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On Fri, 30 Dec 1994, Marcia Blake wrote:

> You're making me nervous. I rcvd the new release a few days ago and hadn't 
> taken time to install it; now I'm dreading it.
> 
> You mentioned "only a little difficulty," Bruce -- could you be specific about 
> the problem(s) and the cure/workaround?

Marcia:

   Sorry. It really was only a little. During installation, after I 
picked a phone number, the step-by-step process took an odd turn and 
seemed to complete the process without giving me an ID and password.  At 
recommendation of the tech support person, I started all over again and 
it worked fine the second time.  And installing it on second machine, at 
home, last night worked just fine.

   By the way, somebody mentioned being interested in the beta test but 
regretted not living in DC area for local call:  It's not a local call 
for me either, in fact I was not offered a single number in my area 
code.  Had to settle for one not far away in Wilmington NC (which 
Interchange seems to think is still in 919 instead of its new 910).  I assume 
anyway that they have numbers sprinkled around the country.

 -BRUCE SICELOFF     Online Editor, The News & Observer / NandO.net.
  PO Box 191, Raleigh, NC 27602   (919)829-4527   'The Old Reliable'
     [I speak for myself only, not for The N&O.]


Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.programmer,comp.unix.questions

Subject: Re: Unix, Windows/NT, DOS, OS/2, etc. From: Bsiceloff  Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 13:15:06 -0500 (EST)
How the Web Was Won
Subject: Re: Unix, Windows/NT, DOS, OS/2, etc.
From: Bsiceloff 
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 13:15:06 -0500 (EST)

Summary: 
Expires: 
References:  <1993Apr21.005923.18383@prime.mdata.fi>  <1993Apr28.132214.4215@cee.hw.ac.uk>
Sender: 
Reply-To: rexb@dowv.UUCP (Rex Ballard)
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Organization: Dow Jones, Inc. Princeton, NJ
Keywords: 


I've done development and work on Windows, OS/2, AIX, OSF/1,
and UNIX from Version 6 to SysVR4.3.  I had high hopes for NT, but
I am disappointed.  A list of things Windows-NT could have been and wasn't.

Multitasking Microkernal (MACH).
One of the nice things about Windows and Dos is that you can change
configurations on the fly without too much difficulty.  In addition,
Windows can take the basic DOS kernel and extend it with DLLs.
It would have been nice if Microsoft had scuttled DOS and supported the
MACH MicroKernal.  One set of drivers could support UNIX, OS/2, Windows,
and an MS-DOS workalike.  Windows accelerator interfaces could support both
xlib-server and Windows DLLs.  Keep it simple.

Windows-"X-Wire".
I can talk to a UNIX host and run his X Clients using Windows 3.X,  It would
be nice to be able to run my WindowsNT applications on my X11 window manager.

Border Happy - 
I hate those huge borders and scrollbars that seem to be an essential part
of windows applications.  It's almost as if someone were trying to hide as
much of the screen as possible to keep me from running 6 windows side by side.

Variable Size windows -
In X, I can make my X-term windows as large or as small as I want.  In Windows,
I get stuck with fixed sizes.

DOS-like CLI.  - Come up with a new CLI, looks like dos, smells like dos,
works in any part of memory and uses independent memory - like DesqView.

Real Pipes & IPC.
Windows does multitasking now right?  Why am I still having to pipe 200 meg
into a "temporary file" before I can finally look at it.

Microsoft should join the GNU party.
IBM, HP, DEC, and most of the majors are contributing to the great "Copyleft"
in some way.  Microsoft seems intent on "bundling".  At least come up with
a GNU compatibility library.  OS/2 at least lets me compile and run most of
my favorite unix copyleft utilities.

Cooperation vs. Monopoly
I now have boxes 40 times more powerful than the VAX 11/750 I used with
BSD 4.2 along with 75 other users.  With Windows I have 99.9% of my CPU
waiting for me to do ANYTHING.  Meanwhile, I gotta keep 90 megabytes
of Microsoft code sitting in my PC because there is a copyright restriction.
If I had site lisencing and floating license management, I could free up
about 90% of the drive space on 25 machines.

