Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
·
· Score: 1
Both Windows and OS/2 adhered to IBM's CUA guidelines, which means that basic menu structure and presentation and window behaviors followed the same pattern (unlike the MacOS).
For the most part the differences while doing common operations were minimal between the two.
OS/2, however, tended to provide a lot MORE options where Windows 95 provided minimal functionality. Maybe that was an issue for some. I personally liked the ability to lock icons on the desktop, to click "unarrange" after accidentally arranging them, to create shortcuts that were tracked across logical drives, etc.
For someone familiar with both desktops, it really was no contest. OS/2 wins. You might have a point regarding PM and standard dialogs, however. Some of those were somewhat idiosyncratic, though I really did like both generations (spiral/vertical and colored/horizontal) of the OS/2 multi-tabbed dialog box.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
·
· Score: 1
...Win95 DIDN'T really share all that much...
Proofread, Rich. Proofread.:-)
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
·
· Score: 1
I used both MacOS 7 and OS/2 heavily at the time, as well as Windows 95, and Win95 really share all that much with the Mac. The Windows 95 desktop was MUCH closer to the OS/2 desktop (which had been on the market for over three years by that point) than it was with MultiFinder.
Windows NT 3.1 (the first version released) was larger than OS/2, had a crappy DOS box (important at the time), and still used the Windows 3.1 Program Manager interface. No desktop icons as such.
It really wasn't a very good general desktop OS compared to OS/2.
Windows NT 4 changed the game on the 32-bit OS front, but not until much later on.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
·
· Score: 1
Ir remember reading that it had something like a 20% market share for a little while in both the desktop and server markets, and I remember hearing that it was the top-selling software via retail for a month or two, but I can't find definitive sources for the former.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
·
· Score: 1
Windows 94 ran fairly well on 4MB. OS/2 could run in 4MB, but it really wanted 8MB. That wasn't that uncommon in 1995, however. It was more of an issue in the OS/2 2.0 and 2.1 days (1992 and 1993) when folks were trying to run it on 386-class machines that were originally intended for Windows 3.1. Or DOS.
There were some tricks you could perform with basic CONFIG.SYS settings to speed up processing (or rather, to prevent things like dynamic swap file resizing which was somewhat CPU and disk intensive) on lower memory machines.
I ran OS/2 on a 486DX/33 with 8MB for some time (1992 until 1993 somewhere), and after I upgraded to 20MB the thing performed quite well. Initially I used it as a DOS program juggler, anyway. Telemate, SLiMeR, Stereo Shell, etc.
Re:I finally could tell my friend to go to hell
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Initially, the programs that each was able to run weren't that dissimilar. There wasn't that much real 32-bit software, so most used the Win32S extensions, and OS/2 did a fairly good job of keeping up with Microsoft's constant changing of that library for some time. I think OS/2 ended up stopping support with Win32S 1.25a or something... Win32S 1.30 started using very high virtual addresses that OS/2 couldn't handle.
OS/2 came with a copy (or could use an existing copy) of Windows as its WinOS2 subsystem, it had a better virtual DOS machine than Windows 95 did for running/juggling DOS software, and both OS/2 and Win95 could reboot into a full DOS mode to run more difficult software (in OS/2's case, it was either a multiboot via Boot Manager to a real DOS, or you could set up a Dual Boot configuration where the boot sector was swapped on the fly in the same partition).
OSR2 was a good compromiae for me.
on
Windows 95 Turns 15
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's what most machines were shipping with in 1996 and 97, anyway. FAT32 support, no integrated MSIE crap, and a bit more stable than the original Win95 release.
I still have a pair of PPro gaming boxes running Win95 OSR2 (as well as various other OSes from the time period including BeOS 5 and versions of both Mandrake and Red Hat Linux.
Until then, it's the hard skills that most companies use as the prime determinate for whether or not a given application gets a first-level interview.
IT is one of the absolutely worst industries for pigeonholing, and your last job is the one that gets tattooed on your forehead, not the stuff you know (or think you know) the best.
Welcome to reality... for the past 20+ years, sadly. I don't see it changing soon, as that requires an actual level of understanding on the part of those that be hiring.
45 million passengers annually means 123,287 passengers per day on average, or about 0.002% of the population on any given day. Yeah, I'm impressed. That means 99.998% don't take the train on a given day.:-)
The current Amtrak system makes travel between some cities very easy, but travel between other cities is simply not a viable option.
I currently live in Atlanta, for example, and there are dozens of direct flights between ATL and MSP, but if I wanted to take a train between the two I get routed via Charlottesville, VA or DC and Chicago, adding a LOT of time and mileage to the journey.
Try getting from ATL to SEA via Amtrak. It currently costs $643.00 one way, and it takes over 78 hours (again going through Charlottesville or DC). You could probably drive it in 40 hours direct if you were tag-teaming, and you'd pay a lot less for gas. I estimate $400, assuming $4 gas and 30 mpg. The train would be more relaxing, but is it relaxing enough to spend three days trapped on it?
USENET. Most newsreaders use threads in a really useful way, as well as score files to determine which messages are visible where by adding/subtracting weights to each one.
Most web forums are teh suXor when it comes to providing a useful interface for reading. It's pretty, but it's still crappy.:-(
Whether or not you own the software you work on depends on the contract (if any) you sign with the place of employment or contracting agency you work with, and there are exceptions.
At one of my previous jobs, the company was perfectly happy to allow employees to open source (as in GPL) software they worked on in the workplace as long as it wasn't something the company was selling for a profit.
If a user doesn't know about that option, it appears to them as if the updates are being made in spite of their desires. That would be "forced", at least from their perspective.
It depends on whether your particular style of usage follows the same set of assumptions as the people to build and configured the OS you use. As more and more assumptions are made for you by the software makers, it can become harder and harder to operate outside of that core assumption set.
1980: I would start with BASIC, then most people would never need to learn another language. A small minority would want to learn C, but those would be specialists.
1975: I would start with Fortran, then most people would never need to learn another language. A small minority would want to learn C, but those would be specialists.
Too funny! I started in 1977, more or less, and I learned a mix of Fortran and BASIC to start with before moving along to other things. I guess it makes sense given your list!;-)
I dunno... our school district (MN Independent District 274, Hopkins) had a few dozen Apple II machines all over the place when I was in high school (1978-1981), and we had the chance to take a class to learn BASIC as well as a rudimentary assembler language called STOP on T.I.E.S. via teletype.
I learned enough from school by playing with AppleSoft BASIC and MuMNF (MECC's Multi version of Minnesota Fortran) that I became interested in getting a CompSci degree. A couple of friends who did a lot more coding at that point in time helped as well, as I could learn from *their* efforts and not have to write the code myself.:-)
A tab isn't possible in the mainframe editor I sometimes write code in, so spaces are the only choice. Well, it's possible on a UTS20 terminal, but it isn't good form.:-)
Remember that not all of us are using POSIX (or Windows) operating systems, and that your assumptions about ASCII character usage may not hold everywhere. The system I play on stores ASCII in 9-bit quarter-words. How about yours?
My wife has some sort of condition that seems to be fixed with "prism correction" in her lenses, so there are other factors involved than just the basic three. I think that has to do with eye coordination and tracking or something.
I think I only paid $100 for mine, and for me the main advantage of the Vectrex was portability. It didn't require a separate TV... the monitor was built in.:-)
My Vectrex made quite an impression in the dorms when I was in college. I mean, it was an ARCADE game that looked like one, did smooth shape rotations, and not just a crappy pixel-fest.
Even with its limited title selection, there were some very good Vectrex game implementations, and Mine Storm was built into the console and was a fun Asteroids variant. Also, and unknown to many, there have been some very good titles written for it over the past 20 years, and new titles are still appearing! Just do a search for Modern Vectrex Games.:-)
Besides, I've run into some pretty big egos in the corporate IT world over the past 22 years, some of them well-justified (IMO), and I've also known more than a few open source contributors who were simply fixing issues or scratching itches and who don't care about getting credit. The end goal was to write, fix, or improve something they're using.
