On what basis for comparison?

Post #114,463 by jake123 8/20/03 12:32:46 AM Reply	On what basis for comparison? If you're going to compare OS/2 vs. some variety of Windows, which one's more reasonable? NT is more comparable in terms of low level feature set... but 9x is more comparable in terms of resource requirements. Which Windows is more apropos for a comparison? It's not reasonable to compare a system written for a 286's feature set to a system written for a 386. Want to make a reasonable comparison, you have to compare Win3.x vs OS/2 v 2. At least they're written for the same hardware platform. Finally, if you want to talk about DOS compatibility, OS/2's is the best by far out of any system I've seen, and I've seen most of them. It's DOS box is the best in the business, period. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #114,465 by deSitter 8/20/03 12:43:23 AM Reply	Re: On what basis for comparison? No, the only real comparison is between OS/2 and NT because they are solutions to the exact same problem. Windows 9x is not a solution to the same problem as OS/2 - it is a solution to the problem of providing an interim solution to the issue of running both 16bit extended apps (NOT DOS apps but Windows 3.x apps meant to run in the DOS extender) and 32bit apps as transparently as possible. Now, if I want to get huffy and irritated, I'll mention that OS/2 was in a realistic form as early as 1992, and so had a nearly 4-year jump on Windows NT, which did not achieve a stable, usable form until v3.51 SP 3, some time in 1995 or early 1996. IBM pissed away a gigantic advantage on more than one occasion. -drl
Post #114,540 by jake123 8/20/03 10:05:28 AM Reply	Well, no argument on one issue IBM certainly did piss away a huge advantage. Note that there was one major external factor; the OEM agreements that Compaq et. al. had with MSFT. In short, MSFT had a complete lock on the main means of distribution extant at the time. I know some folks at IBM that tried really hard to break that lock, but they were unable to do so. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #114,598 by SpiceWare 8/20/03 3:52:48 PM Reply	I remember Compaq used to have a white paper on their site on why Compaq systems were the best to run OS/2 on. And yet, you never could buy a Compaq preloaded with OS/2. <googling> Found it, [link\|http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/techpubs/whitepapers/ecg1240798.html\|Compaq: The Premier OS/2 Platform] Darrell Spice, Jr. [link\|http://www.spiceware.org/cgi-bin/spa.pl?album=./Artistic%20Overpass\|Artistic Overpass]\n[link\|http://www.spiceware.org/\|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore

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