HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: andy@research.canon.oz.au (Andy Newman)
Subject: Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks! (was Re: Windows NT 'Alpha')
Organization: Canon Information Systems Research Australia
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 01:52:40 GMT

bpowell@osc.edu (Brian Powell) writes:
>X is a hack?  If X11R5 is a hack, it is by far the best, most stable
>and robust hack I've ever seen.  I've NEVER crashed an X11 session on
>my Sun SPARCstation, and I sometimes do some pretty strange things on
>it.  Compared to Windoze, X11 is stability incarnate :-) Even OS/2
>(a very stable PC system, IMHO) can't match the stability of X11.

The "X is a hack" comment doesn't relate to its stability but to its
contents. Some people will say that X has a poor i/f and is overly
large. The fact that it is stable (most of the time) is a credit to the
authors and the many thousands of people who used earlier versions and
found many of the bugs.
-- 
Andy Newman (andy@research.canon.oz.au)		"int - God's own type"
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: amitp@rice.edu (Amit J Patel)
Subject: THANK YOU, Microsoft!
Keywords: micro-who?
Reply-To: amitp@owlnet.rice.edu
Organization: Yes, I think so
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 23:26:36 GMT

Thank you Microsoft!  The OS/2 version of MS-Word 5.5 works beautifully 
under OS/2 2.0!  :) :) :)  The only app that I use that didn't work when
I moved to OS/2 is Atech's Fastfonts... and it's not an MS program!




	Amit



--
Happy happy OS/2 user
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: wiegand@rtsg.mot.com (Robert Wiegand)
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.3
Reply-To: motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 13:58:43 GMT

brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:

>>
>>>	NTFS
>>>#		Automatic 8.3 names
>>>			NTFS supports both long names and short ones.
>>>			The short one is generated automatically
>>>			if the long one it does not fit the 8.3 pattern.
>>>			This is done so that DOS apps can see long-named
>>>			files too.
>>
>>What happens when a DOS apps edits the file?  These apps typically
>>make backups.  They do it by renaming the original file and then
>>create a new file to save data into.
>>
>>What happens to the long name when this happens?

>Sigh... it has both a long name and a short one.
>I.E. the file has two names as a part of its attributes.
>This is not the same as a Unix link.
>The directory entry contains two names.
>I promise... Microsoft isn't stupid; NTFS is a very modern file system.

I think you missed the point. When a DOS program - which only understands
8.3 names - copies a file to a new name what happens to the long name?
Do you get two files with different short names, but the same long name?
Does the OS just create a new long name? Does the OS ask the user to
supply a name? What happens?

>-- 
>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           :-) :-) :-)
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Wiegand - Motorola Inc.
uunet!motcid!wiegand
Disclamer: I didn't do it - I was somewhere else at the time.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: NT goes "late Beta" in 8 weeks! (was Re: Windows NT 'Alpha')
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:03:49 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <1992Aug24.200938.14130@microsoft.com>  philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
> In article <1992Aug21.181514.4337@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David
> >
> >MS, on the other hand, enjoys dropping products.  They won't support
> >the MS-OS/2 packages they sold - they just tell you to "wait for NT".
> >They won't support Windows 3.0 - they tell you to upgrade to 3.1, etc.
> >It's not very nice to customers to be told to wait for the next
> >version of a product when you have a problem.
>
>     Hmmm... like "wait for the CSD", or "wait for the manufacturers
> to come up with SVGA drivers"?  Unless you're dealing with a
> private consultant, you usually don't get everything that you
> want in a product immediately.
>     Please - in your haste to bash Microsoft (and you usually do
> it quite well), you've come up with one of the most ludicrous
> statements I've yet seen posted to this board, and I've seen
> some real doozies.

I believe that the point is that IBM doesn't make you pay to get your
bugs fixed.

