Larry, my appologies if I came off just a bit hard. Looking back over our related postings, I am not sure where we disagreed relative to DLGC. I normally wouldn't bother with the side issues (i.e. tasking, threading, etc) Somehow at the time, it seemed like there was a DLGC point you made that need that I disagreed with. Oh well. I consider SI a good place to have your thoughts challenged. I guess I am all to willing to jump in and challenge my fellow posters. It really is a good exercise to have people critice our reasoning.
In regards to the WINTEL 386/WIndows 3.11 nonsense. A year before MS release Windows 3.0, MS/IBM released OS/2 1.0. OS/2 was robust, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and multi-threading. except for the lack of a GUI, it was an OS that was truly ahead of its time. THere was just one problem. FOr some reason, they chose the 286 as the minimum CPU instead of the 386. The 286 was 16-bit, and lacked the virtual86 mode that allowed multiple DOS sessions to run concurrently. Hence, for all of the wonders of OS/2 1.0-1.3, you could only run 1 dos session, and it required a switch to real mode (loss of multi-tasking, and limited DOS support). Since all SW at the time was DOS, OS/2 was doomed. However, I used the OS with all native OS/2 SW, and it was very good. Windows 3.0 on the other hand was nothing but a DOS shell. All dos SW would still run (albeit rather lamely). If OS/2 would have been designed as a 32-bit 386-based OS from the start, Windows would not even exist today, but oh well. That's a story that belongs with Apple and CP/M as things that could have (and perhaps should have ) been. The MS success story is 33% skill, 33% luck, and 33% the lack of real vision of the their leading competitors. |
