There's only one reason that MS has the market share they do, and it's quite
simple: IBM. It works like this; 1)IBM comes up with the PC. 2)Asks MS to
provide OS. 3)MS pays SCP to be able to port 86-DOS to the IBM PC, later
buys rights to DOS, yadda yadda yadda. 4)The PC is cloned, and all of the PC
clone makers come to MS and pay them to have the same OS as IBM. 5)Due to PC
being far more succesful than anyone imagined, the PC market becomes quickly
locked into MS software, since without it, you wouldn't have compatibility
with old programs, etc. This is, of course, totally over-simplified, and
could possibly be inaccurate about some of the minor points, but its the
general reason. And of course, OS/2 really isn't an MS compititor, since IBM
paid MS to write it and MS even sold it with their own name on it for a
while. Amusingly, even after MS stopped making OS/2, they still sold MS
LANManager, which requires OS/2. Heh.
Will J
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Is it truly necessary to fill the list with stuff like "Microsoft is awful",
etc etc etc.? I don't see how that is particularly related to classic
computers... Like the "Nuke Redmond" thread, which filled my mailbox with
probably 100+ messages which I had no desire at all to even look at. It is
really annoying to check your mail, have about 70-100 messages, and have
about 80 or so be pure garbage like that. Besides, not everyone dislikes
Microsoft's products. I for one, like their products a lot, I'm using Win
98SE right now, and our NT server has been running continuously for about 4
years now, no crashes at all. And I do have experience with other OS's, I
also run BeOS on my machine, I also run Solaris, Netware, VMS, RT-11, OS-32,
Infoshare, CP/M, MacOS, UnixWare, and HP-UX. I'd say VMS is my favorite,
BeOS is up there, same with UnixWare + Win 98, with Linux, Netware, and
MacOS being my all-time least favorites. I wouldn't even consider running a
Linux machine unless there was money in it for me ;p Anyway, I've now added
some of what I hate, going against the entire message I was saying, but
anyway, how about having the list a bit more on topic?
Will J
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Classic Computer folks:
I guess I cannot leave lists without saying goodbye, just like
it would be improper to leave a party without thanking the host.
So here is my goodbye (for now at least, because I cannot
guarantee I won't be back :-).
Much as I still lust after a functional PDP-8 system, my life
is just too hectic right now (with two upcoming moves -- to
Dubuque, Iowa in June and then to Bismarck, North Dakota in
July -- and related unknown job searches...) to actively seek
such a system. At the same time, I am envious of you folks for
both having such classic systems (whether it be luck or by crook :-).
But somehow my mind is too cluttered to keep straight all the
permutations and modifications needed to keep the hardware and
software booting and running. (I'm having a hard enough time
keeping my older radios and my amateur radio equipment going at
the moment...) Yet I have learned a bunch from you guys in the
short time (half year or so) that I have followed this list.
And much as I have opinions as well about Microsoft, viruses,
prefered OS, etc., somehow it is not the same discussing them
over a mailing list. I'd match rather do it face-to-face,
while preferably seated in a pleasant pub with a good pint
o' ale or red lager in hand <grin>.
So, see you around the next bend....take care.
Cheers/73. Kevin Anderson
(ham radio folks: listen for me on 10-40 meters -- KB9IUA/mobile,
soon to be K9IUA I hope through the FCC buy-a-call program -- both
CW and SSB. I'll be handing out ND counties for the county hunters.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kevin L. Anderson Ph.D., Geography Department, Augustana College
Rock Island, Illinois 61201-2296, USA phone: (309) 794-7325
e-mail: kla(a)helios.augustana.edu -or- gganderson(a)augustana.edu
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent
the administration of Augustana College.
>I don't believe you have had a four year uptime with NT unless your NT box
>is not connected to a network. At least admit you reboot the machine from
>time to time. The best Uptime I have had on an NT machine is NT4 Terminal
>Server which stayed up for six months without a reboot. I feel NT is a
>qualified server OS but my particular circumstance is an NT machine with
Well I have to live with three NT3.51 servers and reboots do occur but they
are from power failures that exceed the UPS or when the fan on the cpu
got noisey and needed replacing. Within it's limits it's ok.
