be switching over from OS/2.

OK...what is SGI-GL, and what's so great about it?


-- 
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.
      "Science is all in the public domain, and allows few secrets."
              -- Tom Clancy, _The Sum of All Fears_
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: Mark Kovarski <kovarski@zooid.guild.org>
Subject: Contest: Predict how many people will IBM have
Organization: ZOOiD BBS
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 06:30:46 GMT


In the December 28th issue (28??) of "Info World," Stewart Alsop
proposes this game where you have to guess how many employees IBM will have
left after its restructuring program is completed. He goes one by
stating that he will do something special to the person who wins (Great:
I am already jumping up and down Stewart)

This person (Stewart) in a recent issue was so upset and literally called
IBM people idiots because of some commerical of some sort where a person
buys a present and its OS/2. He was going on and on and on (Just like 
Mickeysoft). He usually doesn't speak very positive about OS/2 but that's
his right. To anyone how is interested, this is his address on the Internet:

stewart_alsop@infoworld.com

Best Regards,
Mark K.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: Interesting nugget
Date: 12 Jan 93 19:43:26 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Keywords: os2 advocacy,microsoft,sipples

In article <jmcging.726635495@digex> jmcging@access.digex.com writes:
>I thought this was simply an interesting nugget <g>
>
>
>Newsgroups: news.lists
>Subject: Top 25 News Submitters by Site by number of articles for the last 2 weeks
>Date: 8 Jan 1993 23:32:31 -0500
>Organization: UUNET Communications
>         No. of      % of
>Rank Articles Kbytes Total  Site
>
>  16   561     848.2  0.2%  microsoft.COM
>			      11% comp.os.os2.advocacy
>			      6% alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
>			      6% alt.politics.bush
>			      6% alt.politics.clinton
>			      6% alt.politics.homosexuality
>			      6% alt.rush-limbaugh

    This is probably due to me being sick at home and involved
in a flamewar over on alt.politics.homosexuality.  I'm sure I
easily posted 34 article there, which were cross-posted to all
of those other groups.
    As to the 11% in comp.os.os2.advocacy, that's probably
mostly me as well, what with the "Did Microsoft intentionally
break DR-DOS", and "Is Microsoft a monopoly", and all the other
MS-bashing threads that have been going on lately.


>No one at micorsoft posts to the windows groups?

     Oh, plenty do - they just didn't show up on this particular
list.

				-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.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: wang@cs.uiuc.edu (Eric Wang)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Reply-To: wang@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 22:35:28 GMT

helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
>The fact is that if McDonald's has the right to refuse to sell to
>anybody who won't just sell exclusivly McBurgers then Microsoft has the
>right to offer discounts to anybody willing to sell Windows
>exclusively.

Bad analogy, doesn't fit.  If vendor X decided to become a "Microsoft
franchise" (let's assume for now that such a thing even exists), and
thereby to go by the name of Microsoft and sell ONLY Microsoft products
straight from Redmond (albeit with on-site copying and bundling :-)),
then anything Microsoft requires vendor X to do as part of its franchise
license would be OK.  But for all X, vendor X is NOT calling itself
"Microsoft", and it dang well does sell things that do NOT originate in
Redmond, namely computer systems.  Microsoft's only relationship with X
is as a supplier of a system component, not as a controlling
corporation.  In that light, I'd say Microsoft is overstepping its
bounds when it tries to levy its royalty on systems that don't include
its components.

One question that nags me: if the highest "tier" of Microsoft's bundling
license, the one that says "pay us a flat $ for every system, whether it
has DOS/WIN or not", is economically so favorable to vendors that they
all have to sign up for it, why don't they just eat the cost of
"removing" DOS/WIN from those systems whose owners don't want them?  I'm
sure some of them do, but it sounds like the largest ones (Dell, Zeos,
Northgate) just pass the cost of DOS/WIN onto the consumer regardless.
Has anybody asked these vendors why they do this?  Maybe I'm demanding
too much nobility from these vendors, but it sure sounds like Microsoft
isn't the only one with its fingers in the cookie jar.  (OTOH, if a case
can be made that the middlemen are nearly universally just passing the
costs of their licensing agreement directly to the consumer, then this
does the burden of Microsoft's agreement on the consumer's back.  So
vendors either cut into their own profit margins, thereby reducing their
ability to compete against other vendors, or they pass the cost on to
the consumer, who is thereby shafted.  IMHO, there is a case to be made
against Microsoft here.  [But perhaps the "anti-competitive practices"
that we're hearing about refers not to DOS/WIN vs OS/2, or Microsoft vs
other software vendors, but to the ability of computer systems vendors
who cover the costs of non-bundled DOS/WIN to compete fairly against the
vendors that pass these costs to the consumers.  If, as a result of
their agreement with Microsoft, vendors gain a competitive edge by
sticking it to the consumers, then I (as a consumer) would tell
Microsoft to write up another agreement.])

