One thing that was nice about the old "spiral notebooks" with the side tabs, though: you could fit more information in a given space, since the side-tabs could be squeezed together, and since they only had to be tall enough to hold one character plus a small border.
OS/2 was a 32-bit smoothly multitasking operating system in 1992 when Microsoft was offering little more than a cooperatively multitasking shell on DOS. Compared to Windows 3.1, even OS/2 2.1 rocked, and Warp 3 and 4 have added polish over the years.
Not only that, but OS/2 came with a GUI that still hasn't been equaled in many respects (the WPS), a scripting language that programs could tap into (REXX), and support for DOS and Windows programs that was both robust and flexible.
*That's* why I moved to it. Alternatives like BeOS didn't exist yet, remember, and Linux was little more than a kernel and a collection of text-based utilities, not the useful OS it is now. Xfree86 worked on VERY few cards, and there wasn't a lot of X-based software worth using, IMO.
Most of the folks who still use OS/2 are older hobbyists like myself who moved to it back in its heyday. It's a much harder sell now.:-)
Why do I still use it?
I use it because I have OS/2-native tools like Colorworks, Embellish, and Web Organizer that I really like to use and that I've already paid for, because it has modern-enough internet clients like NFTP, links, Netscape Navigator, and slrn for me to get by, and because there is still enough in the way of software development going on to keep my interest going in the platform.
Also, I've already paid for my two OS/2 copies, so the relatively high price tag isn't a factor any longer.
eComStation is by a little company called Serenity Systems, not IBM, and they've been very good about listening to their customers. A number of us have been tossing them lots of suggestions.:-)
Yeah, Timur's still around.:-) He and I both use Linux as well as Warp, but I think I like it (Linux) a lot more than he does.:-)
I will note, though, that Linux hasn't replaced my OS/2 setup yet. Probably won't for a couple of years yet. But I use it as a secondary desktop and on a couple of servers on my LAN.
Yeah, I've been active on the OS/2 newsgroups for several years. Not c.o.o.a as much (way too much petty bickering for my tastes - even more than here).
eComStation is a fledgling attempt to produce an alternative client OS by Serenity Systems.
Currently it's based on OS/2 Warp 4, and they've cut a deal with IBM to get the latest fixes and such for the system. They've also managed to bundle a bunch of software with the OS, including StarOffice 5.1a, Lotus SmartSuite, the HobLink X11 server, and some other stuff.
Part of the technology included is something called WiseManager which supports some sort of remote client bootstrapping from a centralized boot server. I don't understand it.:-)
Another part includes LVM (the Logical Volume manager) which was part of IBM's Warp Server, and that lets you create logical disk partitions that span multiple disk partitions and multiple disks, and it uses IBM's JFS journaling filesystem.
I think it's an interesting attempt, and I have a copy of the initial eCS 1.0 release that I plan on playing with in the next month or so. As I learn more, I'll probably make more comments about it here and there...
The eComStation folks have made the SMP kernel available in the client version, and they've been able to bundle an X server with it as well as get a third party (Connectix and Innotek) to create a version of Virtual PC for OS/2.
That, at least, gives OS/2 users the ability to run Windows and Linux in virtual machines.
Along with its legacy (DOS, Win 3.1) support and its ability to run ported Linux software via EMX, I think OS/2 is more interesting yet than most people realize...
Too bad it (and eComStation) are so expensive, but a demo CD may be in the works.
My bandwidth is considerably higher than 180KBytes/sec (testing by grabbing a 10MB files from RR's local FTP server shows 247KBytes/sec), and there doesn't seem to be all that much drain on the box. I think it's capable of handling much higher throughput.
I'm even using two no-name ISA NICs (older NE2000 clones with jumpers).
True, but code maintainability can be critical...
on
Software Aesthetics
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
One can certainly succeed in meeting the user's initial basic requirements by writing a pile of spaghetti, but that doesn't make the writing of such sloppy code the preferred approach, at least in the general case.
Unless you're writing one-off programs for your customers (and how many of those end up being used over and over again?), the long-term maintainability of your code must be kept in mind at all times.
There's (usually) no guarantee that *you* are going to be the one maintaining the code in the future, at least many settings, and the people who will have to figure out how it works in order to maintain or enhance it will be extremely grateful if you lay your code out clearly.
