From: jjk1@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (James Joshua Kopper) Subject: Re: DOS emulation under PD unix.. Date: 28 Sep 1992 03:34:50 GMT
>Until the Unix people learn to use some to the more advanced applications
>available in the PC/MAC market place they won't really know what they are
>missing. Until I can get Word Perfect running under Linux and find a
>spreadsheet capabable of competing with Excel I am going to have to keep
>my business activities running under MS-DOS.
Sorry, but I *really* have to laugh at this! Apparently, you haven't
ever used something like Interleaf. Although I personally adore
WordPerfect, it can not even come close to Interleaf when it comes to
creating large texts, books, manuscripts, etc. Interleaf works best
under UNIX and XWindows. There are databases (ever heard of Oracle?),
spreadsheets, etc., etc., etc. Your only point can be that they are
not available for Linux. The reason: they don't get distributed with
source code. Most of them check processor serial numbers, etc.,
because the companies are paranoid that they will be copied.
However, once Linux is a little more widespread, the companies
releasing these programs may choose to do so (unfortunately, it will
probably only be in binary form). While WordPerfect and Excel are
excellent packages, they are _hardly_ the end-all of applications.
Unix-like OSs are much more powerful than DOS is, may be made to be,
or ever will become. DOS will always have a place on single-user
systems, but with the way things are headed toward client-server and
distributed environments, it just doesn't cut it. Neither do its
applications. Or perhaps there is a way to have several different
machines working on different parts of a WP document at the same time,
updating each other's files simultaneously, updating references in
real time, etc.? Perhaps Excel is designed for multi-user operation
and input? Not likely. It's not a limitation of the software
packages of course, just the operating system they run under.
IMHO, of course :-)
--Josh
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from: Josh Kopper
jjk1@lehigh.edu
Computer Engineering, EECS Department, Lehigh University
Student Konsultant -- Lehigh University Computing Center