Organization: Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Wien, Vienna, Austria
Date: Tuesday, 14 Apr 1992 20:01:52 WUT
From: FLATSCHER Rony <RONY@awiwuw11.wu-wien.ac.at>
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Pause before you consider OS/2 (was Re: Win 3.1 not THAT great.)
 <DEMILLO.92Apr10140113@egeus.juliet.ll.mit.edu>
 <AARONW.92Apr13110147@am.ucsc.edu>



I have been a heavy user of DOS and Windows and still will be for some time.

**But** I took the opportunity to look at 32bit OS/2 GA (which I got and
fiddled around on different sized machines). Therefore I would like to
present what I feel.

The Windows-part of OS/2 is based on Windows 3.1 code according to the
book of Deitel and Kogan (Kogan should know, he was a chief architect of
it), altered to be a DPMI-client and allowing for Windows 2.x and
Windows 3.0 apps (note Win 3.1 does not allow for running Win 2.x apps
anymore). From the viewpoint of the host operating system (like on NT
next year) windows is just like any other app and is sheltered from all
other apps. Therefore you may even run several copies of Windows itself
(and multiple windows-apps in every Windows-session), which - and that
**is** great - are truly multitasked against each other. This means, that
I can reformat, spellcheck, recalc, print in one Windows-session and
switch to another to work with another set of Windows-apps, **without**
waiting on one Win-app to finish.

This truly multitasking stuff happens with all the sessions OS/2 manages,
so additionally you can run DOS-programs, you can format, you can up/download
in a DOS/Windows/OS/2-session - who cares anymore ? The good thing is, you
rarely would notice all that is going on. A 80386-based processor for the
first time (except for Unix of course) is really being utilized for us.

The saga could continue endlessly, but I would stress the DOS-capabilities
too (as I am a heavy DOS-user too). With 32bit OS/2 you get DOS 5.0 accustomed
to run under OS/2 (very much like NT, which will come next year). None of my
DOS-programs (dBase, Open Access, a $10,000-emulation program, C-compiler,
word-processors etc.) noticed so far that they are not running under true
DOS. Absolutely no problems here (of course, older VCPI-DOS-programs are
not allowed to run, because they attempt to seize the processor exclusively
for themselves; newer DOS-Extender-programs use DPMI in order to run under
Windows and therefore run under 32bit OS/2 seamlessly too). I started to
fiddle around with the opportunity to boot original 8086-operating-systems
into 32bit OS/2-virtual-machines: MS-DOS of different versions, DR-DOS 5.0 and
6.0, and even CP/M to play with Q-Bird - can you imagine that ? - a game,
almost 10 years old !).

All in all, 32bit OS/2 is a technical demonstration of what could be at
the finger-tips of Joe, the average user. I use 32bit OS/2 as a host operating
system to do my DOS- and Windows-stuff good, and it is doing a tremendeous
job so. I estimate that my personal productivity was raised by more than
100 % (not having to stare to the hour-glass, not having to wait for an
UNZIP, not having to wait for a print job to finish, not having to wait
for a format to complete, not having ...).

Future application aquisitions for sure are based on true 32bit OS/2 apps
to replace the existing app-mixture including Win-apps. Of course, I just
plan to replace a Win-App, if an OS/2-version is ready and can give me
more productivity. Seeing AmiPro (one of my favored Win-WordProcessors)
announced for a true 32bit OS/2 Version and therefore being faster (I
expect a 100 % increase in speed) on the *same* machine I now used to use
the Windows-version on.

Having used 32bit OS/2 on quite some different machines, I would suggest
a minimum of 6 MB for main-memory and a 60 MB hard-disk (the more - as for
Windows itself - the better of course). Seeing Windows Apps needing 10-20 MB
of hard-disk probably 100 or 200 MB hard-disk should be a minimum nowadays.

---rony
P.S.: Some other goodies: ATM in the kernel, supplied with WINOS2, WorkPlace
Shell, SOM (system object model), help-system, performance, versatality,
applets (especially productivity tool), HPFS (high performance file system,
allowing for long, descriptive filenames finally), security against system-
downs, Win 2.x compatibility, DOS-device-drivers usable in DOS-sessions,
and more and more and more. I stop.
P.P.S.: Not being from the United States I envy those people getting OS/2
for just $49,-- (forty-nine)!!!