From: maynard@ept.msc.cornell.edu (Maynard J. Handley)
Subject: Re: OS2 Good news and Bad news  (OS2 & a little windows too)
Organization: Cornell-Materials-Science-Center
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 18:10:30 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.165815.12223@njitgw.njit.edu>, dic5340@hertz.njit.edu
(David Charlap) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.004959.814@debet.nhh.no> si0_tb90020@debet.nhh.no
>writes:
>>
>>BUt, I guess IBM/Microsoft thought a lot about OS/2 in the design phase
>>as well, but OS/2 is VERY slow compared to an equally equipped MAC, with
>>a 68030 processor. Try it and see. But then MacOs and Finder is not
>>multitasking (properly)...
>
>There you go.  If you were to place OS/2 and WPS in a single-tasking
>environment (I don't know if this can be done...), you'd probably see
>similar sppedups.  Note the following things about the Mac finder:
>
>1) It doesn't support virtual memory - your RAM is it.  Until you get
>   to System 7, and then you still need a PMMU to me installed (an
>   option for 68020 machines, bult in to the 68030)
>2) It doesn't multitask at all.  MultiFinder does, but it still has no
>   virtual memory (static allocation of resources at program start-up).  
>   It also provides little memory protection.  Many apps (especially
>   those that violate Apple's guidelines) can bring down your entire
>   system running MultiFinder.  In my opinion, this places MultiFinder
>   on the level of Windows 2.03.

What the hell sort of junk is this? Until you get to System7? Huh- it's
been out for 14 months. You can ftp it from ftp.apple.com, or get it for
free from your local Mac dealer. What's to stop you using it? And lets look
at Apple's product line
1) Mac Classic. Bare bones 68K machine. Users aren't interested in VM.
2) Powerbook 100. Mac Classic in a portable version.
3) Everything else- 68030 or 68040 based.
Wow- so much for the need a PMMU argument.

And what does "It doesn't multitask at all mean? It doesn't provide memory
protection. True. It doesn't provide for multiple apps running at once?
False. 
You would have rather more credibility if you got your facts right.
I often have three different compression programs running in background,
along with a mod player playing contiuous music, while I type or manipulate
graphics in foreground. Would pre-emptive multi-tasking be nice? Yes- but
is it more important than things like QuickTime. I, and most Mac users,
think not.

>Note also that System 7 is noticably slower than System 6.x.  I don't
>know what kind of memory protection and virtual resources are provided
>for it, but I'd be surprised if you didn't get into high-swapping
>situations when running large apps on a Mac with only 4MB (the minimum
>for System 7, supposedly).

There have been many benchmarks of this. The conclusion is that the System
7 finder is somewhat slower than the previous finders for some operations,
but that no other app runs any slower. Since the system 7 finder does a
whole bunch more than previous finders, this is not too surprising. Also
most of the most obvious slowdowns were fixed with the release of TuneUp.

And what does this "high-swapping situations when running large apps on a
Mac with only 4MB" mean? You run an app with a large working set on a small
amount of RAM and you swap. This is an OS fault? You're going to tell me
that OS2 or Win3, through a feature called MagicRAM don't do this?

Maynard Handley