So will your users, as they will have to wait a shorter amount of time before that bug is fixed or the new feature added.
As one example, the airline industry still uses mainframes heavily, and on the UNISYS mainframe side of life FORTRAN is still a primary language for application development. The Flight Operations system I help develop for and maintain is almost completely written in FORTRAN.
The key to educating a new programmer, I think, is to give them some exposure to several languages. That way, they can adjust to new things (or in our case, old things ) after they leave the educational environment and enter "The Real World"... --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Lord of Light is brilliant, in my opinion.
on
Lord of the Geeks
·
· Score: 1
Not only is it a good story about one man and his fight against an oppressive establishment, but the writing style is awesome. Very formal, but seeming at times to make fun of itself in ways that make the whole thing quite enjoyable.
There are times when I think Lord of Light might well be my favorite book of *any* genre... --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
I thought that had some depth and originality, particularly when Sparrowhawk had to deal with the shadow of himself that his own vanity had created. --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Not all of the people who are using alternative operating systems (or who detest the monopoly that Microsoft currently enjoys) are Linux or *BSD users. Small groups of OS/2 and BeOS users still exist.
Even though both of those are commercial closed-source OSes, the users of those systems are still trying to do their part to show that Windows isn't the only solution available.
One of the reasons that I still find OS/2 to be a viable alternative is the fact that a lot of open source software is being ported to it. A license change which removes that possibility would make using that platform a lot more difficult.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
* In the summer of 1992, after I installed OS/2 2.0 next to my existing Windows 3.1 installation.
* I've used various distros of Linux since the 0.99 kernel (SLS 1.01 in the fall of 1992) including RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, Storm Linux, Coyote Linux, LRP, and tomsrtbt, and also used FreeBSD 2.x and 3.x, BeOS 4/4.5/4, Solaris 2.5, 2.6 and 7, MacOS 6.01 through 8.1, Windows 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 95, 95OSR2, 98, and NT4, and a number of mini and mainframe OSes (OS2200, VAX/VMS, KRONOS, NOS, etc.). I prefer OS/2 overall on the desktop.
* See above.
* Nobody else in my family uses OS/2.
* Heh. No, when I was a child there weren't any Intel-compatible PCs.
* I use four boxes concurrently (KVM switches are wonderful things) running OS/2 Warp 4, Win95 OSR2, BeOS 5 Pro, and Mandrake 6.1. Most of my non-game time is spent on the OS/2 box.
* No, I don't consider OS/2 use to be normal. On the other hand, would *you* want to be considered a "normal" computer user?;-)
* Yes, few people understand why I use it until I show them what it can do, and then they are more understanding...
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
At least OS/2 has a certain amount of relatively modern software available for it (StarOffice 5.1a, Netscape Communicator, XFree86, GIMP), and the built-in DOS and Windows capabilities give OS/2 a lot of flexibility w.r.t. running older software.
I like BeOS 5 (I've been running BeOS at home since the 4.0 release), but it's really hard to move to it fulltime. Not so with OS/2... --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Our setup is a little bit different. We have 14 people who rotate a beeper, so once every 14 weeks I get to carry it and be on call 24 hours a day for a week.
For merely touching the beeper, I get 4 hours of comp time (compensation for the stress involved in being on-call, I guess).
In addition, for each and every hour I spend off-hours on beeper-related work I get an hour of comp time, and we round up the time (i.e., a five-minute support call equals an hour of comp time).
Since our beeper tends to go off 4-8 times in a typical week, I usually end up with somewhere between 8 and 12 hours of comp time for the week when all is said and done.
"Comp time" for us is unofficial vacation time. I generally use it to take a couple of half-days off during the next couple of weeks. --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
There are a dozen folks on my programming team, and we get to code and maintain the software that literally runs the flight operations center for a major airline.
It's fascinating work, the software has a lot of history (the application started being written in 1967), and the end result is used by a large number of very intelligent and appreciative users that we get to have first-hand contact with.
No way. I wouldn't leave this job for the world.
Besides, isn't everyone converting to PNG to get aware from CompuServe's proprietary format? --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
In the mainframe-based transaction environment that I work in (modified TIP/1100 environment on a Unisys 2200), for example, all we can do is put octal and character snaps in the code and generate a trace file when executing the transaction. --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
...instead, IBM appears to be able to adjust their business processes to incorporate Linux and other open-source software like Apache, etc.
This suggests, to me, that the flaw isn't due to open source software at all, but rather to some element of Microsoft's business model. --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Source-available software has already existed in the UNIX world and in corporate
mainframe environments for decades. It seems to work well for certain types of
software (editors, network servers, certain types of clients, developer utilities),
sometimes better than its commercial counterparts.
I'm uncertain, in any case, how "failure" could occur, since even one person using
an open-source product means its potentially still alive.
To address your points:
> no direction - there's no-one who can find what the focus groups want and then
> enforce it
One user with a need is sometimes sufficient justification for the development of
a piece of software.
I've written a number of tools for my own use, and while I do release them to others
(with source) to use, my own requirements were enough reason for me to write them in
the first place.
IMO, a "focus group" is completely unnecessary for a programmer or programming team
which already has a clear product vision.
> no money - you can't afford to compete if you don't have enough money to do so
You assume that all software authors are interested in competing in the first place.
I strongly suspect that most are not.
For most free software projects, the inital goal was the creation of a specific functionality
set, not market penetration.
In other words, free software is usually written to perform a specific task, not just to
make a profit.
> a mistaken belief as to the ability of users. Open source relies on a hobbyist's
> views of computing, which states that everyone knows how to program - false;
> modern programs are exceptionally complicated and most users are not programmers.
A person does not have to be a programmer in order to use a binary product release,
regardless of platform. Please don't assume that source-available software is only
available in source form -- precompiled "end-user-friendly" binary distributions are
almost always available.
> no innovation. Because there's no money for r+d, there's little innovation and
> open source plays catchup all the time.
Compare and contrast Linux, with its myriads of special-purpose distributions,
dozens of different desktop metaphors, and wide range of supported hardware to
a corporate operating system like Windows (one desktop, a few variants, and few
platforms supported).
Which one seems like the more innovative and dynamic platform?
> Furthermore, there's no incentive for improvement - open source doesn't have to
> make improvements like MS does - they don't have to make qmail v6 much better
> than v5 ytto get people to upgrade as MS would with Outlook 2002 vs 2000.
Quite the contrary, open source software is generally directly driven by user
requirements (often the needs of the author(s) themselves), and its success is
directly determined by the functionality it delivers.
Commercial software is often driven by marketing forces, delivering features
which sell rather than features which provide superior functionality. --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Unisys Clearpath servers rival IBM's S390 boxes.
on
Linux Is Going Down
·
· Score: 1
Not all mainframes are IBM or IBM-compatible, and some descendants of the BUNCH's hardware lines are still in production and slowly evolving.
Unfortunately, neither the MCP nor OS2200 have a VM subsystem which runs Linux.:-( --
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
FIELDATA is an old six-bit character set that is used all over the place in EXEC-land (the OS) on a 2200 to store things like filenames, etc.
As with the SIXBIT format you mention, this allows the storage of 6 characters in each 36-bit word, and as the end result of this you see a lot of 12-character length limits (two words) in various system files, packet formats, and so on.
As a sidenote: the major airline I work for still uses 2200's, and the application I work on still stores most of the application data as FIELDATA. --
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
What about things like KARNATH? Or was that only single-player? I don't remember...:-(
Clay's CCOMBAT (MU,CCOMBAT,USMK031) was written in COMPASS, which I suspect would make a port a bit harder. He still has a tape, though, I think. I have no idea what the classic COMBAT I used to play on MTS around 1980 (MU,COMBAT,USMK001) was written in. MUMNF?
Personally, I enjoyed MTC and MMT more than XTALK, but it really depended on the people who were on at the time.
*GILDOR*/UN=H7LT263 --
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Those BBS store-and-forward message networks were pretty cool. I spent a number of years on them in the early 90's (particularly RIME/RelayNet) when local BBSes were about the only type of affordable "online" resource available.
Fido was neat because you could do file requests and point-to-point e-mail as well as echomail (if your Sysop would let you, anyway ).