Eric Wang
wang@cs.uiuc.edu


Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: wiegand@rtsg.mot.com (Robert Wiegand)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Reply-To: motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 14:52:19 GMT

philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:

[Stuff deleted]

>    OK - I understand your statement now.  Let me pose a question:

>If a function of the Intel processor was undocumented, but was being
>used by a number of applications, and the clone processors didn't
>support that function, are they still 100% Intel compatible?  And,
>who should be responsible for fixing the problem:  The cloner,
>Intel, or the applications writers?

My opinion would be that the application writers would be to blame for
the problem. Using undocumented features is dangerous because even the
next version of the "real" part from Intel may not support the function.

However, in the real world I would expect the cloner to be dumped on
even though they didn't cause the problem. The real world isn't always
fair.

[Stuff deleted]

>     This assumes that MS-DOS is an open system.  I don't believe
>that it is.

Oh really - is this the official Microsoft policy? My impression was
that Microsoft has promoted MS-DOS and Windows as being open systems.
Are you saying that Microsofts promotion of MS-DOS and Windows has
been less than totally honest?

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Wiegand - Motorola Inc.
motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net            uunet!motcid!wiegand
Disclamer: I didn't do it - I was somewhere else at the time.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: bobatk@microsoft.com (Bob Atkinson)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! :)
Date: 05 Jan 93 02:44:20 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

Paul Penrod writes:
>In article <1hvl3mINN1ss@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@gibbs.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes:
>>bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>>: From a programmer's point of view there is no real separation between 
>>: applications & system software. Almost every application involve
>>: some interaction with the system or system calls. This separation 
>>: exists only in the mind of the FTC.
>>
>
>This presumes of course, that you consider Windows an OS. In fact,
>ALL commercial applications that I have seen and/ritten have to
>interact with the systems and systems calls. This is a fact of
>life, even for UNIX. So your point about separation is groundless.
>There is a distinction between what constitutes an application and
>what contitutes an OS. That was a thread argued to death long
>before your postings started appearing here.


I missed this earlier argument; can you help me understand its jist? How
would you characterize the difference between an application and an OS?

Is DOS an OS? Is Windows an OS, or a DOS App? Is Lotus Notes an OS, or a
Windows app? When I have an OLE-embedded Lotus-123-for-Windows sheet
embedded in a WinWord document, is the Lotus-Winword relationship app-app
or app-os?


	Bob
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT Destined to Succeed??
From: Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 11:51:47 GMT
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange

In article <1993Jan5.094805.23389@cam-orl.co.uk> thg@cam-orl.co.uk (Tim Glauert) writes:
> 
> Steve, your evaluation of NT would carry more weight if you appeared serious
> about trying NT, rather than simply booting it on a couple of machines and
> then giving up. If you made no mods to the installed system, it's not
> surprising that it didn't run optimally. How well did the OS/2 Beta run
> without any manual mods? Why didn't you ask for some help on the appropriate
> newsgroup before flaming NT on this one?

Is there an NT newsgroup? It must be new, or my site doesn't carry it (we have
2,242 newsgroups at last count).

> Out of interest, did NT crash constantly on the original machine, the one it
> was installed on?  If so, you can't expect it to run OK on yours. If not, you
> can't claim that the two machines are identical.

It fell over until they upgraded it to 16megs. My co-worker in Auckland says
he actually installed it in 16megs - not 8. So I was wrong there. When I asked
him before Xmas, he indicated that it HAD been installed in 8 megs.....but we
must have lost a crucial "not" down the phone line somewhere.

Today he told me that an 8 meg install would be completely impossible and he
was told not to try.....He was also surprised that i was able to boot it at
all.
 
So I was wrong in this respect. Sorry. 

> a half-hearted attempt to try NT (you didn't even install it yourself) and
> then spreading tales on this group about how awful it is. OS/2 haters were
> rightly criticised for doing this when OS/2 first came out.

I would have liked to install it myself, but the CD and the CD-ROM drive
were not available to me. So I had to take a pre-installed NT. Nothing
half-hearted about it....I went to a lot of trouble to get it.....The tone of
my post was more a measure of my disappointment at what I saw. 
 
The two main things I was not happy about were: 
 
1. Not stable - it fell over constantly (and now won't even
start....corrupted)
 
2. Disk and RAM hog.
 
Now my mistake about the install memory size opens point 1 to debate. But
point 2 remains uncontestable. 

> There are plenty of bad things about NT. But constant crashes is not one of
> them, on the vast majority of systems used by Beta testers.

This is a contentious point. For every "NT is rock steady" posting, I read
another that says it falls over every "X" minutes.

