6 May
2000
6 May
'00
9:59 a.m.
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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6 May
6 May
5:44 p.m.
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
MS has the market share it has by targeting competition and ruthless use of
its monopoly powers, seconded only by a long string of defective products
requiring expensive software updates that fueled a marketing warchest
unprecidented in human history. Paul Allen said it himself, "nobody ever
guessed the obscene profits possible from upgrades."
This is the sickest aspect of the whole computer industry, ALL of the
companies that made fairly good reliable products went under from the flood
of dollars the BAD heavily marketed software generated via updates.
Its a bleeping cynics playground.
6:43 p.m.
MS has the market share it has by targeting
competition and ruthless use of
its monopoly powers
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 --
that is what the DOJ's case is all about. But it seems
to me that they must have done something "right" to get
the power in the first place, such as Windows 3.1 or
some such. When you don't have monopoly power,
targeting competition is not only not illiegal, it's
what the free market encourages because that's what
USUALLY benefits consumers in the long run.
7:02 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Wayne M. Smith once stated:
First and foremost, William Henry Gates, III is a masterful tactician at
business, whether you agree with his tatics or not. At 19 (in 1975) he was
able to see that the money wasn't going to be in hardware but software. And
he was able to negotiate his way out of a rather bad contract with MITS in
order to license BASIC to other computer manufacturers. In fact, most of
the early products from Microsoft were languages and it was for this reason
that IBM approached Microsoft---for BASIC and other languages for their new
machine.
When IBM returned and asked Microsoft for an operating system, William
Henry Gates, III saw an opportunity to license (at first) an operating
system from Seattle Computer Products (I think that's the name) with a
non-exclusive, non-royalty license.
What gave Microsoft their power were three things---I-B-M. When IBM
entered the PC market, it not only legitimized microcomputers, it
practically spelled the doom for the smaller PC companies because at that
time, nobody was fired for buying IBM.
Microsoft however, not only entered a non-exclusive license with Seatle
Computer Products, but a non-exclusing license with IBM and thus they helped
with the emerging PClone market (and I think it was Compaq's clean-room
implementation of the IBM PC BIOS that clinched the market).
Also, of the three operating systems available for the IBM PC in August of
1981, MS-DOS was the cheapest of the three, even beating out Digital
Research's CP/M-86.
William Henry Gates, III was able to leverage any advantage he had, and he
did.
-spc (And the rest, they say, is history)
MS has the market share it has by targeting
competition and ruthless use of
its monopoly powers
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 --
that is what the DOJ's case is all about. But it seems
to me that they must have done something "right" to get
the power in the first place, such as Windows 3.1 or
some such. When you don't have monopoly power,
targeting competition is not only not illiegal, it's
what the free market encourages because that's what
USUALLY benefits consumers in the long run.
9:12 p.m.
William Henry Gates, III was able to leverage any
advantage he had, and he
did.
Well leveraging, that's different. If you use your
monopoly power in one market (such as OS) to exclude
competition in another market (browser) then that's a
no-no. Perhaps that's what Richard intended.
10:38 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Wayne M. Smith once stated:
It's been alleged (several times) that Microsoft has used their power over
the operating system to exclude competition in applications (MS-<operating
system> <version> isn't done until <competition application>
doesn't run).
Several examples are MS-DOS/Lotus 1-2-3, Windows/DR-DOS, Windows/OS/2 and
Windows/Netscape. The most evidence I've ever seen has been the first,
MS-DOS (either 1.1 or 2.0) and Lotus 1-2-3.
-spc (Leverage, use of monopolistic power, what's the difference? Even
Scott McNealy of Sun has publically stated he covets the power
Microsoft has.)
William Henry Gates, III was able to leverage
any
advantage he had, and he
did.
Well leveraging, that's different. If you use your
monopoly power in one market (such as OS) to exclude
competition in another market (browser) then that's a
no-no. Perhaps that's what Richard intended. 
7 May
7 May
8:48 a.m.
Almost on the mark, but see my remarks below.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith(a)earthlink.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 12:12 AM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
Yes, it's likely that Billy
used his vast resources to push things right to
the limits, . . . and then he LEANED as far as he could, having reach what
he perceived to be the limits.
William
Henry Gates, III was able to leverage any
advantage he had, and he
did.
Well leveraging, that's different. If you use your
monopoly power in one market (such as OS) to exclude
competition in another market (browser) then that's a
no-no. Perhaps that's what Richard intended.
All the talk about the browser market is a red herring. Internet Explorer
was never a product separate from Windows. It was a part of the OS utility
package called PLUS!. In Win98, it was integrated into the OS becauseit was
the tool for viewing the help files, among other things.
Internet Explorer always was a part of the Windows 9x package. Netscape,
OTOH, was a commercial product intended for sale, but initially offered
gratis to individual users. HOWEVER . . . they did have to purchase the
WINSOCK from a third party, i.e. Trumpet, in most cases. This was never the
case with Internet explorer. Only after Internet Explorer became as popular
as it did under '95 did Microsoft release the "made for WIndows 3.1x"
version, also at no charge, but complete with its own WINSOCK and the 32-bit
runtime libraries it needed for operation under the 16-bit OS.
In the meantime, IBM had acquired LOTUS, primarily in order to take over the
Lotus Notes program. With the spread of Netscape, people found that
Netscape would replace Lotus Notes quite easily, hence IBM quickly acquired
them, only to distance themselves from it later, in order to APPEAR to be an
outsider to the conflict which I'm quite certain they actually scripted, and
which is now being played out in the courts.
Unfortunately, there does appear to be evidence that MS overreached its
rightful position in the industry, giving their applications developers an
advantage by giving them information they didn't publish as part of the
standard API. That was an anticompetitive act, and should be reversed in
some way.
Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am not
among them, however, because, at least for now, MS is the only organization
capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate application
software that pretty much functions as it should within the framework of
this extremely complex OS.
Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously doubt, it's unlikely
anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if the
same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS' practices
monopolistic or anticompetitive. If the complete source code for Windows is
to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone who wishes to
write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding that the code be
released only to companies who, including all their employees as
individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from participating
in the production of any operating system which might be used as a
competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers, utilities, or
ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
If they're to "fix" this thing in a permanent way, then they will have to
legislate a solution which would require that no person involved in the
development of any major software product be permitted to communicate with
anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than five
years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt that
will happen.
2:15 p.m.
Almost on the mark, but see my remarks below.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith(a)earthlink.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 12:12 AM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
All the talk about the browser market is a red herring. Internet Explorer
was never a product separate from Windows.
Wrong.,. It was in the 95 PLUS pack an add on product I spent extra
for. IE2 really sucked. It was basically a badly reworked Mosaic.
The v3 product was pretty good... however.
It was a part of the OS utility package called PLUS!
Yup. Which was SEPERATE from Win95 and not available for download until
Netscape was taking off and Bill Gates had the internet epiphany..,
Internet Explorer always was a part of the Windows 9x
package. Netscape,
OTOH, was a commercial product intended for sale, but initially offered
gratis to individual users.
Nope, it was only 3.x of IE that was a download.
HOWEVER . . . they did have to purchase the
WINSOCK from a third party, i.e. Trumpet, in most cases. This was never the
case with Internet explorer.
Nope Winsock and Networking was a direct part of Win95, WinNT etc.
It was an addon to Win3.1. Most of us used Trumpet until the IE3
package added all the goodies.
Only after Internet Explorer became as popular
as it did under '95 did Microsoft release the "made for WIndows 3.1x"
version, also at no charge, but complete with its own WINSOCK and the 32-bit
runtime libraries it needed for operation under the 16-bit OS.
Yup The Win9x version was about 6 months to a year ahead of the Win9x
version.
In the meantime, IBM had acquired LOTUS, primarily in order to take over the
Lotus Notes program. With the spread of Netscape, people found that
Netscape would replace Lotus Notes quite easily, hence IBM quickly acquired
them, only to distance themselves from it later, in order to APPEAR to be an
outsider to the conflict which I'm quite certain they actually scripted, and
which is now being played out in the courts.
Well, they rather quickly realised Notes Servers needed web
accessibility so Domino became a hot upgrade to Notes Server and Client.
Unfortunately, there does appear to be evidence that MS overreached its
rightful position in the industry, giving their applications developers an
advantage by giving them information they didn't publish as part of the
standard API. That was an anticompetitive act, and should be reversed in
some way.
Yup.
Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am not
among them, however, because, at least for now, MS is the only organization
capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate application
software that pretty much functions as it should within the framework of
this extremely complex OS.
Believe me, I think the appllications could be done by hundreds of
companies -- if the MS apps folks were divorced of early access to the
API's the lead MS got over everyone else would dissapear.
Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously
doubt, it's unlikely
anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if the
same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS' practices
monopolistic or anticompetitive. If the complete source code for Windows is
to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone who wishes to
write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding that the code be
released only to companies who, including all their employees as
individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from participating
in the production of any operating system which might be used as a
competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers, utilities, or
ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
Actually, if there was a GUI like the IBM Workplace Shell from OS/2
available on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc there could be some
competitive apps. Right now I'm watching Koffice and the KDE stuff and
really enjoying WordPerfect Office 2000 on Linux.
If they're to "fix" this thing in a
permanent way, then they will have to
legislate a solution which would require that no person involved in the
development of any major software product be permitted to communicate with
anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than five
years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt that
will happen.
Nope. Make the OS vendor, the Tooks vendor and the Desktop apps vendor
diferent companies and let the fun begin.
I bet there would be an MS Office for Unix in about 6 months.
I also think they would see Borland tools back in the windows area
if they had the same API info as the Visual-whatever folks.
IBM's stuff might even expand their toolsets even further.
Bill
--
bpechter(a)monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
4:42 p.m.
please see my remarks embedded below.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Pechter <pechter(a)pechter.dyndns.org>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
The Netscape version of the time openly credited its origins to MOSAIC,
which, by the way worked OK, too, but, like Netscape, required a WINSOCK be
provided.
Now, isn't that what I previously wrote, that it was on the PLUS! disk?
None of the applications and utilities on the PLUS disk worked anywhere
other than under '95, so I doubt you'd classify them as separate
applications. The wouldn't even run under the '95 beta versions I had. The
utilities on the PLUS! disk weren't ready for publication until the OS was
released, while the OS had probably been put off three months waiting for
the utilities. Aside from IE, the System Agent was and is probably the most
important feature. Drivespace3 is another feature that wasn't ready until
the last minute. Both of the latter two are pretty handy.
I'd had Netscape almost a year before the official release of Win95. Of
course, I'd also had IE, but that didn't work particularly well, since there
wasn't much interest in it at the time. The Netscape was for Win3.1 with
the Win32S extensions. Of course, back then, only a few of the available
ISP's supported PPP and SLIP, while most allowed shell access only. If you
wanted to surf the few sites on the web, you could do that via LYNX or, if
your provided would allow it, you could use ICOMM, which worked from the
shell. Neither NETSCAPE nor IE were as convenient as the NETCOM browser,
NETCRUISER, which was pretty well debugged and almost convenient to use.
The IE of the time would run on some Win95 beta versions, but it was ready
for prime time much later than the OS was. Nevertheless, the two were
released at more or less the same time. The IE for Win3.1x was released
about a half-year later.
the
I believe you've confused the two products to which I referred. NETSCAPE is
the one that was a free download and for which you needed the third-party
WINSOCK.
IE was always complete and working. And v3.01 was on the PLUS! CD. Release
3.1 was a download as were all the subsequent releases.
What?
an
not
Out of all the applications I saw, for Win3.1x and for '95, only one or two
that I saw worked at all well, with the exception of those put out by
Microsoft. I simply disposed of WordPerfect once I saw their Windows
version. AmiPro, though better than WordPerfect for WIndows, was obviously
not up to what WinWord v2.0 was. Only a few vendors, notably Corel and the
guys who made Procomm Plus for WIndows, particularly v1.0 seemed to have a
real grasp of how to build Windows applications that really worked. Corel
apparently hasn't forgotten how, but I doubt their attempt to revive
WordPerfect will last.
to
Tooks?
> Almost on the mark, but see my remarks below.
>
> Dick
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith(a)earthlink.net>
> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 12:12 AM
> Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
>
>
> All the talk about the browser market is a red herring. Internet
Explorer
was never a
product separate from Windows.
Wrong.,. It was in the 95 PLUS pack an add on product I spent extra
for. IE2 really sucked. It was basically a badly reworked Mosaic.
The v3 product was pretty good... however.
It was a part of the OS utility package called
PLUS!
Yup. Which was SEPERATE from Win95 and not available for download until
Netscape was taking off and Bill Gates had the internet epiphany..,
> Internet Explorer always was a part of the Windows 9x package.
Netscape,
OTOH, was a
commercial product intended for sale, but initially offered
gratis to individual users.
Nope, it was only 3.x of IE that was a download.
> HOWEVER . . . they did have to purchase the
> WINSOCK from a third party, i.e. Trumpet, in most cases. This was never case with
Internet explorer.
Nope Winsock and Networking was a direct part of Win95, WinNT etc.
It was an addon to Win3.1. Most of us used Trumpet until the IE3
package added all the goodies.
> Only after Internet Explorer became as popular
> as it did under '95 did Microsoft release the "made for WIndows 3.1x"
> version, also at no charge, but complete with its own WINSOCK and the
32-bit
runtime
libraries it needed for operation under the 16-bit OS.
Yup The Win9x version was about 6 months to a year ahead of the Win9x
version.
>
> In the meantime, IBM had acquired LOTUS, primarily in order to take over
the
> Lotus Notes program. With the spread of
Netscape, people found that
> Netscape would replace Lotus Notes quite easily, hence IBM quickly
acquired
> them, only to distance themselves from it later,
in order to APPEAR to
be an
> outsider to the conflict which I'm quite
certain they actually scripted,
and
which is now
being played out in the courts.
