Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:28544 comp.sys.amiga:33522 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!hc!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!t-stephp From: t-stephp@microsoft.UUCP (Stephen Poole) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: OS/2 vs AmigaDOS Message-ID: <5681@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 10 May 89 02:22:17 GMT References: <2134@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <5625@microsoft.UUCP> <5664@microsoft.UUCP> Reply-To: t-stephp@microsoft.UUCP (Stephen Poole) Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 73 In article griff@intelob.intel.com (Richard Griffith) writes: > >In article <5664@microsoft.UUCP> t-stephp@microsoft.UUCP (Stephen Poole) writes: >>On my OS/2 box I can have 4M and use it like 16M. That's a good bit more >>valuable than being limited to 8M AND having to pay for it. > Doesn't swapping give you a problem? It doesn't as long as there is a reasonable amount of space on a hard drive for the swapper file. The system is quite configurable as far as VM goes. Of course, the faster the driver the faster the swap. > Well, :-^ you might have a point here. - however, someone running a >new version of Windows on a 25 Mhz `386 still can't match the 7mhz Amy >in speed of graphics, at least as far as functions like window-to-front >and window-to-back... you can ask R. Peck on that one.... Oh, I know about the graphics speed! That's what I enjoy the most about using the Amiga. >>>more elaborate resource and memory management" stuff until you need it - >>>or wouldn't IBM be abel to sell as much H/W? >>That's a ridiculous question. What do you expect the operating system to > Not really - why does the OS absolutely *have* to load all this stuff - >I've seen many PC users you don't have a network, don't want one, can't >use it- why force them to use the code?? - why not allow that segment to >be dynamically configurable? I'm sure that there is more segments like >this that could effectively be removed, due to not being neccessary... There's no NEED to load the network drivers, actually. I guess it's just that OS/2 networking is so much more pleasant than DOS networking that it becomes second nature. I actually did try yanking everything I could from my machine (shutting down the DOS box, not loading network drivers, no PM) and booted with 2M of memory. It was slower to be sure, considering the increased application swapping, but was still usable. Networking under OS/2 is awfully convenient, though. >Sounds good - how long do you wait for code swapping-? (just curious, >I have no idea) - I admit I have doubts about the real need for VMM - >yes, it's useful - no doubt, but - consider: if I have an OS that can >span several Megs of memory and can multitask efficiently within that >space - I can swap between programs with almost no delay (save screen >refresh!) there's no delay in "just a minute! I gotta get that page") >And there will *always* be some kind of a delay... even if a small one. Swapping - as described above. In my normal use I don't ever hit the wall. When I do it's because I was playing with memory allocation and intentionally forcing a thrashing situation. With that said, let me mention that I received via email comments from quite a few Amiga fans (and several of them quite rude) who showered me with a variety of information. Some if it was pretty contradictory, so I'm not sure what to think about it now. A couple of folks mentioned that the Amiga DOES have dynamic linking capability and demand loading and that what I described can be easily done on a 512k Amiga. (Everyone DID tell me that the OS was never taking up user RAM, so expect that is true (though I then wonder why people only have 400K or so free after booting)). Regardless of how slick a job of integrating multitasking into the Amiga OS Commodore has done, none of the Amiga users I have ever known were able to run more than a few programs at once in 512K, and only one if it happened to be a graphics-intensive program. I do happen to like the Amiga, and evidently a number of people thought I was out to destroy their only reason for living, but I still haven't seen it do what OS/2 does for me. >* Richard E. Griffith * Cyrus Hammerhand * -- -- Stephen D. Poole -- t-stephp@microsoft.UUCP -- Mac II Fanatic -- -- -- -- I'm just an Oregon Tech Software Engineering co-op at Micro- -- -- soft. Believe me, nobody here pays attention to my opinions! --