From: goyal@utdallas.edu (Mohit K. Goyal)
Subject: COMDEX Report!!!
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 02:18:22 GMT

I DID NOT WRITE THIS!!  This is copied without permission from FIDOnet.
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Date: 1992-11-16,18:18
From: MARK WOOLWORTH
To: ALL
Subject: COMDEX AND OS/2
Flags: 

Just got back from the first day of Comdex Fall '92, and here is some
of what I found for OS/2 (which is running EVERYWHERE!!)...

Stacker is being promised by Christmas, but will -NOT- support HPFS in
this release. According to the rep, they think they can have
HPFS support added by June '93. Another rep told me that even
though they are promising delivery by Christmas, they actually
expect to deliver the first week in December. Someone else told
me that the president of Stacker had told him it would be two
months before they shipped. Believe who you want...

Proportional Software, who has written DCF/2, another hard drive
compression program for OS/2, is ready to ship. HPFS and FAT
partitions are fully supported. I asked numerous questions, and
found out some info that I will not be able to comment on until
tomorrow evening. However, when asked what the resulting file
size would be if a file contained 20k of the same character,
was stored on a DCF/2 drive. The answer was 320 bytes!!

Version 1.0 of DCF/2 was ready to ship in August or September, but was
held up, not due to bugs, but due to the overwhelming volume of
orders. They have continued to work on the software, while they
are making arrangements to handle the unexpected volume of
orders. They are now up to version 1.1.

The president of Proportional Software asked me to assure everyone that
has placed an order, that they will be seeing their software
"very soon now". I expect to be able to make some further
announcements on DCF/2 tomorrow. I might even become involved
with the company. Like I said, more tomorrow afternoon.

I spent so much time with Proportional Software, that I was only able
to really glance around the rest of the room (which is really
three huge meeting rooms,) that IBM has all of the OS/2
developers displaying their products in. Developers CD-ROMs
(11/92 version) are being handed out, as are tons of T-Shirts,
caps, and buttons, all emblazened with prominent OS/2 logos.
The OS/2 room is a throw-back to similar displays Micro$oft has
done with Windows developers in the past. Lots of little booths
with each company dispaying their wares... With IBM taking up
the whole middle of the room.

There were two companies showing tape backup software, at least three
companies showing communication programs, and even a couple
showing fax programs. There were even a couple of companies
showing 32 bit compilers for OS/2. In the glances I was able to
get, all of these were PM programs. I will be back in the
morning to get more details on all of these.

This OS/2 room was packed. I dont think IBM expected the interest that
was being displayed. The room was wall to wall people. With no
less than 40 or 50 different companies displaying their OS/2
software, it was a real OS/2 lovers field day! And now that i
think about it, I may have only seen a portion of that room. I
believe that there is another whole section, which I did not
have time to go into. I will check into it in the morning.

IBM is even offering "rewards" to people that inform them of developers
that are producing OS/2 software, which IBM did not know about.
They have a stack of old-west style "wanted" posters that they
are handing out trying to locate additional developers.

Out in the main hall, OS/2 is running multi-media displays all over the
place. They are very impressive! Full motion video with sound is
playing on literally dozens of machines, in several huge IBM displays.

Tomorrow, I will get over to Bally's, which is where the multi-media
showcase is, and one IBM rep told me that IBM is giving out a
special multi-media CD-ROM there. It is supposed to be loaded
with all of the sound and video clips that are being displayed
in all of the IBM booths. It also is supposed to have more IBM
employee written software in the multi-media category.

Tomorrow I will post a list of companies displaying software in the
OS/2 room, along with availability dates, prices, and some
features. Plus any other tid-bits I can get my hands on.

Mark

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PLEASE post any COMDEX information that you have!
I'm sure it will be of interest to everyone!

oh yeah, one note...MS is showing NT running on Intel and Alpha chips.
A MS employee was quoted saying that DEC/Alpha will be the "best
platform" for NT.

Thanks.