🚀 go-pugleaf

radel@bach.udel.edu (Todd Radel) writes:

>Several people have written suggesting that I use DesqView/386 for my
>multitasking work, rather than Windows or OS/2.  I have tried DV-386
>in the past, and it is an excellent multitasker.

>However, the reason I specifically mentioned Windows and OS/2 is that
>I have a bunch of graphical programs I don't want to give up (Word for
>Windows, PageMaker, etc.).  I'd like to be able to run the BBS in a
>minimized window while editing a paper with Word, for example.  The
>overhead involved in loading a separate copy of Windows in a DesqView
>window makes this even slower than running Windows itself.

In my follow-up I specifically didn't mention DesqView as I've found
that it can't do all of what you said you wanted to do while maintaining
constant/max speed.

>From the responses I've gotten so far, it seems the only choice that
>gives me real multitasking, access to the apps I like to use, and
>extra goodies like background mail processing seems to be OS/2.

Perhaps, I don't know all that much about OS/2. At the time I made
my decision to move onto real multitasking system the affordable and
available options seemed to be either UNIX or QNX. 

>So here's the big question:  Can I have an OS/2 BBS program -- say
>Maximus -- invoke a DOS door game?  If this is possible, then Maximus
>and Binkley under OS/2 would seem to have everything I need.
>Does anyone know if this can be done?

As I said, before, I have real doubts you will be able to run
everything you want on a single 386/486 machine under *any* OS.
Just processing news slows a 486MHz + 15 MS ESDI drive down! 

IMHO the only way to fully handle the speed problem is to have
a LAN of multiple-machines which look like one to users, but
can spread the load across the hardware.

If you have doubts about this, perhaps you can find somebody who's
got something similar to what you have in mind and log onto their
system and see how it actually runs. For sure if you log onto
mine, drop into the shell, and say 

  $ find / >/tmp/junk. &  # find every file as background task

Then try to run any program, you'll find that it's been slowed down. 

Depending on the amount of money you're thinking about, there 
probably isn't an easy solution to the speed problem. However,
if your seriously interested in maintaining a constant speed,
I would definitely have a system that can not only multi-task
but multi-task across mulitiple machines! 

You know, "The better it runs, the better we want it to run."

>Thanks to all who've written so far.  Keep those ideas coming!

Hope what I've said helps,

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087