NuTek Mac comes

[Liam Proven]

On 12 July 2016 at 20:06, Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
>> I vaguely recall seeing some in a mag at the time. It looked a bit like
>> Mac apps running on CDE, if I remember correctly. The in-window menus
>> were weird (for a Mac) and made it look more Windows-like.
>
> That's about what I'd expect. I wonder if it could crash as much as OS 8.1
> on my Quadra 700. That's a tough act to follow. :-)

That was one of the things people didn't talk about in the classic
days. I supported classic MacOS Macs up until the early noughties.
They were horribly unstable. I embraced OS X early on, but some people
hung on as long as possible, and others disliked OS X so much they
switched to Windows.

All the now-nostalgicized-over '80s OSes were pretty horribly
unstable: Windows 3.x, and indeed 9x; Amiga OS; ST GEM; Acorn RISC OS.
None had proper memory protection, few had preemptive multitasking or
didn't do it well.

It's why I switched to Windows NT 3.1 back in '93 and liked it. I did
actually used to like Windows, an NT was a proper, solid, grown
-up OS. In my experience, more stable than OS/2 >=2.

> IIRC, there was an alpha-quality liveCD for a while.

Exactly.

> I never could get
> that excited about NeXT, Objective C, or any of that Steve-Jobs-in-limbo
> kruft (and by extension GNUStep, either). I saw a Color Turbo slab for
> sale recently:
>
> http://denver.craigslist.org/sys/5677975263.html
>
> I passed. That machine is sweet, for what it is.

Wow! That's great value! If only I were on the same continent!

> However, like most
> hobbyists I tend to gravitate toward machines I actually used "back in the
> day".

True.

> In the 90's I was a student, mostly.

1980s for me. The expensive kit I couldn't afford were things like the
Apple ][ and BBC Micro, or even a fully-tricked-out C64.

Later the Amiga, ST and Mac. By the time I had some money, 2nd hand
Acorn Archimedes were available for <GBP1K and that was, to quote my
late
 friend Guty Kewney, "my first experience of Raw Computer Power".

> There was no-freakin-way I was
> going to afford a NeXT machine. They were prohibitively expensive (or at
> least that's my recollection): even more so than high-end Macs.

Yes they were. Part of a non-compete agreement between Steve Jobs &
Apple Computer, you see.

> Plus, back
> in the 1990's I met a couple of people who did own them, and they were
> *super-snobby* about it, which also turned me off.

Well, they had reason. In their time they were /incredibly/ radical computers.

> It's a bit like BMW
> owners today. I don't care if they put 1000 HP in them, even most of their
> sportscars ('cept the whacky hybrid) still looks to me like mom's car
> leaving the tennis courts at the country club to head out to a PTA
> meeting. I'm guessing I will never be a BMW fan or a NeXT bigot.

Wouldn't know. I don't do cars. I like BMW bikes, though. Had an R80/7
with a sidecar for many years.

> GNUStep wants to clone their whole API and the UI, as you know. I wish
> them luck but it's nothing that exciting to me personally.

Interesting. I think it's a hugely big deal, but it's too late, sadly.

> It's
> interesting that you bring it up now that Linux is committing anti-UNIX
> heresy on a regular basis. Maybe GNUStep's future is now brighter? It's
> still very fiddly and immature the last time I looked at it, but in terms
> of the overall approach, it does appear to have some nice plumbing and
> backing-ideas.

It's a million-to-one shot, I reckon.

And similar comments to those re ReactOS and MS lawyers apply.

> I'd rather see GNUStep succeed than GNOME or KDE (fantasy
> on my part), honestly.

Me too!

> Those two are just hopeless chaos-impregnated
> hairballs with ridiculous dependency chains which are starting to pollute
> working/good/not-at-all-broken areas of the *OS* at this point. I've never
> liked either project (though I could almost stand GNOME for short periods
> in the early days).

GNOME 2 was all right. Best desktop of its time.

