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Re: Why a Windows 95 version?



You wrote: 
>
>OS/2 2.0 was a crock of shit.  However, OS/2 2.1 and later are pretty
>good.  And they are *not* less powerful than Win95.  As far as 32bit
>progs go, about the same.   However, OS/2 will do 16-bit Windows
>much better than Win95, for the following reasons:
>
>1)  OS/2 allows multiple Windows 16 apps in virtual machines, allowing
>    pre-emptive multitasking of Win16 apps, and protecting them from
>    each other.  Win95 does not have this, although NT does.

Actualy, NT does *not* do that either.  It is actualy nessecary to work 
100% correctly that the Win16 applications run in the same VM.


>2)  OS/2 protects its kernel structures from its programs.  Win95
>    does not.  This makes Win95 somewhat faster, but also makes it
>    less stable.  If a Win95 program corrupts a kernel data structure
>    it can bring the whole machine down (just as in Win 3.x).  OS/2,
>    Unix and NT do not allow programs to modify kernel structures,
>    so it's almost impossible to crash the OS as a whole.
>

Don't forget it is still in beta.  Not to mention, they are using 
*fast* and *mature* 16 bit code from over 10 years of improvement to 
speed up the kernel.  If they do switch in the future (probibly in 
Win97 or Win98), it would be much slower.


>3)  Win95 does not pre-emptively multitask as soon as you run any
>    Win16 apps in it.  OS/2 does.  For most people this makes
>    precious little difference, of course.
>

Don't forget that OS/2 is not Win16 native.  That means it can run a 
windows subsystem for each application, and get pre-emp. multitasking!  
Win95 uses one windowing system that must act like the Win16 system to 
the Window 16 applications!


>Tim.
>
-Dan Guisinger



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