4 Feb
2025
4 Feb
'25
7:57 a.m.
On 04/02/2025 15:10, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 at 07:02, Steve Lewis via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
As a matter of social history, in the 1970s and into the 1980s Microsoft
was heroic. IBM and the corporate data processing department had a
stranglehold, and Microsoft (+CP/M) represented freedom. And Microsoft's
version of everything tended to be the best.
It fell apart with some people when they licensed PC-DOS to IBM, and the
world got a PC that wasn't the big leap forward from CP/M that people
were hoping for. The cool kids were running on a 68000 by then, which
Microsoft largely ignored. I felt OS/2 showed Microsoft understood, but
was following the money, which I guessed was okay. Bill Gates also got
one over on IBM by enabling the PC clone market - providing
multi-sourced standardised platform that exploded the world of Personal
Computers. This is overlooked too often.
As Intel CPUs improved (possibly dragged forward by AMD) and some good
Windows versions (3.11, 98SE and XP) turned up, I felt Microsoft got
their shine back.
Now Microsoft is doing the stuff IBM was hated for - centralised IT,
subscription services and lock-in. The poacher is now the gamekeeper.
But as the princess put it, the more Microsoft tightens its grip, the
more will slip through its fingers.
Regards, Frank.
I might be banished for saying - but, I actually
like Microsoft.
It's refreshing to hear that.
I don't like the company, I am not wild about the modern products, its
criminal record is shameful... but it has done some fantastic products
over the years, some of which re-defined the industry.
What Microsoft did to DR (Digital Research) and
Stacker was a bit cold
(making Windows difficult to use with DR-DOS in the 90's, and basically
straight up theft of Stacker's tech). Allegedly Microsoft also
deliberately made Net"Scrape" slower than their own IE.. In early 90s, I
did switch from MS-DOS to DR-DOS because at the time, DR-DOS did just have
better features (like the 4DOS features/command line scroll back, tab to
complete, stuff like that).
Agreed, and me too.
I've tried Linux a number of times over the
years -
it's terrific for a headless file server or maybe a router, but otherwise,
No Thanks.... If you really learn Windows, there are so many short-cut
keys, I'm still rarely touching the mouse.
I am a Linux professional these
days and work with it all the time.
The keyboard UI is so vastly inferior it's not even funny. Windows
rules the world in keyboard UI, and this extends to support for people
with disabilities, such as blind and partially sighted users, people
with motor problems preventing use of pointing devices, etc.
Linux -- *all* the GUIs -- is so bad at this it is _shameful_.
But then I also prefer DOS and NT CMD to any xNix shell I've ever
seen. Coming up on 40 years of xNix use now and I still hate the
shell.