Time will tell, I guess. When can I hassle you guys in an NT newsgroup? :-)
 
Steve 

-- 
Steve Withers - Wellington, New Zealand |      
Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz         |        Space for rent.
+64 4 478 4714                          |   - cheap rates, nice location. 
**** Happy user of OS/2 b2.1 ****       | 
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:11840 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3712
From: insom@galaxy.ucr.edu (Chris Ulrich)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: If things had been different... (was: FCC etc)
Date: 7 Jan 93 20:24:33 GMT
Followup-To: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Organization: University of California, Riverside


  Isnt everyone missing the boat with the "Why didnt IBM use the 68k and
not the (blech) 8088?" argument?  After all, to my knowledge, the 68k
did not exist in 1981, which is when the PC came out (it might have been
early 82, but my old PC1 motherboard from a first generation pc, which
didnt even have roms to support a hard disk, and could only support 544k
of ram, has roms dated 1981).  
  The choice of the day was between the Z80, 8086, or 6809.  They
originally wanted to use the 6809 but motorola was not able to assure
enough supply.  
  This is all ancient history, so every one blends all of the early
eighties together, as if the 68k existed, or was available in supply
when IBM wanted to ship.  This is not the case.
chris
--
insom@ac.ucr.edu			You wouldnt treat me this 
insom@ucrvms				way if I were a penguin
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:12025 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3764
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Distribution: world
Date: Wed,  6 Jan 93 22:58:44 -0800
From: Craig_Swanson@f514.n202.z1.fidonet.org
Subject: OS/2 vs UNIX
Comment-To: Juanita@f514.n202.z1.fidonet.org
Reply-To: Craig_Swanson@f514.n202.z1.fidonet.org
X-FSC-PATH: 202/514

 J> I am in need of a reference which compares OS/2 and UNIX.  I chose

 J> to go with a UNIX workstation for development of a graphics 
 J> application and need to justify myself.  My main reason for
choosing 
 J> UNIX was its virtual memory capability (as I will be graphing
heaps and
 J> heaps of time series data) which I did not believe was possible in
mid 
 J> '91 with OS/2.  There is also the issue of disks speeds and memory
 J> of PCs vs graphics workstations. 

Virtual memory, multitasking, multithreading, and interprocess
communications have all been parts of OS/2 since version 1.0 in 1987. 
Flat 32-bit memory model (like Unix uses) is new in OS/2 2.0, and
virtual memory is still a part of the operating system.


--- Maximus/2 2.01wb
 * Origin: OS/2 Connection @ La Jolla, CA  <619-558-9475> (1:202/514)
From: os2man@panix.com (Larry Salomon Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 Application Development Tools
Date: 10 Jan 93 15:52:27 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In <1993Jan10.062706.9676@zooid.guild.org> Mark Kovarski <kovarski@zooid.guild.org> writes:


>"Premier Publishing is proud to announce:

>      OS/2 Application Development Tools

>               by Brian Proffit


>"This book is the first of its kind and a must for serious developers.  
>Whether doing modifications to existing systems or writing code for an 
>original application, IBM's tools expert Brian Proffit offers insight 
>that is unavailable anywhere else."

>"OS/2 Application Development Tools is the only source of information on
>hundreds of tools including 16- and 32-bit.  Proffit details what to 
>use, when to use it and why, from his own experience."

Yeah, but does he tell you *where* to get it.  Also, with regards to
"free" tools, does he mention only ESDTOOLS/OS2TOOLS, or does he probe
into the Internet where hobbes and the few other large anon-ftp sites
exist?  That's what *I* would want.

Cheers,
Q
-- 
"If you choose not to decide, you  | "My other body is in the shop" - seen
 still have made a choice" - Rush  |  on a T-shirt
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: bobatk@microsoft.com (Bob Atkinson)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Date: 05 Jan 93 03:03:34 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

Jay Maynard writes:
>>    If you claim to be 100% Intel compatible, and your processor
>>exhibits difference in behavior from Intel's, should Intel be
>>responsible for changing their product?
>
>If you claim to be 100% Intel compatible, and your processor exhibits
>identical performance to an Intel processor's documented behavior, you _are_
>Intel compatible.


What if 10s of 1000s of Intels customers, or a small number of 
Intel's high-volume customers, choose to rely on implementation details
that were not part of the "documented behaviour?" 

I think the most useful definition of "compatible" is the pragmatic one: is 
it substitutable by customers, not a theoretic one.

>>    You bring up functional specifications below - the fact is,
>>MS-DOS doesn't have a rigid one that would allow a clone
>>to be written.
>
>By default, then, MS-DOS' published API qualifies, especially since MS will
>tell you every time you turn around that that's all a programmer should
>use...never mind that MS breaks that rule regularly...

I'll comment in analogy about the published Windows 3.0 API, since that's 
one I know more about than MSDOS. I know I was shocked when I learned about
the amazing amount of third-party app testing that went into Win3.1. It's 
very very clear that production applications rely on much more than the 
published documentation. Message orderring, for but one very small example.

	Bob
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy