ddyer@hubcap.clemson.edu (douglas m dyer) (09/30/90)
What is all this doom and gloom? Windows 3.0 is no contendor for your OS. The 386 VGA package is not that exciting. Here is my view of things coming from a 100% DOS IBM world. For one thing, what I can get for $3000 (just for the record) GATEWAY2000 : 25mhz 386 4 MEGS 1.2, 1.44 drives 110 meg 3.5" hd ESDI controller with 32K cache 16 bit VGA with 512k (super VGA) 14" 1024*768 Color monitor (I think its Sony) 1 parallel, 2 serial ports DOS 4.01 (or 3.3) keyboard Not bad, eh? Well, lets break this system down. For starters, very little software supports anything above lo-res EGA. Even this machine will suffer drawing any bitmap image around VGA,superVGA and having other tasks to perform. Second, look at the operating system choices. Most applications will go to ascii DOS or non-windows apps. Also, there are two operating systems being pushed - OS and DOS. Assuming your choice is DOS (and with the WINDOWS new memory management,this is a good guess) the GUI will be Windows 3.0. I owned 3.0, I used 3.0. 3.0 is a great improvement over 2.xx, but it is not really a complete GUI (that is, in terms of what I think one is...). Most of your applications under 3.0 will be non-windows apps. that need setup PIF files for. Most will not run in a window. Also, the equivalent of a "drawer" icon for windows is a "group" icon. These icons open up a window of executable icons only (I never found a way to have a "drawer" inside of a "drawer"). All group Icons have nothing to do with what is on your disk. You must create them, and destroy them when needed. Amiga and MAC work from a disk icon that opens up... MS windows can't do this, and probably never will mainly because the old 5 1/4 drives do not detect that there is a disk in (call it, say, disk-icon interaction - why not?). So, you start up 3.0 and see the project manager window with your group folders. I think of it as a "fixed" windowing system. Whenever I got a new app, I had to run "setup" for 3.0 to locate it, create it's icon, and place it in a group it makes up. 3.0 is still just a DOS shell utility. It does offer multitasking, but with the CPU sweating out the GUI alone, that is QUITE a load. I also found 3.0 to be "klunky" too. It will get better, though. But now, look at your machine. C= releases a great new machine, a new OS, new software... this is not a bad sign. CDTV, UNIX, ... I think you will be in the limelight very soon. IBM's multimedia hype is relying on the ignorance of its users. Hell, I like 'em. I confess that I havent "used" the new OS, but I can't imagine it not being good. I also have other motives for switching to the amiga (I have always wanted to explore ray tracing and animation!) and I can't really see a way to compare the two worlds of IBM and C=. It boils down to opinion in the end. 3.0 didn't do it for me, DOS users like it mainly because it's not DOS. Don't bother to EMAIL or post under this unless I have made some mistake (which is possible, I just started to ramble) because opinions are opinions. I am trying to be helpful. If I'm not, sorry! Sorry 'bout the misspellings, English isn't as readable as C. Doug.