🚀 go-pugleaf

In <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>, ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu (root) writes:
>In article <3n1n10$i...@cmcl2.NYU.EDU>, jmw...@is2.nyu.edu says...
>
>>Talk about wasting bandwidth... did you have some new information you would
>>like to impart with that message?  For instance, what is the real story 
>regarding
>
>Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can run 
>separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated EMS, XMS, or 
>DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional memory 
>amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.

Again, this is not an answer to the question that was asked.  I would like to
see a statement, with documented support, saying "In Windows 95 you can
run separate DOS sessions with differing configuration settings CONCURRENTLY."
So far, all anybody has said is that you can have separate configurations for
different programs.  This was not, and is not, the question, and is, in fact,
not very relevant (you could do this with straight DOS).

Perhaps Win95 users don't even understand the question, because they aren't
even familiar with this feature.

Here is the quote from the documentation I have on Win95:

"All 16-bit applications share a single address space - the System Virtual
Machine (VM)."

What the question is, essentially, is if this is true.

//  Jeff Williams
//  NYU UGFTV/Cinema Studies
//  jmw...@is2.nyu.edu

In article <3n3o6f$o...@hermes.louisville.edu>, 
cawo...@roentgen.bcc.louisville.edu says...
>

>
>I guess this must mean that only idiots will use Win95?  

Nope, but there will a lot of Win95 users that will not have the technical 
expertise that some people on the Internet do.  Your implication is 
illogical.

>
>The only thing that Win95 will apparently have going for it is it supposed 
game support.

Sorry old chap, but these are gaming newsgroups and games are all we care 
about here.  Go to *.advocacy groups to "discuss" other issues.

>
>Since it won't be able to run several  Multi-threaded apps simultaneously, 
which is a big bumble on Lord Bill's part to say the least.  and <...> 

<OS/2 is better than apple pie blah blah blah...SNIP>


>
>Chris
>
>Warping... NOT Waiting...
>
>or should that be
>
>Working... NOT Playing...

You imply that because Win95 is excellent for games, that it will not create 
an excellent work environment?  Tsk tsk tsk.

	- Rich

> >There is an idiot proof dialogue to set up support for: mouse, disk cache,
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> I guess this must mean that only idiots will use Win95?  
 

I think it means you can use it wether you are an idiot or not.

> Working... NOT Playing...
> 

Oh dear.  If you want to work you are in the wrong newsgroup m8.


-- 
Mark Rogers.  ** Bug Free = Super FPU f*** to Tony **  *VFF*
* Veggie Freedom Fighter *

In <3n3oof$2...@cmcl2.NYU.EDU> jmw...@is2.nyu.edu   (Jeff Williams)
writes: 

>Again, this is not an answer to the question that was asked.  I would
>like to see a statement, with documented support, saying "In Windows
>95 you can run separate DOS sessions with differing configuration
>settings CONCURRENTLY." So far, all anybody has said is that you can
>have separate configurations for different programs.  This was not,
>and is not, the question, and is, in fact, not very relevant (you
>could do this with straight DOS).

Okay.. I'll take a stab at it, though I'd like if you could make your
question a little more specific (i.e. define 'configuration settings'
as you're using it). :)

>Perhaps Win95 users don't even understand the question, because they
>aren't even familiar with this feature.

Don't go there. ;)



Rich
-- 
>==============================================<
>  Rich D. <        /                          <
>----------<    O===[=Excalibur Dragon====-    <
>                   \                          <
>   R E D J r @ i x . n e t c o m . c o m      <
>  Excalibur Systems   <*>    -==(UDIC)==-     <
>----------------------------------------------<
> "The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and  <
> pass, leaving memories that become legend.." <
>==============================================<

U.EDU>

jmw...@is2.nyu.edu   (Jeff Williams) writes:


>Again, this is not an answer to the question that was asked.  I would like to
>see a statement, with documented support, saying "In Windows 95 you can
>run separate DOS sessions with differing configuration settings CONCURRENTLY."
>So far, all anybody has said is that you can have separate configurations for
>different programs.  This was not, and is not, the question, and is, in fact,
>not very relevant (you could do this with straight DOS).

Windows 95 has two levels of DOS application support.  The first level of
support is to run the application in a DOS VM.  From the Windows 95 resource
kit documentation:

   "As with Windows 3.1, each MS-DOS -- based application runs in its own
    DOS virtual machine (VM)...which in turn allows existing MS-DOS
    applications to run preemptively with the rest of the system"
    (Windows resource kit, Support for MS-DOS -- based applications)

For each DOS application (which by the quote above runs in its own VM or
session) you can set things such as conventional, XMS, EMS and DPMI memory
as well as some other settings.  You cannot specify things that would be in
a config.sys file such as FILES and BUFFERS, however.  But, you can specify
a batch file to be run before the application is run.

The second level of MS-DOS support is 'MS-DOS mode', which is very much like
OS/2 dual boot.  If you specify that an application run in MS-DOS mode, you can
specify an entire AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS configuration.  When the application
is run, essentially the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS are copied to the hard
disk and the system is rebooted.  When the application exits, the system is
rebooted back into windows.  Obviously, in this mode you cannot run multiple
sessions concurrently.

Additionally, there is a file called APPS.INF that provides the settings 
for many DOS programs so you don't have to define them yourself.  Of course,
for new programs you will have to provide the settings.

>Here is the quote from the documentation I have on Win95:

>"All 16-bit applications share a single address space - the System Virtual
>Machine (VM)."

Actually I beleive this statement refers to 16-bit Windows applications, not
DOS applications.

I hope this provides a little more insight into Win95 DOS support.

Flames will be ignored.

Bill

--
Bill Arnette                      sas...@unx.sas.com
Portable Debugger Development     ...!mcnc!sas!saswta
SAS Institute Inc.                (919)677-8000 x6193  
SAS Campus Drive - R2275          (919)677-4444 (fax)  
Cary, NC 27513                    

In article <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>,
root <ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu> wrote:

>Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can run 
>separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated EMS, XMS, or 
>DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional memory 
>amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.

OS/2 has been doing all this since 2.0

>There is an idiot proof dialogue to set up support for: mouse, disk cache, 
>doskey, expanded memory manager, and direct disk access for each dos session. 
> Just click on the choices.  For any other devices, it's simple to add the 
>lines into your custom config.

Sounds a lot like warp to me.

>It's really cool to be able to run DOS games in a window and stuff, although 
>I prefer to switch to full-screen with a quick alt-enter.  The really cool 
>stuff, though, is gonna be the crop of new games optimized for Win95 using 
>the WING libraries.  I really couldn't live without the backward 
>compatibility offered by Win95 for both Windows apps and dos apps (read: 
>games ;) and I'd guess that most gamers would feel the same way.
>
>	- Rich

Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
continue to do it.  Get a clue.

-- 
 _____________________________________________________________________________
|Mark R. Johnson                   "To defend, this is the pact"              | 
|m...@iastate.edu                   "But when life is scorned, and damage done"| 
|<Team OS/2>                       "To avenge, this is the pact"              |

In article <3n4ff7$g...@news.iastate.edu> m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu (Mark R. Johnson) writes:
>From: m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu (Mark R. Johnson)
>Subject: Win95:  Been there, done that.
>Date: 20 Apr 1995 02:04:23 GMT

>In article <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>,
>root <ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu> wrote:

>>Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can run 
>>separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated EMS, XMS, or 
>>DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional memory 
>>amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.

>OS/2 has been doing all this since 2.0

>>There is an idiot proof dialogue to set up support for: mouse, disk cache, 
>>doskey, expanded memory manager, and direct disk access for each dos session. 
>> Just click on the choices.  For any other devices, it's simple to add the 
>>lines into your custom config.

>Sounds a lot like warp to me.

>>It's really cool to be able to run DOS games in a window and stuff, although 
>>I prefer to switch to full-screen with a quick alt-enter.  The really cool 
>>stuff, though, is gonna be the crop of new games optimized for Win95 using 
>>the WING libraries.  I really couldn't live without the backward 
>>compatibility offered by Win95 for both Windows apps and dos apps (read: 
>>games ;) and I'd guess that most gamers would feel the same way.
>>
>>       - Rich

>Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
>continue to do it.  Get a clue.

Win 3.1 will do just fine for me for at least another year.  Let Microsoft 
work out the kinks on their dime not mine.  

Greg
 ________________________________

 Greg Nichols 
 University of Michigan 
 Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library 
 Room 100       
 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1205 
 ________________________________

Mark R. Johnson (m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu) wrote:
: In article <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>,
: root <ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu> wrote:

: >Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can run 
: >separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated EMS, XMS, or 
: >DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional memory 
: >amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.

: OS/2 has been doing all this since 2.0

Automaticly adjusting memory per app as required? Dont think so.

: >It's really cool to be able to run DOS games in a window and stuff, although 
: >I prefer to switch to full-screen with a quick alt-enter.  The really cool 
: >stuff, though, is gonna be the crop of new games optimized for Win95 using 
: >the WING libraries.  I really couldn't live without the backward 
: >compatibility offered by Win95 for both Windows apps and dos apps (read: 
: >games ;) and I'd guess that most gamers would feel the same way.
: >
: >	- Rich

: Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
: continue to do it.  Get a clue.

But not as well.  YOU get a clue.

In article <3n4rkl$g...@taco.cc.ncsu.edu>,
Jeffrey Lee Woodall <jlwo...@unity.ncsu.edu> wrote:
>Mark R. Johnson (m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu) wrote:
>
>: OS/2 has been doing all this since 2.0
>
>Automaticly adjusting memory per app as required? Dont think so.
>


As far as I could tell while running OS/2, the memory usage is dynamic.  You
simply set a memory LIMIT.  The one indication I had of this was running
3D Studio under OS/2.  If you checked the status display, your memory
available and memory used were always equal... but it would grow and shrink.
It might read "1024k used of 1024k total" one second, then the next you'll
find "2048k used of 2048k total".


>: Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
>: continue to do it.  Get a clue.
>
>But not as well.  YOU get a clue.


Who cares if an operating system has been doing "such and such" for years.
That shouldn't be the point.  The point is that the "operating system" that
most people are familiar with and (most likely) most people are using is
now offering the capabilities that they've seen elsewhere.  Did all the
UNIX users have this debate with the OS/2 users when OS/2 first arrived?

Most people would agree that it's probably easier to move from DOS to OS/2
then it is to move from DOS to UNIX.  In the same way, I'm sure most people
will have a much easier time moving from Windows to Windows 95.  It will
probably be a much easier trip and it will offer most of the capabilities
that Windows v3.1 users have wanted.  Most people would like to simply 
enhance their current operating system rather than switch to a new one 
everytime a new feature comes along.

Someone also mentioned the lack of Windows NT apps.  Windows NT is by no means
meant for the home user, and almost every time I've seen it running... it
was acting as a Network server.  As far as I know, the individual workstations
ran normal Windows for Workgroups.


 
-- 

Emilio Galasso
a260...@cdf.toronto.edu
University of Toronto, Computer Science.

In article <3n4rkl$g...@taco.cc.ncsu.edu>, jlwo...@unity.ncsu.edu (Jeffrey Lee Woodall) writes:
|> Mark R. Johnson (m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu) wrote:
|> : In article <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>,
|> : root <ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu> wrote:
|> 
|> : >Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can run 
|> : >separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated EMS, XMS, or 
|> : >DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional memory 
|> : >amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.
|> 
|> : OS/2 has been doing all this since 2.0
|> 
|> Automaticly adjusting memory per app as required? Dont think so.

