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From: davidsen@steinmetz.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: OS2 vs UNIX / an easy choice
Message-ID: <7506@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Oct-87 15:43:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: steinmet.7506
Posted: Thu Oct  1 15:43:08 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Oct-87 06:49:43 EDT
References: <770@imsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 28

In article <770@imsvax.UUCP> bob@imsvax.UUCP (Bob Burch) writes:
|
|
|Granted that 90 percent of PC/AT users have no conceivable use for multi-
|tasking and would be far better off sticking with DOS than to migrate to
|ANY of the new multi tasking / multi user OSs coming out, how do you choose

I have to disagree. DOS users seem willing to pay for print spooling
programs, hardware, fixes etc. They seem to think that the ability to do
background file transfer operation is a good thing in communications
programs, and there are hundreds of TSR programs available (most of
which must be loaded last).

In spite of programs to make TSRs work together, and attempts to
establish a standard, these programs continue to fight one another,
crash systems, and worst of all use memory.

A reasonable multi-tasking o/s will allow a user to start a utility when
needed, rather than having it always running in memory, playing with the
keyboard hardware. It will allow printing at a reasonable rate. It will
even allow normal programs to run in the background.

I conclude that the normal user desparately needs a multi-tasking o/s,
s/he just wants it to be called something reassuring.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me