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: andy@research.canon.oz.au (Andy Newman)
Subject: Re: Fork() rationale?
Organization: Canon Information Systems Research Australia
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 04:26:16 GMT

dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>If you've got to replace fork() with vfork() in source code anyway,
>you might as well replace it with DosExecPgm() and get it over with.
>The only usefulness of fork() existing is to compile Unix sources
>_WITHOUT_ modifying them.
>
>(The purpose of bringing it up was for the purpose of porting Unix
> sources, not for using it in new OS/2 code, right?)

No fork() is needed for POSIX.
-- 
Andy Newman (andy@research.canon.oz.au)		"int - God's own type"
From: arb@andersen.co.uk (Phil Mellor)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Win 386enh - OS/2 v2.0 and NT - question?
Date: 27 Aug 92 12:34:29 GMT
Organization: Andersen Consulting (UK Practice)

I have a very strange question, maybe someone can help with.
One of the things I see a great deal in this group is NT addicts who quote OS/2 v2.0's lack of Windows 386enh support. And that is a fact OK.

What I want to know is if NT is going to support this feature and if so how is it going to do so without affecting system security ( since, correct me if I'm wrong, these apps have to be able to access ring 0 ).

I would be very interested to find out.

Thank you

Philip Buckley-Mellor
arb@andersen.com.uk
voc:061 435 5292

 
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: MS Gave Up (Was Re: pc week and nt)
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 02:14:43 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In <1992Aug21.220545.26567@microsoft.com> petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:

>In article <1992Aug20.171233.20569@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> dab6@po.CWRU.Edu (Douglas A. Bell) writes:
>>
>>Why did microsoft stop making OS/2 apps for their flag ship
>>applications?

>Because OS/2 was not selling like hotcakes, and they were
>working on other things, such as the next versions.
>IMHO, at least.

OS/2 was not selling like hotcakes because a lot of people (myself
included) were waiting for the 386 version that would allow true
multitasking of DOS apps as well as running larger OS/2 apps.  

Yet, when the version finally came out that delivered on the promises MS
had made years ago, MS abandoned not just the OS (understandable), but
the apps their existing customers were using (less understandable).  The
former abandonment was perfectly reasonable--IBM took over, customers
still have support, etc.  The latter abandonment was, IMO,
reprehensible.  

>>Why can't you just say that microsoft abandonded OS/2?
>>Is it some mental block that you have?

>Okay, lets start from the top here...
>What do you mean by abandon.
>If you mean that microsoft plotted to piss off all of its
>customers, and is trying to take over the world, and is
>trying to force all people to have a CDROM player on their
>desk, well, NO.

No, of course not.  But I find it difficult to believe that MS didn't
realize that a 32-bit operating system that *actually let you run
multiple DOS apps* would do *much* better than an OS that only let you
run one DOS app at a time, and that in a less-than-fully-compatible
"compatibility box". 

>If you simply mean that MS passed ownership of OS/2 over to
>IBM, well, MS did that.

MS did more than that.  If that were all that they did, I would have no
complaints.  But they abandonded the users of their applications, they
changed directions suddenly, confusing developers, and they left a lot
of people in the lurch.  I bought OS/2 2.0 as soon as I heard that it
had real DOS compatibility and multitasking.  I had no idea that MS was
dumping the system, but, much to my surprise, I found that the upgrade
to my C compiler no longer supported the OS that its vendors had been
trying to persuade me to buy for years; the OS that I had finally
bought, in part because it *was* supported by my C compiler.  Well, I've
got the OS, and it *is* everything that was promised, so I plan to
continue using it.  Guess I'll just have to find another C compiler
vendor.  One that supports their customers, doesn't try to confuse them,
and change direction on them without warning.

