🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3umd7a$m...@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>, mcr...@ix.netcom.com 
says...
>
>After reading and seeing so much on Windows 95...and planning to 
>definitely purchase it, I have only one, critical question.  
>
>Is Microsoft Windows 95 a true, real operating system?

[details deleted for brevity]

A very good book to read is Andrew Schulman's _Unauthorized Windows 95_.  
He analyses Windows 95 in an objective manner (albeit it is one of their 
earlier betas) and talks about the whole issue of how close to a "pure 
32-bit operating system" Windows 95 really is.  One neat thing about the 
author is that he shows no love for Microsoft, keeping his comments about 
the company objective and slightly cynical.

Here is what I got out of the book after many minutes of browsing through 
it at the local bookstore.  First of all, Schulman says that Windows 95 is 
not that much different from WFW 3.11, that it's more of an _evolutionary_ 
step than revolutionary.  Second, he considers _both_ Windows 95 and WFW 
3.11 to be full-fledged operating systems.  This is because both take over 
a lot of the tasks that DOS normally handles, like 32-bit disk and file 
access.  DOS then becomes more like a "device driver" than a foundation 
for Windows.  Windows 95 seems to be more of an OS than WFW 3.11.  Note 
that he just doesn't call them OS's for nothing; he also mentions other 
reasons like the fact that software is developed more around Windows than 
DOS these days.  Finally, he gives a very interesting update in the 
software industry, which includes his "predictions" for where it's headed 
with Microsoft on top.

-- 
              Allen "Ninja" Kim              /|
 ___________________________________________| |
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               ak...@cornell.edu             |/
 
"Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,
 which is the word of God." - Ephesians 6:17