HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: discar@nosc.mil (Joe Discar)
Subject: Re: MS's misconduct!
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 17:31:18 GMT

In article <1992Sep27.235316.22538@muddcs.claremont.edu> tlilley@jarthur.claremont.edu (Thomas (Ted) Lilley) writes:
>In article <1992Sep27.050408.12169@nosc.mil> discar@nosc.mil (Joe Discar) writes:
>>[stuff deleted about a "better" download solution would be multiple
>>computers]
>>>
>>>Your needs vs. mine.  I can't afford mutiple computers.  Apparantly,
>>>you have them lying around doing nothing anyway, so it's not a
>>>problem. 
>>
>>Poor you.  But the point is, that there are better solutions in some
>>instances.  Even so, downloading in the background is not a very
>>popular/critical thing for most people anyway.
>
>In your experience.  Really, until we take a nationwide poll, we don't know
>that downloading in the background *isn't* a popular/critical thing.  I will
>tell you that in the world outside internet, BBS's are the mainstay of the
>"average Joe".  If you don't think downloading in the background is/would be
>important to those people, you're wrong.  From mail packets to files, there
>is *constant* action on our board back home.

For a user who works mainly at home.  But, truly, I say unto thee that most
corporate computer users don't know what a BBS is.  They need a computer
to service their clients (period).

>
>>>>Show of hands, everyone, how many people think that computerization has
>>>>benefitted the office worker?  (my hand is down).  
>>>
>>>Does this mean that we should stifle the technology?  What's your point?
>>>-- 
>>
>>The point, is that, in the end, aren't we simply making more fashionable
>>chains for ourselves?  If you don't think it's ironic, then the effort
>>was wasted on you.
>
>Work doesn't change, only the way we do it.

The short run, though, is that workers will either have to adapt or
suffer.  In the end, this is good because it will make the society more
productive--but it's really not something to look forward to on a 
personal level, painful as such adaptations tend to be.

>
>Just a couple nuggets of thought,
>Ted


Joe
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: os2 attitudes
Date: 28 Sep 1992 15:52:41 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Sep27.031415.20002@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> rda758g@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (A.J. Kleinert) writes:
>  If a team of programmers would produce NT in 3 years (pulling a number
>  out of the air) and the marketing guys say "No, it has to go to 
>  market in 2 years" (pulling another number out of the air) what is  
>  the case of not just doubling the number of programmers and adding 
>  a few extra for unexpected delays?  Is it an economic thing?  (ie:
>  the cost of writing the software would not make it economically viable)
>  Is it that there isn't the management/programming/productivity tools
>  around for co-ordinating such a large collection of programmers
>  efficiently?  Where is the bottleneck?

Read _The Mythical Man-Month_, by Fred Brooks. He discusses this question very
thoroughly, using his experience managing the initial implementation of OS/360
for source material. In it, he sets forth, and then proves, Brooks's Law:
"Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." The problem is
that the problems of coordinating the work of, and providing communications
between, programmers increases exponentially with the number of programmers,
while the total programmer output goes up linearly at best.
-- 
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.
    Vote for a REAL change on 3 November: Throw out the check-bouncing,
  tax-and-spend Democrat Congress! (obviously, not an opinion of UTHSCH)
From: Joe@twistor.dialix (Joe Katnic)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re:  OS/2, my final analysis.
Distribution: world
Date: 1 Oct 92 22:11:59 PST
Organization: Not an Organization

In article <1992Sep30.175139.22736@solaris.rz.tu-clausthal.de> ch@sg1502.chemie.uni-marburg.de (Christoph H. Hochstaetter) writes:
>|> >2. OS/2 is *almost* stable enough to run in a so-called mission critical
>|> >   environment.  It *is* stable enough to run as a network server without
>|> >   its buggy graphical interface.  I've just run into one too many, and
>|> >   that was two months ago.
>|> > 
>|> 
>|> I think its about time to explode the myth that OS/2 is ALMOST stable
>|> enough to have mission critical applications run on it.
>|>
>
>I fully agree. If OS/2 is stable, I don't wanna know, how an unstable
>OS will behave.
> 
>|> During development OS/2 crashed twice.
>
>Twice what? Twice a day? Twice a week?

