Hey Peter!

Jul 15 09:54 06, Peter Knapper wrote to Maurice Kinal:

 PK> That is so simple most people completely miss it, OS/2 is simply a 
 PK> much better DOS than DOS.

Heh, heh.  So is everything else.  ;-)

 PK> However I agree, DOS apps have inherent 
 PK> limitations and should be avoided wherever possible...

As far as output being compatible with DOS apps any OS can be if it really
wants to be.  If that wasn't possible then the libsmapi and libfidoconf I
am currently using wouldn't work and my messages wouldn't get beyond the
first uplink, which happens to be an OS/2 box running outdated DOS apps
btw.  :-)

 PK> Prior to OS/2 I ran Desqview on a 386 to multi-task DOS and that was 
 PK> a huge improvement over single tasking DOS, however after looking at 
 PK> OS/2 V1.0 and deciding to wait until PM became available,

I've seen simular in action.  The first time was a 386 laptop with Desqview
and he used the parallel port to network with.  We managed to get that to
work to a 486 with linux via a parallel cable between them.  I forget now
exactly how we got that to work but it did.  That was ages ago now but it
was fun at the time ... sort of.  It worked.

 PK> looking at OS/2 V1.2 (and backing off again due to its huge memory 
 PK> requirement, it need 4MB just to install), when OS/2 V1.3 came out, 
 PK> MS were pretty much out of the picture by then and the memory 
 PK> footprint had shrunk to something acceptable. I got my first 486 with 
 PK> 8MB of Memory just before OS/2 v2.0 Beta program was announced so I 
 PK> picked up OS/2 v1.3 and have never looked back since...

Right.  Somewhat simular story here except that I opted out for Linux
instead since it could more or less network right out of the box and to get
the same functionality with OS/2 would have cost a small fortune.  I didn't
have to think about it for too long.  Also made the move to a larger
harddrive on the 486 and there was bios issues that OS/2 couldn't resolve
whereas Linux could (lilo).  I tried my best to do a multiple boot with
OS/2 and Linux but I couldn't get it to work at the time.  Linux and DOS
but then DOS didn't survive for long and since then it has been straight
Linux.  That was just over a decade ago.

 PK> However I can't remember when I last used a DOS app at all (possibly 
 PK> around OS/2 v2.1 in 1993/4???),

That sounds about right to me.  Somewhere in that neighbourhood.

 PK> per week app that was non-critical for me. Since then its been 100% 
 PK> OS/2, so no, OS/2 people are NOT attracted to DOS at all, they are 
 PK> attracted to OS/2........;-)

Then why the native DOS apps?

 PK> You will note the app I suggested has both OS/2 and DOS versions...

No Linux?  Tsk, tsk.

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.2.0