Thank you MS.  NOT!!
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: mhayashi@gus.ecn.purdue.edu (Mathew S Hayashi)
Subject: Re: Tex Advantages (was Re: TeX an archaic religion?)
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 23:56:43 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.151316.2891@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:
>rommel@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Kai-Uwe Rommel) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Aug28.160629.17181@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:
>>>hpw@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Harry P Warren) writes:
>
>>I assume how TeX works. Then you know that TeX itself is absolutely
>>device independent. For any of the device you mentioned, the same DVI
>>file is used (guess what DVI means!). What is device dependent is the
>>dvi driver as is the printer driver used by PageMaker etc.
>
>Not the same, by a long shot.  Once I get the PostScript output from
>PageMaker, FrameMaker, WordPerfect, etc. that ouptu file is device
>independent.  I can output that file to ANY PostScript device and get 
>good output.  The dvi file is an intermediate file, *NOT* the final output
>file.  You need to generate an output file for each device.  That is 
>device dependence - despite the name.  TeX (dvi) is device dependent,
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>PostScript is device independent.

If TeX's DVI is "device dependent", then what device is DVI "dependent"
on!!!? 
	Both PostScript and DVI are "device independent" formats.

I think Richard Warner has a different definition of "device
in/dependency" than most other people. I think you might be thinking
of "site dependencies," which BOTH TeX and Frame must deal with.
(What would your site be doing if it did NOT have PostScript printers?)
> ...
--
                            -------     
                           --/\-----    Mat Hayashi
                           | O   O |    mhayashi@ecn.purdue.edu
                           |   ^   |    
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.misc
From: ebu@vipunen.hut.fi (Erik Bunn)
Subject: Problems with crashes, tweaks, etc. (was: Re: Win-OS/2 performance tweaks)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
	<1992Aug31.171344.42686@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
	<1992Sep1.190039.42710@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 2 Sep 92 11:05:05



<tweaks deleted>

Argh. This finally broke my back.. 
After I applied the tweaks, WINOS2 locked up on me. The OS itself was
up - I could CTRL-ESC, and even move the mouse for a fraction of a
second while the OS was opening or closing windows in the PM. So I
restarted. When the system got up, it locked totally up in about 30
seconds. Repeatedly. The WINOS icon would be 'in use', but would not
show up on the task list.

This alone probably wouldn't have deterred me, but I've had similar
experiences trying to set up a couple of games and graphics drivers. 
Any suggestions as to what the problem is? I have a 386/25 with 8Mb
memory and 140 MB of HD, and a Trident 8900B card. 


No flames, please =).. I'm on the OS/2 side, and I've by no means
given up on OS/2 totally; I'll probably wait until I
get a new computer or until I switch my videoboard and the new CSD (?)
is published. Until then, W*s 3.1 will run the programs I need faster.
Not more comfortably, though.. I'll miss the multitasking, and I'm
already fed up again with trying to adjust the memory in DOS. 



Erik
--
____----_____ _______ ____ ___ __ _  _   _    _     _      _          _
__-__--__-___
_-__-_____-__  Erik.Bunn@hut.fi      (358-0) 455-1041 20:00 - 10:00
_-__-_____-__  ebu@vipunen.hut.fi    (1-206) 638-1002 summers
__-__--__-___  ebu@niksula.cs.hut.fi
____----_____ _______ ____ ___ __ _  _   _    _     _      _          _

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
		-- Euripides
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re: OS/2 Advocacy
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 18:05:31 GMT

Chris Waters writes
> In <2A9CE72A.635A@tct.com> jim@tct.com (Jim Kunzman) writes:

>> Proposal:  Support for fork() system call. 
>> Rationale:  This is required by POSIX and would facilitate
>> porting several significant UNIX programs
>> to OS/2, e.g. bash.

> Fork(2) can be pretty inefficient.

vfork() already exists in most Unix implementations, and
is exactly what is required when spawning a small task.

(What is that quote about Posix and select() and having
to hide good functionality in the closet?)

Scott Byer                                   NeXTMail: byer@adobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated               These are *my* opinions, and  
1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900        do not necessarily reflect
Mountain View, CA 94039-7900             the opinions of my employer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu (John H. Kim)
Subject: Re: Windows NT Shareware Contest for COMDEX 92
Keywords: Contest Windows NT Shareware prizes
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 01:18:06 GMT

it1@ra.msstate.edu (Tim Tsai) writes:

>  Gee, wasn't this one of the ideas proposed by Bert for OS/2 a few
>months ago?  Of course since IBM isn't making the development tools
>available to general users cheaply (no, I don't think $295 is cheap),
>this may not be such a hot idea for OS/2 afterall..

