#DUAL HD BOOT
18 messages in this thread
Paul,
Now, now, calm down!! OS/2 may be a dead end, although I read more and
more about it and the usage seems to be on the increase. Although NT may be
better, will it ever be out before people will start shifting to OS/2 or
something else? Also, because NT will be such a resource hog, OS/2 may be
quite viable for people who don't have 150 Mhz Pentiums with 128 Meg RAM and
600 meg hard drives!! Certainly were I making a decision between OS/2 and NT,
from what little I know, I wouldn't chose NT because I don't have the
horsepower for it, but OS/2 works adequately and no worse than Windows 3.1.
Time will tell. I can see why IBM is so messed up though, trying to sell OS/2,
AIX, Windows, and PowerOpen (for PowerPC). Microsoft has one strategy:
scalable Windows. I know which I'll put my money on.
Paul,
Well, if by money you mean which stock would you buy, I would agree
that MS stock is likely a good future investment. However …. IBM price drops
may very well make it an interesting investment, too. I've been giving some
thought to both of them. However, I'd like to see the market take a 100 point
or so plunge before I picked up MS stock.
Well, you might not need the market drop, since Microsoft stock just dropped a
chunk by itself due to lower than expected earnings projections, I believe.
Re: IBM – everyone said it couldn't go below 50, and now it's at 42 or so.
It's probably a good long term bet, however. IBM has astounding underlying
strength.
Paul.
Paul,
Indeed. We have to remember that PCs are not IBM's only products.
However, if you read the newspaper stories the last day or so, the press seems
pretty intrigued by the new president's "lack of a vision" for IBM. Although
stories like that are usually meaningless, the unsophisticated market investor
is often likely to pay more attention to them than is warranted, so IBM may
drop some more. MS is, I think, a pretty good bet for the long term. They
have entrenched themselves in a massive software mav:rket that will never go
away. As long as there are computers, MS has a strong presence for the
software. I think they will be a good long term investment. I think there are
several other technology companies with strong positions for long term
investment. Quantum and Seagate, Motorola and Intel come to mind.
Re: stocks —
Hard drive makers I wouldn't bank on since it's a commodity market. Intel is
gigantic now, and will probably stay that way (and grow) if they keep the R&D
up. The key for them is what they will do for an encore following Pentium.
Microsoft is probably good for steady growth, but the value is already SO high.
Their sales per employee is now going down quite a lot, although still double
IBM's, I believe.
Now if you want a real crapshoot – buy Commodore <g>.
Paul,
Actually, CBM might not be a bad speculation. Companies that have
taken that kind of beating and nosedived, may turn into green if they get
bought out. Even one quarter's worth of GOOD news might be worth a point up,
which for a $4 stock is a nice short term return!!
Disk drive makers are producing a commodity product, but both Quantum
and Seagate have become well entrenched, so they may prove good investments.
Re: hard disk drive makers – right now, there's a HUGE oversupply of product
due to them all having ramped up lots of new capacity during the period of
major shortages last year. The disk drive business is a rat race. Definitely
fast improvements though! We just got in a 250MB 2.5" drive. Amazing.
Re: investing in Commodore – I don't like Maalox that much.
Paul.
Paul,
Well, I didn't say CBM was blue chip, did I? Speculation … that's
what it's about – Maalox! As for disk drives, well shortages and oversupplies
come and go in any business. Right now oversupply may drive profits down and,
hence, stock prices. So drive makers may become pretty good investment
opportunities. They may even look better if they have declining profits during
a down market. That double whammy could make their prices real attractive.
But, they are good investments if they have value worth investing in. Features
such as innovative product lines, good r&d, strength in their market,
survivability, etc. I think a couple of them may be worth looking at, anyway.
Besides, even if this isn't the time to buy, there may be better times down the
road. I'm only 10 years away from retirement, so I need those 50% a year
speculations!!
I'll bear disk drive makers in mind since I've been "speculating" in various
companies for a couple of years now. I'm probably 30 years from retirement,
but hopefully only 20! All this talk of SGI in here makes me grin since I
bought that stock a year ago, in which time it's doubled.
Take care, and good luck since I won't be around in this forum after the end of
this week.
Paul.
Paul,
Well, you've certainly done well with SGI. I never heard of them
before the thread here. Too bad! Hope your departure from the forum is only
temporary. If it's for holiday, have a good one.
I just read the artical in byte about the new power PC. and if they
build one with a soundblaster 16 built in and a fast VESA card with a
price of around $2300 I would be tempted. Now if we could just get
AmigaDos running on it we would be all set.
PowerPC definitely looks interesting (I read the same Byte issue). As for your
$2300 system – you will see that in a Pentium system within a year.
I personally don't think PowerPC will do much until NT is on it. The giant
hack they're doing to make Mac stuff run on it amazed me, but I guess they
don't have any choice. As for UNIX, well, still probably not for the masses.
"Well Ma'am, you just run fsck and it'll all be OK." or "Yes sir, that was
'grep', 'g'-'r'-'e'-'p', no sir, I don't have gas."
As for AmigaDOS on PowerPC – Exec shouldn't be hard to port, but the custom
chip stuff will be difficult.
Paul.
Steve,
According the press, NT is in duplication now, and will be available by
the middle of August.
Don
First they have to give free copies to all the people who bought the $69 beta
CD. That's more than 50,000 copies from what I've heard!
Don,
How long do you suppose it will take to duplicate enough floppies for
70 meg? 🙂
Microsoft doesn't need to duplicate floppies for the developers. All
Beta kits are CDROM. Last NT update took about 4 days to send out all
50,000 copies.
Steve Peters
Steve,
Lighten up, it was only a joke. We were doing a sendup on how to fit
70 megs worth of files on floppies. Although, they probably will have to have
some floppy versions once it's released. Not all the buyers will have CDROMs
nor want to spend the $500 to get one.