Well, they rather quickly realised Notes Servers needed web
accessibility so Domino became a hot upgrade to Notes Server and Client.
>
> Unfortunately, there does appear to be evidence that MS overreached its
> rightful position in the industry, giving their applications developers > advantage by giving them information they
didn't publish as part of the
> standard API. That was an anticompetitive act, and should be reversed
in
some way.
Yup.
>
> Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am > among them, however, because, at least for now,
MS is the only
organization
capable of
mustering the talent and resources to generate application
software that pretty much functions as it should within the framework of
this extremely complex OS.
Believe me, I think the appllications could be done by hundreds of
companies -- if the MS apps folks were divorced of early access to the
API's the lead MS got over everyone else would dissapear.
> Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously doubt, it's unlikely
> anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if
the
> same tests are to be applied that have been used
to determine MS'
practices
> monopolistic or anticompetitive. If the complete
source code for
Windows is
> to be mandated by the courts to be made available
to anyone who wishes
to
> write applications for Windows, MS is correct in
demanding that the code
be
> released only to companies who, including all
their employees as
> individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from
participating
> in the production of any operating system which
might be used as a
> competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers, utilities,
or
ancillary
programs, e.g. a browser.
Actually, if there was a GUI like the IBM Workplace Shell from OS/2
available on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc there could be some
competitive apps. Right now I'm watching Koffice and the KDE stuff and
really enjoying WordPerfect Office 2000 on Linux.
> If they're to "fix" this thing in a permanent way, then they will have
> legislate a solution which would require that no
person involved in the
> development of any major software product be permitted to communicate
with
> anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring,
superiors or subordinates,
> except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than
five
years beyond
the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt that
will happen.
Nope. Make the OS vendor, the Tooks vendor and the Desktop apps vendor
diferent companies and let the fun begin.
I bet there would be an MS Office for Unix in about 6 months.
I also think they would see Borland tools back in the windows area
if they had the same API info as the Visual-whatever folks.
You really believe MS would waste its time producing Office for UNIX?
That's rather a small market. Of course, since they already have all the
code . . .
IBM's stuff might even expand their toolsets even further.
Bill
--
bpechter(a)monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go
tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you
guys coming, or what?
10:55 p.m.
All the talk about the browser market is a red herring.
Internet Explorer
was never a product separate from Windows. It was a part of the OS utility
package called PLUS!. In Win98, it was integrated into the OS becauseit was
the tool for viewing the help files, among other things.
Wow, your view is much different from mine. Read the history of the turn of
the century and the mess industrial revolution monopolies made of things,
and tell me MicroSoft is ten cents different. We have MS trains running on
MS tracks carrying MS cargo, wake up.
8 May
8 May
6:09 a.m.
All the talk about the browser market is a red herring.
Internet Explorer
was never a product separate from Windows. It was a part of the OS utility
package called PLUS!. In Win98, it was integrated into the OS becauseit was
the tool for viewing the help files, among other things.
Sure, but why did Microsoft switch to HTML help? I did a document as a
Microsoft help file once and I still wish HTML had some of the features of
the Microsoft help system (pop-up windows for instance, which I found
very handy for a glossary; just click on the word for which you want a
definition and a little window pops up with the definition. The HTMl version
of this was an icky ActiveX applet that I never got to work right).
--
Roger Ivie
rivie(a)teraglobal.com
Not speaking for TeraGlobal Communications Corporation
6 May
6 May
8:30 p.m.
This message makes good sense, but I do have a few embedded comments below.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith(a)earthlink.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 9:43 PM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
I have to agree with this. What happens in the computer world, however, is
that once a given OS becomes popular, it takes over the market, mainly
because people can't exchange information, or at least couldn't back when
this was happening, because the operating systems were not designed for
that. Therefore, if I wanted sales, shipping, bookkeeping, and production
to be automated in a common framework, they all had to have the same OS.
The fact that PC network cards didn't support TCP/IP until late in the game
meant that other network OS' had that share of the market until about the
time Win95 became available. It's no coincidence, by the way, that this
blessed event took place only a few months after the GOV decided to open the
WWW to commercial interests.
I'd really like a couple of examples of software companies with decent
products that were put out of business as a direct result of Microsoft's
adverse actions, with the exception, of course, of producing a vastly better
product.
If you simply look at what Apple did with their extremely (for all the wrong
reasons) popular Mac, you'll see that they did all the bad stuff now being
attributed to MS. When you're in business to make money, you go after your
competitors any way you can. Apple did that with their "big-brother"
commercials on TV. Their product, though "cute," was no more capable than
an equivalently equipped PC, and cost over three times as much. They
prevented everyone else from competing with them in the hardware and
software arenas, and ultimately the price and availability of Mac products
ran them out of the marketplace.
MS has the
market share it has by targeting
competition and ruthless use of
its monopoly powers
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 --
that is what the DOJ's case is all about. But it seems
to me that they must have done something "right" to get
the power in the first place, such as Windows 3.1 or
some such. When you don't have monopoly power,
targeting competition is not only not illiegal, it's
what the free market encourages because that's what
USUALLY benefits consumers in the long run.
9:54 p.m.
<large snip>
--> If you simply look at what Apple did with their extremely (for all the
wrong
-> reasons) popular Mac, you'll see that they did all the bad stuff now
being
-> attributed to MS. When you're in business to make money, you go after
your
-> competitors any way you can. Apple did that with their "big-brother"
-> commercials on TV. Their product, though "cute," was no more capable
than
-> an equivalently equipped PC, and cost over three times as much. They
-> prevented everyone else from competing with them in the hardware and
-> software arenas, and ultimately the price and availability of Mac
products
-> ran them out of the marketplace.
If you look at the legal aspects of the Apple vs. Franklin lawsuit, back in
the Apple II days, you can see that had Franklin properly argued, they would
have won. It *was* impossible to separate the software from the firmware at
the time Franklin copied Apple's ROMs. Even though Apple had the approved
set of firmware entry points for third party software development, they
looked the other way as all parties used every and any useable subroutine
they could find in the firmware. Franklin had no choice to do anything
*but* exactly duplicate the Apple firmware to ensure software written for
the Apple II would run on their machine. Even Apple had a rough time of it
trying to maintain compatibility with their own firmware due to software
developers departing from the approved ROM subroutines. Look at what MS did
to DR.DOS users in the beta testing of Windows. All it took was slight
incompatibilities to send the Windows software developers over to the MS DOS
camp. How long did DR last after that?
And I don't agree that what Apple did with the Mac was for all the wrong
reasons. They knew how well the strategy worked with the II series, so why
not continue it in the Mac line? People bought Macs because they worked and
worked well. The software functioned with minimum of grief and did what it
was purchased to do. Third party ad-ons worked as well. Can you say that
about PeeCees? Sure, you can buy a PeeCee and the attendant software
cheaper, but what value do you place on the many, many hours troubleshooting
incompatibilities, reboots, restores, etc., etc.
