Re: [ProgSoc] buying computers

[jedd <jedd@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 22:04, WzDD wrote:
> It's pretty clear that MS crippled the win9x kernel. Do any form of
> networking benchmark under 9x vs NT and even if 9x doesn't crash it'll
> still be much slower. No-one even contemplates running a server under 9x

 Well, I'm no advocate for MS products .. but the distinction here
 is less conspiratorial than you paint it.  Win9X/ME are based on 
 a 16-bit operating system with minimal process management
 functionality.  Ie, protecting one task from another.   NT (and 2K is
 just NT5 by another name) was written as a 32-bit OS from the
 ground up (ostensibly), and has this kind of resource protection
 designed in.  You wouldn't run a server on a 16-bit operating
 system that didn't offer some kind of defence against other (non-
 privileged) tasks running on the same box from killing it.

> and it's not just for stability reasons. It then becomes an issue of
> whether or not they did it deliberately, to which the answer of course is
> "who cares?"

 Remember that Win95 was, and if you look hard you can still find
 copies of the original interviews with Paul Allen et al, designed to
 run optimatlly on a 16Mb machine.  You may be able to get by on
 a machine with 12Mb, but that extra 4Mb would make a really big
 difference to the performance.  There were stories around with
 95 that it wouldn't use > 64mb, no matter what you did.  This may
 or may not be true .. the nature of 9x is that it's difficult to work this
 stuff out anyway.

 Well, unless the original poster is willing to do some Photoshop (?)
 benchmarks, and then scale back to 64mb, and re-run the same
 tasks.

 Jedd.

-- 
 jedd == jedd at progsoc dot org
 "The unemployment queue is no longer just for philosophy
 majors - useful people are now being affected too."
			  -- Kent Brockman, The Simpsons.
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