HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jahonen@cs.joensuu.fi (Jarmo Ahonen)
Subject: Re: Can we get the details of the benchmark setup? Please!
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 07:58:26 GMT

hatton@socrates.ucsf.edu (Tom Hatton) writes:

>jahonen@cs.joensuu.fi (Jarmo Ahonen) writes:
>>Brian, 
>>Please tell me how you have managed to get NT to run fast. I need
>>to use it and I have not been able to get it to be more than 50-60%
>>of the OS/2 speed. No, this is not anything like 
>>"I think that NT is slow and OS/2
>>is fine...". This is more like "how the hell could *both* of those
>>systems to be so doggish?". 

>From previous posts, it appears Brian is running NT on a 486 with 
>20 MB of memory. If you are running with 12 or more, then supposedly
>performance is OK with this beta form; if you have less than 12 Mb,
>then NT will suffer. OS2, with no networking, is OK for me (ie. not
>notably slower than Win3.1) on a 386 with 8 MB. 
> 
>If you see both running slowly, first guess is not enough RAM.

Yes. I admit having only 16MB of RAM. (33MHz 486)
But the most annoying thing is that when the process image grows
over 40MB and page hits drop somewhere under 95% (estimate), both 
systems seem to have more problems than UNIXes. It may be that my 
code which has been written on Suns and used/tuned on some bigger machines
does something that falls out of the paging scheme used in those OSes.
The real surprise to me has been that a code written on an old Sun
4/110 (speed something like a 20MHz 486SX) which had only 16MB of 
memory, does not run as fine as you would expect on a much *faster*
33 MHz 486... The situation may change significantly when there are
properly optimizing compilers out. Current compilers for Intel-processors
seem to do quite bad job. Another thing to do is that I have to check my
code and rewrite some partitions of it in order to fit Intel/PC-architecture.
But that is something which should be done by the compiler. :-(

Well... The proper thing seems to be to buy another 16MB of memory...
And a faster disk for swapping/paging, and... Well, I should buy
a Sun or an IBM RS/6000, but they are expensive...
What I really would like to see are *properly* optimizing compilers for
C and FORTRAN-90, but now I have to live with the existing C compilers.
For example MicroSoft compilers are not so fine... 
What a pity! 

As you might have quessed, my interest is not so much in running the best
wordprocessing software, but rather in running *big* (well, in the PC world
one might say that 40MB is big :-)) numeric programs. It would be nice
to be able to write the general program on a PC and test it with usefull
datasets (20-30MB) and then drop the code to real number chrunching machines
for bigger datasets (100MB).

Generally I think that OS/2 does a fairly good job. I can get done what I want,
although some things still annoy me (paging style, stupid SWAPPER.DAT
growth, unexisting security etc). But I have been spoiled by bigger
machines, I think.

I think that further follow-ups (and even this :-) should go to another
groups...  
>-- 
>Tom Hatton
>hatton@cgl.ucsf.edu
>(415)-476-7986
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: dwightm@microsoft.com (Dwight Matheny)
Subject: Re: SPA Data, was Gates Interview
Date: 17 Dec 92 22:50:27 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.

A lot of us at MS believe that the SPA data is the best snapshot of what's
happening in the software industry. It's simply the best data we have 
available to us. No data is perfect. SPA data is much better than say,
data from distributors (Merisel's "Hot List" for example) because distributor
data doesn't include direct sales, OEM sales, or international sales (which
make up more than 50% of our revenues.)

-Dwight
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: bill@Celestial.COM (Bill Campbell)
Subject: Re: CLI advantages (was Re: Macintosh bigot
Organization: Celestial Software, Mercer Island, WA
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:26:10 GMT

In <vkf2_1+@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec327.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:

:As an aside, I dont seem to remember anyone arguing that CLIs are NOT an
:obnoxious way to do things- lots of arguments that they are NECESSSARY,
:that there are lots of things you need to have CLIs to do, but it looks
:more or less like nobody really loves CLIs. Lots of people love what
:they can DO with CLIs. I find that rather interesting. Do you feel
:that CLIs are a necessary evil, or a Good Feature in their own right?

I for one, don't think CLIs are necessarily obnoxious.  In fact I
hold that all programs with a GUI interface should have an
equivalent CLI that can be used in non-interactive environments.
Many procedures can be automated if I have the ability to run the
program in a non-interactive mode (usually via pipes, but I'm a
UNIXoid rather than DOS delinquent:-).

