Game Dev Conference: OS/2 vs Win95
war...@ibm.net
Wondrous weather. Didn't exacty make me excited to get back here to
Michigan where it is cold and rainy.
The show was very impressive and it was the first time I went there. From
talking to others, it was apparent that this year was different than others in
that the infamous OS wars had now reached the borders of the game
developer community. IBM and Microsoft both put on impressive shows to
impress game developers and try to win their favor so that they would
develop for their respective platform.
IBM had a major presence with a large booth that showed off a native
version of DOOM running at about the same speed as the native version,
Galactic Civilizations for OS/2, a pre-beta of Avarice and an alpha of
Entrepreneur.
Microsoft had the money though not the games (yet?). They too had a
native Win32 version of DOOM that was at least as impressive as the OS/2
version of DOOM. Both OS's now have a special "full screen" gaming mode
that allows developers to write to any resolution they want to and have
that become the screen's resolution on the fly (i.e. both Win95 and OS/2
can switch from 1024x768 to 320x200 instantly). It was very impressive.
While OS/2 clearly leads the 32bit gaming market with GalCiv clearly a media
success (positive reviews in mainstream magaziens from Computer Gaming
World to PC Gamer); Microsoft is pushing Win95 hard and impressively. I
saw a port of Pitfall Harry (from Sega) running faster and with better graphics
than the native Sega version. There were a number of technology demonstrations
for Windows95 as well but again, OS/2 today has commercial games with several
more coming out.
Microsoft definitely had the money and it showed. Their "party" was huge
and had really good food and was full of computers and friendly engineers
running about. IBM had a smaller room but the desserts were excellent.
But I digress. Microsoft also rented the Great America theme park
(though you had to sign an NDA to get in which was pretty lame).
Both Win95 and OS/2 have impressive capabilities for gaming. Microsoft clearly
has the bucks to spend on promoting Win95 while OS/2 has the early lead.
The question is, who will win the war as the future 32bit gaming platform?
I will admit my bias, I am an OS/2 developer but I am a game player first. I
have used both Win95 betas and OS/2 Warp and find OS/2 to be a superior
platform but Win95 isn't too bad but definitely untried and not something I
would want to run out and make a game for early on!
Here is the text from a speech I gave to developers at the conference:
Why Develop native OS/2 Games?
Text based off the speech given at the Game Developer's Conference
at San Jose California by Brad Wardell of Stardock Systems Inc.
Introduction:
My name is Brad Wardell, I work at the company called Stardock Systems.
In the spring of 1993, I was an active member of the internet groups
called comp.os.os2.advocacy and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic. Many
of us on the strategic area were wishing that there could be more advanced
strategy games than there were and ones that had computer players that
wouldn't cheat. After seeing that none of the major companies were
giving our words any weight, I designed an advanced strategy game that
had computer players that didn't cheat. There was one draw back, at the
time, it would require a mulithreaded operating system. This was okay
with me actually because the other group I was on was currently discussing
that OS/2 had no native apps and that native programs always failed.
Word Perfect 5.2 the Mirrors port had arrived during this time and things
were looking a little gloomy.
I talked to my partners at the company I worked at and we agreed that
Stardock would make its first commercial product be a game instead of
an application. That game would become Galactic Civilizations (GalCiv).
At first, no one knew what to make of someone making a commercial
game for OS/2. In fact, some segments in IBM were openly hostile to
someone making a GAME for their mission critical corporate operating
system. A number of Windows fanatics on the .advocacy forums said we
were silly for developing a game for OS/2. They were wrong.
When we started GalCiv, there was no .os2.games forum that didn't
go up until GalCiv went into beta (rumor has it that it went up FOR the
GalCiv beta but I'm not in the know on this). Since then, much has
changed. IBM has a major presence at the game developers conference
here and has a brand manager now (Lloyd Weber) who is aggressively
getting people to develop for OS/2.
GalCiv is an advanced space based strategy game where you and up to
6 computer controlled players vie for dominance of a user defined galaxy.
You colonize planets and build an infastructure to make your civilization
thrive. The computer players play by the same rules you do. While you
are moving your units or doing whatever, a background "thread" is
quietly creating strategies for your opponents. This way, by the time you
finished your move, they are all ready to make theirs. No long waits and
the AI doesn't have to cheat to be challenging.
II) Why make games for OS/2?
First of all, there are threads. Threads let your applications multitask
within itself. Secondly, it is a stable platform for development and
game playing in general. It's been out there for many years and its
features and limitations are a known quantity. There is little guess work
involved. It won't crash when an app goes down (it only crashes when
you'd least expect it! :) {crowd laughs}). The features you need to make
a multimedia product are in there. From MIDI and digitzed sound to
ultimotion video and DIVE.
III) What about Windows 95?
Well, I don't know a nice way to put this but how much can you trust
Microsoft? {several Microsoft employees in audience glare}. I mean,
{stammering}, they say what you want to hear but do they really deliver?
Last year it was WinG could solve all the world's problems. How do you
rate their support for it now? Moreover, WIndows95 is untested. Inforworld
recently reported that they can bring it to its knees by opening 40 or so
folders and this is AFTER the resource "Fix"! I don't know about you
but I've found that games tend to push the OS just a LITTLE bit. If it
can't handle opening lots of folders then developing anything beyond a simple
arcadish game for it might not be such a good idea. They had to take
threads out of the MS Network to make it more stable. Game developers
might as well stay with DOS4G if putting threads in their WIn95 games
causes problems.
Moreover, who cares what platform you develop for? If your game is
world class, users will simply move to that platform. When Wing Commander3
came out, it didn't even occur to me not to upgrade my system and
thousands of other players probably felt the same way. There are two
types of game players. The one that will only play the game if it is
very convenient and the second type which will do that it takes to maximize
their gaming experience. This second group is the group game companies
are increasingly targeting. From Magic Carpet to Wing Commander 3, companies
have found that users will do whta it takes to play a world class game.
QEMM is a $99 product. PLayers buy it to make it easier to play the new
DOS games. OS/2 is a $79 product. Users will just pick that up as part of
getting the game. When you have users paying hundreds of dollars to upgrade
their systems to play the newest game, buying a $80 operating system
is a no-brainer. The fact that OS/2 has shipped 9 million units is only
icing on the cake.
Finally, by developing for a 32bit OS like OS/2, having a cross platform
development team is relatively easy. With our newest game, Entrepreneur,
we have developed the SDS Game Class LIbrary to allow us to port to
other environments easily if we should decided we want to.
IV) Tools used.
Choosing the right compiler is the first thing. I recommend either Cset or
Watcomm. There are others such as Borland but I don't recommend
Borland. There are a number of good OS/2 books now. Petzold's new
writing PM programs for OS/2 is a good one. Real World OS/2 programming
is also a good one. There are many resources online to get help such as
OS/2 Programming on the Fidonet, Internet, and other area. The Developer
ASsistance program is also very helpful.
V) The Future.
Stardock is moving ahead with its plans to bring quality software to the
OS/2 platform. In the games area, we have Entrepreneur, a corporate
conquest game where you try to drive your competitors out of business
{the room looks at the Microsoft guys}, and Avarice, a virtual reality game
in which you explore a fully rendered world (Avarice was a hit at the
game conference).
But say you are an independent developer who wants to make OS/2 games
but you have no way to publish it. Stardock might be able to help you
get your product to market.
VI) Conclusions.
If your target audience is the type of players who want to maximize their
gaming experience, then OS/2 is your platform. True game players will
do what it takes to play good games. We learned that with GalCiv. We
estimate that a high percentage of GalCiv players moved from DOS to
OS/2 strictly to play the game. If your target is the low end game player,
then by all means, stick with DOS.
OS/2 is here, its proven, and its powerful. There is no other PC platform
that competes with OS/2 in high end gaming features.
Questions:
a] How well has GalCiv done?
Answer: Well enough where I'm up here encouraging you to be a potential
competitor to us.
b] When will Entrepreneur go into beta?
Answer: This June. You can reserve a beta by sending in the online form
I posted on Internet and CompuServe. (check out comp.os.os2.games)
c] What about Avarice?
Same as above.
d] How do OS/2's native graphics calls compare to the GDI calls or WinG?
Answer: WinG is a great performer but OS/2's GPI calls are quite good
and much faster than the standard GDI calls in Windows. OS/2 has DIVE
which is basically the same thing as WinG.
----------------------------------
Brad Wardell was the project manager of Galactic Civilizations at
Stardock Systems, Inc. His newest project, Entrepreneur will be in
beta this summer and released this Fall. He can be reached at
War...@ibm.net or on the Stardock CompuServe forum.
------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------
Brad Wardell | OS/2 Development/Publishing
Stardock Systems (SDS) Inc. | Galactic Civilizations
On Cserve: GO STARDOCK | OS/2 Essentials
Email: War...@ibm.net | Shipyards
Phone: (313)/782-2248 | Fax: (313)/207-0780
------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------
Dr. Cat
: Moreover, who cares what platform you develop for? If your game is
: world class, users will simply move to that platform. When Wing Commander3
: came out, it didn't even occur to me not to upgrade my system and
: thousands of other players probably felt the same way.
That is entirely true - IF your game is world class. However, I would
say that less than ten percent of all games ARE world class. What should
the developers of the remaining games do? The vast majority of all game
developers? Most games that come out on an unpopular platform will not
be big enough hits to motivate people to upgrade, and they simply won't
sell. I've seen this time and time again in the 13 years I've been in
the industry. Unless you're Wing Commander 3 or Doom or the like, you
had better pick a popular platform to begin with. Unless using a
platform you like is more important to you than how many copies of your
game you sell.
: There are two
: types of game players. The one that will only play the game if it is
: very convenient and the second type which will do that it takes to maximize
: their gaming experience.
Exactly. Two types of players. A game that requires an upgrade only
sells to group two. But group two won't deliberately avoid games that
don't require an upgrade, if the games are good - so those games can sell
to BOTH groups, giving them a larger audience. Sounds like a no-brainer
to me.
: This second group is the group game companie are increasingly targeting.
Game companies have actually been targeting that group heavily for many
years. Though whether that level of targeting is increasing or
decreasing at the moment is open to debate. In either case, I think it's
one of the biggest mistakes the industry has been making. Back in the
early 80s, sure, you had to target the hard core enthusiasts. Nobody
else HAD a personal computer back then! But now... Given the ever
decreasing percentage of "early adopters" amongst the computer owning
population, now that 32% of American households own a computer, I think
it makes more sense to start make the kinds of products targeted at what
millions of people want, rather than the paltry hundreds of thousands
that a hit computer game might sell now. Donkey Kong Country has gotten
sell-through of 8 million copies so far of the 9 million they've shipped
to date. Somehow I think they have a better idea of what customers want
than a company selling 200,000 or 500,000 copies of a game to hardcore
gaming fanatics. But that's an easy market to figure out how to sell to,
because most computer game makers are hardcore gaming fanatics, so they
can just make stuff that they like themselves.
: Questions:
: a] How well has GalCiv done?
: Answer: Well enough where I'm up here encouraging you to be a potential
: competitor to us.
I'm curious, is there some reason why you're not providing a specific
number here? Speaking as a professional who has to put bread on the
table with this stuff, I can say I won't even consider switching to
another existing platform without getting some hard numbers on how well
other products have sold on it. What harm could it do you to tell people
this? I know a lot of companies THINK it does them harm to release
information of this type, but I've yet to hear a compelling argument
supporting that notion. And I believe I could mount a fairly compelling
argument countering it.
***********************************************************************
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions ** Come play DragonSpires!
******************************************** ftp.eden.com pub/dspire
Dragonspires is a graphic mud for PCs. ** has everything you need!
***********************************************************************
** http://www.realtime.net/~gauntlet/dspire.html for more info **
***********************************************************************
karl todd
Hi,
> OS/2 *IS* a popular platform. IBM is claiming close to 2 million sales
> of Warp since its launch, and something like 7-8 million installed copies
> in use. This can only get bigger when Warp Connect and OS/2 for the
> PowerPC arrive. How much bigger is open to debate, but I certainly can't
> see their arrival decreasing the userbase any. Of course, somebody is
> going to flame me over these figures. I'm not claiming they're accurate,
> I'm just claiming they've been thrown about. As for exact citations, I
> will leave those for an excerise for the interested reader. 8)
I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Todd -> ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk
Dominion Software
"Manchester, so much to answer for"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
joe...@gate.net
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Karl Todd -> ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk
>Dominion Software
Well, I for one personally use Warp. I have friends that also use it. That's not
to say I don't also use Windows or DOS. But I must say, I've loaded the Win95
beta and am not impressed. Oh sure, I know it's only a beta, but if it doesn't
improve 200%, I'll never make the transition. The FACTS are:
1.) Warp provides a stable 32-bit multi-threading operating system.
2.) It is available NOW.
3.) IBM has committed to working with software developers in order to
get additional titles on the market.
4.) IBM does not claim that Warp will run ALL dos/win apps (that's why they
provide for dual boot/boot manager).
5.) OS/2 will never surpass DOS/Windows as the most widely used operating
system -- but that doesn't mean it's not a better product.
Sergio Pitanga
karl todd <ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>> OS/2 *IS* a popular platform. IBM is claiming close to 2 million sales
>> of Warp since its launch, and something like 7-8 million installed copies
>> in use. This can only get bigger when Warp Connect and OS/2 for the
>> PowerPC arrive. How much bigger is open to debate, but I certainly can't
>> see their arrival decreasing the userbase any. Of course, somebody is
>> going to flame me over these figures. I'm not claiming they're accurate,
>> I'm just claiming they've been thrown about. As for exact citations, I
>> will leave those for an excerise for the interested reader. 8)
>
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Karl Todd -> ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk
>Dominion Software
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I disagree. Hard drives are dirt cheap right now, so we will be seeing more
multiple operating system users out there. I intend to have dos/os2/unix/win 95in my system by the end of summer.
I bought OS/2 full pack and for 70 dollars it was worth it.
Right now I do not recommend OS/2 for gamers. It is a great OS but only a few
games available. Yes I know that theoretically you can play dos games in OS/2
but it takes a lot of learning. Another one of my goals is to actually see a
dos game run under OS/2. :)
--
Jason Keeney
: I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
: bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
<stuff deleted>
who has acutally bought os2?!? man, you're asking for a flooded mailbox
with a question like that. maybe you don't know anybody, but i can name
quite a few including myself...
jason
jr...@netcom.com
David Williams
>> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
>> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
>> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
>> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
>> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows
95.
Well, I bought it for home use and have it on two of my home systems now and
so have several of my friends. At the moment we're not really interested in
Win95 since dos/win3.11 or OS/2 fit our needs just fine.
