JG>Nevertheless, the majority of device drivers, including ones
JG>that service most often assessed portions of the system such
JG>as the keyboard, mouse, and the file system, are still 16-bit legacy

   Does it really matter whether the keyboard uses a 16bit or a 32bit
device driver?  The data that comes from the keyboard is 16 bit and I
believe that the keyboard hardware interface is still 8 bit...  Also a few
quick (and probably inaccurate) mental calculations suggest that I would
have to type at 8000CPS for the keyboard interface to take any significant
portion of CPU time.  So why worry that much about it?  As long as the
device driver doesn't spin too much when blocking threads and the
applications do the right thing and don't poll it excessively then there
shouldn't be any problems.  The same thing applies to a mouse to a lesser
extent, however you could probably use more than 1% CPU time on a 386SX by
moving the mouse fast - but compared to the 100% CPU used to draw the mouse
pointer this is nothing!
    You're right that the fileing system is a problem - but there is
HPFS386...

JG>code from OS/2 1.0. Why? Because IBM doesn't want to spend the
JG>development money (nor time) on the Intel version of OS/2 that
JG>would be necessary to retool all of that 16-bit assembly code that

   If IBM are purposely holding back on development of the Intel OS/2 then
this should indicate that OS/2 for PPC is going to be released soon. 
Sounds good to me!

JG>    I guess that I'm just tired of hearing people apologize
JG>for IBM's unwillingness to spend development resources on getting
JG>rid of the last 16-bit vestiges of OS/2 dating back to 1.0. IBM
JG>is supposedly the largest computer company in the world. They should
JG>be able to afford this. If MS made a fully 32-bit OS (ie, NT), then
JG>IBM should be able to afford to do likewise.

    I used to think the same as you until I learnt more about these things. 
If the system bus is 16bit (ISA) and the devices are 8 or 16 bit then there
is generaly no great benefit to 32bit device drivers.  Most OS/2 device
drivers fall into this category.


   cya
___
 X MR/2 2.0 NR X OS/2: Outselling NT, all Unixes & System 7 combined!

--- Maximus/2 2.02