One of my major complaints about WYSIWYG word processing programs
is that it's usually difficult to automate procedures since I
cannot run them from scripts and cannot easily generate input for
them from another program without requiring human intervention.

I've also converted thousands of old Multiplan spreadsheets by
feeding a list of file names to a script which then ran Multiplan
through a pipe feeding it the appropriate commands to load the
file, save in SYLK format....   Loaded data into RealWorld
accounting programs by parsing printed output files with an awk
program and piping this into the appropriate RealWorld program.

None of this is possible with a GUI.  Like most things in this
world, both GUIs and CLI programs are good for particular jobs
and horrible at other jobs.

Bill
-- 
INTERNET:  bill@Celestial.COM   Bill Campbell; Celestial Software
UUCP:   ...!thebes!camco!bill   6641 East Mercer Way
             uunet!camco!bill   Mercer Island, WA 98040; (206) 947-5591
SPEED COSTS MONEY -- HOW FAST DO YOU WANT TO GO?
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: hwhalen@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Hugh Whalen)
Subject: re: SPA Data, was Gates Interview
Organization: Faculty of Administration, University of New Brunswick
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 17:50:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.085137.2160@ccsvax.sfasu.edu> z_kupkams@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:
>In article <1992Dec10.184840.22816@microsoft.com>, dwightm@microsoft.com (Dwight Matheny) writes:

Whole bunch of stuff deleted.

>
>There is no verification of sales data from companies that report figures to
>the SPA. SPA data is only as accurate as the reporting company is honest. I
>don't think I need to say any more about the integrity of corporations under
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>FTC investigation.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ahem, presumption of innocence? 

Now, if you want to argue that MS is sleazy (or maybe even dishonest) 
because they dropped OS/2 support, you might have a case. However, I do not see 
the connection between the fact that there is an SEC *investigation* and 
the conclusion that MS is lying about the number of units they have 
sold/shipped.

>
>Michael S. Kupka
>=============================================================================
>Thank-You Bill Gates, You are the MVP of TEAM OS/2. Without Microsoft, IBM has
>finally delivered the Best Operating System an Intel user could want.
>=============================================================================  
>
>

Hugh Whalen                     | Where all men think alike, no one thinks
Faculty of Administration       | very much.
University of New Brunswick     |              - Walter Lippmann				


DISCLAIMER: Neither UNB nor I care what the other thinks.
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: scottb@sun1x.actc.res.utc.com (Scottb)
Subject: Re: One for the Windows gurus
Organization: United Technologies Research Center
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 12:14:25 GMT

You might try copying all of the "high res" fonts before hand to your
windows/system directory.  I believe (sp? it just looks wrong) that if
the fonts are present, windows will not prompt you for them.  Then you
should be able to do the rest via setup.
-- 
Disclaimer:  I didn't do it!  Nobody saw me do it!  You can't prove anything! 
             My opinions are my own.   They do not reflect anyone/thing else!
\/       preferred        \/
scottb%nw8550@utrcgw.utc.com            |           sdb@rcinet.utc.com
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph T. Malloy)
Subject: Re: SPA Data, was Gates Interview
Organization: Hamilton College - Clinton, NY
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:26:30 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.085137.2160@ccsvax.sfasu.edu> z_kupkams@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:

>I saw Will Zachmann speak last week in Houston. After is presentation, he
>accepted questions from the audience. One of the questions posed was "How can
>you say that there are not as many windows users as microsoft says when SPA 
>statistics support Microsofts claims?". Mr Zachmann then explained that the
>SPA is not an independant auditor, but rather a collector of sales data from
>manufacturers, and that the reports that Microsoft or any other Software vendor
>recieve from the SPA are simply the figures reported to the SPA from Software
>Vendors.
>
>	Basically if XYZ corp reports to the SPA that they shipped/sold 10
>million units of Widgets++, then ABC corp, PDQ corp, and Ziff Davis are told
>that XYZ corp shipped 10 million copies of Widgets++.
>
>There is no verification of sales data from companies that report figures to
>the SPA. SPA data is only as accurate as the reporting company is honest. I
>don't think I need to say any more about the integrity of corporations under
>FTC investigation.
>
>Michael S. Kupka
>

Okay, the SPA must have been assimilated by MicroBorgSoft.  I'm noting
this piece of idiocy from Willi Z. so that when someone tries to claim
at some point that OS/2 software sales are strong or growing and uses
the SPA's figures we call all point out that the SPA issues only
unreliable data.  And all corporations whose initials are IBM lie all
the time, I guess. (BTW, do you trust *anybody* in business to tell the
absolute truth all the time?) 