>Hard drives are dirt cheap right now, so we will be seeing more
>multiple operating system users out there. I intend to have dos/os2/unix/win
>95in my system by the end of summer.
I agree. How's this...I currently have a lap top with dos/win, OS/2 warp and
Linux loaded on it. I'm going to upgrade the drives on my desktop and do the
same with it.
>Another one of my goals is to actually see a
>dos game run under OS/2. :)
When I installed OS/2 it found my dos games and set everything up for me.
I've been playing them fine without any troubles.
Mark R. Johnson
> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
Well, I *do* know lots of people who run OS/2. I would think that all
members of Team OS/2 do, at least. While it is true that Warp has been
adopted by banks across the United States and Canada, these institutions
generally buy large site licenses from IBM, instead of heading down to
the local Best Buy and buying a few thousand copies. (It is uncertain if
IBM counts site licenses into their sales counts) However, the local
Best Buy here in Des Moines, IA, was sold out of Warp on the evening it
became available. I was with two people who bought the last two copies.
From the shelf tags, it was clear they had a least 20 copies when the day
started. A local software store in my hometown has been selling OS/2 at
a rather high pace since its introduction. Warp has been in the top 10
list of software shipped to *retail* outlets many times. Most businesses
(large ones anyway) do not buy their software from retail outlets. THey
buy site licenses. Individuals have been buying those copies.
Just becuase you do not know any people using OS/2 doesn't mean nobody
uses it. Just because all of the people you know are waiting for Win 95
does not mean everybody is. Everybody I know thinks Win 95 is a pile of
crap and most of them are happilly warped.
--
_____________________________________________________________________________
|Mark R. Johnson "To defend, this is the pact" |
|m...@iastate.edu "But when life is scorned, and damage done"|
|<Team OS/2> "To avenge, this is the pact" |
Mark R. Johnson
Sergio Pitanga <pit...@uhibpd.phys.uh.edu> wrote:
>I disagree. Hard drives are dirt cheap right now, so we will be seeing more
>multiple operating system users out there. I intend to have dos/os2/unix/win 95in my system by the end of summer.
>I bought OS/2 full pack and for 70 dollars it was worth it.
>Right now I do not recommend OS/2 for gamers. It is a great OS but only a few
>games available. Yes I know that theoretically you can play dos games in OS/2
>but it takes a lot of learning. Another one of my goals is to actually see a
>dos game run under OS/2. :)
I disagreee. 8) Some games have problems, but some actually run
*better* under OS/2 than dos. Many run a little slower, and many run
just as fast. Death Gate runs better under OS/2 than DOS on my system.
I just used the standard dos box settings too. Descent runs, as does
Dark Forces.
Corey Barcus
>In article <799247...@dominion.demon.co.uk>,
>karl todd <ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> OS/2 *IS* a popular platform. IBM is claiming close to 2 million sales
>Right now I do not recommend OS/2 for gamers. It is a great OS but only a few
>games available. Yes I know that theoretically you can play dos games in OS/2
>but it takes a lot of learning. Another one of my goals is to actually see a
>dos game run under OS/2. :)
Descent is awesome under OS/2 (using a shareware joystick driver of course!).
Runs just as fast as under DOS. There's a bit of swapping when I switch back
and forth...but hell, I can do stuff in the background! I love Descent, so under
OS/2 is where I play it.
P90 16MB
/-------------------
Uh...words and stuff
from...@blarg.com
finger for PGP public key
/-------------------
Mark R. Johnson
>That is entirely true - IF your game is world class. However, I would
>say that less than ten percent of all games ARE world class. What should
>the developers of the remaining games do? The vast majority of all game
>developers? Most games that come out on an unpopular platform will not
>be big enough hits to motivate people to upgrade, and they simply won't
>sell. I've seen this time and time again in the 13 years I've been in
>the industry. Unless you're Wing Commander 3 or Doom or the like, you
>had better pick a popular platform to begin with. Unless using a
>platform you like is more important to you than how many copies of your
>game you sell.
OS/2 *IS* a popular platform. IBM is claiming close to 2 million sales
of Warp since its launch, and something like 7-8 million installed copies
in use. This can only get bigger when Warp Connect and OS/2 for the
PowerPC arrive. How much bigger is open to debate, but I certainly can't
see their arrival decreasing the userbase any. Of course, somebody is
going to flame me over these figures. I'm not claiming they're accurate,
I'm just claiming they've been thrown about. As for exact citations, I
will leave those for an excerise for the interested reader. 8)
>Exactly. Two types of players. A game that requires an upgrade only
>sells to group two. But group two won't deliberately avoid games that
>don't require an upgrade, if the games are good - so those games can sell
>to BOTH groups, giving them a larger audience. Sounds like a no-brainer
>to me.
Ah, but you're missing the point here. The OS/2 games market is wide
open. Not a lot of competition right now. As the interest over GalCiv
has shown, OS/2 users are desperate for native games and will buy them.
OS/2 users get very annoyed when they buy dos/win games that don't work
under OS/2. Targetting the Dos/Win market with no thought of OS/2 or
OS/2 compatibility ignores a large and growing market. There is always
money to be made when there is a platform shift. Those that call it
right and are on the scene first make the bucks. Wordperfect used to
rule the Word Processing market when Dos was king. Windows arrived, they
didn't take it seriously, and Lotus and Microsoft helped themselves to a
large portion of their market share before they could bring a windows
version to market. The same thing may happen with OS/2. There is a real
chance for the little guy to edge in here and make some money. To say
there is no risk is ludicrous, but the payoffs could be enourmous.
>I'm curious, is there some reason why you're not providing a specific
>number here? Speaking as a professional who has to put bread on the
>table with this stuff, I can say I won't even consider switching to
>another existing platform without getting some hard numbers on how well
>other products have sold on it. What harm could it do you to tell people
>this? I know a lot of companies THINK it does them harm to release
>information of this type, but I've yet to hear a compelling argument
>supporting that notion. And I believe I could mount a fairly compelling
>argument countering it.
I certainly wouldn't throw the figure out if I was Brad. I don't
advertise my earnings per year, and I see few (actually none) non-public
game companies that publish what a particular game earns. Also, I doubt
SDS actually knows the exact figure because AIMS is handling the
marketting. (And even screwing it up as badly as they have, GalCiv
manages to sell. Despite the fuggly box. Despited the nonexistant
hardcopy manual.) I doubt however, that SDS would be pushing forth with
at least two more major projects ( I believe they have said they have
many on the back burner, but they are only pushing two right now) if they
were not confident that GalCiv was going to make at least a modest
profit. GalCiv does not play like it was designed by idiots. I think
SDS knows what they are doing.
war...@ibm.net
>war...@ibm.net wrote:
>: Moreover, who cares what platform you develop for? If your game is
>: world class, users will simply move to that platform. When Wing Commander3
>: came out, it didn't even occur to me not to upgrade my system and
>: thousands of other players probably felt the same way.
>
>say that less than ten percent of all games ARE world class. What should
>the developers of the remaining games do? The vast majority of all game
>developers? Most games that come out on an unpopular platform will not
>be big enough hits to motivate people to upgrade, and they simply won't
>sell. I've seen this time and time again in the 13 years I've been in
>the industry. Unless you're Wing Commander 3 or Doom or the like, you
>had better pick a popular platform to begin with. Unless using a
>platform you like is more important to you than how many copies of your
>game you sell.
>
I would argue that it is MUCH easier to develop a world class game
for a platform like OS/2 (or NT). Afterall, who out there had heard
of Stardock before GalCiv? Nobody except a few users in the .advocacy
area and .strategic area who read my taglines saying that my views
don't represent Stardock! :) While our budget for GalCiv certainly didn't
compare with a game by Origin (as GalCiv's so-so graphics can show), the
gameplay in it according to reviews rivals or surpasses other games of
its genre such as Civilization (one of my all time favorite games), Masters
of Orion, Empire, and Warlords.
Developing for an advanced platform lets you spend more time making the
game mechanics good and less time having to build it from scratch.
>: Questions:
>: a] How well has GalCiv done?
>: Answer: Well enough where I'm up here encouraging you to be a potential
>: competitor to us.
>
>I'm curious, is there some reason why you're not providing a specific
>number here? Speaking as a professional who has to put bread on the
>table with this stuff, I can say I won't even consider switching to
>another existing platform without getting some hard numbers on how well
>other products have sold on it. What harm could it do you to tell people
>this? I know a lot of companies THINK it does them harm to release
>information of this type, but I've yet to hear a compelling argument
>supporting that notion. And I believe I could mount a fairly compelling
>argument countering it.
Mainly, I don't have exact figures but also, it's just not proper to release this
kind of data.
Joseph D. Foley
>> of Warp since its launch, and something like 7-8 million installed copies
>> in use. This can only get bigger when Warp Connect and OS/2 for the
>> PowerPC arrive. How much bigger is open to debate, but I certainly can't
>> see their arrival decreasing the userbase any. Of course, somebody is
>> going to flame me over these figures. I'm not claiming they're accurate,
>> I'm just claiming they've been thrown about. As for exact citations, I
>> will leave those for an excerise for the interested reader. 8)
>
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
You need to get out more, then. There are (out of 10 computers on my
floor), 6 using OS/2. Close to half of my friends are using it. In many
places, mention of Win95 will draw only looks of scorn.
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
>
And waiting... and waiting... Uh huh.
Whatever.
Joseph
Eric Harding
: I am hesitant to continue a thread which has the potential to spark a
: flame war, but I can't sit back any longer. I have been using OS/2 off
: and on since prerelease 0.8 or so. I was at the big MS/IBM launch in
: NYC so far back I don't even remember the year. I have upgraded
April 2nd 1987, is when OS/2 and the PS/2 were announced I was at a similar
presentation in Toronto at IBM. But that is ancient history.
: I will say this just once: OS/2 is IBM's attempt to push a rope. It has
: not caught
Every one has a right to an opinion it would be nice if you backed it up
on in the market and despite IBM's best wishes, it never
: will.
Opinion and speculation
They have put 1 Billion dollars into developing OS/2. They are
: spending 500 Million more dollars in advertising it. They have sold
: less than 4 million copies. At CompUsa (one of the largest sellers of
Do you have a source for this number? I have heard estimates as hight as
10 million, but I think a more reasonable number would be 7 million. I
beleive that is what IBM has stated. It should also me noted that it is
a crime for a Public corporation to make false claims in finanical statements.
: OS/2) is is selling for 89 dollars retail. Retail is typically 50% of
: the price the vedor recieves. For those without calculators handy ($45
: * 4,000,000 = 180,000,000). That presumes that none of them were the
: $29 upgrades from previous versions.
: I am not certain about that 4 million figure either. At Comdex in Vega
: last fall a friend wandered into the wrong area out back and found
: several crates of OS/2. His estimate was that there were about 50,000
: copies of OS/2 waiting to be handed out. One of the salesman at the IBM
: booth bragged that that was the second shipment of that size for the
: show. Also one of our IBM sales team mentioned that IBM gave all of its
: employees gift certificates for free copies of OS/2 and if you needed
: more certificates for friend or relatives, all you had to do was ask.
So you are speculating that IBM gave virtually every person at Comdex a copy
of OS/2? What a great marketing move!
: While I certainly agree that OS/2 users are rabid about getting native
: game apps (they are actually rabid about getting native OS/2 anything),
I think eager would be a less abusive description.
: the market penetration for OS/2 is so low (4 million vs 180 million for
: DOS vs 35 million for Windows) that I would need such a high
Why are there a 145 million DOS computers? why havn't they upgraded to
Windows? One possible reason is they aren't capable of runing windows or
any of todays games, casue they are beat old computers that just run
Word Perfect and 1-2-3 allday. But thats just speculation, no false claims
here.
Thats the problem with numbers taken out of context, they don't mean anything.
: penetration of the OS/2 market to make up for even a mediocre
: penetration of either of the other 2 markets. Sorry boys, it ain't
: worth it. Especially, if I do some testing and make sure that my game
: will at least work on OS/2. Then I can sell to all 3 markets.
: My $0.02 worth.
2 cents doesn't buy what it use to.
: ken
--
Eric Harding ehar...@crl.com
70670,2626 on Compuserve
Charley Lee
karl todd <ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
I know of two personal friends who use OS/2 Warp. I don't because I would
rather not pirate it, so I'm waiting until I have a bigger hard drive and
more money. You see, one good thing about OS/2 is that it allows you to set
up multiple operating systems on one computer, and you can boot up your
machine with any of these installed OSes. Sooo, I am going to get OS/2 Warp
and then I'm going to also install Windows 95, and Linux. Why? Because my
school mostly uses UNIX based machines, so Linux is needed, and Windows 95
is sure to be popular, so I am being smart by allowing myself the advantage
of being able to use all of the OSes, based on my needs.
As far as I know, if I only get Windows95, I probably won't be able to keep
it on my computer when I try to install Linux. But if I get OS/2 Warp, I
can have all of my OSes on one computer, and run the software for all of them
without losing the benefits of the other OSes.
Not only is this something I need, it is something that is beneficial for
anyone who is planning on writing software that they wish to port to other
operating systems.. Using the above setup, porting a game from OS/2 to
Linux and Win95 should be fairly easy to do since I can program and test the
code for all of the systems without having machines dedicated to only one of
the OSes. That sounds like a very good benefit to me, and for any game
programmer who wishes to program something that will have a very large
market base.
Play it smart, get OS/2 Warp, *AND* Win95, and of course Linux, if you need
it. (Netrek is always fun. :) )
Chuck
pek...@cuug.ab.ca
>> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
>> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
>> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
>> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
>> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
>> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Karl Todd -> ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk
In reference to Karl:
From what I can ascertain, Windows 95 will be very poor in the gaming world,
and simply because their graphical engines provide slow support. Similarly,
there are only a few well-done Windows 3.1 games. Of course, there are even
fewer OS/2 games, but an important point is that OS/2 has the capability to
create superb games.
I'll be releasing a short graphical demo for OS/2 that runs between 50 and 100
frames per second (standard benchmarks) in full-screen on your average
486/50. When I talked to Windows/95 users, they insisted this wasn't
possible under any operating system, let alone OS/2.
If it's worth anything, myself and some colleagues have been using OS/2 on
our personal systems for a year. We are having little difficulty with it as
a personal operating system, which includes gaming.
>I disagree. Hard drives are dirt cheap right now, so we will be seeing more
>multiple operating system users out there. I intend to have dos/os2/unix/win 95in my system by the end of summer.
>I bought OS/2 full pack and for 70 dollars it was worth it.
Really? Wouldn't you rather not have to worry about maintaining multiple
operating systems? I'd like to get settled in to one. Since I'm already
acquainted with OS/2, and I dislike monopolies, that is my preference.
>Right now I do not recommend OS/2 for gamers. It is a great OS but only a few
>games available. Yes I know that theoretically you can play dos games in OS/2
>but it takes a lot of learning. Another one of my goals is to actually see a
>dos game run under OS/2. :)
To repeat a comment written by another: DOS games usually work under OS/2.
The only problem arises when the developers didn't consider multitasking users
and depended on exact timings, or used a non-standard memory scheme. Most
DOS games use DOS/4GW, which is Watcom's DPMI DOS extender, and is
fully compatible with OS/2 (no changes necessary).
Ian
Kenneth Graham
I am hesitant to continue a thread which has the potential to spark a
flame war, but I can't sit back any longer. I have been using OS/2 off
and on since prerelease 0.8 or so. I was at the big MS/IBM launch in
NYC so far back I don't even remember the year. I have upgraded
don't have all of them BITCH loudly at IBM please don't email and ask
me for them, they are the property of IBM (and they say it over and
over and over and ...)).
I will say this just once: OS/2 is IBM's attempt to push a rope. It has
not caught on in the market and despite IBM's best wishes, it never
will. They have put 1 Billion dollars into developing OS/2. They are
spending 500 Million more dollars in advertising it. They have sold
less than 4 million copies. At CompUsa (one of the largest sellers of
OS/2) is is selling for 89 dollars retail. Retail is typically 50% of
the price the vedor recieves. For those without calculators handy ($45
* 4,000,000 = 180,000,000). That presumes that none of them were the
$29 upgrades from previous versions.
I am not certain about that 4 million figure either. At Comdex in Vega
last fall a friend wandered into the wrong area out back and found
several crates of OS/2. His estimate was that there were about 50,000
copies of OS/2 waiting to be handed out. One of the salesman at the IBM
booth bragged that that was the second shipment of that size for the
show. Also one of our IBM sales team mentioned that IBM gave all of its
employees gift certificates for free copies of OS/2 and if you needed
more certificates for friend or relatives, all you had to do was ask.
While I certainly agree that OS/2 users are rabid about getting native
game apps (they are actually rabid about getting native OS/2 anything),
the market penetration for OS/2 is so low (4 million vs 180 million for
DOS vs 35 million for Windows) that I would need such a high
penetration of the OS/2 market to make up for even a mediocre
penetration of either of the other 2 markets. Sorry boys, it ain't
worth it. Especially, if I do some testing and make sure that my game
will at least work on OS/2. Then I can sell to all 3 markets.
My $0.02 worth.
ken
Sugimoto
: I disagree. Hard drives are dirt cheap right now, so we will be seeing more
: multiple operating system users out there. I intend to have
: dos/os2/unix/win 95in my system by the end of summer.
Bonne chance. Win95 will wipe your boot manager off, and I'm at a loss to
explain how to get it to live peacefully with other operating systems.
Put it this way: it killed LILO. It killed Boot Manager. It'll kill
practically everything. ("You've got Boot Manager. Well, that's gone!")
Thanks, but I like being able to decide where I can put my operating
systems.. don't like this "must be on drive C:" bullshit.
: I bought OS/2 full pack and for 70 dollars it was worth it.
: Right now I do not recommend OS/2 for gamers. It is a great OS but
: only a few games available. Yes I know that theoretically you can play
: dos games in OS/2 but it takes a lot of learning. Another one of my
: goals is to actually see a dos game run under OS/2. :)
Hm, lemme see.. Heretic in an window on the OS/2 desktop.. DOOM in a
window on the OS/2 desktop.. Descent in a window on the OS/2 desktop..
--
Mike "Phloem" Sugimoto No S.314! Cyberspace is *NOT* American
sugi...@cuug.ab.ca property! Cyber rights now!
Dreamer, shaper, singer, maker http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~sugimotl
Team OS/2, GAT/T/MD/S, ER Resident<tm>, Fumbler and many, many others...
Mike Timbol
Kenneth Graham <kgr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
[...]
>I will say this just once: OS/2 is IBM's attempt to push a rope. It has
>not caught on in the market and despite IBM's best wishes, it never
>will. They have put 1 Billion dollars into developing OS/2. They are
>spending 500 Million more dollars in advertising it. They have sold
>less than 4 million copies. At CompUsa (one of the largest sellers of
>OS/2) is is selling for 89 dollars retail. Retail is typically 50% of
>the price the vedor recieves. For those without calculators handy ($45
>* 4,000,000 = 180,000,000). That presumes that none of them were the
>$29 upgrades from previous versions.
Just a small factual correction here -- the currently accepted sales numbers
for OS/2 are about 9 million, not 4 million.
[...]
- Mike
Lawson English
[snipt]
: Just a small factual correction here -- the currently accepted sales numbers
: for OS/2 are about 9 million, not 4 million.
: [...]
The original author might also consider that IBM is trying to get enough
market-share to get developers to develop new apps, both for Intel-based
OS/2 *and* for PPC-based OS/2.
The lack of developers of native apps for PPC OS/2 is said to be one of
the problems that has held up the introduction of desktop-level PPC
machines from IBM...
If IBM can get that critical "mind-share" in the eyes of developers, PPC
OS/2 should be *very* nice. If not, then they simply poured some money
into Apple's CPU R&D...
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawson English __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
eng...@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Michael Martz
> but it takes a lot of learning. Another one of my goals is to actually see a
> dos game run under OS/2. :)
Come over to my house :-), I can show you the following:
Descent
Capital (beta of a DOS-based economics game)
4 or so of Borderbund's Living Books (actually, Windows games)
Reader Rabbit1
Math Rabbit (another Windows game)
and several others.
In most cases I've seen, the games work right out of the box. Of course,
there are a few (such as Descent and Capital above) that require
allocating more memory, but that is as simple as opening up the game's
settings notebook and adjusting the memory allocation.
JOHN
* John M. Martz: Psychology Dept, UNC-CH * *
| CB# 3270, Davie Hall | B = f(P,E) |
| Chapel Hill, NC 27599 | --Kurt Lewin |
* JOHN_...@UNC.EDU * *
John Michael Martz
> I am hesitant to continue a thread which has the potential to spark a
> flame war, but I can't sit back any longer. I have been using OS/2 off
Then why do you take such a condescending tone? Anyway . . .
> the market penetration for OS/2 is so low (4 million vs 180 million for
> DOS vs 35 million for Windows) that I would need such a high
> penetration of the OS/2 market to make up for even a mediocre
> penetration of either of the other 2 markets. Sorry boys, it ain't
You underestimate the size of the OS/2 market -- estimates I've see place
it between 7 and 10 million. And, you forget that most of these were
_not_ preloaded. That means the users actually chose OS/2 and are more
likely to be loyal to it. Simple psychology.
> worth it. Especially, if I do some testing and make sure that my game
> will at least work on OS/2. Then I can sell to all 3 markets.
Of course, you ignore the fact that there are a growing number of OS/2
users (at least I've seen more people talking this way on the net) that
are refusing to purchase non-native OS/2 software. I don't remember the
last time I purchased non-native OS/2 software for myself -- no, wait, it
was about a year ago when I participated in the free give-away program of
CA-Simply Money (only had to pay shipping). I've refused to upgrade to
the newer version (they just announced an OS/2 version -- I will upgrade
at that time). The only non-OS/2 programs I purchase are for my kids (or
recommend to grandparents to purchase for them) -- and that's only because
OS/2 software targeted at kids is non-existent. So, if you are thinking
about market share, you would actually be wise to consider kids software
for OS/2, since you would be the _only_ vendor! You would _own_ 100% of
the market. Even if it is a relatively small market, I'd wager it would
be as economically feasible as going against hundreds of other competitors
in the DOS/Win environment, where you would be lucky to get a toe-hold.
In addition, you also ignore the fact that there is at least one program
(what is it, SMART/2, or something?) that is supposed to make it farily
easy to port to OS/2. Indeed, if IBM & Lotus (?) are successful with
mapping Win95 code into OS/2 code (forgive me, I'm not a programmer,
what's the proper term, APIs?), you should be able to simply recompile
your Win95 programs into OS/2 programs with minimal "fixing up."
Tony Ironside
Kenneth Graham (kgr...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: I am hesitant to continue a thread which has the potential to spark a
: flame war, but I can't sit back any longer. I have been using OS/2 off
: and on since prerelease 0.8 or so. I was at the big MS/IBM launch in
: NYC so far back I don't even remember the year. I have upgraded
: continuously until Warp 3.0 including all 15 or 16 of the fpl's (if you
: don't have all of them BITCH loudly at IBM please don't email and ask
: me for them, they are the property of IBM (and they say it over and
: over and over and ...)).
: I will say this just once: OS/2 is IBM's attempt to push a rope. It has
: not caught on in the market and despite IBM's best wishes, it never
: will. They have put 1 Billion dollars into developing OS/2. They are
: spending 500 Million more dollars in advertising it. They have sold
: less than 4 million copies. At CompUsa (one of the largest sellers of
: OS/2) is is selling for 89 dollars retail. Retail is typically 50% of
: the price the vedor recieves. For those without calculators handy ($45
: * 4,000,000 = 180,000,000). That presumes that none of them were the
: $29 upgrades from previous versions.
your numbers are not quite correct... there are 1.7 million copies (as of
feb?) sold plus all the 2.0 and 2.1 sales, making a total of over 8
million sold (retail outlet sales only, preloads not counted)(nor large
ibm internal accounts -> sites that buy 10000 licenses and stuff...)
retail only....
at my guestimate, that doubles your number... to 360,000,000 + whatever
from the large ibm service accounts....
: I am not certain about that 4 million figure either. At Comdex in Vega
: last fall a friend wandered into the wrong area out back and found
: several crates of OS/2. His estimate was that there were about 50,000
: copies of OS/2 waiting to be handed out. One of the salesman at the IBM
: booth bragged that that was the second shipment of that size for the
: show. Also one of our IBM sales team mentioned that IBM gave all of its
: employees gift certificates for free copies of OS/2 and if you needed
: more certificates for friend or relatives, all you had to do was ask.
Probably the 2.1 for windows freebies they were handing out..... they
were disk alone, no docs if I remeber....
: While I certainly agree that OS/2 users are rabid about getting native
: game apps (they are actually rabid about getting native OS/2 anything),
: the market penetration for OS/2 is so low (4 million vs 180 million for
: DOS vs 35 million for Windows) that I would need such a high
: penetration of the OS/2 market to make up for even a mediocre
: penetration of either of the other 2 markets. Sorry boys, it ain't
: worth it. Especially, if I do some testing and make sure that my game
: will at least work on OS/2. Then I can sell to all 3 markets.
Numbers are more close to 120 million dos, 50 million windows, and 8
million os/2.....
Tony
--
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| \\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\ //\ // \\ // |
| \\\\ \\ \\ // \\ // \\ // |
| \\\\ \\ \\ // \\ // \\// |
Robert Rodgers
>Just for the record, IBM's released sales figures do not count the
>employee giveaways of OS/2.
Sure it doesn't. And the figures for 1.x didn't represent
giveaways, either.
IBM has a history of lying on this subject. Can you give
any hard _policy_ statement from IBM's beancounters that
backs up your claim?
Note that it's hard to get accurate figures from IBM about
spending and income for specific products (e.g., OS/2 or the
PowerPersonals) even if you're a stockholder. I wonder why
so much effort is put into concealment behind a rat's nest
of tricky accounting.
By the way, why were all of the computers in this year's
annual report running Windows (except one, which was running
PenPoint)? Why weren't there _any_ running OS/2?
>At the moment, I have a SimCity, GalCiv and DOOM (beta) for OS/2.
I've heard SimCity/2 is a complete pig. True?
karl todd
My previous post was :-
> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
This does NOT say that OS/2 is crap and neither does it say that I'm
opposed to OS/2. I've used OS/2 for about 3 years now and I know that it is
finally getting there but it does not have a wide appeal to the gaming
comunity in the UK. It may be going down well in the US but it isn't here.
Everyone I know who has a PC is not tempted by OS/2, they are waiting to see
what Windows 95 is like. I'm not saying that this is good but I know it is
true. If Windows 95 is still buggy when it is released, these people will
wait until it is fixed. Microsoft has a huge influence over people even
after hearing of all the horror stories of the beta Windows 95 (e.g.
final beta crashing when running two 32 bit apps).
As to the suggestion that people install multiple OS's on their machine;
I don't think the public will do it. People who are technical may but the
average guy on the street won't.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Todd -> ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk
war...@ibm.net
>sugi...@cuug.ab.ca (Sugimoto) writes:
Let me sum it up like this:
Bob goes to the store and buys a brand new $3000 Pentium 90 system with
16 megs of ram, a quad speed CD-ROM and a great graphics card.
He then buys say Tie Fighter and goes and takes it home to play.
Installs it and quickly learns that he cannot play it because he only has
571,000 bytes free and it requires say 603k free. He's not some sort of
DOS guru and the idea of edit config.sys and REMing out CD ROm device
drivers to play a stupid game is infuriating.
Bob's friend Brad says, "Hey, why not get OS/2 and avoid those problems?"
So Bob goes to the store and picks up OS/2 for $79 and puts it on his
machine. Installs flawlessly over his Windows for Workgroups setup and
now has a nice and relatively easy to use shell. When it install,ed it found
all his new bought games and put them in the games folder. He clicks
on Tie Figher and it loads and plays without a problem.
The above is not a hypothetical situation, it's a true story. OS/2 is IDEAL
for users who don't want to muck around with a half dozen boot disks.
The majority of new games work fine with OS/2.
Brad
Dave Murphy
> Hi,
>
> > OS/2 *IS* a popular platform. IBM is claiming close to 2 million
> > sales of Warp since its launch, and something like 7-8 million
> > installed copies in use. This can only get bigger when Warp Connect
> > and OS/2 for the PowerPC arrive. How much bigger is open to debate,
> > but I certainly can't see their arrival decreasing the userbase any.
> > Of course, somebody is going to flame me over these figures. I'm not
> > claiming they're accurate, I'm just claiming they've been thrown
> > about. As for exact citations, I will leave those for an excerise
> > for the interested reader. 8)
>
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a
> useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for
> Windows 95.
I do know individuals using it, but mostly it is the corporates who like
it. Mostly those who bought IBM mainframes and anything else they
offered. These are people in a time warp. If there were 8,000,000
individual users then it would be a very good market - but i doubt there
are really 8,000,000 individual games buying users out there.
Ingo Luetkebohle
>What should the developers of the remaining games do?
