From: jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph T. Malloy)
Subject: Re: Windows NT humor
Organization: Hamilton College - Clinton, NY
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 18:55:08 GMT

In article <85280@ut-emx.uucp> jbodnar@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (John Bodnar) writes:
>According to rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari):
>>	Truth in advertising?  From the company that claimed
>>	"A better Windows than Windows?" (When Windows is *obviously*
>>	3.1 and *not* 3.0).. Same companythat advertises somethingas
>>	vacuous and ambiguous as "crash protection">
>
>The "Better Windows than Windows" is subjective.  Here are my reasons for
>believing this:
>
>1) Gentle crash recovery.  OS/2 politely informs me that it's going to kill
>the application.  Windows 3.1 does this only occasionally.  It brings up
>the "Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to end this application," but too often, it
>doesn't work and resets the machine.  Under OS/2, I can run my Windows
>applications in separate, protected VDMs, so I never (I repeat NEVER) have
>had to reboot because Windows or a Windows application crashed.  This is
>"Better Windows than Windows."

There is no doubt that, in theory and design, OS/2 provides great
protections between apps. In practice, however, OS/2 can and did crash
on me, more often than Windows 3.1 does (i.e., Windows virtually (!)
never crashes and the odd app that does can almost always be shut down
with local re-boot).  I suppose those using only DOS apps benefit from
OS/2 more than Win app users such as myself, but I found OS/2 2.0 GA to
be quite buggy.  For what I do, it was hardly a Better Windows than
Windows.
>
>2) A better GUI.  I consider the WPS a better way to switch between
>multiple applications.  Under Windows, I switch back to the Program Manager
>and open a new application.  The Program Manager is always there, and it's
>inefficient.  Under the WPS, each Windows program I run does so in its own
>VDM, and I just Ctrl-Esc to switch between them.  This is "Better Windows
>than Windows."

No doubt the lame combination of Progman/Fileman is not a wondrous
example of an interface, but I have used a number of substitute 'front
ends' to Windows 3.x, finally settling on Norton Desktop for Windows
2.0.  The WPS shell may well be more functional, but it's hardly better,
being, IMO, not particularly intuitive and also buggy.  If Symantec can
do more than just the Norton Commander for OS/2 (i.e., maybe an
equivalent OS/2 version of the Norton Desktop with all the nice extras
that includes), that would be great.  Until there are real thirdy party
alternatives, though, that darn WPS is hardly a "Better Windows than
Windows."
>
>3) Better DOS multitasking.  I still use DOS programs, and OS/2 allows me
>to multitask them along with Windows applications without performance
>degradation.  This is "Better Windows than Windows."

This must surely be where OS/2 shines (although I had trouble when using
DOS comm programs under OS/2).  I use, however, no more than three DOS
based apps these days and those only infrequently.  OS/2 may indeed be a
better DOS than DOS, but that doesn't mean a thing to Windows users who
don't need DOS or need it but infrequently.  
>
>You see, "Better Windows than Windows" means more than just performance.
>All of OS/2's critics have agreed with the "Better DOS than DOS," but they
>conveniently forget this when evaluating its Windows capabilities.  It must
>be so only because Windows applications are dog slow compared to comparable
>DOS applications, and so performance really becomes the only criterion.
>Besides, Windows is a DOS program, so the "Better DOS than DOS" also
>happens to apply to it (both figuratively and in real use).
>
I can well understand why you would want to downplay WINOS2's
performance, for my experience with it was that it made my 386/33 crawl
when running Windows (WINOS2, in a 12 MB RAM system!) in comparison to 
my 386sx/20 notebook with 4 MB RAM.  If you have the drivers you need
and if you actually like the WPS and if you use mostly DOS programs and
if you have the higher resources OS/2 demands, I suspect you'll be quite
happy with OS/2 2.0 and that's fine.  But it's not the bees' knees for
most people, if you ask me (um, that last bit is a rhetorical flourish
only!) 

>You cannot conclusively prove than Windows 3.1 substantially outperforms
>WIN-OS/2 3.0.  Even benchmarks in the trade rags have reached the same
>conclusion: the performance difference is only about 10%.  Now, the lack of
>seamless WIN-OS/2 drivers is a problem.  Windows 3.1 has an advantage here,
>but it will evaporate in due time.

I don't have to prove anything to anybody but myself.  The fact is, on
my system, WINOS2 was a dog and seamless Windows was like a dead dog.
Benchmarks have limited use, it seems to me, and even then you need to
use a wide variety of them to accurately contrast and compare.  There's
little doubt in my mind, for example, that on equal systems with 4 MB
RAM, OS/2's Windows emulation is just plain bad.  On 8 MB or more
systems it's better, but so is Windows 3.x.  To each his/her own.

>
>There is also a market to be found here.  How many OS/2 users will upgrade
>their frame buffer based VGA boards (ET4000 based, ATI, Trident, Paradise),
>etc. when Radius releases their XGA-2 card?  If the price is right, the
>answer will be many.  Radius sees the opportunity to make money here, and
>undoubtedly, other companies will see the same opportunity soon enough.
>-- 
>John Bodnar                          : Friends don't let friends use Windows!
>The University of Texas at Austin    : But I'm still waiting for Microsoft
>Internet: jbodnar@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu : Solitaire NT!  Heaven forbid, another
>UUCP: ....!cs.utexas!ut-ccwf!jbodnar : productive user of OS/2 v2.0!

Season's Greeting!

jmalloy@hamilton.edu