From: ajross@husc10.harvard.edu (Andrew Ross)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: First Taligent Won't Run Existing Apps
Date: 20 Aug 92 15:26:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc10.ajross.714324371

ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

>In <1992Aug19.014443.1@vax1.umkc.edu> tmaehl@vax1.umkc.edu writes:

>>"Taligent won't be a robust platform on day one," said
>>Guarino, in a session at Apple's first Enterprise Computing
>>Conference held here last week. "A year [after the operating
>>system is shipped], Taligent will provide interoperability
>>with AIX, System 7 and OS/2 applications, and it may be a
>>converged operating environment by the late '90s."

>As usual, IBM has it arse-backwards.  The ability to run
>System 7 and OS/2 applications is important for users who
>are just migrating to the new operating system, especially
>during the first year or so, when there will be little native
>software available.  It will become less important as time 
>goes on.

>>"Delaying compatibility may be a big mistake, analysts said.

>For once, the analysts are right. It sounds like IBM is 
>in a hurry to release the new OS as soon as possible and 
>is willing to sacrifice compatability to do it.  I hope 
>Apple doesn't make the same mistake.  Better to get it
>right the first time around than try to fix it later.
>(Hasn't IBM learned anything from OS/2?)

Um... Taligent is a JOINT venture.  Apple is, and will be, making
precicely the same mistakes as IBM.  You seem to think that the two
companies are doing independent development of the operating system.  It
is my understanding that Taligent is the ONLY company doing any OS
development for the PowerPC project.

>>"It's our belief that the brain trusts in our universities
>>are looking for something beyond Unix," Guarino said.

>This seems to be part of the problem right there.  He
>confuses universities with developers.  This guy seems 
>to think that computers are still primarily for university
>"brain trusts" who have nothing better to do with their time 
>than write all their own software from scratch.  If Taligent 
>follows that strategy, it will be about as successful as NeXT.

You're reading too far into this.  Guarino's statement was that Taligent
is/will be marketed to the University sector where BSD Unix currently
dominates.  You seem to take this as a statement that Taligent is looking
ONLY at the university sector.

>>So what's this say for the future or Taligent?? Will they be
>>doomed if they don't ship Mac-AIX-OS/2 modules before 1996??
>>Thats four years from now...roughly three after NT ships...

>Assuming Windows NT ships on schedule, which is doubtful.
>Even so, NT will only bring Windows up to the level of a
>bad System 7 clone.  Since a Taligent application on a PowerPC
>may run ten times faster than a Windows NT app running on
>Intel hardware, there's not really much comparison.

Oh please.  Does System 7 have Built in TCP/IP?  Pre-Emptive Multitasking?
Memory Protection?  Threads?  Process Ownership?  Symmetric
Multi-Processing?  The list goes on.  There is a Pre-Beta release already
available (for $69) that has all of these features ALREADY IMPLEMENTED. 
While that does not necessarily indicate that NT will ship by the end of
the year, It is obviously going to be here soon.  I kind of doubt we'll
see a ten-fold increase in performance over current Intel boxes, but even
so, NT has already been demo'd (in the same pre-Beta) running on an R4000
64 bit processor.  As an INTERFACE, the finder will beat the program
manager any day; but as an OPERATING SYSTEM, System 7 doesn't hold a
candle to what NT will be (or what OS/2 is, for that matter.)

Please do some fact checking the next time you want to claim that NT is
just a bad System 7 clone.

Andy Ross
ajross@husc.harvard.edu
.....................................................that's right, no .sig