#New Amiga from SGI!
13 messages in this thread
Windoz is not an OS, it's a dos extender and a horrible kludge, so by it's very
nature it is and will be a resource hog. I have to wonder why on Earth the
32bit os are so large, NT and OS/2 are just huge! And I like OS/2 and use it
every day, but my gosh… 34 megs on my drive plus the 20 meg swap file….
Yes, things like OS/2 are huge, but it is important to take a hard look at what
takes so much space. First, the Amiga too would use a swap file if it could do
paging. Second, OS/2 has basically all of Windows in it, so there's a huge
amount of duplication in many ways. Third, things that don't come standard on
the Amiga like tons of help files, tons of utilities, bitmaps, sound files,
etc, etc., take up tons of space.
As far as NT goes, it's not possible to do a fair comparison with AmigaDOS,
because NT has SO much more. Multi-processor support, hardware abstraction,
networking built in, login and other security administration, enormous amounts
of help files again (megs and megs and megs of them). The RAM requirements
today are a bit ridiculous, but this may come down when it reaches a final
release. It's important to realize that a PC powerful enough to run NT still
only costs about $3500 and you've got one heck of a machine at that point that
outperforms any Amiga. While some people will probably never allow themselves
to get past the strangeness of ancient Intel architecture and the ugliness of
MS-DOS, millions will happily take advantage of cheap and powerful computing
capabilities. Microsoft certainly does a lot of things wrong, but they do more
right, and most of that by sheer force. And their developer support is
mind-boggling and free.
If you want something on a PC comparable to AmigaDOS, get GeoWorks or even
Coherent. They're tiny, elegant, efficient and inexpensive.
Paul.
Paul,
I'm not familiar with GeoWorks or Coherent but I think you're going a bit
far on $ for equal capabilities thing. I can only work with DOS or Doze or
OS/2 at my desk at work and I've yet to see one thing that any of those
could do that mi-Amiga couldn't do 8+ years ago. I'm not doing any
applicatons stuff with my work PC but still…ahhh I could go on for days
on this topic, sorry for butting in
Robb,
===> I'm not lying I got a sunburn today! (not bad) from Seattle! <===
> As far as NT goes, it's not possible to do a fair comparison with
> AmigaDOS, because NT has SO much more.
And SO much less — in the reliaability department. It's over a year late
and the clock is still ticking away. Never mind that this was supposed to
be replacement for DOS/Windows. Now Windows 4.0/Chicago is supposed to be,
sometime in `94-95 that is. I think MS's OS development department is
spread a little too thin.
// Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
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The latest news I have had on NT on Thursday (from a colleague at work
looking into some MS Forum in CIS) was
A) It's shipping NOW
B) It's designed for use with AT LEAST 16Megs RAM (20 Megs recommended)
C) It comes on CD-ROM but is available on 21 compressed HD disks as well
(which is about the same as OS/2 v2.1 I'm told)
D) There will be Visual C++ for NT
E) VC++/NT will take 80 Megs of HD space for the full installation
F) NT is not aimed at the average user (wouldn't think so with these
requirements) but rather developers only(??)
G) With different MAKE-Files you can develop for plain Windoze OR NT from
this platform.
Sounds like they really hit the big one and it should sell like
hotcakes… (big <G>!)
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ on AutoPilot 1.06………..
Chris:
Ever since I added a motherboard into the PC tower case I originally
bought just to hold my 5.25" Amiga devices I've been playing around with
several alternative OSes for PCs. First I tried OS/2 v2.0, but I had some
troubles with my mouse with it, and in general I didn't care too much for
it. As I had a small amount of Unix experience I then installed SCO Unix
on the machine for a short time, and then started playing with the
freeware Unix clones. via one of the other forums here on CIS I found a
real deal on Interactive SVR3.2 Unix (real Unix, not a clone), and I used
that for a while as well, but even with Interactive I wasn't able to get X
windows (the freeware version, not the $$$ one from Interactive) up and
running, and I really wanted a GUI, so when I heard about NeXT's special
promotion of their new NEXTSTEP for Intel Processors (NS/FIP), a full user
system, AND the developer systems (a $2700.00 list price package) selling
for only $299.00 I had to jump on it (even tho many Amiga fans consider
NeXT to be the competition, what I'd heard of it sounded VERY
interesting), and I'm glad I did! NS/FIP is basically BSD 4.3 running with
a Mach kernel, with their NEXTSTEP GUI running on top of it all. While
it's not X windows, I think it might even be better than X. If NeXT
continues their $299.00 pricing, or lowers the 'normal' package price even
close to it, I think it'll give NT a run for it's money. The biggest
problem with the special deal NeXT is running is that the 'evaluation kit'
(as they call it) isn't upgradable to future versions at all. Of course,
as long as they have this pricing deal on newer versions too, I wouldn't
mind paying $300.00 for the whole new OS when it comes out, as that's MUCH
cheaper than most 'high end' OS'es sell for.
Gee, I just noticed that I've been rambling on, so I'll end it here. But I
will say that if you want an alternative OS for a 486+ based PC, you
should checkout NEXTSTEP!
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
True, Windows is not an OS, but it's not the horrible kludge, MSDOS is!
For the foundation, Windows does alright, though why they didn't throw the
foundation out….
NT and OS/2 have the same problem as Windows on PC's, i.e. the still try
to stay backwards compatable, (same problem with Intel chips too.)
Bob Comer — Cruising the nets on AutoPilot from Cheyenne, Wyoming
How can you say it's not the kludge MSDOS is when Windows requires it?
Although, I mostly agree with your comments. IBM has always tried to be
everything for everybody. They end end up being nothing for no body
(That's the way I see it but, obviously I'm wrong). I do IBM every day on
mainframes, contrary to what some of the press may say they ain't going
away (any time soon). But, the jobs are drying up!
Robb,
—holy, h—, It's sunny! In Seattle!—
Nope their not going away, their mini/mainframe are still needed.
I even like the AS/400, that is on nice machine!
Bob Comer — Cruising the nets on AutoPilot from Cheyenne, Wyoming
Yes… Won't it be refreshing when we can finally put dos and the old ghosts of
the 8088 to bed….
Yep…
Bob Comer — Cruising the nets on AutoPilot from Cheyenne, Wyoming
Unfortunately, we've all got to deal with them (well most of us out here).
8088..88..88..88..I see it in my nightmares…(MS and IBM can be fun but,
you really gotta work at it!).
Robb
===> still sunburned in Seattle(!!!!) (via AP, of course) <===
> the 32bit os are so large, NT and OS/2 are just huge! And I like OS/2
> and use it every day, but my gosh… 34 megs on my drive plus the 20
> meg swap file….
I use OS/2 at work myself [heck, I _bought_ the OS so that I could use it
at work instead of Windoze], thankfully on a 486-33 w/16MB RAM and a 100MB
hard drive. Having seen OS/2 swap like mad on an 8MB system, I'm VERY
thankful I have 16 at work. BTW, I too have a 15MB+ OS/2 swap file.
But all in all, I'd rather use the Amiga. In the words of a friend of mine
— "It's more _FUN_ to use." This after 15 Minutes of seeing my A1200
strut it's stuff. Hmnn, I wonder if I can sneak this thing into the local
Software Etc…
// Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
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