>little network activity. On other larger NT server networks I work on I
>have to reboot the server as often as once per week to maintain decent
>availability. I think it has to do with hash tables NT creates to deal
One thing you have to watch for is "memory leaks" from things like ODBC
drivers and the like that don't work right. We did have one drier that
would
take the server to it knees about every three days if we let it. the fix
for
that (kluge in my opine) was to stop that process every night and restart
it.
>with high-demand network activity. My guess is NT does not deallocate the
>ram allocated to these processes which eventually degrades network
>performance to the degree that the admin must 'deallocate' this ram by
>manually rebooting the server at intervals defined by the level of use the
>server receives.
Driver with memory leak is the problem.
>I could imagine a 9x system being stable despite it's poor foundation if
>that foundation were made of diamond. This would not be an estheticly
>pleaseing operating system but it could be made stable if it's core were
>very strong. My main objection to 9x is that application installs replace
>core components with non-tested ones ( at least in that given
>configuration ). In other words, each Windows machine is unique in it's
>core configuration. This is a dangerous design approach and invites
>nearly infinite opportunities for incompatabilities and general
>instability.
Yep, lots of poor apps tend to really muck up the systems as they load
old .dlls and other bad things. there are a million SPs for fixing core
stuff
that get trashed when you install something with copies of old DLLs.
The above behavour is not limited to MS OSs but more common due to
it's widespread use.
>I don't blame you. Linux is not ready for Prime Time on the desktop. It
>lacks the level of user-pretties and network configurability I would look
It's got some things I like but I could not use it at work on the desktop
as the average user there would not fare well (some have difficulty
with win9x that is not OS fault!).
>for in a desktop environment. My personal choice would be OS/2 for just
>about everything desktop related. I wish IBM had the guts to market it.
It's still not adaquate in my book. Any OS where the common user is the
unix equivilent of superuser (root) by default or lack of protections is a
problem in my book. The classic case is the other days when a user
decided to copy a colder to the desktop... save for it was C:\WINDOWS.
It did a lot of damage to that system.
As sysadmin I'd rather see something like VMS where the user has
their sandbox where they can trash and slash but the rest of the box is
off limits. Right now the common OSs that can do that (more or less)
are Unix and clones based on the unix model, WinNT and VMS. I'm sure
there are others but, Win9x and MacOS, DOS and OS2/warp do not
meet this criteria.
Allison
>That is backwards. The law, and common sense, requires
>that you already have to have significant market share
>to have monopoly power. Monopoly power is the ability
>to control prices and exclude competition by virtue of
>monopoly power. To me, the question is, how did MS
>achieve that power in the first place. There is no
>doubt that once they had the power they abused it --
It started with the licensing of DOS at the vendor level to the
extent that if the hardware could run dos it had to be licensed.
Some of us may remember the early machines the the
"jumper" to disable dos. the is was to inhibit the CP/M
follow ons, Netware and the unix varients.
This first lockin of the vendors was exploited for the windows
software that followed. It would also get the DOJ to issue
an aggreement back some years for MS to stop this
monopolistic activity.
Thats how the got the power. The money came from the
applications and MS was known for them and never cheap.
Allison
I just returned home from my voyage to Munich for the VCF 1.0e and I
am happy to report that it went rather well, in fact as well as expected.
A little over 100 people came through over the course of the weekend.
There were some great exhibits, including a complete VAX 11/850 setup
and running, an Atari 1450XLD (only a few of these exist), some rare
East German microcomputers, and even an Inca Quipu!
We somehow managed to execute the Nerd Trivia Challenge despite
numerous technical challenges. Our own Philip Belben took 2nd place.
Congratulations, Phil!
After the event was over, Hans, Philip and myself went on a three day
whirlwind tour around Germany. Three days couped up in a car with a
wacky Bavarian is more torture than anyone should ever be subjected to,
but Philip and I managed to make it through the ordeal without too many
psychological scars (I enter long term counseling tomorrow). Of course
you may get slightly differing opinions from Philip but pay him no mind ;)
Somehow we didn't find time to visit the Deutches Museum in Munich to
see the Siemens 2002 (worlds first transistorized computer) but we did
make it to the Technik Museum in Berlin and saw many fine Zuse
machines, including a replica of the Z1 and a Z23, along with some other
special purpose machines. It was a fantastic exhibit. I got digital photos
of the machines and will be posting them to the VCF website shortly (I'll
announce when they are up).