Pieces of software are tools. Some folks just like sharpening tools.:-)
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Both Windows and OS/2 adhered to IBM's CUA guidelines, which means that basic menu structure and presentation and window behaviors followed the same pattern (unlike the MacOS).
For the most part the differences while doing common operations were minimal between the two.
OS/2, however, tended to provide a lot MORE options where Windows 95 provided minimal functionality. Maybe that was an issue for some. I personally liked the ability to lock icons on the desktop, to click "unarrange" after accidentally arranging them, to create shortcuts that were tracked across logical drives, etc.
For someone familiar with both desktops, it really was no contest. OS/2 wins. You might have a point regarding PM and standard dialogs, however. Some of those were somewhat idiosyncratic, though I really did like both generations (spiral/vertical and colored/horizontal) of the OS/2 multi-tabbed dialog box.
...Win95 DIDN'T really share all that much...
Proofread, Rich. Proofread. :-)
I used both MacOS 7 and OS/2 heavily at the time, as well as Windows 95, and Win95 really share all that much with the Mac. The Windows 95 desktop was MUCH closer to the OS/2 desktop (which had been on the market for over three years by that point) than it was with MultiFinder.
Windows NT 3.1 (the first version released) was larger than OS/2, had a crappy DOS box (important at the time), and still used the Windows 3.1 Program Manager interface. No desktop icons as such.
It really wasn't a very good general desktop OS compared to OS/2.
Windows NT 4 changed the game on the 32-bit OS front, but not until much later on.
Ir remember reading that it had something like a 20% market share for a little while in both the desktop and server markets, and I remember hearing that it was the top-selling software via retail for a month or two, but I can't find definitive sources for the former.
Windows 94 ran fairly well on 4MB. OS/2 could run in 4MB, but it really wanted 8MB. That wasn't that uncommon in 1995, however. It was more of an issue in the OS/2 2.0 and 2.1 days (1992 and 1993) when folks were trying to run it on 386-class machines that were originally intended for Windows 3.1. Or DOS.
There were some tricks you could perform with basic CONFIG.SYS settings to speed up processing (or rather, to prevent things like dynamic swap file resizing which was somewhat CPU and disk intensive) on lower memory machines.
I ran OS/2 on a 486DX/33 with 8MB for some time (1992 until 1993 somewhere), and after I upgraded to 20MB the thing performed quite well. Initially I used it as a DOS program juggler, anyway. Telemate, SLiMeR, Stereo Shell, etc.
Initially, the programs that each was able to run weren't that dissimilar. There wasn't that much real 32-bit software, so most used the Win32S extensions, and OS/2 did a fairly good job of keeping up with Microsoft's constant changing of that library for some time. I think OS/2 ended up stopping support with Win32S 1.25a or something ... Win32S 1.30 started using very high virtual addresses that OS/2 couldn't handle.
OS/2 came with a copy (or could use an existing copy) of Windows as its WinOS2 subsystem, it had a better virtual DOS machine than Windows 95 did for running/juggling DOS software, and both OS/2 and Win95 could reboot into a full DOS mode to run more difficult software (in OS/2's case, it was either a multiboot via Boot Manager to a real DOS, or you could set up a Dual Boot configuration where the boot sector was swapped on the fly in the same partition).
It's what most machines were shipping with in 1996 and 97, anyway. FAT32 support, no integrated MSIE crap, and a bit more stable than the original Win95 release.
I still have a pair of PPro gaming boxes running Win95 OSR2 (as well as various other OSes from the time period including BeOS 5 and versions of both Mandrake and Red Hat Linux.
Until then, it's the hard skills that most companies use as the prime determinate for whether or not a given application gets a first-level interview.
IT is one of the absolutely worst industries for pigeonholing, and your last job is the one that gets tattooed on your forehead, not the stuff you know (or think you know) the best.
Welcome to reality ... for the past 20+ years, sadly. I don't see it changing soon, as that requires an actual level of understanding on the part of those that be hiring.
45 million passengers annually means 123,287 passengers per day on average, or about 0.002% of the population on any given day. Yeah, I'm impressed. That means 99.998% don't take the train on a given day. :-)
The current Amtrak system makes travel between some cities very easy, but travel between other cities is simply not a viable option.
I currently live in Atlanta, for example, and there are dozens of direct flights between ATL and MSP, but if I wanted to take a train between the two I get routed via Charlottesville, VA or DC and Chicago, adding a LOT of time and mileage to the journey.
Try getting from ATL to SEA via Amtrak. It currently costs $643.00 one way, and it takes over 78 hours (again going through Charlottesville or DC). You could probably drive it in 40 hours direct if you were tag-teaming, and you'd pay a lot less for gas. I estimate $400, assuming $4 gas and 30 mpg. The train would be more relaxing, but is it relaxing enough to spend three days trapped on it?
USENET. Most newsreaders use threads in a really useful way, as well as score files to determine which messages are visible where by adding/subtracting weights to each one.
Most web forums are teh suXor when it comes to providing a useful interface for reading. It's pretty, but it's still crappy. :-(
Link to more information:
Welcome to FidoNet.org
Whether or not you own the software you work on depends on the contract (if any) you sign with the place of employment or contracting agency you work with, and there are exceptions.
At one of my previous jobs, the company was perfectly happy to allow employees to open source (as in GPL) software they worked on in the workplace as long as it wasn't something the company was selling for a profit.
If I could mod you up, I would, but not today.
If a user doesn't know about that option, it appears to them as if the updates are being made in spite of their desires. That would be "forced", at least from their perspective.
It depends on whether your particular style of usage follows the same set of assumptions as the people to build and configured the OS you use. As more and more assumptions are made for you by the software makers, it can become harder and harder to operate outside of that core assumption set.
Too funny! I started in 1977, more or less, and I learned a mix of Fortran and BASIC to start with before moving along to other things. I guess it makes sense given your list! ;-)
I dunno ... our school district (MN Independent District 274, Hopkins) had a few dozen Apple II machines all over the place when I was in high school (1978-1981), and we had the chance to take a class to learn BASIC as well as a rudimentary assembler language called STOP on T.I.E.S. via teletype.
I learned enough from school by playing with AppleSoft BASIC and MuMNF (MECC's Multi version of Minnesota Fortran) that I became interested in getting a CompSci degree. A couple of friends who did a lot more coding at that point in time helped as well, as I could learn from *their* efforts and not have to write the code myself. :-)
A tab isn't possible in the mainframe editor I sometimes write code in, so spaces are the only choice. Well, it's possible on a UTS20 terminal, but it isn't good form. :-)
Remember that not all of us are using POSIX (or Windows) operating systems, and that your assumptions about ASCII character usage may not hold everywhere. The system I play on stores ASCII in 9-bit quarter-words. How about yours?
My wife has some sort of condition that seems to be fixed with "prism correction" in her lenses, so there are other factors involved than just the basic three. I think that has to do with eye coordination and tracking or something.
I think I only paid $100 for mine, and for me the main advantage of the Vectrex was portability. It didn't require a separate TV ... the monitor was built in. :-)
My Vectrex made quite an impression in the dorms when I was in college. I mean, it was an ARCADE game that looked like one, did smooth shape rotations, and not just a crappy pixel-fest.
That's actually a nice touch. That way, you can see if you really failed to stop or not.
Huh...
I don't like red light cameras, but this is one of the better ways to implement them, I think.
Even with its limited title selection, there were some very good Vectrex game implementations, and Mine Storm was built into the console and was a fun Asteroids variant. Also, and unknown to many, there have been some very good titles written for it over the past 20 years, and new titles are still appearing! Just do a search for Modern Vectrex Games. :-)
You can find working Vectrex consoles ... and multicarts containing LEGAL collections of games ... on eBay.
Mine Storm rocks! :-)
And yes, I own a working Vectrex. Since 1982.
Who wrote 2.6.20? (Feb 2007)
The Linux Foundation details who contributes to Linux development
Besides, I've run into some pretty big egos in the corporate IT world over the past 22 years, some of them well-justified (IMO), and I've also known more than a few open source contributors who were simply fixing issues or scratching itches and who don't care about getting credit. The end goal was to write, fix, or improve something they're using.
Pieces of software are tools. Some folks just like sharpening tools. :-)