TWICE PERIOD.  (over a 6 week development period.)

>
>Christoph
>-- 
>Internet: ch@sg1502.chemie.uni-marburg.de
>BITNET: HAMPE2@DMRHRZ11
>Fido: 2:243/660

--

Joe Katnic                                         Joe@twistor.DIALix.oz.au
                                                (ALT: jkatnic@DIALix.oz.au)
Science - A system of Truth.                         Phone: (+619) 454 3939
Engineering - A system of Use.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: sam@ms.uky.edu (Mike Mills)
Subject: Re: MS's misconduct!
    <1992Oct4.180905.27222@ms.uky.edu> <1992Oct5.151116.21671@cam-orl.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 03:08:35 GMT
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences

thg@cam-orl.co.uk (Tim Glauert) writes:

>In article <1992Oct4.180905.27222@ms.uky.edu>, sam@ms.uky.edu (Mike Mills) writes:
>|> IMHO, preemptive multitasking is a requirement.

>OK, I agree.

>|>  Also, any OS should be multiuser.

>OK, I agree again, for a PC/Workstation OS.

>|>  This is a shortcoming in both NT and OS/2.

>Sorry, you lost me at this point. NT is fully multi-user. What are you trying
>to say?

>|> With machines
>|> becoming more and more powerful, there is an increasing need for multiuser
>|> operating systems, in order to take better advantage of the underlying
>|> machine.

>I agree. That is one reason I prefer NT to OS/2 2.0.


Ok, perhaps I'm mistaken here.  From what I've read, NT offers symmetric
multiprocessing and some other things, but is NOT multiuser.

If NT is truly multiuser, then I must say that is one thing in its favor.

Someone care to give the definititve answer on this?


-- 
--Mike Mills              E-Mail:  sam@ms.uky.edu, {rutgers, uunet}!ukma!sam
--UK Math Sciences Dept.                  mike@ukpr.uky.edu    
--(606) 257-1429 (work) 263-0721 (home)
From: kmacleod@hyperdesk.com (Kenneth Macleod)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Multitasking (was MS's misconduct!)
Date: 30 Sep 92 22:40:31 GMT
Reply-To: kmacleod@hyperdesk.com (Kenneth Macleod)
Organization: HyperDesk Corp.  Westboro MA

Anyone who says that preemptive multitasking is just a tool is way way
off track.

My father has three computers at work, hooked up to a lantastic network.
The
server is  a 386sx 16mhz 1.5 megs of ram.  There are five distinct tasks
on that
machine, four of which NEED pre-emptive multitasking.  There is, first,
the 
network.  Second there is a voice/fax card in the machine.  Third, there
is a
modem in the machine (part of the fax card).  Fourth, the machine is
running
wordperfect all day.  Finally there is sidekick running in the
background.

With dos+qemm, the lan, the voicemail, and wordperfect will work
together.
I would like to hook up remote software to attach to the modem.
That causes the machine to randomly crash.  There is a similar problem
with
sidekick.  Loading it resident crashes the machine at random points.  It
now
shares a task swapper with wordperfect, which means no alarms.

Anyone care to point out how dos or cooperative multitasking (windows)
would
solve the problems of this machine?

Of course, there is no going to os/2 until lantastic and the voicemail
folks
write drivers for os/2.  But when they do, this machine will get some
more ram
and will run os/2.

BTW, don't tell anyone that this machine is overworked.  The folks who
use it
say it runs plently fast.

Also, while the network and voice cards have their own processors,
everyone
still needs to share the hard drive.