We then made it over to the Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn and I
must say I am impressed! What an excellent place. They had excellent
exhibits starting with humankind's earliest attempts at writing and
counting and worked up through various stages of technological
innovation to the computers. There were all sorts of excellent machines
on exhibit but we weren't allowed to take any photos :( The place was
crawling with spooks ready to give you a sound drubbing if even the
thought of taking a picture crossed your mind. Always the rebel I did
manage to snap a picture of one of the exhibits anyway. Nyah.
Anyway, highly recommended.
We bought some good books, including an autobiography of Konrad
Zuse which I had the pleasure of reading on the long flight back. What
an amazing story! We also scored some prints of Zuse's, one of which
was even signed by him when he visited the museum before he passed
away.
I spent the last two days in Oxford, England, where I delivered two talks
on computer collecting. I was able to meet our own John Honiball there
as well as pick up several good books from a used book store. I didn't
have time to search for any old computers but I did make contact with a
Physics professor there at Oxford who has in his own collection several
of the DEC machines the university has discarded over the years,
including a PDP-8 (i.e. "straight 8"). He said he knows of some DEC
machines (an 11/23 was specifically mentioned) that are to be discarded
soon so if anyone has any interested in making contact with him (I'm
sure he'll be a continued source of good stuff) then contact me privately
and I'll pass on his contact information.
I also managed to find some neat-o stuff in Munich at a flea market we
went to before the VCF. I got an Atari 520ST+ (only because I don't have
a '+' model), a Sharp PC-1500 with expansion chassis and case, and a
Siemens teletext terminal that was used in Germany throughout the 80s
(similar to the French Minitel or the English Prestel systems).
Now that VCF 1.0e is a part of history, I will start ramping up production
for VCF 4.0. My interest in producing an East Coast USA event is also
growing, and I will be contacting those who have offered assistance in the
coming weeks to determine if a summertime event would be feasible. As
well, if there is anyone in the New England region who would like to
assist then please contact me privately.
Thanks to everyone who helped with VCF 1.0e, and of course extra-
special thanks go to Hans Franke for making it a reality. I also thank
him for teaching me some particularly juicy German. As my reportoire of
languages grows I will soon be able to insult and offend people the world
over!
Pictures of VCF 1.0e will be posted to the VCF website soon. Stay
tuned for details.
We'll see you all at the next VCF!
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF Europe: April 29th & 30th, Munich, Germany
VCF Los Angeles: Summer 2000 (*TENTATIVE*)
VCF East: Planning in Progress
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
Has anyone had a progress report on happenings at the VCF Europe?
Regards
Charlie Fox
Charles E. Fox
Chas E. Fox Video Productions
793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
email foxvideo(a)wincom.net
Check out "The Old Walkerville Virtual Museum" at
http://www.skyboom.com/foxvideo and
Camcorder Kindergarten at http://www.chasfoxvideo.com
Well, marginally related to classic computing, I put my in-progress
directory of dialup shell providers on the Net at
http://www.armory.com/~spectre/shell/
I'm still acquiring providers. Let me know who you use, if any. I'm
hoping to use this as a resource for people with other computers
who still want to use them for at least terminal access.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)ptloma.edu
-- Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=3DOFF to your CONFIG.SYS. ----------------------
Jim Strickland <jim(a)calico.litterbox.com> wrote:
> Ok, I'm a dolt. I get 4 mailing lists, 3 are about BeOS and this one. If
> my comments about Gobe Productive, etc, don't make any sense, it's because
> they're BeOS specific - it's been a busy day and I mixed up what group I was
> writing to. Sorry.
Oh, you get M*cr*s*ft advocacy and chatter about this week's
VBScr*pt/W*rd macro "virus" on your other mailing lists too, so you
can't tell the difference between them anymore either? You have my
sympathies.
-Frank McConnell
Umm, just a guess, but I would imagine in the late 50's/early 60's they
probably had a Philco 2000 of some sort, since Philco was/is a division of
Ford... And yes, they were later a Multics shop, up into about the mid to
late 80's or so, I think.
Will J
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