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From: lowey@herald.usask.ca (Kevin Lowey)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Query: Which would you recommend? Windows? or OS2 w/ PM?
Message-ID: <1990Sep30.191022.7228@herald.usask.ca>
Date: 30 Sep 90 19:10:22 GMT
References: <26395@cs.yale.edu>
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Lines: 65

From article <26395@cs.yale.edu>, by spolsky-joel@cs.yale.edu (Joel Spolsky):
> In article <90270.162249TURGUT@TREARN.BITNET> TURGUT@TREARN.BITNET (Turgut Kalfaoglu) writes:
>>it flies - I have no problems with its performance. In fact, I switch
>>to DOS box and run benchmarks (SI, Landmark,etc) and they report very
>>small degradation.
> 
> Of course they report very small degredation, because the OS/2
> "compatability box" just switches off OS/2 completely. It makes no
> attempt to multitask or otherwise intervene in the operation of the
> DOS box like Windows does. That is why, in OS/2 (unlike Win 3 on a
> 386), in a DOS box, you can't cut and paste, you can't multitask, you
> can't put the DOS box in a window, and you can't run more than one DOS
> box. Today, this is a good argument for Windows. If and when OS/2 2.0
> has multiple widowizable DOS boxes, then it will have caught up to
> Windows....


I wish people would get their facts straigt before posting.  Your facts
are 100% backwards and incorrect.

OS/2 is always going.  In OS/2 as it currently runs, the DOS BOX stops
when you switch to  AN OS/2 SESSION, however, OS/2 does NOT stop when 
you start a DOS session.  From the DOS point of view, this is basically
like interrupting your program with a TSR program (except that DOS 
interrupts are not processed when you are in OS/2, so comm programs
will die.  

Even this limitation has been overcome on 80386 machines in
OS/2 2.0 (beta out now) which DOES multitask OS/2 AND DOS programs together,
with the cut and paste options, multiple DOS boxes, and all the other
things you say that OS/2 doesn't have.

There are also rumours that it will run Windows 3.0 programs directly in
the Presentation Manager (similar to how Family Applications run under both
MS-DOS and OS/2 full screen).

I run OS/2 1.2 on an IBM PS/2 model 60 (286 system) and the multitasking is 
quite robust.  Just as an example, I had 5 ray-tracing sessions going on at 
the same time once.  The CPU was so busy, that the lower priority "bouncing
Lines" style screen blanker didn't even move for about 10 hours.  However,
I could still start up Kermit and do file transfers with no degradation,
etc.

On the other hand, I used Windows 3.0 on a 386sx based computer.  It had
fairly good response when running WINDOWS applications, but when I put Turbo
Pascal in a text window, it took at least a good two minutes to swap the
applications out onto disk when I switched into Turbo Pascal.  This was with
two megabytes of memory.

My suggestions: Use MS-DOS to run MS-DOS applications, use Windows to run
multiple windows applications (and in a pinch MS-DOS applications), and use
OS/2 to run OS/2 applications (and when OS/2 2.0 hits the stands DOS and
Windows applications as well)  All these should have as a minimum a 386sx.
Windows and OS/2 both require about the same system resources (memory, 
disk space, etc.) to run correctly.

I was talking to Microsoft's Canadian educational representative a few
days ago.  She says that Microsoft has NOT dropped OS/2.  In fact, they have
Word for OS/2 PM, Excel for PM, etc. all waiting in the wings.  They just 
don't want to kill the Windows market for those products by releasing the
OS/2 versions at the same time.  I don't really like the idea of holding us
OS/2 users back simply for marketing strategy, but the point is all the 
applications are there.

- Kevin Lowey