HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: Interesting tidbit from September 7, 1992 PC Week
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 92 01:26:25 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In <1992Sep11.184508.28227@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:

>Some quote from Zachmann's article with annotations by me.
>(Zachmann's is the indented part.)

>	...

>	Why does Microsoft repeatedly insist that the
>	version of Windows NT distributed in July,
>	which nearly everyone assumes to be a beta, is
>Why would anybody think this is a beta?  Microsoft has NEVER said
>this... and goes out of its way to make sure people know this.
>Don't believe me?  Call (800) 227-4679 and try to order an NT beta.
>They'll tell you immediately that it's not one.

Piffle.  Microsoft has invented a new term, "pre-beta", to describe what
is nothing more than a buggier-than-usual beta.  An alpha version is one
that is only being tested in-house.  A beta is one that is being tested
by others.  If Microsoft has released NT to testers/developers, what
they have released is a beta, by definition.  The terms "alpha" and
"beta" have a long history.

>	really a "prerelease version for developers"
>	and not a beta at all? What does this "beta
>	that is not really a beta" mean?

Zachmann's question is a good one.

>	It means three things, First, Windows NT is way
>	behind schedule. Second, the July version is
>	pretty much a mess, so much so that Microsoft
>The July release is a "mess" only in terms of 16-bit support
>everything else is reasonably stable. Which if he had bothered
>to try it, he would know... OS/2 supporters... remember when people
>kept reviewing OS/2, having never looked at the product?

Then why do they insist that their beta is a not-a-beta?  I won't
comment on the quality of the package, since I haven't seen it, but I
cannot think of *any* reason why Microsoft would use the NewSpeak term
"pre-beta" unless they wanted to cover their asses in CASE the NT beta
was a total mess.

Ok, so Zachmann doesn't think the beta is any good.  Sturgill thinks it
is.  I'll reserve judgement at this point.  In any case, what they have
is a beta.  Claiming that it is a "pre-beta" is pure silliness.  Typical
marketing department silliness.  Lets go on to something worth
discussing.
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
From: juan@noyles.pha.pa.us (Juan J. E. T. Noyles)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 vt NT features list
Distribution: world
Date: Sat, 05 Sep 92 21:23:34 GMT
Organization: The Noyles OS/2 Platform

I've received about 50 articles about this list, but I haven't seen the list *yet*!

Where is it?

--
Has anyone seen my sanity?				Juan@Noyles.pha.pa.us
From: x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Hard future for OS/2 2.0 ....
Date: 14 Sep 92 13:10:31 EST
Organization: Western Michigan University

>>

>>Well, there in Germany, people are getting killed, maimed and otherwise harassed
>>because they want to live in Germany.  Why should German criticism of an American
>>operating system matter to anyone?
> 
> Are you sure this belongs here? At least the USA don't give many people
> a chance to try living in the US - they just don't let them in. Please
> move any further discussion about this to e-mail.
	LLet's not have any Germany or US bashing here.  The US and
 Germa ny hve different ways of dealing with people.  The US doesn't
 allow everyone in mainly because the US grants citizenship to anyone
 born here while Germnay doesn't.  Plus, Americans don't seem to b
so quick to beat up foreigners at they apparently are in Germany.  But
this is
	Irrelevant.  Germany will have little if any impact on the
success or failure of OS/2 or Windows NT.
From: x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: WHAT tweaks?!
Date: 10 Sep 92 10:47:45 EST
Distribution: world
Organization: Western Michigan University

In article <715977251snx@feki.toppoint.de>, marten@feki.toppoint.de (Marten Feldtmann) writes:
> wer5@midway.uchicago.edu writes in article <1992Aug31.225614.24375@midway.uchicago.edu>:
> 
>> I have run WINOS2 with these settings from the day I installed OS/2, and it
>> takes WINOS2 35 seconds to load on my 386/33 with 16MB whereas it takes
>> Win3.1 32 seconds on a 386/25 with 4MB.
> 
>  My experience: 16 seconds to start "winos2" (full screen) 
>                                             on 486/33, 16MB, Adaptec 1542
> 
>                  7 seconds to start "winos2" from dos shell >                                             on the same machine
> 
>  MF
> 
> --
> Marten Feldtmann                         E-Mail: marten@tpki.toppoint.de

Will someone please tell me what these WINOs2 tweaks are?  My performance
in windows is decent after I changed the hw.rom to ram , got rid of ems
xms and hwtimer on but what else should I do?