--

  o o|  Kenneth MacLeod, HyperDesk Corp.
  o o|  Email: kenneth@hyperdesk.com
  ---'  Phone: (508) 366-5050 x 133

Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Date: 5 Oct 92 12:21:54 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <7494@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.002541.6252@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>And yes I do have all that in writing from MS.
>>Though I only find it necessary to get things in writing, when it comes
>>from  IBM... I just installed CSD0014 of Workset/2... the bloody
>>optimizer STILL has too man bugs to be used.  You can take your anti-MS
>>attitude and stick it if the best you have to offer as an alternate is
>>IBM!  They may give you your bug fixes free, but you sure as hell need
>>them!
>>(Sorry... it's just that C Set/2 has just wasted yet another 12 hour's work.)
>
>I'd be willing to bet a steak dinner that Ian Ameline, or someone from his
>shop, has _already_ emailed or spoken to Brian about this statement. Could the

You lose!!! (How do I collect? :-))  On the other had I agree that
it's likely one of the will.  Not that it's gonna matter this time.
I've truely given up on C Set/2.  I'll have to ship my first
version without optimization, and then get Borland when it comes out.
Sigh.  Realize I did not give up on the optimizer easily... I found
three different programs where it broke things before I gave up.
I don't know if the breakages are related or not, but how well can
they have tested the optimizer if the 14th revision of the compiler
still hits bugs that easily?  (Basically something like 30% of the
programs I tried break when the optimizer is turned on.)
Last time I tracked the bug down to a small section of code... this
time I'll just wait for Borland.

>same be said about Microsoft? How many bugs are there in MSC 6? How much did

I was smart, until MSC 7, I used Borland.  I would still use Borland
but recently their delivery schedules have been attrocious.
I've heard all sorts of horror stories about MSC 6... but I'm beginning
to believe that even if they're all true... C Set/2 is worse.

>you spend on bug fixes for that several-hundred-dollar package?...not to
>mention the fact that you can't get a functioning upgrade to the latest
>version if you're an OS/2 user...

Why should Microsoft care about OS/2... to me, problems like those
in WorkSet/2 prove who the problem was in the MS/IBM alliance.
Why do you expect Microsoft to support an OS that they are no longer
a part of?

>-- 
>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.
>    Vote for a REAL change on 3 November: Throw out the check-bouncing,
>  tax-and-spend Democrat Congress! (obviously, not an opinion of UTHSCH)

Brian
-- 
C. Brian Sturgill                I strongly encourage you to read Ross Perot's
University of Utah                             United We Stand
Center for Software Science             How we can take back our country.
brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373  (It's more important than OS/2 vs NT! :-))
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: MS ready to release 32-bit Word & Excel?!?! Read on...
Date: 06 Oct 92 00:10:32 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Oct5.160602.21900@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>In article <1992Oct01.185323.6528@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>      Where does this come from?  The announcement on NT pricing
>>said "less that $500".  This could mean "$1", for all we know.  I
>>expect to see a competitive upgrade offer as well.
>
>Yes, but if they intended a price significantly below $500 (say,
>$350), wouldn't they be anouncing "under $400" instead?  When I see
>cars advertised as "under $20,000", it means (almost always) $19,995.
>

      Does anyone have the original context of the "under $500"
quote?  I was under the impression that it was a vague upper bound,
not an "advertisement."

				-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,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: mash@mash.wpd.sgi.com (John R. Mashey)
Subject: Re: PowerPC or (P5 & P6)? [really P5 & P6 == RISC]
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 21:10:00 GMT

In article <1992Oct4.113937.2434@leland.Stanford.EDU>, yiupun@leland.Stanford.EDU (Yiupun Michael Kwong) writes:

|> You never know. the 80x86 chips just keep on getting better.  The P5, P6 chips
|> looks like they will be on par performance wise with some of the fastest
|> RISC chips.  The line is probably going to hang around a while, even though
|> we may not necessarily like INTel's stranglehold on the chip market.

