Re: Windows vs DOS XyWrite vs the future?

[nsivin@xxxxxxxx (Nathan Sivin)]

Harmon:

You are very knowledgeable, but you are not used to considering other people
knowledgeable, and you do not always pay attention to what they say. I can
assure you that I gave OS/2 a good try, downloaded a good many utilities from
Hobbes, contacted the 3 manufacturers involved before they talked me into
believing that my CD-ROM was never going to work with OS/2, etc. The drive is
an NEC CDR-260, a fast drive that was standard in
Gateway 4DX2-66 six months ago. NEC wouldn't support it, because the entire
production went to Gateway under an arrangement under which they have no
obligation to. Gateway wouldn't support it because they just won't (the most
detailed explanation I was able to get). They did not consider the uselessness
of the drive for OS/2 a sufficient reason to replace the drive 3 weeks after
the computer was bought (although it was bought by a major customer of theirs,
my university). IBM won't support the CD-ROM drive because, well, that isn't
their responsibility, and because, just between us, they don't give a damn
whether OS/2 catches on or not. After all, it isn't a mainframe OS. Let me
clarify the points you raised, my views on which, I thought, were already clear
enough.

1. Although OS/2 deservedly has many people writing utilities and the usual
gamut of shareware, the choice of major applications is extremely narrow.
Developers right and left have chosen not to write for or port to OS/2.
XyWrite is only one example. The same people will choose to write for Windows
95 whether it is better or worse than OS/2. I agree with you it is unlikely,
given MS's attitude toward the quality of programming for individual users, to
be better.

1.5. I have read several reviews of Describe.  They give a clear impression
of a program with less functionality for my purposes (long scholarly documents,
occasional only slightly complex graphics for desktop publishing) than the
Windows heavies. For those purposes, every review I have ever read put AMI at
the bottom of the Windows list. On the other hand, if I were publishing an
illustrated mag or newsletter it would be at or near the top.

2. On a Power-PC Mac, it should certainly be possible before long (not yet) to
run XyDOS at respectable speed. But Mac has been setting the standard for
graphics software, and software with graphics functions, for some time, and I
am tired of PC's evolving as bad imitations.

The real issue for someone who wants to use Chinese is Unicode. There
PC's are hopelessly behind, although I was delighted this morning to see that
the move to Unicode has begun (see my other message).

3. I take a good deal of trouble to maintain a stable DOS environment, and do
not regularly run into crashes. Partly because the machine the University gave
me has 16MB RAM, I have not had a GPF in Windows yet. But then I don't feel
the need to multitask.

4. One reason I don't is a marvelous device called a print spooler. It is
rarely needed with XyWrite, but waiting for a long file to print is an ancient
memory.

-- Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325