> 
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: kevinlu@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Kevin Lu)
Subject: Re: Hercules ??? Be realistic !
Organization: Monash University General Access Unix
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 00:42:01 GMT

Frank Ch. Eigler (fche@db.toronto.edu) wrote:
> 
> ASI509@DJUKFA11.BITNET writes:
> 
> >[among other silly comments]
> >A GUI on a Hercules system is bullshit. [...]
> 
> Michael, have you forgotten about the original Mac?
> GUIs on monochrome screens of roughly that resolution
> can be quite competent.

Are you kidding? Everyone, an i mean everyone here at Monash doing Comp.
Sci. (1st year) absolutely HATE the Macs Plus and its drab back & white
screen, even the tutors hate them. If fact they are so disliked, that the
department is using IBMs next year! (Unlucky me)

  +----------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
  |  Kevin Lu                              | Monash University             |
  |  Email: kevinlu@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au  | Clayton, Victoria             |
  |                                        | Australia                     |
From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microsoft bashing (was: Re: Some more misconceptions...)
Date: 6 Sep 92 18:46:27 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Sep04.180924.12738@microsoft.com>, dwightm@microsoft.com (Dwight
 Matheny) writes:
><<  I think I said exactly that in my original posting--MS wants to
><<   force people into a particular environment.  It's definitely
><<   a business choice--I just don't agree with it.  MS has a variety
><<    of wonderful products, but in the long run I think they're slitting
><<   their own throat by saing "We only support our own operating
><<   environment."  People (will) want cross-platform support so they
>
>
>What about being the #1 supplier of apps for the Mac?? What about the
>recent announcement that MS will develop apps for Power PC???

That stikes me as kind of funny.  First, the mac is a special case.  MS
doesn't, didn't, and never will develop a system for the mac and they have
dominated the applications there for years.  As far as MS is concerned, the
mac is almost as much their platform  as it is Apple's because they so
thoughouly dominate apps.  Second, the Power PC isn't even close to being
produced.  I don't wan't to sound like I am opening the vaporware arguement
again, (please anything but that)  but MS loses nothing by claiming this.  I
do find it humerous that they are willing to develop for a platform which has
*no* user base and will not compete against them for quite some time, but they
won't support a system that has a fairly substantial base and is their biggest
adversary right now.  There is nothing wrong with hedging one's bets, but at
least be honest about it.

> To me that
>says that our apps guys will develop for platforms that they think
>will make money. Look at the latest SPA data for June '92 that shows
>OS/2 apps $$ volume FALLING 75% over June '91 and Windows apps $$ volume
>increasing 155% over June '91.

Those are nearly meaningless statistics.  First, in June, there were even
fewer OS/2 apps then there are now.  The Windows versions tended to be
signnificantly better and since OS/2 runs Windows quite well, people bought
those apps, often I would imagine with the hope of an OS/2 upgrade price in
the future.  Also, I would be willing to bet that some of the low end apps
being produced draged that down some more.  Furthermore, have you tried to
find OS/2 apps in a store lately?  The OS is there but usually not much else,
even in the superstores that seem to stock everything.  I still haven't seen
the Describe word processor *anywhere*.
 Second, gee, application volume for a system with a huge base
increasing after it is released?  Who would have thought it.  Especially if
that counts all the software bundled with systems.  You almost can't get away
from it if you don't wan't it.
>
>-Dwight
>
>Not speaking for MS.
>
                                        Stacy John Behrens
                                        *===)-------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: phil@mihi.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: TCP/IP - HELP PLEASE
Organization: Image Analysis Systems Group, JPL
Distribution: comp.os.os2.networking
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 00:20:08 GMT

This article was probably generated by a buggy news reader.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: THANK YOU, Microsoft!
From: Spartacus At Cuny <I18BC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Thursday, 10 Sep 1992 20:29:25 EDT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Supersedes: <92254.202046I18BC@CUNYVM.BITNET>