And while I'm on the soapbox, I'll state the obvious. Bill Gates is a
shrewd thief and an accomplished liar. About the only original product MS
ever had was BASIC. IBM screwed Digital Research with the pricing of CP/M
for the PC. Gates was no small part of this. This opened the door to new
software that was not a direct port from CP/M, but directly designed with
the MS DOS user base in mind. I've been using PC's since the beginning, but
I also still prefer a good "closed" OS like PICK for "networked"
situations.
Remember, DOS was designed for _Personal Computers_, where the first, read
that *early*, users were knowledgeable about files, extensions,
incompatibilities, an so forth. With PC networking, the base OS didn't
change to reflect the fact that users ignorant of the "innards" were now
using this OS in an application driven environment, but with access to
things forbidden in a strong OS. This has gotten us to where we are now.
We have individuals with MS products like Outlook (which I am using right
now), who can infect the www networked systems, thereby in-house networked
systems, and other individual user's computers worldwide. Not good.
Enough rambling for now. Thanks, Dick, for compelling me to put down in
words these thoughts.
11 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Bill Dawson once stated:
And while I'm on the soapbox, I'll state the obvious. Bill Gates is a
shrewd thief and an accomplished liar. About the only original product MS
ever had was BASIC. IBM screwed Digital Research with the pricing of CP/M
for the PC. Gates was no small part of this.
How? Bill Gates just licenced MS-DOS to IBM for a cheaper price than DR
did CP/M. I can't see Bill Gates saying to IBM, ``If you don't charge more
for CP/M than for MS-DOS, we'll walk.'' Bill Gates is ruthless but not
stupid.
-spc (Not that I'm trying to defend him or anything ... )
7 May
7 May
12:23 a.m.
-> It was thus said that the Great Bill Dawson once stated:
-> >
-> > And while I'm on the soapbox, I'll state the obvious. Bill Gates is a
-> > shrewd thief and an accomplished liar. About the only
-> original product MS ever had was BASIC. IBM screwed Digital Research
with the
-> pricing of CP/M for the PC. Gates was no small part of this.
->
-> How? Bill Gates just licensed MS-DOS to IBM for a cheaper
-> price than DR did CP/M. I can't see Bill Gates saying to IBM, ``If you
don't
-> charge more for CP/M than for MS-DOS, we'll walk.'' Bill Gates is
ruthless but not
-> stupid.
The agreement, IIRC, was that DR wouldn't sue MS for the outright theft of
large parts of CP/M used in MS DOS 1.0 (I can feel the heat of the flames
already, this was a recent topic) if IBM would offer the choice of either MS
DOS or CP/M as the OS on the PC. What Gary and DR overlooked was getting an
agreement on the pricing structure. So IBM offered both, MS DOS at $40.00
or thereabouts, and CP/M at $200.00. When Joe Customer was finished
shelling out the exorbitant bucks for the hardware where there wasn't much
choice in the price, the only savings was in choosing MS over DR. If on
the surface IBM was only interested in selling hardware, not applications,
what did it matter to Big Blue what OS was on the box, as long as they sold
the box. They certainly weren't making much in royalties on MS DOS,
considering the low price. Since Gates already knew the money was to be
made in software, whether OS or applications, not hardware, and had
publicly stated so, he would have certainly been aware enough to "help" IBM
with the competing OS's pricing structure, whether by dropping the price of
MS DOS once he knew DR's price, or possibly arranging to have IBM price CP/M
so much higher.
-> -spc (Not that I'm trying to defend him or anything ... )
9:03 a.m.
It's Billy's job to be ruthless. He's managing the finances of a very large
enterprise, and has responsibilities to his stockholders, employees, OEM
customers, end-users, and vendors.
I'd say he's successful because he and his staff, many of whom he picked out
personally, are extremely well-focused.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc(a)armigeron.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 2:00 AM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
more
It was thus said that the Great Bill Dawson once
stated:
>
> And while I'm on the soapbox, I'll state the obvious. Bill Gates is a
> shrewd thief and an accomplished liar. About the only original product
MS
> ever had was BASIC. IBM screwed Digital Research
with the pricing of
CP/M
for the PC.
Gates was no small part of this.
How? Bill Gates just licenced MS-DOS to IBM for a cheaper price than DR
did CP/M. I can't see Bill Gates saying to IBM, ``If you don't charge
for CP/M than for MS-DOS, we'll walk.''
Bill Gates is ruthless but not
stupid.
-spc (Not that I'm trying to defend him or anything ... )
2:22 p.m.
"Bill Dawson" <whdawson(a)mlynk.com> wrote:
If you look at the legal aspects of the Apple vs.
Franklin lawsuit, back in
the Apple II days, you can see that had Franklin properly argued, they would
have won. It *was* impossible to separate the software from the firmware at
the time Franklin copied Apple's ROMs. Even though Apple had the approved
set of firmware entry points for third party software development, they
looked the other way as all parties used every and any useable subroutine
they could find in the firmware. Franklin had no choice to do anything
*but* exactly duplicate the Apple firmware to ensure software written for
the Apple II would run on their machine.
I don't see why you think that they would have won.
Copyright law does not have an exception that makes it OK to duplicate
copyrighted works without the author's permission if it's necessary to
do so in order to be compatible. The entire *purpose* of copyright law
as set forth in the US Constitution is to grant authors for a limited
time the *exclusive* rights to their writings.
[There is such an exemption in the DMCA for reverse-engineering, but that
doesn't extend to distributing verbatim copies.]
Eric
6 May
6 May
8:18 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
of
>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
MS has the market share it has by targeting competition and ruthless use its monopoly powers, seconded only by a long string of
defective products
requiring expensive software updates that fueled a marketing warchest
unprecidented in human history. Paul Allen said it himself, "nobody ever
guessed the obscene profits possible from upgrades."
Would you care to elaborate on the practices of "targeting competition and
ruthless use ..." I've hear about this, but I'd like to know what this
actually means. It seems OK when DEC or IBM or someone else did the same
thing, often much more with the intention of screwing anybody and everybody
foolish enough to buy their products, and I'd also like to know why the
historical account of the history of MS has to change every time someone
needs it to in order to support their position.
What I mean, of course, is that on one hand we have this company that's not
yet 25 years old, and that had a substantial quiver of products out there
back in the late '70's, essentially a monopoly on the market for
commercially viable BASIC interpreters/compilers, not to mention other
languages. They weren't considered an evil monopoly back then, when one
might, indeed, have perceived them to be one.
Upgrades do cost money, and there's no crime in exploiting the fact that
people want the "latest and greatest" of whatever they use. I personally
use the old (Windows 3.1) version of Office on a couple of my boxes, simply
because it's easy and I already have it. This one here has the Office '97,
and there won't be an upgrade until I get one in the mail, for free of
course.
This is the sickest aspect of the whole computer industry, ALL of the
companies that made fairly good reliable products went under from the
flood
of dollars the BAD heavily marketed software generated
via updates.
Well, I wish a few more of them would go. I can't imagine what companies,
now defunct, produced this set of "fairly good reliable products " have gone
down the toilet because they were outspent or outmarketed by MS. An example
or two would be nice.
Its a bleeping cynics playground.
