From: chris@cad.gatech.edu (Chris McClellen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: is NT really NEW technology?
Keywords: NT Unix OS2 DOS Blither
Date: 13 Aug 92 19:38:05 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

I've been reading alot of the threads here, and I want to make
some observations.

NT is a client-server based OS from what I gather.  Now mind you, I
haven't seen NT yet, so what I am going to say will be speculative,
and many points may need correction.  My basis here comes from what
Mr. Skelley & co have been saying.


First off, it is being said that since NT is client server, users can
run apps, etc off the server.  It has even been said that if the
server goes down, the appication will still run.  
  My observation on this is that someone is speaking pure garbage.
If the server goes down  (an NT server system), the client won't be
much use to anyone, for it will have nothing to communicate with.  However,
if you mean if a FILESERVER goes down, you can still run your app,
thats true in a limited sense.  As long as your app was laoded before the FS
went down, and you don't try to write to the FS or do any further
reading, you probably will be safe.  This is the way alot of Unix
systems arte.  On my console, I'll see that the nfs is gone, but my apps
are fine unless they try to write / read from the down server.  NT
doesn't seem to offer me anything here that Unix/NFS doesn't.

Another point the MS crew make about NT is that it can be multiuser
in a sense that you just start apps from the NT machine,  IE a
graphical "CLI" or some other app.  I assume that if the NT
server is actually running the app, then the results are being displayed
on the remote station via some graphics protocol.  Once again, this
feature offfers me nothing that X doesn't.  Yes, clients have
to have an X server, but by the same token, it seems that machines
wanting to see NT apps displayed on their screen will need some sort
of "NT GUI server" or something of the like.  What scares me is
the possibility that NT will only do client-serv with another NT
box.  If this is so, then it will die quickly.  I assume DOS
apps using TCP/IP could attach to a particular port or something on
NT, and NT will start a server process to handle it.
Once again, this offers me nothing that Unix does not.  You can configure
your services on Unix such that a "server" app can be loaded when ever
a connection to a certain port comes through.  Another method is to
run a server process on a Unix machine in the background that can
accept multiple connections on a certain port.  The connections can
come from any computer using tcp/ip thats can use the machine.
The CLIENT app that does the connecting doesn't have to know that
the machine on the other end is running Unix.  You can just pass
the relevant data back and forth bewteen a socket.  I'm sure NT
can do this, but once again, having NT do it doesn't offer me anything.

There are lots of shops out there with lots of terminals and equipment
that will not ever be capable of running NT, and these things are hooked
into a Unix box, a VMS box, AS/400, or what have you.  I don't know
if NT will allow for thhis.  Also, like I said, if you have to have an NT
box on each end to do all this wonderful client-serv stuff, then NT
will die.  Unix CAN do client server based stuff quite easily.  I
have applications that are split into a client serv relationship.
(client on whatever connects to serv app on Unix).  

NT does offer multi platform capabilities.  However, Unix apps
can be ported to other versions of Unix, with of course, varying
degress of complexity.  However, there are apps that people may
not even care about running on a risc box, or big file server
that they may want to run on a 386.  Within this case, a multi
platform OS becomes moot.  Of course people will want to run apps
on different hardware platforms.  

What NT does offer me is a headache of dealing with whatever bugs it
has and whatever incompatabilities with the rest of the world.
People can't just afford to replace all their terminals with 386/33's
+ 8 meg + NT just to get the many of the same abilities they already
have.

The reason I ask what is so great about NT besides being multiplatform
is because the clientserv stuff doesn't do anything for me that Unix
doesn't.  People say that "Oh well, you have to port X apps, and they
are hard to port."  Some apps may be hard to port, but the big
deal is that if I have an X app for a SUN, if I want to have the app
appear on a 386 under DOS or under Windows, or something, all I need
to get is the Xserver, and then have the app executed, and have
X use my 386 as the output machine.  No recompilation necessary.
This is useful, since some graphical apps may need to be run on big
iron, and have their displkay sent to a PC/Xterm,whatnot.  NT
sounds like it will do just what X does, but make me take my big
iron and trash its stuff and put NT on it.
doing X doesn't require me to run Unix everywhere, nor does it require
recompilation unless I want to run the app off my own machine, and
the binary doesn't exist for it.

Someone stated that Unix binaries will run on NT.  I suppose its
possible, but each vendor has its own binary format, and its
own set of interrupts.  I could see NT on a dec that will run Unix
binaries made for Ultrix, and compiled on that chipset.  However,
I think this would be both slow and could introduce alot of bugs
into the system.  NT would have to support all the Unix system
calls plus its own, and be able to interpret all the interrupts, etc.
Its possible, but it can slow things down when running multiple apps
this way.  I really don't think NT will do this since there are so
many different binary formats.  Secondly, since they dont even plan
complete backward compatability with their own Apps, I don't see
how they will commit to complete Unix binary compatability.

I say for now, I think NT will be a loser, and won't really introduce
anything radically new.  However, I will just have to wait and see
the final version;  there is no use comparing an alpha version to
everything else.  However, I'm just trying to compare what
I've heard MS people say the final product will do versus reality.
If NT takes over the world, I will be the first to admit I was wrong
about what it does, etc.


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| Chris McClellen      (chris@cad.gatech.edu)         |
| "If at first you don't succeed, redefine success."  |
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