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From: nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: RE programs crashing in Desqview
Message-ID: <48f4c22d.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 2 Mar 90 16:58:00 GMT
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 64


 eddjp@althea.UUCP (Dewey Paciaffi) posts...

:In article <48e591a9.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson) writes:
:> 
:>   Are multi-task environments on PC's just talking dogs?   Are
:>   they an idea that the PC world is just not ready for?  PC's
:>   were designed as single-user devices.   Both the hardware and
:>   the operating system were designed for single programs which
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:>   own the machine. 
:
:Ouch. Please don't tell my 386 running UNIX or my 5 locally attached
:users this. Also please don't mention it to the users on my Novell LAN
:that access the 386 through the TCP Gateway. I told them they could all
:use it because it was multi-tasking...

                         
   I thought is was clear from my discussion that I was talking about DOS
   and the programs written to run under it which is causing the problem.
   Programs written for UNIX or OS2 know that they're running under a
   multitasking OS so they don't act like they own the machine.

   Does the UNIX you are using have a DOS compatibility mode?  If so,
   can you run *ANY*  DOS programs in it or only well-behaved ones?
   How much support does your sytem require?   Is most of the software
   you run plug'n'play or do you need to have the sevices of a "guru"
   (perhaps yourself) to port programs, resolve problems and so forth?   
   
   I am looking for an environment where I can buy a new piece of 
   software, run "setup", and then use it without having to worry
   about weird interactions between it and the other application 
   software, the OS, the BIOS or the hardware.   I don't want to have 
   to spend my time experimenting, tweaking, debugging, or calling 
   tech support.  I want things to work out of the box!   I paid my
   bit-twiddling dues long ago; I built whole computers from scratch in
   the 1970's and at one point I had the opcodes, in hex, for the
   Intel 8080 memorized.  I had articles about my creations in Byte in the
   1970's.    I want to graduate from that level of thinking and actually
   *use* the computer for something, not spend my time f***ing around
   with it.   All my other high-tech hobbies (photo, video, audio, ham
   radio) had a period in their history when doing them meant tinkering
   and tweaking if you wanted things to work properly.  Thankfully,
   they all graduated to out-of-the-box reliability.   With photography
   this happened with the invention of roll film, with video it happened
   with the advent of Beta and VHS.   Someday it will happen with PC's;
   I hope it's soon.

   I actually have considered running some other operating system 
   besides DOS:  UNIX and OS2 are the ones that come to mind.  
   The problem is, as everybody knows, that despite all the short-
   comings of DOS as an operating system, there is an enormous
   amount of commercially available, well-supported software written
   for DOS, moderately priced, and designed for use on the PC hardware
   platform.  There's actually quite a bit of UNIX software out there
   too, but little of it is designed to run in the PC environment
   (this is especially a problem for graphics) and there's always
   a certain amount of "porting" that must be done when moving software
   from one machine to another. 

                                                 ---Peter