GNOME 3's main role seems to be inspiring replacements for itself and
providing some foundations for them. ;-)

> Then again, I'm not one of those "Linux world
> domination" types who want to somehow capture every user, no matter how
> low we have to set the bar to snag them.

I think it's arguably happened, actually, in the form of your next paragraph.

> Google Android has shown that folks can (successfully) bastardize
> Linux/UNIX into something very weird, proprietary, custom, and no longer
> even resembling UNIX, much. So, now that this sort of blaspheming is
> normal, why not try to make a *decent* desktop OS from it, eh? Lord knows,
> Ubuntu is trying.

Well quite.

> Who knows, maybe Android will become that.

Nah, not with Chrome OS etc. around.

> I'll catch
> the screenshots... I'd rather not use an OS where soooooo many of the apps
> are pre-infected with some type of malware or does things behind the
> scenes I wouldn't approve of (yet the "store" claims they are "virus"
> free, eh?). Funny how they can redefine "virus" or "malware" as it suits
> them (ie.. corporate sponsors say it's safe? Oh, ohhhhhkay then, we don't
> mind if you steal an address book, log keystrokes, or secretly GPS track
> folks - just don't replicate). The countermeasures for these issues seem
> to me to be weak and ineffective, so far.

A fair point.

> I'm not sure I'll ever be able to trust commercial OS's or software at
> this point, no matter how much bling they cop. I still carry my Philips
> Xenium phone running Symbian (and lasting about 20 days before needing a
> charge). Tastes great, and less filling.

I loved my Blackberry Passport -- its OS really is a better Android
than Android. However, it just doesn't have the apps.

> I'd love to see a commercial phone OS project start with the mentality of
> the OpenBSD project. I'd be willing to try something like that! Features
> like totally secure defaults, zero trust for basically anyone or anything,
> secure OS protections that are difficult to override by silly apps, etc..
> would be welcome.

BB10 is close, but proprietary. Perhaps Jolla comes closer?

> I have absolutely zero doubt that you are quite correct. If it took
> .000001% bit of market share away from them, they'd have a nuclear
> freak-out and figure out a way to hybridize ninjas with their corporate
> lawyers and send them out riding elephant sharks for vengeance.

:-D Yep!

> What would
> be hilarious (but again fantasy) is if ReactOS had a breakthrough in terms
> of functionality that got them very close (say 99% or better compat). Then
> if they sat on it for a while, getting it right before subsequently
> release it the genie would be out of the bottle. If it worked
> compatibility-wise even as well as XP or Win7, it'd be a hit and crimp the
> snot out of M$.

I reckon a 64-bit version of Windows 2000, with support for the newer
APIs -- to hell with Metro etc., just classic Win32, no DOS, no
16-bit, no 32-bit, pure legacy-free 64-bit with none of the
accessories, UI changes etc. No "Active Desktop", no IE, just the
Explorer and enough compatibility to add 3rd party replacements for
everything from Notepad to Paint to Media Player. No sidebar, desktop
gadgets, Start screen, Modern apps, nothing.

There's a lot of free-to-download Windows components, from Media
Player to IE. It just needs to be good enough to run them, it doesn't
need to replicate them.

Even so, I don't think it will ever happen.


> Of course, they'd probably find some way to DCMA it out of
> existence. It just depends on how widespread the release got and how
> illegal it was to own it.

Exactly.

> It's impressive when it works. There are still a large number of
> applications that don't work, too. Even bread-and-butter apps like the
> latest Firefox often crash and burn.

Anything that runs WINE has native Firefox, surely, plus other browsers?

> I have seen a few that are rock
> solid, Office 97, Winamp, and a few other "gold" (winehq) or better
> certified applications. I run RegexBuddy sometimes in Wine and as you say,
> no problems.
>
> That's not to say the WINE team isn't amazing. They are. It's just a tough
> slog.

Absolutely.


-- 
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