It would have been a great marriage.
It's nice to be able to run UNIX software on my Windows, through X11.
It's nice to be able to run DOS in a UNIX/LINUX Window.  It's even nice
to run Windows software in an OS/2 box.  Why did NT and MS-6.0 insist
on killing the emulators?  Now I have to decide between staying with
MS-DOS 5.0 under UNIX or stepping up to NT with Dos 6.0?

Would the REAL API stand up?
One nice thing about Linux is that I know I which libraries I can share
because each call is well documented, source code is available, and
the GNU compiler can link to it.  On the other hand, I have 25 DLLs
sitting in my Windows box and no documentation.  There are also DLLs from
about 20 other vendors.  How many of them are "Widgets" and the like?

Will it support my XXX driver?
Once upon a time, it made sense for applications to blast directly at the
hardware registers and capture interrupts.  That was back when a PC ran at
4.77 MHZ, took 12 cycles/instruction on an 8 bit bus, and a BIG application
took a whole 128Kbytes.  Now we have PCs that run at 66Mhz, run 2 instructions
per cycle, and can demand page through 20 meg applications.  Yet the minute
I put my DOS window PIF up, my PC runs slower than a PC/XT with 2 wait states.
Can't we just plug in some shared libraries, DLLs and IPC drivers?

And what about your friends?
Once upon a time, Microsoft needed IBM, Lotus, Boreland, WordPerfect, and
all the "little guys" to support the MS-DOS effort.  They were critical
to capturing the CP/M market.  IBM thought it could do Micro-channel
without 3rd party support.  IBM, Lotus, and WordPerfect are playing in
the UNIX sandbox now (How soon before the Linux binaries come out?).
How much co-op $$$ is Microsoft willing to spend to keep the UNIX label
OFF the 3rd party ads?

The new share-ware.
About 3/4 of my first software was shareware I pulled of compuserve and
friends machines.  With internet, I can suck down the OS, most of my
favorite applications, and most of the source code too!  If I don't like
the way it works, I can tweak it myself.  If I don't like the settings
of my resources, I can change them.  I'll spring from some commercial
software, especially CASE, X.400 Mail, ODI/OLE, and other "shrink wrap"
commercial software.  Maybe they would even let me download the encrypted
copy and give me a password the way Sun does.  Maybe I can even get a
monthly update for a small monthly fee.

The death of "Perceived Value Pricing?"
The nicest thing about the UNIX/LINUX market is that I can pay as much
as **I** think the software is worth.  If I think it's worth $150 to
buy a set of floppies from SLS, I can.  If I think it's worth $400 to
have the dealer install and configure Linux for my box, I can.  If I
think it's worth $2000/month to have a consultant push software
distributions and upgrades into 5 or 6 NFS servers, I can.  I can even
pay someone else to ask questions on the Internet.  I can submit my
upgrades and contributions to the internet.  If I were still in retail,
I would be installing LINUX in one partition of every machine I sold.

I do the same with my cars.  My first car was $500, my most expensive
was over $10,000 (1984), and my favorite $6000 at 6 years old.  Each
met my needs at that time.  It's funny, there are still "Tahoes" all
over the place, most are over 8 years old now.  That was about the same
time that the PC/XT came out.  I can still get the latest software for
the "Tahoe", I can't even run Windows 3.1 on the XT.  For $150, I can
put in a 386/16 motherboard, Linux, and use it as a Comm server.  I won't
even need the whole 10 meg drive.  I could also stick in a SCSI controller
and run some outboard 1.2 gig SCSI disks for an NFS server.

But can I get JUMBO for Linux?
The big slow down on Linux will be getting support for such things as
QIC80 tape drives (Colorado Memory).  This is probably going to become
a "de-facto" standard for software distribution.  Backing up to CD-ROM
is OK at work, but out of my price range for home.

	Your Flames and Mail are welcome.


		Rex B.

From jvncnet!pipeline.com!justb Wed Apr 13 02:19:46 1994