[Am-info] Re: O/S 2 support - slightly off topic (my apologies)

[Felmon Davis]

On Sunday 17 March 2002 01:09 pm, Marcus de Geus wrote:
> In reply to a message from "Eric M. Hopper" 
<hopper@omnifarious.org> dated 2002-03-17 12:01:02 -0500 (EST) (Sun):
> > But, putting OS/2 up on some pedestal and saying how
> > spectacularly wonderful it is will draw my ire because it simply
> > isn't.  It's interesting at best, and fraught with its own major
> > design flaws.  It was better designed, and significantly more
> > stable than Windows.  It also did an excellent job of running DOS
> > and Windows 3.1 applications. But it was not, in any respect that
> > I'm aware of, an innovator or leader in OS or UI design.  (Well,
> > perhaps their DOS boxes were innovative. I'd really like to know
> > how they made that work as well as they apparently did.)
>
> Eric,
>
> I fear you're approaching this from the wrong angle. Have you ever
> seriously tried to use OS/2 or eCS in the way it was designed to be
> used? I strongly suspect that you haven't, and that you used it --
> like many, if not most, users -- simply as a glorified WinDOS
> preemptive multitasker with an ugly (from the bitmap-crazed WinDOS
> camp POV) interface. Yes, if all you want to do is launch
> Office[tm] and leave it at that, OS/2 is a bad choice, if only for
> the (very true) fact that it has its design flaws (bu then, name me
> a 10-year old OS that hasn't; come to that, name me a recent one
> that hasn't). OTOH, if an object-oriented GUI is what you want (and
> I do, very much so), there simply is no alternative, nor is there
> likely to be in the near, or even distant, future.
>

I'm kinda mostly doing Linux now but I'm considering a reinstall of 
Warp or perhaps a new install of ECS, if only out of curiosity and an 
interest in diversity. I must say, having spent now about a yr in 
Linux almost exclusively, that OS/2 just spoils you for the 
alternatives. I like Linux, alot, but I _loved_ OS/2.

For brevity I'm taking the liberty of deleting the rest of your post 
but I agree with it with twinges of nostalgia. I'll pull out one of 
my spares and get OS/2 (as ECS) up and running. It'll enhance my 
networking pleasure to see how it combines with my Linux setup.

(I was kind of forced to the Linux side last yr as I was marooned 
abroad and couldn't get OS/2 up and running on the equipment I had 
bought so I took it as an opportunity to immerse myself in Linux.)

Felmon