In article <volker02534920810153039@volki.toppoint.de>, volker@volki.toppoint.de
(Volker Heiss) says:
>
>LENBC@CUNYVM.BITNET writes:
>>
>> In article <1992Sep3.130007.4089@njitgw.njit.edu>, dic5340@hertz.njit.edu
>(David
>> Charlap) says:
>> >
>> >[..]
>> >
>> >Word 5.5 isn't a PM anything.  In case you forgot, MS also makes Word
>> >For DOS, which is a character-mode app.  It runs under OS/2 in
>> >full-screen and windowed sessions.
>>
>>     Oh okay, but Amit said "OS/2 Version", I didn't know he was
>> speaking about an DOS version.  Sorry Amit!, misunderstood.
>
>It's a family mode application! I just discoverd it, reading this thread.
>And it seems to run quit fast, but there is no mouse pointer in the
>graphic modes. It even runs in an OS/2 windowed session, but only in
>text mode ;-)
>
>Puls is very happy with the OS/2 mode Word! It stays at the baseline.
>
>BTW, i'm testing this with Word 5.0.

    If it weren't for the fact that I'm waiting on AmiPro
for OS/2 (32bit) I would give it a try.  However I'm a little
disappointed Aldus decided not to port Pagemaker to OS/2.  :(
Hmm...actually I'm really ticked off at Aldus.  I was really
counting on a 32bit OS/2 pagemaker. >:(   >:(   >:( Aaarrggg!!
I hope Mr. Sturgill is mistaken and Aldus ports.

-------
------------------------------+      All The Best,
Reply To:                     |
                              |      Edward Galarza,
     I18BC@CunyVM.Cuny.Edu    |      Brooklyn College Of The
     I18BC@CunyVM.BitNet      |      City University Of New York
------------------------------+      "Que viva el OS/2!"
New accounts above 8-)
From: si0_tb90020@debet.nhh.no
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Is NT vs OS/2 really the subject?
Date: 9 Sep 92 17:56:02 MET
Organization: Norwegian School of Economics

Regarding the OS/2 vs NT or vice versa discussion...

Is really Microsoft trying to go head to head with OS/2 with NT, or is
OS/2 not the main competitor?

The following thing makes me ask...

NT is clearly a server operating system, with a lot of things bundeled
which the traditional computer user with his PERSONAL computer will not
need. This is mainly in the network section.

NT is very hardware demanding in its base package.

NT does NOT run Windows 3.X and DOS programs well enough, and therefore
is not a competitor in the YET ANOTHER DOS MULTITASKER arena.

Is really Microsoft aiming at UNIX with NT. Is it actually UNIX they are
trying to get at?

Just wondered...

Terje Bergesen (Mr.)  |  SI0_TB90020@debet.nhh.no  |  terjeb@blh.no
From: nevries@accucx.cc.ruu.nl (Nico E de Vries)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: CSD Rumours
Date: 11 Sep 92 12:48:09 GMT
Organization: Academic Computer Centre Utrecht

In <1992Sep10.172820.28168@inel.gov> jar@inel.gov (Jeffry A Rich) writes:

>Hey all! I was talking to an IBM OS/2 'specialist' yesterday and heard some interesting rumours concerning the upcoming Fall upgrade to OS/2. 

>This is ALL RUMOUR and probably none of it is true but it's fun to speculate anyhow!

Correct.

>IBM will be doing a major announcement on Sept 21st. This announcement will concern not only OS/2, but will also include their new PC Company releases. Apparently, the new 32-bit graphics engine is done along with a host of other neat features. But, get this... the Windows 3.1 support will not be ready!!! Don't blame me...I'm only a rumour-monger!

That would be BAD, real BAD. At least if the CSD would not be 3.1 compatible,
if they haven't finished it yet then there still is hope.

>I also heard that a former IBM employee has written an OS/2 optimizer program that will completely analyze your installed system and do a reshuffling so that you gain a 50% - 150% increase in performance! This program is totally icon-driven and according to inside IBM sources, is killer!! The price I heard was $15.00. Sorry, no file names or addresses yet...I'm still checking on it.

If this is true IBM should
   - make their default setting a lot better
   - include this for free (after buying it?)