You and the writer you answered are assuming that there's no base for OS/2
based games. In my experience that's not true. Even if they run Windows most of
the time about 75% of the PC - people I know have Warp installed. Pretty good
base if you ask me.
> Unless using a platform you like is more important to
> you than how many copies of your game you sell.
It's relative simple to me. Microsoft couldn't do WinG itself and I simply
don't trust Microsoft. Begin developing games for Win95 and sooner or later
you'll notice that Microsoft just published the mega game and you're out of
business. On CeBit 95 Microsoft talked about delivering it's Office Suite along
with Windows95 - with password lock of course and now they are not doing it
because of the pressure of the great corps but the thought alone makes me
shudder.
> I'm curious, is there some reason why you're not providing a specific
> number here?
You can get the number just as easily if you really want it. I know people of a
major publisher here in germany and they told me that GalCiv sold about 50% of
the copies of Wing Commander 3. That's good enough for me :-)
Ingo
---
* Origin: Lazy sysop - origin missing (2:2449/890)
ad...@packet.net
to how many Windows95 will be sold?
If you like OS/2 then buy it, if not, then dont.
I personally dont care if MS-Windows95 is in either
100 million or 200 million or 300 million or 10 computers
whatever happens happens.Id rather read some discussions on
why Windows95 is supposed to be BETTER than OS/2 (have not
heard too many of those) except about all the wonderful
software that is already written for Win95. How many Word
processors do you need? Sorry to vent, but does anybody
else think that these number discussions are stupid?
Steve Withers
kgr...@ix.netcom.com (Kenneth Graham) wrote:
>
>
........
> While I certainly agree that OS/2 users are rabid about getting native
> game apps (they are actually rabid about getting native OS/2 anything),
> the market penetration for OS/2 is so low (4 million vs 180 million for
> DOS vs 35 million for Windows) that I would need such a high
> penetration of the OS/2 market to make up for even a mediocre
> penetration of either of the other 2 markets. Sorry boys, it ain't
> worth it. Especially, if I do some testing and make sure that my game
> will at least work on OS/2. Then I can sell to all 3 markets.
>
> My $0.02 worth.
>
> ken
Ken
Just for the record, IBM's released sales figures do not count the
employee giveaways of OS/2.
As for games.....OK....don't write any OS/2 games. No problem.
At the moment, I have a SimCity, GalCiv and DOOM (beta) for OS/2. I
have also send Brad at Stardock my from to be a beta-tester and buyer
of Avarice and Entrepeneur.
I will happily buy any good app for OS/2 that meets my needs. That includes
games these days - now that I have a PC that can play the latest ones. I had
a 386 until only a few weeks ago.
I got Partition Magic the other day. Nice piece of software.
But you don't want my money? Oh well.....there seem to be others who
do....and they are getting it. :-)
Steve
//-----------------------------------------------------
// Steve Withers - Wellington, New Zealand
// sb...@ibm.net / ste...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz
// swit...@vnet.ibm.com
// Warp Connect: Unlimited Peer shares files/printers/modems,
// TCP/IP v3.0, Bonus Pak and Internet stuff,
// Lan Distance Remote, Lotus Notes Client....
// and Multiple protocols: IPX/NetBIOS/TCPIP
// 802.2, plus NetBIOS over TCPIP or IPX
// and....MUCH MORE!
Michael L. Hasenfratz Sr.
itanga) writes:
>In article <799247...@dominion.demon.co.uk>,
>karl todd <ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
[snip]
>>
>> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
>> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
>> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
>> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
>> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
>> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
>>
Read the SIG! I'm at home... Using OS/2 Warp...
[snip]
>I disagree. Hard drives are dirt cheap right now, so we will be seeing more
>multiple operating system users out there. I intend to have dos/os2/unix/win 95in my system by the end of summer.
>I bought OS/2 full pack and for 70 dollars it was worth it.
>Right now I do not recommend OS/2 for gamers. It is a great OS but only a few
>games available. Yes I know that theoretically you can play dos games in OS/2
>but it takes a lot of learning. Another one of my goals is to actually see a
>dos game run under OS/2. :)
So HUMAN, you want to play games?
Try DESCENT! Full sound, Full SoundFX, Full screen (slow in a Dos window)...
'Get in...
'Sit down...
'Shut up...
'Hang on...
>
>--
>
> pit...@uhibpd.phys.uh.edu
//----------------------------------------------------------------------
// Michael L. Hasenfratz Sr. - WA6FXT _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/
// mi...@rain.org or mi...@uMEM.COM _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/
// http://www.rain.org/~mikeh _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/
// Warp 3... Engage! - Jean-Luc Picard _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
// Warp 3.0, Engaged! - I.B.M. Corp 1994 _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/
//----------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Moore
Absolutly! I use Warp at home, as do most of my friends... As for Dos games
that run... Try these on for size-- Wing Commander 3, Doom, Descent (FAST in
a window on my machine), Lords of the Rings (in a window, *even* during the
Full Motion Video Scenes **Never slows down** not even on FMV), 7th Guest...
I could go on. And just to be an a_s I have Lord of the Rings, Doom, and
Descent running while I am posting this! Sound Stupid?? Actually, its not.
I found that by having two windows with lords of the rings, in tricky scenes
I can try something in window 1, if it works do it on my real game in window
2. Or if I die, I spare a life in my real game :-) Sure beats a cheat
book!!
BTW, I also work for Game Zero Magazine
(http://www.primenet.com/~gmezero) and on our major E3 Debut there will be a
*Huge* OS/2 games forum. We decided that OS/2 has earned the right of top
gaming OS for the next generation. If anyone has anything they'd like to
see, mail me now so we can get it up by E3. :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| From the desk of Scott Moore, International Technical Director |
:--------------------------------------------------------------------------:
| International Headquarters | The Council of Educational Facility |
| ce...@cefpi.com | Planners, International |
| http://www.cefpi.com/cefpi | (602) 948-2337 Voice |
'--------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Kyle Miller
>
>So Bob goes to the store and picks up OS/2 for $79 and puts it on his
>machine. Installs flawlessly over his Windows for Workgroups setup and
>now has a nice and relatively easy to use shell. When it install,ed it found
>all his new bought games and put them in the games folder. He clicks
>on Tie Figher and it loads and plays without a problem.
>
One problem though. TIE Fighter does run with problems in OS/2. I've
tried letting OS/2 migrate it for me and tried Gamer's Guide set the right
settings. It periodically bombs while playing. I have a 486 with an AWE32
card. Whether it's LA's fault or IBM's fault, I don't care. I just want to stop
this rumor about TIE Fighter working with no trouble in OS/2.
*****************************************************************************
Are you an employer seeking a hard working computer programmer, technician, or
operator? Please browse my resume at my WWW home page!
REV. 11 Apr 95---> http://www.crl.com/~kylemill/ <---
Matthew Versluys
When you turn on you're computer you're basically going to go
down 1 of two roads, play a game or do some work. Without question
the best bootstrap for games on the intel platform is DOS.
Users who complain about not being able to play DOOM in a VDM
under OS/2 need to get their head read. Oh, I'll play doom in
a window and write an OS/2 app at the same time. Multitasking
OS's aren't designed to play games and do work at the same time,
their designed to make work more efficient (some of us still
have to work you know). You can edit, compile, test and debug
all at the same time quickly an efficiently. For the purist
DOOM is now out for OS/2 and most DOS games will run under Warp
without too much trouble. After trying Win95 for a week, I
found that pratically any game caused Win95 to swap all of
itself to disk, run the game and then reload Win95. BTW
Microsoft, its faster to reboot and do it yourself, with
better memory management etc etc etc etc etc...
Those of you who want to use Win95 because its going to be
popular, well, no comment is neccesary for you. Pick an
OS which suits your needs and load DOS to play games.
Cheers,
Matt.
Stephen Oakes
vers...@s1.elec.uq.oz.au says...
>When you turn on you're computer you're basically going to go
>down 1 of two roads, play a game or do some work. Without question
>the best bootstrap for games on the intel platform is DOS.
What about those of us who don't turn their computer *off*?
>Users who complain about not being able to play DOOM in a VDM
>under OS/2 need to get their head read. Oh, I'll play doom in
>a window and write an OS/2 app at the same time. Multitasking
No, not at the same time, but you might want to play a game for a while
for a bit of a break.
>OS's aren't designed to play games and do work at the same time,
>their designed to make work more efficient (some of us still
>have to work you know). You can edit, compile, test and debug
>all at the same time quickly an efficiently. For the purist
>DOOM is now out for OS/2 and most DOS games will run under Warp
>without too much trouble. After trying Win95 for a week, I
>found that pratically any game caused Win95 to swap all of
>itself to disk, run the game and then reload Win95. BTW
Yes, I found that too. I don't consider it a major problem. As
you said, you don't work and play at the same time.
>Microsoft, its faster to reboot and do it yourself, with
>better memory management etc etc etc etc etc...
Nonsense. It's faster to reboot than to swap out and then in again?
>Those of you who want to use Win95 because its going to be
>popular, well, no comment is neccesary for you. Pick an
I'm glad you couldn't think of a comment for those of us who will
be using Win95. I will be using it for several reasons. For starters
I will be developing for it, but also because I happen to like it.
Yeah, and also because it's going to be popular. There's going to
be a lot more software for it than for OS/2.
>OS which suits your needs and load DOS to play games.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with that.
Well, I'm about to get out of NT now, so I can reboot to DOS and
play Descent with sound.
--
Stephen Oakes CSIRO Division of Building, Construction and Engineering
Post Office Box 56, Highett, Victoria, Australia 3190
Internet: ste...@mel.dbce.csiro.au Tel: +61 3 252 6000 Fax: +61 3 252
6249
=========================================================================
==
pa...@meed47.ee.man.ac.uk
> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
Being in Manc, and using OS/2 pretty exclusively, I know at least 2 others
who run OS/2. I know one Microsoftie who is looking forward to Wind95. In
computing terms, it looks like being a real non-event.
Pop over to ComputerWorld in Streford, or the Software Warehouse on
Deansgate. For that matter, just about anywhere that sells software
(Game in the Arndale, ABC also on Deansgate, even crappy Dixons),
they all sell Warp.
One day I expect I'll get GalCiv, and I confess that the screenshots
of Avarice look impressive (but of course they would). Other than that,
I think most PC games are duff - give me xpilot over SuperJANET
any day, any day, any day. :-)
>Karl Todd -> ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk
> "Manchester, so much to answer for"
Edward, see those alluring lights...
Yeah, been there, done that, got the T-Shirts. Bit sad about Mozzer
these days, and Rough Trade gone down the pan. And no, I'm not
a Manc born and bred.
--
Paul Floyd, Information Storage Research Group, Division of Electrical Eng.,
School of Engineering, University of Manchester
I don't work long hours. They are all 60 minutes, just like every one elses.
pa...@meed47.ee.man.ac.uk Person 2 Person @ same address.
John Michael Martz
> Who cares how many units of OS/2 have been sold compared
> to how many Windows95 will be sold?
IBM and MicroSoft, among others :-).
> whatever happens happens.Id rather read some discussions on
> why Windows95 is supposed to be BETTER than OS/2 (have not
> heard too many of those) except about all the wonderful
> software that is already written for Win95. How many Word
> processors do you need? Sorry to vent, but does anybody
> else think that these number discussions are stupid?
I agree. As an OS/2 user, I'm still waiting to read a detailed
description about Win95 capabilities in relation to OS/2's. What I would
like to see is a side-by-side comparison along these lines:
Characteristic OS/2 Win95
Pre-emptively multitasks
16-bit Windows programs Yes No
etc.
I know that there is currently something on IBM's web site, but I think
this info is out of date.
Paul Thurrott
>In <799247...@dominion.demon.co.uk>, ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk (karl
todd) writes:
>Being in Manc, and using OS/2 pretty exclusively, I know at least 2 others
>who run OS/2. I know one Microsoftie who is looking forward to Wind95. In
>computing terms, it looks like being a real non-event.
Being in America, which has a software market approximately 1000 times the
size of the UK (and yes, I've spent time in both countries), I can tell you
that the non-event of the year is Warp sales. Windows 95 is the most
eagerly anticipated event in the history of computing over here.
>Pop over to ComputerWorld in Streford, or the Software Warehouse on
>Deansgate. For that matter, just about anywhere that sells software
>(Game in the Arndale, ABC also on Deansgate, even crappy Dixons),
>they all sell Warp.
Warp is for sale everywhere you look here, as well. Problem is, each store
sells only a handful of copies. It is true that people are waiting --
waiting for Windows 95.
This person is an OS/2 advocate and would have you believe that OS/2
represents some future market for games programmers. It's simply not
true--while OS/2 has its place in various environments (I understand its
particuarly well suited to <ahem> ATMs) it is not a games environment.
Compare this to Windows 95 which is being developed with games specifically
in mind because its market is the average person, not some corporate Cobol
programmer. People play games. Today it is DOS. Tomorrow, it will be
with Windows 95. Make no mistake--the PC games Platform of the near future
is Windows 95.
Paul Thurrott
==================================
"OS/2 is IBM's Vietnam"
--Jeff Tarter Softletter Editor
==================================
Mark R. Johnson
Robert Rodgers <rsro...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>IBM has a history of lying on this subject. Can you give
>any hard _policy_ statement from IBM's beancounters that
>backs up your claim?
Can *you* give any hard evidence to back up your claim that IBM has a
history of lying on this subject?
--
_____________________________________________________________________________
|Mark R. Johnson "To defend, this is the pact" |
|m...@iastate.edu "But when life is scorned, and damage done"|
|<Team OS/2> "To avenge, this is the pact" |
Jim Riblett
: This person is an OS/2 advocate and would have you believe that OS/2
And this person is a microsoft plant.
: represents some future market for games programmers. It's simply not
: true--while OS/2 has its place in various environments (I understand its
: particuarly well suited to <ahem> ATMs) it is not a games environment.
And Bill Gates thinks Windoze is suitable for your microwave and toaster. It
would REALLY piss me off if my microwave crashed as much as my windoze box
does.
: Compare this to Windows 95 which is being developed with games specifically
You obviously beleive everything microsoft tells you. When you get over
microsoft fever, why don't you join us back in the REAL WORLD.
: in mind because its market is the average person, not some corporate Cobol
: programmer. People play games. Today it is DOS. Tomorrow, it will be
: with Windows 95. Make no mistake--the PC games Platform of the near future
: is Windows 95.
Hide your wallet! And maybe Bob is the 'Operating Environment' of the future?