10:57 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once stated:
Borland? Oh that's right, you don't do software development. Umm ...
-spc (Hey, at least that's one ... )
This is the sickest aspect of the whole computer
industry, ALL of the
companies that made fairly good reliable products went under from the
flood
of dollars the BAD heavily marketed software
generated via updates.
Well, I wish a few more of them would go. I can't imagine what companies,
now defunct, produced this set of "fairly good reliable products " have gone
down the toilet because they were outspent or outmarketed by MS. An example
or two would be nice.
7 May
7 May
8:59 a.m.
That, sir, is my point, quite precisely put. I'm for defining a system the
primary goal of which is to accomplish eful work as easily as possible.
Software development is a task for systems tailored for software
development, and they don't do "useful work" as easily (for the people who
normally do it) as a system optimized for "useful work."
More below:
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc(a)armigeron.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 1:57 AM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
Yes, but as you've pointed out already, that case is ground-ruled out of
this discussion. I have used their products too, in fact since their
CP/M-based Turbo Pascal, and miss the no-nonsense approach they seem to have
taken with respect to almost everything they did.
It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once
stated:
>
> > This is the sickest aspect of the whole computer industry, ALL of the
> > companies that made fairly good reliable products went under from the
> flood
> > of dollars the BAD heavily marketed software generated via updates.
> >
> Well, I wish a few more of them would go. I can't imagine what
companies,
> now defunct, produced this set of "fairly
good reliable products " have
gone
> down the toilet because they were outspent or
outmarketed by MS. An
example
or two would
be nice.
Borland? Oh that's right, you don't do software development. Umm ...
-spc (Hey, at least that's one ... )
7:27 p.m.
I'm replying to several messages, all by Richard Erlacher, here in one
message:
I'm often puzzled by the complaints about
"crashes" under Win9x and NT.
My notebook, running Win95, hasn't crashed, although it's been in almost
constant use since early '97 when I bought it. Now, the machines into
which I routinely stick cards that may or may not work, along with
products that may or may not work, both hardware and software, . . . well,
they have had other histories, but it's seldom Microsoft software that's
to blame for that.
And I've run Win95 for a year with no problems. It wasn't until Microsoft
Office was installed on the machine did it lock up and I wasted two days
trying to reinstall Win95, from scratch, before giving up and going to Linux
so I could continue my job.
Hardware didn't change. Just the addition of Microsoft Office.
I've never bought a license for a DEC OS, but I
doubt it cost under $100.
There are Linux versions one can buy in ready-to-install form for under
$100, but those will cost $1M, at least, at 50-cents-an-hour before
they're working properly and that's only if you're a real *nix expert.
What's more, NO *nix version offers the features that make the Win9x
desirable for home computer use. There are lots of books out there for
*nix users, but I've yet to see a "{insert vendor name here} Office for
Dummies" book for LINUX, though I hear there is a "LINUX for Dummies"
book
out there.
So I assume that the *only* use a home computer is used for is for office
suite software. Okay.
Now, how much damage did the ILOVEYOU virus do? How much will it cost to
fix the damage that ILOVEYOU virus did?
More to the point (not really using any office suite program) the major
attraction of an office suite is that the different applications can embed
files from each other into a single document, right? That you can take a
spreadsheet (or portion thereof) and embed it into a word processor
document. Am I correct in that? There's nothing inherent in the design of
Windows that precludes such from being done in other systems, other than a
lack of economic insentive and the fear of bring the wrath of Microsoft down
upon you and being crushed out of existance (aside: Cisco has as much, if
not more, control in the router industry as Microsoft in software yet aren't
nearly as hated as they make very good products and when they buy out a
company, they tend to actually use the technology they bought out.
Microsoft has a hit-or-miss reputation with software reliability and even
when they buy out a company they are equally likely to sink the technolgy as
they are to market it).
Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the
industry. I am not
among them, however, because, at least for now, MS is the only
organization capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate
application software that pretty much functions as it should within the
framework of this extremely complex OS.
I doubt that. The free BSDs or Linux is a good counter example. And if
you wish to discount the operating system, there is Apache. And if you wish
to discount servers, the GIMP. While it isn't up to the functionality of
Photoshop it certainly does anything a home user would want it to do.
Nature abhoors a vaccum and if Microsoft is gone, it will be filled in
rather quickly. Ding dong the witch is dead and all that.
Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously
doubt, it's unlikely
anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if the
same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS'
practices monopolistic or anticompetitive.
I don't follow your logic here. Which tests are you referring to?
Outside of marketing, there is no technical reason why a Windows-like (or
Mac-like) graphical user interface can't be built upon X Windows (the
primary graphic sub-system used on Unix workstations) and applications built
to that interface. Embedding documents into other documents isn't dependant
upon the underlying operating system---OLE, COM and DCOM are interface and
data exchange/understanding issues, not operating system dependant issues.
If the complete source code
for Windows is to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone
who wishes to write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding
that the code be released only to companies who, including all their
employees as individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from
participating in the production of any operating system which might be
used as a competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers,
utilities, or ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
Why? Such draconian measures would be such that you might not get very
many companies (or programmers) willing to even consider such a deal.
If they're to "fix" this thing in a
permanent way, then they will have to
legislate a solution which would require that no person involved in the
development of any major software product be permitted to communicate with
anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than
five years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt
that will happen.
Again, why do you think this?
Well, we may get to see whether the courts come up
with a prudent and
reasonable solution. The obvious solution to break up MS won't help, but
it will serve to octuple the cost of both software and hardware. It will
set back the industry a decade as it tries to find a substitute for MS in
a market where really only one OS and Office automation suite is going to
be effective. If you don't see that through your haze of rage at
Microsoft for doing something you weren't smart enough or diligent enough
to do yourself, then perhaps you can come up with a potential successor OS
to WIndows. Remember, though, that if MS simply closed its doors tomorrow,
it wouldn't harm MS as much as it would harm the end user.
Personally, I feel that the two worst things to happen to our industry
have been Unix and Microsoft. I won't go into why I think Unix is bad, but
Microsoft has definitely kept the industry back technically, if only with
entrenching the poor design of the IBM PC as a standard for nearly 20 years.
Hell, if this sets the industry back 20 years that'll be the best thing to
happen! Imagine, decent hardware! Software that actually works! Less
slavish reliance on computers! That's bad?
Another bad aspect of Microsoft is the proliferation of file formats.
Microsoft Word 6 format is imcompatible with Microsoft Word 95 format is
imcompatible with Microsoft Word 98 format is imcompatible with Microsoft
Word 2000 format. Sure Microsoft MAY make a utility available for upgrading
the document but they don't make it easy and heaven forbid you find a cache
of documents seven years old in the backups that is in Word 6 format.
It's not hard to create a file format that is extensible, nor forward and
backward compible. To bring this back to topic, I have extensive
documentation on IFF, initially designed and documented in 1986 for the
creation of files that can be extensible and forward/backward compatible,
such that a document created with a program now can be opened with a program
written 10 years ago and have it not crash (or at least be able to do
something with the file and not loose the extra information).
