From: nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Date: 7 Oct 1992 18:26:56 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu

bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
>nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) writes:
>> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

[ some System 7 features vs. OS/2 features...]

>>>* Support for "live copy and paste" between applications that aren't running
>> Don't know what that means.

>If you change something in document A that you've pasted into document B,
>the changes get updated in B.

Hmm, sounds like DDE, no?

>>>* Built-in support for standard 24-bit color, with automatic interpolation
>> 
>> Device Independent Graphics means any video device could be supported,
>> be it 1-bit or 24-bit, with the necessary device driver.

>I had more conditions, if you read on, but yes. Do these devices exist
>for OS/2? Are there device drivers for this stuff? 24-bit color devices are

These devices do exist, device driver is another matter.  Unfortune-
nately, most video manufacturers have thrown their support behind
Windows instead of OS/2, I'm not happy about it, IBM should really be
actively pursuing manufacturers for driver support, this is important
to the success of OS/2.

>commonplace in the Mac market, and some Macs have this built in. I haven't
>seen the same for the PC market.

All the 24-bit video cards have Windows drivers, if they don't, they
can't expect to stay in business.

>>>  to differing bit depths. The ability to support multiple monitors with
>> 
>> I tried running Wing Commander, a 256-color DOS game on a 16-color PM
>> desktop, the window gets dithered into 16 colors and the game runs, not
>> too pretty but it runs.

>How about OS/2 applications, not DOS apps?

The Pallatte Manager will do its best to allocate the desired color for
each application.

>>>  differing depths, and to change the depth on the fly. (Not, Not)
>> 
>> Multiple monitors is theoretically possible if hardware exists.

>But it doesn't. And can you change the depth on the fly? (Windows can't)

Let's leave the question unanswered until the hardware comes out.

>>>* Human Interface Guidelines and standards sufficient to form consistancy 
>>>  between applications (Not, Perhaps)
>> 
>> HIG in IBM world is CUA (Common User Access), current spec is CUA 92.

>A) is it any good? and B) is anything written to support it)

Good?  That's a very subjective term, each person has his/her own tastes
and opinions, I personally think it's quite intuitive, your milage may
vary.  

As to support, it's a bit lacking in that area, hopefully not for long.

>>>* Support for the localization of Sorting order, Data and Time formats,
>>>  currency, measurement, calenders and numbers (Not, Not)
>> 
>> Windows yes, OS/2 yes.

>Perhaps I missed some of these.

I know in WPS you can sort the icons of a folder in name/size/date/etc
order, also you can setup the date/time/currency formats.

>>>* Standard support for temporal data, graphics data compression, both for
>>>  static and real-time graphics and sound. (QuickTime) (Not, Not) 
>> 
>> Different standards, MPC and Ultimedia.

>Incomplete standards. They both require specific hardware. Ouch. QuickTime

Specific hardware?  Not necessarily, you can run multimedia apps with
existing hardware, even digitized sound from the internal speaker/
beeper.  But QuickTime also needs specific hardware, for starters, you
need a Mac, ;-) also you need the ROMs with 32-bit QuickDraw in them.
Right?

I don't know why you would think the multimedia standards of Windows and
OS/2 are incomplete, specific examples?

I have a little file here that documents certain parts of the multi-
media standard, some excerpts from the forward and table of contents:

[ begin excerpt ]

     Multimedia Programming Interface
     and Data Specifications 1.0
     
     Issued as a joint design by IBM Corporation and
     Microsoft Corporation
     
     August 1991
     
     This document describes the programming interfaces and
     data specifications for multimedia that are common to
     both OS/2 and Windows environments.


Contents

     Chapter 1                                           Overview of
     Multimedia Specifications

     Resource Interchange File Format                    1-1
     Multimedia File Formats                             1-1
     Media Control Interface                             1-2
     Registering Multimedia Formats                      1-2
     
     Chapter 2                                           Resource Interchange
     File Format

     About the RIFF Tagged File Format                   2-1
       Notation Conventions                             2-1
       Chunks                                           2-2
       RIFF Forms                                       2-3
       ...
     Notation for Representing Sample RIFF Files         2-5
       Basic Notation for Representing RIFF Files       2-5
       Escape Sequences for Four-Character Codes and
     ...

     Chapter 3                                           Multimedia File
     Formats

     Bundle File Format                                  3-1
     Device Independent Bitmap File Format               3-1
     ...
     RIFF Device-Independent Bitmap File Format          3-10
     ...
     MIDI and RIFF MIDI File Formats                     3-18
     ...
     Palette File Format                                 3-18
     ...
     Rich Text Format (RTF)                              3-22
     ...
     Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE)                   3-22
     ...
      
     Chapter 4                                           Media Control
     Interface
     
     MCI Command Strings                                 4-1
     ...
     MCI System Commands                                 4-12
     ...
     CD Audio (Redbook) Commands                         4-17
     ...
     MIDI Sequencer Commands                             4-20
     ...
     Videodisc Player Commands                           4-25
     ...
     Waveform Audio Commands                             4-29
     ...

[ end excerpt ]

If you want I can send the file to you (all 260K of it), although I
doubt you'd be interested.

>doesn't, although it fully supports additional hardware. 

And so does Windows and MMPM (Multimedia PM), why is it considered an
avdvantage of QuickTime when it supports additional hardware and a
disadvantage of Windows and OS/2 when they can do the same?

>>>* Standard color picker (Not, Not)
>> 
>> What is it?

>It allows you to choose colors via a standard interface. There might be
>something for OS/2 in this vein.

I think I know what you mean here, OS/2's pallatte and color object (you
use these to configure how WPS looks) both use a color-wheel thingy for
you to specify colors.  Other apps may present their own interface.

>>>* Automatic slot conflict resolution (NuBus and Slot Manager) (Not, Not)
>>>  ( MCA helps, but it isn't automatic )
>> 
>> Hardware issue, both MCA and EISA have auto device configuration,
>> running some register setup program during device installation.

>Important hardware issue. Hardware is part of the system.

But that's not what we're talking about here, we're supposed to talk
about features of System 7 and OS/2.

>> Of course, OS/2 has quite a bit of features that MacOS doesn't have:
>> pre-emptive MT, memory protection, multithreading, OO GUI, REXX, etc.

>Aside from REXX (oog), the remainder are cool technology, but offer
>doubtful benefit to the user, as we have discussed.

Bill, you keep saying that features like preemptive MT have negligible
benefit to the user and therefore are a nonfactors, I disagree, maybe
users are just not aware of the potential of preemptive MT, when I
was running Windows I was very conscious about how many apps I have
running (I usually keep the number below 10, around 5), with OS/2, I
don't even think twice about starting another process, since I know I
can switch between them instantaneously and no one program can bog the
whole system down.

As to the benefit of memory protection, I think lots of Mac users here 
would disagree with you.

-- Nan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy