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From: lws@comm.WANG.COM (Lyle Seaman)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs. Unix
Message-ID: <1990Mar16.222205.9749@comm.WANG.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 90 22:22:05 GMT
References: <90070.221543GILLA@QUCDN.BITNET> <18131@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: Wang Labs, Platform Comms.
Lines: 66

wallwey@boulder.Colorado.EDU (WALLWEY DEAN WILLIAM) writes:

>That's the whole reason for OS/2...To be a true multitasking operating
>system, with out the overhead of multiuser!

Actually, multiuser abilities don't add a whole lot of overhead to the
actual OS, though they do add a couple of necessary ancillary programs.
Multitasking is far costlier.

>I agree, multitasking is needed even though not obviously to the user.
>A good example of this is even a spread sheet.  It can calculate in the
>background, while printing out a sheet, while the user is moving around
>the screen all at the same time!

I'm not sure this is such a great example.  Any spreadsheet worth its
salt would do this on a singlethreaded OS.   This is all one application
and isn't terribly difficult to do.  A better example is the ability to
do away with TSRs and other klduges and write _real_ communicating
processes without a global shared address space.

>>
>>     Actually, to sidetrack a bit - how well does OS/2 really multi-process?
>>Is it capable of keeping an accurate file transfer running in the background
>>using one serial port while another serial/parallel port is also in use? 

>OS/2 can do a lot more than that if you have a machine with enough
>memory and speed.  To give an example... OS/2 can be downloading stock
>information into Excel (a super power spread sheet!), which updates one
>of its graph, which happens to be "hotlinked" into a PageMaker Document you
>are working on.  At the same time, a large C program can be compiling
>in the back ground, while another application is printing out.
>ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!!(if you have a fast system with LOTS of 
>memory)

These examples are not nearly as useful as the original proposed example.
So I repeat:  Is it capable of keeping an accurate file transfer running
in the background using one serial port while another serial port is also
in use?

>>If
>>not, then OS/2 is little more than another crippled memory-hog operating
>>system - something to avoid.  It is too bad that a MS-DOS compatible machine
>>cannot be designed from the ground up to multitask - I had hoped that 386
>>machines would be capable of it.

>Don't confuse the operating system with machine!

RIGHT.

>286 machines and more importantly, 386 machines were designed for
>multitasking!  

RIGHT.

>               MS-DOS wasn't!!!!!!!!! Thus OS/2 was created!!!!

WRONG.  I can't believe that OS/2 was created.  It shakes my faith
in a benevolent God.  OS/2 must simply have happened, one of those
inexplicable mysteries that plagues mankind.  Oh well, maybe I can
blame IBM...

Besides, OS/2 is just warmed-over MS-DOS.  I'd rather have TRS-DOS 4.0.

-- 
Lyle                     sendmail.cf under construction, pardon the From:
lws@comm.wang.com        (or, uunet!comm.wang.com!lws)  (508) 967-2322