>brianmo@microsoft.com (Brian Moran) writes:
>>The Windows NT Shareware Contest

I get the feeling some folks from Microsoft were monitoring the OS/2
newsgroups, taking notes of complaints and suggestions, and applied
them to WinNT.  A lot of the issues addressed in the initial release
of the pre-alpha NT were things OS/2 users had brought up.

I also get the feeling IBM may just manage to snatch defeat from the
jaws of victory if things keep going the way they are.  They got the
WPS and Win3.0 support in place in 6 months, you'd think they could
get a bug fix out in less time.
-- 
John H. Kim                 | (This space to be filled when I
jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu | think of something very clever 
uunet!jarthur!jokim         | to use as a disclaimer)
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2's Future
Date: 28 Aug 92 16:58:30 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Aug27.193758.6534@colorado.edu> neves@chimay.cs.colorado.edu (NEVES RICHARD K) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.141903.15158@husc3.harvard.edu> mendels1@husc4.harvard.edu (Andrew Mendelsohn) writes:
>>Interesting echoes of MS strategy with WIN NT and CAIRO, except 
>>that OS/2 substitutes for Windows and CAIRO is not currently 
>>projected to be added to DOS (at least the rumors I read a while 
>>back).
>
>w/ the AIX part missing.   This strategy doesn't sound very orthogonal...
>AIX and OS/2 sound more competitive than complimentary.  

Why is an AIX server more competitive than a POSIX server?  At least
AIX is well defined and is in use in lots of installations.  I think
POSIX is just a generic spec with no specifications on how it should
be implemented.
-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "I don't even represent myself
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   sometimes so NJIT is right out!.
 ((|,)
  ~|~  Hi! I am a .signature virus, copy me into your .signature file.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT Products
From: Spartacus at Cuny <M05BC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Monday, 31 Aug 1992 21:14:02 EDT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center

In article <1992Aug31.150612.10353@hellgate.utah.edu>,
brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) says:
>
>In article <1992Aug31.202727.6357@news.iastate.edu> TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu
>(Timothy I Miller) writes:
>>Everybody keeps talking about how NT products are going to be able
>>to run on win 3.1 machines.  My question is how are they going to be
>>able to do this if they want to be multithreaded?  It seems to me
>>that the only way to do this would be to scale down their software
>>to run in win 3.1.  If this is true, isn't NT just running windows
>>3.1 apps?  Seems pretty pointless to me...
>>
>Threads will be "faked" in software under 3.1, there will be thread, but
>the threads won't be dispatched via the operating system, but rather within
>the application.  This, for example, is how SysV4.2 has threads.  It works
>but isn't as smooth as having the threads dispatched by the OS.  It should
>work fine for those users that "task-switch" rather than "multi-task" in the
>truest sense, and of course this is mainly what 3.1 is good at anyway.
>If you want to know more about Win32s, look in the MSWIN32 forum on CompuServe
>there is a list of functions in Excel spreadsheet and CSV formats that
>describes what will work under Win32s and what won't.
>
>Brian
>--

     I'm curious, since IBM and Microsoft have cross-license agreements.
Could IBM modified Win32 API for OS/2 so that NT Multitreaded Apps
designed to work with Win32 would work under OS/2's OS2-WIN
as true multitreaded applications?  Please don't flame me on this...
I'm no expert (or near expert) on this.  I'm just curious...
be kind :-)

-------
------------------------------+      All The Best,
Reply To:                     |
                              |      Edward Galarza,
     M05BC@CunyVM.Cuny.Edu    |      Brooklyn College Of The
     M05BC@CunyVM.BitNet      |      City University Of New York
------------------------------+      "Que viva el OS/2!"
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: db3l@ans.net (David Bolen)
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.2
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 12:00:14 GMT
	<1992Sep1.000214.29640@hellgate.utah.edu>
	<1992Sep1.184637.17449@hemlock.cray.com>
Organization: Advanced Network & Services, Inc. - Elmsford, NY

