HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: amitp@ruf.rice.edu (Amit J Patel)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Minesweeper (was Re: Good news for 2.0 and other Tidbits.)
Date: 29 Sep 92 12:52:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: rice.BvCBqq.7v3
Reply-To: amitp@owlnet.rice.edu
Organization: Rice University

In article <1992Sep25.104157.28409@microsoft.com>, petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:
|> > But there is a difference between Windows and OS/2. One is an interface and
|> > one is an operating system. I am sure many people have windows on their
|> > system and never use it except maybe for one program every now and again
|> > (Minesweeper springs to mind). Generally, if you have OS/2 installed on
|> > your system, you are using it!
|> 
|> Hey, I suspect that minesweeper is responsable for about 85% of compuer
|> use, so don't discount it.  ;) ;) ;)
|> 

Ok, the big question is:

	What minigames will be included with NT?  

I happen to only like Reversi!  :)




			Amit
From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: I hate to tell you this, but...
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:18:58 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <cc#pr6n.erb@netcom.com>, erb@netcom.com (Elizabeth R. Brown) writes:
>Well, after a brief appearance on PC Magazines "Top Retail Software" list
>OS/2 2.0 has dropped back into obscurity.  After a rapid rise it has just as
>rapidly disappeared from the charts, according to the October 13, 1992 issue
>of PC Magazine (page 31).  Items on the latest chart include:
>
>Rank   Product
>1      Microsoft Windows 3.1 Upgrade
>2      Procomm Plus for Windows
>...
>4      Microsoft Windows 3.1
>...
>9      Word for Windows 2.0 Upgrade
>10     Office for Windows 2.5
>11     WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows
>...
>13     Excel for Windows 4.0 Upgrade
>14     Word for Windows 2.0
>15     WordPerfect for Windows Trade Up
>
>The omitted items are all DOS related.  No OS/2, and of course no OS/2
>apps.  This list includes "total number of copies shipped to stores and
>resellers in the week ending August 8, 1992."
>
>It seems that the inclusion of OS/2 in a couple of previous lists was due to
>some sort of spike in OS/2 shipments to "fill the channel", rather than a
>trend.  Well, the channel is full now, and we shall see how well those
>puppies move at the retail level (NOT :-)


I feel a need to point out one thing.  Has anyone else noticed that they make
a difference between the upgrade and the normal product?  Why?  They operate
exactly the same and the only difference is price and some details on how it
is sold.  They are the same product so why differentiate?  Notice that that
clears off another 3 spots just on this list.  Also, I think this list
includes those bundled with systems.  How many copies of OS/2 do you find
bundled with systems as opposed to the above stuff?  Not too many.
>
>Does NT need to kick OS/2's butt?  No, Windows 3.1 is already doing that.
>NT just needs to get ready to inherit the market from Windows for DOS
>when the time is right.

I suspect that NT will experience many of the same difficulties that OS/2
currently faces.  It will *not* be a walk in the park for NT either.
>
>So, from a Windows bigot to all you OS/2 bigots I say:  "Join us!  Feel the
>power of the Dark Side!  Together the Universe will be ours!!
>Mwhaahaaaaahaaa!"    ---> (:-)

How adult.  Tell you what, you can stick with your tired, old, obsolete,
underpowered, over-hyped, poor multitasking, brain damaged system, and I will be
running one or more systems with some real power.  (i.e. OS/2, NT, Unix)
Maybe you'll someday discover that there is life this side of MS.

(Oh, and I did see the smiley.)
>
>
>Ebbot R. Bane              | "Your Kung-Fu is no good!  Don't pick a fight
>Soft Images, Inc.           |  with me unless you want to get hurt kid!"
>San Jose, CA                | _NO KILL I_ |_| "I never said that!" - Kibo.
>

Stacy John Behrens
*===)-------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: tlilley@jarthur.claremont.edu (Thomas (Ted) Lilley)
Subject: Re: Interesting tidbit from September 7, 1992 PC Week
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 01:31:07 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.095659.2455@cam-orl.co.uk> thg@cam-orl.co.uk (Tim Glauert) writes:
>In article <7482@lib.tmc.edu>, jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>|> Bwahahahahaha!!!! If it's marketed towards developers, why can any Tom, Dick,
>|> and Harriet call up and order one?
>
>You mean like the current OS/2 2.0 "Beta"?  As everyone is keen on pointing
>out, a "Beta" should go to a restricted number of developers who will provide
>detailed reports on bugs and features. A "Beta" is not generally available to
>the whole world.