>Regards,
>  JR Rich


Nico E. de Vries
_ _
O O  USENET nevries@cc.ruu.nl  FIDO 2:281/708.1  COMPUSERVE ^%#$*%^ 
 o   This text reflects MY opinions, not that of my employer BITECH.      
\_/  This text is supplied 'AS IS', no waranties of any kind apply.      
     Don't waste your time on complaining about my hopeless typostyle.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: Microsoft bashing (Well, not exactly....)
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 20:06:28 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In <1992Sep7.204054.8470@hellgate.utah.edu> brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:

>For some reason Unix people (and I was one) always seem to grossly
>over estimate how many systems run it.  All Unix systems on all machines
>ever delivered (whether it is still in use or not) is well under
>10 million. (DOS I believe has an installed base of around 80 million.)

Hmm, I'm not going to try to promote any personal agenda here, but I
would like to point out one major difference.  Unix is a multi-user
system.  Each of those copies of Unix probably represents several users.
For example, Netcom here has over 2000 entries in /etc/passwd.  :-)

If Netcom were a typical system (it's not), we could extrapolate 2
billion Unix users vs. 80 million DOS users.  <grin>

But even if we assume that the average Unix system has 8 users (not too
unreasonable, I don't think), then Unix still matches DOS in userbase.

And then there's systems like Linux.  You think anyone is counting the
number of Linux or 386BSD installations?  I doubt it.  It's probably not
statistically significant, but there's no way of knowing...

>UNIX is so far behind NT in its features, it's not funny.
[ except NeXTStep ]

Of course, this brings up once again the issue of proprietary vs. non,
and portable vs. non (I know that NT claims to be portable, but *I*
don't have the source code to the OS--I can't port it).  :-)

If the features that NT has are useful, you can *bet* that a lot of Unix
systems will adopt them.  I'm sure that Sun is keeping at least one
beady little eye on the NT feature list....

>>If you want a powerful OS for a moderately sized personal system,
>>forget about NT and buy OS/2.  If you want a powerful, fully-capable
>>OS for high-end personal systems, servers, and their ilk, forget about
>>NT again and buy UNIX.

>You want to pay more for less???

There are other issues than cost.  Reliability, openness, multi-vendor
support, existing apps, software availability, number of knowledgable
programmers/gurus.  I don't doubt that NT is a good system, and will
have good support, but Unix has been around a long time, and is
continuing to grow and improve.  I'll believe that NT is a Unix-killer
when Unix finally dies.  :-)

There's also issues like Postscript vs. Truetype.  Postscript is a
widely used standard on a huge number of different platforms (the NeXT
uses it internally for almost everything, for example), yet MS is trying
to promote their own system... :-\
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: shells
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1992 22:24:53 GMT
Distribution: comp
Reply-To: margoli@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <1992Sep2.153917.23496@njitgw.njit.edu>  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
> In article <1992Sep1.2712.4301@dosgate> "bill dehaan" <bill.dehaan@canrem.com> w
> >
> >I agree. However, running EPM as our PM shell (or Tetris, or many  other
> >suggested options) simply isn't feasible in our environment. More's  the
> >pity. What we were/are looking for is a stable desktop shell; preferably
> >something along the lines of the v1.3 shell or (even better) a WPS  with
> >a greater level of stability than the GA release.
>
> If you have a 1.3 installation, can you use the 1.3 File Manager as
> your shell?  Will it run?  I don't think Desktop Manager is an
> application, or I'd suggest running it.

You can run it by copying \os2\pmfile.exe and \os2\dll\pmfile.dll.
I haven't tried it as a replacement shell; I'm happy with the WPS.

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: ak@ananke.stgt.sub.org (Andreas Kaiser)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: OS/2 vs NT features list, Re 
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 14:58:34 GMT
Organization: ananke


In article <1992Sep9.053611.26393@cs.joensuu.fi> jahonen@cs.joensuu.fi writes:

  > Could any hardware people out there clarify this?  But generally it
  > would seem quite strange to have space for 32MB or even 64MB on the
  > motherboard and then use DMA which cannot even access all that memory...
  > I believe that the limitation is true for ISA-boards in which the +16MB
  > memory on an ISA-card, but for motherboard...

The onboard DMA controller of AT type machines is 100% compatible to
the one on the original IBM AT machine. Since the ATs 286 processor
doesn't support more than 16MB, IBM implemented exactly 16MB address
range for DMA operations (the outdated 8237 DMA chips did 64K, IBM
added an 8-bit wide additional address register).

