Re: Windows vs DOS XyWrite vs the future?

[hseaver@xxxxxxxx (Harmon Seaver)]

> I have seen a number of reports that OS/2Win has compatibility problems
> with applications that full OS/2 doesn't. Given the peremptory nature of
> XyWrite, I would be hesitant to buy the former. I did, by the way, buy
> the latter, and found that, since IBM doesn't really go on the line for
> it, for many types of applications and utilities you are at the mercy of

  I haven't found that to be true at all. I bought 2.0 when it first came
out, and beta-tested both of the 2.1 betas, and now run 2.11. I've found very,
very few things that I couldn't get to work under OS/2 -- and
I think all were games, except for "$25 Network". Something like the dos
version of Stacker doesn't work, of course, but I wouldn't use it even if it
did, having tried both it and other compression schemes in dos and decided
against them long ago as too problematic and kludgey. And there were tremendous
gains -- for XyWrite, for example. I got a CDROM drive originally so I could
run MS-Bookshelf, and when running XY3, it inter- faced wonderfully, allowing
me to bring up Bookshelf for any word at the cursor. Loved it. Then got XY4,
and was very unhappy that it didn't work anymore with Bookshelf. I even went so
far as to try using windoz, which I already loathed, but found I couldn't cut
and paste between XY4 in a dos window and Bookshelf. Then came OS/2 -- and, not
only could I cut and paste, but XY4 ran much faster than under either Desqview
or windoz, and actually multi-tasked, meaning my voicemail and modem downloads
actually worked fine in the background, while I had could write and access
reference works in the foreground at the same time.
And that is something you definitely cannot do in either dos or windoz.
  Quite frankly, I have difficulty understanding what problems you had with
OS/2 not supporting applications. Did you just try 2.0 and give up? Have you
tried all the great OS/2 native utilities that are available on Hobbes? A lot
of the shareware and public domain OS/2 native utilities are so much better
than what is available for dos, even commercially.

> what is available. IF it is available--I gave it up when it turned out
> that my CD-ROM drive couldn't be accessed by OS/2, and neither the drive

  Have you checked lately? An awful lot of drivers have come out -- I had the
same problem with my Chinon 431 CDROM, but now even that piece of junk is
supported. But -- there is an easy work-around in OS/2, you just create a
dos-image file with vmdisk.exe and you can load any dos drivers and run
whatever. Don't worry about XyWrite running in OS/2, it does great. Better than
dos. Definitely faster than when I ran XY4 under dos with Desqview.
BTW, many dos programs like the dos-image file setup, especially games, and
things like laplink, etc.

  In another post you mentioned that you heard Chicago would soon be out, and
would be as good as OS/2. That's a joke, right? Even MS now refers to it as
Windows '95, meaning it won't be out until then at least. And they told us
windoz NT would be the answer to OS/2, and that's a flop.
Plus, when Chicago or Win '95 does come out, IBM will already have OS/2
3.0 out (this month) and WOS -- the OS/2 for the PowerPC -- will already be
out, which means that MS will then be a whole generation behind. And as soon as
WOS hits the market, the clone manufacturers will start pumping out cheap
PowerPC boxes, and windoz will be like something out of the dark ages.
  Remember, any software written to run on dos or windoz is written to run on
8 bit or 16 bit hardware and operating systems. It can't possibly take even
partial advantage of the power of a 32 bit system/hardware, let alone 64bit.
And code written to run on 32/64 bit systems won't run at all on the older
systems. So developers have to make a definite choice, like with XyWrite -- to
stay with the horse and buggy, or build starships.
Since XyWrite was always a power-users wordsmithing tool, you would think that
it would be evolving to stay at the cutting edge of the technology, but that
clearly hasn't happened. Given it's origins and history, one would have thought
to see not only a 32-bit version of XY, but some efforts to incorporate pen and
voice technology into XY. Instead we see XYWIN. And absolute silence from TTG
on any forward looking development. Or even about any sort of lateral expansion
into more and better support of foreign or archaic languages and alphabets. Now
that Notabene is no longer part of TTG, I would think that adding the features
of NB to XY would be of immediate interest. And easily done. A new XY/NB
synthesis based upon the XY4 engine instead of the outdated XY3 engine of NB
-- and supporting Chinese and Japanese -- geez, now wouldn't that be the hot
marketing ploy, eh? Sigh!


Harmon Seaver hseaver@xxxxxxxx

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