*Wrong*.  A beta version is for users to test unfinished code and report
problems back to the manufacturer.  A "pre-beta SDK" is a software
developer's kit, which is not for testing but development.  This has been
BS on MS's part from the beginning.  Since when did MS bother to find out
whether someone was a developer before sending them the SDK?

"So?  MS shouldn't have to spend time asking for proof." you may say.
No, they shouldn't.  But the way they've handled the SDK so far shows what
they're really trying to do with it.  My brother is a developer for a 
certain other company's (not IBM) product, and he wrote a driver for their
product before they could be bothered to include him in their developers'
program.  As such, he gets special offers and benefits, but he is under a non-
disclosure agreement about the program.

So what does this say about the pre-beta SDK?  MS doesn't care whether they
put it in a developer's or a child's hands, as long as it's out there.
I, for one, think this is a perfectly legitimate way for them to try to
push their product, but I laugh to think of those who buy into MS's pre-beta
BS, and try to justify it as such.  Wake up and smell the coffee.

Ted

>
>Let's face it, both IBM and MS have given a wide exposure to "unfinished"
>versions of their code in an attempt, in part, to forestall criticisms about
>dealys in producing the real thing.
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2, my final analysis.
Date: 1 Oct 92 21:33:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: njitgw.1992Oct1.213308.17250
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <wiegand.717949466@lido16> motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net writes:
>
>Just curious - except for the Windows and DOS apps - what else are you
>running? There aren't any NT apps.

Well, there are lots of OS/2 16-bit text-mode apps out there :-)
-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: How many NT developers does it take to boil water?
Date: 5 Oct 92 16:28:50 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Oct03.232108.18990@microsoft.com> petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:
>Sit down to do something like, say, your income taxes.  Get one of those
>kitchen timers, and set it for 5 minutes.  Do your taxes.  When the
>bell goes off, reset the timer, and go read the newspaper.  When the bell
>goes off, reset the timer again, and watch TV.  and so on, and so on.
>
>If you don't scramble your brains after a while, I'm impressed.

Are you implying that this will scramble a computer?  You don't have
to be on a timer to work preemptively, and nobody said that they do
this ALL THE TIME.  Some jobs actually require thought.  And I CAN
cook lunch and do taxes at the same time - with a timer.

>Now, also, in your boiling water deal, wouldn't you much more prefer to
>set a timer, or have some sort of an alarm that goes off when the
>water is boiling.  I find it distracting to have to go back to check
>on boiling water more than one or two times.

Wow.  You have water that always boils on schedule.  If you set a
timer, it's still likely that the water won't be boiled, or will have
boiled for too long (evaporating much of it).  You still have to check
back every so often.

>Now, if you did have an alarm of that type, wouldn't boiling water be
>more equivalent to sending a request to the disk controller, and then
>servicing the interrupt it generates when it's done.

Preemptive systems work much like harware interrupts.  But you can't
really replace one with the other.

>Okay, I've gone off on sort of a tangent here, but I guess I've tried to
>point out that preemptive multitasking is not the only method for doing
>things in the real world, as well as in the computer world.  And in some
>cases, it's not the best.

Who said it was?  But it's obviously better that you're admitting or
it wouldn't be used in all medium-to-high-end multitaskers.

-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: wiegand@rtsg.mot.com (Robert Wiegand)
Subject: Re: Silence on the Windoz Front...
Reply-To: motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Distribution: "world"
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:35:43 GMT

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

>This got me curious... I keep an longish term archive of all the
>windows and OS/2 groups... so I went and did some checking.

>Messages per day (I expire my archive at different rates per group).

[Most of chart deleted]

>Total for Windows:					=	91.87
>Total for OS/2:					=      205.34

>Conclusion... OS/2 users must have 22 times *** the number of problems that
>Windows users do.  (Think about it... ignoring advocacy postings, most

Try again -> 205/92 = 2.2

>postings are requests for information about how to solve a problem... or
>how you figured out how to solve a problem.)
>There are about (optimistically) 1 million OS/2 users, and about
>(optimistically) 11 million Windows users.
>Another possibility is that Microsoft support is better than IBM's, but
>a tremendous number of OS/2 people assure me that my own personal experiences
>with the two are incorrect and that IBM support is MUCH better than
>Microsoft's.

How about the possibility that more OS/2 users are power users who
push their systems much harder than the average windows user.

I would expect that most Windows users use their machines to run a few
different Windows programs, one at a time.
The OS/2 users are running DOS, Windows, and OS/2 programs, and are more
likely to be running multiple programs at the same time.
Plus OS/2 is a more powerful operating system, and as such there is more
to learn about to become an expert.

>***Yeah, I know... the population distribution of the net will skew things
>towards OS/2 (i.e. probably a greater percentage of OS/2 users have net
>access than Windows users).  Also I notice that pretty well every OS/2
>group has "advocacy" postings -- OS/2 users are more defensive?  Still

No Windows and NT users are more offensive. While I haven't looked in
the windows  groups lately, from what I have heard there aren't too many
OS/22 people causing trouble there anymore.

>it does appear that a significantly larger per user problem count
>exists for OS/2.

>The one that shocked me the most was the volume in the OS/2 apps group...
>I mean, what would they discuss?  A quick scan of the group reveals that most
>of the traffic is OS/2 installation questions and can I find an app to do
>X questions.  Also a lot of Windows/DOS app -- how do I get it to run stuff.

Problems with DOS apps isn't supprising. I was never able to get all my
DOS apps to run with the same set-up under DOS. At least with OS/2 I don't
have to re-boot to switch aplicatons.

>How do I do backups is also quite popular.


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Wiegand - Motorola Inc.
motcid!wiegand@uunet.uu.net            uunet!motcid!wiegand
Disclamer: I didn't do it - I was somewhere else at the time.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu (Timothy I Miller)
Subject: Re: NT? WHY?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:00:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.162606.25023@hellgate.utah.edu>,
brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>
>The idea that NT will require substantially more resources than
>OS/2 is a myth.  Even believing IBM's recommended memory figures
>NT doesn't require more memory on a networked system -- even
>in its pre-beta form.  As the pre-beta already has 95% or more
>of NT's final functionality... it's a good bet that NT will need
>less memory than OS/2 2.0 when configured for equivalent functionality.
>
>Brian
>--

     Hi Brian, just a few questions about NT that I thought other
people might be interested in...
     Do you *personally* have NT set up for a network?  Does this
include peer-to-peer and TCP/IP?  I'm just wondering.  Ok, I'm
questioning your "95% or more of NT's final functionality"
statement.  I take it this doesn't include Win-16 support.  How
about DOS support?  Is it as far as it's going to get?  I know
you've mentioned other things in your infamous "list" that I can't
remember.  What about the singe cache for all disk I/O?  And I take
it that the user log-on is set up to work well.  Let's see, 95%.
Hmmm, what would that leave out?  I guess that the Win-16 stuff
could be the other 5%, huh?
     Well, I'll be getting the NT SDK soon enough.  Does anybody
have an NEC CDR-84 running OS/2 out there?  Will it work?  How about
any other comparable CD-ROM's out there?  It must have 300Kb
transfer rate, and *good* access time!  (You can email me)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly)
Subject: Re: MS's misconduct!
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:54:35 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.

In article <1992Sep28.214538.9729@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com wrote:
> In <1992Sep27.105150.2986@microsoft.com> petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly) writes:
> 
> >Oh, but pardon me, I am remiss.  But I ask you this, what would have happened
> >here in this thread if I started stating how windows is multitasking, etc.
> >Instead of you're one article saying I was incorrect about windows, I would
> >have received at least 5 replies saying that windows doesn't really multitask,
> 
> Perhaps, but those 5 replies would have been wrong.  Tell us, Pete,
> are you generally in the habit of doing things simply because they are
> expedient rather than because they are right?

Tell me, Fred, are you generally in the habit of bogging down discussions
with useless talk about definitions, name calling, etc.  Maybe you should
go work for the government.

> 
> >and one of those would have probably been from you.  
> 
> Guess again, Pete.  I'm not the sort of Genuinely Clueless Bozoid (tm)
> that you seem to be, so I generally only say things to people about
> things they've gotten wrong; like you getting this wrong.
What a great personality trait.  Only saying things to people when you're
pointing out that they're wrong.  Do you have any friends?

(I.E. if you can get take personal slams at my, I can take personal slams
at you.  It's only fair, isn't it?)

> 
> >To tell the truth,
> >I considered that explicetly when composing these articles, and decided
> >that maybe if I just talked about pre-emptive multitasking that people
> >would be too clouded about OS/2 vs Windows to call me on misdefining
> >pre-emptive multitasking with just multitasking.  
> 
> Excuse me?  Would you like to translate this into English and try
> again?  Whatever you're trying to say, it's pretty unclear, to say the
> least. 

