bob@imsvax.UUCP (09/30/87)
Granted that 90 percent of PC/AT users have no conceivable use for multi- tasking and would be far better off sticking with DOS than to migrate to ANY of the new multi tasking / multi user OSs coming out, how do you choose among the new OSs. I've got to figure that the fact that I'm even considering OS2 or UNIX and all the slowdowns and klunks in the night that they involve means that I'm doing some kind of thing which is on the borderlines of 80x86 technology, and that the next logical step might be a switch over of at least part of what I'm doing to 68020, Fairchild Clipper, or some other kind of hardware. At this point, the most important thing to consider is portability, at which UNIX beats OS2 about as badly as the Sioux beat Custer. I can't believe nobody has brought this point up in any of the recent discussions. By the way, did anybody notice Jim Seymour's article "Corporate America is Yawning over OS/2" in the Sept 1 issue of PC Week? Seymour claims to have spoken with numerous corporate representatives who have been attending IBM and Microsoft OS2 seminars, and that the majority of them are being convinced that IBM and Microsoft have taken leave of their senses. Heady stuff. Ted Holden HT Enterprises . :
davidsen@steinmetz.UUCP (10/01/87)
In article <770@imsvax.UUCP> bob@imsvax.UUCP (Bob Burch) writes: | | |Granted that 90 percent of PC/AT users have no conceivable use for multi- |tasking and would be far better off sticking with DOS than to migrate to |ANY of the new multi tasking / multi user OSs coming out, how do you choose I have to disagree. DOS users seem willing to pay for print spooling programs, hardware, fixes etc. They seem to think that the ability to do background file transfer operation is a good thing in communications programs, and there are hundreds of TSR programs available (most of which must be loaded last). In spite of programs to make TSRs work together, and attempts to establish a standard, these programs continue to fight one another, crash systems, and worst of all use memory. A reasonable multi-tasking o/s will allow a user to start a utility when needed, rather than having it always running in memory, playing with the keyboard hardware. It will allow printing at a reasonable rate. It will even allow normal programs to run in the background. I conclude that the normal user desparately needs a multi-tasking o/s, s/he just wants it to be called something reassuring. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael R. Volow) (10/03/87)
As a home user I *do* want multitasking!!!! But Unix and OS2 are surely too costly and unnecessarily complex for single-user multi-tasking. Someone hurry-up and write an OS for this setting, before I am forced to go out and buy an Amiga for the multitasking. --Mike Volow, Psychiatry, Durham Veterans Administration Medical Center Durham, NC, 27712 919 383 3568 mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP
dick@plx.UUCP (Dick Flanagan) (10/05/87)
Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: In article <3960@ecsvax.UUCP> mvolo@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael R. Volow) writes: >As a home user I *do* want multitasking [...] Try DoubleDOS from SoftLogic. Most software stores carry it. . . -- Dick Flanagan, W6OLD I'll take a drug test when UUCP: ...!ucbvax!sun!plx!dick Reagan takes an IQ test. GEnie: FLANAGAN