Whether you think so or not, it does it. What you set up is the maximum
RAM the session can get. It gets memory as needed up to that limit

|> 
|> : >It's really cool to be able to run DOS games in a window and stuff, although 
|> : >I prefer to switch to full-screen with a quick alt-enter.  The really cool 
|> : >stuff, though, is gonna be the crop of new games optimized for Win95 using 
|> : >the WING libraries.  I really couldn't live without the backward 
|> : >compatibility offered by Win95 for both Windows apps and dos apps (read: 
|> : >games ;) and I'd guess that most gamers would feel the same way.
|> 
|> : Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
|> : continue to do it.  Get a clue.
|> 
|> But not as well.  YOU get a clue.

It does it as well, what you get is a Win95 shutdown which ends in a DOS
session (as via dualboot) and when you exit the game Win95 starts up again.

In OS/2 everything is running all the time, I would call OS/2 the better
solution.

  -Mike

Michael Hermann (her...@hobbes.uni-passau.de) wrote:
: It does it as well, what you get is a Win95 shutdown which ends in a DOS
: session (as via dualboot) and when you exit the game Win95 starts up again.

Just not true.  Here we have an example of yet another person spreading 
lies about Win95.  Once again, Win95 runs just about everything without 
reboot.  You can set seperate config.sys and autoexec.bat if you want to 
use the DOS session (which is DOS on top of Windows, not the other way 
around), or you can set a number of parameters to run the DOS program in 
a window.  Read up on Win95, or better yet, get a copy for yourself and 
stop reading the propaganda.

Jeff

To: her...@hobbes.uni-passau.de (Michael Hermann)
Subject: Re: Win95:  Been there, done that.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.misc,comp.os.os2.games

: It does it as well, what you get is a Win95 shutdown which ends in a DOS
: session (as via dualboot) and when you exit the game Win95 starts up again.

: In OS/2 everything is running all the time, I would call OS/2 the better
: solution.

:   -Mike

The DOS session isn't needed - you can configure the program with properties
- what the DOS reboot primarily does is allows you to build your config.sys
and autoexec.bat according to each program.  This isn't normally necessary. 
For example:  To run WCIII, I just chose my CDROM drive - which I loaded NO
drivers for (it's automatic on my Mitsumi) - found wc3.exe and double
clicked - runs fine - a bit longer in the load times, but close to same
frame rate.  I finally set up an icon and changed the properties.  You can
choose how much CONVENTIONAL, EMS, XMS, DPMI to allocate for each program in
the properties settings.  After setting this up - I am quite content with
WCIII running through Win95.  So, it _CAN_ be done - and effectively as well
- haven't tried this yet - but I have 8mb ram and can allocate 16 if I wish
in the properties area - will prolly just swap to HD - but will allow me
those extra features....

My observations,

Jack Harmon

--

jha...@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why
must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
                                     -- Michel  de  Saint-Pierre

In article <3n4ff7$g...@news.iastate.edu> m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu (Mark R. Johnson) writes:
>From: m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu (Mark R. Johnson)
>Subject: Win95:  Been there, done that.
>Date: 20 Apr 1995 02:04:23 GMT

>In article <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>,
>root <ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu> wrote:

>>Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can run 
>>separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated EMS, XMS, or 
>>DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional memory 
>>amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.

>OS/2 has been doing all this since 2.0

>>There is an idiot proof dialogue to set up support for: mouse, disk cache, 
>>doskey, expanded memory manager, and direct disk access for each dos session. 
>> Just click on the choices.  For any other devices, it's simple to add the 
>>lines into your custom config.

>Sounds a lot like warp to me.

>>It's really cool to be able to run DOS games in a window and stuff, although 
>>I prefer to switch to full-screen with a quick alt-enter.  The really cool 
>>stuff, though, is gonna be the crop of new games optimized for Win95 using 
>>the WING libraries.  I really couldn't live without the backward 
>>compatibility offered by Win95 for both Windows apps and dos apps (read: 
>>games ;) and I'd guess that most gamers would feel the same way.
>>
>>       - Rich

>Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
>continue to do it.  Get a clue.

Look here...I don't mind OS/2 zealots...to each his own, but after spending 
hours on the phone with their tech support department, they finally decided 
that OS/2 simply would not run on some machines.  I have a pristine copy of 
OS/2 for Windows and OS/2 WARP (version with original bugs fixed) sitting 
right here if anyone wants them...well let me keep the boxes...they're holding 
up my printer so the paper can get over the back of my computer desk.   So far 
that's all OS/2 has been worth to me.

The point is...who gives a plague infested rats ass if OS/2 has been doing 
this for years?  Now Win95 says they'll do it too, and I, for one, look 
forward to seeing how well it works....IF it works ;-).

Steve
sbr...@new-orleans.neosoft.com
Steve Brown
 For gaming or musical needs, Check out "The Basement," which is under construction :-)
ftp://www.neosoft.com/pub/users/s/sbrown/home.htm

In <saswta.7...@sas.com>, sas...@unx.sas.com (Bill Arnette) writes:

[lotsa REAL info snipped]

>I hope this provides a little more insight into Win95 DOS support.

Thank you. One of the more informative ones on this thread. Now if
everyone would just be the same.. [me included of course.. :)]

Back to Shulman's "Unauthorized Windows 95"..

Warped Arumugamred
"Shoot me. I am stupid." - Anonymous

jmw...@is2.nyu.edu   (Jeff Williams) wrote:
>
> In <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>, ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu (root) writes:
> >In article <3n1n10$i...@cmcl2.NYU.EDU>, jmw...@is2.nyu.edu says...
> >
> >>Talk about wasting bandwidth... did you have some new information you would
> >>like to impart with that message?  For instance, what is the real story 
> >regarding
> >
> >Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can run 
> >separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated EMS, XMS, or 
> >DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional memory 
> >amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.
> 
> 
> //  Jeff Williams
> //  NYU UGFTV/Cinema Studies
> //  jmw...@is2.nyu.edu
> 



		Would You Guys *M*O*V*E* this FUCKING
 			discussion OFF OFF THIS
				NEWSGROUP!!!

This is a bloody GAMING forum here, NOT the place for a RAMBLING
OPERATING SYSTEM "SHOOT-IN-THE-DARK" Discussion.

		DO YOU GET THE POINT YET?????????

				











			STILL WAITING!!!!!

a260...@cdf.toronto.edu (Galasso Emilio N) wrote:
>
> As far as I could tell while running OS/2, the memory usage is dynamic.  You
> simply set a memory LIMIT.  The one indication I had of this was running
> 3D Studio under OS/2.  If you checked the status display, your memory
> available and memory used were always equal... but it would grow and shrink.
> It might read "1024k used of 1024k total" one second, then the next you'll
> find "2048k used of 2048k total".
> 

Will you guys GET THIS DAMN DISCUSSION OFF of the GAMES group?

PLEASE?????

@#$%@*#$%&*)AS(*OLE!!!

In <3n964p$2...@ns.RezoNet.NET> Frank Whitney <whi...@kruger.com>
writes: 
>
>jmw...@is2.nyu.edu   (Jeff Williams) wrote:
>>
>> In <3n3j7a$12...@bubba.ucc.okstate.edu>,
ro...@wentz1.reslife.okstate.edu (root) writes:
>> >In article <3n1n10$i...@cmcl2.NYU.EDU>, jmw...@is2.nyu.edu says...
>> >
>> >>Talk about wasting bandwidth... did you have some new information
you would
>> >>like to impart with that message?  For instance, what is the real
story 
>> >regarding
>> >
>> >Hahhaha, I can sniff a OS/2 zealot from a mile away.  Yup, you can
run 
>> >separate DOS sessions with specified or automatically allocated
EMS, XMS, or 
>> >DPMI memory, different environment size, configurable conventional
memory 
>> >amount, separate autoexec.bat and config.sys for each dos app.
>> 
>> 
>> //  Jeff Williams
>> //  NYU UGFTV/Cinema Studies
>> //  jmw...@is2.nyu.edu
>> 
>
>
>
>		Would You Guys *M*O*V*E* this FUCKING
> 			discussion OFF OFF THIS
>				NEWSGROUP!!!
>
>This is a bloody GAMING forum here, NOT the place for a RAMBLING
>OPERATING SYSTEM "SHOOT-IN-THE-DARK" Discussion.
>
>		DO YOU GET THE POINT YET?????????
>			STILL WAITING!!!!!


Amen...but don't mince words, Frank, what do you <really> think? :)

Jeffrey Lee Woodall <jlwo...@unity.ncsu.edu> writes:
 
>Just not true.  Here we have an example of yet another person spreading 
>lies about Win95.  Once again, Win95 runs just about everything without 
>reboot.  You can set seperate config.sys and autoexec.bat if you want to 
>use the DOS session (which is DOS on top of Windows, not the other way 
>around), or you can set a number of parameters to run the DOS program in 
>a window.  Read up on Win95, or better yet, get a copy for yourself and 
>stop reading the propaganda.
>
>Jeff
 
 
        Get a copy? I hadn't realilized it was out yet. At least in stores...
 

It's not out yet, for the umpteenth time... Microsoft made
available several hundred thousands of BETA TEST versions
to the public for about $30 each.  What everybody is using
is not the FINAL VERSION of Windows 95, it is the BETA TEST.

Got it?

Fulcrum Brown
University of Washington, Bill Gate's big neighbor.


On Sat, 22 Apr 1995, Kent Coleman wrote:

> Jeffrey Lee Woodall <jlwo...@unity.ncsu.edu> writes:
>  
> >Just not true.  Here we have an example of yet another person spreading 
> >lies about Win95.  Once again, Win95 runs just about everything without 
> >reboot.  You can set seperate config.sys and autoexec.bat if you want to 
> >use the DOS session (which is DOS on top of Windows, not the other way 
> >around), or you can set a number of parameters to run the DOS program in 
> >a window.  Read up on Win95, or better yet, get a copy for yourself and 
> >stop reading the propaganda.
> >
> >Jeff
>  
>  
>         Get a copy? I hadn't realilized it was out yet. At least in stores...
>  
> 
> 

In article <3n5ems$r...@news.rz.uni-passau.de>, her...@hobbes.uni-passau.de (Michael Hermann) says:

>It does it as well, what you get is a Win95 shutdown which ends in a DOS
>session (as via dualboot) and when you exit the game Win95 starts up again.
>
>In OS/2 everything is running all the time, I would call OS/2 the better
>solution.
>
  -Mike

I have been using both for about 6 month and I decided to commit to WIN95. Maybe OS2 is better in technology(???),
but WIN95 is much more user friendly for a normal user. I hate to setup all those setting in the OS/2 DOS box, with 
WIN95 I don't have such problem. Also WIM95 seems to run faster for most of my window programs. 

Regards,
James Hung

On 19 Apr 1995, JORDAN SPENSER AARON wrote:

> And what kind of work are you doing?  So, just how many business, 
> scientific, etc applications are written specifically for OS2.  Odds are 
> you are working on OS2 with windows applications; which in the future, 
> wil be written to take advantage of Windows '95

I don't know about the original target of this comment, but I rely
extensively on SAS for OS/2 (high powered statistical/data management
program native to almost every platform you can mention, with OS/2 being
one of the best versions of SAS) and DeScribe (word processor) -- both at
work and at home.  The only Windows app I use at work is Davinci email;
the only Windows app I use at home is CA-Simply Money (and I'm looking
forward to the upcoming OS/2 port). 

> Oh, and sure I will be playing...  Windows '95 will be a great gaming 
> platform <insert flame here> as all of the major game developers are 
> writing for it.  
> 
> Sure OS2 will have great games too; GC being my case in point.  I 
> believe, however, that the majority of the really cool games will be 
> unavailable for the poor souls in the, "I love OS2 and I don't care even 
> if Microsoft is cruching us," camp.  

Of course, you ignore the recent IBM/Lotus announcement.  They are working
on the API calls that are similar under both OS/2 and Win95 (forgive me if
I'm a bit off in this description, as I'm not a programmer in either
environment).  What that will mean is that a game developer can write a
program for Win95 and use the SAME source code to compile the game for
OS/2.  Of course, there is currently a tool that allows the vendor to use
a large portions of their code, but it still requires some writing as I
understand it; however, given the ability to port the code by simply
switching the parameters of the compiler, there will be no excuse for not
producing native OS/2 versions of games (and other apps) given this
capability. 

JOHN

* John M. Martz:  Psychology Dept, UNC-CH  *                            *
|                 CB# 3270, Davie Hall     | B = f(P,E)                 |
|                 Chapel Hill, NC 27599    |          --Kurt Lewin      |
*                 JOHN_...@UNC.EDU       *                            *

In <Pine.CVX.3.91.95042...@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>, John Michael Martz <jma...@gibbs.oit.unc.edu> writes:
>On 19 Apr 1995, JORDAN SPENSER AARON wrote:


First of all, let me say that I am writing this message from teh
game developer's conference in San Jose (I'm writing from my hotel
on a laptop).  

Microsoft is indeed making major inroads here.  I saw Pitfall Harry
running on Win95 and it was BETTER than the Sega version.  I was
floored at how well it ran.  Microsoft did do a better job here in getting
the word out on what it did.  IBM did a great job too but Microsoft simply
threw a lot more money at it and it shows.  I liked the food at the
hospitality suite better too! :)  Though IBM has incredible desserts!

IBM is showing off DIVE here as well though both DIVE and WinG simply
make the respective OS allow DOS like hardware access.

But right now, OS/2 has the lead in the high end gaming area.

Number of multithreaded games for Windows (commercial): 0
Number coming soon (next 6 months): 0

Number of multithreaded commercial games for OS/2: 3
Galactic Civilizations
MicroLearn game pack
Simcity classic

Number coming in the next 6 months: 3
Entrepreneur
Avarice
MicroLearn gamepack 2

Sure, there are games being ported to each platform (such as DOOM which
now runs at least as well as the DOS version on OS/2 and Win95) but they
are (sorry to say) single threaded games.  Besides porting an existing game
is not exactly a big deal.  They are just part of the continuing marketing
wars between IBM and Microsoft.

By the time Windows95 ships, OS/2 will already have out on the market
at least 3 original high end games written exclusively for an advanced
OS: GalCiv, Entrepreneur, and Avarice which fill in 3 of the major
niches (Strategy, Simulation, and Adventure).

Like it or not, OS/2 is presently the premiere high end gaming platform. And
I say this right from the convention where all the developers come:
Game Developer's Conference.


Brad

--------------------------
Brad Wardell
Project Manager
Stardock Systems Inc.

Frank Whitney (whi...@kruger.com) wrote:

: Will you guys GET THIS DAMN DISCUSSION OFF of the GAMES group?

: PLEASE?????

: @#$%@*#$%&*)AS(*OLE!!!

Uhh, why don't you just mark this post as read and continue on with life as
you know it?  Mock profanities on this trivial subject only shows your level
of maturity, and ability to shrug off small topics which do not concern you. 
All you have to do, is mark this post as read and continue on..  Even the
most speed challenged person could perform that menial task in a few
seconds.

Give it a rest and stop yer whining, 
Sheesh!

--

jha...@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why
must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
                   |                 -- Michel  de  Saint-Pierre
                   |
            _____ (@) _____
O ------------==/  .  \==------------ O
     0^0  (__)  \_____/  (__)  0^0
                 |___|

jha...@Mesa.Colorado.EDU (jack harmon) wrote:
 
> Give it a rest and stop yer whining, 
> Sheesh!
 

Right.  Just mark this one as "READ", Also.

>Sure it will run serveral apps, but it 
>doesn't pre-emt, so (from what I understand) if a WIN95 app locks up while 
>calculating or something, the whole system will lock up, since the program 
>has control over the processor.  (correct me if I am wrong).

That is incorrect.  Don't get me wrong, it CAN happen, but almost all of the 
lockups I have experienced allowed me to close the offensive app and continue 
as if nothing had happened. I am running mostly Win 3.X apps, too, with a few 
actual Win95 specific applications.  What this discussion has to do with 
games, though, I have no idea. ;)

Craig Sparks
Norton Utilities for Win95 Tech Support
Symantec Corp
csp...@symantec.com

In article <3n4ff7$g...@news.iastate.edu>,
   m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu (Mark R. Johnson) wrote:

>
>Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
>continue to do it.  Get a clue.
>

Alright, I don't care which is better (I haven't tried OS/2, so I can't make 
a judgement), but try to have some common sense here, people.  Here's the 
scenario:

Me: Yeah, which is better, OS/2 or Win95?
Salesguy: Well, Win95 has (blah, blah, blah), but OS/2 has been doing that for 
years, now.

Who CARES?  Just because one OS has been doing something special for years 
doesn't mean I'm gonna go out and buy it because another OS just included it 
in the latest release.  Stop living in the past, people...geez.

Mark R. Johnson (m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu) wrote:

: Gee, OS/2 does all this now, has been doing it for years, and will 
: continue to do it.  Get a clue.

 Yes, but OS/2 is slow and quirky, and NOWHERE near as friendly as Win95.


 Get a clue.

 Steve

--
             Stephen Clemson <<st...@planitia.demon.co.uk>>
          Lieutenant Commander Stephen Clemson, Chief Engineer
                      USS Discovery - NCC 74206

          >>I am built for COMFORT.....   Not for SPEED.....<<

In article <3o2jqr$g...@utrhcs.cs.utwente.nl>,
Richard R. van Meurs <vme...@cs.utwente.nl> wrote:
>In article <3nj6n6$l...@krypton.hpc.sdsmt.edu>, dmp...@silver.sdsmt.edu (Derik Pates) writes:
>
>Plug and Play sounds real nice, but I think nobody needs it. Why? There are
>basically two kinds of computer users. The first kind knows all IO port 
>addresses and stuff, and as such doesn't need P&P.

I remember figuring out the jumper settings on my I/O card by trial-and-error,
because the damn manual lied about what they did.  Many people who know about 
IO port addresses and such very much want PnP.  I look forward to the day when
you can just plug in a card, rather than fiddling with it for a half-hour or 
more.

BTW, I don't talk for anybody but me.

BDR

vme...@cs.utwente.nl (Richard R. van Meurs) wrote:
>In article <3nj6n6$l...@krypton.hpc.sdsmt.edu>, dmp...@silver.sdsmt.edu (Derik Pates) writes:
>
>[stuff from previous postings deleted ...]
>
>|> You're SLIGHTLY right. Part of Windows is still 16-bit. But, it's mostly 
>|> 32-bit code now. It has pre-emptive multitasking, multithreading, and 
>|> various other features. Also, no one mentions Plug & Play. Gamers will 
>|> love this for not having to screw around with their new hardware on new 
>|> machines. And, even if you have an older system and/or older hardware, 
>|> Windows 95's Plug and Play will STILL help to make things easier for the 
>|> average user, with better detection and some diagnostics for address, 
>|> IRQ and DMA conflicts. This is better than what OS/2 Warp can muster. 
>|> I'll be getting my preview copy of Windows '95 very soon, and I'm sure 
>|> I'll never look at Warp after I start running Win '95.
>|> 
>|> Derrik Pates
>|> dmp...@silver.sdsmt.edu
>
>Plug and Play sounds real nice, but I think nobody needs it. Why? There are
>basically two kinds of computer users. The first kind knows all IO port addresses
>and stuff, and as such doesn't need P&P. The second kind knows next to nothing
>about the inside of a computer, and they probably buy a computer that has
>everything installed. Even if they buy something new (say a soundcard or CDROM),
>the suppliers of the hardware usually want to install the new item for them at
>a minimal charge. Therefore they don't need P&P either. A very small group of
>computer users may not fit in either catagories, but why not let 'the
>professional' handle your stuff if you're not completely sure what you need to
>do? Installing a P&P device still means opening your PC and inserting it, so it'll
>probably be too difficult for somebody without some knowledge on the hardware
>itself.
>And what if two P&P devices do not work together for some reason? Surely you can't
>change jumpers or something, as they're meant to configure themselves. The only
>solution would be to remove one of them and buy another one, defeating the entire
>idea of P&P.
>
>In short, I don't thing P&P is that big an issue, and we don't need it either. If
>you don't like looking at the inside of your computer, don't mess with it I say.
>Leave the upgrading to people who know what they're doing (by the way, personally
>I know my way around the inside of my PC quite well).
>
>
>Just my HFl 0.02
>
>Richard van Meurs (vme...@cs.utwente.nl)
No way.  Just because of a) the people who know computers know about dma and io, doesn't mean they 
have to go through the same pain in the ass to configure a device.  And b)people who don't know, 
how in the hell do you think they learn about the inside of the computers and dma and io, and not 
to mention learn how to save thier money?  Do you think they buy some cutesy little cdrom that 
says "see inside of computer.  see disk spin", or maybe, just maybe, they actually try to tough it 
out themselves, and get it right, and get a great satisfaction + knowledge?  Jeesh, "I think P&P 
is useless".how dumb
-- 

[][][][] [][][][]  [][]  [] / Jon Reinberg
   []    []    []  [] [] [] /    "What"
[] []    []    []  []  [][] / rein...@maroon.tc.umn.edu
  []     [][][][]  []    [] / http://www.umn.edu/nlhome/m447/reinb001/jon.html

In <D82n4...@news.cis.umn.edu>, Jon <rein...@maroon.tc.umn.edu> writes:
>Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 20:56:44 GMT
>
>vme...@cs.utwente.nl (Richard R. van Meurs) wrote:
>>In article <3nj6n6$l...@krypton.hpc.sdsmt.edu>, dmp...@silver.sdsmt.edu (Derik Pates) writes:
>>
>>[stuff from previous postings deleted ...]
>>
>>|> You're SLIGHTLY right. Part of Windows is still 16-bit. But, it's mostly 
>>|> 32-bit code now. It has pre-emptive multitasking, multithreading, and 


WAIT A MINUTE!!! - I thought preemptive multitasking was one of the things
that WIN95 was not going to include....I've run the beta and was not
too impressed with the speed of thread changing, if it's preemptive...

HMMMMM.






>>|> various other features. Also, no one mentions Plug & Play. Gamers will 
>>|> love this for not having to screw around with their new hardware on new 
>>|> machines. And, even if you have an older system and/or older hardware, 
>>|> Windows 95's Plug and Play will STILL help to make things easier for the 
>>|> average user, with better detection and some diagnostics for address, 
>>|> IRQ and DMA conflicts. This is better than what OS/2 Warp can muster. 
>>|> I'll be getting my preview copy of Windows '95 very soon, and I'm sure 
>>|> I'll never look at Warp after I start running Win '95.
>>|> 
>>|> Derrik Pates
>>|> dmp...@silver.sdsmt.edu
>>
>>Plug and Play sounds real nice, but I think nobody needs it. Why? There are
>>basically two kinds of computer users. The first kind knows all IO port addresses
>>and stuff, and as such doesn't need P&P. The second kind knows next to nothing
>>about the inside of a computer, and they probably buy a computer that has
>>everything installed. Even if they buy something new (say a soundcard or CDROM),
>>the suppliers of the hardware usually want to install the new item for them at
>>a minimal charge. Therefore they don't need P&P either. A very small group of
>>computer users may not fit in either catagories, but why not let 'the
>>professional' handle your stuff if you're not completely sure what you need to
>>do? Installing a P&P device still means opening your PC and inserting it, so it'll
>>probably be too difficult for somebody without some knowledge on the hardware
>>itself.
>>And what if two P&P devices do not work together for some reason? Surely you can't
>>change jumpers or something, as they're meant to configure themselves. The only
>>solution would be to remove one of them and buy another one, defeating the entire
>>idea of P&P.
>>
>>In short, I don't thing P&P is that big an issue, and we don't need it either. If
>>you don't like looking at the inside of your computer, don't mess with it I say.
>>Leave the upgrading to people who know what they're doing (by the way, personally
>>I know my way around the inside of my PC quite well).
>>
>>
>>Just my HFl 0.02
>>
>>Richard van Meurs (vme...@cs.utwente.nl)
>No way.  Just because of a) the people who know computers know about dma and io, doesn't mean they 
>have to go through the same pain in the ass to configure a device.  And b)people who don't know, 
>how in the hell do you think they learn about the inside of the computers and dma and io, and not 
>to mention learn how to save thier money?  Do you think they buy some cutesy little cdrom that 
>says "see inside of computer.  see disk spin", or maybe, just maybe, they actually try to tough it 
>out themselves, and get it right, and get a great satisfaction + knowledge?  Jeesh, "I think P&P 
>is useless".how dumb
>-- 
>
>[][][][] [][][][]  [][]  [] / Jon Reinberg
>   []    []    []  [] [] [] /    "What"
>[] []    []    []  []  [][] / rein...@maroon.tc.umn.edu
>  []     [][][][]  []    [] / http://www.umn.edu/nlhome/m447/reinb001/jon.html
>


-----------------------------------------------
*     Davion Faustus		dfa...@xmission.com	      *
*   http://www.xmission.com/~dfaust	              *
*     							      *
*  Three cheers for Judge Sporkin!!!			      *

In <3of2ea$6...@news.xmission.com>, dfa...@xmission.com writes:
>In <D82n4...@news.cis.umn.edu>, Jon <rein...@maroon.tc.umn.edu> writes:
>>Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 20:56:44 GMT
>>
>>vme...@cs.utwente.nl (Richard R. van Meurs) wrote:
>>>In article <3nj6n6$l...@krypton.hpc.sdsmt.edu>, dmp...@silver.sdsmt.edu (Derik Pates) writes:
>>>
>>>[stuff from previous postings deleted ...]
>>>
>>>|> You're SLIGHTLY right. Part of Windows is still 16-bit. But, it's mostly
>>>|> 32-bit code now. It has pre-emptive multitasking, multithreading, and
>
>
>WAIT A MINUTE!!! - I thought preemptive multitasking was one of the things
>that WIN95 was not going to include....I've run the beta and was not
>too impressed with the speed of thread changing, if it's preemptive...
>
>HMMMMM.

It still cooperatively multitask Win16 apps, and due to the
Win16mutex(sp?), a single Win16 apps can slowdown the whole system
just like in Win3.x.  So, unless you mainly run DOS apps in
Windows or buy a whole bunch of new apps, you won't get much
benefit in terms of multitasking.  I heard that the performance of
DOS apps is improved compared to running them in Win3.x.

[rest deleted]

---
Oliver Chung
<khc...@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>                 __  __    _
+Department of Physics, The Ohio State University+  |  |(__' /`_)
+----------> My opinions are my own <------------+  |__|.__)/ /__

>>>>|> You're SLIGHTLY right. Part of Windows is still 16-bit. But, it's 
mostly
>>>>|> 32-bit code now. It has pre-emptive multitasking, multithreading, 
and
>>
>>
>>WAIT A MINUTE!!! - I thought preemptive multitasking was one of the 
things
>>that WIN95 was not going to include....I've run the beta and was not
>>too impressed with the speed of thread changing, if it's preemptive...
>>
>>HMMMMM.
>It still cooperatively multitask Win16 apps, and due to the
>Win16mutex(sp?), a single Win16 apps can slowdown the whole system
>just like in Win3.x.  So, unless you mainly run DOS apps in
>Windows or buy a whole bunch of new apps, you won't get much
>benefit in terms of multitasking.  

I am not sure how much they plan to change on the Beta for Win 95 now but 
I do know that MS is planning to make NT and win 95 come closer and closer 
until they become one product.  Windows NT is a much better Multi-tasker 
than Windows 3.1, OS/2, or Windows 95... but if Windows 95 begins to act 
more and more like NT, we will see true benefits of multitasking and 
multithreading.


I heard that the performance of
>DOS apps is improved compared to running them in Win3.x.

DOS apps are improved compared to running them in DOS also as far as
I have seen.


John Marconi
UIUC Computer Science

In <3ogvov$7...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu (John Marconi) writes:
>>>>>|> You're SLIGHTLY right. Part of Windows is still 16-bit. But, it's
>mostly
>>>>>|> 32-bit code now. It has pre-emptive multitasking, multithreading,
>>>
>>>WAIT A MINUTE!!! - I thought preemptive multitasking was one of the things
>>>that WIN95 was not going to include....I've run the beta and was not
>>>too impressed with the speed of thread changing, if it's preemptive...
>>>
>>>HMMMMM.
>>It still cooperatively multitask Win16 apps, and due to the
>>Win16mutex(sp?), a single Win16 apps can slowdown the whole system
>>just like in Win3.x.  So, unless you mainly run DOS apps in
>>Windows or buy a whole bunch of new apps, you won't get much
>>benefit in terms of multitasking.
>
>I am not sure how much they plan to change on the Beta for Win 95 now but
>I do know that MS is planning to make NT and win 95 come closer and closer
>until they become one product.  Windows NT is a much better Multi-tasker
>than Windows 3.1, OS/2, or Windows 95... but if Windows 95 begins to act
>more and more like NT, we will see true benefits of multitasking and
>multithreading.

Not quite from what I heard.  From all accounts in c.o.o.a, Win95
is a dead end (even Win advocates there don't deny it), and NT is
the way MS wants you to go.  That's why they are forcing NT
compatibility on Win95 developers (you need to make sure you Win95
apps runs in NT in order to get the Win95 sticker), and that's why
they will put Win95's interface in NT a year or two later (Isn't
it great to have you guys pay to test the new interface for MS?).

Changing the Win16 subsystem in Win95 from cooperative to
preemptive is too big a change to do in beta, and they have only
a few months to so even if they want.  No, the cooperative nature
of Win16 system is not going to change in Win95.  Expect to
upgrade again to NT a year or two later if you buy Win95 now.

As for NT being a better multitasker than OS/2, I don't think so.
It's probably more robust (thus resulting in less DOS/Win and
hardware compatibility than OS/2), but the efficiency in
multitasking is probably similar for both.

*** And back to the whole point of this thread: GAMES ***

NT is not a games platform (at least for a couple more years),
Win95 is not available yet, no Win95 games is available yet.
OS/2 is here, OS/2 games are here, and more OS/2 games are coming
(and they are multithreaded too).

>I heard that the performance of
>>DOS apps is improved compared to running them in Win3.x.
>
>DOS apps are improved compared to running them in DOS also as far as
>I have seen.

Not if you are running more than one at a time, a few Win95 beta
testers posted that one DOS app will slow down the whole system.

---
Oliver Chung
<khc...@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>                 __  __    _
+Department of Physics, The Ohio State University+  |  |(__' /`_)
+----------> My opinions are my own <------------+  |__|.__)/ /__

>>I am not sure how much they plan to change on the Beta for Win 95 now 
but
>>I do know that MS is planning to make NT and win 95 come closer and 
closer
>>until they become one product.  Windows NT is a much better Multi-tasker
>>than Windows 3.1, OS/2, or Windows 95... but if Windows 95 begins to act
>>more and more like NT, we will see true benefits of multitasking and
>>multithreading.
>
>Not quite from what I heard.  From all accounts in c.o.o.a, Win95
>is a dead end (even Win advocates there don't deny it), and NT is
>the way MS wants you to go.  That's why they are forcing NT
>compatibility on Win95 developers (you need to make sure you Win95
>apps runs in NT in order to get the Win95 sticker), and that's why
>they will put Win95's interface in NT a year or two later (Isn't
>it great to have you guys pay to test the new interface for MS?).

Well, from what I've heard, MS needs to bring the current state of the 
average computer up to the standards that NT expects.  Win 95 is a pretty 
good way to do that.  Then, if people get better, more powerful computers, 
the jump from Win 95 or its successors to NT will be minimal.  As is seen 
by the Win 95 interface that NT will employ (a few months later), they are 
already gearing up for people to make the move. 


>Changing the Win16 subsystem in Win95 from cooperative to
>preemptive is too big a change to do in beta, and they have only
>a few months to so even if they want.  No, the cooperative nature
>of Win16 system is not going to change in Win95.  Expect to
>upgrade again to NT a year or two later if you buy Win95 now.

I think upgrading from Win95 to NT is exactly what MS wants.  That is why 
they are trying to make the differences between them very minimal.  
Perhaps Win95 won't be preemptive but perhaps Win96 (or whatever) will.  


>As for NT being a better multitasker than OS/2, I don't think so.
>It's probably more robust (thus resulting in less DOS/Win and
>hardware compatibility than OS/2), but the efficiency in
>multitasking is probably similar for both.

I don't think that that is true.  I run both of them now and I firmly 
believe that NT can handle many more programs simultaneously than can 
OS/2.  And, even with NT's vast hardware requirements, it seems to be much 
quicker at loading them simultaneously.  OS/2 also has some serious other 
problems that don't seem to make it practical for many users.  For 
instance, using the modem while multitasking another program causes severe 
problems (at least for me it did).  Also, from what I've seen, NT has very 
similar hardware compatibility as does OS/2.  


>*** And back to the whole point of this thread: GAMES ***
>
>NT is not a games platform (at least for a couple more years),
>Win95 is not available yet, no Win95 games is available yet.
>OS/2 is here, OS/2 games are here, and more OS/2 games are coming
>(and they are multithreaded too).

OK, stick to OS/2 games... In a few years, after the onslaught of Win95, I 
doubt many people will be sticking with OS/2 or its games.  I don't even 
see how OS/2 can compete - It has been out for many years as a 32 bit 
multitasking OS with minimal impact on the market (especially against the 
buggy Windows 3.xx).  Windows 95's impact is going to be huge whether it 
is better than OS/2 or not.  And, it will get 90% of the market of games. 
Not to mention that 0% of the new Windows 95 games will be compatible with 
OS/2.

>>I heard that the performance of
>>>DOS apps is improved compared to running them in Win3.x.
>>
>>DOS apps are improved compared to running them in DOS also as far as
>>I have seen.
>
>Not if you are running more than one at a time, a few Win95 beta
>testers posted that one DOS app will slow down the whole system.

When could you EVER multitask games in DOS or Win3.x?  You never could!  
It is true that Win95 multitasking of DOS is not very quick but it serves 
its purpose.  

