[cctalk] Re: Microsoft 50 years

I might be banished for saying - but, I actually like Microsoft. It's had up's and downs for sure. Multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, mmhmmm.... I like CRLF line endings :) It's more "OG"! It is two separate actions - if you want to LineFeed and THEN CarriageReturn. Just because we now have a super fast CRT, don't presume that I want to CR all the time :P But yes, the whole 8.3 filename thing was a bit of an embarrassment for too long. But hey, it forces you to be creative with limited resources! 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). I tried "Chicago" early beta, but had OS/2 Warp and happily multitasking a year before Win95 came out. But the appeal of DirectX eventually drew me back over for Win98. OS/2 was doing the long-file name support early well. For those bash the entire concept of "closed source" and all that: I don't mind paying a little licensing fee for MPEG (or whatever encoder it is that part of the cost of Microsoft OS covers). And nope, I've not reviewed a single line of code in how any of those encoders work. I'm ok with that. I also don't bust out WireShark after installing any new app or connecting any new device. I don't pour over the schematics of my hardware either. Sure, there is some pride in compiling everything you run from source- OTHO, life is short, at some point I have to have some faith in my fellow man (just mirror all your stuff before installing anything new) Did Microsoft save Apple, twice? Once in 1980 with the Z80 SoftCard, then (allegedly) again as Apple struggled in 1997? The latter has been debunked, that it didn't "save Apple" per se, but a solid 7% stake didn't hurt. I know the whole topic ruffles a lot of feathers. Still, that Z80 card, I do think it was a bit of a life saver at the time (combined with VisiCalc, sure). All the hoopla aside - what I like about Microsoft is (or at least in years past) their manuals, and commitment to helping people learn their systems. The volumes of software Interrupt books! Those were epic. Books on VB, Access, Office, or when DirectX came along - tons of literature on all that, tons of literature about .NET (though the whole Managed C++ thing drove me nuts). They had mountains of fairly well written books, even back in BASIC days. Or MS-DOS 5.0, go read that thing again - it's fantastic, detailing each and every command. I'm slightly biased since I visited the Microsoft Campus in Seattle (twice), meeting with the Visual Studio team. They asked for developers to come by and give direct feedback (around 2005, when VS sucked and they were focused on revamping it). Watching the guy compile Visual Studio, using Visual Studio, was awesome (and debating with the core compiler author about why VS still could only show what row your error was on and not what column; Borland's compiler could tell you which column also, how hard could it be!). Copy and Paste is one of my favorite aspects of Windows. 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. One thing I'll nit is when Microsoft does things like Microsoft Bob or Cortana. A while back I picked up a year 2000 Presario, and it has WindowsME with Clippy! (that "taps the screen" for your attention). I'm stuck with WindowsME on that Presario, because it has a proprietary 50-pin "Apple-sized" hard drive, but it's not SCSI - no one has figured it out yet. But that's Presario's fault. As long as we can confidently disable this crap - which so far, we've been able to. Or another nit: how they screwed up Search in Explorer. Then the worst thing was a rumor that Microsoft was going to remove Paint!! That really boiled me, I use Paint so often. I'd probably commit to Linux if they removed Paint :) Yes, Microsoft could have done a lot of things better - but after meeting the Visual Studio team, at least then they really did have some top tier programmers (most with strong Eastern Europe accents, but still). And I don't think asking for money for your work/time is evil, especially if in return you're going to document and support that thing at least for a while (MFC had a good run...) How coupled their GUI has become to their OS is a drag, but I'm ok with it - the consistency is good, I can help family members over the phone. Navigating someone remotely with "this-distro-flavor-of-xterm" suxs. (though there was a time when I was big into Solaris) That said, I'll confess: I've only ever bought Windows twice in my lifetime (I mean as standalone, not included with a system), and one of those times was using a gift-shop voucher that they provided. The secret is that the old Windows serial numbers on abandoned laptops often still work on newer versions of Windows. I was never much into XBox. And while I had an original Surface (the "wrong one" that wasn't very x86 compatible, that original ARM trash one I guess) - and respect that they are still supporting the line - but the name is just annoying: search "what is the best Surface?" and you just get results about countertops. (I'm teasing, plenty of ways to learn about the Surface line - and everyone I've met that actually has and uses one, has always spoken favorably about it). I have numerous co-workers that bash Microsoft all day long. And yeah, I've had my Windows hourglass twirl around inexplicitly. "I'm not DOING anything, why am I hourglassed?" But I respect the challenge of trying to get millions of people to use your platform - and all those drivers involved. And it's not like *nix and macOS side isn't without frustrating issues of their own. So, Cheers to Microsoft's 50 :) May they never remove Paint. -SteveL On Fri, Jan 31, 2025 at 12:19 PM Christian Liendo via cctalk < cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; wrote: