[65] in OS/2_Discussion
History Repeats Itself
bjaspan@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (bjaspan@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Sep 6 18:49:54 1992
_Computer Monthly_, one of those magazines that exists as a medium for
advertisements and only secondarily for articles, has an article
that talks about various GUIs as well as Windows vs. OS/2. The review
is fairly decent and fair if simpleminded, and makes all the important
points (Windows is a GUI, OS/2 *has* a GUI but is an operating system,
etc.), but then it has the following statement:
"Is OS/2 for home users? Probably not; Windows will always offer more
games and more hobbyist-oriented programs because OS/2 is much more
business-oriented."
Gee, that sounds and awful lot like what people said about the IBM PC
as compared to the Apple ][ way back in 1982. The Apple ][ is dead
now, and the PC (I assume) has better games now than the Apple ][ ever
did (granted, there have been 10 more years to develop them).
Of course, the Mac probably has better games than the PC (I honestly
don't know, I haven't dealt with PC games in a while), and maybe this
analogy says Windows NT will beat out OS/2 in the same way. But
Windows NT is certainly no more of a home-user system than OS/2, and
anyway that's not what the author had in mind. Doesn't anybody ever
learn from history?