John Marconi
UIUC Computer Science

I have:

CD-ROM With Boxes
_______________________________________________________________________
Betrayal At Krondor
Myst
Critical Path
Doom Companion
Zork Anthology
UltraBots
Spectre VR Enhanced For Windows
MegaRace

CD-ROM OEM
_______________________________________________________________________
Sim City 2000
King Quest V
Spear Of Destiny
Knowlege Adventure Colection
    Speed
    Space
    Undersea Adventure
7th Guest
Iron Helix
Power Graphics (graphics program)
Grolier's
Share Ware Disks
    Windows
    Platinum
    games
The Games People Play II 600+ Shareware Games

Disk Boxed 3.5
_______________________________________________________________________
Tie Fighter
Strike Comander
Gunship 2000

Disk OEM 3.5
_______________________________________________________________________
Future Wars
Crime Wave
Railroad Tycoon

Disk Boxed 5.25
_______________________________________________________________________
Spell Jammer

E-mail Me 

TheDruid

thed...@ix.netcom.com

In <3oj8vk$g...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu (John Marconi) writes:
>
[delete]

>>Changing the Win16 subsystem in Win95 from cooperative to
>>preemptive is too big a change to do in beta, and they have only
>>a few months to so even if they want.  No, the cooperative nature
>>of Win16 system is not going to change in Win95.  Expect to
>>upgrade again to NT a year or two later if you buy Win95 now.
>
>I think upgrading from Win95 to NT is exactly what MS wants.  That is why
>they are trying to make the differences between them very minimal.

Exactly my point, NT is what MS wants people to buy, Win95 is a
stepping stone.

>Perhaps Win95 won't be preemptive but perhaps Win96 (or whatever) will.

There won't be a Win96, unless Win95 slips past Dec.  NT is the
upgrade for Win95.

>>As for NT being a better multitasker than OS/2, I don't think so.
>>It's probably more robust (thus resulting in less DOS/Win and
>>hardware compatibility than OS/2), but the efficiency in
>>multitasking is probably similar for both.
>
>I don't think that that is true.  I run both of them now and I firmly
>believe that NT can handle many more programs simultaneously than can
>OS/2.  And, even with NT's vast hardware requirements, it seems to be much
>quicker at loading them simultaneously.  OS/2 also has some serious other
>problems that don't seem to make it practical for many users.  For
>instance, using the modem while multitasking another program causes severe
>problems (at least for me it did).  Also, from what I've seen, NT has very
>similar hardware compatibility as does OS/2.

Using modem while multitasking is *exactly* what many OS/2 users
switch to OS/2 for!  I routinely do 14.4k download while
multitasking without *any* problems.  E.g. I started The 7th Guest
while reading someone is having problems with it, switched back
and forth to respond, no problems. Tell my what problems you have,
I will see if my system can handle who you are trying to do.

>>*** And back to the whole point of this thread: GAMES ***
>>
>>NT is not a games platform (at least for a couple more years),
>>Win95 is not available yet, no Win95 games is available yet.
>>OS/2 is here, OS/2 games are here, and more OS/2 games are coming
>>(and they are multithreaded too).
>
>OK, stick to OS/2 games... In a few years, after the onslaught of Win95, I
>doubt many people will be sticking with OS/2 or its games.  I don't even

Oh, yeah.  I have heard this a couple years before, with NT, I
won't believe it until I see it.

>see how OS/2 can compete - It has been out for many years as a 32 bit
>multitasking OS with minimal impact on the market (especially against the
>buggy Windows 3.xx).  Windows 95's impact is going to be huge whether it
>is better than OS/2 or not.  And, it will get 90% of the market of games.
>Not to mention that 0% of the new Windows 95 games will be compatible with
>OS/2.

I look forward to your Win95 games which will get 90% of games'
market (I would be interested to see how MS force those DOS gamers
to buy Win95 though).  While you wait, I will be happily playing
both DOS and OS/2 games, and I may have already got a few
*multithreaded* OS/2 games (GalCiv, Avarice, Entrepretner, thanks
to SDS) before Win95 is even available.  BTW, 0% of them will be
compatible with Win95.

If on the slim chance that your prediction is correct, I will buy
Win95 *then* (most bugs are probably patched by then).  What do I
lose?  Nothing.

>>>DOS apps are improved compared to running them in DOS also as far as
>>>I have seen.
>>
>>Not if you are running more than one at a time, a few Win95 beta
>>testers posted that one DOS app will slow down the whole system.
>
>When could you EVER multitask games in DOS or Win3.x?  You never could!
>It is true that Win95 multitasking of DOS is not very quick but it serves
>its purpose.

Huh?  My point is running ONE DOS app will slowdown the whole
*Win95* system.  If that's good enough for you fine, I will stick
with OS/2 which *can* multitask DOS apps *without* the whole
system slowing down.

---
Oliver Chung
<khc...@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>                 __  __    _
+Department of Physics, The Ohio State University+  |  |(__' /`_)
+----------> My opinions are my own <------------+  |__|.__)/ /__

>Exactly my point, NT is what MS wants people to buy, Win95 is a
>stepping stone.
>
>>Perhaps Win95 won't be preemptive but perhaps Win96 (or whatever) will.
>
>There won't be a Win96, unless Win95 slips past Dec.  NT is the
>upgrade for Win95.

That is what I have said from the beginning.  I just know though that NT will undergo a 
few more changes before it becomes the NT that MS wants people to go from Win95 to.  In 
its present state, there is a 30% chance of getting a dos game to run without sound and a 
60% chance of getting a windows game to work.  They would be stupid to have users go to 
NT at this point.



>Using modem while multitasking is *exactly* what many OS/2 users
>switch to OS/2 for!  I routinely do 14.4k download while
>multitasking without *any* problems.  E.g. I started The 7th Guest
>while reading someone is having problems with it, switched back
>and forth to respond, no problems. Tell my what problems you have,
>I will see if my system can handle who you are trying to do.

Perhaps the problem was that I was using Windows Communications apps while trying to run 
a dos game on top of it.  




>I look forward to your Win95 games which will get 90% of games'
>market (I would be interested to see how MS force those DOS gamers
>to buy Win95 though).  

It has already been announced that Falcon 4.0 which will be a major
upgrade from Falcon 3.0 will be Win95 ONLY.  This is fairly significant
because Win95 has not even become commmercial yet.  Are they placing a
large bet the Win95 will make it as an OS?  Probably not.  But, if you
have been a loyal OS/2 user for a while, you will realize that it has
only been recently that it has gotten any games developed for it.  I
sometimes walk into computer software stores to ask what kind of software
they have for OS/2 and they ususally say... Well, we have OS/2 Warp.


>While you wait, I will be happily playing
>both DOS and OS/2 games, and I may have already got a few
>*multithreaded* OS/2 games (GalCiv, Avarice, Entrepretner, thanks
>to SDS) before Win95 is even available.  BTW, 0% of them will be
>compatible with Win95.

How many games can Stardock Systems make though?  Realistically, if they are
the only company making games for OS/2 as it has appeared to me that they are,
then OS/2 really does not have any support or chance to become a major
market contender for games.  I can already see how compilers and other 
development tools are becoming 32bit and will only compile for Win 32s 
(which will be dead soon) and Win95 or Windows NT.  This is going to be a major
problem for OS/2 unless they license the Windows 95 technology.  

At this point, I have seen maybe 5 or 6 games in development 
specifically for OS/2.  I've tried GalCiv and it was pretty good.
The point is though that I can count the number of developers for
strictly OS/2 games on one hand.  Sure, there might be conversions 
like Sim City (which is a few years old) but you can get them for
other systems too.  My point is that without OS/2 having a more 
significant market share than do MS OS's, there won't be much development
for it.  I am not saying that OS/2 will always have this lack of
market share just that at this point it does.  

>If on the slim chance that your prediction is correct, I will buy
>Win95 *then* (most bugs are probably patched by then).  What do I
>lose?  Nothing.

Do you honestly think that the chance is that slim?  Most people know
that NT is going to be the future OS... It has jumped across many 
platforms and now onto Power PC (OS/2 was supposed to do that quite
a while ago I thought).  MS is not going anywhere in terms of market
share.  And, you and I both know that there will be a huge amount of
games developed for Win95.  

>>>>DOS apps are improved compared to running them in DOS also as far as
>>>>I have seen.
>>>
>>>Not if you are running more than one at a time, a few Win95 beta
>>>testers posted that one DOS app will slow down the whole system.
>>
>>When could you EVER multitask games in DOS or Win3.x?  You never could!
>>It is true that Win95 multitasking of DOS is not very quick but it serves
>>its purpose.
>
>Huh?  My point is running ONE DOS app will slowdown the whole
>*Win95* system.  If that's good enough for you fine, I will stick
>with OS/2 which *can* multitask DOS apps *without* the whole
>system slowing down.

And you can't do that in Win95.  It just takes a little bit of
setting up to do.  But then again OS/2 never takes any setting up
to make DOS games work, does it?

John Marconi
UIUC Computer Science  

In <3oler0$5...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu (John Marconi) writes:

[deleted]
>
>>Using modem while multitasking is *exactly* what many OS/2 users
>>switch to OS/2 for!  I routinely do 14.4k download while
>>multitasking without *any* problems.  E.g. I started The 7th Guest

[delete]

>Perhaps the problem was that I was using Windows Communications apps while trying to run
>a dos game on top of it.

I have read about people running Windows comm in OS/2 without
problems, ask in c.o.o.misc.  I use Telemate (DOS comm) to do
14.4k download in OS/2 while multitasking without any CRC errors,
CPU load roughly 15-20%.

>>I look forward to your Win95 games which will get 90% of games'
>>market (I would be interested to see how MS force those DOS gamers
>>to buy Win95 though).
>
>It has already been announced that Falcon 4.0 which will be a major
                     ^^^^^^^^^
>upgrade from Falcon 3.0 will be Win95 ONLY.  This is fairly significant

That's the key word here, "announced", still more vaporware.  As I
said, I will believe it when I see it.  Tell me about them when
you can buy them.

[delete]

>At this point, I have seen maybe 5 or 6 games in development
>specifically for OS/2.  I've tried GalCiv and it was pretty good.
>The point is though that I can count the number of developers for
>strictly OS/2 games on one hand.  Sure, there might be conversions

So what?  I can also count the number of developers for *strictly*
Win95 games on one hand (perhaps even no hand, did those
developers said they won't do DOS anymore?).  You can just find a
new game annoucement here or there, but the companies are not
abandoning DOS.

[delete]

>>If on the slim chance that your prediction is correct, I will buy
>>Win95 *then* (most bugs are probably patched by then).  What do I
>>lose?  Nothing.
>
>Do you honestly think that the chance is that slim?  Most people know

Yes, I do think that the chance for Win95 games dominating
completely as DOS games do now is slim.  A sizable chunk is
possible (50-60%), but >90%? not likely.

>that NT is going to be the future OS... It has jumped across many
>platforms and now onto Power PC (OS/2 was supposed to do that quite
>a while ago I thought).  MS is not going anywhere in terms of market
>share.  And, you and I both know that there will be a huge amount of
>games developed for Win95.

No, I don't know that there will be a huge amount of games
developed for Win95, I have yet to see even *one* that is more
than just a DOS port.  Perhaps you have a crystal ball showing you
the future, I don't have one.

Any Win95 games available?  Even Win95 is not available!  What's
the point of talking about Win95?  I can buy Win95 *if* it becomes
dominant.  I don't get any advantage buying Win95 this year (or
the next) except the satisfaction of being an unwilling beta
tester for MS.  You and I (and most gamers) know that 1.0 releases
are buggy, at least wait for the first patch before buying.

I use OS/2 now, because it's the best (IMHO) *now*, there are
games (both DOS and OS/2) available *now* that I can play.  When
OS/2 died and Win95 becomes dominant, I will buy it then to play
those *available* games, and I lose nothing in the process.

>>>When could you EVER multitask games in DOS or Win3.x?  You never could!
>>>It is true that Win95 multitasking of DOS is not very quick but it serves
>>>its purpose.
>>
>>Huh?  My point is running ONE DOS app will slowdown the whole
>>*Win95* system.  If that's good enough for you fine, I will stick
>>with OS/2 which *can* multitask DOS apps *without* the whole
>>system slowing down.
>
>And you can't do that in Win95.  It just takes a little bit of
>setting up to do.  But then again OS/2 never takes any setting up
>to make DOS games work, does it?

