From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Some more misconceptions regarding OS/2 and NT
Date: 18 Aug 92 16:39:05 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <bz7mlzj.mbk@netcom.com> mbk@netcom.com (Miles Kehoe) writes:

>I admit and apologize for coming in late on this thread, but 
>I invite you all to consider a benefit the cd-rom offers.
>By distributing its NT software and documentation on
>cd-rom, microsoft is saving a GREAT deal of paper and
>printing, and probably contributing to a positive
>direction in the environment - whether on purpose or
>not. 

Why does this save more paper than distributing the same thing on tape
or floppies?  What 'saves paper' is having the documentaiton online
instead of in books, not doing it via CD-ROM.

>For the user, there is still another benefit: online
>documentation comes with search technology. I'm not sure that
>the NT doc cd comes with the same search engine MS is using
>in their 'windows developers cd' coming next month - but
>if it doesn't now it will soon. Have you ever said
>to yourself "Self, I *know* I saw something in this
>block of documentation that said passing a negative 
>number to GetFreeMem would do something wierd, but
>what the heck was it.. and WHERE in these thousands
>of pages did I see that, anyway?"

I've never been a big fan of online-only documenation.  It's one of
the things that IBM hacked a lot of people off with with regard to the
OS/2 upgrade from Windows.  However, they didn't require people to go
out and buy a new, read-only storage device just to read the disks, so
I figure that once again Microsoft has gone them one better.

>With online docs and material on cd-rom, you search the
>sucker using the best boolean you can think of.... you
>still might not find it, but youhave as good or better
>a chance than doing it in the paper book.

I find things much more easily in a book than I do using the various
online readers.  Plus, you ever try to take one of those things to
bed or into the bathroom?  It's easier to read a 100 page paper
document than it is to read that same document in its online form, the
resolution of ink on paper being so much better than any video tube
any of us are ever likely to own.

>CD-ROIM is expensive, and that's too bad. The good news
>is that it will become less expensive as more people
>buy them - that's capitalism at work I suppose. If
>you don't want to develop for NT, don't buy yourr
>CD-ROM soon - after Christmas they'll probably be $250
>each. But if you want to be on the edge, consider it
>a development cost and go get one now. If you don't
>see the knowledge you will have of NT as a being 
>worth $500 or so, then don't spend it. 

Frankly, I don't see NT as being worth $500 in its final form, much
less as a 'pre-Beta'.  Guess I'll just stay at Windows 3.1 until the
CSD for OS/2 comes out and see from there.  Given the feeling that
Windows 3.1 is going to be another dead end, though (only the 'top 100
applications' whatever those might be, will be migratable to wherever
MS expects to move people from Windows 3.1), I think I may have better
luck switching my baby machine (386/25 w/ 6 MB) to OS/2 and running
UNIX on the big one (486/50 w/ 16 MB).

I also don't really want to spend the money on a CD-ROM drive, since
storage I can't write to strikes me as pretty useless in the general
scheme of things.



-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy