Conference back40::soapbox

    
    Well, OK.  If you knew a smart kid that owns a 486-based machine
    and tons of games, etc., what would you get her for Christmas at
    your favorite software boutique ?
    
      bb

    
    DOOM!
    

    
    I bought a PC this weekend, after much consideration.
    
    I got a Packard Bell 486DX2/50 (Legend 11cd) with 420MB hard disc, floppy,
    double speed CD ROM, 14.4 modem/fax, 14" VGA color monitor, 4MB RAM,
    stereo speakers.
    
    Software includes: MS Windows, MS Works (word processing, spreadsheet,
    database - not the office products but scaled down versions), Grolier's
    MultiMedia Encyclopedia, Sport's Illustrated Almanac, Software
    Toolworks' Speed, 3-D Body, 3-D UnderSea Adventure, Kids Zoo, Space
    Adventure, MegaRace, MS Hypermedia, Navigator (PB's GUI), MS Money, all
    sorts of MultiMedia utilities (including my favorite - Soundstation -
    which allows me to listen to an audio CD while using my system - and
    the sound quality is excellent - sampling 44KH, I believe).  So, I can
    listen to "Gershwin Plays Gershwin" (itself a technological marvel -
    CD audio recreated from piano rolls Gershwin mastered long ago - its
    the only way to here him playing his own music) and create my budget at 
    the same time.
    
    So far, I'm thrilled.  I'll soon be looking for an excellent multimedia
    "Bible" application which would include many translations, concordance,
    Bible dictionary, Greek, Atlas and anything else that comes to mind. 
    Any knowledge you have of such would be appreciated.
    
    I'm also interested in excellent games and educational materials for my
    children.  Any ideas?
    
    jeff

re: bb

Visual BASIC and a resum� package.

re: jeff

Neat! Sounds like the one I picked up last Wed. Got the DX266 and a slower
modem and not quite as extensive a software array for about $100 more. I
like it so far, but it's proven to be a terrible time sink.

 Man, I spent about the same amount of money 2 years ago and got a
 386/16 with 2 megs, 52MB and a 2400 baud modem :-/




 Jim who has since added memory but is thinking about upgrading after Christmas.

    .3
    
    if you can shake your desire for gee-whiz (read "multimedia") and
    settle for a serious study tool, the best bible app i know of is the
    online bible.  freeware, available (from different authors) for both pc
    and mac.  features, off the top of my head, for the mac version, are
    about like this:
    
    o   supports many translations (i have kjv and rsv), including several
        non-english languages such as french, german, spanish, italian,
        hungarian, malay pidgin...
    
    o   allows you to have several translations open in separate windows,
        optionally synched so that when you go to a different verse in any
        window, all the other synched windows follow.  moving around is
        accomplished by use of slide bars; it is very fast and intuitive.
    
    o   VERY FAST word and phrase searching.  uses boolean operators, and
        also allows wildcards - which understandably slow it down a bunch.
    
    o   cross-referencing - double-click and other related verses are
        bought up.  double-click on a verse in the cross-ref window and the
        context of that cross-ref'ed verse comes up.
    
    o   extensive cross-indexed topical discussions, profession of faith,
        study guides, and so on.
    
    o   the complete thompson chain reference, bring up a ref and just
        double-click to move onward.
    
    o   greek and hebrew versions, with a very good lexicon.
    
    o   lexicon access via strong's numbers in the kjv.  you can display
        the strong's numbers and double-click on a number to go to the
        lexicon entry, or you can option-double-click on a word and go
        directly.
    
    this is all freeware except for a couple of copyrighted translations,
    e.g., the niv and nkjv, for which you must pay a royalty.  you can get
    it on floppies, part by part, or on a cd with everything that's free,
    or - as i did - by ftp.  i have copies of everything i've installed
    that i can send to you at cost, and i hav copies of the same elements
    for the pc.  i've never used the pc version, but i ftp'ed it for my
    brother, and he says it works.

    	Get a MAC!

    What about the new DECpc's -- are they worth looking into?

    
    I'll  take it, dick!  e-mail on its way.
    
    jeff

    .7
    
    aw, c'mon, joe, let's see if we can actually avoid the platform wars. 
    i know, for example, that spadeface gave serious consideration to a mac
    before he made his move.  and, if the concern he mentioned to me a
    couple of months ago was the deciding factor, his choice was reasonable
    and proper.

    >What about the new DECpc's -- are they worth looking into?
    
    The DECpc's are worth looking into... they have a very nice line and
    I've been quite impressed with the zippyness of the DECpc LPx 466d2 PC
    that sits on my desk... it's faster than my 486DX2 machine with pretty
    much the same harddware, except I think the DECpc uses an IDE hard disk
    and my system at home uses SCSI.
    
    I particularly like the quality of the VRC16 monitor... I'm sure it's a
    buyout but it is a very nice monitor. Odd thing about this machine (at
    least the one I've got) is that it came with two 3.5" floppy disk
    drives, and no CD-ROM! Huh?
    
    A complaint I have about the newer line which includes PCI slots is
    that there's not enough old-fashioned ISA slots... which means that you
    better be prepared to shell out big bucks for PCI cards... when you can
    find them. For my use, which includes music editing in my studio, I
    wouldn't have enough ISA slots for my existing hardware, and nobody is
    making the type of hardware I need in PCI configurations yet...
    
    -b

    
    can anyone speak to a pc version of UNIX?  is there such a thing, how
    much would it cost, how much memory would be required, etc.?
    
    jeff

    Well, there's two choices...
    
    there's SCO Unix which costs a bundle and does not perform particularly
    well because it's still mostly a 16 bit OS running on mostly 32 bit
    processors. However, it is a fairly complete implementation of Unix
    include Motif... I think a binary license for SCO Unix runs upwards
    of a grand... and then add more money for the add-ins (like Motif)
    
    There's also a "shareware" version of Unix that runs on anything you
    can compile the code on... which could yield greater performance
    although I'm pretty sure it does not include any of the sexier Unix UI
    stuff (like Motif). Sorry, I can't remember where the ftp site is at
    the moment, although I might have it written down at home...
    
    -b

There's Linux.  It's free, and includes all sorts of good stuff like TCP/IP,
but if you want to get it with Motif (which costs money), you can get them all
together on a CD for about $150.

People I know who have it think it's really great.

/john

    
    thanks guys!
    
    jeff

Which only leaves unanswered the question -


	Why would anyone want it?

    
    well, if i become unemployed i can hone my UNIX skills and improve my
    marketability.
    
    jeff

    There are DOS based shareware programs which emulate the unix 
    environment.  Exposure without the expenditure and lack of
    functionality.

	For UNIX for INtel, consider SOLARIS/X86 from SUN. Comes
with lots of stuff and is very stable. You may also want to think
about NEXT step for Intel. A real nice object oriented operating 
system.

	BTW: if you have enough disk space you can load any of
these on different partitions and boot between them.

    .12
    
>   can anyone speak to a pc version of UNIX?
    
    No, but if you're lucky or on acid you can grok it...

	Where's the hand crank to get it started.....%^)

    re: .3
    
    For educational software, I've found that almost everything
    from The Learning Company is excellent.  They're all games
    with educational content, so the kids don't get bored; it's
    not the dreaded "electronic flash card" stuff at all.
    
    Best Learning Company Game:  "Operation Neptune", math-oriented
    word problems involving a submarine mission to retrieve sunken
    pieces of a satellite, and putting together its important message.
    I'd say this is good for the 9-14 age group.  Younger kids would
    like "Treasure Cove" or "Treasure Mountain", among others.
    
    Chris

 would it be possible/cost effective to upgrade my 386/16 to 486/something
 and add multimedia capability?




Jim

    There are in-socket upgrades from 386 to 486 processors... but you don't
    end up with a system that performs like a 486. So, the only real option
    is to upgrade the motherboard which does not represent a great savings
    over buying a 486 system. And if you compare system prices with
    built-in multimedia packages, the price of the multimedia package
    usually comes out cheaper than if you buy it as an add-on...
    
    -b

    I'm still thinking about the motherboard-upgrade option for my
    own system.  When I priced them a couple of months ago, you could
    buy a good quality motherboard (A.I.R. was recommended by Motherboard
    Warehouse) with an Intel 486DX2-66 chip, VESA slots, etc., for $464,
    and I'm sure it's cheaper now.  The same motherboard with a 486SX-33
    was only $257, and again that was a couple of months ago.
    
    And multimedia packages can be had pretty cheaply now, $300 or less
    for a unit with a double-speed CD-ROM drive, 16-bit sound card,
    speakers, and a few CD-ROM apps.
    
    I've upgraded everything in my old 386SX-16 system *except* the
    motherboard, and I've also added the multimedia stuff.  It's been
    pretty easy so far.  The motherboard wouldn't be quite so easy,
    since I think I'll have to remove almost everything else inside
    the tower to get at the motherboard.
    
    But I'm still sitting on the fence, since even my slow poke system
    does everything I need it to do quickly enough, including the
    multimedia stuff.  The caching of the CD-ROM in MS-DOS 6.22 made
    all the difference in the world for me.
    
    Chris

    > would it be possible/cost effective to upgrade my 386/16 to
    > 486/something and add multimedia capability?
    
    If you know what your doing, yes.  To me "upgrading" means getting
    another motherboard/bus/circuitry, as opposed to crippling a quicker
    chip on the old motherboard/bus.  Figure $3-400 bucks.
    
    IMO "Multimedia" is a buzzword for CD/Soundboard.  So, buy a CD
    reader and a soundboard while your at it.  Figure $3-500 bucks.
    
    Assuming your Monitor/video card is up to task, if not, and the monitor
    is SVGA, toss $150 or so for a speedy video card.
    
    1 grand and your kicking butt.  Donate the old motherboard to a school
    or church and take the tax write off, or sell it for ~$100.
    
    You save cash because you don't need to buy a monitor, case, memory,
    power supply, etc... and your not stuck with a complete boat anchor
    either (i.e. a 386/16 "PC")
    
    MadMike

    Yes, but here's the rub... your old 386 system probably doesn't have
    VESA bus... so with the cards you have in your current system, the VESA
    bus slots on the 486 system are useless... and if you want to get
    reasonable performance with Windows multimedia packages you should be
    using an accelerated video card... which if you have the VESA slots
    might as well be a VESA card... which means you have the video system
    upgrade cost to consider... then move on to the monitor... can your
    monitor work with the scan rates required to produce a minimum of 256
    colors in 640x480 mode (the current low-end of the MPC II spec) And
    what about the disk that you have? Do you have enough disk space to
    keep up with the greed of current generation multimedia apps (not to
    mention Windows) Are the disks fast enough? Will you want to constrain
    the disk throughput with the older generation ISA disk adapters when
    VESA disk adapters offer better performance at reasonable cost...
    
    When I looked at upgrading a system to a 486, it came down to keeping
    the skin and the power supply... which did not make for a very
    cost-effective upgrade, especially considering the power supply was
    only 200 watts, which is considered too little for 486 systems (I think
    the current "standard" is 300 watts)
    
    -b

Don't forget about memory.  If you don't have at least 8 meg or your machine
is so old that you can't find simms to upgrade to at least 8 meg, you're
wasting your time with all the other upgrades.

Bob

    
    don't know exactly what you mean but my 486DX2/50 came with only four
    MB of memory.  so far i am pleased with its response.
    
    jeff

    >> When I looked at upgrading a system to a 486, it came down to keeping
    >> the skin and the power supply... which did not make for a very
    >> cost-effective upgrade...
    
    Ah, then that's the difference for me, because I've upgraded and/or
    replaced everything in my system except the motherboard: 420MB hard
    drive (I should've waited a few more months :-(), 8M memory, SVGA
    (my 7-year-old NEC Multisync II monitor handles 640x480x256 easily),
    the power supply, the multimedia stuff, and so on (even the power
    switch!).  The only thing I need to make it a "1994" system (as opposed
    to its original "1991" system :-)) is the motherboard.
    
    But if you were looking at replacing/adding all that stuff at once,
    instead of spread out over a couple of years like I did, then yes,
    I'd get a new system instead.  By doing it piecemeal, I got the use
    out of whatever I felt I needed first, as well as spreading out the
    financial hit.  If I can, I'll probably just keep upgrading my
    current system over the years as new stuff comes along, one thing
    at a time.
    
    Chris

    386, 486, vesa, svga, local bus, this-n-that.  ah, the joys of
    mix-n-match computing...

RE:    <<< Note 114.26 by VMSNET::M_MACIOLEK "Four54 Camaro/Only way to fly" >>>
                                 -< What I do >-

   > > would it be possible/cost effective to upgrade my 386/16 to
   > > 486/something and add multimedia capability?
    
    >If you know what your doing, yes.  To me "upgrading" means getting
    

     Well, that answers it for me ;-)  I don't know what I'm doing..



   Jim

>Don't forget about memory.  If you don't have at least 8 meg or your machine
>is so old that you can't find simms to upgrade to at least 8 meg, you're
>wasting your time with all the other upgrades.


  I've got 4 meg (and no room to add more without another board..




Jim

    re: Note 114.33 by CSLALL::HENDERSON
    
    > I've got 4 meg (and no room to add more without another board..
    
    ...or buying different chips.  Screwing around with a PC is easier
    than you think (just don't break anything :^)).  RTFM.  Know what
    your buying.  Ask questions before hand, ask for someone to help you,
    don't force anything, don't touch anything that shouldn't be touched.
    
    A motherboard is teets, just take out the screws and screw (oh-er)
    or snap the new one in.  It's easy.  (make sure you buy a motherboard
    that fits inside your chassis though :^)).
    
    You'll do fine (just make sure you can return it, if it somehow gets,
    er, "broken" before you get it working)
    

    .33
    
    > I've got 4 meg (and no room to add more without another board..
    
    isn't your memory on a simm?  you can get bigger simms or adapters that
    will allow you to plug two simms into a single simm slot.

    RE: -1
    
    Not necessarily... not all of the address lines may be available at the
    SIM sockets... in older PCs, most often they are not. Thus, you can't
    just plug in bigger SIMs.
    
    -b

    .36
    
    ah.  good point...

    
 >   Well, OK.  If you knew a smart kid that owns a 486-based machine
 >   and tons of games, etc., what would you get her for Christmas at
 >   your favorite software boutique ?
    
     If said 486-based machine had a CD-ROM, I'd get her a good
     interactive encyclopedia. There's a bunch of them out there.
     
    Doc

    .38
    
    reviews i'm seeing are consistent.  they say encarta has the snappiest
    interface but grolier's is best in terms of meaningful, useful content. 
    my experience with both supports that conclusion.
    
    to me, this means that if you want to attract and possibly keep the
    interest of a kid who doesn't lean naturally to doing research, try
    encarta.  if your kid likes doing the research and needs more real info
    and fewer pretty sounds and pictures and cute ways to navigate, go for
    grolier's.

    The fact that Encarta is considered to have the snappiest interface is
    a good indication of just how far multimedia has to go...
    
    It's authored on Microsoft Viewer 2.0, an authoring system I have had a
    great deal of experience with. If you like rectangles that can never
    overlap, like doing your programming using a word-processor based hack,
    and don't mind writing a DLL for just about everything any real
    programmer would want to do... well, Viewer's a great choice.
    
    If, on the other hand, you've ever used a real authoring system, it's
    pretty lame. And encyclopedias based on Viewer are lame as well...
    
    IMO, of course.
    
    -b

re: Groliers

I rec'd that as part of the multi-media bundle that came with my Packard-Bell.
My impression of it is that it is of about the same quality as a primary
school encyclopedia - pretty lightweight. Having no prior experience with
the stuff, I was expecting Britannica quality. Perhaps I only actually got
some cheap demo software instead of the real thing.

    .41
    
    you got the real thing.  all the multimedia encyclopedias are
    second-class stuff - there's grolier's, compton's, and encarta
    (funk&wagnall).  these are the encyclopedias you can buy in the grocery
    store for 99� for the first volume and $4.99 for each subsequent
    volume - they're better than no encyclopedia but not a patch on
    britannica or americana or even world book.  britannica has stated
    flatly that they will never out put a cd-rom version because it would
    require something on the order of a dozen discs and even then it would
    be so lackingin hyperlinks that it would be no better than hardcopy.

    Someone should tell britannica about ISO 10744: The Hypermedia
    Time-Based Structuring Language, and ISO 8879: The Standard Generalized
    Markup Language (upon which HyTime is based). It allows hyperlinks
    across media, among other things. And if they want to author a snazzy
    interface to go with their application, then they should use the
    "Standard Multimedia/Hypermedia Scripting Language" (SMSL) which will
    soon be an ISO Committee Draft (CD). The project reference is JTC1.18.43.
    
    -b
    (ISO Project Editor for SMSL)

Kinda makes them next to worthless for anyone past the fifth grade. The
atlases provided aren't much better.

    .44
    
    > next to worthless for anyone past the fifth grade.
    
    not at all.  i've had recourse to my grolier's many times - sometimes
    i've gone from there to a more comprehensive reference, but it's a good
    starting place, and it does provide links to related materials and, for
    every article, a bibliography.

    
    >> britannica has stated
    >> flatly that they will never out put a cd-rom version because it would
    >> require something on the order of a dozen discs and even then it would
    >> be so lackingin hyperlinks that it would be no better than hardcopy.
    
    But it would be better... because it wouldn't weigh 800 pounds and
    need its own room in the house, like the hardcopy set.
    
    EB just wants to keep the bucks rolling in on the hardcopy set, and
    I guess that's their prerogative.  But there really is a market
    opportunity for one of the "biggies" to do a really good multimedia
    job on one of the better-quality encyclopedias, because the existing
    ones are definitely lacking something.
    
    Although I will say that Encarta is the best one for kids because
    the images, video clips, audio, etc., is more "motivating" and fun
    than the others I've seen and used.  I'd say that the complexity and
    length of the articles is more suitable for a younger audience as well.
    Certainly more suitable than Compton's, which would be better for the
    late middle-school and high-school age group.
    
    I just got Encarta '95 last week at Staples for $70, but I think the
    price has since gone up to $80.  It's better than I'd expected, but
    of course the depth of the material is fairly lightweight.  I'd use
    it if I wanted summaries of topics that I wanted some background
    information on, for example.  The "links" are nice, and the MM stuff
    is fun.
    
    But I'm still waiting for both the ideal kid's MM encyclopedia and
    the ideal adult MM encyclopedia.  No one's gotten either one quite
    right yet.
    
    Chris

    .43
    
    sgml.  right.  fwiw, we are finding that when we translate *roff markup
    to sgml, the size of the files TRIPLES.  there's simply too much STUFF,
    leaving inadequate space for the content.  a cd-rom encyclopedia spread
    over a dozen discs is useless - changing discs takes too long.  unless,
    of course, you invest a couple thousand bucks in cd-rom changers.  most
    home users aren't going to do that.

    >sgml.  right.  fwiw, we are finding that when we translate *roff markup
    >to sgml, the size of the files TRIPLES.
    
    ... check the standard then and learn about the features known as
    markup minimization and short ref. I've seen SGML files with no
    markup at all!!! The book "The SGML Handbook" by Charles Goldfarb
    (Oxford University Press) has quite a bit of information on this
    subject, and includes the text of ISO 8879.
    
    As for changing disks... well, with a real encyclopedia, you have to
    change books... disks are easier to change. And the hyperlink can
    easily include a pointer to which disk volume is needed, and this
    information can be included in a dialog box to assist the user...
    
    Also, with compression technologies much of the media content
    requirements can be reduced... even newer multimedia content
    types like audio and video (using MPEG compression, for instance)
    
    -b

    PS to previous:
    
    You shouldn't be translating roff to SGML.. you should be using a DTD
    which correctly interprets the roff commands... many commercial
    products, which include the necessary DTD, are available. I'd be glad
    to point you in the right direction...
    
    -b

    .49
    
    thanks, but we're translating to sgml for several reasons, one of which
    is to get into using a specific sgml-based authoring tool.  our dtd,
    called DECbook, was written by eve maler, who is one of the top players
    in the sgml world.  i don't think it's unduly clumsy or markup-heavy,
    and i don't think eve would have missed the obvious possibility of a
    product that reads roff.

    RE: .50
    
    >i don't think it's unduly clumsy or markup-heavy,
    >and i don't think eve would have missed the obvious possibility of a
    >product that reads roff.
    
    A DTD, for the sake of others, is a "Document Type Description." A DTD
    describes the markup that is used in a class of documents. What Dick,
    and many other people miss about SGML, is that it is NOT another markup
    language... it is a language for creating DTDs... which *describe*
    markup languages. Therefore, to say that an application "translates" to
    SGML indicates that either the application isn't doing the right thing
    or the person using it doesn't undersand what it is doing. A good DTD
    can describe a document using whatever markup the document currently
    uses. So, and SGML application could, for instance, read roff documents
    with the appropriate DTD. Where translation comes in is between DTDs of
    different types which describe different markup languages. If the
    target markup language is poorly designed, then indeed SGML can help
    produce unwieldy results. If the DTD is well-designed, SGML can be used
    to produce amazingly compact documents.
    
    I know of Eve Maler... she's one of the Davenport people, and she
    participated in the DSSSL standard effort for a while... she also
    wrote the OSF doc DTD and does know her SGML... but something still
    sounds major fishy if what you're producing comes out 3 times as
    big... let me know if you're in need of an SGML consultant to help
    you sort it out... :-) :-) :-) :-)
    
    I promise not to touch any 3-way wiring... :-) :-) :-)
    
    -b

    .51
    
    > What Dick,
    > and many other people miss about SGML,
    
    i don't miss it.  i didn't bring it into the discussion because it's
    not directly relevant.  what is relevant is that sgml lays down certain
    rules, such as for the formation of markup elements, called tags.  roff
    is not tag-driven markup; it is escape-driven, and generally speaking
    it is both terse and highly format-specific.  format specificity in
    sgml is achieved by a fosi.  when we developed our current tool set we
    consciously built a macro package that is more semantic in nature than
    most competing packages; and we built flavors of it that, logically
    speaking, embodied different fosis under the same macro coding.
    
    one of the reasons our stuff grows so much when we translate it is the
    technical and intensively marked-up nature of the material.  for
    example, consider the following 887-character sample in roff.  when it
    gets to DECbook, it looks like the second fragment, which is 1627
    characters in size:
    
    See
    .!A expr_special
    for more information on these classes.
    .NX r "regular expression" "precedence of operators in"
    The order of precedence of the regular expression operators discussed
    in these three sections is as follows:
    .LS 1
    .LI
    Collation-related bracket symbols:
    .L [=\|=] ,
    .L [.\|.] ,
    and
    .L [:\|:]
    .LI
    Escaped operator characters:
    .LV \e char
    .LI
    Bracket expressions:
    .LV [ expr
    .L ]
    .LI
    Subexpressions and back-reference expressions:
    .LV \e( expr
    .L \e),
    .LV \e "n "
    in basic regular expressions;
    .LV ( expr
    .L )
    only in extended regular expressions
    .LI
    Duplication:
    .L * ,
    .LV \e{ i
    .L \e} ,
    .LV \e{ i
    .L ,\e} ,
    .LV \e{ i
    .LV , j
    .L \e}
    in basic regular expressions;
    .L * ,
    .L ? ,
    .L + ,
    .LV { i
    .L } ,
    .LV { i
    .L ,} ,
    .LV { i
    .LV , j
    .L }
    in extended regular expressions
    .LI
    Concatenation
    .LI
    Anchoring:
    .L ^ ,
    .L $
    .LI
    Alternation in extended regular expressions:
    .L |
    .LE
    
    -------------------------------
    
    See
    <xref linkend="expr-special">
    for more information on these classes.
    <x>
    <x1>
    regular expression
    </x1><x2>
    precedence of operators in
    </x2></x>The order of precedence of the regular expression operators
    discussed
    in these three sections is as follows:
    <orderedlist>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Collation-related bracket symbols:
    <lit>[=&thinsp;=]</lit>,
    <lit>[.&thinsp;.]</lit>,
    and
    <lit>[:&thinsp;:]</lit>
    </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Escaped operator characters:
    <lit>&bsol;<var>char</var></lit>
    </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Bracket expressions:
    <lit>[<var>expr</var></lit>
    <lit>]</lit>
    </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Subexpressions and back-reference expressions:
    <lit>&bsol;(<var>expr</var></lit>
    <lit>&bsol;),</lit>
    <lit>&bsol;<var>n </var></lit>
    in basic regular expressions;
    <lit>(<var>expr</var></lit>
    <lit>)</lit>
    only in extended regular expressions
    </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Duplication:
    <lit>*</lit>,
    <lit>&bsol;{<var>i</var></lit>
    <lit>&bsol;}</lit>,
    <lit>&bsol;{<var>i</var></lit>
    <lit>,&bsol;}</lit>,
    <lit>&bsol;{<var>i</var></lit>
    <lit>,<var>j</var></lit>
    <lit>&bsol;}</lit>
    in basic regular expressions;
    <lit>*</lit>,
    <lit>?</lit>,
    <lit>+</lit>,
    <lit>{<var>i</var></lit>
    <lit>}</lit>,
    <lit>{<var>i</var></lit>
    <lit>,}</lit>,
    <lit>{<var>i</var></lit>
    <lit>,<var>j</var></lit>
    <lit>}</lit>
    in extended regular expressions
    </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Concatenation
    </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Anchoring:
    <lit>^</lit>,
    <lit>$</lit>
    </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
    <para>
    Alternation in extended regular expressions:
    <lit>|</lit>
    </para>
    </listitem>
    </orderedlist>

    OK, now we've got something to sink our teeth into...
    
    Consider the follwing:
    
    <lit>&bsol;(<var>expr</var></lit>
    
    For starters: end-tag omission should be used for both the <lit> and
    <var> tags. The end of /var is implied by the end of lit, and further,
    the end of lit is implied by what in SGML parlance is known as the
    record separator (RS) -- what would otherwise be known as the line feed
    at the end of the line.
    
    Start tag omission could also be invoked, especially since most of the
    markup is arranged with line breaks... there is a feature known as
    short ref, whereby each line (for instance) within some other markup
    element could automatically imply a tag.
    
    Further, there is a trade-off in human comprehension of the resulting
    document instance... if you don't care if a human can read the
    marked-up document instance and make sense of it, then the DTD
    shouldn't produce such verbose output... markup minimization should
    be used and tag names should be as short as possible (one character
    preferably) Also, there's no rule that says all the markup has
    to be bracketed in the way it is... < and > are convenient but
    are only necessary in constructing the markup definitions, not
    in the markup itself.
    
    -b

>    But it would be better... because it wouldn't weigh 800 pounds and
>    need its own room in the house, like the hardcopy set.

My hardcopy set takes up only about six feet of shelf space.

/john

    hyperbole john.
    
    

    
    well, deb...why don't you share your latest home computing
    experience???
    
    :>:>
    
    

    .52
    
    SNORE!
    

    
    It's a family notesfile!  8^)

    .53
    
    all those shortcuts would be peachykeen, were it not that the authoring
    tool we're using is somewhat persnickety about that stuff.  i didn't
    choose the tool, i only wrote the translator.
    
    anyhoo...

>                      <<< Note 114.1 by GAAS::BRAUCHER >>>
>                            -< Up tp $100, say... >-
>
>    
>    Well, OK.  If you knew a smart kid that owns a 486-based machine
>    and tons of games, etc., what would you get her for Christmas at
>    your favorite software boutique ?
>    
>      bb


I would find out what possibilities there are in her area for a local 
internet provider and sign her up for a couple of months and download the 
shareware for NetScape (and/or) Mosaic and a mail reader and set her loose 
to expand her mind.

Geoff

    DOOM!

    and the beat goes on...
    
    ftp://www.isi.edu/pub/carlton/pentium/FAQ
    
      On a related note, a new bug has surfaced in write-back and write-
      through caches of the 100 MHz version of Intel's Pentium chip
      (P100). The bug prevents multithreading from functioning at all on
      operating systems capable of supporting it (Windows NT, OS/2, and
      Unix, among others). Although it's possible to disable those
      caches, this results in a 30 percent performance reduction. The
      bug does not occur on lower-clock speed versions of the Pentium.
      Intel claims it has fixed the problem and is shipping correct
      versions of the P100. [GD]
    
    [ extracted from TidBITS#255/05-Dec-94, (c) Adam C. Engst, 1994 ]

Anybody know of a source for a phone application for a 486 multimedia machine?

I'm looking for something that can -
	o Dial a number via the modem
	o Pass voice back and forth (have soundcard/speakers and mic on my end)

Is there such a thing? Is other hardware needed for this type of app?

Thx,
-Jack

    Well, there's nothing I know of because the RS232 connection from the
    modem to the PC doesn't carry voice (the modem doesn't digitize the
    voice, and even if it did, there's no standard protocol for
    transmitting it).
    
    However, there used to be a card that you could plug into your PC
    called "Dr Watson", which you could then plug a phone line and
    a telephone handset into. It was essentially an answering machine for
    your PC, although it had some pretty fancy voicemail features. This
    card was not, however, a modem. I don't know of anything that does
    both functions...
    
    -b

    P.S. There are, however, applications that will just dial the phone for
    you via the modem, and then you use a regular telephone handset that's
    plugged into the modem for voice... but this doesn't allow you to
    record or playback the voice on the PC...
    
    -b

That was what I was afraid of.

I've got the dialing-with-desk-set capability with PhoneDisc already. I was
hoping for the rest.

Mebbe there's a ripe market there for a new device.

Thanks, -b

-Jack

    re .64
    There are now about 3 cards from various companies that are
    fax/modem, mpc II  sound card, (some) cd driver and voicemail.  It's
    software upgradeable to speakerphone and caller id, but as far as I know
    those are not out yet.  There are also developers kit and awards for best
    application.  The next generation will have faster throughput
    (for example, recording stereo 44khz and using the modem clearly
    bogs the current board down).
    A URL that hasn't been answering lately is http://watson.mbb.sfu.ca/
    .
    _bill

>    fax/modem, mpc II  sound card, (some) cd driver and voicemail

Sounds like typical overkill. I've already got most of it in one fashion or
another - just not properly matched.

Any idea what these are priced at?

There is a product called SuperVoice from Pacific Image Communications that
includes a 14.4 Data/FAX/Voice modem and software for everything from a simple
answering machine to a sophisticated voice mail system with forwarding, paging,
etc.  There is also an SDK available.

Try [email protected] or call (818) 457-8880.  Usual disclaimers apply.

Bob

RE: 114.66 by MOLAR::DELBALSO "I (spade) my (dogface)"

> Mebbe there's a ripe market there for a new device.

Not without ISDN.  

Over a standard POTS (Oh,  that's Plain Old Telephone Service for the AIT)
line,  about the highest sustainable bit rate is 24kbits per second.  To
send standard voice (requires 56kbits per second) over this would require a 
compression of about 2-3 to 1,  which just doesn't sound as good.

Oh,  and AIT is Acronym Impaired Types.  Telecom is full of TLA and FLA.


Phil

    
    is anyone aware of a CD application with the federalist/anti-federalist 
    discourses, declaration, constitution and other related stuff on it?
    
    jeff

	For $150 you can by the Complete Comunicator board that
does 14.4 fax/data and does voice mail for up to 1000 voice mail
boxes. It can dial out and send data or voice messages to other
phones and beepers. It can be setup to receive faxes and place
them in the box for each person to retrieve. The software also
allows faxes to be re sent to another fax if you want to see it 
but are out of the office.

	Works well, I have one.

 What's the difference between a 486SX2 and a 486DX2?


 Jim

    A 486SX2 has a 16 bit data path out of the processor, a 486DX2 has a 32
    bit data path...
    
    -b

    
    I believe the DX has a math coprocessor while the SX
    does not.  Could be wrong, it certainly wouldn't be
    the first time!
    
    W.
    

    RE.76 Also true... forgot about that.
    
    -b

    
    interesting.  seems dx is the basic model always in autos.  sx would
    normally denote sport - above a dx.  obviously the parallel doesn't
    exist.
    
    jeff

    
    
    Brian,
    
    I thought the 16/32 bit datapath difference between the
    SX and DX processor only applied to the 386 chips.  It
    was my impression that 486 SX/DX both have 32 bit.
    
    Of course, the previous disclaimer still applies....
    
    Walter
    

    The *only* difference between an sx2 and a dx2 is the lack of floating
    point support on the sx2.  They are both 32-bit.
    
    Mark.

    for all you peecee weenies out there, here's a remark by douglas adams. 
    yes, THE douglas adams.  yesterday he was a member of the keynote panel
    at macworld in san fran.  i got this from my daughter's intended, who
    is out there on the left coast with his trusty duo and access to a
    phone jack.
    
        I was to deliver a keynote address at a PC conference last year,
        and because I am a famous Mac user, the PR people from Intel
        thought they should send me a PC, and the PR person said, "So then
        you can say you're a PC user as well."  And what was I going to do
        when they said they'd send me a laptop?  Say no?
    
        So they sent me a Compaq laptop and I used it for a couple weeks.
        It was nice, but not as good as the real thing [his Mac].
    
        When the Intel person asked me how I liked it, that's exactly what
        I said.  She said, "Yeah, I know.  We all have Macs at home."
    
    in counterpoint, here's what herbie hancock sez.  hancock recently had
    T1 lines installed at his house ("the phone company was a little
    bewildered - they said they never put them in at somebody's HOUSE
    before").
    
        Yeah, it's nice that Apple makes a machine for the rest of us, but
        I'm a professional.

    On the other hand, the biggest selling point on their flagship
    product is that you can run PC applications on them.
    
    Sort of says it all, don't it?

    .82
    
    > you can run PC applications on them.
    >
    > Sort of says it all, don't it?
    
    what it says is that apple isn't so dumb as to ignore the fact that 85
    percent of the marketplace lives on peecees.  running a peecee app on
    your mac, next to mac apps, is one of the best ways i know to become
    convinced very quickly that apple really does have a better way.  and
    you might also notice that chicago, if it ever comes out, will look a
    whole lot more like a mac than like the current windoze.  wonder why...
    
    i can read and write peecee files on my mac, and i can translate dozens
    of document file formats between peecee apps and mac apps.  it's as
    simple as double-clicking the document and letting the mac pick the app
    it wants to run with.  if more than one app can open the doc, the mac
    asks me which one i'd like to open the doc with and then remembers that
    other docs of this type also belong to that app.  it's painless, which
    cannot be said for similar tasks on a peecee.

    had to upgrade my memory to 8mb to play 'the pagemaster' game i bought
    my son for Christmas.
    
    thankfully, i have a kind and generous mother-in-law who helped with
    the cost.
    
    jeff

    .84
    
    yeah, 8 meg is about the minimum for anything these days.  it's funny,
    isn't it.  my apple ][+ had 64 KB, and the first macintosh had 128 KB. 
    now the smallest thing you can buy is 4 meg, and that ain't enough.

    This PC/Mac thing annoys me. I use both. I like both for certain
    reasons. I have professional audio and video editing tools for
    both platforms, as well as a wide variety of multimedia and
    traditional software development tools. I also happen to like
    Microsoft NT, and Chicago (Beta) has one of the other features
    I've been missing since using the Mac: folders (known as
    groups in Windows) within folders... NT and Chicago, on the
    other hand, with the advent of OLE 2.0, really have some nice
    drag and drop features now that even exceed the Mac interface
    in a lot of areas. The religion thing bores me. Use the tools
    to the fullest... that's what it's all about.
    
    -b

RE: 114.85 by SMURF::BINDER "gustam vitare"

> it's funny,  isn't it.  my apple ][+ had 64 KB, and the first macintosh 
> had 128 KB.

And I once decided that 8kb just wasn't enough on my S-100 bus 8080A
system.  So I added an amazing 32 kb on just one board!


Phil

    .86
    
    > This PC/Mac thing annoys me. I use both.
    
    but you apparently don't understand them.  observe:
    
    > folders (known as
    > groups in Windows) within folders...
    
    mac folders are not analogous to windows groups.  they are directories. 
    period.  groups are virtual constructs of the window manager and bear
    no real relationship to a system's directory structure.
    
    > nice
    > drag and drop features now that even exceed the Mac interface
    > in a lot of areas.
    
    you're also apparently behind the times on the mac's drag and drop. 
    with d&d compliant applications, you can drag text from one app to
    another.  or to the desktop.  with stuffit deluxe, you can drag a file
    from the desktop or a folder into an archive window and get it added to
    the archive.  with the find file desk accessory you can set "type
    equals" or "creator equals" and then drag a file of the appropriate
    type or creator into the TEXT window, and it'll set the correct info
    for you.  this last feature is great for deinstalling apps - find one
    file your app created, let the find file dig up the rest of them, and
    drag it all to the trash - no need to shell out money for an
    uninstaller program.  :-)
    
    > The religion thing bores me.
    
    so you have a problem with religious discussions?  what the hell are
    you doing in the box, then?  :-)

   go MacBinder!!

    >> This PC/Mac thing annoys me. I use both.
    
    >but you apparently don't understand them.  observe:
    
    Well, starting out by telling me I don't know what I'm talking
    about is a nice way to start off a discussion... :-) I'm
    not going to start spewing credentials, which although it
    might be the standard response to such an attack, it wouldn't
    do the discussion any good.
    
    > folders (known as
    > groups in Windows) within folders...
    
    >mac folders are not analogous to windows groups.  they are directories. 
    >period.  groups are virtual constructs of the window manager and bear
    >no real relationship to a system's directory structure.
    
    You're big on the lecture thing, aren't you? Yes, I know this. Thank
    you for pointing out in the most condescending possible way that I left
    the details out while trying to make a much simpler point, which was: in
    Windows, to date, you could not have one group "reside" within another
    group. This was not the case on the Mac, where you could always have
    one folder within another folder. Folders and groups are analogous to
    the point that both contain the icons for launching applications (on
    the Mac they also contain icons for files which can be dragged or
    dropped on various application icons - a very nice feature indeed).
    Windows groups were single level... until Chicago (unless you purchased
    a third-party program like the Norton Desktop).
    
    >you're also apparently behind the times on the mac's drag and drop. 
    
    One big difference between Mac and Windows is that on the Mac,
    the things that you are talking about are (currently) part
    of the base operating system. There's no arguing with the fact
    that you need additional software to do some of the things you
    mention under Windows... and some of the things are not
    possible at all with apps that limit themselves to the "clipboard".
    Windows is evolving though and OLE 2.0 and MAPI provide some
    excellent opportunities. As a software developer, I am very
    excited about the future of Windows, and for all the slagging
    everyone does of Microsoft, I can say without reservation that
    Microsoft is *far* more open with their ISVs then Apple is.
    No comparison.
    
    As to your comment about running PC apps on Macs... it's
    just plain silly. Why spend the money on a Mac to have it
    emulate (in software) a PC's instruction set. For most
    of the applications I use (multimedia) this simply is not
    an option due to performance. But clearly, Apple and its
    minions suffer from the same horrible delusion Digital does
    with its alpha software strategy: that you can successfully
    emulate, in software, an evolving microprocessor family
    (the 80x86).
    
    But none of this has anything to do with the point I was
    really trying to make, which is: it's all well and fine
    to be religious about computers, but it sure is pointless.
    When I used to work for DEC, I bucked the trend and had
    programmers on my team use C instead of Bliss. Later, I
    bucked the trend again and went for C++. I bucked the
    trend when everyone was doing VAX and started programming
    PCs, etc. I have never been religious about computers.
    They are extremely stupid things that do only what I
    tell them to do. :-) I've never been religious about
    computer languages or operating systems either. Getting
    my undies in a bunch over any one language, OS or hardware
    platform in futile. I'm basically a whore. If there's
    a potential consulting client out there who uses it,
    it's good enough for me.
    
    -b

    .90
    
    > nice way to start off a discussion... :-)
    
    next time i'll have an easier time understanding that you're really
    just trying to paint a simplistic picture for non-nerds if you say
    something that indicates you're holding a brush.  calling groups
    folders just didn't convey that impression.  :-)
    
    >> mac folders are not analogous to windows groups...
    >
    > You're big on the lecture thing, aren't you?
    
    nope.  if i were, i'd have wasted several screens explaining how
    folders work, what makes them better from a user's point of view than
    groups, why and how the desktop folder is handled differently, and what
    groups really are.  i stated simple facts simply and briefly.  no
    condescension intended, i assure you.
    
    > Microsoft is *far* more open with their ISVs then Apple is.
    
    make that "Apple was" and i'll agree.  apple is now licensing the
    entire operating system EVEN INCLUDING THE ROM CODE that makes such
    snazzy features as QuickDraw work.
    
    > Why spend the money on a Mac to have it
    > emulate (in software) a PC's instruction set.
    
    oh, i wouldn't do that.  i'd use a power mac 6100/60 DOS compatible,
    which has 486dx2/60 256-svga hardware onboard, can run both systems AT
    THE SAME TIME, INCLUDING BACKGROUND OPERATIONS, on either one or two
    monitors, and uses all the mac's disks, serial ports, and built-in
    ethernet hardware.
    
    > it's all well and fine
    > to be religious about computers, but it sure is pointless.
    
    actually, i agree.  and i tell people honestly that, when they have
    evaluated their needs and wants and budgets, if they find that a pc is
    better for them than a mac, go for it, and here's what i'd recommend
    you look for in terms of a configuration.  but give the mac a fair
    shake - which certain salespeople won't do.  (last summer i watched a
    real salesperson say to a customer, "don't buy a mac, they're more
    expensive, they're slower, and there's no software for them."  three
    lies out of three, not bad, huh?)
    
    for most people coming fresh into computers, especially for home use,
    the macintosh is imho a better machine.  for people who need or want
    the specific things that a pc can do better, the pc is the right
    machine.

I have both systems as well.

The Mac has an elegant UI (compared to Windows 3.x) and is much more 
stable. It also has the most inane, silly, annoying documentation I've ever 
seen. Enough to make me want to through the whole thing out. The people who 
bring you the Mac clearly took an overdose of cute pills. I chalk it off to 
being a kalifornica product.

The PC is a cludge, but it's got a lot more software. Which means that the 
Macs will prolly go the way of the Sony bata video. Hope we're smart enough 
to preserve a few in the smithsonian, though. It has historic significance 
because its the first product of a cross between flower children and 
engineers.

    The advantage of buying a Mac is that you just go to the store and pick
    out the model you want.  If you want a PC, you have to winnow through
    all the manufacturers (IBM?  Dell?  Toshiba?) as well as all the
    different models.

Re: <<< Note 114.93 by DTRACY::CHELSEA "Mostly harmless." >>>

>>    The advantage of buying a Mac is that you just go to the store and pick
>>    out the model you want.  If you want a PC, you have to winnow through
>>    all the manufacturers (IBM?  Dell?  Toshiba?) as well as all the
>>    different models.

This is the first time I've ever seen lack of choice, lack of competition and
lack of multiple sources listed as an "advantage" to the consumer.

                                  Roak

    Simplicity is a virtue.  The average consumer is intimidated by
    computers to begin with, so not only do they not understand them,
    they're not at all sure they _want_ to understand them.  A no-fuss
    product like the Mac takes some of the stress out of the purchase.
    
    BTW, the Mac does not suffer from "lack of competition" or "lack of
    choice" -- not with PCs on the market.

    Chelsea, the first Mac clone is being shown at MacWorld this month.
    
    The economies inherent to a successful clone market (ha, ha, Sun)
    make this the only possible way Apple can hope the Mac stays
    competitive.  Well, that and the PowerMacs.
    
    DougO

    I can't fix a car.  I don't know how to tune one.  They cost a lot more
    than a PC and are probably more complex.  I'm sure glad there are more
    choices than simply Dodge.  I love the ?stress? of shopping for a new
    car.
    
    BTW, welcome back Chelsea.
    
    -- Jim
    

>> The people who 
>> bring you the Mac clearly took an overdose of cute pills. 
    
    Wait'll you see "Bob" for the PC from Microsloth, assuming it ever
    gets out the door.  It's supposed to be some kind of "alternative
    Windows" for the PC-shy among us.  The article I'd read about it
    stated something like "The user may become annoyed with perky
    cartoon characters that pop in, offering unsolicited advice",
    among other cutesy-poo creatures and features.
    
    It was named "Bob" to sound friendly, approachable, and non-threatening,
    apparently by marketing types who are frequent watchers of "The Bob
    Newhart Show".
    
    Chris

    .96
    
    > Chelsea, the first Mac clone is being shown at MacWorld this month.
    
    non sequitur.  the mac is still simple.  setting aside packaged
    systems, here's what we mean.  you buy a vanilla box, and you get:
    
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    mac					peecee
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    256- or 32767-color video		vga or svga card and software must
    built in, including software	be chosen, bought, and installed
    
    8- or 16-bit stereo sound input	beep built in.  for sound, a card
    and output hardware built in,	and software must be chosen, bought.
    including software			and installed
    
    two serial ports built in,		no serial ports built in, cards and
    including driver software for	software must be chosen, bought,
    appletalk networking, which offers	and installed
    built-in file sharing
    
    mouse port built in, including	no mouse port built in, mouse and
    software				card and software must be chosen,
    					bought, and installed
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    this isn't a complete list - but you get the idea.  the mac customer
    isn't faced with dozens of threatening, confusing, and potentially
    expensive decisions, the peecee customer is.  the only thing that saves
    the peecee in the average home user's eyes is packaged systems.  but
    even then there are worries, such as: when you buy a system, do you get
    100-percent soundblaster compatibilty?  or do you get 99.9 percent
    compatibility.  and is your video board going to run everything?  (my
    brother's snazzy accelerated svga board barfs on several of the games
    in microsoft arcade.  the ones he bought the software for, naturally.)

    > here's what we mean.
    
    what you mean 'we', paleface?  
    
    > non sequitur.  the mac is still simple. 
    
    That isn't the aspect of Mac purchasing/PC purchasing that I take as
    most significant in the existence of a clone market, though I recognize
    that simplicity of configuration is a powerful attractant.  So it may
    be non sequitur to *you*, but to those who think that a Mac clone
    market will finally force some downward price pressure onto Mac without
    forcing the penalty of a PC operating system, it isn't.
    
    DougO
    
    

    > what you mean 'we', paleface?
    
    me and chels.  we both remarked on that specific aspect of the issue.
    