But then again, DOS never takes any setting up to make DOS games
work, does it?

The point is it takes *less* work in OS/2 to set up a game than
DOS: no bootdisk, no messing around to get that little bit more
conventional memory (I get 638704 bytes of conventional memory in
OS/2's DOS box by just loading DOS high), I can even run a game
that requires *more* memory than I physically have.  And once set
up, I can run it (and multitask) any time without rebooting.

---
Oliver Chung
<khc...@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>                 __  __    _
+Department of Physics, The Ohio State University+  |  |(__' /`_)
+----------> My opinions are my own <------------+  |__|.__)/ /__

>>>I look forward to your Win95 games which will get 90% of games'
>>>market (I would be interested to see how MS force those DOS gamers
>>>to buy Win95 though).
>>
>>It has already been announced that Falcon 4.0 which will be a major
>                     ^^^^^^^^^
>>upgrade from Falcon 3.0 will be Win95 ONLY.  This is fairly significant
>
>That's the key word here, "announced", still more vaporware.  As I
>said, I will believe it when I see it.  Tell me about them when
>you can buy them.

Why would you think that this is vaporware?  I have seen pictures of the 
game about 4 or 5 months ago.  As of this point, all Win95 games have to 
be vaporware because it would be silly to sell them before the OS is out. 
And, in this case, there is only ONE OS/2 only game which is not vaporware 
being GalCiv.  All of the others have pics or problematic betas.  So, tell 
me all about the vast amounts of games coming to OS/2 when they arrive or 
are anounced.


>>At this point, I have seen maybe 5 or 6 games in development
>>specifically for OS/2.  I've tried GalCiv and it was pretty good.
>>The point is though that I can count the number of developers for
>>strictly OS/2 games on one hand.  Sure, there might be conversions
>
>So what?  I can also count the number of developers for *strictly*
>Win95 games on one hand (perhaps even no hand, did those
>developers said they won't do DOS anymore?).  You can just find a
>new game annoucement here or there, but the companies are not
>abandoning DOS.

How about any company that produces Windows games?  I am sure that they 
will be very happy to move right on to programming Windows 95 games.  It 
in fact will not be that hard to port old or new games to 95.  As for DOS 
games, sure they are still in production... companies are waiting to see 
how good Win95 will be.  Companies have seen OS/2 for years and there are 
barely any games to show for it.

>>>If on the slim chance that your prediction is correct, I will buy
>>>Win95 *then* (most bugs are probably patched by then).  What do I
>>>lose?  Nothing.
>>
>>Do you honestly think that the chance is that slim?  Most people know
>
>Yes, I do think that the chance for Win95 games dominating
>completely as DOS games do now is slim.  A sizable chunk is
>possible (50-60%), but >90%? not likely.

If you count all of the DOS and Windows game on the market now, there is 
probably around 99% market share.  This is because these two OS's are 
dominant.  I am saying that the dominant OS will get most of the games.  
As long as Win95 dominates, I am willing to bet that Win95 games will 
dominate.  And, as far as I can tell, it is going to be a good year for 
Microsoft.  



>>that NT is going to be the future OS... It has jumped across many
>>platforms and now onto Power PC (OS/2 was supposed to do that quite
>>a while ago I thought).  MS is not going anywhere in terms of market
>>share.  And, you and I both know that there will be a huge amount of
>>games developed for Win95.
>
>No, I don't know that there will be a huge amount of games
>developed for Win95, I have yet to see even *one* that is more
>than just a DOS port.  Perhaps you have a crystal ball showing you
>the future, I don't have one.

If the current state of OS/2 development of games does not change, Win95 
will have a huge amount of games for it in the future.  Certainly in a few 
years, no companies will develope for DOS anymore and I am sure that those 
game companies will not just die out of business.  They will most likely 
move on to Win95 if they haven't already.  There are hordes of people 
waiting to buy Win95 when it is released and there will be hordes of 
companies attempting to get new games out for Win 95.


>Any Win95 games available?  Even Win95 is not available!  What's
>the point of talking about Win95?  I can buy Win95 *if* it becomes
>dominant.  I don't get any advantage buying Win95 this year (or
>the next) except the satisfaction of being an unwilling beta
>tester for MS.  You and I (and most gamers) know that 1.0 releases
>are buggy, at least wait for the first patch before buying.

I hardly think that this is true by now.  There are roughly 500,000 beta 
testers now which is the largest testing program for a piece of software 
ever.  I believe that there will be very few bugs by the release of the 
software.  Most bugs have probably already been found by those beta 
testers.  These are not just run of the mill testers though, these are 
testers who pay $32 to hack the crap out of the system to find problems.  
I am sure it won't be as buggy as you think.


>I use OS/2 now, because it's the best (IMHO) *now*, there are
>games (both DOS and OS/2) available *now* that I can play.  When
>OS/2 died and Win95 becomes dominant, I will buy it then to play
>those *available* games, and I lose nothing in the process.

Fine, now OS/2 is the best for games and I will agree with you.  But, to
me at least, the future for OS/2 looks bleak.  I can't realistically see
them gaining any sort of dominance in the market and don't think that
there will be nearly as many OS/2 only games as Win95 games.  I don't 
understand why a company would produce games for a lesser audience.


>>>Huh?  My point is running ONE DOS app will slowdown the whole
>>>*Win95* system.  If that's good enough for you fine, I will stick
>>>with OS/2 which *can* multitask DOS apps *without* the whole
>>>system slowing down.
>>
>>And you can't do that in Win95.  It just takes a little bit of
>>setting up to do.  But then again OS/2 never takes any setting up
>>to make DOS games work, does it?
>
>But then again, DOS never takes any setting up to make DOS games
>work, does it?
>
>The point is it takes *less* work in OS/2 to set up a game than
>DOS: no bootdisk, no messing around to get that little bit more
>conventional memory (I get 638704 bytes of conventional memory in
>OS/2's DOS box by just loading DOS high), I can even run a game
>that requires *more* memory than I physically have.  And once set
>up, I can run it (and multitask) any time without rebooting.

That is not really true though.  Have you ever gotten Under a Killing
Moon to work in OS/2?  There are games that do not work for OS/2 and you
have to reboot anyway.  In Dos, the worst that you have to do is get QEMM, 
and reboot if a program doesn't like memory managers. 

John Marconi 
UIUC Computer Science 

In <3olve9$p...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu (John Marconi) writes:
>
>>>>I look forward to your Win95 games which will get 90% of games'
>>>>market (I would be interested to see how MS force those DOS gamers
>>>>to buy Win95 though).
>>>
>>>It has already been announced that Falcon 4.0 which will be a major
>>                     ^^^^^^^^^
>>>upgrade from Falcon 3.0 will be Win95 ONLY.  This is fairly significant
>>
>>That's the key word here, "announced", still more vaporware.  As I
>>said, I will believe it when I see it.  Tell me about them when
>>you can buy them.
>
>Why would you think that this is vaporware?  I have seen pictures of the
>game about 4 or 5 months ago.  As of this point, all Win95 games have to

Announced but unrelease software *is by definition* vaporware.
E.g. Win95 screen shots have been seen at least a year ago now.

>be vaporware because it would be silly to sell them before the OS is out.
>And, in this case, there is only ONE OS/2 only game which is not vaporware

At least I have one, that's my point.

>being GalCiv.  All of the others have pics or problematic betas.  So, tell
>me all about the vast amounts of games coming to OS/2 when they arrive or
>are anounced.

Sure, no problem.  But please keep in mind that I am not the one
saying "OS/2 will get 90% of games market".  Having a few nice
game for it is a fine addition to the available DOS games.

>>>At this point, I have seen maybe 5 or 6 games in development
>>>specifically for OS/2.  I've tried GalCiv and it was pretty good.
>>>The point is though that I can count the number of developers for
>>>strictly OS/2 games on one hand.  Sure, there might be conversions
>>
>>So what?  I can also count the number of developers for *strictly*
>>Win95 games on one hand (perhaps even no hand, did those
>>developers said they won't do DOS anymore?).  You can just find a
>>new game annoucement here or there, but the companies are not
>>abandoning DOS.
>
>How about any company that produces Windows games?  I am sure that they
>will be very happy to move right on to programming Windows 95 games.  It

I am not quite sure, as they will be abandoning the current
millions of Win3.x users.  I will wait until most of them have
upgraded before jumping on, which takes a couple years at *least*.

>in fact will not be that hard to port old or new games to 95.  As for DOS
>games, sure they are still in production... companies are waiting to see
>how good Win95 will be.  Companies have seen OS/2 for years and there are
>barely any games to show for it.

Of course, until Warp, the user base of OS/2 is not big enough to
support commercial games nor did IBM take any effort to advertise
OS/2.  Some IBMer have taken a hostile view of somebody developing
games for their mission critical platform!  But things have
changed now, although I don't think everybody under the sun will
develop games for OS/2, but it's a viable game platform now.

>>>Do you honestly think that the chance is that slim?  Most people know
>>
>>Yes, I do think that the chance for Win95 games dominating
>>completely as DOS games do now is slim.  A sizable chunk is
>>possible (50-60%), but >90%? not likely.
>
>If you count all of the DOS and Windows game on the market now, there is
>probably around 99% market share.  This is because these two OS's are
>dominant.  I am saying that the dominant OS will get most of the games.

Most != 99%.  I highly doubt DOS/Win have 99% of games market,
what happened to the Mac?  I trust about 80% is closer.  And the
point is, even DOS/Win is dominant now, Mac is still a viable
platform.  In the same way, even if Win95 dominates, OS/2 will
still be a viable platform.  And porting from Win95 to OS/2 is
*much* easier than DOS/Win to OS/2, due the similarities in design
(flat application address, multithreading, etc).

>As long as Win95 dominates, I am willing to bet that Win95 games will
>dominate.  And, as far as I can tell, it is going to be a good year for
>Microsoft.

We will see, I say 1995 a bad year for MS.

>>>share.  And, you and I both know that there will be a huge amount of
>>>games developed for Win95.
>>
>>No, I don't know that there will be a huge amount of games
>>developed for Win95, I have yet to see even *one* that is more
>>than just a DOS port.  Perhaps you have a crystal ball showing you
>>the future, I don't have one.
>
>If the current state of OS/2 development of games does not change, Win95
>will have a huge amount of games for it in the future.  Certainly in a few

I don't think OS/2 games development will not change, IBM is
starting to push game developments in OS/2, released a game
development kits, more advertising, etc.

>years, no companies will develope for DOS anymore and I am sure that those
>game companies will not just die out of business.  They will most likely
>move on to Win95 if they haven't already.  There are hordes of people
>waiting to buy Win95 when it is released and there will be hordes of
>companies attempting to get new games out for Win 95.

More wishful thinking.  As I said, I will believe it *when* I see
it.  Even if (a big if) all the above is true, I can buy Win95
when it happens.  There is no point in buying an OS now so that I
can play games 1-2 years later, I'd rather buy the OS 1-2 years
later along with the games.

>>Any Win95 games available?  Even Win95 is not available!  What's
>>the point of talking about Win95?  I can buy Win95 *if* it becomes
>>dominant.  I don't get any advantage buying Win95 this year (or
>>the next) except the satisfaction of being an unwilling beta
>>tester for MS.  You and I (and most gamers) know that 1.0 releases
>>are buggy, at least wait for the first patch before buying.
>
>I hardly think that this is true by now.  There are roughly 500,000 beta
>testers now which is the largest testing program for a piece of software

Nope, not beta testers.  That 50k copies is called "Preview", it's
for you to *evaluate* Win95, not for you to give bug reports.

>ever.  I believe that there will be very few bugs by the release of the
>software.  Most bugs have probably already been found by those beta
>testers.  These are not just run of the mill testers though, these are
>testers who pay $32 to hack the crap out of the system to find problems.
>I am sure it won't be as buggy as you think.

Many of those tester are not going to "hack the crap out of the
system to find problems", most of them will just install it, play
around with it, and that's it.  Only people who are *paid* to do
so will "hack the crap out of the system to find problems", people
*paying* for the beta is for a "first look".

>>I use OS/2 now, because it's the best (IMHO) *now*, there are
>>games (both DOS and OS/2) available *now* that I can play.  When
>>OS/2 died and Win95 becomes dominant, I will buy it then to play
>>those *available* games, and I lose nothing in the process.
>
>Fine, now OS/2 is the best for games and I will agree with you.  But, to
>me at least, the future for OS/2 looks bleak.  I can't realistically see
>them gaining any sort of dominance in the market and don't think that
>there will be nearly as many OS/2 only games as Win95 games.  I don't
>understand why a company would produce games for a lesser audience.

Even if it's true, fine, I will switch to Win95 *if* and *when*
OS/2 is not longer the best for me.  But I highly doubt if it will
happen, and it's not a concern to me now.

>>The point is it takes *less* work in OS/2 to set up a game than
>>DOS: no bootdisk, no messing around to get that little bit more
>>conventional memory (I get 638704 bytes of conventional memory in
>>OS/2's DOS box by just loading DOS high), I can even run a game
>>that requires *more* memory than I physically have.  And once set
>>up, I can run it (and multitask) any time without rebooting.
>
>That is not really true though.  Have you ever gotten Under a Killing
>Moon to work in OS/2?  There are games that do not work for OS/2 and you
>have to reboot anyway.  In Dos, the worst that you have to do is get QEMM,
>and reboot if a program doesn't like memory managers.

In DOS, you almost always have to reboot to play a game and then
reboot after it.  In OS/2, the worst case is reboot to DOS to play
the game and boot back to OS/2 later, looks similar to me.  BTW, I
don't have UKM, I did played XCOM(CD), Arena, Star Trail(CD), AOE,
LOL, 7th Guest and Descent in OS/2 tho' (and of course GalCiv).

---
Oliver Chung
<khc...@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>                 __  __    _
+Department of Physics, The Ohio State University+  |  |(__' /`_)
+----------> My opinions are my own <------------+  |__|.__)/ /__

>Of course, until Warp, the user base of OS/2 is not big enough to
>support commercial games nor did IBM take any effort to advertise
>OS/2.  Some IBMer have taken a hostile view of somebody developing
>games for their mission critical platform!  But things have
>changed now, although I don't think everybody under the sun will
>develop games for OS/2, but it's a viable game platform now.

I have generally heard and thought that Warp was just an inbetween
OS for a lot of people.  DOS/Windows combination is just a pain and
NT is not for everyone (especially gamers).  I am sure that a lot
of companies will wait to see what happens after august when Win95
is out (hopefully).  Then, and only then will anyone be able to 
evaluate how much of a viable platform OS/2 is.





>>If you count all of the DOS and Windows game on the market now, there is
>>probably around 99% market share.  This is because these two OS's are
>>dominant.  I am saying that the dominant OS will get most of the games.
>
>Most != 99%.  I highly doubt DOS/Win have 99% of games market,
>what happened to the Mac?  I trust about 80% is closer.  And the
>point is, even DOS/Win is dominant now, Mac is still a viable
>platform.  In the same way, even if Win95 dominates, OS/2 will
>still be a viable platform.  And porting from Win95 to OS/2 is
>*much* easier than DOS/Win to OS/2, due the similarities in design
>(flat application address, multithreading, etc).


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
viable presently, but, if Win95 takes over (like MS wants), then IBM
might just give up on OS/2.  I have heard some reports of this happening
in magazines.  The porting problem might not even be an issue though.
How long did it take for Sim City to come out for OS/2?  A lot of
companies want to develope for Win95 and NT and hardly want to waste
any time developing for OS/2.  Porting may be easier from Win95 - OS/2
than from DOS - OS/2 but I hardly think it will be easy.


>>>No, I don't know that there will be a huge amount of games
>>>developed for Win95, I have yet to see even *one* that is more
>>>than just a DOS port.  Perhaps you have a crystal ball showing you
>>>the future, I don't have one.
>>
>>If the current state of OS/2 development of games does not change, Win95
>>will have a huge amount of games for it in the future.  Certainly in a 
few
>
>I don't think OS/2 games development will not change, IBM is
>starting to push game developments in OS/2, released a game
>development kits, more advertising, etc.

Fine, if it changes it changes, it can only promote good competition
across platforms.  We will soon see though how much people believe
enough in OS/2 to develope for it like they now develope for Windows/DOS.


>>I hardly think that this is true by now.  There are roughly 500,000 beta
>>testers now which is the largest testing program for a piece of software
>
>Nope, not beta testers.  That 50k copies is called "Preview", it's
>for you to *evaluate* Win95, not for you to give bug reports.

NOT TRUE.  With Win95 there comes Microsoft Network and special editors
for you to fill in bug reports.  In fact, giving a bug report is just
as easy as going onto MSN, pressing a button and typing in what is wrong.
Anyone who cared enough to get the Beta version surely is considering
the full version when it is released... and if things aren't right in
the Beta, they will submit reports to get them right in the final release.





>>That is not really true though.  Have you ever gotten Under a Killing
>>Moon to work in OS/2?  There are games that do not work for OS/2 and you
>>have to reboot anyway.  In Dos, the worst that you have to do is get 
QEMM,
>>and reboot if a program doesn't like memory managers.
>
>In DOS, you almost always have to reboot to play a game and then
>reboot after it.  In OS/2, the worst case is reboot to DOS to play
>the game and boot back to OS/2 later, looks similar to me.  BTW, I
>don't have UKM, I did played XCOM(CD), Arena, Star Trail(CD), AOE,
>LOL, 7th Guest and Descent in OS/2 tho' (and of course GalCiv).

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
on one boot.  Anyway, booting to DOS under OS/2 is a very risky thing in
my encounters.  I once booted to DOS, installed 200 megs on the drive
with OS/2 installed on it, and booted back to OS/2.  My OS/2 would not
find any files it was using previously giving me shared space errors.
Sometimes, OS/2 would get back to its normal desktop and just stop.  The
dual boot for OS/2 needs  a lot of work.  In DOS, you just press reset
and everything is great.

One other thing about OS/2 that upsets me is the fact that they make you
pay for simple utilities.  With competitive gaming against others becoming
so popular, a link to the internet is vital.  I am not saying that the
OS/2 bonus pack isn't good - BUT, they can't even include a simple tcp/ip
startup pack.  You have to buy that for an extra $150.00.  Without it, no
Networking (with ethernet cards) over the Inet is allowed.  For me, that
was a major reason to try alternatives... BTW, MS releases all of their
TCP/IP drives as shareware (so much for being totally monopolistic I 
guess).

John Marconi 
UIUC Computer Science

In article <3olve9$p...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
John Marconi <mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>I don't 
>understand why a company would produce games for a lesser audience.

Because at least initially, there's no competition.  If you're writing a
DOS or Windows game, you're going to need tons of money to even put it in a
box that will stand out on the shelf, or you'd better make the "first hit
free" (e.g. Doom), in which case, it'd better be a *damn* good game (like
Doom).  And if you're a small company, it's getting pretty hard to compete
with the likes of Lucas Arts.

Whereas, the OS/2 game market is empty--if you write a game, you have a
smallish market, sure, but you also have almost no competition.  People
will hear about your game, people will play it, and you'll sell (quite
possibly) more copies than you would have writing for a much bigger, but
overcrowded, market.

Adam

-- 
ad...@io.com | ad...@phoenix.princeton.edu | Viva HEGGA! | Save the choad!
"Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep" : Pynchon
64,928 | TEAM OS/2 |   "Ich habe einen Bierbauch!"   |  Linux  | Fnord
You can have my PGP passphrase when you pry it from my cold, dead brain.

In article <3of2ea$6...@news.xmission.com>, dfa...@xmission.com says...

>WAIT A MINUTE!!! - I thought preemptive multitasking was one of the 
things
>that WIN95 was not going to include....I've run the beta and was not
>too impressed with the speed of thread changing, if it's preemptive...

Windows 95 will have preemptive multitasking, but it will *not*
multitask Windows 3.x applications preemptively.  So any apps
written specifically for Windows 95 will be multitasked properly.

I too have "run the beta", and was quite impressed with overall
speed of operation.  I believe there is a problem with multi-threaded
applications though.
--
Stephen Oakes    CSIRO Division of Building, Construction and Engineering
                 Post Office Box 56, Highett, Victoria, Australia   3190
Internet: ste...@mel.dbce.csiro.au  Tel: +61 3 252 6000 Fax: +61 3 252 
6249
=========================================================================
==

In <3omb8q$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu (John Marconi) writes:

I apologize to other gamers if this is becoming tiring for you, I
will move to email after this unless major mis-information about
OS/2 is concerned (such as IBM is going to drop OS/2).

[deleted]
>
>>Most != 99%.  I highly doubt DOS/Win have 99% of games market,
>>what happened to the Mac?  I trust about 80% is closer.  And the
>>point is, even DOS/Win is dominant now, Mac is still a viable
>>platform.  In the same way, even if Win95 dominates, OS/2 will
>>still be a viable platform.  And porting from Win95 to OS/2 is
>>*much* easier than DOS/Win to OS/2, due the similarities in design
>>(flat application address, multithreading, etc).
>
>
>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.




>viable presently, but, if Win95 takes over (like MS wants), then IBM
>might just give up on OS/2.  I have heard some reports of this happening

This is one thing I firmly believe won't happen.  The simple
reason is that OS/2 is a strategic product for IBM, e.g. They need
to have their *own* PC OS for those PC connected the their
mainframes (big bucks).  And there are a lot of banks and ATM
machines running OS/2, IBM can't just "drop" OS/2 like that.  They
will support OS/2 even if they (and their big corperate clients)
are the only people using it.

>in magazines.  The porting problem might not even be an issue though.

Those mags have been predicting the death of OS/2 for literally
years, at least since around the release of NT (the ex-OS/2-
killer).  They say the same now when Win95 (the current OS/2-
killer) is about to be released.  And they will no doubt say the
same this time next year when MS starts to hype Cairo (the next
OS/2-killer).  When you trace the source of these "predictions",
most likely they are just repeating things from other mags.  The
recent one seems to even come from a MS rep!  And IBM have send a
not so polite letter refuting those "predictions" AFAI remember.

But more importantly, back to ***games*** below...

>How long did it take for Sim City to come out for OS/2?  A lot of
>companies want to develope for Win95 and NT and hardly want to waste
>any time developing for OS/2.  Porting may be easier from Win95 - OS/2
>than from DOS - OS/2 but I hardly think it will be easy.

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.

>>In DOS, you almost always have to reboot to play a game and then
>>reboot after it.  In OS/2, the worst case is reboot to DOS to play
>>the game and boot back to OS/2 later, looks similar to me.  BTW, I
>
>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.

>on one boot.  Anyway, booting to DOS under OS/2 is a very risky thing in
>my encounters.  I once booted to DOS, installed 200 megs on the drive
>with OS/2 installed on it, and booted back to OS/2.  My OS/2 would not
>find any files it was using previously giving me shared space errors.
>Sometimes, OS/2 would get back to its normal desktop and just stop.  The

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.

>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.

[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.

---
Oliver Chung
<khc...@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>                 __  __    _
+Department of Physics, The Ohio State University+  |  |(__' /`_)
+----------> My opinions are my own <------------+  |__|.__)/ /__

>>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

In article <3oo24a$l...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu (John Marconi) says:
>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.

For any operating system to stay around, it needs to establish a base
of users...  many people are buying computers and using the same
software at home as work and vice-versa.  By targeting the home, they
can get IS' for companies to implement it.

>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.

There are shareware utilities that can resize partitions, so this may
not be too much of a problem.

>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.

Networking is becoming more common, true, but not many people have it
in there homes...  A lot of these network games are played at work, at
computer labs at the local college or university, etc.  Windows 95 isn't
the catch-all solution to networking, either.  It can't do Personal
NetWare and using Novell's NDS Client crashes the machine.  There are
several beta testers (not Preview customers) here that receive new
builds every week or so, something that Previewers do not get.  The
beta is not as stable one would think; every machine with Windows 95
either crashes or needs to be rebooted every couple of days.  Compared
to OS/2, this is miserable -- I've had my machine up for a month without
any problems before.

I don't think that many companies will port their games to Windows 95
right away because of the amount of problems that can occur.  Games are
not always the robust programs that we would like them to be.  What
happens when you have it running in a system that tries to multitask it?
The programmers would need to find a way to speed up the code without
resorting to any tricks that work fine in a single-tasking DOS.  What
about the number of drivers and DLL's that take up conventional memory?
Even in Windows 95, conventional memory still can cause havoc.

William Hutton
University of Colorado, Division of Continuing Education

In <3oj8vk$g...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, mar...@ux5.cso.uiuc.edu (John Marconi) writes:
[Lots Munched]

>I don't think that that is true.  I run both of them now and I firmly 
>believe that NT can handle many more programs simultaneously than can 
>OS/2.  And, even with NT's vast hardware requirements, it seems to be much 
>quicker at loading them simultaneously.  OS/2 also has some serious other 
>problems that don't seem to make it practical for many users.  For 
>instance, using the modem while multitasking another program causes severe 
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>problems (at least for me it did).  Also, from what I've seen, NT has very 
>similar hardware compatibility as does OS/2.  
>

I just want to point out this is why I moved from DOS/WIN 3.1 to OS/2 when 
2.0 came out. I could finally multitask on a PC while downloading. This has
always worked flawlessly for me under OS/2 and it sucks under NT because
there aren't any Win32 comm programs released yet.

Glenn Davies
Vancouver BC

On 8 May 1995, John Marconi wrote:

> Why would you think that this is vaporware?  I have seen pictures of the 
> game about 4 or 5 months ago.  As of this point, all Win95 games have to 
> be vaporware because it would be silly to sell them before the OS is out. 

You contradict yourself -- first you ask why Win95 games are vaporware 
then you say that they _have_ to be vaporware because Win95 isn't released 
yet.

> And, in this case, there is only ONE OS/2 only game which is not vaporware 
> being GalCiv.  All of the others have pics or problematic betas.  So, tell 

There are others, but most are small.  Of course, there is SimCity 
Classic for OS/2, but it obviously isn't an OS/2-only game (and it's a 
dog besides).

> me all about the vast amounts of games coming to OS/2 when they arrive or 
> are anounced.

SDS has announced two to be released latter this year:  Avarice (with 
CSS) and Entrepeneur (sp?).  Both start betaing very soon.  You can get 
in on it, if you likd :-).

> How about any company that produces Windows games?  I am sure that they 
> will be very happy to move right on to programming Windows 95 games.  It 
> in fact will not be that hard to port old or new games to 95.  As for DOS 

>From what I understand, it is relatively hard to port from 16-bit code to
32-bit code.  It is much easier to port from 32-bit to 32-bit.  Therefore,
I would expect that a greater number of ISVs will be willing to port Win95
to OS/2 (and vice versa), so I suspect there will be a lot more apps
available for OS/2.  If a game developer writes a Win95 game, there will 
be little excuse not to port it to OS/2.

> games, sure they are still in production... companies are waiting to see 
> how good Win95 will be.  Companies have seen OS/2 for years and there are 
> barely any games to show for it.

Of course, that's because OS/2 was originally more business oriented and
IBM didn't consider game writing that important.  With the impact of
Galactic Civilizations, that has changed dramatically.  IBM has taken
notice.  Also, up until recently, it was very difficult to port from
16-bit Windows code to 32-bit OS/2 code.  With the advent of SMART
(promises 80% code conversion; says it reduces development time to 1/5th
of the original product) and the IBM/Lotus (at least I think it's Lotus,
anybody know?) Win95-to-OS/2 API mapping project in the works (suggesting
that Win95-to-OS/2 porting might be as simply as changing the parameters
of the compiler), there are more and more companies announcing ports to 
OS/2.  Why should games be any different?

> As long as Win95 dominates, I am willing to bet that Win95 games will 
> dominate.  And, as far as I can tell, it is going to be a good year for 
> Microsoft.  

You assume Win95 will dominate -- probably a pretty safe assumption, but 
I suspect it will not dominate to the extent that Win3.x does at the 
present time.  

> If the current state of OS/2 development of games does not change, Win95 
> will have a huge amount of games for it in the future.  Certainly in a few 
> years, no companies will develope for DOS anymore and I am sure that those 
> game companies will not just die out of business.  They will most likely 
> move on to Win95 if they haven't already.  There are hordes of people 

The current state of OS/2 development of games has already changed.  You 
have missed it.

And anything can happen in a few years.  I suspect Win95 will be
non-existent, as it is a technological dead-end.  In a few years,
MicroSoft will be convincing everybody to move to NT98 with a Win95-like
desktop.  As for the DOS programmers, they will be in a tough situation 
-- do they attempt to get a toe-hold in an blooted Windows market and 
most likely fail, or do they attempt to hedge their bets and develop 
simultaneously (or even solely) for OS/2 and be a bigger fish in a 
smaller pond?

> waiting to buy Win95 when it is released and there will be hordes of 
> companies attempting to get new games out for Win 95.

You also assume that there are a great many people waiting to buy Win95. 
The average user, I suspect, will be taking a wait and see attitude -- Joe
Blow computer user does not upgrade his operating system lightly (if,
indeed, he even has a clear understanding what the os is).  Most 
"upgrades" will probably come when the end user purchases a new computer 
with Win95 installed.

> Fine, now OS/2 is the best for games and I will agree with you.  But, to
> me at least, the future for OS/2 looks bleak.  I can't realistically see
> them gaining any sort of dominance in the market and don't think that
> there will be nearly as many OS/2 only games as Win95 games.  I don't 
> understand why a company would produce games for a lesser audience.

Sorry, we are not a "lesser" audience -- "smaller" yes :-).  And the 
reasons why a ISV might produce for OS/2 are simple:  7-10 million 
potential customers are nothing to sneeze at; fewer competitors, 
which helps market penetration; and it will be relatively easy to port 
between platforms.

JOHN

* John M. Martz:  Psychology Dept, UNC-CH  *                            *
|                 CB# 3270, Davie Hall     | B = f(P,E)                 |
|                 Chapel Hill, NC 27599    |          --Kurt Lewin      |
*                 JOHN_...@UNC.EDU       *                            *

In article <3oo71u$m...@lace.Colorado.EDU>
           William...@Colorado.EDU "William Hutton" writes:

> beta is not as stable one would think; every machine with Windows 95
> either crashes or needs to be rebooted every couple of days.  Compared
> to OS/2, this is miserable -- I've had my machine up for a month without
> any problems before.

Hmm strange how you have had a totally different experience of
OS2 Warp to me.  It crashed all the time for me.  Win95 is more
much more stable.  Strange eh?   That's why we need a balance in these
discussions :>
Time will tell.. tick tock..

-- 
Mark Rogers.
- Founder member of VFF - Veggie Freedom Fighters.
- Campaign for humain treatment of vegetables (including lettuce).

|> >>|> various other features. Also, no one mentions Plug & Play. Gamers will 
|> >>|> love this for not having to screw around with their new hardware on new 
|> >>|> machines. And, even if you have an older system and/or older hardware, 
|> >>|> Windows 95's Plug and Play will STILL help to make things easier for the 
|> >>|> average user, with better detection and some diagnostics for address, 
|> >>|> IRQ and DMA conflicts. This is better than what OS/2 Warp can muster. 
|> >>|> I'll be getting my preview copy of Windows '95 very soon, and I'm sure 
|> >>|> I'll never look at Warp after I start running Win '95.
|> >>|> 
|> >>|> Derrik Pates
|> >>|> dmp...@silver.sdsmt.edu
|> >>
|> >>Plug and Play sounds real nice, but I think nobody needs it. Why? There are
|> >>basically two kinds of computer users. The first kind knows all IO port addresses
|> >>and stuff, and as such doesn't need P&P. The second kind knows next to nothing
|> >>about the inside of a computer, and they probably buy a computer that has
|> >>everything installed. Even if they buy something new (say a soundcard or CDROM),
|> >>the suppliers of the hardware usually want to install the new item for them at
|> >>a minimal charge. Therefore they don't need P&P either. A very small group of
|> >>computer users may not fit in either catagories, but why not let 'the
|> >>professional' handle your stuff if you're not completely sure what you need to
|> >>do? Installing a P&P device still means opening your PC and inserting it, so it'll
|> >>probably be too difficult for somebody without some knowledge on the hardware
|> >>itself.
|> >>And what if two P&P devices do not work together for some reason? Surely you can't
|> >>change jumpers or something, as they're meant to configure themselves. The only
|> >>solution would be to remove one of them and buy another one, defeating the entire
|> >>idea of P&P.
|> >>
|> >>In short, I don't thing P&P is that big an issue, and we don't need it either. If
|> >>you don't like looking at the inside of your computer, don't mess with it I say.
|> >>Leave the upgrading to people who know what they're doing (by the way, personally
|> >>I know my way around the inside of my PC quite well).

|> >No way.  Just because of a) the people who know computers know about dma and io, doesn't mean they 
|> >have to go through the same pain in the ass to configure a device.  And b)people who don't know, 
|> >how in the hell do you think they learn about the inside of the computers and dma and io, and not 
|> >to mention learn how to save thier money?  Do you think they buy some cutesy little cdrom that 
|> >says "see inside of computer.  see disk spin", or maybe, just maybe, they actually try to tough it 
|> >out themselves, and get it right, and get a great satisfaction + knowledge?  Jeesh, "I think P&P 
|> >is useless".how dumb

You're missing the point. Right now I have in my computer a scanner, an SB16 with
its own Midi port, a video grabber, a modem and a CDROM. Most of these use their
own IRQ, DMA and IO address, but I can install them all at once with my eyes
closed coz I know what I'm doing. If I am to believe the mags about upgrading it
is near impossible. Some time ago I removed my IDE and serial/parallel ports and
inserted one of those EIDE cards with new serial ports. No problem: take old
one out and insert new one. Plug and play anybody? In contrast, my roommate with
a 'Plug and Play' P60 with PCI bought an EIDE PCI card that was supposed to be
Plug and Play. NOT. After replacing the PCI IDE with the EIDE his harddrive
didn't work any more, so he quickly put in the old one. Plug and Play? Not really.
In theory this shouldn't happen. It's fine if they try to make things easier to
the computer novice, but I stick with my claim that even P&P devices are way to
difficult to install for complete novices. Incidently, I thought that Win9x has
encountered much delay because it should support P&P. It would be quite
hilarious if they a major factor for the delay would prove to be useless  :-)

Yet another Hfl 0.02,

Richard van Meurs (vme...@cs.utwente.nl)