146 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
146 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
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Article 6598 of comp.sys.ibm.pc:
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Path: puukko!santra!tut!enea!mcvax!uunet!husc6!rutgers!gatech!ncar!ames!pacbell!pmt1!news
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From: news@pmt1.UUCP (Usenet news)
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
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Subject: Re: OS/2 Anyone?
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Summary: Its still VAPORWARE
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Message-ID: <427@pmt1.UUCP>
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Date: 4 Jun 88 18:11:26 GMT
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References: <1866@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
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Organization: Pacific Micro Tech, El Cerrito, CA
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Lines: 131
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In article <1866@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>, sam@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Whad Upp) writes:
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>
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>
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> I just got back from the announcement of the Model 70 and Model 50Z PS/2s
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> given by IBM. They told us that OS/2 was quickly becoming THE OS standard, etc.
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>
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> I have OS/2 running, but the only application I have is a port of MicroEmacs
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> that I did myself. I have talked with a handfull of other people that are
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> in about the same position as I am.
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>
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> Is anyone doing any OS/2 development? Are people waiting for the PM to be
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> released? How about public domain software for OS/2? Is it out there in one
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> place?
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>
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> I am willing to setup an FTPable library of public OS/2 software if there
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> is a need. But is there?
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>
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The problem is much deeper that just waiting for presentations
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manager. OS/2 is to support large corporate networks using
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a new communications manager. The OS/2 applications on
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individual workstations are to be connected by a
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lan to communications manager. So many of OS/2s first
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users will be IBMs largest customers. They buy PCs by
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the thousands or tens of thousands. Consider the plight of
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a major corporation trying to implement new applications and
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networks under OS/2 and it is no wonder that things are going so
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slowly.
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I have been doing consulting for a large fortune 500 company which
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is known to be a large IBM account. They want to
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deploy a huge network and a large number of workstations
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using PS/2s and OS/2. And of course they want to
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buy everything from Big Blue. The project has been slipping from day one,
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and the major reason waiting for the new hardware and OS/2 EE.
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For instance:
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We've been waiting for the new communications manager, the one
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that is to allow us to consolidate our existing networks.
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OS/2 at this stage is not very useful, and we have to convert
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existing applications to use it, or wait for other vendors to
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do conversions. Many third party vendors are taking a wait
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and see approach. We can't run existing applications in
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the compatiblity box. We require host communications and
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the compatibility box switches from real to protected mode
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which disrupts communications.
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We're waiting for the lan manager so we can hook application
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workstations to the network when it becomes available.
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We're waiting for presentation manager. But since all our existing
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applications use other windowing software we don't know exactly where
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windows (sorry, Presentation Manager) fits. It is unclear that
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PM really has all of the tools to replace the application
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specific window managers, such as adequate editing and forms handling
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abilities.
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The IBM PS/2 model 50 and newly announced variants all seem too
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expensive for many many thousands of application workstations.
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Certainly far more expensive than clustering users on Unix
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systems (say 3-4 user per machine) and hooking the multi-user
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systems into the lan and network.
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If using OS/2 we would prefer diskless workstations
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which can boot from a common file server.
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While the model 25 is not right for us (does not run OS/2), the
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model 50 is not diskless. True we read about experimental diskless
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workstations but, IBM seems to be quiet about them.
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When (when ?) we get diskless PCs and are able to boot from a file
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server, the token ring lan appears to be too slow for the
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load at the current bandwidth. We hear about 16MB lan cards
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of the future...but where are they?
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So we had another thought ... lets put our applications
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under Dos and move them to OS/2
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later. This is an attempt to end the waiting game, so we
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can work on our application backlog and keep our users
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happy. One problem: the workstations we choose for DOS may not be
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the correct configuration for OS/2 later on. It appeas that
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as OS/2 comes nearer, the workstations are being revised
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so they will be appropriate for the new operating system.
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That is just what happened with UNIX in 1982, when the first
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vendors told us it worked just fine without a hard disk, and
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that it only needed 340K to work properly. New versions of
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the existing Unix computers appeared within a year.
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The other problem with DOS is the 640K memory barrier. When
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you load a PC with DOS and lan manager, you lose lots
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of memory. Especially if you don't have a network gateway
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and you also have to add 3270 software in the PC. Ram
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disk is the obvious choice to ease our memory problems.
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But we're
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told by IBM that ram disk is incompatable with newtwork
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operation. You can lose interrupts when using ram-disk and
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this is incompatible with doing lan transmissions and handling
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unsolicited inbound messages. So our most functional applications
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are squeezed for memory under DOS.
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We keep reading in the trade press about
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DOS 3.4, but it was not announced June 2nd as rumored. IBM
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seems to be justifying OS/2 for applications which need to
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break the 640K barrier. So is may be that even if DOS 3.4
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can break the 640K barrier, it may never be released, because
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it could remove the obvious reason for using OS/2.
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We can't use OS/2 because the pieces are not in place
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and it needs time to mature. We can't use DOS without
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concern that our existing applications can't grow, and
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with inadequate memory, performance suffers. Migrating
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from DOS now to OS/2 later means we risk having to
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retrofit or replace thousands of workstations over a large
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geographical area. An with DOS we still need to look
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for a third party gateway vendor. LU 6.2 has been pretty
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slow to reach critical mass too. And we wanted to buy from Big Blue.
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So I think a good part of the reason OS/2 is moving slowly
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is that there are MANY new pieces and they don't fit together
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right now. Most standalone workstation users will prefer to
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stay with DOS due to low price and availavbility of applications.
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OS/2 workstations are going to take 3-5MB of memory.
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So just having OS/2 or getting Presentation Manager may not
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make the market really take off. OS/2 today is likely to
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appeal for large scale distributed
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processing and big corporate networks. At least to start out.
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Many of the candidates for OS/2 are likely to be IBM's
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best customers - and they are bogged down with problems
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such as those discussed above. Its going to be slow going
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no matter what IBM or the trade journals say.
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