🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <H.ea.0kgtRS0BsQs@semprini.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca> cherborth@semprini.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca writes:
>
>Which is precisely why I'm looking into the other alternatives.  Why is
>it that EVERYONE assumes DOS when you say PC?  As Dave Bagget's pointed
>out, you can put any one of a HALF-DOZEN or more operating systems on a
>clone...  most of them will co-exist quite nicely, allowing you to quit
>OS/2 (or Windoze or whatever) and reboot in unix with X.
>
>-- 
>-------------------========================================-------------------
>Chris Herborth
>cherborth@semprini.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca

      Er, even though I've been quietly watching all this, I have to toss out
a point.  Everyone assumes MS-DOS on the PC for pretty much the same reason
everyone says GEM on the Atari....  The comparison is not exact but is fair.
MS-DOS (perhaps running Windows) is still pretty much the minimum you can get
by with on the PC.  GEM is the minimum for the ST.  You can add NeoDesk or
whatever to GEM in much the same fashion you add Windows to MS-DOS.

      (I may be wrong on this but isn't MS-Windows an application that runs
ontop of DOS?  Much like GEM runs on top of TOS?)

      In any case, my point is mainly that if you allow all PC/Clone OS/s and
GUI's into the arguement, it is probably fair to use all the Atari alternatives
as well....


      Another idea to think about is the concept of "sunk cost".  The money
I have spent on my Atari system is gone.  I can't get it back - it does not
in any way figure into whether or not I should buy an IBM.  I might like to
buy CORALDraw, but the additional cost of the new computer makes it prohibitive to me.   It would actually be easier to by Avant Vector at $400-$500.
      THe point of this is that it seems we are argueing apples and oranges
now and then.  There is a difference between scraping your Atari system for
an IBM (which I cannot right now concieve of doing) or by an IBM instead of
an Atari (which I might do, if the cicumstances were different).  This is
actually a problem for the Atari world since by and large only the first case
leads to new Atari Users.  Atari needs to find some way of bringing the second
kind of choice back to their side of the equation.  Which the Falcon may or
may not do.  (It all depends on whether they (Atari) can break into some sort
of new market and stay there.

      I've said too much already....

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