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From: larrys@watson.ibm.com (Larry Salomon, Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.os.os2.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Windowing environments
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.150907.15913@watson.ibm.com>
Date: 15 Apr 91 15:07:30 GMT
References: <1991Apr14.222218.11479@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
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In <1991Apr14.222218.11479@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, skesterk@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Shane Kesterke) writes:
>
>I've been working on a Spac station at work for the past month now and I
>just love it. Before then I just had a regular PC-350 terminal. The
>Sparc Station is like an unlimited number of PC-350's at your disposal that
>all operate at the same time. So I began to wonder how nice it would be
>to have this kind of environment on my 386SX at home.
>Now I've heard of X-windows for MS-DOS, but I also heard it's like $500.
>I was wondering, how close do OS's like MS-Windows and OS/2 come to the
>kind of an environment a Sparc station gets you. In other words, a OS that
>will allow you to open up multiple MS-DOS windows, cut-n-paste text from
>one window to another, etc. From what I understand MS-Windows will only
>open windows to MS-Windows specific programs and OS/2 will open an MS-DOS
>window but cannot multitask with MS-DOS. If anyone can enlighten me into
>an OS that can do what I described I'd really appreciate it.
>Please e-mail your responses and if anyone's interested in a summary then
>let me know. Thanks a lot!!

MS-Windows is NOT an operating system.  Windows is simply a GUI (like PM
is to OS/2).  Windows is based on DOS which was designed to be a
single-user, single-program operating system.  According to IBM, OS/2 2.0
is supposed to support multiple DOS sessions, using the 386's "virtual
DOS machine" mode.  If you do not need an OS immediately, I would
recommend waiting until 2.0 comes out.

Cheers,
Larry Salomon, Jr. (aka 'Q')            LARRYS@YKTVMV.BITNET
OS/2 Applications and Tools             larrys@ibmman.watson.ibm.com
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center         larrys@eng.clemson.edu
Yorktown Heights, NY

Disclaimer:  The statements and/or opinions stated above are strictly my
own and do not reflect the views of my employer.