Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!bu-cs!xylogics!world!madd
From: madd@world.std.com (jim frost)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: OS/2 machines
Keywords: OS/2
Message-ID: <1989Oct26.154845.5482@world.std.com>
Date: 26 Oct 89 15:48:45 GMT
References: <44825@ccicpg.UUCP>
Reply-To: madd@world.UUCP (jim frost)
Organization: Software Tool & Die
Lines: 44

In article <44825@ccicpg.UUCP> swonk@ccicpg.UUCP (Glen Swonk) writes:
|I am trying to get a copy of OS/2 v1.1 for
|a 386 clone.
[...]
|General questions:

I'll answer those which I can:

|	Why can't I get a copy of OS2 at Egghead
|	like I can get a copy of MS-DOS?

Probably the biggest reason is that Egghead is popularity-driven and
OS/2 just isn't very popular.  Whether this will change is anybody's
guess, although I suspect the poor response time with respect to
tracking hardware improvements (ie when will the 386 version be out?
before or after the 586 is shipping?) and its general bugginess is
likely to hamper OS/2 for awhile to come.

OS/2 is actually fairly mature given its short lifetime, but it was a
mistake to develop it for the brain-damaged 286 hardware.  This
mistake may well allow other operating systems -- UNIX in particular
-- to capture a large share of the high-end PC market that could have
been OS/2's.  You might note that Microsoft bought a hefty percentage
of SCO recently.

|	How much memory is the minimum necessary to run OS2?

Depends on the application.  I believe it's pretty much a blanket
statement to say that you want 2mb minimum.  If you plan to run large
applications or to run several at once, get more.  You will not
believe how painful it is to deal with OS/2 paging.  I thought ten
people on a VAX 11/750 was bad.

|	What is necessary to run PC-NFS on an OS2 machine?

You can probably run it in the compatibility box but I wouldn't bet on
it, or on the likelihood that it'll run well if it runs at all.  I
don't believe there is an OS/2 version of PC-NFS, but you can contact
Sun Microsystems at 1-800-USA4SUN (it's tough to forget that one) and
ask them.

jim frost
software tool & die
madd@std.com