Now, it might be nice to restate this more correctly as:
	"Intel marketing says that P5, P6 will will on a par with
	the fastest RISC chips."
Some facts might be useful (please correct me if any of the below are wrong).

Intel marketing has also said/shown publicly (small sample of many):
	8/89:	sample 40Mhz 486s in 4Q89 [NOT] 
		sample 50Mhz by YE90 [NOT] 
	4Q91:	~70SPECint, about 4 months after ~50 SPECint R4000s
		2 rounds of P5 before 2nd round of R4000s
		[R4000s in Crimsons started shipping 3/92 ... so
		P5s in production systems must have been buyable in 7/92
			[NOT]
Note that at this instant, the new HP PA7100 chips are getting 78 SPECint92 &
142 SPECfp92; you can argue that maybe they're expensive.
Not too far off are R4000As, which I'd estimate in the 90s on both
metrics, and quite possibly may get out before P5s do.
Comparing die sizes & technologies:
	
	R4000/R4000A: 184 sq mm, .8 or .65 micron, 2-metal CMOS
	P5:	     ~296 sq mm, .8 micron, 3-metal BiCMOS (i.e., 1.6X larger),
			with more expensive process (3-metal & BiCMOS);
			If all other things were equal, 3-metal saves a lot
			of die space relative to 2-metal, i.e., if the P5
			were 2-metal, it would be even huger.
SO, an interesting list of die sizes:
~296	P5
~256	SuperSPARC CPU
~234	DEC Alpha
~196	HP 7100
~184	R4000,R4000A
~165	486DX (except 50Mhz ones)
 ~82	486DX2, 486DX-50

In some newspaper, I read the interesting comment that the P5 is "only slightly
larger than a 486".  I guess so, if 2-3X bigger is "only slightly larger".
 

A QUIZ:
With carefully-done CMOS, you can "optically shrink" from one
generation of technology to the next, i.e., shrink (at least) the interior
of the die uniformly, if you've been careful.  Smaller CMOS transistors are
faster, so this is goodness.

Can you do that as easily with BiCMOS? If not, why not?
(An interesting question for both P5 & SuperSPARC).

		
-- 
-john mashey    DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
UUCP:    mash@sgi.com 
DDD:    415-390-3090
USPS:   Silicon Graphics 7U-005, 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, CA 94043
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: tlilley@jarthur.claremont.edu (Thomas (Ted) Lilley)
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 21:15:22 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.165805.9074@solaris.rz.tu-clausthal.de> ch@sg1502.chemie.uni-marburg.de (Christoph H. Hochstaetter) writes:
>Yes, we all know that, since /NT is based on it. But what's IBMs
>intention by showing this demo?
>
>They made several announcements the last few week. They said, that
>they will have C2 security later, that they will have OS/2 ported
>to RS6000 later. Now they showed a mach microkernel, which will be
>available later.
>
>This shows, that they admit, that /NT is superior to OS/2 and
>they are now trying to imitate /NT. All this will then be presented
>in xth Quarter of 199y, when the "state of the art" OS will offer
>much more than /NT today.

OS/2 works for me now, and will have "features" that I may or may not
want later, but that I don't have to *buy*.  Can't say that for NT, so
NT is not superior to my thinking.  And if you think IBM is trying to
imitate NT, then NT is trying to imitate OS/2 3.0's design.  Arguments
about who's trying to imitate what are a waste of time, in my eyes.  It's
who puts together the better package for *me*, or Joe user.

>Christoph

Ted
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: MS's misconduct!
Date: 5 Oct 92 16:54:06 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Sep30.201520.16617@microsoft.com> gordonl@microsoft.com (Gordon Letwin) writes:
>	Something that very few are aware of is that IBM's original proposal
>	for the "successor to DOS" operating system had no protection
>	at all.  They liked the flexibility of hooking DOS's int
>	vectors, so their initial proposal was for an operating system which
>	used a giant call-out table, a table to be hooked by any and all
>	applications.  "You want to run at a higher priority?  No problem,
>	just hook the scheduler!"  This idea was incredibly flexible, but
>	it was also incredibly disasterous.  Microsoft folks (led by me
>	on the technical side) made presentations to IBM management and
>	got this stupid idea squashed.  This gives you some kind of idea
>	what the future holds for those who run IBM-designed operating
>	systems!

Brain-damaged ideas that get shot across the table during a
brainstorming session do not normally dictate corporate policy.
Considering that IBM has havd plenty of experience with multitasking
(from their mainframes), I think that idea would have been shot down
quite quickly.

>3) 	IBM likes to take credit for our work on OS/2 (I've an
>	IBM promotional video tape in which some IBM suit takes credit
>	for designing HPFS, something that I did single-handedly.)

So, is your company going to sue over it?
-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:6690 comp.sys.intel:1822 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:25834
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: PowerPC or (P5 & P6)?
Date: 1 Oct 92 21:39:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: njitgw.1992Oct1.213914.17438
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1afjbvINN6qc@uwm.edu> anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes:
>I don't think Intel has a monopoly on Intel 16/32 bit processors any
>more.  AMD has been selling it's 286 processor for a long time now, any
>286 faster than 12MHz is running an AMD, I don't think Intel never made
>them that fast.  The AMD 386 has been out for some time now, although
>seems to have only the 40MHz niche

AMD also produces 386sx chips at 25 and 33MHz.  I believe they'll have
486 chips out soon, as well.  BTW, the AMD 386/40 performs better than
an Intel 486sx/25, and it's much cheaper.
-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: Tidbits about NT and OS/2 from the trade rags.
Date: 5 Oct 92 00:25:40 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <1992Oct5.055854.17223@muddcs.claremont.edu> ddulay@jarthur.claremont.edu (Daniel Dulay) writes:
..
>>I'm sure that a final price will be set before the product ships.  I'm equally 
>>sure that the "pre-beta" costs 69 dollars and includes the final product.  I'm
>>equally sure that 69 dollars is a reasonable price.  I'm not sure what the 
>>final price will be for the shipping version, but I am sure that it won't cost
>>me any more than the $69 I've already spent.  
>>
>What has MS done to lead you to this conclusion?  Is it in writing?  Does
>this seriously mean that you beleive that you are going to be getting the
>release versions of both NT *and* the compiler?  Maybe MS doesn't have
>such bad marketing practices after all . . .
>Better yet we should spread this info around.  MS might look bad when
>it turns out that they are leaving their "pre-beta" users high and dry.
>
>Just out of curiousity Mark, what will you do when MS charges you more
>for the real beta?

You should really learn to check the facts before you make such
posts.  The $69 + ~$20 S&H gets you the pre-beta, all beta drops,
and the final release of NT and all the SDK, but the compiler.
(the final compiler however will be supported, it's just that MS
is expecting to release a new fancy version of the compiler about the
same time as NT's release.)

And yes I do have all that in writing from MS.
Though I only find it necessary to get things in writing, when it comes
from  IBM... I just installed CSD0014 of Workset/2... the bloody
optimizer STILL has too man bugs to be used.  You can take your anti-MS
attitude and stick it if the best you have to offer as an alternate is
IBM!  They may give you your bug fixes free, but you sure as hell need
them!
(Sorry... it's just that C Set/2 has just wasted yet another 12 hour's work.)

You can get the NT SDK by calling 1-800-227-4679.
Using the same number you can sign up for the Windows developer
CD program... $30 will periodically get you CD's containing
a ton of neat Developer info/tools/hints, etc.
They just recently sent one out... looks like it was much more than worth the
money, but I have had a chance to take a good look yet.

>Daniel Dulay
>ddulay@jarthur.claremont.edu

Brian
-- 
C. Brian Sturgill                I strongly encourage you to read Ross Perot's
University of Utah                             United We Stand
Center for Software Science             How we can take back our country.
brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373  (It's more important than OS/2 vs NT! :-))
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy