Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!mcnc!rti!bcw From: bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: A different View of the value of OS/2 - it's better than UNIX Message-ID: <1763@rti.UUCP> Date: Sun, 4-Oct-87 23:19:19 EDT Article-I.D.: rti.1763 Posted: Sun Oct 4 23:19:19 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 8-Oct-87 00:42:42 EDT References: <494@parcvax.Xerox.COM> <961@looking.UUCP> <498@parcvax.Xerox.COM> <711@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM> Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC Lines: 85 Summary: Your sample of users is different from mine In article <711@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>, jgray@toad.pilchuck.Data-IO.COM (Jerry Late Nite Gray) writes: > > Sorry but this isn't what I've been observing. I haven't seen a non-techie > here at this company who doesn't know(and doesn't use frequently) the feature > that pressing both shift keys of their PC will suspend VTERM so they can > look at, or execute, other things. Maybe we are unusual. I think you _are_ unusual. I suspect that the reason is that there appears to be a fair amount of interaction between your technical and non-technical users; in most of the environments I've seen this is not the case. > Task suspension is a very simple concept that non-techies are already using And task suspension isn't the same as multi-tasking. Anyway, see above. > Take a more complicated system feature like remote access to your PC across > a network. The best that has been done in a DOS-like environment is simple > file serving. This is at least debatable. In any event "logging in" to a remote system has value only if the remote system has something the local system doesn't - such as power or information. PC's are sufficiently similar in terms of power that this is not a major issue - the spread of speed between the fastest and slowest is only about 10x, and if a fast PC is sharing its time between several users over some sort of comm lines, it's not obvious that it's going to be faster than a slow local machine. Sharing of information can be done with file servers; it's not immediately obvious how this is a significant multi-tasking issue (not that you imply it is). In any event I have doubts about how easy it would be for _any_ non-technical user to set up any sort of network environment that was much more than just a plug- in-the-box item, and I have some reservations about that. I speak with some experience because I am involved with the development and support of network products on non-PC hardware and am constantly amazed with how little the _technical_ users know about what they are using, let alone the _non- technical_ people. > The point made previously, and stressed here, is that the operating system > is the best place for certain types of solutions and would simplify the > environment. No question about it. But that's _NOT_ the issue!!! Users (and especially non-technical users) aren't particularly interested in how many "kludges" there are in a product if it (at least sort of) fills their perceived needs. And I've _NEVER_ said that there would be "no market" (YOUR words) for OS/2. I _HAVE_ said that it would be a "niche" market. There's a _VAST_ difference. I have also never said that you couldn't have a pretty large "niche" market - just that it would by no means rival the size of the MS-DOS market. When OS/2 has been out long enough to have things everyone seems to take for granted like the Windows interface, and for some applications to be ported to it, there are likely to be something on the order of 15-20,000,000 PC-type machines out there (there's already on the order of 10M). Many of them would be _incapable_ of running OS/2 because of CPU or memory (RAM or disk) limitations; many of the remaining ones would be running MS-DOS out of basic human conservatism. It's optimistic to think that there would be more than 1M OS/2 installations at that point - significant but a clear minority. It's also not by any means clear that this state of affairs won't continue for the forseeable future. > It also means multiple people sharing resources with an inherent > mechanism in the operating system to support I.D's, file protection schemes > (can you say "chmod"?) and the like. I find this insulting. In addition I don't think I have heard of a very complete file protection scheme for OS/2, and it's not so obvious what that means (other than protection against accidental deletion) on a single-user but multi-tasking system. Judging from some of the network traffic, some people seem to have the idea that I am dead set against OS/2 or any multi-tasking system. This is not the case - I am simply pointing out that the market at this point is _very_ conservative. There have been other reasonable multi-tasking systems for the PC (Unix and Concurrent DOS, for example) which have failed miserably in the basic PC market outside of certain niches. OS/2 may find itself a larger niche, but the market has already spoken - unless multi-tasking is either _very_ cheap (not much more than, say, $50 over a single-tasking system) or _necessary_ for some critical application (say 1-2-3 or something similar), it appears unlikely _in the extreme_ for it to become a _majority_ system on the PC for a very long time (if ever). This is especially true if the system is not _exactly_ compatible with MS-DOS. I'm not at all certain I _like_ this state of affairs, but that's how it seems to be. And I don't think OS/2 should be ignored - in fact there are some products which I am contemplating for targeting to OS/2 - but I don't think that it can be regarded as the de facto PC operating system. That's all. Bruce C. Wright