Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!csn!boulder!news From: neves@chimay.colorado.edu (NEVES RICHARD K) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 is here! READ THIS, you'll be impressed Message-ID: <1991Apr26.083706.16663@colorado.edu> Date: 26 Apr 91 08:37:06 GMT References: <1991Apr21.135534.724@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <15057@helios.TAMU.EDU> <1616@msa3b.UUCP> Sender: news@colorado.edu (The Daily Planet) Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Lines: 98 Nntp-Posting-Host: chimay.colorado.edu David, 9 months ago I spent the summer interning at Microsoft when Microsoft was the primary developer/tester of OS/2 2.0. Having used OS/2 2.0 for the summer, there might be some merit to my comments. If you want to know more about the design philosophy behind OS/2 you should take a look at Gordon L.'s book "Inside OS/2". >1. Running DOS applications under Windows. > We have experienced mixed results in running DOS applications under > Windows. When we run a mix of Windows/DOS applications it is not > unusual to experience the dreaded "Unrecoverable Applicatons Error". > In addition, the machine is likely to hang with an "internal stack > overflow message. (WordPerfect, Kermit, Procom, SPFPC, dbase, PC3270 > Entry Level Emulation, etc.) When I used/developed on OS/2 2.0 9 months ago (when it was less stable) I had very little problems with dos applications crashing. When a dos app did crash, it *never* brought the whole machine down. Windows is faking a multitasking environment. It's just another application running on top of a single tasking DOS. It is very difficult for Windows to insure protection among tasks. OS/2 is a real protected OS. Services are organized into rings of protection. The kernel is allowed services in ring 0 and the hierarchy continues up. For example, the programmer can't modify OS services like you can under DOS. While I ran OS/2 that summer, the machine crashed maybe 3 or 4 times. Since this was 9 months ago, you can bet things are much more stable. I don't mean to be repetitive, but OS/2 is a real operating system like unix or VMS. Virtual memory, protection, process (heavy and light weight - not that unix or vms has threads), etc. >2. Networking I'm very pc network ignorant so I won't even try to react to this in detail. I can say that OS/2 integrates *very well* with Microsoft LAN manager. ( to be expected :). I've also read in many of the rags that network managers like OS/2 for its ability to function as a LAN server operating system. The machine (server) doesn't have to be dedicated since OS/2 is a protected, multitasking operating system. You can use the server for other things, you don't have to worry about crashing the server since crashing a process won't bring the whole machine down (like UAE's in windows). OS/2 also makes it easier to interactively monitor network performance. >3. Memory Management > Well, what can I say. The underlying DOS limit of 640k is still a problem > under Windows if you are trying to do any significant networking. We are > running multiple protocol stacks at the worksation in order to connect to > the company LAN and RS/6000 database serverss (LAN Server & TCP/IP). The > Windows software for TCP/IP (Novell LAN Workplace) works great, but we > are hard pressed for DOS memory. It really starts getting interesting > when you try to add things like fax gateways, modem pools and client > server computing. In OS/2 the 640k limit is only applicable in DOS applications running in the DOS boxes (emulators). Since the networking packages (and other drivers) would be native to OS/2, they wouldn't/don't impose 'core' memory limitations since OS/2 2.0 memory is flat, 32 bit memory. There' ain't no 64k segments. Keep in mind that the magic 640k is purely a DOS invention. One bad item: At the time I used 2.0, to get decent performance out of 2.0 you had to have around 8 meg of ram at least. Supposedly IBM has cranked this down to 4 meg for 2.0 now. >4. Performance > I heard a few gripes about moving to HPFS, but not all change is bad. > Although disk drives are getting faster, we are running them in a brain > n damaged condition with the FAT table. In addition, is really necessary > to get an hour glass when you send a document to print. HPFS is fast and wonderful. There's no issue there. Changing to a new file system is not expected to be painless, but HPFS does the best you can expect: DOS apps don't know there running on HPFS (as long as they aren't doing direct reads/writes). One of the things I thought was annoying was that you'd get use to HPFS and start creating these super long file names, and then you'd pull out a dos app and the dos app would only understand a truncated version of the filename. Printing was, for a while, the painful flaw in OS/2. IBM fixed it in 1.3 and has probably fixed it in 2.0 also. Having to wait for something to finish printing in a multitasking environment is silly and that isn't the way it works in OS/2 1.3. What will you like about the feel of OS/2? Multitasking in Windows is very "clunky". This is one of the things you'll like about OS/2 2.0 is that the multitasking is smooth. Another thing you'll like about using/developing with OS/2 is that it is very much a protected operating system. One bad application won't bring the whole system to its knees. No UAE's. You'll love having a flat memory model. It is a dos programmer's dream come true. NO MORE MEMORY MODELS!!!!! Yuck. Hope this has been helpful, Rich btw, the one reason I wouldn't use OS/2 is that there aren't so many neat wizzy applications for it. This is no longer even an issue since OS/2 2.0 runs windows apps natively. One other reason I might not use OS/2 is that the drivers I might have for video hardware, networks, printers, fax cards, or whatever else you can think are not available for OS/2. Depending on how long it takes manufactures to come out with drivers for OS/2, this could be a problem.