Re: Windows vs DOS XyWrite vs the future?

[hseaver@xxxxxxxx (Harmon Seaver)]

> 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

  Didn't mean to imply that you weren't knowledgeable, Nathan -- some times
net communication comes across a bit differently than we would hear it if we
were face to face, eh?

> 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,

  Well, I'll be you that it would take me about 1/2 hour or less to get that
working under OS/2. Seriously. I run all sorts of stuff that various tech
support people tell me they don't support.

> 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

  Oh god, a Gateway -- no wonder. Gateway changes components so much in the
same production run that even THEY haven't a clue what's in your computer for
sure -- and their tech support is not.
  Well, here's one idea -- they used a scsi card for a lot of NECs which is
really made by Trantor, and the Trantor drivers have been out for eons. If it
isn't a scsi, but one of those weird little proprietary interfaces -- I could
still get it to work in a VDM with the dos drivers,
I absolute guarantee it. Or -- jerk that puppy out, sell it on the net for a
$100 or so, and buy a Mitsumi new w/3 CD-ROMs for $129, 8-)
That's what I'd do -- but then I have to figure out not only how to make my
hardware work with OS/2, but also with Linux, and that's harder. Like I said
-- I can get anything to work with OS/2 -- Linux is another story. With Linux,
you can't cry to the manufacturer for support of any kind.

> 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

 Sorry, but I don't believe that -- and my experience with IBM's support for
OS/2 has been great. Of course, I haven't had to call them for anything since
the first 2.1 beta came out, but all the traffic on the
OS/2 newsgroups indicates most people get good help from IBM, and we also got
very good responses from their IBMnet echos on FIDONET. I think that it's just
plain silly to say they don't care about OS/2 -- after all, the mainframe
market is shrinking rapidly -- when you can run 350 users off a 586 running
Linux, who needs a mainframe? Or even a mini? And with the PowerPC out -- well,
actually, the only thing that keeps those old vaxes and mainframes going in the
unviversity scene, for example, is a bunch of incompetent old crocks who don't
know any better and won't learn anything new.


Harmon Seaver hseaver@xxxxxxxx

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