Jim Riblett
jrib...@gate.net
: Paul Thurrott
Paul Richards
ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk "karl todd" writes:
> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
>
Well, for one, I have bought it. Additionally, of the 8 people I have
shown my system running Warp, 3 bought it, 2 picked up free demo copies
through work and installed it, 2 intend to buy and install it, and 1 was
not interested - but then, he always takes the path of least resistance.
I think the major reason for not buying Warp, is that many haven't seen it.
I might not have bought Warp myself, had it not been for usenet - I kept
seeing .sigs which said "another happy os/2 user" and similar - eventually
I realised there must be something in it, so I started to read the OS/2
groups, and then bought first OS/2 2.1, and ordered Warp the day it was
released.
So to those of you who had OS/2 .sigs - thanks!
Paul
--
*** Paul Richards pa...@hitech.demon.co.uk ***
*** OS/2 Warp -- Curtains for Windows ***
Dale Pontius
In article <3o5f66$3h8...@news.clark.net>, thur...@getnet.com (Paul Thurrott) writes:
> This person is an OS/2 advocate and would have you believe that OS/2
Paul Thurrott is one of a number of people known on the comp.os.*.advocacy
newsgroups. So is Robert Rodgers, usually known as Robert Stephen Rodgers.
So, for that matter, is Steve Withers, to drop a name from the other side.
I apologize for having had some part in kicking this mess off in this
newsgroup. I normally lurk here to learn, because amoung all of the
inevitable chaff, there's some awfully good wheat, or at least some
good cross references. I also attempt to help the OS/2 cause, in a
low key fashion that will not insult the newsgroup. This is usually
in the form of answering OS/2 questions other posters may ask.
Over the past few months there has been so blasted much Win95 noise
that people here seem to have given up and decided to 'Build for Win95'
because it's inevitable and Microsoft is going to steamroll the whole
world, anyway. I'm not actually a games programmer, though someday I
would like to try my hand at it. I'm here to learn and answer questions
if I can. As such I don't feel qualified to post messages like, "OS/2
is the hottest games platform that could ever exist and will make your
life intensely more meaningful!!!!!!" So I haven't. I'm not sure if,
for instance, David Springer of Dell programs games, but he sure spent
a lot of bandwidth hyping Win95. I did see one non-hype post from him,
though, I'll give him that credit.
On the other hand, I do believe all the Win95 hype is something of
a primrose path, and felt it difficult to sit by and do nothing. So
I sent a note to Brad Wardell of Stardock, outlining the recent
situation here, asking if he could do something appropriate. I still
don't think this was an entirely inappropriate thing to do. I am,
however, very sorry to see 'professional' comp.os.*.advocacy people
showing up here. I apologize for having been a link in that chain
of events.
An open plea - please, if you're not into games (and algorithms) for
their own sake, STAY OUT!!! If you have something to say relevant to
WinG vs DIVE, it is appropriate and welcome. But if it is more noise
like over in comp.os.*.advocacy, please keep it there.
Thank you and apologies,
Dale Pontius
(NOT speaking for IBM)
Kirk Rasmussen
> My 4 cents worth,
>
> When you turn on you're computer you're basically going to go
> down 1 of two roads, play a game or do some work. Without question
> the best bootstrap for games on the intel platform is DOS.
>
> under OS/2 need to get their head read. Oh, I'll play doom in
> a window and write an OS/2 app at the same time. Multitasking
> their designed to make work more efficient (some of us still
> have to work you know). You can edit, compile, test and debug
> all at the same time quickly an efficiently. For the purist
> DOOM is now out for OS/2 and most DOS games will run under Warp
> without too much trouble. After trying Win95 for a week, I
> found that pratically any game caused Win95 to swap all of
> itself to disk, run the game and then reload Win95. BTW
> better memory management etc etc etc etc etc...
>
> popular, well, no comment is neccesary for you. Pick an
>
> Matt.
>
I basically agree with your what you have said but I must add
that DOS is only the leader for games NOW. OS/2 will be the
way to go in the future (even native Win95 games will be better
than plain DOS) because of little things called threads.
Threads are going to add a whole new dimension to game play
no matter what the game may be. Almost every DOS game on the
market is forced to poll hardware, burn CPU cycles, etc, etc.
to get the timing and gameplay right. DOS doesn't have the
option of using threads. DOS extenders only give games access
to more memory but OS/2 opens a whole new world of game design.
The game no longer has to waste valuable CPU cycles to wait
200 milliseconds (just an example), the computer player can
make its move while the human player is making his. Video
and sound routines come for free in OS/2. Networking and modem
play is greatly simplified.
I'm currently working on a native OS/2 game. I have found that
development is so much easier because I don't have to worry about
memory management, sound drivers, video drivers, scaling, rotations,
scrolling, MIDI, wave files, bitmaps, etc. I can work more on the game
instead of device drivers!
Kirk Rasmussen
--
+===============================================================================+
| Kirk Rasmussen -- Software Engineer |
| Ph: (708) 576-4409 Email: ki...@comm.mot.com FAX: (708) 576-0510 |
| Motorola - LMPS; 1301 E. Algonquin Rd, IL02 room 1828; Schaumburg, IL 60196 |
+===============================================================================+
karl todd
> Pop over to ComputerWorld in Streford, or the Software Warehouse on
> Deansgate. For that matter, just about anywhere that sells software
> (Game in the Arndale, ABC also on Deansgate, even crappy Dixons),
> they all sell Warp.
How well is it selling here though? I know of people who work at
ComputerWorld, Dabs Press, Computers n Consoles and Maqtech Computers and
none of them are selling OS/2 in great numbers.
I would like OS/2 to sell well because it is much better than Windows. At
the moment I think it's safer to sit tight and wait and let the market decide
before everyone rushes off to develop OS/2 apps.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Todd -> ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk
Dominion Software
"Manchester, so much to answer for"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G Corp 22
easiest to develop for. If I can get it to work for all 3 OS's then fine,
but if it would take me 3 months to develop for OS/2 and 9 for WIN95 then
OS/2 it will be.
As a gamer I look for what will run the vast majority of the KINDS OF
GAMES I LIKE TO PLAY - quickly. This genre just happens to be flight sims.
Whoever can run them fastest with the least troubles will be the OS of
choice.
Fortunately though I am in the process of building a P100 development
tower which will probably run the better OS so I'll get the best of both
worlds, leaving the inferior OS running on the lowly DX2/66
(wordprocessing, communications, generic operations) system.
*********************************************************************
The opinions expressed are mine and not necessarily those of
Guardian Corporation. "Protecting the interests of the consumer"
*********************************************************************
EMAIL - gco...@aol.com
We are currently in Phase III of the great SVGA game project!
*********************************************************************
Robert Rodgers
m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu (Mark R. Johnson) wrote:
>In article <CnNflO9R...@wam.umd.edu>,
>Robert Rodgers <rsro...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>>IBM has a history of lying on this subject. Can you give
>>any hard _policy_ statement from IBM's beancounters that
>>backs up your claim?
>
>Can *you* give any hard evidence to back up your claim that IBM has a
>history of lying on this subject?
Absolutely. Want a list of references? You'll find that
the first one, and most that follow, are strongly contested
by IBM, but for some unknowable reason, IBM refuses to
provide hard numbers that contradict them.
First source: Big Blues, Paul Carrol.
Mr Seidner
IBM has just added real-time 3d to it's OS/2 arsenal of great
technologies.
---------------------------------------------
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Computer Games Developers Conference--(BUSINESS
WIRE)--May 2, 1995--IBM has announced an agreement with Argonaut
Technologies Ltd. to bundle Argonaut's BRender 3D software into IBM's
OS/2 Entertainment Toolkit(TM), a part of the Developer Connections
family of CDs.
BRender for OS/2, a real-time, 3D software library, will allow
developers to incorporate powerful, high performance 3D capabilities into
their OS/2 applications.
___________________________________________________________
Rich Seidner ri...@argonaut.com
Argonaut Technologies Ltd 415.328.7841
Eric or Dana Jorgensen
:> In article <799247...@dominion.demon.co.uk>,
:> karl todd <ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
:> > I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
:> > bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
:> > section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
:> > individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
:> > installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
:> > statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
:> I know of two personal friends who use OS/2 Warp. I don't because I would
:> rather not pirate it, so I'm waiting until I have a bigger hard drive and
:> more money. You see, one good thing about OS/2 is that it allows you to set
:> up multiple operating systems on one computer, and you can boot up your
:> machine with any of these installed OSes. Sooo, I am going to get OS/2 Warp
:> and then I'm going to also install Windows 95, and Linux. Why? Because my
:> school mostly uses UNIX based machines, so Linux is needed, and Windows 95
:> is sure to be popular, so I am being smart by allowing myself the advantage
:> of being able to use all of the OSes, based on my needs.
For what is is worth, among all my friends, many of who are programmers,
I don't know anyone who owns warp. I've only known four people ever who
owned OS/2- A programming partner, a friend from college, a secretary,
and me. My programming partner and I each spent a few weeks trying to
get OS/2 to work properly on our systems and finally had to give up in
frustration. Both of us now use DOS/Windows and we have ordered the
WIN'95 beta to see what that is like. The other two people still use
OS/2, but neither of them program and both stick to mainstream Windows
and native OS/2 apps.
-e
Lawson English
: As a developer for a educational software agency I look for what is the
: easiest to develop for. If I can get it to work for all 3 OS's then fine,
: but if it would take me 3 months to develop for OS/2 and 9 for WIN95 then
: OS/2 it will be.
As a developer for educational software, do you count DOS as the 3rd OS
or the Mac?
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawson English __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
eng...@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
/ / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mis...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 95.
I guess almost half my friends have OS/2, why? Because it's a great OS and IBM
are selling it dirt cheap to students ($NZ35 - prob. about $US20). Students
probably make up the majority of the game market (however they might not make
up the majority of the sales market due to piracy habits ;))
I would think the majority of of Warp users are students not businesses
(businesses do things the Micrsoft way, individuals do things the best way).
The people I know who will get win95 are getting it out of curiousity. I'm not
so sure, I shudder when I think of a Microsoft product taking care of all my
hardware configurations for me.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised at how well OS/2 runs DOS games.
Alan L. Hightower
> Windows 95 is the most eagerly anticipated event in the history of
> computing over here. (America)
<ahem> Speak for yourself dude... ;)
> It is true that people are waiting -- waiting for Windows 95.
Define people. You mean like more than one? I thought only Gates
was the one waiting for it... everyone else gave up.
>This person is an OS/2 advocate and would have you believe that OS/2
>represents some future market for games programmers. It's simply not
>true--while OS/2 has its place in various environments (I understand its
>particuarly well suited to <ahem> ATMs) it is not a games environment.
>Compare this to Windows 95 which is being developed with games specifically
>in mind because its market is the average person, not some corporate Cobol
>programmer. People play games. Today it is DOS. Tomorrow, it will be
>with Windows 95. Make no mistake--the PC games Platform of the near future
>is Windows 95.
Well given Microsofts track record with industry foresight, I wouldn't
hold my breath. What are they going to do, use OpenGL? pah! Microsoft
isn't going to relent on their strategy of "there's an API for everything."
If new pioneering software game companies want to get an edge, the most
reasonable place to do it is in exploiting the hardware directly. This
approach goes against everything an OS stands for. That's why gaming
to date has never really taken off on Mac'n'tosh, Windows, OS/2, etc.
DOS became the perfect enviroment for gamming because of its lack luster
existance as an active OS. Remember the games of the past that came on
boot disks? The only reason companies switched to DOS is to make game
distribution and storage a little less painfull (i.e. so you could put
them on your hard drive).
Windows, like other nextgen GUI's, inserts a whole new layer of complexity
that programs have to deal with; not counting the added CPU overhead.
Even X Windows has services that allow direct video access, etc. Using
Windows of the past (and MS products in general) as an example, it's
hard to believe that they could become this innovative over night. Have
Have you ever seen the Win32 API spec? gag.
Last time I checked when I turned my Sega Genesis on the other day, I
didn't see a message that said anything to the effect of "OS being loaded."
If their isn't another formal video standard adopted, yeah maybe I could
see an API only approach to video working (e.g. VESA 2.0). Other than
that, I think your going to be hard pressed to find the "best" games on
future shelves easily integrating themselves into any OS; Win32/NT, OS/2
or otherwise.
Last point. For those of you who offer the OS/2/Win justification of
more standardized hardware support (ie. video cards, VR gear, etc), you
might want to rethink that arguement. History has proven that inspite
of having software platforms that offer API support for a whole cache
of specilized hardware and video cards (i.e. Win, X, OS/2), developers
are still electing to purchase or develop their own driver packs just
so they can stay within their platform of choice.
Whose to say my arguement or yours is valid. I'm only trying to point
out that game companies are only interested in making a better game to
capture more of the market share. If that means trashing all OS's in
general and going back to boot disks, it will be done..... ok, ok, ok
that may be a little extreme, but who knows? Only time will tell.
Lynx (a.k.a. Alan Hightower -- ahig...@comp.uark.edu)
coder / IncanTationS
Robert Wiegand
> I would like OS/2 to sell well because it is much better than Windows. At
> the moment I think it's safer to sit tight and wait and let the market decide
> before everyone rushes off to develop OS/2 apps.
On the other hand - no one ever got rich by following the pack.
The really successful people are the ones who took chances and turned out
to be right.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Wiegand
Motorola Inc.
wie...@cig.mot.com
Robert F. Reynolds
>
(snip ...)
>You obviously beleive everything microsoft tells you. When you get over
>microsoft fever, why don't you join us back in the REAL WORLD.
Has anyone seen the Hover game included with the 456 beta of Win95? Or
how about the demo Gates gave of "Pitfall, The Mayan Adventures" at Spring
Comdex? Take a look at these before you discount Win95 as a game
platform.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert F. Reynolds rfre...@ingr.com
Intergraph Corporation
Huntsville, Alabama 35894
al...@haven.uniserve.com
>On 1 May 1995, Kenneth Graham wrote:
>
>> I am hesitant to continue a thread which has the potential to spark a
>> flame war, but I can't sit back any longer. I have been using OS/2 off
>
>Then why do you take such a condescending tone? Anyway . . .
>
>> the market penetration for OS/2 is so low (4 million vs 180 million for
>> DOS vs 35 million for Windows) that I would need such a high
>> penetration of the OS/2 market to make up for even a mediocre
>> penetration of either of the other 2 markets. Sorry boys, it ain't
>
>it between 7 and 10 million. And, you forget that most of these were
>_not_ preloaded. That means the users actually chose OS/2 and are more
>likely to be loyal to it. Simple psychology.
>
>> worth it. Especially, if I do some testing and make sure that my game
>> will at least work on OS/2. Then I can sell to all 3 markets.
>
>users (at least I've seen more people talking this way on the net) that
>are refusing to purchase non-native OS/2 software. I don't remember the
>last time I purchased non-native OS/2 software for myself -- no, wait, it
>was about a year ago when I participated in the free give-away program of
>CA-Simply Money (only had to pay shipping). I've refused to upgrade to
>the newer version (they just announced an OS/2 version -- I will upgrade
>at that time). The only non-OS/2 programs I purchase are for my kids (or
>recommend to grandparents to purchase for them) -- and that's only because
>OS/2 software targeted at kids is non-existent. So, if you are thinking
>about market share, you would actually be wise to consider kids software
>for OS/2, since you would be the _only_ vendor! You would _own_ 100% of
>the market. Even if it is a relatively small market, I'd wager it would
>be as economically feasible as going against hundreds of other competitors
>in the DOS/Win environment, where you would be lucky to get a toe-hold.
>
>In addition, you also ignore the fact that there is at least one program
>(what is it, SMART/2, or something?) that is supposed to make it farily
>easy to port to OS/2. Indeed, if IBM & Lotus (?) are successful with
>mapping Win95 code into OS/2 code (forgive me, I'm not a programmer,
>what's the proper term, APIs?), you should be able to simply recompile
>your Win95 programs into OS/2 programs with minimal "fixing up."
>
>JOHN
>
>* John M. Martz: Psychology Dept, UNC-CH * *
>| CB# 3270, Davie Hall | B = f(P,E) |
>| Chapel Hill, NC 27599 | --Kurt Lewin |
>* JOHN_...@UNC.EDU * *
Even better Bet Borland C++ v4.5 for Windows and Borland C++ v2 for OS/2 and program using there OWL (Object Windows Interface) and Porting is a snap as there is VERY LITTLE diffrence between OWL for Windows and OWL for OS/2 (Unless you dig down deep to the actual API Calls) I've done alot of examples of porting Borland C Win<->OS/2..
Take Care..
Arthur Lee
Team OS/2 Member
Eric Pinnell
>For those of you who may have missed the announcement today,
>IBM has just added real-time 3d to it's OS/2 arsenal of great
>technologies.
>
It would help if IBM had a 3D device driver model.
Eric Pinnell
(President, CyberSim Inc.)
Matt McLeod
: I know that there is currently something on IBM's web site, but I think
: this info is out of date.
And also rather biased - it's sole purpose is to make Windows95 look bad.
Of course, the same stuff from Microsoft is also highly biased, with the
sole purpose of making Warp look bad...
Whoever did it would have to be acknowledged as being unbiased. The ideal
person to do it would be someone who hates both platforms... :-)
Matt
--
Matt McLeod <ma...@scorch.hna.com.au>
GO d-- h+ s++;+ g+++ !p !au a- w+ v+ C++++ UL(S)++ P+ L+ 3- E- N+++ K++ W---
M+ V-- -po+ Y+ t+ !5 !j R G? tv+ b+++ D--- B--- e+ u+ h!>++ f r-- !n y?
Michael Duffy
>In <3o6q4b$a...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, mrse...@aol.com (Mr Seidner) writes:
>>For those of you who may have missed the announcement today,
>>IBM has just added real-time 3d to it's OS/2 arsenal of great
>>technologies.
>
Hmm? What do you mean by this?
IBM has announced that BRender for OS/2 is now available. It is a fast, small 3D
graphics library (100K library?). I don't have many specifics on the API, but the
demo that I saw at the CGDC was pretty darn impressive. A limited license
version of BRender should be on the next DevCon CD.
Later,
Michael Duffy (mdu...@ionet.net)
Stephen Oakes
says...
>On the other hand - no one ever got rich by following the pack.
>The really successful people are the ones who took chances and turned
>out to be right.
It's not a question of following the pack, it's a question of playing
on the right field. There's no point making a match-winning move
if there's no-one watching :-)
A.T. Forsyth
Mr Seidner <mrse...@aol.com> wrote:
>For those of you who may have missed the announcement today,
>IBM has just added real-time 3d to it's OS/2 arsenal of great
>technologies.
>
> SANTA CLARA, Calif., Computer Games Developers Conference--(BUSINESS
>WIRE)--May 2, 1995--IBM has announced an agreement with Argonaut
>Technologies Ltd. to bundle Argonaut's BRender 3D software into IBM's
>OS/2 Entertainment Toolkit(TM), a part of the Developer Connections
>family of CDs.
>
> BRender for OS/2, a real-time, 3D software library, will allow
>developers to incorporate powerful, high performance 3D capabilities into
>their OS/2 applications.
Hooray! Now we can have a good old BRender vs RenderMorphics fight. Who will
win the battle? Will the intrepid (but small) team from London triumph, or
will the mighty Jez make even more money?
Or (and this is probably the case) have both combatants been dwarfed by the
sheer brutality and scale of the Windoze vs OddStuff2?
I know who my money's on... Intel's Pantium division. Hooray for more processor
power, even if it is just a jumped-up Z80! Hooray for only 4 GP registers,
and hooray for three different operating modes.
Tom (cynic...@reality.is.a.con)
Wilbur S. Peng
In article <3oa2pa$3...@ionews.ionet.net>, mdu...@ionet.net@mdu...@ionet.net (Michael Duffy) writes:
>In <3o8sob$35...@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>, epi...@ibm.net (Eric Pinnell) writes:
>>In <3o6q4b$a...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, mrse...@aol.com (Mr Seidner) writes:
>>>IBM has just added real-time 3d to it's OS/2 arsenal of great
>>>technologies.
>>
>
>Hmm? What do you mean by this?
>
>IBM has announced that BRender for OS/2 is now available. It is a fast, small 3D
>graphics library (100K library?). I don't have many specifics on the API, but the
>demo that I saw at the CGDC was pretty darn impressive. A limited license
>version of BRender should be on the next DevCon CD.
>
Then it would sure help if IBM could somehow manage to publicize their developer
support and API's better!
>Later,
>Michael Duffy (mdu...@ionet.net)
>
Samuel Marshall
|> So you are speculating that IBM gave virtually every person at Comdex a copy
|> of OS/2? What a great marketing move!
IBM gave us a free copy of OS/2 2.something (at the time, it was the most recent
version, though there was an upgrade in a few months) on the front of PC
magazine.
In our case, the great marketing move didn't work, because we didn't have however
many megs diskspace free to try it, and installing an OS just for the hell of it
is not my idea of fun, really. (or my dad's).
However, it's obviously a better marketing move than NOT giving everyone a free
copy of OS/2. (except it did kind of cheapen the product, maybe! and maybe
irritate the guys who paid for it!)
--
Sam
[] http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d405ua <[ Web pagE ]> *NEW* Sysex Manager ! []
[] For Software Forge program information and downloads [] Including []
[] NETRIS 1.1 best Tetris game <[ For Win 3.1 ]> Sysex Manager 1.0S []
Scott Mason
> This does NOT say that OS/2 is crap and neither does it say that I'm
> opposed to OS/2. I've used OS/2 for about 3 years now and I know that it is
> finally getting there but it does not have a wide appeal to the gaming
> comunity in the UK. It may be going down well in the US but it isn't here.
Aie, there's the rub. OS/2 is definately catching on in the US
thanks mainly to IBM's Warp marketing campaign and a growing public
irratation with MS. I have had OS/2 at work for a while. I am using
ver 2.0 and am very happy with it. So happy in fact that as soon as
I get the REAL pentium (sans FP bug) in my PC I'll buy Warp for my home
use. I won't go into my complete tirade about MSW. Let's just say I've
never had OS/2 seize up or throw me to the DOS prompt without explanation.
> Everyone I know who has a PC is not tempted by OS/2, they are waiting to see
> what Windows 95 is like. I'm not saying that this is good but I know it is
> true. If Windows 95 is still buggy when it is released, these people will
> wait until it is fixed. Microsoft has a huge influence over people even
> after hearing of all the horror stories of the beta Windows 95 (e.g.
> final beta crashing when running two 32 bit apps).
We've heard the same stories, suffered the same delays, sloshed
through the same bugs, and have come to associate Billy Boy (Gates)
with the Anti-Christ. Most of us (the programmers I associate with) are
migrating away from Windows(tm) AFAFP. Some are still loyal to DOS,
others to Unix (SCO/Linux/etc), and many (dare I say most?) to OS/2.
With Warp's boot manager it's a pretty versitle package.
> As to the suggestion that people install multiple OS's on their machine;
> I don't think the public will do it. People who are technical may but the
> average guy on the street won't.
I disagree. Especially with the convienence of Warp's boot manager,
and the incredible drop in HD prices ($385US for 1Gig HD, what a wonderful
country:), I believe multiple OS's will be fairly common. Until, of
course, the superior OS wins out 8).
My $.02
Scott
--
The comments or opinions expressed here are not necessarily those
of NSWC, US Navy, Federal Government, or any agent thereof.
Scott Moore
>My 4 cents worth,
>
>When you turn on you're computer you're basically going to go
>down 1 of two roads, play a game or do some work. Without question
>the best bootstrap for games on the intel platform is DOS.
I wish I had that luxury all of the time... But I don't. My PC is used for
both work and play, but turning it off is not an option. My PC must be there
to receive my buisness faxes, and keep the network running. It is also nice
to start a picture rendering, or start receiving a 50 page fax (not un-common
for my buisness faxes) while I settle down to a nice game of Doom... Multi-
tasking is essential for me.
>Users who complain about not being able to play DOOM in a VDM
>under OS/2 need to get their head read. Oh, I'll play doom in
>a window and write an OS/2 app at the same time. Multitasking
>OS's aren't designed to play games and do work at the same time,
>their designed to make work more efficient (some of us still
>have to work you know). You can edit, compile, test and debug
>all at the same time quickly an efficiently. For the purist
>DOOM is now out for OS/2 and most DOS games will run under Warp
>without too much trouble. After trying Win95 for a week, I
>found that pratically any game caused Win95 to swap all of
>itself to disk, run the game and then reload Win95. BTW
>Microsoft, its faster to reboot and do it yourself, with
>better memory management etc etc etc etc etc...
.. read my above statement.
>Those of you who want to use Win95 because its going to be
>popular, well, no comment is neccesary for you. Pick an
>OS which suits your needs and load DOS to play games.
I totally agree... Win9x offers neither the multi-tasking of OS/2 nor the
speed of dos.
-Scott
--------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| From the desk of Scott Moore, International Technical Director |
:--------------------------------------------------------------------------:
| International Headquarters | The Council of Educational Facility |
| ce...@cefpi.com | Planners, International |
| http://www.cefpi.com/cefpi | (602) 948-2337 Voice |
Caffeine Boy
>In article <3o6q4b$a...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
>Mr Seidner <mrse...@aol.com> wrote:
>>For those of you who may have missed the announcement today,
>>IBM has just added real-time 3d to it's OS/2 arsenal of great
>>technologies.
>>
>>---------------------------------------------
>> SANTA CLARA, Calif., Computer Games Developers Conference--(BUSINESS
>>WIRE)--May 2, 1995--IBM has announced an agreement with Argonaut
>>Technologies Ltd. to bundle Argonaut's BRender 3D software into IBM's
>>OS/2 Entertainment Toolkit(TM), a part of the Developer Connections
>>family of CDs.
>>
>> BRender for OS/2, a real-time, 3D software library, will allow
>>developers to incorporate powerful, high performance 3D capabilities into
>>their OS/2 applications.
>Hooray! Now we can have a good old BRender vs RenderMorphics fight. Who will
>win the battle? Will the intrepid (but small) team from London triumph, or
>will the mighty Jez make even more money?
Small team from London? Haven't they up sticks and relocated to Seatle
after being eaten by the beast? My money's on Jez, he's compact, neat
and looks like Ronnie Corbett.
==========================================================================
Caffeine Boy | BYC
email : ga...@byc.easnet.co.uk | Video Game Engineers for God
____________________________________|_____________________________________
Views expressed here are only that Don't wet your pants or anything
==========================================================================
Chris Gray
> > bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
> > section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
> > individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
> > installed base but if 90% of them are in businesses, then that is a useless
> > statistic for the gaming world. Everyone I know of is waiting for Windows 9
>
> ...
If the new owner of the Amiga (Escom in Germany) manages to drop the ball
(know-one really knows their intentions at this point), there might be
lots of Amiga folks that would but Intel-CPU boxes and run OS/2 on it.
Most Amiga programmers, and many of the users could not bear to give up
the full pre-emptive multitasking. We've had good recommendations of OS/2
from folks we trust.
Personally, if this Amiga I'm typing on explodes, I'll probably go out
and buy a box to run OS/2 on. Then I'd start off porting my AmigaMUD
system to it.
--
Chris Gray c...@ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
John Michael Martz
> Users who complain about not being able to play DOOM in a VDM
> under OS/2 need to get their head read. Oh, I'll play doom in
> a window and write an OS/2 app at the same time. Multitasking
> OS's aren't designed to play games and do work at the same time,
Sure they are! Here at work, I frequently fire up a dozen or so SAS batch
jobs -- I use the OS/2 version of SAS (a statitical/data management
system). While these jobs are cruising along, I do other things, such as
back up data, post to news groups :-), and -- yes -- even fire up a game
now and again. Multitasking does not mean that you are interacting with
two program _at the same time_ -- that is pretty much humanly and
mechanically impossible (even if you could physically and mentally
coordiante typing in one program and operating the mouse in another, I
don't know of any hardware or software that will allow you to do both
things simultaneously). Multitasking is having multiple programs sharing
the CPU (not at the same time, of course -- that isn't possible either;
rather OS/2 gives each program a turn at the CPU based on its priority).
Quite simply, multitasking oses are designed to do multiple things
simultaneously on the same CPU (or, spread across multiple CPU's, if
you're so lucky). How you define these "things" is irrelevant. So, if
you have some tasks going on in the backgound (such as compiling programs,
downloading files, backing up your HD, scanning for viruses, etc.), you
can do whatever you like in the foreground -- even if it is catching up on
some recreation time.
David Springer
>Has anyone seen the Hover game included with the 456 beta of Win95? Or
Sure, lots of people. It came with the 450 build, by the way. I'm
getting about 10 frames/second on a 486 laptop with a 640x480x256
window at the highest detail setting and using an 800x600x256 window
altogether. Using the DIB engine and doing a 2:1 StretchBlt this
would translate to 40 frames/second at 320x240x256 and look exactly
like any other game at that resolution.
>Comdex? Take a look at these before you discount Win95 as a game
>platform.
>
I think the problem is that you have to have some discipline to code
in the Win32 environment. Discipline is sorely lacking around here.
Lawson English
[snipt]
: In our case, the great marketing move didn't work, because we didn't have however
: many megs diskspace free to try it, and installing an OS just for the hell of it
: is not my idea of fun, really. (or my dad's).
Hah. The ultimate proof that the Mac is easier to use:
I HAVE installed various versions of the OS just for fun -having the
computer put all of its menus in Chinese or Hebrew or Thai or Arabic and
letting someone try to type a letter is worth a few mintues of time...
fa...@coral.indstate.edu
(Joseph D. Foley) writes:
>In article <799247...@dominion.demon.co.uk>,
>karl todd <ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
>> bought OS/2? The only place that I know has bought OS/2 is the computer
>> section of Manchester Police! Whatever IBM say, I personally know of no
>> individuals who use OS/2. It's all very well and good having a large
>You need to get out more, then. There are (out of 10 computers on my
>floor), 6 using OS/2. Close to half of my friends are using it. In many
>places, mention of Win95 will draw only looks of scorn.
I know of 14 machines running OS/2 installed at home, or at work when OS/2
isn't even being supported, because those users prefer OS/2. Most of these
are home installs. Granted, 14 isn't that many machines, but a friend of
mine (another OS/2 user) knows even more OS/2 users in this area who I haven't
met (I'm only counting machines that I *know* are running OS/2).
It's out there, you just have to pay attention....
ษà¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸±à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸›
บ Brian Fane ณ "Our life is frittered away by บ
บ Team OS/2! ณ detail. . . . Simplify, simplify." บ
บ fa...@coral.indstate.edu ณ -- Henry Thoreau บ
ศà¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸¯à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸à¸œ
I've followed you, talked to your neighbours, tapped your phone, and
even shot at you to see how you would react. From my observations I
have come to one irrefutable conclusion: You are Paranoid.
A.T. Forsyth
Caffeine Boy <ga...@byc.easynet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Small team from London? Haven't they up sticks and relocated to Seatle
>after being eaten by the beast? My money's on Jez, he's compact, neat
>and looks like Ronnie Corbett.
Oh, did they? TRAITORS! UNBELIEVERS! We love Jez. We love Jez. We love Jez.
There, that's my bit done for Queen and country.
Tom.
david matiskella
info on programming. I have yet to find any good info on Dive or it's
sequal or the multimedia extensions.
Dwayne Parks
>:> In article <799247...@dominion.demon.co.uk>,
>:> karl todd <ka...@dominion.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>:> > I think you're missing a VERY important point here. Who has actually
>:> > bought OS/2?
[Deleted...]
>For what is is worth, among all my friends, many of who are programmers,
>I don't know anyone who owns warp. I've only known four people ever who
>owned OS/2- A programming partner, a friend from college, a secretary,
>and me. My programming partner and I each spent a few weeks trying to
>get OS/2 to work properly on our systems and finally had to give up in
>frustration. Both of us now use DOS/Windows and we have ordered the
>WIN'95 beta to see what that is like...
[Deleted...]
Are you saying that you found DOS/Windows to be a better/more stable
development environment than OS/2? Or you had problems setting up/
configuring OS/2?
The first one I would find very hard to believe. The second sounds more
likely to be what you meant.
I have been developing under OS/2 for around two years now. During that
time I can count the number of system crashes on one hand. Granted I
haven't had to write any device drivers... My programs, on the other
hand suffered quite a few deaths at the hands of OS/2. :-)
It's great to see your invalid pointers trapped as early as possible in
the development process.
As for how many people I know that use OS/2... We use OS/2 more than
any other operating system at work (around 60%, 30% DOS/Win, 10% Mac).
Of the last three roommates I had while I was a student at the university,
two switched to OS/2 after seeing me use it. Both are still using it
after 1-2 years have passed. One of them even used it to do his Image
Processing assignments and final project on it. His professor was
impressed by the speed of image manipulations compared to the other
programs turned in. Funny thing is, these were his first PM programs!!!
BTW: Does this have anything to do with games anymore? What types of
games would you like to see for OS/2? I'm looking forward to
beta-testing Avarice and other games coming out down the road.
- Dwayne
--
--- ---
- Dwayne Parks University of Arkansas Computer Store -
- dpa...@comp.uark.edu #include <disclaimer.h> -
--- ---
Andrew Folkins
>
>If the new owner of the Amiga (Escom in Germany) manages to drop the ball
>(know-one really knows their intentions at this point), there might be
>Most Amiga programmers, and many of the users could not bear to give up
>the full pre-emptive multitasking. We've had good recommendations of OS/2
>from folks we trust.
Escom, in the not-so-distant past, went through some legal hassles with
Microsoft, namely Escom was pre-installing OS/2 on it's clones and
felt that it shouldn't have to continue paying royalties to MS for
copies of DOS and Windows that it never sold. Apparently Escom and
a couple of other distributors, in total accounting for about 1/3 of
the German PC market, have been pre-installing OS/2 on their systems.
I'm one of the Amiga folks who, while I still have my Amiga, also has
a clone running OS/2. Frankly, I can't stand Windows 3.1, and '95 is
going to have to be *VERY* good before I'll consider using it as a
production environment.
>Personally, if this Amiga I'm typing on explodes, I'll probably go out
>and buy a box to run OS/2 on. Then I'd start off porting my AmigaMUD
>system to it.
Yeah, but you'd have to port Draco first.
--
Andrew Folkins afol...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca afol...@bix.com
http://www.ualberta.ca/~afolkins
"Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million
typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare."
-- Blair Houghton
Rob Vanden Heuvel
> the moment I think it's safer to sit tight and wait and let the market decide
> before everyone rushes off to develop OS/2 apps.
Think about that for a second. If everyone DOES "rush off to develop OS/2 apps",
then OS/2 will undoubtedly sell better and become the winner. The biggest
argument that people can bring up against OS/2 is a _relative_ scarcity of
native OS/2 apps. If developers produce OS/2 apps of their own, they will
have been the authors of their own fate so to speak and will have done themselves
and the whole computing community a big favour by getting us out from under
Microsoft's thumb.
Rob Vanden Heuvel
war...@ibm.net
That's what we're trying to do. A was reading on Fidonet how a lot of
Windows ISV's have literally "gone under" because of the delays in Windows95.
The phrase "If you act like a lemming you may suffer the same fate as a lemming."
came up.
Brad
------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------
Brad Wardell | OS/2 Development/Publishing
Stardock Systems (SDS) Inc. | GalCiv, OS/2 Essentials, Shipyards
On Cserve: GO STARDOCK | Avarice, Entrepreneur
Email: War...@ibm.net |
Phone: (313)/782-2248 | Fax: (313)/207-0780
------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------
JEFF DALLACQUA
-> and looks like Ronnie Corbett.
Excuse me for asking, but who's Ronnie Corbett?
Jez San
>atf...@cus.cam.ac.uk (A.T. Forsyth) wrote:
>
>>In article <3o6q4b$a...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
>>Mr Seidner <mrse...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>For those of you who may have missed the announcement today,
>>>IBM has just added real-time 3d to it's OS/2 arsenal of great
>>>technologies.
>>>
>>>---------------------------------------------
>>> SANTA CLARA, Calif., Computer Games Developers Conference--(BUSINESS
>>>WIRE)--May 2, 1995--IBM has announced an agreement with Argonaut
>>>Technologies Ltd. to bundle Argonaut's BRender 3D software into IBM's
>>>OS/2 Entertainment Toolkit(TM), a part of the Developer Connections
>>>family of CDs.
>>>
>>> BRender for OS/2, a real-time, 3D software library, will allow
>>>developers to incorporate powerful, high performance 3D capabilities into
>>>their OS/2 applications.
>
>>Hooray! Now we can have a good old BRender vs RenderMorphics fight. Who will
>>win the battle? Will the intrepid (but small) team from London triumph, or
>>will the mighty Jez make even more money?
>
>
Do I really look like Ronnie Corbett?
-- Jez.
Vincent Vinh-Hung
|> > This does NOT say that OS/2 is crap and neither does it say that I'm
|> > opposed to OS/2. I've used OS/2 for about 3 years now and I know that it is
|> > finally getting there but it does not have a wide appeal to the gaming
|> > comunity in the UK. It may be going down well in the US but it isn't here.
|>
I did notice wide difference between UK game magazines which consistently
praise Windows and regularly insert Windows/Microsoft/Gates news or
articles, even when barely game related. Not long ago, some of the UK
mags would superficially review OS/2 and off-hand reject OS/2 as
unsuitable game platform, while US CGW did deep analysis of OS/2
quite appreciative of Warp and sharply contrasting the UK mags.
One should however be cautious not to infer from UK game
magazine that they reflect readers buying pattern: I read lot of them,
and I expend an enormous amount of my home budget on PC games, until now
mostly DOS and some Windows - but it seems to have escaped notice of
commentators that like many, despite my buying DOS and Windows,
I am too an OS/2 user, and that at some point, I may change my
pattern of buying.
It helps that many game magazines come with CD demo disks:
I am becoming more selective.
Previously I would buy Lucas games (for example) without hesitation,
because they ran smoothly with OS/2, until TIE that is - which
started to show sound troubles and for which my daughter
complained it would hang too often from OS/2 and asked
me to remove off the hard drive.
Now, I would
check first that the demo runs with OS/2, if the demo doesn't run,
like Dark Force or Full Throttle, I shred a tear of regret, and
reject the game from my buying list and forget the game.
OS/2 no appeal to the gaming community?
If the game producer thinks so and doesn't care about my system,
how would I ever dare bother the producer with my customership.
(Why is this discussion cross-posted to c.s.i.p.games.strategic?)
Vincent Vinh-Hung
[...]
|> *better* under OS/2 than dos. Many run a little slower, and many run
|> just as fast. Death Gate runs better under OS/2 than DOS on my system.
|> I just used the standard dos box settings too. Descent runs, as does
|> Dark Forces.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Mark, seriously, Dark Forces run with OS/2 ? The demo I got from an UK
game mag failed.
Vincent
Dr. Cat
: If new pioneering software game companies want to get an edge, the most
: reasonable place to do it is in exploiting the hardware directly.
The most reasonable place to get an edge is by doing high quality game
design. Many companies are exploiting the hardware directly, and there
are many many programmers working at this for you to compete with. There
are very few good game designers working today, there aren't even very
many people who have the job title "game designer" though this is finally
starting to increase.
I might note yet again that arguing (Dos vs. Windows, PC vs. Mac, OS/2
vs. Windows, whatever) does not help you get your first game done, and
that the majority of people here are likely to never GET a game done.
So again I suggest ignoring this argument and getting back to coding your
game.
***********************************************************************
Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions ** Come play DragonSpires!
******************************************** ftp.eden.com pub/dspire
Dragonspires is a graphic mud for PCs. ** has everything you need!
***********************************************************************
** http://www.realtime.net/~gauntlet/dspire.html for more info **
***********************************************************************
Dave Murphy
I hope your programming a alot better than your arithmetic. try 5 - 10
times the size. Also note the EU market is about the same size, maybe
bigger. And Warp is selling very well around Europe.
Still, I agree, when Win95 hits, os/2 is going to take a hammering -
provided it works. If MS gets it wrong, they will be in trouble this
time.
> This person is an OS/2 advocate and would have you believe that OS/2
> represents some future market for games programmers. It's simply not
> true--while OS/2 has its place in various environments (I understand
> its particuarly well suited to <ahemATMs) it is not a games
> > environment.
Why do you say this? There are people here who program supposedly very
good games for it. I don't know, i stick with windows, dos and unix, but
i have not seen anyone refute claims made.
> Compare this to Windows 95 which is being developed
> with games specifically in mind because its market is the average
> person,
Since when was win95 developed with games in mind? Read Schulman or even
the docswith the game developer kit : Win 95 is based on win3.1, which in
turn evolved out of win 386 etc.... Win95 is an evolution from older
systems, not a revolution. The games sdk has only just been released,
and the company providing most of the software was only bought a few
months ago (or was it weeks?). The idea of win95 is to sell to everyone
with an intel based computer on their desk, no matter where. MS
realised last year that the home market was bigger than the corporate
one, and so have redeveloped windows to suit (or rather shoe horned it to
fit).
> not some corporate Cobol programmer.
simply throwing abuse around doesn't strengthen your case.
> People play games. Today
> it is DOS. Tomorrow, it will be with Windows 95. Make no mistake--the
> PC games Platform of the near future is Windows 95.
>
Yeps, I agree. But not because win95 is better than dos or os/2 or
anything else. People buy microsft now much like they would have bought
IBM a couple of years ago - It is the done thing.
just ny 2 small coins worth.
Dave Murphy (calling from the emerald isle).
Dokk Martin Man
>>
>>Small team from London? Haven't they up sticks and relocated to Seatle
>>after being eaten by the beast? My money's on Jez, he's compact, neat
>>and looks like Ronnie Corbett.
>>
>
>Do I really look like Ronnie Corbett?
>
>-- Jez.
Depends on how big the chair you're sitting in is...
---dokk
Arne Bruening
Well, the best you can do if you want to develop for OS/2 is joining
IBM's Developers Assistence Program (DAP) and ordering the
Developers Connection (DevCon) CD-ROM's.
I haven't checked them for DIVE documentation (because I have
no use for it, I don't develop games) but I know there is a DIVE
demo, several MMPM examples and the MMPM documentation
on it.
Arne
---*** final beta signature. Release-version soon to be released ***---
======================================================================
Arne Bruening, WMD GmbH, Hamburg, Germany
======================================================================
Ben Buie
Dark Forces runs perfectly (better than DOS on most machines because of
direct dpmi translation) under OS/2, you can get the settings for it
on Calvin.
/*OS/2 -- Bill Gates Worst Nightmare -- The Ghost of Steve Jobs*/
/*BITE ME BILL*/
Ben Buie, Georgia Institute of Technology
Team OS/2 Member
gt1...@prism.gatech.edu
bu...@cc.gatech.edu
/*FTP to Calvin (wc56.residence.gatech.edu)
/*THE Source for OS/2 Gaming*/
/*Finger cal...@wc56.residence.gatech.edu for more info*/
Michael Hermann
|> In article <3o0q16$e...@news.iastate.edu>, m...@knapp24.res.iastate.edu (Mark R. Johnson) writes:
|> [...]
|> |> *better* under OS/2 than dos. Many run a little slower, and many run
|> |> just as fast. Death Gate runs better under OS/2 than DOS on my system.
|> |> I just used the standard dos box settings too. Descent runs, as does
|> |> Dark Forces.
|> ^^^^^^^^^^^
|> Mark, seriously, Dark Forces run with OS/2 ? The demo I got from an UK
|> game mag failed.
Many people have already said that it works within OS/2, don't have it
so I don't know whether it does..
-Mike
A.T. Forsyth
>I'll be releasing a short graphical demo for OS/2 that runs between 50 and 100
>frames per second (standard benchmarks) in full-screen on your average
>486/50. When I talked to Windows/95 users, they insisted this wasn't
>possible under any operating system, let alone OS/2.
You have a monitor that refreshes at 100Hz? Impressive.
OK, OK, what you meant is "as fast as your monitor goes". :-)
[Oops - lost the attribution for this person - sorry]
>>I disagree. Hard drives are dirt cheap right now, so we will be seeing more
>>multiple operating system users out there. I intend to have dos/os2/unix/win 95in my system by the end of summer.
>>I bought OS/2 full pack and for 70 dollars it was worth it.
The hard drives may be cheap - it's the software prices I'm worried about.
>Really? Wouldn't you rather not have to worry about maintaining multiple
>operating systems? I'd like to get settled in to one. Since I'm already
>acquainted with OS/2, and I dislike monopolies, that is my preference.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Snap! My knee-jerk coder's instinct is to go for the underdog. Microsloth
are arrogant enough as it is without having an unbreakable monopoly.
(Boycott Microsoft Space Sim - stick to _real_ games companies).
>To repeat a comment written by another: DOS games usually work under OS/2.
>The only problem arises when the developers didn't consider multitasking users
>and depended on exact timings, or used a non-standard memory scheme. Most
>DOS games use DOS/4GW, which is Watcom's DPMI DOS extender, and is
>fully compatible with OS/2 (no changes necessary).
If a DOS game chants "cli", does this _guarantee_ no interrupts? If not, 99%
of all joystick-reading routines are going to fall over, and I can't see a
way around this. DOS games also frequently grab hardware interrupts and
configure hardware manually - if OS/2 stops them or gets confused by the
changes, then it's no good. These are things that a game developer NEEDS -
any OS getting in their way is going to be stomped on. The classic example is
AmigaOS, of course, which developers had to find ways of switching off. MacOS
is another classic case.
If your OS can't be told to sod off, it is going to be ignored.
Tom.
Lawson English
[snipt]
: changes, then it's no good. These are things that a game developer NEEDS -
: any OS getting in their way is going to be stomped on. The classic example is
: AmigaOS, of course, which developers had to find ways of switching off. MacOS
: is another classic case.
: If your OS can't be told to sod off, it is going to be ignored.
Which parts of the Mac hardware that the game developer NEEDS to deal with
does the MacOS interfere with?
Bernie Roehl
He's the short one. The big one is Ronnie Barker. :-)
(Seriously, the "Two Ronnies" are a pair of British comedians. So
far as I know, they have surprisingly little to do with game
development).
--
Bernie Roehl
University of Waterloo Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Mail: bro...@sunee.uwaterloo.ca Voice: (519) 888-4567 x 2607 work
URL: http://sunee.uwaterloo.ca/~broehl
Lon Culbertson
: In article <D7vIw...@cuug.ab.ca>, <pek...@cuug.ab.ca> wrote:
: >I'll be releasing a short graphical demo for OS/2 that runs between 50 and 100
: >frames per second (standard benchmarks) in full-screen on your average
: >486/50. When I talked to Windows/95 users, they insisted this wasn't
: >possible under any operating system, let alone OS/2.
: You have a monitor that refreshes at 100Hz? Impressive.
: OK, OK, what you meant is "as fast as your monitor goes". :-)
Doesn't everyone have an NEC XP (up to 160Hz)?
John Hattan
>A.T. Forsyth (atf...@cus.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
>[snipt]
>: changes, then it's no good. These are things that a game developer NEEDS -
>: any OS getting in their way is going to be stomped on. The classic example is
>: AmigaOS, of course, which developers had to find ways of switching off. MacOS
>: is another classic case.
>: If your OS can't be told to sod off, it is going to be ignored.
>Which parts of the Mac hardware that the game developer NEEDS to deal with
>does the MacOS interfere with?
I think he's talking about being able to shut off the Finder. This does
NOT shut off the windowing/memory management/file management/tasking
features of MacOS. It is simply a way to shut off the high-level
file/program management (i.e. dragging files between windows) to free up
some memory temporarily.
It is NOT shutting off the OS!
---
John Hattan High UberPopeness of the First Church of Shatnerology
The Code Zone Sweet Software for a Saturnine World
hat...@fastlane.net http://www.fastlane.net/homepages/hattan/hattan.html
D. Gould
: In article <PGbpvQ/xYlpF...@ibm.net>, sb...@ibm.net (Steve Withers) wrote:
: >Just for the record, IBM's released sales figures do not count the
: >employee giveaways of OS/2.
: Sure it doesn't. And the figures for 1.x didn't represent
: giveaways, either.
Eh? The figures don't include 1.x. However, IBM did offer a free upgrade.
: IBM has a history of lying on this subject. Can you give
: any hard _policy_ statement from IBM's beancounters that
: backs up your claim?
That's libellous. Do you know that IBM has probably the biggest legal
department in the world?
: Note that it's hard to get accurate figures from IBM about
: spending and income for specific products (e.g., OS/2 or the
: PowerPersonals) even if you're a stockholder. I wonder why
: so much effort is put into concealment behind a rat's nest
: of tricky accounting.
It's called business. Note that Microsoft do the same and worse. Before OS/2
for Windows, all copies of OS/2 sold counted as copies of Windows sold. Same
with Warp Fullpack.
: By the way, why were all of the computers in this year's
: annual report running Windows (except one, which was running
: PenPoint)? Why weren't there _any_ running OS/2?
Annual report?
: >At the moment, I have a SimCity, GalCiv and DOOM (beta) for OS/2.
: I've heard SimCity/2 is a complete pig. True?
No, it's a perfect conversion, just requires 12MB ram.
CUL8R, Dave.
Chris Gray
writes:
> These are things that a game developer NEEDS -
> any OS getting in their way is going to be stomped on. The classic example is
> AmigaOS, of course, which developers had to find ways of switching off.
>
Nearly all kinds of games can be written quite well with the operating
system still active. Many of the arcade-style games are written by people
who never bothered to try. They claim (possibly legitimately) that they
couldn't afford to the buy the manuals (about $100.00 for a full set).
So, they hacked around and learned from friends how to hack the hardware
directly.
A legitimate reason for not using the operating system is that it consumes
too much of your CPU cycles and/or memory. That was especially a problem
on the early Amiga's which had 512K RAM and a 7.3MHz 68000.
This continues to be a problem, even in the DOS world, since the games
market is so competitive - everyone wants the absolute fastest game
with the most movement, sound, etc.
Personally, the only games I run on this Amiga are those that work on
top of the operating system. That includes MUDs, role-playing games,
strategy games and even arcade games. I don't even turn off background
stuff like UUCP when I play them.
--
Chris Gray c...@ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA
Dave Murphy
> spending and income for specific products (e.g., OS/2 or the
> PowerPersonals) even if you're a stockholder. I wonder why
> so much effort is put into concealment behind a rat's nest
> of tricky accounting.
>
dangerous. In IBMs case, they used to cross subsidise parts of their
business from other parts of it (eg to allow them to undercut competitors
in special markets). The consent decree they agreed that ended the
anti trust case against them a few years ago was supposed to stop this.
I imagine it is difficult to distinguish between legitimate investment in
a new product, and cross subsidy of that product from another division.
Hide it all in clever accounting, and it is even harder to distinguish.
NB, I am not saying IBM IS breaking their agreement, but it makes it
harder for anyone to find out.
Dave
Dave Murphy
> -> and looks like Ronnie Corbett.
>
> Excuse me for asking, but who's Ronnie Corbett?
5 feet tall, wears black, thick rimmed glasses, not fat, not balding,
dark hair. Looks like Penfold in Dangermouse
dave.
Kevin Phillips
I must agree that more development for OS/2 must be undertaken to make
OS/2 more viable as an OS for the future - Afterall, I would love to do
all my work under OS/2 - Doom works beautifully under it, and the
Internet utilities are pretty smart!
I love OS/2 Warp...
But, I must say that I do have a few quirks - It takes a while to start
up, and I am not sure what I have done, but I have managed to crash it a
few times (System locks up, Screen gets garbles, Once the Launchpad
crashed and the 'Not responding to system' window's OK button didn't even
close it!)
To top it off, the damn thing accesses the Hard drive ALL the time - Move
the mouse, close a window - Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! Whiirrrrrrrr! The drive
gets mauled!
Now, WIN 95 - I actually read somewhere that Win95 was going to abolish
the Win32 layer and API... This would mean that all 32 bit app's
developed now would not even work on Win 95...
I also read that the crash protection under Win95 was a farce -
apparently, software (Win 3.1, DOS) isn't correctly checked for memory
overlaps - ie. Win95 could put one program into the same memory area as
another and effectively cause a real crash and a half! Only 'Native' Win
95 software is protected?
My friend had a beta version (to March 95) and said that although he was
initially impressed with the speed and performance, a lot of Win 3.1
software didn't work under it, it overwrote his DOS (even though he
selected it NOT too) and crashed twice.
So, as far as I am concerned the only 'Stable' OS is DOS! ;) (NOT!)
Ha! Ha! 8)
OS/2 Warp gets my vote and if somebody can tell me where I can get the
development tools/information to program for it I will!
Flame away!
Kev.
Terry Sikes
Kevin Phillips <kph...@iconz.co.nz> wrote:
[compress]
>Now, WIN 95 - I actually read somewhere that Win95 was going to abolish
>the Win32 layer and API... This would mean that all 32 bit app's
>developed now would not even work on Win 95...
Win95 runs Win32 programs. Almost all 32-bit titles will work under
both Win95 and Win NT.
>I also read that the crash protection under Win95 was a farce -
>apparently, software (Win 3.1, DOS) isn't correctly checked for memory
>overlaps - ie. Win95 could put one program into the same memory area as
>another and effectively cause a real crash and a half! Only 'Native' Win
>95 software is protected?
In theory, this could be a problem. In practice, most users are
finding Win95 very stable. Check the #windows95 channel on IRC, for
instance.
>My friend had a beta version (to March 95) and said that although he was
>initially impressed with the speed and performance, a lot of Win 3.1
>software didn't work under it, it overwrote his DOS (even though he
>selected it NOT too) and crashed twice.
Beta software is, after all, beta software. Most folk that I've
talked to have had quite a bit better experience with build 347 or
later.
[compress]
--
Terry Sikes | Software Developer++
tsi...@netcom.com | C++ isn't a language, its an adventure!
finger for PGP pub key | "Anyone programming in a 16-bit environment
My opinions - mine only! | isn't playing with a full DEC."
John Michael Martz
> Robert Rodgers (rsro...@wam.umd.edu) wrote:
> : I've heard SimCity/2 is a complete pig. True?
>
> No, it's a perfect conversion, just requires 12MB ram.
Well, I've publically stated that I thought SimCity/2 was a pig. Of
course, I only have 8mb RAM; however, all reviews I've read indicated that
it quickly outstrips 16mb of RAM. I'd be interested to hear about how it
runs in 12mb, but I don't think this is the place for it. I would welcome
private e-mail or, better yet, a separate thread in comp.os.os2.games.
JOHN
* John M. Martz: Psychology Dept, UNC-CH * *
| CB# 3270, Davie Hall | B = f(P,E) |
| Chapel Hill, NC 27599 | --Kurt Lewin |
* JOHN_...@UNC.EDU * *
Eric Pinnell
>>
>> It would help if IBM had a 3D device driver model.
>
>Hmm? What do you mean by this?
>
>IBM has announced that BRender for OS/2 is now available. It is a fast, small 3D
>graphics library (100K library?). I don't have many specifics on the API, but the
>demo that I saw at the CGDC was pretty darn impressive. A limited license
>version of BRender should be on the next DevCon CD.
>
>Later,
>Michael Duffy (mdu...@ionet.net)
Michael,
BRender is a rendering API. The device driver model for video under OS/2 does
not support 3D functions. See the 3DDI specs from Microsoft on how it should be
done.
Eric Pinnell
(President, CyberSim Inc.)
NewOrder Demo Group
>: >I'll be releasing a short graphical demo for OS/2 that runs between 50 and 100
>: OK, OK, what you meant is "as fast as your monitor goes". :-)
>
> Doesn't everyone have an NEC XP (up to 160Hz)?
Your video card syncs at 160Hz? ;)
--TCA of NewOrder
newo...@carina.unm.edu
David Silver
>I must agree that more development for OS/2 must be undertaken to make
>OS/2 more viable as an OS for the future - Afterall, I would love to do
>all my work under OS/2 - Doom works beautifully under it, and the
>Internet utilities are pretty smart!
>I love OS/2 Warp...
>Now, WIN 95 - I actually read somewhere that Win95 was going to abolish
>the Win32 layer and API... This would mean that all 32 bit app's
>developed now would not even work on Win 95...
Completely wrong. Win32 is *THE* API for Win95, as for WinNT. The
conditions that Microsoft imposes on developers (if they want to use
the Win95 logo) basically boil down to writing apps which will work
well on NT. Actually, ordinary Windows and Windows NT are convergent
products. The next version of NT will have the Windows 95 user
interface, and at some time in the future when the entry level
hardware is sufficient, Windows as a product will disappear, and NT
will be Microsoft's only OS.
Ultimately, Microsoft's goal is to place all of the OS functionality
in objects which are a layer above the Win32 API, using COM/OLE
technology. That is, the API will gradually become more object
oriented. Microsoft is not alone in this goal. Other systems
working along similar lines are:
IBM's SOM/DSOM
OpenDoc (soon will be sitting on top of SOM/DSOM), just as OLE is
built on COM
The CORBA spec (this is not an implementation). DSOM is compatible
with this.
The Taligent frameworks.
NextStep
>I also read that the crash protection under Win95 was a farce -
>apparently, software (Win 3.1, DOS) isn't correctly checked for memory
>overlaps - ie. Win95 could put one program into the same memory area as
>another and effectively cause a real crash and a half! Only 'Native' Win
>95 software is protected?
One of the primary design goals of Windows 95 is compatibility. All
"legacy" Windows 3.1 apps are co-operatively multitasked in the same
virtual machine. They share the same address space, and can pass
pointers to their own local data from one process to another and have
it mean something at the receiving end. This is exactly the situation
you have now with Windows 3.1. DOS apps and native Win95 apps run in
their own virtual machines, preemptively multitasked and much better
protected from one another.
-- David