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Slashdot Mirror
One thing that was nice about the old "spiral notebooks" with the side tabs, though: you could fit more information in a given space, since the side-tabs could be squeezed together, and since they only had to be tall enough to hold one character plus a small border.
OS/2 was a 32-bit smoothly multitasking operating system in 1992 when Microsoft was offering little more than a cooperatively multitasking shell on DOS. Compared to Windows 3.1, even OS/2 2.1 rocked, and Warp 3 and 4 have added polish over the years.
:-)
:-)
Not only that, but OS/2 came with a GUI that still hasn't been equaled in many respects (the WPS), a scripting language that programs could tap into (REXX), and support for DOS and Windows programs that was both robust and flexible.
*That's* why I moved to it. Alternatives like BeOS didn't exist yet, remember, and Linux was little more than a kernel and a collection of text-based utilities, not the useful OS it is now. Xfree86 worked on VERY few cards, and there wasn't a lot of X-based software worth using, IMO.
Most of the folks who still use OS/2 are older hobbyists like myself who moved to it back in its heyday. It's a much harder sell now.
Why do I still use it?
I use it because I have OS/2-native tools like Colorworks, Embellish, and Web Organizer that I really like to use and that I've already paid for, because it has modern-enough internet clients like NFTP, links, Netscape Navigator, and slrn for me to get by, and because there is still enough in the way of software development going on to keep my interest going in the platform.
Also, I've already paid for my two OS/2 copies, so the relatively high price tag isn't a factor any longer.
Does that help?
eComStation is by a little company called Serenity Systems, not IBM, and they've been very good about listening to their customers. A number of us have been tossing them lots of suggestions. :-)
Yeah, Timur's still around. :-) He and I both use Linux as well as Warp, but I think I like it (Linux) a lot more than he does. :-)
I will note, though, that Linux hasn't replaced my OS/2 setup yet. Probably won't for a couple of years yet. But I use it as a secondary desktop and on a couple of servers on my LAN.
Yeah, I've been active on the OS/2 newsgroups for several years. Not c.o.o.a as much (way too much petty bickering for my tastes - even more than here).
:-)
eComStation is a fledgling attempt to produce an alternative client OS by Serenity Systems.
Currently it's based on OS/2 Warp 4, and they've cut a deal with IBM to get the latest fixes and such for the system. They've also managed to bundle a bunch of software with the OS, including StarOffice 5.1a, Lotus SmartSuite, the HobLink X11 server, and some other stuff.
Part of the technology included is something called WiseManager which supports some sort of remote client bootstrapping from a centralized boot server. I don't understand it.
Another part includes LVM (the Logical Volume manager) which was part of IBM's Warp Server, and that lets you create logical disk partitions that span multiple disk partitions and multiple disks, and it uses IBM's JFS journaling filesystem.
I think it's an interesting attempt, and I have a copy of the initial eCS 1.0 release that I plan on playing with in the next month or so. As I learn more, I'll probably make more comments about it here and there...
The eComStation folks have made the SMP kernel available in the client version, and they've been able to bundle an X server with it as well as get a third party (Connectix and Innotek) to create a version of Virtual PC for OS/2.
That, at least, gives OS/2 users the ability to run Windows and Linux in virtual machines.
Along with its legacy (DOS, Win 3.1) support and its ability to run ported Linux software via EMX, I think OS/2 is more interesting yet than most people realize...
Too bad it (and eComStation) are so expensive, but a demo CD may be in the works.
My bandwidth is considerably higher than 180KBytes/sec (testing by grabbing a 10MB files from RR's local FTP server shows 247KBytes/sec), and there doesn't seem to be all that much drain on the box. I think it's capable of handling much higher throughput.
I'm even using two no-name ISA NICs (older NE2000 clones with jumpers).
One can certainly succeed in meeting the user's initial basic requirements by writing a pile of spaghetti, but that doesn't make the writing of such sloppy code the preferred approach, at least in the general case.
Unless you're writing one-off programs for your customers (and how many of those end up being used over and over again?), the long-term maintainability of your code must be kept in mind at all times.
There's (usually) no guarantee that *you* are going to be the one maintaining the code in the future, at least many settings, and the people who will have to figure out how it works in order to maintain or enhance it will be extremely grateful if you lay your code out clearly.
So will your users, as they will have to wait a shorter amount of time before that bug is fixed or the new feature added.
As one example, the airline industry still uses mainframes heavily, and on the UNISYS mainframe side of life FORTRAN is still a primary language for application development. The Flight Operations system I help develop for and maintain is almost completely written in FORTRAN. The key to educating a new programmer, I think, is to give them some exposure to several languages. That way, they can adjust to new things (or in our case, old things ) after they leave the educational environment and enter "The Real World"...
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Not only is it a good story about one man and his fight against an oppressive establishment, but the writing style is awesome. Very formal, but seeming at times to make fun of itself in ways that make the whole thing quite enjoyable.
There are times when I think Lord of Light might well be my favorite book of *any* genre...
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
I thought that had some depth and originality, particularly when Sparrowhawk had to deal with the shadow of himself that his own vanity had created.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Not all of the people who are using alternative operating systems (or who detest the monopoly that Microsoft currently enjoys) are Linux or *BSD users. Small groups of OS/2 and BeOS users still exist. Even though both of those are commercial closed-source OSes, the users of those systems are still trying to do their part to show that Windows isn't the only solution available. One of the reasons that I still find OS/2 to be a viable alternative is the fact that a lot of open source software is being ported to it. A license change which removes that possibility would make using that platform a lot more difficult.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
It also used the left mouse pointer to select, but the right mouse pointer to actually drag objects.
Because of the fact that I'd used PC/GEOS (via GeoWorks Ensemble) for years before I say OS/2, the move to OS/2 was quite intuitive for me.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
* Because I use OS/2. :-)
;-)
* In the summer of 1992, after I installed OS/2 2.0 next to my existing Windows 3.1 installation.
* I've used various distros of Linux since the 0.99 kernel (SLS 1.01 in the fall of 1992) including RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, Storm Linux, Coyote Linux, LRP, and tomsrtbt, and also used FreeBSD 2.x and 3.x, BeOS 4/4.5/4, Solaris 2.5, 2.6 and 7, MacOS 6.01 through 8.1, Windows 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 95, 95OSR2, 98, and NT4, and a number of mini and mainframe OSes (OS2200, VAX/VMS, KRONOS, NOS, etc.). I prefer OS/2 overall on the desktop.
* See above.
* Nobody else in my family uses OS/2.
* Heh. No, when I was a child there weren't any Intel-compatible PCs.
* I use four boxes concurrently (KVM switches are wonderful things) running OS/2 Warp 4, Win95 OSR2, BeOS 5 Pro, and Mandrake 6.1. Most of my non-game time is spent on the OS/2 box.
* No, I don't consider OS/2 use to be normal. On the other hand, would *you* want to be considered a "normal" computer user?
* Yes, few people understand why I use it until I show them what it can do, and then they are more understanding...
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
At least OS/2 has a certain amount of relatively modern software available for it (StarOffice 5.1a, Netscape Communicator, XFree86, GIMP), and the built-in DOS and Windows capabilities give OS/2 a lot of flexibility w.r.t. running older software.
I like BeOS 5 (I've been running BeOS at home since the 4.0 release), but it's really hard to move to it fulltime. Not so with OS/2...
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Our setup is a little bit different. We have 14 people who rotate a beeper, so once every 14 weeks I get to carry it and be on call 24 hours a day for a week.
For merely touching the beeper, I get 4 hours of comp time (compensation for the stress involved in being on-call, I guess).
In addition, for each and every hour I spend off-hours on beeper-related work I get an hour of comp time, and we round up the time (i.e., a five-minute support call equals an hour of comp time).
Since our beeper tends to go off 4-8 times in a typical week, I usually end up with somewhere between 8 and 12 hours of comp time for the week when all is said and done.
"Comp time" for us is unofficial vacation time. I generally use it to take a couple of half-days off during the next couple of weeks.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
There are a dozen folks on my programming team, and we get to code and maintain the software that literally runs the flight operations center for a major airline.
It's fascinating work, the software has a lot of history (the application started being written in 1967), and the end result is used by a large number of very intelligent and appreciative users that we get to have first-hand contact with.
No way. I wouldn't leave this job for the world.
Besides, isn't everyone converting to PNG to get aware from CompuServe's proprietary format?
