Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!salt.acc.com!ucsd!nprdc!malloy
From: malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs. Unix
Message-ID: <6508@skinner.nprdc.arpa>
Date: 15 Mar 90 19:49:44 GMT
References: <90070.221543GILLA@QUCDN.BITNET> <4473@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy)
Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego
Lines: 39

In article <4473@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> schaut@cat9.cs.wisc.edu (Rick Schaut) writes:
>UNIX is exclusively designed to work with losely coupled CPU's (i.e. it's
>pretty good for a network) but you can't put it on a system with tightly
>coupled CPU's without adding some extensions (ask the people at Cray).

>OS/2, on the other hand, has the ability to spin off multiple threads;
>exactly the feature one needs to take advantage of a couple of different
>CPU's which have access to the same memory.  Also, in conjunction with
>the Lan Manager, OS/2 gets the ability to work well with loosely coupled
>CPU's as well.

>So, in the ability to handle future hardware, score: OS/2 1, UNIX 1/2
>In a world of multi-processor workstations and distributed processing
>facilities (where multi-user capabilties aren't necessary) it looks as
>though OS/2 would be the operating system of choice.

Unix gets 1/2 because it works well with loose-coupled CPUs but needs
an extension to work with tightly-coupled CPUs. OS/2 gets 1 because it
works well with tightly-coupled CPUs but needs an extension to work
with loosely-coupled CPUs. Is there some kind of bias here you're not
telling us about?

I would give each of them 1/2 for only handling one of the
configurations, and then hand OS/2 a bit more for having LAN Manager
more conveniently available. Then I'd take a bunch back because OS/2 is
designed for a single processor architecture, and some more because it
doesn't handle it right (only one 'DOS compatibility box' thread
running at one time, for example). 

When OS/2 runs on something other than 80[234]86 machines, it's going
to be a serious competitor for future operating systems; as long as
it's architecture-specific, regardless of how well it runs on that
architecture, it's still a dodo.


 Sean Malloy                                   | "The Crystal Wind is the
 Navy Personnel Research & Development Center  | Storm, and the Storm is Data,
 San Diego, CA 92152-6800                      | and the Data is Life."
 malloy@nprdc.navy.mil                         | -- _Emerald Eyes_, D.K. Moran