Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!violet!afscian
From: afscian@violet.waterloo.edu (Anthony Scian)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Microsoft, OS/2, and UNIX
Message-ID: <13002@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 3 Apr 89 17:21:20 GMT
References: <267.2434BA33@medsoft.uucp>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: afscian@violet.waterloo.edu (Anthony Scian)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 54

In article <267.2434BA33@medsoft.uucp> Ed.Maurer@p4.f10.n135.z1.fidonet.org (Ed Maurer) writes:
>GOOD GRIEF - DEJA VUE! Didn't you send the same message with regards
>DOS version 2.0 back in '81 and every year since ?
No. In case you haven't noticed it is 1989; portability is important,
machines are faster, and more and more businesses are using PCs.
People do not want PCs to be dedicated word processors or 1-2-3 engines,
anymore. Integration with existing mainframe/mini computers is mandatory.

>Every year the same argument, and every year it gets shot down for a few 
>damn good reasons: First and foremost, the user base simply will not accept 
>UNIX in any of its current releases (numerous, and therein lies reason 2: 
>No standardization - compared to most UNIX's, MS/OS2 and IBM/OS2 are saimese 
>twins).
How about comparing OS/2 to operating systems available on other
systems? Which PC operating system will be most similar to the installed
UNIX bases on other systems, OS/2 or some version of UNIX?

> OS/2 was never designed to be a multi-user OS, and hence any 
>comparison to UNIX is absurd to start with.
Herein lies a big problem with OS/2: multi-user capability
(you're right there is no comparison between UNIX and OS/2)
My example of a office that has ONE super PC with the latest/fastest
Intel chip and floating point co-processor installed. How is this
machine going to be used effectively without multi-user capabilities?

What about portability of the operating system? Can the industry
afford to wait while Microsoft ports/re-writes its kernel (written
in assembler) for new architectures? Microsoft doesn't even know that
it is a good thing to write OS kernels in a high-level language yet
they are in charge of shaping the industry's future into the 90's.
(we could have had a 386 version of OS/2 by now if Microsoft knew this)

>Without a shell, UNIX is far too much for the average end user
Hmmm, with your logic MS-DOS is too much for the average user.

> And OS/2 is no more buggy than the 
>first release of most OS's and it certainly is not slow.
So we should stick with buggy first versions rather than something that
has been around since the 70's? 

>I could go on - your point about windows is not quite 
>correct, as is your statement re IBM's support for AIX - only on the RT. 
Sorry, you're wrong. The OSF is considering Microsoft's proposal for
windows. IBM has made it clear that AIX will be available on everything
above a PC (in their advertisments) which leaves the PC all alone with OS/2.

>Software was always and presumably will always be 'late.'- many developers 
>were waiting for the final release of the Presenation manager, rather than 
>vanilla OS/2; to read into this that OS/2 is dead is ridiculous.
But your point that OS/2 will prosper is equally unknown. I don't claim
to know the future but I posted what I thought was an educated guess.

//// Anthony Scian afscian@violet.uwaterloo.ca afscian@violet.waterloo.edu ////
"I can't believe the news today, I can't close my eyes and make it go away" -U2