Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com.UUCP (09/16/87)
I found Phillip Burton's discussion of U*x and its failure to establish itself to be cogent and thought-provoking. A couple of points: I thought the late lamented ATT UNIX PC did a lot to deal with the problems of the computerphobic user. Burton might reply, yes, but not enough, U*x is just *too* complicated, and he might be right. Anyway, we'll never know, since this machine was never properly marketted or supported. A lot of people are not convinced that the OS/2 "DOS Box" can ever work, due to the large amount of "poorly behaved" MS-DOS software it would have to run. The merits of OS/2 should probably be considered independent of its ability to run PC software. The thought of a 20 meg disk with no directory hierarchy is pretty frightening.
burton@parcvax.Xerox.COM (Philip M. Burton) (09/17/87)
In article <713@cup.portal.com> Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com writes: > >I thought the late lamented ATT UNIX PC did a lot to deal with the >problems of the computerphobic user. Burton might reply, yes, but not >enough, U*x is just *too* complicated, and he might be right. Anyway, >we'll never know, since this machine was never properly marketted or >supported. The world is not rational. If AT&T did a poor job karketing the UNIX PC, well, that's life in the big city. >A lot of people are not convinced that the OS/2 "DOS Box" can ever work, >due to the large amount of "poorly behaved" MS-DOS software it would have >to run. The merits of OS/2 should probably be considered independent of its >ability to run PC software. f OS/2 can't run the old software, well gee, then Microsoft and Ashton-Tate and everyone else will just have to upgrade. They'll cry all the way to the bank! But the user will get multi-tasking and more memory. Users have been screaming about that for years now. >The thought of a 20 meg disk with no directory hierarchy is pretty frightening. It sure is, but it's also reality. And, most people don't bak up, until after they have had a crash. That's why they need a simple, robust file system, not something that requires fsck (sounds obscene!!) to clean up, and complex mount/umount commands to use floppies. I'm honestly surprised at the amount of discussion my original posting has generated. I've also gotten some private mail, mostly complementary. (Perhaps people can't appear to agree with me publicly.) The real deciding factor will be the support from the major third party vendors. How many of them are going to support OS/2, and how many are going to support UNIX (or have up to now). Remember that Joe User buys an application, and then gets the hardware and OS to enable that application. -- Philip Burton burton@parcvax.COM ...!hplabs!parcvax!burton Xerox Corp. preferred path: burton.osbunorth@xerox.COM 408 737 4635 ... usual disclaimers apply ...
dave@sdeggo.UUCP (09/18/87)
In article <505@parcvax.Xerox.COM>, burton@parcvax.Xerox.COM (Philip M. Burton) writes: > It sure is, but it's also reality. And, most people don't bak up, until after > they have had a crash. That's why they need a simple, robust file system, > not something that requires fsck (sounds obscene!!) to clean up, > and complex mount/umount commands to use floppies. What's so complex about mount/umount? Seem like pretty simple ideas to me. The _implementation_ may not be the easiest to use (all those nasty device names!) but it could be made simpler, and in a user-friendly (oh no Mr Bill!) Unix, they would be. In case you haven't noticed, the Macintosh has an implicit mount/umount, where it's mounted when you put it in the drive and it unmounts when you request that the floppy be ejected. No reason that a Unix system couldn't implement this. In fact, the Mac will even trash your file system for you if you don't unmount everything before you power it down. And they don't give you fsck (pardon my French)! -- David L. Smith {sdcsvax!sdamos,ihnp4!jack!man, hp-sdd!crash, pyramid}!sdeggo!dave sdeggo!dave@sdamos.ucsd.edu "How can you tell when our network president is lying? His lips move."