🚀 go-pugleaf

>>Most == 99% when you are talking about PC games and not including Mac.
>>Mac is viable, but that isn't where the war is about to begin.  For
>>anyone with an IBM PC, the choice is between Win95 and OS/2.  OS/2 is
>
>
>For anyone buying a home computer, the choice is between IBM PC
>and Mac (and some others, but I will omit them for simplicity).  I
>don't see Mac dying off simply because PC is the dominant
>platform.  Similar situation for Win95 & OS/2, one won't die off
>simply because the other is dominant.
>
>
>


>One company (I forgot which one) reported that porting from Win95
>to OS/2 takes 1/5 of the time needed to develop the product.  And
>that's an application program where most time is spend on the
>actual codes, not a game where time are spend on making beautiful
>graphics and sound effects (both are by nature portable already).
>Using a 2 year estimate as the time needed for a game, 1/5 of it
>is just about 5 months.  Spend 5 months and you reach a roughly 8+
>million market (probably more by the end of the year), sounds like
>a good deal to me.

I don't know, I will believe it when I see it happen.  It sounds like
those companies might want to add on another 500,000 users of their
games under OS/2.  But, don't you keep saying that IBM wants to keep
OS/2 around for businesses and mainframes?  We will see how well IBM
stays dedicated to the average consumer.



>>I don't know what version of DOS you are running, but I had to reboot
>>DOS only for wierd games such as Ultima 7 or Comanche which don't like
>>memory managers. I have dozens of other games that all work correctly
>
>Not if you use your machine for more than games.  Having a cache
>taking up 4M in a 8M machine means that you need to reboot (at
>least that's what I needed when I still use DOS a year or two ago)
>to resize (or even remove) the cache to run anything that wants
>more memory.

True, that could be a real problem.  What kind of app were you running
where you need that much cache?  In would only advise using over 2M if 
you think the entire program could fit into memory.  The only time I 
tried it was to run Doom right out of the cache memory.


>My advice to new OS/2 users:  DON'T USE DUALBOOT, use Boot
>Manager.  Keeping the OS/2 system files in a FAT partition where
>DOS can mess with is a BAD IDEA.

This tends to be a problem for OS's that don't like to be set up
correctly by teh Boot Manager.  As I remeber, don't you need to set
up a small partition for the Boot Manager anyway?  This would be a
pain for most people having to backup their drives, partition them 
and then reformat them.  If IBM wants the real mass market, they
need to make the system as easy to configure as possible.

>>dual boot for OS/2 needs  a lot of work.  In DOS, you just press reset
>>and everything is great.
>
>Not if you have a cache with lazywrite on.

So, why do you do that?  

>[About no built-in networking (not related to games) deleted]
>
>Warp Connect is the version for networking, but I don't think this
>will interest other gamers.

Are you serious!?  I think that most companies are planning to pursue
gaming over networks.  If you have ever played Doom over a network and
killed a few of your friends you know what I am talking about.  Networks
for games are becoming vital.  Presently, fast modems just don't cut it
when you need to send large amounts of data such as in Doom.  Many 
companies are starting to make strategy games that are play be email.  And
the soon to be released Civ Net is enhanced Civilization over a network.
If you don't see networking as related to games you need to look again and
try some games that use it.

John Marconi
UIUC Computer Science