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
At least not a formal one.
In the mainframe-based transaction environment that I work in (modified TIP/1100 environment on a Unisys 2200), for example, all we can do is put octal and character snaps in the code and generate a trace file when executing the transaction.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
...instead, IBM appears to be able to adjust their business processes to incorporate Linux and other open-source software like Apache, etc. This suggests, to me, that the flaw isn't due to open source software at all, but rather to some element of Microsoft's business model.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
You can find it here...
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
> I think in the long term open source will fail.
Source-available software has already existed in the UNIX world and in corporate
mainframe environments for decades. It seems to work well for certain types of
software (editors, network servers, certain types of clients, developer utilities),
sometimes better than its commercial counterparts.
I'm uncertain, in any case, how "failure" could occur, since even one person using
an open-source product means its potentially still alive.
To address your points:
> no direction - there's no-one who can find what the focus groups want and then
> enforce it
One user with a need is sometimes sufficient justification for the development of
a piece of software.
I've written a number of tools for my own use, and while I do release them to others
(with source) to use, my own requirements were enough reason for me to write them in
the first place.
IMO, a "focus group" is completely unnecessary for a programmer or programming team
which already has a clear product vision.
> no money - you can't afford to compete if you don't have enough money to do so
You assume that all software authors are interested in competing in the first place.
I strongly suspect that most are not.
For most free software projects, the inital goal was the creation of a specific functionality
set, not market penetration.
In other words, free software is usually written to perform a specific task, not just to
make a profit.
> a mistaken belief as to the ability of users. Open source relies on a hobbyist's
> views of computing, which states that everyone knows how to program - false;
> modern programs are exceptionally complicated and most users are not programmers.
A person does not have to be a programmer in order to use a binary product release,
regardless of platform. Please don't assume that source-available software is only
available in source form -- precompiled "end-user-friendly" binary distributions are
almost always available.
> no innovation. Because there's no money for r+d, there's little innovation and
> open source plays catchup all the time.
Compare and contrast Linux, with its myriads of special-purpose distributions,
dozens of different desktop metaphors, and wide range of supported hardware to
a corporate operating system like Windows (one desktop, a few variants, and few
platforms supported).
Which one seems like the more innovative and dynamic platform?
> Furthermore, there's no incentive for improvement - open source doesn't have to
> make improvements like MS does - they don't have to make qmail v6 much better
> than v5 ytto get people to upgrade as MS would with Outlook 2002 vs 2000.
Quite the contrary, open source software is generally directly driven by user
requirements (often the needs of the author(s) themselves), and its success is
directly determined by the functionality it delivers.
Commercial software is often driven by marketing forces, delivering features
which sell rather than features which provide superior functionality.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Not all mainframes are IBM or IBM-compatible, and some descendants of the BUNCH's hardware lines are still in production and slowly evolving.
:-(
Unfortunately, neither the MCP nor OS2200 have a VM subsystem which runs Linux.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
FIELDATA is an old six-bit character set that is used all over the place in EXEC-land (the OS) on a 2200 to store things like filenames, etc.
As with the SIXBIT format you mention, this allows the storage of 6 characters in each 36-bit word, and as the end result of this you see a lot of 12-character length limits (two words) in various system files, packet formats, and so on.
As a sidenote: the major airline I work for still uses 2200's, and the application I work on still stores most of the application data as FIELDATA.
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
What about things like KARNATH? Or was that only single-player? I don't remember... :-(
Clay's CCOMBAT (MU,CCOMBAT,USMK031) was written in COMPASS, which I suspect would make a port a bit harder. He still has a tape, though, I think. I have no idea what the classic COMBAT I used to play on MTS around 1980 (MU,COMBAT,USMK001) was written in. MUMNF?
Personally, I enjoyed MTC and MMT more than XTALK, but it really depended on the people who were on at the time.
*GILDOR*/UN=H7LT263
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Those BBS store-and-forward message networks were pretty cool. I spent a number of years on them in the early 90's (particularly RIME/RelayNet) when local BBSes were about the only type of affordable "online" resource available.
Fido was neat because you could do file requests and point-to-point e-mail as well as echomail (if your Sysop would let you, anyway ).
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-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)