OSX, OS/2, ECS, and Blue Lion (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Swift Griggs]

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Jerry Kemp wrote:
> I'm missing something here.  Although most did/are using the Apple 
> supplied GUI/Aqua, it wasn't a requirement.

Perhaps there is a way to run an X11 server without Aqua, but I don't know 
of it. However, I'm far from an OSX expert.

> I have/run OpenWindows (compiled for OS X/PPC), and also, although 
> mostly for fun, have a copy of the Mosaic web browser, also compiled for 
> OS X/PPC.

Cool. That sounds interesting. 

> Aside from the Netinfo directory server, from a basic level, you can 
> pretty much do & run anything you would on Solaris, Unix, *BSD or Lunix.  
> What OS X didn't ship with wasn't too hard to compile on my own.

Hmm, not in my experience. IMHO, there is a metric ton of stuff missing 
from OSX. They overload their command line tools to do too much, again, 
IMO. Apple also gives you just about squat in the way of filesystem and 
volume management features that are standard on freely available UNIX 
variants like BSD and Linux. I could go on for a while about what's 
missing, but it's a style-argument only. I don't hate OSX, but I'm 
definitely not ready to view it as UNIX-with-benefits and have some very 
long and specific reasons for that. It's not just a gut impression.

> In defense of OS/2, I went from straight DOS to OS/2 1.3.  I was taking 
> a lot of college programming classes, and in Assembly language 
> specifically, I found any number of ways to blow things up and loose my 
> work.  OS/2 truly provided a "better DOS than DOS", and I could blow up 
> a DOS session with my Assembly code and go right on working.

I had similar experiences with DOS and something called DESQview/X. I 
think it was made by Quarterdeck Systems. I didn't know squat about UNIX 
or XDMCP at the time, but it was still beyond awesome to me to be able to 
run a DOS window and do something uber-stupid in Lattice-C or Borland and 
watch it gracefully recover. So, I can emphatically understand what you 
mean.

> OTOH, how many word processors/spreadsheets/presentation programs does 
> one need per OS?

Fair point, but choice is good, too.

> From a technical perspective, the only big problem I had with OS/2, back 
> in the 1990's, was the single thread input queue on the new OOUI, WPS 
> (Work Place Shell).

That's inside baseball to me. I'll take your word for it.

> OS/2 is now sold under the name "eComStation" and boots from JFS2 
> volumes.

You probably already know, but it seems there is another one now, too, 
based on ECS:

https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-lion-go/

Also FYI, just to be super-clear, I didn't mean to bash or attack OS/2. I 
was just saying I'm too ignorant about it to make a judgment and IBM 
burned me too much to care. However, for all I know it's super-awesome.

-Swift