Zachmania: (noun) the inability to think straight about anything having 
to do with OS's; to go off the deep end; to lose all credibility.

jmalloy@hamilton.edu
      

Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: eau@runx.oz.au (Eric Ulevik - Equity Systems Ltd)
Subject: Re: Gates Interview - 640k Limit
Organization: RUNX Un*x Timeshare.  Sydney, Australia.
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 06:05:10 GMT

>What is the most important use of the PC?  What type of
>software is so important that no HOME PC
>can be without it - 
>
>- YES THE GAMES!!!           
>
>Do you see Origin, Sierra and Lucas Films Games porting
>their latest stuff to Windows?  At the moment, the typical
>386-SX with 1 to 2 Meg of RAM, and 40Meg Hard-disk can  run these
>games with DOS.  If DOS is well and truely dumped in the 
>gutter for Windows, what happens to everyone's 1 to 2 GIG
>home archive of DOS games.  PC GAMES 
>are the home PC's (and work PC?) equivalent of the 
>OZONE layer.  Yet you're saying we should go like lambs to
>the slaughter and blindly get addicted to the CFC like MS Windows.  

Agreed. Games are important. But they can benefit from running
under Windows. For example, I bought Microsoft Golf for Windows
rather than Links or Links/386 Pro because it would run in
high resolution on an Intel LP486/33E computer, because I have
Windows device drivers for this machine.

All I want now is a new version of Flight Simulator which
runs under Windows! I want the extra resolution and the better
user interface for dialogs etc.
-- 
--
Eric Ulevik, Equity Systems Limited, Sydney, Australia. eau@runx.oz.au
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: richs@microsoft.com (Rick Schaut)
Subject: Re: Rude behavior on this group.
Date: 16 Dec 92 23:34:22 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Reply-To: richs@microsoft.com (Rick Schaut)
Distribution:  world,local

In article <1gkrt3INN2d8@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.210316.28405@microsoft.com> richs@microsoft.com  
>(Rick Schaut) writes:
>> There's another thing to consider.  I think you'll find that the price
>> differential between systems without Windows and systems with Windows is
>> greater than the per-machine cost of the Windows license.

>I read that paragraph twice, and am still not quite sure what
>you are saying?  Are you saying that all computer manufacturers
>that bundle Windows are also making a profit on the 
>price differential of adding Windows to the machine?

No.  The supply curve for a machine bundled with Windows lies to the left
of (or above) the supply curve for a machine without Windows.  (The license
agreement increases average variable costs which also increases the
marginal cost for any given level of ouput).  It is apparent (though not
shown which is why I didn't make the above statement in stronger terms)
that the number of machines sold with Windows bundled is greater than the
number of machines sold without Windows.

Now, draw two supply curves parallel to each other.  At some arbitrary
quantity, Q1, draw a vertical line until it intersects the lower supply
curve.  At some higher quantity, Q2, draw a vertical line until it
intersects the higher supply curve.  The vertical difference between these
two points of intersection must be greater than the vertical distance
between the two supply curves along any vertical line.

It is, indeed, possible for the price of machines bundled with Windows to
be _lower_ than the price of machines not bundled with Windows, but _only_
if the quantity of machines bundled with Windows is less than the quanity
of machines not bundled with Windows.


So that the larger point is not lost, the only way you can make sense out
of the differences between the prices of machines bundled with Windows and
the prices of machines not bundled with Windows is to observe that there
are distinctly seperate demand curves for the two configurations.  Those
people who talk in terms of vendors "passing the costs on to consumers"
completely ignore this observation.



