Talk:IBM TopView

DV
As far as i understand Quarterdeck DeskView inherited not just PIF-files but a lot of APIs as well.

Conflicting Release Dates for IBM TopView
This says 1985 and the DESQview article says 1984. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.216.42.197 (talk) 08:52, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Multitasker?
TopView was a text-mode MS-DOS multitasker [...]
 * What is a multitasker? I guess what's explained in the article multitasker is not what is meant here. --Abdull (talk) 13:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * TV is a task switcher 70.51.8.158 (talk) 09:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * On Wikidata,TopView is listed as an "operating system", which it wasn't. It was an "interface" to DOS, so I added that to the item. Jimj wpg (talk) 19:44, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

WDFM
The IBM Announcement Letter for WDFM (ZP92-0835) dated 1992/12/08 states that WDFM of 5604-037 TopView 1.12 95X2974 1 Mar 1993. Sadly I can only find this inside IBM.

Windows endorsed over TopView
The article contained the following statement, added by user John Nevard with edit 2011-05-30T04:03:36‎:


 * "By mid-1987, IBM began to shift focus away from TopView and was promoting the use of OS/2 to developers and end users alike.

In the past few days, this statement was removed three times by IP 71.196.96.65 / Briandavidross (and put back in by me). Briandavidross claims the statement is wrong and that IBM never endorsed Windows over OS/2 and TopView, despite the reference clearly saying so. While everyone was wondering about why IBM did this, I remember many similar statements in various other reputable magazines as well, not so much in regard to TopView, but very much in regard to OS/2 and Windows. These statements were repeated multiple times over the years. Whatever, I think, Infoworld is a reliable source and therefore the reference should be put back in in the article. It supports the statement in the article very well.

@Brian, can you please bring forward a reliable source, supporting your claim? Thank you. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:48, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

OS/2 not the first priority-driven preemptive multitasking OS for PCs
In the past few days, IP 71.196.96.65 / Briandavidross also added several statements in regard to OS/2, which are factually wrong. I don't know if they belong into an article about TopView at all, but nevertheless, if such statements are brought forward as part of the discussion of the decline of TopView, they should at least be true. Brian added the following statement:
 * "OS/2 included a Graphical User interface and Intel 80386 support (the first of its kind in the industry).",

which I changed to:
 * "OS/2 included a Graphical User interface and Intel 80286 support.",

as the OS/2 1.x in 1987/1988 was 286 only. OS/2 2.0 with 386 support came not before 1992, and it was not the first operating system taking full advantage of the 32-bit 386 Protected Mode, as Concurrent DOS 386 was released in 1987 already. Concurrent DOS 286 was even released in 1985, and it already took full advantage of the 16-bit 286 Protected Mode years before the advent of OS/2. Brian changed this to:
 * "Initial versions of OS/2 included a Graphical User interface and was the first priority based pre-emptive multi-tasking OS for the PC. Later in April 1992 IBM introduced OS/2 2.0 which included Intel 80386 support (a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows).",

which I again refined to:
 * "OS/2 was a priority-based pre-emptive multi-tasking OS for the PC. A graphical user interface (Presentation Manager) was added with OS/2 1.1 in October 1988. Later in April 1992, IBM introduced OS/2 2.0 which included Intel 80386 support ("a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows")."

This was changed by Brian to:
 * "OS/2 was the first priority-based pre-emptive multi-tasking OS for the PC even exceeding tasking capabilities of unix implementations for the PC. A graphical user interface (Presentation Manager) was added with OS/2 1.1 in October 1988. Later in April 1992, IBM introduced OS/2 2.0 which included Intel 80386 support ("a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows")."

I once more made clear that OS/2 was by no means the first priority-based pre-emptive multi-tasking OS for the PC, as MP/M-86 as of 1981 already supported this. Concurrent CP/M-86, Concurrent DOS and FlexOS all supported this as well, and they all pre-date OS/2. I therefore changed the wording to something more neutral (although right now, I'm not even sure, if OS/2 1.x was really pre-emptive, I will have to look this up. OS/2 2.0 clearly was, but only came in 1992):
 * "OS/2 was a priority-based pre-emptive multi-tasking OS for the PC. A graphical user interface (Presentation Manager) was added with OS/2 1.1 in October 1988. Later in April 1992, IBM introduced OS/2 2.0 which included Intel 80386 support."

Ignoring the technical facts, this was again changed by Brian to:
 * "OS/2 was the first priority based pre-emptive multitasking OS for the PC. A graphical user interface (Presentation Manager) was added with OS/2 1.1 in October 1988. Later in April 1992, IBM introduced OS/2 2.0 which included Intel 80386 support."

@Brian: I have no intend to engage in an edit-war with you but technically wrong statements such as this one cannot remain in this encyclopedia undisputed. Perhaps you mean something different, but than please refine your statement accordingly. Perhaps you meant the first IBM OS of this kind (which wouldn't be true either), or you are mixing this up with Windows, which only had cooperative multitasking, or with MS-DOS/PC DOS, which was not reentrant and did not support multitasking at all, but there have been operating systems for PCs (and compatibles), which took full advantage of the 286 and then the 386 protected mode, which were designed to be reentrant, and which supported priority-based preemptive multitasking long before OS/2 came to existance. Therefore, please refine your statement or bring forward a reliable source supporting your claims, or these your wrong statements in regard to OS/2 will have to be corrected again or removed altogether. Thank you. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:34, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Brian, for changing this back. FWIW, as I looked this up in the original documentation, the real-time monitor / preemptive task scheduler in MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86 and Concurrent DOS already supported 255 priority levels (level 0 was reserved). Of course, much less were actually used in normal practise. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:48, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Matthias, OS/2 1.0 was a 16-bit multi-tasking protected-mode operating system with pre-emptive scheduling, multi-threading, dynamic linking, and virtual memory. OS/2 was one of the first multi-threaded operating systems for the PC. It think it was the first but not interested in arguing it at this time. Environments such as TopView took single tasking operating systems such as CP/M and DOS and provided a hypervisor-ish virtual-machin 'ish' environment on early processors like 8088 that had no facilities for doing this well. Sorry for the confusion earlier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Briandavidross (talk • contribs) 14:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Price of TopView
Under the section "Reception," one of the quoted sources is indirectly said to base its conclusion partly on the cost of this product at the time.

I think it would be interesting if someone were able to list it price(s) (Initial and eventual... or MSRP and typical) and, perhaps, put it in context, of... maybe not a BigMac, but perhaps comparable software offerings that would have been considered competition at the time.

Thanks! 68.65.37.10 (talk) 23:18, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Hopeful beginnings errors
The hopeful beginning section has problems. One problem is that it says:


 * "Microsoft's important partner in popularizing MS-DOS for the IBM PC"

That is misleading. MS-DOS and PC-DOS would not have existed if IBM did not contract with Microsoft.

Also it says:


 * "including the BIOS which was published to the world"

Which is not true. Also it says:


 * "by creating a proprietary operating system for it, similar to what IBM had offered for years on its larger computers"

It is totally true that the PC was very unusual for IBM; they intentionally contracted with Microsoft to create DOS such that it was not proprietary to IBM. The motivation for TopView is speculation and it is my understanding that speculation is inappropriate for WikiPedia.

Then it says:


 * "the new IBM AT did not come with an operating system able to use the hardware multitasking and protected mode features"

Well I do not know what come with means here but I am sure that operating systems that provided multitasking using protected mode features were available.

That is the first paragraph. In the next paragraph about hardware limitations there seems to be numerous erroneous and misleading statements with very few citations. Sam Tomato (talk) 05:43, 2 August 2019 (UTC)