Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: OS/2 is the result of anticompetitive practices by IBM and Microsoft
Message-ID: <1612@looking.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 88 01:59:00 GMT
References: <1925@sugar.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 55

No, unix wasn't ready, at the time to be the next generation OS for
typical PC users.  There is some question whether OS/2 is capable of
this, as well.  Most of those users would have been satisfied with
a protected mode, multitasking DOS.

Like I said, it's not an easy target that is being aimed at, and OS/2
misses in many of the following places, but here are areas where Unix
would require a total rewrite to hit dead on:

	a) Administration - this has been discussed a lot, so I won't
			go into details here.
	b) File system integrity:
		Unix can't just be turned on and off with a switch like
		DOS can, and like users expect.
	c) Fragmented file systems:
		Unix fragments file systems heavily, and that means you
		don't want to run it on anything but a fast disk drive.
		Most people have slower (50-60ms) disk drives.
	d) Running DOS programs
		Unix for the 286 might be able to do this the way that
		OS/2 does, but nobody has done it.  That's partly because
		everybody is interested in the 386 way of doing this, since
		it isn't a kludge on that chip.
	e) Real time
		DOS programs can do real time applications because they
		own the machine.  Not so under Unix
	f) Easy device driver installation.
		Typical DOS machines, if they get fancy, have special
		peripherals, all with their own drivers.  All unusual
		disk controllers come with their own drivers in rom.

		The link into the kernel method is just too much.  Dynamic
		mount (like QNX) would be best.  Load from a list at
		boot time is what DOS does, which is not as good as
		dynamic mount, but better than relinking the kernel and
		rebooting.
	g) Still run software for the old filesystem, and still use old disks.
		This is something people want, although they're wrong
		to want it, and OS/2 was wrong to give it to them by
		keeping the same file system format.  But it is
		something people want, they just don't know it's bad
		for them.  8-)
	h) Convenient floppy disk use
		The whole mount/unmount scheme is too much for a lot of
		these users.

Some of these things could be fixed with mods, but some of them require
essentially an entire rewrite.

Now, what they should have done was made an OS that supported both
the Unix and DOS system calls, and their almost identical directory
structure, but didn't use the same internal file system and process
structures.  That would have been the answer.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473