-- 
Rick Schaut
UUCP:...{uunet | uw-beaver}!microsoft!richs

Microsoft doesn't speak for me, and I don't speak for Microsoft.
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: craigdo@microsoft.com (Craig Dowell)
Subject: Re: Windows NT is VMS
Date: 11 Dec 92 21:25:46 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <15844@auspex-gw.auspex.com> guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris) writes:
>>you know the old story that HAL shifted one character gives IBM?
>>Did you ever try to shift WNT (Windows NT)?
>
>Yes, many thousands of people probably have tried to do so, at this
>point.  Hundreds of them have probably even posted the results of doing
>so....

I have heard of the left-shift conjecture.  It seemed to me that this
was an important aspect of computing; one that should not be ignored.  

I have written a complex simulator and run millions of experiments to
determine if there is any statistically significant correlation between
the the starting state (WNT) and the ending state (VMS) when each letter is
shifted to the letter preceeding it in the set of all capital roman letters.

I ran into some problems in the simulation when I discovered it was possible
to have intermediate states due to race conditions.  For example, in one
experiment, the state transitions were WNT -> VNT -> VNS -> VMS.  Through
some careful coding, I was able to remove this source of experimental error.

I am proud to announce, in this group, that there is a high level of 
confidence that if one takes WNT and shifts the letters, one will end up
with VMS.  Armed with this information I tackled the IBM problem.  This
conjecture is also experimentally verified.  We may be onto a left handed 
rule for acronym anomalies.  I also tried VAX and got UZW; well known to be 
some of the letters of BUZZWORD.

Being an experimentalist, I can only find significant relationships.  Will one
of you theorists provide a rigorous proof of the WNT left-shift conjecture?
I will continue my simulations in the mean time.

-- Craig
From: jahonen@cs.joensuu.fi (Jarmo Ahonen)
Subject: Re: Can we get the details of the benchmark setup? Please!
Organization: University of Joensuu
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 07:24:09 GMT

brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:

>I did read it, and while Tim did explain what the two OS version he was
>comparing were, he did so in a manner that is cryptic to those that
>don't live and breath this stuff.  I assure you there are plenty of
>people in comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy that have no idea what the November
>OS/2 PDK is.  The same holds true for people in
>comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32.
>I know this will shock you, but there are people that like Windows and
>have no interest in OS/2 whatsoever.  I'm not about to let someone
>post something so radically wrong and not respond to it.
>Windows fans reading Tim's post, that don't have the SDK, might
>get the impression that it is _very_ slow.  This is simply not the case.

Brian, 

Please tell me how you have managed to get NT to run fast. I need
to use it and I have not been able to get it to be more than 50-60%
of the OS/2 speed. No, this is not anything like 
"I think that NT is slow and OS/2
is fine...". This is more like "how the hell could *both* of those
systems to be so doggish?". 

About bugs I'd like to say that NT is *very* buggy now, OS/2 is too buggy,
Solaris is annoyingly buggy... Hell, even old VAX VMS is *still* buggy!

I must have been doing something very wrong because NT installation
has always been even *more* difficult than SCO-UNIX installation (which
was a nightmare when I did it last time).

But *I* still think that UNIX is the best OS :-).

>Brian
>-- 
>C. Brian Sturgill                          NeXTStep 486 is for _YOU_!!!!
>University of Utah                    Microsoft needs competition, but I want
>Center for Software Science          to be one of the many running Windows NT!
>brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373    :-) :-) :-)  NT SDK: $69; (800) 227-4679
Xref: sparky comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3194 comp.os.os2.advocacy:10286
From: hatton@socrates.ucsf.edu (Tom Hatton)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: SPA Data, was Gates Interview
Date: 15 Dec 92 01:18:05 GMT
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab

jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph T. Malloy) writes:
>In article <1992Dec12.085137.2160@ccsvax.sfasu.edu> z_kupkams@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:

>>I saw Will Zachmann speak last week in Houston. After is presentation, he
...[edited]
>>	Basically if XYZ corp reports to the SPA that they shipped/sold 10
>>million units of Widgets++, then ABC corp, PDQ corp, and Ziff Davis are told
>>that XYZ corp shipped 10 million copies of Widgets++.
>>There is no verification of sales data from companies that report figures to
>>the SPA. SPA data is only as accurate as the reporting company is honest. I
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>don't think I need to say any more about the integrity of corporations under
>>FTC investigation.

