OS/2 Etc.

[Carl Distefano]

Robert: Thanks for the list of BBS downloads for OS/2; I'll look for them. To
get started, I bought "OS/2 2.1 Unleashed", a big fat book written by IBMers
who developed OS/2. This tome I was able to browse -- unencumbered by a
computer -- for two weeks in Vermont. When I got back and actually turned on
the machine (I'd installed OS/2 hours before leaving on vacation but then it
was time to go), I quickly felt at home in this new OS. Except for the ProComm
problem, I had it customized and configured in 2-3 hours; ProComm was up and
running a day or two later. Like you, I was so excited about moving up that I
didn't think twice about the effort. What a joy to be able to switch easily
among several working applications, all visible and accessible on the OS/2
"desktop"! It was as though I'd gone out and bought a whole new computer! DOS
withers by comparison. A 386 or better processor is a terrible thing to
waste....

A 32-bit XyWrite would be a welcome development -- though I think it should be
much more than a "text-based ASCII WP", don't you? For the OS/2 environment, a
graphical application that lives comfortably in the Workplace Shell would be a
must. Nowadays, character-based apps have an antiquated look-and-feel; 32-bit
or no, a char-based WP just wouldn't sell. (Personally, I really *like* the
OS/2 desktop; it's well thought out, nice to look at, and intuitive to use,
though disk management via desktop objects remains a something of a mystery to
me. And, kludge or no, I'm looking forward to Xy for Windows, mainly to see if
I can get better WYSIWYG for proportional fonts and secondarily in the hope
that I can eventually get something like seamless Cyrillic support.)

But, looking into the not-too-distant future, I see a truly universal WP with
built-in-from-the-ground-up omni-lingual capabilities. That means a 16-bit
universal character set, probably Unicode-based. The only OS that supports
Unicode now is Windows NT; maybe IBM plans to offer it in OS/2's successor,
Workplace OS. Add in traditional Xy configurability and programmability, good
printer support, and the ability to communicate with other apps, and I don't
see what else one could ask for in a WP (but lemme think...). I know one group
of programmers already at work on a Unicode-based WP for Windows NT; it's a
development (in both senses) that TG/XyQuest should not ignore. (Who knows, it
might even turn *into* XyWrite for NT, if both sides had the resources, and the
nerve. I'm serious...)

It's anyone's guess who'll come out on top in the OS wars. Most important, as
you say, is to have a generally-accepted standard, so that applications
development can progress. To paraphrase Justice Brandeis, sometimes it's more
important that a case be decided, than that it be decided correctly....

As for Microsoft apps, I didn't have to think hard: I use exactly one [1]
Microsoft program -- MS-DOS 5, on a machine that I will "migrate" to OS/2 the
next chance I get. Speaking of M$, have you heard that the next release of
Word will have something called "Intellisense", which scans a document's
formatting, corrects what it perceives to be errors and automatically cleans up
formatting codes? Sounds improbable to me, but quite a trick if they can make
it work. Ciao.