ISA machines could extend this range without loosing compatibility by
adding an additional address register which gets cleared by old-style
accesses, but such a non-standard extension would be pretty much
useless without a special device driver for devices using onboard DMA.

But there is very little need for it anyway, since the slow onboard DMA
is used for floppy and some sound cards only. High-speed adapters such
as the AHA154x do their own bus-master DMA, driving address lines
themselves, and therefore are limited to the ISA bus address range of
16MB. Such DMA does still use the DMA controller, but for bus
arbitration only.

Any operation system, which wants to access RAM beyond 16MB on all ISA
machines, needs some dirty tricks to deal with paging activities, since
the memory above 16MB cannot page directly to a disk accessed through a
bus-master adapter. IBM decided to use this memory as a paging file,
maybe thay had their own PS/2 hardware in mind.

		Gruss, Andreas
  
:::::::::::::::::::: subnet:  ak@ananke.stgt.sub.org
:: Andreas Kaiser :: fidonet: 2:241/7220.9
::::::::::::::::::::
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu (John H. Kim)
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 06:32:52 GMT

brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>In article <c0xn=8d.xtifr@netcom.com> xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) writes:
>>In <1992Sep13.212117.5220@gw.wmich.edu> x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu writes:
>>>If NT ships in December and is not a disaster, then OS/2 is rather doomed.
>>
>>Why?  With over a million users already?  And even if NT came out today,
>
>OS/2 does not yet have a million users.  There is probably not more
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>than 1,250,000 copies shipped at present.  This number includes
>multiple licenses.  Further OS/2 1.X had about 800,000 copies out.
>A fair portion of these 1,250,000 (500,000?) are free upgrades... these
>are not necessarily in use.  The free upgrades were a limited time offer
>so one would be silly not to have them upgraded.

Brian, I thoroughly enjoy your OS/2 vs. NT features list (I would
have preferred you made a quick reference sheet listing OS/2, OS/2
extensions, NT, NT extensions, and checkboxes for each feature, but
it's your list not mine), but if you're going to speculate, please
call it speculation.  You know, "I don't think OS/2 has a million
users yet," "I doubt...," "It is unlikely...".

I think most software companies would agree with me on this one:
Generally, the number of copies of a program in use exceeds the
number actually sold.  Due to pirating.  (Yes, I apply this to
Windows as well)

>Currently people use the fancy DOS features under OS/2 to do things like get
>to their MM devices or their networks to work with OS/2 via DOS.  Again this
>isn't a problem for NT as these things are built-in to the base system.  In
>fact this is a plus for NT... you don't have to do these things under DOS
>in NT... you get to use them in the native environment and they come
>as a part of the base package, so ISV support for these features should
>be good.  Also under NT users don't have to fiddle with all those infernal
>DOS settings like OS/2 has.

Of course.  They'll all be content not being able to use their DOS
programs that don't run under NT.  I'll reiterate that I think your
list is a wonderful thing, but one thing that bothers me about your
posts, and I don't think you do it deliberately - just as a subconscious
bias, is how you try to turn positives into negatives, and negatives
into positives.  You take look at something that is very very good
(superbly configurable DOS boxes), and shout "but they're so many
options - it's so complicated!"  You take a look at something that
is very very bad (DOS MM devices and networks don't/may not work
under NT), and proclaim "It'll stimulate development and migration
to pure NT apps!"

Call the good things good, and the bad things bad.
-- 
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: Printer cable (Re: Non-IBM experiences with OS/2?
Date: 10 Sep 92 13:02:29 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <92251.195218RONY@awiwuw11.wu-wien.ac.at> RONY@awiwuw11.wu-wien.ac.at (FLATSCHER Rony) writes:
>Hey,
>
>I have a 25 feet (twentyfive) printer cable, believe it or not -
>it works. It works terrificly under OS/2. Oh, it is a parallel cable, too !

It might.  Depending on the signal strength of your parallel port.
IBM doesn't gurantee more than 6', though.  I've seen a printer
attached to a PS/2 model 80 with a 100' cable, but the connection was
unreliable until we shortened it a bit.



-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "LECTURER, n.  One with his hand in your pocket,
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   his tongue in your ear, and his faith in your
 ((|,)                          patience."
  ~|~                              --- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary