HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tomh@wes.on.ca (Tom Haapanen)
Subject: Beta period length (was: Microsoft claims a 4Q92 delivery for NT)
Organization: Waterloo Engineering Software
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 09:59:28 GMT

> rvaniwaa@copper.denver.colorado.edu (Ronald J. Vaniwaarden) writes:
>> I guess that probably deserves some flames but if a product is not
>> officially in beta testing and they expect to be able to get it out to
>> the public in about three and a half months when they spent more than that
>> amount of time beta testing Windoze 3.1, I just cannot swallow that much.

x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu (Brad Wardell) writes:
> 	Hmmm.  It sounds like FUD to me.  How can they possibly release
> a resonably bug free OS with so little beta testing?  Even little DOS 5
> was being beta's forever.  Everyone had a beta of DOS 5 and Windows NT
> is not even in wide beta yet.  

One reason why both DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 had very long beta periods was
because both had extensive backward compatability requirements.  Microsoft
isn't claiming NT will run *all* your Windows 3.x or DOS apps, just most of
them.  This reduces the amount of testing required substantially, although
I have no inside information on whether the palnned NT testing period is
sufficient.

Incidentally, when evaluating "how good" the current NT is, remember that
the CD-ROMs went into duplication in mid-June, three months ago!  Surely
the NT development team hasn't been sitting on their collective butt for
all that time...  :)

[ \tom haapanen    "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]
[ tomh@wes.on.ca                   "trust the programmer" -- ansi c standard ]
[ waterloo engineering software      "to thine own self be true" -- polonius ]
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: msmith@netcom.com (Martin P. Smith)
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 92 02:16:19 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 


All the crap is at the bottom of this. Could somebody please let me know how 
to put Brian Sturgill in my KILL file. I have had enough of his bleating
and NT is better and bigger and will do all things garbage. Even if it 
were true it is getting obnoxious already but half the garbage is speculation.

Martin Smith
msmith@netcom.com

In article <1992Sep15.180636.2944@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>In article <1992Sep15.133444.13338@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>
>>
>>>WHAT SORT OF MUCK-SUCKING SWINE ARE YOU?  Please assume I've sent you e-mail
>>>with worse language describing your ancestory in an appropriate fashion.
>>>I'd actually send it, but you're probably not worth the effort.
>>
>>What a response.  Worthy of your talents...
>
>WORTHY OF MY TALENTS ... you scum... you purposely edited out the portion
>where you gave me a choice of being a liar or a breaker of non-disclosure
>agreements.  You edited out the smiley I relunctantly put at the end.
>
>Well obviously you're untrustworthy to discuss things with.
>I've deleted my response I had written to the things you had said above.
>
>I ask all people on this group to not respond to any of your posts until
>you apollogize for your rude behavior on this group.
>
>Brian
>-- 
>C. Brian Sturgill                       *** OS/2 2.0 is for YOU! ***
>University of Utah                  Microsoft needs some competition, but
>Center for Software Science        -I- want to be one of the many using NT.
>brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373           :-) :-) :-)


Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: Hard future for OS/2 2.0 ....
Reply-To: sip1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 01:39:00 GMT

In article <716296545snx@feki.toppoint.de> marten@feki.toppoint.de
(Marten Feldtmann) writes:
>[edited]
>Here in Germany a big computer newspaper (ComputerWoche) is VERY
>sceptical about the success of OS/2 2.0. During the last weeks the
>comments on this OS are getting worse.
>Here are some points, the writers mentioned:
> -- OS/2 2.0  there's no need for multitasking

Just had to chuckle at this one.  I mean, absolutely no one would
ever, God forbid, want to download or print a file in the background.

-- 
Timothy F. Sipples      | The OS/2 FREQ. ASKED QUESTIONS LIST is avail. from
sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu | 128.123.35.151, anonymous ftp, in /pub/os2/all/faq.
Dept. of Econ., Univ.   | Or from LISTSERV@BLEKUL11.BITNET (send "HELP").
of Chicago, 60637       | Family Values Means a Job
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: tomh@wes.on.ca (Tom Haapanen)
Subject: Re: What REXX does
Organization: Waterloo Engineering Software
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 10:09:49 GMT

WILLS@LSTC2VM.stortek.com (Cheyenne Wills) writes:
> Anyway... a simple KEDIT macro to count the number of nonblank lines
> is a file that is being edited follows:

> ----[blankcnt.kex]-----------
> /* Count blank lines */
> nonblank = 0
> blank = 0
> 'Top'
> 'Next'
> Do While rc = 0
>     'Extract/curline/'
>     If Space( curline.3 ) <> '' Then nonblank = nonblank + 1
>     Else blank = blank + 1
>     'Next'
> End
> 'Top'
> 'Msg There are' nonblank 'nonblank lines and' blank 'blank lines in the file'
> -----------------------------

Sure, this is all English-like, but it still requires you to know the syntax.
If you think that end users can writew these on their own ...  

Surely 'grep -v "^$"' isn't any more difficult, once you get past the hurdle
of regular expressions?  The other hurdle, of course, is knowing that if you
don't know how to do something in Unix, there's probably a command that will
do it!  :^)  And the awk approach mentioned by another poster doesn't get as
hairy as REXX for complex pattern processing tasks.

Anyway, REXX is more approachable than the Unix tools (even perl), but no
more so than, say, Visual Basic.  Further, the OS/2 version is limited to
the command line environment (there is a fully GUI Windows REXX available
from a 3rd-party vendor, though).  Looks like NT is missing the scripting
language completely, but OS/2 has some room for improvement as well...

(Yes, I did write a fair bit of REXX back in the early '80s on VM/CMS...)

[ \tom haapanen    "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]
[ tomh@wes.on.ca                   "trust the programmer" -- ansi c standard ]
[ waterloo engineering software      "to thine own self be true" -- polonius ]
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Multitasking OS for 286-machines
From: ghdai@vax1.umkc.edu
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 17:48:11 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City

> 
>After all, OS/2 AND Windows NT both require a 386.  So why don't some whine 
>about them not developing special versions for a 286?  You have to stop 
>somewhere, and I even think that supporting CGA is archaic.
>

OS/2 1.x are the versions for a 286!

G.H. Dai
-- 
GHDai@VAX1.UMKC.Edu   |**** Happy user of only OS/2 2.0!!/HPFS entire HDD ****|
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Hercules ??? Be realistic !
Date: 10 Sep 92 13:38:42 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <92253.134002ASI509@DJUKFA11.BITNET> ASI509@DJUKFA11.BITNET writes:

>I can`t believe what I`m reading here. There are really guys who want
>the WPS run on a Hercules system ?  Why don`t you request a 386
>emulator to run 2.0 on a 286 ? How many 386 computers are out there
>with a Hercules board. And why has the one who bought them not been
>fired ? What GUI applications are used on these 386 computers with
>Hercules ? I bet these machines are only used for text mode apps. If
>you want to use a GUI on them you have to get VGA.

Two points:

1) It's Herc's responsibility to support their cards.  Hercules wrote
   the Windows 3.x driver, I believe.  It was ported up from the
   Windows 1.x and 2.x driver, since Hercules was competing with CGA
   and EGA at the time of Windows 1.x's release.

   Hercules has REFUSED to develop OS/2 drivers, claiming that it will
   never sell any copies.  They won't even support their hi-res color
   boards, why do you think they would support the mono boards?

   I don't this behavior, but IBM has given them the same
   opportunities that they gave Trident, ATI, and Orchid.

2) I have used Hercules on a 386 system.  When I got my first sVGA
   board, an ATI Wonder, I couldn't afford the monitor, so I was left
   with my dual-sync amber monitor.  Due to the ATI board's monitor-
   auto-detect circuit, it detected a mono monitor, and wouldn't run
   in any mode other than Hercules mode (or EGA mono, but that looked
   even worse with only three shades of amber).  I ran Windows 2.03 in
   Hercules mode for about4 months until I could afford my Multisync
   monitor.

   I don't think I'm that unusual here.  If I was doing this today,
   I'd be upset if my board couldn't produce any mode that OS/2 can
   handle.

3) (OK, three points) When IBM ships their device driver kit, you
   should see PD herc mono drivers out.  The Hercules monochrome specs
   are very well documented, and it isn't complicated.  I'd expect to
   see some hot-shot programmer write one when the kit ships.
-- 
   |)  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
From: Joe@twistor.dialix (Joe Katnic)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re:  What REXX does
Distribution: world
Date: 10 Sep 92 22:44:21 PST
Organization: Not an Organization

I assume that most people understood what the REXX code was attempting
to do by reading it.

Your eloquent description for 1.5 pages of the one line of awk code
speaks for itself.

These types of tools are not conducive to maintenance by the poor
programmer who happens to be on duty at the time the system, that was
written 12 months ago by someone who has left the company, failed.

Believe me, I have plenty of that kind of experience.

--

Joe Katnic                                         Joe@twistor.DIALix.oz.au
                                                (ALT: jkatnic@DIALix.oz.au)
Science - A system of Truth.                         Phone: (+619) 454 3939
Engineering - A system of Use.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: des@frogland.inmos.co.uk (David Shepherd)
Subject: Re: Microsoft bashing (Well, not exactly....)
Organization: INMOS architecture group
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 11:31:14 BST

In article <1992Sep8.145449.26765@hellgate.utah.edu>, brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>BTW, At the San Francisco Developer's conference Microsoft promised
>that they would make NT's source code a available for research purposes
>at academic institutions.  Nobody really believed them, but you never
>know!!!  Oh... BTW... can academic institutions get OS/2 source code?

depending on the ATT vs BSDI case this could be a smart move if ATT
win :-(

MS donate NT source code to academic institutions to use in
the OS course and, hey presto, everyone going through those
course becomes "tainted" and can't work on competing products.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
david shepherd: des@inmos.co.uk or des@inmos.com    tel: 0454-616616 x 625
                inmos ltd, 1000 aztec west, almondsbury, bristol, bs12 4sq
                1992: celebrate the quincentenary of columbus getting lost
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: jja@wsl.ie (John J. Allen)
Subject: Re: Zachaman and NT and OS/2
Organization: Project Papyrus, AIRAID, Dublin, Ireland
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 11:51:54 GMT

brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
: Ports from Windows 3.X to NT are trivial... I suggest you talk to
: a few more developers.

Then we obviously don't need Win 3.1 support in NT, because all the Win 3.1
apps will be ported just like THAT.

There done.
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Marketing idea for OS/2
Date: 15 Sep 92 15:52:59 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Sep15.095628.8400@wes.on.ca> tomh@wes.on.ca (Tom Haapanen) writes:
>My wife was using VM/386 at her work (at a large Canadian insurance company)
>until a few months ago...
>
>They finally stopped using it last month, since Borland C++ 3.x would refuse
>to run in it (as would Microsoft C/C++ 7.0, and many other tools).  She's
>now using Windows 3.1 with several DOS sessions.  I'm somewhat surprised,
>since the company is very IBM (notice the PS/2s and LAN Server above, not
>to mention a LARGE mainframe installation), and I thought that they would
>switch to OS/2 for development.
>
>Some reasons I can think of, though ... the first is that the applications
>they work on are for their agents, and they are converting them to Windows

If they're developing Windows apps for clients (and the client must
dictate), then Windows 3.1 would be a useful environment.  It'd be
silly to write Windows 3.0 code now that 3.1 is out.  I don't think
there are any features of 3.0 that aren't in 3.1.  Are there?

For developing Windows 3.0 code, OS/2 might be better, since
compatibility with MS-Windows is guranteed, but you can't access any
Enhanced mode features, which could be a bigger problem than platform
stability.  And Windows 3.1 is stable enough for development.

>(not chance of running OS/2 on those agent notebooks!).  The second is that
>a lot of their machines have 6 MB or 8 MB, which isn't a lot if you have
>several DOS sessions you need to keep going continuously.  I expect BC++
>3.x works fine in an OS/2 DOS session, so that wouldn't be the reason, would
>it?

Yes, this could also do it.  You don't need to be running Windows to
compile Windows code.  As a matter of fact, with MS-C 6.0, I had to
run my compiles from a command-prompt.


-- 
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,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu (John H. Kim)
Subject: Re: SOMFIX.ZIP, WPS, drive-object, HPFS
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 20:42:52 GMT

thg@cam-orl.co.uk (Tim Glauert) writes:
>In article <92254.143036TURGUT@FRMOP11.BITNET>, TURGUT@FRMOP11.BITNET (Turgut Kalfaoglu) writes:
>|> Perhaps we are too spoilt by the snappy appearance of Windows
>
>I love it! After all the advocacy in this group about windows taking a 486 and
>giving it the speed of an 8086, here comes someone saying that it's OK for the
>WPS to be slower than windows.

The thing about Windows taking a 486 and giving it the speed of an 8086
is in reference to how it runs/multitasks DOS programs, not the GUI speed.
(GUI speed was a problem in 3.0, apparently fixed in 3.1 from what I've
seen)

I got to play with a Mac Quadra 700 running System 7.1.  Both System 7
and OS/2 rely on info tacked on to individual files (resources in the
former, extended attributes in the latter) to store GUI information for
those files.  So far as I know, this is the only way to reliably do
this and have seamless integration between the GUI and File System.
What this means is that each time you open a window, the OS has to hit
the hard disk to collect all this info.  I'm convinced that unless
someone comes up with a quicker way to do this (reliably), all true
GUI systems (true as in the GUI shows the files on disk) will have
this problem.  (I'd be interested in any info on how the NeXT fares)

Windows doesn't integrate the GUI and File System.  Everything shown in
the GUI has nothing to do with the actual file, other than a one-way
association.  This means Windows stores all this GUI drawing information
in one place.  This means Windows is fast.  This also means Windows is
not very intuitive when it comes to file management.  This means Windows
will never gain wide acceptance among people who haven't the foggiest
idea, nor will to learn how files and subdirectories work (read the
average human being).  Unless Windows NT/4.0/?? decides to integrate
the GUI with the file system, in which case it'll be just as slow as
OS/2 and System 7.  Always keep this in mind.  The Windows GUI will
have to be seriously reworked for it to become as intuitive as the Mac
(or WPS for that matter) when it comes to file management.

Incidently, if you're upset at the WPS taking so long to pop up a
window with a few icons, don't close those windows - minimize them.
It costs you a little memory, and you gain a lot of speed.  The
important thing is that YOU get to decide which is more important.
-- 
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)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: os/2 vs nt: an unasked question
Date: 5 Sep 92 16:20:26 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

In article <18bb67INNj2c@agate.berkeley.edu> ucbked@athena (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes:
>perhaps i have missed it in the discussion of os-2 vs nt, but it
>seems to me that a great deal of net bandwidth has been expended
>without asking one very important question:
>
>how do these systems handle languages other than ascii?
>
>although it is not readily apparent from usenet postings, much of the
>world does not speak ascii, let alone english. coding for the world's
>second largest computer market (japan) and the largest potential
>market (china), requires software that properly handles two byte
>coding schemes.

IBM always has this sort of support, so I'm sure OS/2 can do at
least an adequate job of handling multi-byte characters.
I'll let someone that has actually used it.

NT I do know about.  This is a major design goal of NT, and until
the last update of my features list I had forgotten to list it.

UNICODE support is fully integrated into NT.  The base system everyone
recieves actually works in UNICODE.  Futher NTFS stores its filenames
in UNICODE.  It looks like Microsoft is at last fully dedicated to
getting it's product line everywhere.  Internationalizing was a major
topic at the developer Conference.

Brian
-- 
C. Brian Sturgill                       *** OS/2 2.0 is for YOU! ***
University of Utah                  Microsoft needs some competition, but
Center for Software Science        -I- want to be one of the many using NT.
brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373           :-) :-) :-)
From: ucbked@athena (Earl H. Kinmonth)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: os/2 vs nt: an unasked question
Date: 5 Sep 1992 22:09:11 GMT
Organization: Centre for Japanese Studies, Univ. of Sheffield
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: athena.berkeley.edu

perhaps i have missed it in the discussion of os-2 vs nt, but it
seems to me that a great deal of net bandwidth has been expended
without asking one very important question:

how do these systems handle languages other than ascii?

although it is not readily apparent from usenet postings, much of the
world does not speak ascii, let alone english. coding for the world's
second largest computer market (japan) and the largest potential
market (china), requires software that properly handles two byte
coding schemes.

both languages are more at home with a vertical rather than left to
right horizontal presentation. other languages like right to left
horizontal presentations (hebrew). when one gets into arabic or
various indian languages, there are even more variations in display
and processing.

the tiny fraction of the japanese peecee market held by ibm in japan
demonstrates that you cannot force amerikan standards on everyone.
how do nt and os-2 compare in terms of dealing with the non-ascii
speaking world, especially that portion that requires n-byte coding
schemes? how do nt and os-2 compare when you want to have your file
names in kanji (chinese characters) or urdu script or whatever?

-- 
earl h. kinmonth, centre for japanese studies, university of sheffield,
sheffield, england s10 2tn  jp1ek@sunc.sheffield.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: ak@ananke.stgt.sub.org (Andreas Kaiser)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: >16Mb support 
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 13:45:06 GMT
Organization: ananke


In article <1992Sep14.100108.27638@cs.joensuu.fi> jahonen@cs.joensuu.fi writes:

  > >If you have an AHA154x, you won't be able to use more than
  > >16MB for programs, no matter if the system is EISA or ISA.
  >
  > I found the following from software.watson.ibm.com:
  > 
  > * :nick.GT16MB     :sec.IBM Unclassified Use          :disk.OS2TOOLS
  > 
  > So I think that the issue is not so bad as one would think :-).
  > No, I have not tested the fix yet, but I will do that soon.

This fix will help some users, where the OS2LDR previously did not even
recognize that there is more memory than 16MB.

But it doesn't make this memory available for programs when paging is
enabled on a AHA154x system. Memory in excess of 16MB is used by OS/2
as primary swap space when the paging device isn't able to page those
memory addresses. BUT: You can disable paging (MEMMAN=NOSWAP) to get
the whole memory for OS/2.

		Gruss, Andreas

:::::::::::::::::::: subnet:  ak@ananke.stgt.sub.org
:: Andreas Kaiser :: fidonet: 2:241/7220.9
::::::::::::::::::::
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville)
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Organization: Computer and Technologies Theme Program, NCSU, Raleigh
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 17:08:59 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.163039.363@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>We're also going to start getting into issues of speed soon.  When
>>people are comparing 1-2-3/G 2.0 with good old 16-bit Excel, the
>>benchmarks are going to be in 1-2-3's favor.
>
>Yeah, right.
>You edited out the important part of what I said.  The previous poster was
>saying that the real question was what platform would see the apps first,
>and I was pointing out that one of the few he was hoping would appear
>for OS/2 was already on NT. (Corel Draw) and that the Lotus ones generally
>had better counterparts from Microsoft.  As to not having anything
>as good as Notes... I think you may have some surprises coming.

Really??  Corel has already released CorelDRAW for NT?!?  I didn't know that...
:-) :-)

John W. Linville




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  John W. Linville                Amateur radio:  KD4KHC                  |
|  #include "std_disclaimer.h"     E-mail:  linville@catt.ncsu.edu         |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Buy OS/2 apps
From: ghdai@vax1.umkc.edu
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 23:08:15 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City

>If you don't like it, don't buy Microsoft's products... by someone else's (and
>give some other American company the chance to become a major corporation).
>As in REAL politics, your dollar is the best vote you can cast.

YES! good idea.  Buy what you want to buy -- OS/2 apps.  We all can live
without anybody else, including Microsoft.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: bgm@cray.com (Bert Moshier)
Subject: Re: IBM's response to MS's Win3.1 vs. OS/2 document...
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 9 Sep 92 19:09:35 CDT

Everyone / Anyone:

While this has nothing to do with IBM's response to MS's Win 3.1 .vs.
OS/2 document, you might want to check out this month's OS/2 Monthly
Magazine.  It contains an article called:  OS/2 2.0 through Microsoft
eyes.

Bert Moshier

Read OS/2 Monthly Magazine!  I might write for them, but I don't have a
financial interest in the magazine.