Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!sei!tgp
From: tgp@sei.cmu.edu (Tod Pike)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: more from that other county
Message-ID: <8268@fy.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 17 Aug 90 15:40:46 GMT
References: <546@mstr.hgc.edu>
Reply-To: tgp@sei.cmu.edu (Tod Pike)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 52

In article <546@mstr.hgc.edu> nmiller@mstr.hgc.edu (norman miller) writes:
>I want to thank those who took the trouble to write me about my
>recent posting.  I learned two things: that some Win3 users are
>*dedicated* types and don't like to have their favorite program
>maligned; and, two, that Win3 is being marketed through false and
>misleading advertising.

  Norman, if you believe that there is false and misleading advertising going
on about windows 3.0, I would suggest that you file a claim with the Postal
Service, and contact the Better Business Bureau.  I repeat, I've read the
advertising, seen the hype, talked to people who know more about these things
and they all agree that Windows 3 is all right.  Not great, not perfect, but
all right.  I'm not in love with it; it's not my "favorite program"; I just
don't like to see people spreading this kind of misinformation around where
people who don't know better can see it.

>For, indeed, the "standard" mode does
>not support multi-tasking for any but Windows applications,
>something one discovers only after reading the manual.  Nowhere
>in the glitzy ads, or indeed in most of the unpaid hype, is there
>a hint that one will have to scrap several thousand dollars worth
>of software.
>

  I would presume that you didn't read my first followup to your first article.
In that article I wrote that I started up a terminal session, then went off
to a DOS window (full screen mode) and started up a database program.  I worked
on the database for a half an hour, then quit, came back to my terminal session
and discovered that it had continued to run just fine.  I repeat: if this is
not multi-tasking (of some type), then what is it?  Note that I run in standard
mode on a 286 box.

  I agree that speed is a relative and somewhat subjective term.  Xwindows on a
Decstation 3100 is pretty fast.  Xwindows on a Sun 3/50 with 2 meg of memory
is pretty slow.  Windows 3.0 on a 286 with 1 meg of memory is somewhere in the
middle.  Not something that I'd want to use eight hours a day, but something
that I willingly use almost every night to dial in.  I'm not claiming that
everyone thinks it is the greatest thing since the invention of the computer
(and don't believe that most other people are claiming that, either).  I simply
belive that the system is usable.

>Well.  Does one expect more from Microsoft?
  I got what I expected, and am happy.
>NM

			Tod Pike

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