In article <1992Sep1.184637.17449@hemlock.cray.com> bgm@cray.com (Bert Moshier) writes:

>(several recent articles about a program overflowing thread 1 stack space
> under ICC)

>>In article <1992Aug31.164630.13859@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>
>>If you compile this: icc t.c
>>It crashes after printing "1".
>>
>>If you compile this: icc /b/stack:32768 t.c
>>It crashes after printing "8".
>>
>>If you compile this on a Unix system which has dynamic stack expansion,
>>it runs just fine.
>
>Brian:
>
>Sorry to say you are wrong.  I used the following MAKEFILE and MAKEFILE.DEP
>and in an OS/2 Window I got:
>
> (proper output)

I finally decided to get the actual program and compile it myself with ICC.
The behavior that Bert saw was due to optimizations being turned on.  The
ICC optimizer was smart enough to note that the recursion was not necessary,
so it turned it into a simple loop.  This only used a single stack frame,
and therefore it would always run, no matter what value of n was chosen.

Actually - it seems quite an impressive optimization to me, but it does
invalidate the binary for the purposes of testing stack usage.  It's always
tricky to try to make a program to test a specific thing, and then compile it
with optimization.  You are no longer guaranteed literal interpretation of
your program - only the end result (presuming no compiler/optimizer bugs).

--
-- David
--
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------\
 \              David Bolen             \  Internet: db3l@ans.net      /
  |   Advanced Network & Services, Inc.   \   Phone: (914) 789-5327   |
 / 100 Clearbrook Road, Elmsford, NY 10523  \   Fax: (914) 789-5310    \
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------/
From: gt0059e@prism.gatech.EDU (Garrett Drysdale)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: POSIX
Date: 1 Sep 92 19:01:23 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

Having heard much praise about this POSIX compliance stuff being tossed
around here, I have a couple of questions and comments.  First, let me
say that I know little about UNIX other than how to stay out of trouble
when using it, and even less about POSIX.  For the benefit of those of
us not in the know on the subject, here are my questions comments.

First, the comments.  A recent issue of Electronic Design News (I think,
I can't find the issue so this is all from memory) was talking about
POSIX support by different UNIX vendors and also real time issues that
future versions of posix were supposed to handle more efficiently.  The
article made several references statements along the lines that "... 
posix compliance was falling into many of the same traps as unix..."
(remember from memory paraphrased) such as each vendor adding additional
features to the basic posix compliance which in most cases would result
in many of the same porting problems now seen with different implimentations
of unix, although most likely not on the same scale.  If this is true
(I don't pretend to know if it is or not) how much does posix help in po
porting applicatinos, and how much does it suffer from the same
problems as unix.

Questions:
1)  What exactly is POSIX anyway?

2)  What are the *real* benefits as opposed to the *ideal* benefits?

I expect that the real gurus on the above subject will take over this
thread, but I am sincerely interested as I am sure others are.

Garrett

-- 
Garrett Drysdale
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp:	  ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gt0059e
Internet: gt0059e@prism.gatech.edu
From: mlevis@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Mike Levis)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.3
Date: 2 Sep 92 23:03:36 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio

In article <1992Sep2.193657.3399@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>>If you can find that announcement I'd be greatly interested.
>>(I'd also like to know if other things are promised.)
>
>I'll see if ftp-os2 has it.  If they do, I'll e-mail you a copy.

It is called ibmplans.txt in directory /pub/os2/2.0/info.


-- 
==== Mike Levis   mlevis@ringer.cs.utsa.edu ====
::   ftp syrinx.umd.edu  (128.8.2.114)  for   ::  .--.
::   Rush lyrics,  gifs,  and  information.   :: (OS/2)
:::: Get the Rush FAQL in dir /rush/special ::::  ~--~