Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!seismo!rpics!chassin From: chassin@rpics.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: IBM new 'standard' Message-ID: <1029@rpics.RPI.EDU> Date: Tue, 24-Mar-87 14:50:58 EST Article-I.D.: rpics.1029 Posted: Tue Mar 24 14:50:58 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 26-Mar-87 06:33:06 EST References: <701@imsvax.UUCP> <879@maynard.BSW.COM> Lines: 127 Summary: yes but be careful about knocking PCs In article <879@maynard.BSW.COM>, campbell@maynard.BSW.COM (Larry Campbell) writes: > [Ted Holden writes a load of rubbish about how nobody will ever need more > than 640K, and even if they did some random turbo extender crock with > extended memory would suffice... and how operating systems are obsolete... > all omitted for brevity, and to help keep lunches down.] > > What a bag of tripe. Ted's PC-brained thinking is a perfect example of the > way microcomputers have set computing BACK ten years. Gee, the PC people > are finally discovering "high level" languages (that is, C), fifteen years > after the computing industry discovered their value. I wouldn't be so quick to put down PCs and PC users. The reasons are as follows. First I time warp you back 10 years, and I see you trying to buy a computer for yourself. Yeegads... the prices are outragous, the machines are pityful, the OSs non existent. 3 years later, some nice stuff is beginning to appears, Apple has an innovation... shock waves thru the computing world as a new field is goudged out: PERSONAL COMPUTING!!! Wow, what a concept, a machine the I, and only I use. No more logging in, complicated OS, fabulously expensive machines available only the fabulously wealthy Corps and Research Insts. All of sudden MILLLLLIONS of people have access to something new. Then IBM announces a product: *THE* pc. And it's just that, a standard, that left all other attempts at setting a standard wimpering in the sewers. The PC is a very different concept from mainframe or even mini-computer technology. It serves a different group, purpose, and ideology. Then we (PC users) are told that we are being abandoned. Its not a good feeling... > > Operating systems serve two vital purposes. They prevent duplicated > work by providing services required by all applications, and they allow > applications to cooperate by coordinating access to machine resources. > Ted claims that all you need to do to multitask on a PC is to load > nine or ten terminate-and-stay-resident crocks... oh, except don't > forget you have to load Sidekick before Prokey, or is it the other way > around? And it seems like every time I activate my Sidekey Prokick > macro from inside a Frametalk Crosswork buffer my machine locks up and > trashes my FAT... dear me... sure would be nice if there were some > way for these applications to cooperate... > I use a Sun 2/120 for any intensive work I do. But the ATs we have serve an equally valuable purpose. Word processing on any mini or mainframe is a waste of valuable CPU time, and is an effort. No one needs more than an occasional side-track anyway. My view of the whole thing is that if I need a process intensive environment to hell with the PC/XT/AT type machines. So why is IBM abandoning a proven environment and telling us that this new one will do the same thing, only better? I say this is where we (dedicated PC users) are being dealt alot of excrement. > The problem here is that there are certain functions that the operating > system ought to provide, and MS-DOS doesn't. These include: > > - reliable file system that scales up to large files well > - graphics > - communications > - multitasking (why force the user to WAIT while the database > index is reorganized?) > - interprocess communication > > MS-DOS provides none of these. Not one. Consequently, several hundred > application software developers who NEEDED these facilities reinvented the > same stupid wheel several hundred different ways, and you CAN'T MIX THE > DAMN HACKS TOGETHER in any coherent way. The result is endless articles > and letters in the PC magazines about the forbidden combinations of TSR > programs, and revolting "carousel" hacks that let you load and unload > these gems to prevent collisions. Black magic to ward off the evil > effects of other black magic. Gag. > I disagree with the list in several ways, though indirectly. First the file system is suited to the type of use. If you want a larger environment get of the machine. Second, having ALOT of graphics work (architecture is the MOST demanding of fields in terms of graphics) in my repetoire on a wide variety of machines, I would say that graphics support of the type like MAC, and SunWindows and so on is no good. Its so generic it serves no function efficiently. I prefer grabing a previously designed system or database and using it for my own purposes. Graphics is just too broad a topic to be designed into a system. Third, communications; what? I don't know what you mean. My three AT are more reliable, more efficient, and more to the point over networks (Ethernet) then our Sun 2/120. I DON'T want my AT to work like my Sun, thank you. Fourth, multitasking. What I've got is good enough, although I agree it could be better. I don't think it is necessary to redesign DOS so radically just to plop a program into a background state. That has always mystified me. Fifth, in a limited multitasking environment like I think is desired on PC like machines, I see no need, or room for inter-process communications too be very fancy. Again it could be done without completely restructuring DOS. When you say you're eagerly awaiting a decent applications development environment, I would answer: if you're not satisfied with the product don't use it, and I mean PCs not DOS. I'm not saying that the PC and DOS are an inherently connected gruesome-twosome, I thing there is a great deal of room for improvement in DOSland, but I think it is major mistake to say DOS is trash so let's throw it out and start all over. Too much has been done in the environement, and for IBM to end the line altogether I think is a MAJOR MARKETING MALFUNCTION. As long as they continued to make PCs XTs and ATs there was some control over the quality of machine being made by the clone makers. Now I feel like I'm being thrown to the wolves, and I tells me that way deep down IBM doesn't give a shit (please excuse the language, I try to be civil, but once and while it helps to be explicit) about the millions of people they conned into believing they cared about really doing something for the computer industry. Let's not forget that IBM set the standard in the long run, whether it's hardware or attitude. And the attitude there new policy suggests is that PC users don't make us enough money so let's bag 'em. Frankly I'm scared that I'm about to buy a machine (I want an AT clone) which in two years nobody will be making anything for. Vision of TRS-80, Apple II, et al. Don't you think we deserve better consideration than that? Hopefully there'll be enough of a market to keep the competition between the clone marker up, and hopefully they won't try be suckered into trying to work there way into a non-existant market IBM is trying to make for there new 'baby'. These are my opinions, so flame as you see fit... Dave Chassin PS: for those of you who were wondering why we discuss this now, before the fact: I think it's a damn sight better than after the fact... maybe enough noise might change IBM mind about dropping the PC line. _____________________ David P. Chassin Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | School of Architecture __+__ Troy, NY 12181 / _ \ USA | | | | /=======/ = \=======\ (518) 266-6461 | _ | _ | _ | | | | | | | | | | | chassin@csv.rpi.edu | = | | | | = | =======================================================================