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- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!gatech!concert!ais.com!bruce
- From: bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
- Subject: Re: OS/2 bigot meets NT....
- Message-ID: <1992Dec26.012935.5912@ais.com>
- Date: 26 Dec 92 01:29:34 GMT
- References: <BzttK1.5xG@news.iastate.edu>
- Distribution: usa
- Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC
- Lines: 123
-
- In article <BzttK1.5xG@news.iastate.edu>, TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu (Timothy I Miller) writes:
- >
- > In article <1992Dec25.110655.27320@u.washington.edu>,
- > robs@hardy.u.washington.edu (Robert Suh) writes:
- >>
- >>Well, I can name lots of reasons...
- >>
- >>1) C2 Security - I know lots of places that Security of data on the PC or
- >>LAN is a MUST. Can't have someone just walk up to a PC/Node and take a look
- >>at all the data on it.
- >
- > I'm pretty trusting of people I let use my computer, or hook up
- > to it for that matter. The only computer I'm going to be hooked up
- > to will be the other computer in my house, and I don't really need
- > to keep the files secure from my girlfriend...
-
- Most of the places I know that actually _need_ C2 level security (as
- opposed to just some kind of security to keep users out of each
- other's hair) are either Government installations or Government
- contractors, and some of them of course need higher levels of
- security than that. Unfortunately the way the economy is going they
- may turn out to be the only big computer users left :-(.
-
- >>2) Cross Platform - Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit in front of either
- >>a PC, MIPS, Alpha, or almost any other system (Thanks HAL ) and know that
- >>Windows NT has the ability to run on it? I know thats a BIG Plus for some of
- >>the larger mixed - environment workplaces.
- >
- > This whole cross-platform thing is a little confusing. From
- > what I understand, only the OS is cross platform, and the programs
- > must all be recompiled in order to run on them. So, let's say I
- > have a lot of money invested in NT software for Intel machines.
- > Then I decide in the future that I want an Alpha machine. I'll have
- > to go out and buy all of my software again. Shouldn't I have an OS
- > that's designed to take advantage of the special properties of the
- > hardware instead? It would end up costing the same, and my OS would
- > end up being more powerful.
- > Of course, if the same software could be used, things would be
- > much easier and cheaper, but too many abstracting layers would need
- > to be used in order for the system to be useable.
-
- My understanding is that NT on platforms like the Alpha will be able
- to run Intel (DOS/Windows) programs in an emulation mode, but that in
- order to take advantage of the faster machine you will need to recompile
- the application. This, of course, is old wine in a new bottle -- Unix
- and VMS have had various 3rd-party products that do a pretty good job
- of this now, but they're *slow*, which you'd expect from an emulator.
-
- There are two approaches that they might take with this:
-
- 1) Make an emulator for NT like the one for Unix/VMS. This has
- the advantage of being relatively straightforward, since the
- emulator could probably be largely adapted from existing code.
- It has the disadvantage that apps would be very slow with it;
- and why would you buy an Alpha if you're just going to throw
- away all the performance advantages it has by running old Intel
- code in an emulator? It seems to me that this will only be
- interesting for apps used `occasionally' that you can't or don't
- want to relicense for the Alpha; if you really need the all the
- performance of an Alpha for one or more of your critical apps
- you're going to require that those apps be in native mode.
-
- 2) Use a machine translator like the VEST translator that can be
- used to move VMS code from the VAX to the Alpha. This can do much
- better than an emulator, but is still not as good as directly
- compiled code for the target machine (the penalty is probably
- only a factor of 2 or 3 or thereabouts rather than a factor of
- 10-20 or more for emulation). This is problematic; even apart
- from any licensing issues of whether your license agreements for
- the translated software allow you to run it on the Alpha, the
- VEST technology pretty much requires that you understand some-
- thing about the internals of the program being translated, in
- order to select the proper translation mode. The Intel .EXE
- file format and procedure calling standards (or lack thereof)
- also gives the translator less information for its job, so it
- may not be possible to do as well with Intel images as it is for
- VAX images ... if it's possible at all.
-
- A machine like the Alpha is not targeted at the typical PC user, or even
- the typical PC `power user' -- it's targeted at users that require very
- large amounts of compute power, but don't necessarily require very much
- PC compatibility. I can see why it might be interesting for such users
- to be able to run a few non-critical, non-compute-bound PC programs that
- give them access to programs that they like, but if they run everything
- that way it defeats the purpose of the faster CPU. Their main app(s)
- really _must_ be native apps, otherwise why pay for the Porsche?
-
- Which gets back to native mode applications for NT. I've heard various
- rumor-level talk to the effect that not many NT developers plan to target
- anything but the Intel platform. (I know it's not _all_ of them, I know
- of a few that will be targeting others as well, including Alpha). If it
- turns out that there are few native-mode packages available for NT on the
- Alpha, I suspect that most Alpha users will use either Unix or VMS --
- which is probably the OS that was on their previous workstation anyway(!).
- This is the sort of thing we won't really know until NT is out -- it's
- not even something that is very well within Microsoft's control: about
- the only app that they control that might use that much CPU power is Excel,
- when running unusually large spreadsheets; W4W is not the type of app
- that you need that amount of CPU to run.
-
- But in any event NT won't be getting a black eye because of its size, as
- Steve Withers suggested in another article -- Unix and VMS are both in
- the same general ballpark as NT in that regard.
-
- It's an interesting question. NT's future on Intel boxes looks to be
- considerably brighter in the short run than its future on non-Intel boxes,
- for what that's worth (I'll pass for now on the question of how bright
- NT's future on Intel boxes is). It will depend on whether it offers the
- end-user anything not offered by Unix or VMS, in terms of basic function-
- ality and app support. Most of the `advantages' listed over those systems
- are advantages for the _developer_, not the _user_; which means that, if
- we're talking about purely technical issues, it will probably be a long
- time, if ever, before it has much effect (example: MS-DOS has a horrible
- API from a developer's perspective, but it's been very successful in spite
- of it). And NT has some substantial _deletions_ from the feature set
- enjoyed by Unix or VMS -- full multiuser support (eg, on serial comm
- lines) for one thing. IMHO, the biggest thing NT on non-Intel boxes has
- going for it is Microsoft's marketing strength, but it's unclear how well
- that will translate into the high-end workstation world.
-
- 1993 will definitely be an interesting year.
-
- Bruce C. Wright
-