Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!mcsun!unido!rwthinf!andrej!windy From: windy@andrej.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Andrew John Stuart Miller) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: OS/2 is dead? Keywords: OS/2 Message-ID: Date: 13 Dec 90 10:11:11 GMT References: <28775@usc> <14887@ogicse.ogi.edu> Sender: news@rwthinf.UUCP Lines: 51 borasky@ogicse.ogi.edu (M. Edward Borasky) writes: >In article <28775@usc> ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes: >>Knowing OS/2 is safely dead and buried where all terrible OSes >>belong >OS/2 is NOT dead or even dying. It is the natural evolutionary path >of MSDOS/WINDOWS. MSDOS/WINDOWS and OS/2 will eventually converge. >Once the members of the 80x86 family BELOW the 80386 die off, MSDOS >will be a point in history like RSX-11 and OS/360. If os/2 is not yet dead, that is a pity. One is right in saying that OS2 is the logical evolutional path from DOS, the problem is that DOS is CP/M with bells and whistles --- OS/2 is what DOS should have been in terms of multi-tasking and addressing possibilities. The PC, as it was then, was capable of multitasking with the right software (just look at minix, Coherent or MP/M...) and enough hardware (more store (or RAM as people insist on misnaming it), and a hard disk. Windows and Presentation Manager are nothing to do with operating systems. They are windowing systems, just like (but not as good as) suntools MGR or Xwindows to name but a few. You could, if you wanted to, run GEM or X or MGR or MSwindows under OS/2 instead of PM. You can port them, not me! Due to networking any multitasking operating system being released today should also be multi-user, like Unix, Minix, OS9. As far as I know, OS2 is not. This means its use in networks can only be a kludge at best. This means that OS2, like MS-DOS, was a point in history at its launch! If only typical PC users understood....... Andrew Miller -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- email: windy@strange.informatik.rwth-aachen.de snail: Ruetscherstr 165 D-5100 Aachen voice: 0049 (0)241 894-355 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hate paper, especially paper with source code on it! Trees are the lungs of our planet! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- email: windy@strange.informatik.rwth-aachen.de snail: Ruetscherstr 165 D-5100 Aachen voice: 0049 (0)241 894-355