And it certainly doesn't take one megabyte to store a single page of
information. That is just plain insane.
jpero(a)pop.cgocable.net
Again, to bring this back on topic, there have been plenty of operating
systems distributed in ROM---AmigaOS, QNX, OS-9 and the original MacOS were
all contained in ROM, were/are ROMmable and extensible. And all are older
than 10 years old. Even MS-DOS came in ROM format for some computers
(although I'm not sure if it ran out of ROM, or was copied to RAM before
running).
-spc (Have you actually USED anything other than Microsoft products?)
What I was thinking of is a untoucheable and
invisible OS and for
managing data is data users created only. Applications and any little
utils, drivers and hardware all are seen as "modules". Drivers and
hardware go hand in hand and is therefore as hardware module set. For
applications and small utils, they would be software modules.
That would be a WONDERFUL idea ... an OS distributed on ROM. I trust
you'll start on that immediately. 
6:21 p.m.
From: "Sean 'Captain Napalm'
Conner" <spc(a)armigeron.com>
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 00:27:26 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-to: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
I'm replying to several messages, all by Richard Erlacher, here in one
message:
> I'm often puzzled by the complaints about "crashes" under Win9x and
NT.
> My notebook, running Win95, hasn't crashed, although it's been in almost
> constant use since early '97 when I bought it. Now, the machines into
> which I routinely stick cards that may or may not work, along with
Hi,
Now, how much damage did the ILOVEYOU virus do? How
much will it cost to
fix the damage that ILOVEYOU virus did?
3 weeks ago, relative's machine dual HDs contents went poof and all I
go on with their history that was playing the bingo on web when it
happened. I suspected virus. I pressed for more info but they
couldn't come up with something that they might have unwittingly
brought in virus. :-(
Snip
Snip
I doubt that. The free BSDs or Linux is a good
counter example. And if
you wish to discount the operating system, there is Apache. And if you wish
to discount servers, the GIMP. While it isn't up to the functionality of
Photoshop it certainly does anything a home user would want it to do.
Ditto, I doubt M$ to produce decent s/w and OSes and there's the wide
range of confirmed reputations that said M$ pulled fast and dirty
tricks to "break" other non-M$ stuff if they feel like it. There's
the bloat, win2k weighs in over 440MB installed and requires gobs of
ram and 500+MHz cpu to perform. Kernel itself on that Linux is OS
and fits on one 1.44MB disk. XFree86 is much smaller and responds
quicker. There is at least 3 or 4 different Xwindows for linux.
Nature abhoors a vaccum and if Microsoft is gone, it will be filled in
rather quickly. Ding dong the witch is dead and all that.
Exactly. There will be lot of suing and heavy shake-out in
industry grabbing remains to get documentations to convert their
M$-produced over to non-M$ formats.
Even if someone else could do it, which I
seriously doubt, it's unlikely
anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if the
same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS'
practices monopolistic or anticompetitive.
I don't follow your logic here. Which tests are you referring to? Outside of marketing, there is no technical reason
why a Windows-like (or
Mac-like) graphical user interface can't be built upon X Windows (the
Exactly, OS is just that OS. Apps and drivers runs on top of that
OS. But M$ look at this differently and force us to take IE with
win98. This I do not want to have on mine, I think this is major
source and share of other problems by some other M$ stuff
problems before the CIH virus came.
> If the complete source code
> for Windows is to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone
> who wishes to write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding
Snip
Why? Such draconian measures would be such that you
might not get very
many companies (or programmers) willing to even consider such a deal.
Court would see that clearly and will say denied to M$ demand if
court orders Windows open-sourced. I think.
Snip
> except in permanently recorded written form for a
period not less than
> five years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt
> that will happen.
Again whom to do this, M$? 5 yr is short. 10 is about right,
better yet, 15.
Again, why do you think this?
Snip
Personally, I feel that the two worst things to happen to our industry
have been Unix and Microsoft. I won't go into why I think Unix is bad, but
Microsoft has definitely kept the industry back technically, if only with
entrenching the poor design of the IBM PC as a standard for nearly 20 years.
Hell, if this sets the industry back 20 years that'll be the best thing to
happen! Imagine, decent hardware! Software that actually works! Less
slavish reliance on computers! That's bad?
This is about to change already, leagcy-free machines for windows
IS coming out. No ISA, PCI, PS/2 ports, IDE, etc, just USB and
firewire. Who has the two monoplies in this? Intel for this
chipsets and M$ for OS and stuff.
Another bad aspect of Microsoft is the proliferation
of file formats.
Microsoft Word 6 format is imcompatible with Microsoft Word 95 format is
Snip, this one is clearly breaking communication standards. In old
days, ASCII was the rule and anyone could share the data easily with
some conversion if required. M$ broke this idea and locked in users
to windows and their buggy s/w, some s/w made for minority HW (Apple
for example) because of this.
It's not hard to create a file format that is
extensible, nor forward and
backward compible. To bring this back to topic, I have extensive
documentation on IFF, initially designed and documented in 1986 for the
creation of files that can be extensible and forward/backward compatible,
such that a document created with a program now can be opened with a program
written 10 years ago and have it not crash (or at least be able to do
something with the file and not loose the extra information).
That is what I wanted to see because I often hit this wall when I
need certain documentations and that one was made with old Word or
works and I can't use it because M$ readers took a dare and said
"Eek, too old!" in my face when I tried to open them.
And it certainly doesn't take one megabyte to store a single page of
information. That is just plain insane.
Appox 1K in ascii.
jpero(a)pop.cgocable.net
Again, to bring this back on topic, there have been plenty of operating
systems distributed in ROM---AmigaOS, QNX, OS-9 and the original MacOS were
all contained in ROM, were/are ROMmable and extensible. And all are older
than 10 years old. Even MS-DOS came in ROM format for some computers
(although I'm not sure if it ran out of ROM, or was copied to RAM before
running). What I was thinking of is a untoucheable and
invisible OS and for
managing data is data users created only. Applications and any little
utils, drivers and hardware all are seen as "modules". Drivers and
hardware go hand in hand and is therefore as hardware module set. For
applications and small utils, they would be software modules.
That would be a WONDERFUL idea ... an OS distributed on ROM. I trust
you'll start on that immediately. -spc (Have you actually USED anything other than
Microsoft products?)
Yes.
Wizard
8 May
8 May
4:04 a.m.
And I've run Win95 for a year with no problems.
It wasn't until Microsoft
Office was installed on the machine did it lock up and I wasted two days
trying to reinstall Win95, from scratch, before giving up and going to Linux
so I could continue my job.
Humm, suggests somthing was wrong or you were trying to use the OEM
install.
Hardware didn't change. Just the addition of
Microsoft Office.
That pig...
Now, how much damage did the ILOVEYOU virus do? How
much will it cost to
fix the damage that ILOVEYOU virus did?
nothing. We were properly prepared and the key users are educated. We
did recive copies but they were deleted before they could be activated.
We assume there are worms/virus/trogans out ther and they can hurt us
so we are prepared.
