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From: burton@parcvax.Xerox.COM (Philip M. Burton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: A different View of the value of OS/2 - it's better than UNIX
Message-ID: <497@parcvax.Xerox.COM>
Date: Sun, 13-Sep-87 02:39:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: parcvax.497
Posted: Sun Sep 13 02:39:21 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Sep-87 20:22:37 EDT
References: <494@parcvax.Xerox.COM> <2944@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: burton@parcvax.xerox.com.UUCP (Philip M. Burton)
Organization: Xerox PARC
Lines: 56
Keywords: market acceptance of UNIX lacking

In article <2944@hoptoad.uucp> farren@hoptoad.UUCP (Mike Farren) writes:
>In article <494@parcvax.Xerox.COM> burton@parcvax.Xerox.COM writes:
>>
>>Now, for the average user who is terrified of installing Wordstar or backing
>>
>No, you don't tell them any of those things.  You set up a system, as a
>shell, which is as easy to use as MS-DOS (and probably a lot easier), but
>which also allows access to deeper, more cryptic levels of Unix if they 
>want them.  You provide, within that system, the tools which are necessary
>to let them do their work, and you make sure that the tools are easy-to-use.
>You provide, within your Unix implementation, as much protection as possible
>against the types of file corruption that you cite (it isn't easy, but it's
>possible).  Then, you let them go.
>



Sorry to throw cold water, but that approach has already been tried by Fortune
Systems, AT&T and probably others.  Unfortunately, it's a lot of work to
get there, and you still have the problems of mounting a floppy, e.r. disk
pack, and still risk filesystem corruption if you don't shut the machine
down properly. etc. etc.

Another fundamental problem was highlighted by Bill Gates at a recent
meeting of the Silicon Valley Computer Society recently.  UNIX has a model of
dumb terminals communicating via serial lines to a host.  DOS and OS/2 assume
a much tighter linkage.

How many serial line-connected UNIX machines actually support bit-mapped
graphics?  Several years ago Convergent Technologies had such a beast, and
it was connected via an RS-422 (I think) at 307 Kbps!!!



Don't misunderstand.  I think the world would be a much better place if we
could provide "DOS under UNIX", if only because then we wold have a solution
that was not restricted to Intel 286/386 systems.  (Imagine running your
DOS applications on a big, big VAX or on a Cray.)  But it ain't gonna happen.


(wasted space for my stupid mailer)











-- 
Philip Burton       burton@parcvax.COM   ...!hplabs!parcvax!burton
Xerox Corp.         preferred path: burton.osbunorth@xerox.COM
408 737 4635   ... usual disclaimers apply ...