Sorry, I'll try again.   The mistake I made was to mislable preemptive
multitasking with just multitasking IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS DISCUSSION.
I was kind of hoping people wouldn't call me on this so we could get on
with the real discussion.  This is the OS/2 group, so I took into account
that people in this group don't consider Windows a real multitasking
system.  I do, BTW, but I wanted to discuss what was at hand, and not
the "is windows a multitasking system/operating system/etc" issues.
However, you seem to have wanted to derail the collective train of though
and brought discussion down to this "definitions" and personal slams level.
Oh, well...


> 
> >But, All you other folks,
> >look, Fred here is saying that Windows Multitasks, and he is known to
> >dislike MS.  Send all email flames to him, though, 'cause that discussion
> >has been on the net before. 
> 
> Well, if it's been on the net before, how come you got it wrong, Pete? 
Oh, how clever of you Fred.  Pulling things from different contexts, putting
them together, and using them as a slam.  For all you net goers, that's
on page 5 of the netnews guide to flames, paragraph 3.

petesk@microsoft.com
My Opinions...
From: fj05+@andrew.cmu.edu (Faisal Nameer Jawdat)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 Future Trends and Directions
Date: 27 Sep 92 00:14:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.QelKpaS00VAt08Y3AQ
	<P7y-BjA@engin.umich.edu>
Distribution: world
Organization: Sophomore, Physics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

spexet@math.lsa.umich.edu (D. Robert Spexet II) writes:
> puting world by Apple.  The Nubus and MCA bus architectures that these com-
> panies use in their machines are among the most advanced architectures in the
> personal computing world.  I could name lots of things that these companies

isn't Nubus TI's design?
otherwise i pretty much agree with the rest of you post
(personal opinion: MCA rocks - quickring wishes it was MCA)
From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 longetivity ( was Re: Interesting Tidbit
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:19:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: mksol.1992Sep30.161932.24371
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <92269.055826ANDY@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> Andrew T. Robinson <ANDY@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:

>  When I buy a machine I don't *want* Zeos or
>  Northgate or Dell or whoever pre-loading an OS and software on my
>  machine--I can make that descision all by myself, thank you.  Clone
>  manufacturers should stick to selling hardware (although they should
>  be testing their hardware with all major OSs including OS/2 to ensure
>  compatibility).

Well, I would differ slightly with you here.  I don't have any problem
with their 'pre-loading' an OS for me, especially if that means I can
get the OS I want without spending as much money.  What I object to is
deals by which they have to load a SPECIFIC OS.  In other words, Dell
is doing the right thing.  Support a number of OS's and let the
customer specify which, if any of them, they want.

And if they don't want one, they should be able to buy the 'bare'
machine.  After all, they may already have an OS -- right now, I have
more OS licenses than I have machines at home.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
From: x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2, my final analysis.
Date: 1 Oct 92 15:50:24 EST
Organization: Western Michigan University

> So we don't do disagree too much. You admit, that system crashes occur
> once every other week, when running only a few native OS/2 apps. That is
> almost the same I said, but this is not stable enough, if you seriously
> want to use OS/2 machines as Network- or Database servers.
> 
> If I use OS/2 on standalone machine, I can live with a system crash once
> a week. It's really no problem.
> 
> But we are using 6 servers here with more than 100 clients. If each of this
> servers crashes once a week, we have one system crash a day. We really
> can't afford that. It's my phone, which is ringing all the time, when I
> sit there watching 30 minutes to CHKDSK on Gigabyte HDs and hope it will
> suceed.
>  
   
> You must really admit, that this is not acceptable for running in an
> business environment. 
> 
	

	Well, one good thing to mention about OS/2 crashing, I have
not had the OS/2 2.01 beta crash since I have started using it (2 weeks).
There currently is a bug with using the editor with full screen window
sessions but the register dump we were talking about has not happened.
	NT crashed on me, now it is only in alpha or whatever people
choose to call it and I was running it only with 16 megs of memory
but it is too soon to know whether it will be any more crash proof than
OS/2. 

				-Brad
From: fj05+@andrew.cmu.edu (Faisal Nameer Jawdat)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Os/2ers whine again
Date: 28 Sep 92 05:04:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.Ielk=Ym00WBNQ1bKF8
	<1992Sep28.033314.18195@microsoft.com>
Organization: Sophomore, Physics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

petesk@microsoft.com says
>Did IBM write any of what is now called NT?
>Was a considerable portion of the code for NT taken from OS/2?
>Was any portion of the code for  NT taken from OS/2?
> 
>Are there any other links between the two that are useful in makeing
>business decisions?
> 
>If the Name is the only thing, and you're willing to make a business
>decision based on that, well, the advertising media must love you...

How much of NT's development was funded by IBM?
Where could one find out these figures?