🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <q18gr0f@rpi.edu> yee@aix01.aix.rpi.edu (Crimson Avenger) writes:
>Cryptic error messages, maybe in future releases they will fix that.  Another
>fundamental question about OS/2 upgrades is really going to be whether
>it will cost alot to upgrade the current system to a decent system.  I'm 
>talking about x386, 4-6 meg of RAM, 100 meg hard disk, etc..  If someone ONLY
>has a x286 system he is left out in the cold unless he ugrades the CPU and
>other hardware.  Cost is a big factor.
It was noted more than once here that the system requirements of Windows
3.0 and OS/2 1.3 and OS/2 2.0 are almost the same for the same
throughput. This is also my experience. When you don't need the
throughput of a machine that you mention, you probably are satisfied
with Windows 3.0 on a 286. But note that using 386enhanced features like
DOS programs in Windows and multi"tasked" requires a 386.
Also, I found that development for Windows and OS/2 or even serious work
with this environments is much nicer (if you have Adobe Type Manager
like in OS/2 1.3, for example) with a machine even bigger than the
configuration you mentioned. And such a machine is not that expensive if
you don't by from Big Blue.

>Well, you maybe able to afford all of the OS/2 applications, BUT some of us
>aren't as rich or resourceful as you.  Take shareware products, some 
>shareware are some of the best work of arts, rivaling commerical developers.
>If you can't run your shareware in the OS/2, where can you run them in?  
>Probably mostly likely in the DOS compability box.  Do I expect most shareware
>developers to migrate to OS/2?  Of course NOT!.  What kind of shareware?  
>Games, utilities, application packages.  Another thing is that it takes time
>for developers to get products out..  In the meantime, you can only issue a 
>compatible release (like Lotus 1-2-3 for Widnows), which doesn't take advantage of OS/2.>
I am not as rich as you may think - I'm still a student. But there are
educational discounts (I got Word 5.0 with this) and sometimes one can
get software from private persons who don't need it any more (I got
Excel that way very cheap compared to the list price in Germany) and so
on. Also, I use lot's of shareware/freeware, a lot of GNU code which I
compiled for OS/2 etc. And I think that many shareware authors will
switch to OS/2. For the reputation that OS/2 currently has, there is
surprisingly much shareware available.

>Yes, Microsoft did a GREAT job promoting Windows, something like a $10 
>million dollars advertising budget and low cost upgrades ($49 with existing
>Windows) AND packaging Windows with almost every computer hardware you buy. 
I wish their developers would be as good as their people who did the
advertising :-)

>>Oh yes. ALl Windows apps using only one local descriptor table is not
>>what I call "protected mode". Also, I have timed the "multitasking" of
>>Windows and compared this to OS/2's results when running an program
>>editor and a compiler in the background. Windows performed very poorly
>>and was rather instable.
>I thought the point of my comment was we shouldn't try to judge OS/2 on
>the ability to beat Windows running the same application.  Most end users
>probably don't care about speed test, I think it's more of a programmer's
>thing about speed.  I am a programmer, and speed really is deceptive.
You are right, but *stability* is a much more important point. A system
on top of DOS cannot be stable. And the bad performance is a symptom for
the number of kludges they had to program to reduce the instability (it
still cannot be called stable).

Kai Uwe Rommel

/* Kai Uwe Rommel, Munich ----- rommel@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de */

DOS ... is still a real mode only non-reentrant interrupt
handler, and always will be.                -Russell Williams