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Re: Native MMA FrontEnd for OS/2 eventually ?!

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg4828] Re: Native MMA FrontEnd for OS/2 eventually ?!
• From: rubin at msu.edu (Paul A. Rubin)
• Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 01:12:45 -0400
• Organization: Michigan State University
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

In article <508nsf$dp2 at dragonfly.wolfram.com>,
   sad at utkux.utcc.utk.edu (Deutscher) wrote:
->
->Hi,
->  I was wondering whether I am the only one who is upset by Wolfram
->Research's aparent inability (or ignorance) to produce a native OS/2
->FrontEnd for Mathematica.

Not hardly!
->
->As is, MMA/2 is quite stable and nice but the Frontend looks like
->written by a summer student. 
->
[snip]
->
->* The notebook interface is still only available through the Windoze
->  version, i.e. one has to have either the OS/2 Win-OS2 subsystem
->  installed (which comes with some versions of OS/2) or real MS Windows,
->  and then one has to start the kernel as OS/2 process, Windows, the
->  Windows Frontend, and have the two communicate through tcp/ip with each
->  other.  While it is nice that this is possible it is absolutely
->  rediculous to require Windows and tcp/ip support to be installed to use
->  all the features of MMA/2 -- on a notebook with limited HD and memory,
->  e.g., this can be next to impratical.

Could be worse.  On my system (Pentium 90, red spine version), there was 
about a 7 second delay between starting an evaluation and getting a result, 
in addition to the actual kernel execution time for the cell.  I assume 
that some quirk in the TCP/IP interface was to blame, or possibly a setting 
in WIN-OS2, but it beats me what.  I had to replace my hard disk and reload 
Warp, and I haven't bothered to reinstall Mma/2 - if I absolutely need to 
run it, I'll reboot in DOS/Windows.  Do any of the other computer algebra 
packages have native OS/2 versions?

-- Paul

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* Paul A. Rubin                                  Phone: (517) 432-3509   *
* Department of Management                       Fax:   (517) 432-1111   *
* Eli Broad Graduate School of Management        Net:   RUBIN at MSU.EDU    *
* Michigan State University                                              *
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Mathematicians are like Frenchmen:  whenever you say something to them,
they translate it into their own language, and at once it is something
entirely different.                                    J. W. v. GOETHE

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