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From: jxh@cup.portal.com (Jim - Hickstein)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Is there an 8514A driver for Win386?
Message-ID: <17188@cup.portal.com>
Date: 15 Apr 89 01:37:18 GMT
References: <16736@cup.portal.com> <16842@cup.portal.com> <5019@microsoft.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 66

> Sheesh!  I'm just grubbing through the net, find some 8514 stuff, and
> WHAM more MS bashing.  But hey, he's gonna run LanMan, must be OK
> deep down.

:-)  Yeah, I'm a pearl.  It's just that MS-DOS anarchy is SO distasteful
after even a day under a REAL OPERATING SYSTEM (OS/2).  It almost reminds
me of the Cybers, only not quite.  It could stand to be about 1000 times
faster, but I understand.

>>Do you have a BUDGET?  Do you have trouble thinking
>>up more ways to SPEND MY MONEY?
> Hey, that hurts!  Would a company that didn't care about budgets
> and old machines, sell something like the Mach-20?  You can even
> run OS/2 on it.  Now aren't you sorry you threw away that 8086?

Who said anything about throwing it away?  How does this work, now, with
OS/2 on an 8086?  This I've got to hear.
Actually, since I wrote that article, I bought an 80386SX with 4MB and a
2-million pixel monochrome display, so I'm not too excited about the 8514A
on my desk at work any more.  On top of which I managed to beat a purchase
order for the extra RAM out of my boss, so the issue has vanished, but the
behavior (corporate, not necessarily your personal) that lead to it remains.

> And yes, LanMan server runs fine in 4MB of RAM.  SQL, I don't
> use, and so cannot give a first-hand review of the performance in
> such a configuration.

The reason I'm going to use LanMan Server is that it is REQUIRED by SQL
Server (even when you simply want to serve clients on the same machine, I
think).  The "Loopback" protocol stack is hardly the right solution for this.
Could NAMPIPE.SYS be brought back to emulate some of the LanMan stuff for
single-CPU testing?  LanMan is nifty, but the above-
mentioned behavior caused me not to be able to run a server because I didn't
have any 3C505 boards.  I don't WANT 3C505s.  I own stacks of 3C501s.
If there is a performance penalty, at least let me make that judgement for
myself.  That way, I can draw people into using the thing to get them over to
the idea that it's worth having BEFORE I try to get them to spring for a better
Ethernet board for the server.  I'm afraid that's the way things work around
my place, and Microsoft doesn't make things easy for me, who is trying
desperately to get your products accepted and in use in my company.

I wound up getting a 3C503 driver from 3+Open (3Com), but we still haven't
gotten LM Server off the ground (We're using 3+Plus on 3Servers, so 3Com's
"3+Plus for OS/2 NetStation" is the only aspect of any of this stuff we're
using, yet).

But I digress.

By the way, if IBM, say, or someone else, comes up with a 2-million pixel,
19-inch color display for these things (PC or PS/2) that doesn't cost $5K
(i.e. maybe only 4 bits deep, 6 bits per gun), will MS come right along with
a base driver for it?  It seems that the hardware vendors are extremely
sluggish in supporting OS/2 (even those that manage to keep up with Windows),
and I don't want to have to write them all myself.

Bearing in mind your .signature's disclaimer of your connection with Microsoft,
I appreciate getting some reaction.  Sorry about letting off steam in that
direction, but I'm afraid I have rather a large fire under me most of the time.

-Jim Hickstein
VSAT Systems, Inc.
San Jose, CA
...an OS/2 SDK su... ah, customer.

jxh@cup.portal.com
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