Interactive and me - An open letter to ISC.

[Tom Yager]

In article <Q2N4:X7 at xds13.ferranti.com>, peter at ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <783 at digi.lonestar.org> cfoughty at digi.lonestar.org (Cy Foughty) writes:
> 
> > A much richer programming environment
> Yep. You have Microsoft C, and Microsoft C.

Well, just to keep things fair, I'll note that at least Lattice C and Zortech
C++ both produce OS/2 binaries. Zortech's 2.1 compiler is reportedly a better
OS/2 environment than MSC 6.0. 

> 
> > and soooo
> > much easier to connect to a network.
> 
> How can you possibly connect a single-user box to a network? A network
> is inherently a multi-user environment. What do you do... give up on
> security or run everything in a strict client-or-server setup?

DOS systems run just dandy on networks--that's one of the things that keeps
the wind in DOS's sails (sales?). Both DOS and OS/2 can operate in peer
network configurations, sharing printers, disks, modems, CD-ROMS...you name
it.

Networking is not inherently anything. With a little imagination, even the
strangest of systems can be networked. I run TCP/IP and NFS on an 8086-based
laptop and a Xircom Pocket Ethernet adapter. I was prepared to be disappointed,
but it works great.

> > For that fact it
> > shouldn't be "OS/2 vs. Unix".
> 
> No, it should be OS/2 versus AmigaOS, Microsoft Windows, and Mac System 7.

Can I run AmigaOS or Mac System 7 on other vendors' hardware?

Let's not let this discussion degenerate to the petty "is not!", "is so!"
back-and-forth that typically dominates OS discussions. I'd really like to
see some worthwhile commentary from both sides. We don't need to declare a
winner in the end, but maybe some useful information will come out as a
result.

Don't count OS/2 or any OS out without a sensible argument.
> -- 
> Peter da Silva.   `-_-'
> <peter at ficc.ferranti.com>
-- 
+--Tom Yager, Technical Editor, BYTE----Reviewer, UNIX World---------------+
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