begin quoting Doug LaRue as of Wed, May 14, 2008 at 08:07:12AM -0700: > ** Reply to message from SJS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Tue, 13 May 2008 23:12:37 > -0700 > > > Early 90s X11 on a 386 with 5MB of RAM was terrible. It made MSWindows > > 3.x look good, but wasn't any (or much) worse than OS/2. But console > > access was *amazing*. > > Your comments were great up until this point. DOS/Windows was not even in > the same league as UNIX/X11 or OS/2 w/WPS in the early 90s. If you stripped
Indeed, if the hardware could support it. A 386 with 5MB of RAM wasn't good enough. Not by a long shot. > X11 of its network infrastructure and stripped OS/2 of its CORBA desktop, the > WPS, you might be able to compare but still not close enough IMO. DOS/Windows > was hardly an OS for more than single task computing with a "new" graphical > interface. Heck Borland had GUIs for DOS apps so Windows got you a common > print API and a icon based app launcher they called the desktop. It would have > died as it should have if Microsoft hadn't controlled the OEM channels > and used illegal licensing tactics. Yes, feature/UI-wise, MSWindows *sucked*. But it could at least keep up with the mouse and not swap itself to death. That's an important feature. A GUI that's painfull slow is worthless. > Besides that, the technical differences were immense with UNIX and > OS/2 being multitasking powerhouses. Sure they all had graphical app > facilities but there is way more to it than that. You're making the wrong argument to the wrong person. I'm an Amiga zealot; multi-tasking is no excuse for poor UI performance. > If you pulled out the OS/2 WPS and ran just the PM, OS/2 blew DOS/ > Windows away in 4MB of RAM. No doubt. > Throw another 4MB at it and you could be > running PMX( XServer for OS/2 ), the WPS shell, and both TCP/IP and Netware > networking and it was completely usable. I suspect that Linux/X11 would have been less painful with 8MB of RAM vs 5MB, and OS/2 might have been usable. I didn't have 8MB of RAM. > I know because I ran this on a 386/40 > in those days. I also ran Consensus UNIX on a 386/40 with X11 but even though > I didn't leverage the network capabilities of X, the multitasking was > well worth the effort compared to DOS/Windows. Only if you used > DOS/Windows as a graphical typewriter, could you possibly think they > were comparable to UNIX/X or OS/2-PM/WPS. If your UI sucks, it doesn't matter how shiny the back-end is, you won't be able to use it effectively. Nattering about how with more RAM it's all peaches and cream is just missing the point -- in a major way. > I see these same kinds of shallow comparisons going on today with > comparisons of the OLPC XO with things like the Intel Classmate PC and > the Asus Eee PC. They are only comparable if you stand back 40 feet > and look at them together. Totally bogus comparisons IMO because so > much of what was designed for and what the capabilities are is just > being left out. I'm wondering what you think I'm trying to say. -- Wow. Just...wow. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