Windows that precludes such from being done in other
systems, other than a
lack of economic insentive and the fear of bring the wrath of Microsoft down
Gee I thought that it was already being done with star office.
for Windows is
to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone
who wishes to write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding
that the code be released only to companies who, including all their
employees as individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from
participating in the production of any operating system which might be
used as a competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers,
utilities, or ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
Why? Such draconian measures would be such that you might not get very
many companies (or programmers) willing to even consider such a deal. Personally, I feel that the two worst things to
happen to our industry
have been Unix and Microsoft. I won't go into why I think Unix is bad, but
Microsoft has definitely kept the industry back technically, if only with
entrenching the poor design of the IBM PC as a standard for nearly 20 years.
Hell, if this sets the industry back 20 years that'll be the best thing to
happen! Imagine, decent hardware! Software that actually works! Less
slavish reliance on computers! That's bad?
Well I agree. the PC is generally poor hardware. Good hardware has always
existed, and it was never cheap.
Another bad aspect of Microsoft is the proliferation
of file formats.
Microsoft Word 6 format is imcompatible with Microsoft Word 95 format is
imcompatible with Microsoft Word 98 format is imcompatible with Microsoft
Word 2000 format. Sure Microsoft MAY make a utility available for upgrading
the document but they don't make it easy and heaven forbid you find a cache
of documents seven years old in the backups that is in Word 6 format.
Yes, this is a major problem and while they claim to have support for
conversions they don't work well or in the case of WP->Word plain don't
work.
My solution was and still is Runoff, it provides what I need for test
files and it runs on everything I have (NS* DOS, CP/M-80, DOS, WIN, VMS,
RT11, RSTS, unix, linix).
Allison
6:38 a.m.
New subject: Runoff on other platforms Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
My solution was and still is Runoff, it provides what I
need for test
files and it runs on everything I have (NS* DOS, CP/M-80, DOS, WIN, VMS,
RT11, RSTS, unix, linix).
Could you point me at CP/M and DOS Runoff, please? Any serious documents I
do are done initially in RUNOFF and then converted to whatever they need to be
delivered in. I've taken to using HTML for non-serious documents
(primarily because
I haven't found a decent CP/M emulator for MacOS, which is my primary desktop
at the moment, so I can't run WordStar; but I have found a vi clone and a Mac
version of Lynx. I can and do use WordStar under Win9x, but Microsoft decided
to stick ~s in the short file name generated for long filenames, and WordStar 4
won't let me open files with a ~ in their names (haven't seriously looked for
whatever table it's using to decide legal filename characters yet)),
but I still
use RUNOFF when I want anything decent.
--
Roger Ivie
TeraGlobal Communications Corporation
1750 North Research Park Way
North Logan, UT 84341
Phone: (435)787-0555
Fax: (435)787-0516
10:40 a.m.
New subject: Runoff on other platforms Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
On Mon, 8 May 2000, Roger Ivie wrote:
Try looking in SIMTEL and OAK.oakland.edu site there are plenty of
versions out there. If all else fails write it, not as if it's
particulary complex. Be advised the CP/M versions I have are CA1981
and represent a useable subset. However even that is not a big limit
as if I wanted prettier printing (fonts mostly) I can move the .rno to a
platform that has that kind of support.
Allison
My solution was
and still is Runoff, it provides what I need for test
files and it runs on everything I have (NS* DOS, CP/M-80, DOS, WIN, VMS,
RT11, RSTS, unix, linix).
Could you point me at CP/M and DOS Runoff, please? Any serious documents I
do are done initially in RUNOFF and then converted to whatever they need to be
delivered in. I've taken to using HTML for non-serious documents
5:05 a.m.
There were indeed some "problems" with the first Office for '95 suite on
top
of the "upgrade" version of the first release of '95. These were fixed
with
a download, however.
How the activity of a few morons who think cyber-vandalism is funny ties
into this thread, I don't know, but I'd certainly vote to make a spectacle
of all virus-progenitors by dipping them, slowly, and feet first, into a hot
solder pot during halftime at the superbowl.
I think people who send cute little pictures, and unsolicited jokes, etc,
ought to be charged for their transmitted bandwidth by their ISP rather than
getting a flat rate. If bandwidth continues to be wasted like that, it will
eventually cost us all by the bit. People who open email from sources they
don't recognize are running a risk similar to unprotected sex with unknown
people. People who open attachments to such email get what they deserve.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc(a)armigeron.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 10:27 PM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
Microsoft
office
wish
(or
to
but
but
I'm replying to several messages, all by Richard Erlacher, here in one
message:
> I'm often puzzled by the complaints about "crashes" under Win9x and
NT.
> My notebook, running Win95, hasn't crashed, although it's been in almost
> constant use since early '97 when I bought it. Now, the machines into
> which I routinely stick cards that may or may not work, along with
> products that may or may not work, both hardware and software, . . .
well,
they have had
other histories, but it's seldom Microsoft software that's
to blame for that.
And I've run Win95 for a year with no problems. It wasn't until
Office was installed on the machine did it lock up and
I wasted two days
trying to reinstall Win95, from scratch, before giving up and going to
Linux
so I could continue my job.
Hardware didn't change. Just the addition of Microsoft Office.
> I've never bought a license for a DEC OS, but I doubt it cost under
$100.
> There are Linux versions one can buy in
ready-to-install form for under
> $100, but those will cost $1M, at least, at 50-cents-an-hour before
> they're working properly and that's only if you're a real *nix expert.
> What's more, NO *nix version offers the features that make the Win9x
> desirable for home computer use. There are lots of books out there for
> *nix users, but I've yet to see a "{insert vendor name here} Office for
> Dummies" book for LINUX, though I hear there is a "LINUX for Dummies"
book
out there.
So I assume that the *only* use a home computer is used for is for suite software. Okay.
Now, how much damage did the ILOVEYOU virus do? How much will it cost
to
fix the damage that ILOVEYOU virus did?
More to the point (not really using any office suite program) the major
attraction of an office suite is that the different applications can embed
files from each other into a single document, right? That you can take a
spreadsheet (or portion thereof) and embed it into a word processor
document. Am I correct in that? There's nothing inherent in the design
of
Windows that precludes such from being done in other
systems, other than a
lack of economic insentive and the fear of bring the wrath of Microsoft
down
upon you and being crushed out of existance (aside:
Cisco has as much, if
not more, control in the router industry as Microsoft in software yet
aren't
nearly as hated as they make very good products and
when they buy out a
company, they tend to actually use the technology they bought out.
Microsoft has a hit-or-miss reputation with software reliability and even
when they buy out a company they are equally likely to sink the technolgy
as
they are to market it).
> Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am
not
among them,
however, because, at least for now, MS is the only
organization capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate
application software that pretty much functions as it should within the
framework of this extremely complex OS.
I doubt that. The free BSDs or Linux is a good counter example. And if
you wish to discount the operating system, there is Apache. And if you to discount servers, the GIMP. While it isn't up
to the functionality of
Photoshop it certainly does anything a home user would want it to do.
