From: TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu (Timothy I Miller)
Subject: Re:  Why does OS/2 loose out in a PC Mag comparison test?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 16:49:11 GMT

In article <1992Nov13.144815.17379@nosc.mil>,
discar@nosc.mil (Joe Discar) writes:
>In article <12NOV199210215786@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov> scdorcy@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (JAMES DORCEY) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov8.090343.17907@news.Hawaii.Edu>, low@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu
>>(Hock-leong Low) writes...
>>>Hello,
>>>
>>>Recent articles in PC Magazine and PC Computing did a comparison
>>>test between Windows 3.1 and OS/2 2.0.  Many of the results seem
>>>to favor Windows 3.1--why is that?  Are the editorials bias or
>>>what?  In one, it states that OS/2 needs max 30Meg HD space and
>>>Windows max 10Meg...excluding MS-DOS which was never mentioned
>>>to the reader.  And I'm sure they'll give great appraisals for
>>>NT when it releases...even though it takes up 30+Meg HD.
>
>I personally thought that the difference was because (in some of the tests
>such as the Excel test), Windows apps were second generation (Excel 4.0)
>while OS/2 were "first" generation (Excel 3.0/OS2) or were running in
>a Windows session.  This still does not explain why Describe for Windows
>seems to run as well as (if not better than) Describe for OS/2 (considering
>that Describe was originally release for OS/2).
>
>Was the article's comparison valid?  I thought so.  An Operating System is
>only as good as the applications that run on it.  If Excel 4.0 is not
>available for OS/2, then how do you compare it with Windows?  The way that
>ZD did it seemed reasonable--and quite clearly showed that, all technological
>advantages aside, one could reasonably expect to get work done with
>Windows...  of course when mainstream OS/2 apps become available, they should
>rerun the comparison.
>

     Well, the article claimed to be comparing the Operating
environments (or OS's, whichever you like) and not the
applications.  A fairer test would have been to run equal versions
of excel (like 3.0) on each OS and then telling which one ran
faster.  Maybe a better test would have been to run Lotus 123/win
and 123for OS/2.  In the end, a truly comparative test can't be done
unless the exact same compilers were used with the exact (or very
equivalent) same commands with no optimization (since different
optimization schemes will be used with different OS's).
     The ZD comparison wasn't comparing present productivity
possibilities.  They were supposed to be comparing operating
environments.  If they wanted a truly objective test, they should be
using people with no familiarity with computers, having the various
OS's and applications already installed.  Of course, windows could
be started for them from the DOS prompt, since the tests don't have
to do with the useability of DOS.  Then tell them to do something
(like type a small paper) and see how they average out.  They could
also do a subjective ratings test to see who liked which environment
better.  Instead, they tried to see which operating environment
could run windows programs better, which windows obviously won
(probably didn't do the same tweaking I've done, since my Win-OS/2
is as fast (sometimes faster than) windows 3.1.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy