G T Smith wrote:
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 4:42 AM, G T Smith
Not when first released .... some parts of the API did not work
Larry Stotler wrote: properly
(i.e. as described in the docs) for a couple of years... and without the web trying to find out what the hell was going on from IBM even as a 'privileged' customer was damn near impossible.... That was in the 1.x days. From 2.0 on, it was stable. I got my first copy at 2.1.
I was given the brief to write something fairly simple which rapidly became a nightmare on OS/2 (equivalent app with MFC proved to be fairly easy to bolt together).
As for running DOS programs, I ran a 3 node BBS on OS/2 for a while. Helped me have 1 machine instead of 4, because I could work while the BBS was running. I rarely ran into a DOS program that wouldn't run right. Now, the 1.x brain dead version was based on the 286, and you
Er no... 1.x made use of the ring security architecture (IIRC this was introduced with the 386 series)... DOS problems where mainly due to only being able to remap the first 16 interrupts and problems directly accessing the hardware (only the masochistic used the BIOS for video work then). On the OS/2 side the complete colormetric part was broken and the semaphore based multi-threading support was a horror story.
1.x ran on the 286. This was a point of contention between Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft wanted to go straight for the 386, but IBM had this strange idea that you deliver what you promised your customers.
If you only used text and never used TSRs, never played DOS games, or experimented with video capture, you would probably never notice :-)
So long as a majority of PCs come pre-installed with Windows, it will
Nope, this pre-dated this lock in... people went out and bought Windows 3.0/Dos because what they were given did not do the job (just try CP/M and PIP), and Windows 3 surprised everybody by its rapid adoption and this gave M$ the leverage to pull off this stunt (you would never get away with this unless the initial demand was in place)... IBM were stitched up on this but IBM seem to be putting the finger in the right place for M$ to tie the knots :-) ... by the time OS/2 v2 turned up most were no longer interested ....
I think, if you check the history, that Windows was included with DOS, when Microsoft told the vendors that if they wanted DOS, they had to include Windows. Soon almost every new computer came with Windows, with other OSs locked out.
A unix like equivalent on small systems was not initially of much interest for people who mainly worked with DEC minis and DOS (which was the UK Academic Environment preferred choice), and most small systems people introduced alias files which made the command line work like DOS/VMS/Tops, much to the despair of the Unix sys admins of those Unix based systems that were available :-)
I first used a PC after working with VAX/VMS on a VAX 11/780. It was a bit of a come down. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org