Nature abhoors a vaccum and if Microsoft is gone, it will be filled in
rather quickly. Ding dong the witch is dead and all that.
> Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously doubt, it's unlikely
> anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if
the
same tests are
to be applied that have been used to determine MS'
practices monopolistic or anticompetitive.
I don't follow your logic here. Which tests are you referring to?
Outside of marketing, there is no technical reason why a Windows-like Mac-like) graphical user interface can't be built
upon X Windows (the
primary graphic sub-system used on Unix workstations) and applications
built
to that interface. Embedding documents into other
documents isn't
dependant
upon the underlying operating system---OLE, COM and
DCOM are interface and
data exchange/understanding issues, not operating system dependant issues.
> If the complete source code
> for Windows is to be mandated by the courts to be made available to
anyone
> who wishes to write applications for Windows, MS
is correct in demanding
> that the code be released only to companies who, including all their
> employees as individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years,
from
participating
in the production of any operating system which might be
used as a competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers,
utilities, or ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
Why? Such draconian measures would be such that you might not get very
many companies (or programmers) willing to even consider such a deal.
> If they're to "fix" this thing in a permanent way, then they will have
> legislate a solution which would require that no
person involved in the
> development of any major software product be permitted to communicate
with
anyone else,
not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than
five years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt
that will happen.
Again, why do you think this?
> Well, we may get to see whether the courts come up with a prudent and
> reasonable solution. The obvious solution to break up MS won't help, > it will serve to octuple the cost of both
software and hardware. It
will
> set back the industry a decade as it tries to
find a substitute for MS
in
> a market where really only one OS and Office
automation suite is going
to
> be effective. If you don't see that through
your haze of rage at
> Microsoft for doing something you weren't smart enough or diligent
enough
> to do yourself, then perhaps you can come up with
a potential successor
OS
> to WIndows. Remember, though, that if MS simply
closed its doors
tomorrow,
it
wouldn't harm MS as much as it would harm the end user.
Personally, I feel that the two worst things to happen to our industry
have been Unix and Microsoft. I won't go into why I think Unix is bad, Microsoft has definitely kept the industry back
technically, if only with
entrenching the poor design of the IBM PC as a standard for nearly 20
years.
Hell, if this sets the industry back 20 years
that'll be the best thing to
happen! Imagine, decent hardware! Software that actually works! Less
slavish reliance on computers! That's bad?
Another bad aspect of Microsoft is the proliferation of file formats.
Microsoft Word 6 format is imcompatible with Microsoft Word 95 format is
imcompatible with Microsoft Word 98 format is imcompatible with Microsoft
Word 2000 format. Sure Microsoft MAY make a utility available for
upgrading
the document but they don't make it easy and
heaven forbid you find a
cache
of documents seven years old in the backups that is in
Word 6 format.
It's not hard to create a file format that is extensible, nor forward
and
backward compible. To bring this back to topic, I
have extensive
documentation on IFF, initially designed and documented in 1986 for the
creation of files that can be extensible and forward/backward compatible,
such that a document created with a program now can be opened with a
program
written 10 years ago and have it not crash (or at
least be able to do
something with the file and not loose the extra information).
And it certainly doesn't take one megabyte to store a single page of
information. That is just plain insane.
were
jpero(a)pop.cgocable.net
Again, to bring this back on topic, there have been plenty of operating
systems distributed in ROM---AmigaOS, QNX, OS-9 and the original MacOS What I was thinking of is a untoucheable and
invisible OS and for
managing data is data users created only. Applications and any little
utils, drivers and hardware all are seen as "modules". Drivers and
hardware go hand in hand and is therefore as hardware module set. For
applications and small utils, they would be software modules.
That would be a WONDERFUL idea ... an OS distributed on ROM. I trust
you'll start on that immediately. all contained in ROM, were/are ROMmable and
extensible. And all are older
than 10 years old. Even MS-DOS came in ROM format for some computers
(although I'm not sure if it ran out of ROM, or was copied to RAM before
running).
-spc (Have you actually USED anything other than Microsoft products?)
5:15 a.m.
New subject: IFF file format (was "I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'")
At 12:27 AM 5/8/00 -0400, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
It's not hard to create a file format that is
extensible, nor forward and
backward compible. To bring this back to topic, I have extensive
documentation on IFF, initially designed and documented in 1986 for the
creation of files that can be extensible and forward/backward compatible,
such that a document created with a program now can be opened with a program
written 10 years ago and have it not crash (or at least be able to do
something with the file and not loose the extra information).
Microsoft does use RIFF for some types of data. This is their own
flavor of IFF with Intel endian. Most Amiga apps were quite lax about
the use of IFF, simply mimicking other apps and using the same poor
code examples as everyone else. They handled and emitted something
similar to Deluxe Paint and that's about it. I'm not aware of any
popular Amiga apps that actually used the more complicated catalog
and list hunks, for example. Some bastardized IFF for their own
twisted purposes.
The more complete and accurate use of IFF I've seen was for the
3D format of Maya, a high-end 3D program that was born only a few
years ago. However, they didn't bother to document all their hunks
for the public.
Tag and hunk-length is a very useful scheme for any program's file
format. However, it's no panacea. It can even backfire and lead to
those 1 meg files fo seemingly simple data, in the case of data
structures with a great many varying leaves (each with their own
hunk type) and a moderate number of branches. This poor case has
led some to adopt schemes with 16-bit hunks and short lengths.
- John
7 May
7 May
2:23 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once
stated:
Borland? Oh that's right, you don't do software development. Umm ...
-spc (Hey, at least that's one ... )
Boy do I miss Turbo Pascal and Turbo C and the great support and free
patches and upgrades on Compuserve. (Pre-www...)
No fixed in next release... If it was broken they replaced the library
that they had... pretty quick.
Bill
--
bpechter(a)monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
This is the sickest aspect of the whole computer
industry, ALL of the
companies that made fairly good reliable products went under from the
flood
of dollars the BAD heavily marketed software
generated via updates.
Well, I wish a few more of them would go. I can't imagine what companies,
now defunct, produced this set of "fairly good reliable products " have gone
down the toilet because they were outspent or outmarketed by MS. An example
or two would be nice.
6 May
6 May
10:43 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Mike Ford once stated:
This is the sickest aspect of the whole computer industry, ALL of the
companies that made fairly good reliable products went under from the flood
of dollars the BAD heavily marketed software generated via updates.
Bad software drives out the good. It's simply easier to make bad software
and the perception is time to market is the *only* thing that counts.
For more on this, read The Rise of ``Worse is Better'' by Richard Gabriel.
You can find it at http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
-spc (It bugs me too ... )
7 May
7 May
12:48 a.m.
For more on this, read The Rise of ``Worse is
Better'' by Richard Gabriel.
You can find it at http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
Interesting ideas.
9:05 a.m.
That's a logical corollary to Gresham's Law.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 3:48 AM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
> For more on this, read The Rise of ``Worse is
Better'' by Richard
Gabriel.
You can find it
at http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
Interesting ideas.
3:55 p.m.
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.
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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eric＠brouhaha.com -
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