>Okay, the SPA must have been assimilated by MicroBorgSoft.  I'm noting
>this piece of idiocy from Willi Z. so that when someone tries to claim
>at some point that OS/2 software sales are strong or growing and uses
>the SPA's figures we call all point out that the SPA issues only
>unreliable data.  And all corporations whose initials are IBM lie all
>the time, I guess. (BTW, do you trust *anybody* in business to tell the
>absolute truth all the time?) 

>Zachmania: (noun) the inability to think straight about anything having 
>to do with OS's; to go off the deep end; to lose all credibility.

Well, to give you the benefit of the doubt, you may have misinterpreted
this line (flagged above) to mean that SPA is somehow "issuing unreliable
data", although obviously the originating company would be issuing,
SPA would merely be re-distributing, and not responsible for the
data. Hence the snide point about assimilation goes out the window;
he only implied that MS was supplying fudged data, which doesn't 
mean that IBM-supplied data would necessarily be fudged; indeed
many of us might choose to believe exactly the opposite. And it also
has nothing to do with telling the absolute truth all the time, but
thanks for bringing in another irrelevancy, it brightens the day.
 
Malloying: (aj) responding in a knee-jerk fashion to anything
remotely anti-Microsoft. (See Sturgilling).

-- 
Tom Hatton
hatton@cgl.ucsf.edu
(415)-476-7986
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: "Windoze" slow? Naah...Re: pc and mac: was RE: 486 and mac benchmarks
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 00:45:51 GMT

In article <GERRY.92Dec18172444@onion.cmu.edu> gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
>I heard something from a coworker today that is so funny, I thought
>I'd share it with y'all.


	Too bad it's such a misguided, stupid and incorrect point that
	you should feel pretty pathetic for having posted and/or fallen
	for it.


>If you buy a third party disk for your Mac and try to format it using
>the Apple supplied utilities, guess what?  It won't format!  That's
>right, Apple built in a check so that only disks from Apple can be
>formatted by the utilities they supply.

	If you're speaking of floppies, you can prove this to yourself as false
	by taking an IBM or Amiga or whatever formatted floppy to a mac, 
	pop it in the drive, and wait for it to ask you if it can
	format (or eject) the disk.  

	If you're speaking of harddrives, it's equally stupid.  Hook the	
	drive up and wait for the Mac to ask you to format it. 
 
	Period.
 
>P.S.  The people who told me this are the only ones in my organization
>who still use Macs.  They have done research for Apple, etc.  I.e.,
>the are very pro-Mac.


	Either they lied to you (haw haw haw, look at the idiot PC user) 
	or you're lying here.  In any case, you should have checked something
	so obviously questionable before posting it.



-- 
	"If you can't eat sand, why the hell are you living in a desert?"

	     Rule 1:  "Don't have more children than you can feed."
	  	  Nuclear redevelopment for a better world!
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph T. Malloy)
Subject: Re: SPA Data, was Gates Interview
Organization: Hamilton College - Clinton, NY
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:05:17 GMT

In article <921214113146@rgam.sc.ti.com> 5692330@mcimail.com  (Robert Gammon) writes:
>I work in an unrelated industry, and here, the size of the total market, number
>of units shipped, and total revenue (where department revenue is not reported 
>separately from the corporation) are almost always inflated.  The point is to
>influence analysts at DataQuest (or others appropriate to the respective 
>industry), to reinforce market-share perceptions.  We do not need to accuse
>Micro$oft of anything special here, we must recognize that it happens and 
>discuss other things.  These figures are not worth worrying about.  Yearly 
>profits are another matter entirely, not subject to marketing hype.
>
>Note that I am not involved in reporting data to the analysts, I see what the
>analysts report, and compare that with what I know about our business.
>--
>Regards,
>Robert Gammon
>(713)-274-3299       (voice)
>(713)-274-2324       (fax)
>
Well, do only Zachmann, you, and I now know about this?  If the SPA
releases bogus figures, why would anyone use them at all?  Why would SPA
even bother to report them?  Is it the case that businessfolk really are
playing a game with these reports?  "We know they are not real, but we
get to make up silly slides a graphs with this inaccurate date and wo we
keep our jobs?"  I guess I'm an academic and that's why this doesn't make
sense, but if I found out a source of 'information' were unreliable, I
sure as heck wouldn't use it. 

I haven't a clue about the SPA and its figures.  But if they are
essentially worthless, and everyone knows this fact, why do they bother?

jmalloy@hamilton.edu