    > downward price pressure
    
    i'm all for downward price pressure.  but if we revisit this discussion
    in, say, five years, i think you'll find that macs and mac clones are
    still simpler to choose and buy than are peecees and peecee clones. 
    and they're likely still to be simpler to use, too, even with the clear
    leap forward in peecee usability that chicago promises.
    
    my daughter's fianc�'s brother-in-law is just now considering the
    purchase of a home machine.  he tells me that the specific reason he
    will probably buy a peecee clone is that both his and his wife's work
    environments are peecee-based.  he said quite frankly that he'd rather
    have a mac.

RE: 114.99 by SMURF::BINDER "gustam vitare"

>    256- or 32767-color video		vga or svga card and software must
>    built in, including software	be chosen, bought, and installed

Odd,  I bought a stripped pc that came with svga,  mouse,  and two serial
ports.  I did have to buy a sound board.  To give you an idea of how
stripped the system was,  I bought hard drives,  CD rom drive,  tape backup
and floppy drive separately!

I did also have to buy software,  namely Windows NT,  which included all
software for svga,  mouse,  sound board and mouse.  Also software for CD
rom drive,  tape backup,  etc.

Windows NT also includes features that Macs will not have for years,  such 
a real file system. 


Phil

    .102
    
    you got an atypical machine, methinks, but then times are changing. 
    clone makers aren't dumb, and they can see the handwriting on the wall.
    it reads, "sell boxes that don't need millions of add-ons just to be
    able to run."
    
    but i'm not going to argue this issue further.  buy what you want, and
    use it and get the most out of it, and you've done well.  whatever the
    label on the box says.

    > i'm all for downward price pressure.  but if we revisit this discussion
    > in, say, five years, i think you'll find that macs and mac clones are
    > still simpler to choose and buy than are peecees and peecee clones. 
    
    Again- the simplicity of configuration ("choose and buy") isn't what I
    was talking about, so I dunno why you called my remarks non sequitur.
    Apple will (has) set a standard for what a MAC must do; and clone
    makers will of course be forced to honor that.  But the opening of a
    clone market will leave them plenty of latitude to find and implement
    higher quality at lower prices than we get from Apple.  
    
    DougO

    I'm very happy with my 486DX with built-in CD player and 17" monitor.
    
    Install Visual C++ and you've got a happy camper.
    
    
    Yes -- the Mac does do a lot of things better, but that, in and of
    itself, isn't necessarily a persuasive argument to choose the Mac over
    a PC.
    

    Re: .97
    
    >I can't fix a car.  I don't know how to tune one.
    
    But you do know how to drive one.  The average consumer doesn't know
    how to drive a computer.  You have some idea of what an engine does and 
    what the transmission does.  You understand what you need to do to for
    regular maintenance.  You've been around them all your life, and they
    don't make you uncomfortable.  Not so for the average consumer and
    computers.  As for variety of choices, your primary criterion for a car 
    will either be price or class (minivan, sports car, etc) which narrows
    the choices considerably.
    
    >BTW, welcome back Chelsea.
    
    Thanks.

    .104
    
    > But the opening of a
    > clone market will leave them plenty of latitude to find and implement
    > higher quality at lower prices than we get from Apple.
    
    and i expect that they will do so.  but my expectation is that it won't
    be at the expense of ease of use or simplicity of purchase, else many
    people will, as they do now, perceive that the added price of real
    apple hardware is justified by its added convenience.

    
    My brother's a mechanic and he knows how to fix cars (and garbage
    trucks and motorcycles.)
    
    When he first started looking at computers at the store, he couldn't
    even figure out 'how do you get the arrow to move?'  Showed him how the
    mouse rolls(runs) on the desk.  He was illiterate about these things.
    
    I went over there, helped him plug it all together (hey, I'm the older
    brother, he does all the work, I watch to make sure he doesn't break
    anything)  Follows all the pictures on the box and on the big
    instruction sheet, has it ready to go in 10-15 minutes.  Show him how
    to run programs in windows.  10 minutes later, he's having a great time
    playing with fonts and colors and drawing pictures and so on.
    I show him how to install the games for his kids (had him read the
    directions and follow 'em.  That was the hardest part.  He likes to
    jump ahead and start doing.)
    
    He called me a couple of times in the next week or so, asking more and
    more sophisticated questions.  3 months later he figures out how to
    install a sound board by himself, gets it to work first time.  No
    hassles.
    
    These pc's aint as hard as the mac guys are making them out to be...

    
    I'm on my 4th machine at home : a Rainbow, a 286, a mac, now a 486.
    
    I've never had any trouble with any of them.  I opened each with a
    screwdriver almost first thing, looked it over, put it back
    together.  Though I have Windows, I've gone back to DOS.  Since I
    largely use assemblers and compilers, the OS provides me little
    benefit anyways - I prefer to write my own environment.
    
    At work, I wouldn't use any of these.  I need a multi-user OS, so
    must be Unix, VMS, NT, or some such.  But for home, they're OK.
    
    I'd say, go on price.  Whatever you buy, in 5 years tops it will be
    worthless on the market.  Like cars, only depreciates faster.  So
    be prepared to give it away to the poor.
    
      bb

    > and i expect that they will do so.  but my expectation is that it won't
    > be at the expense of ease of use or simplicity of purchase, else many
    > people will, as they do now, perceive that the added price of real
    > apple hardware is justified by its added convenience.
    
    uh- fine, so do I.  now who's non-sequitur?
    
    DougO

    .110
    
    the participle is sequens, not sequitur.  :-)  ergo, sequens sum, i.e.,
    i've been following.
    
    and the discussion does indeed follow.  the inference that i drew from
    the thread of your remarks re mac clones is that the clone makers will
    likely achieve their quality/cost goals by unbundling things that are
    built into the present macs, thereby emulating not the mac but rather
    the peecee.  and i think that's not what'll happen.  the mac software
    expects too many things to be there as a matter of course; it's
    inherent to the ease-of-use paradigm.  which puts us right back to the
    thread we were on, i.e., mac v. peecee and their consumer preferability
    scores.

    oh, well, latin is not a language I've studied.  I'm not surprised I
    get participles wrong.
    
    > the inference that i drew from the thread of your remarks re mac
    > clones is that the clone makers will likely achieve their quality/cost
    > goals by unbundling things that are built into the present macs,
    
    I don't agree with the inference.  I think clone makers will achieve
    quality/cost goals by being hungrier than Apple and thus more incented
    to stay closer to the technology edge; thus finding and exploiting
    lower cost components without sacrificing the Mac spec.
    
    DougO

    "incented"???
    
    i disagree with the idea that lower-cost components and the "technology
    edge" are inherently a good thing.  i've seen too doggone many
    third-party cd-rom drives that aren't QUITE compatible, too many
    third-party keyboards for half the price that last half as long, and so
    on.  i suppose there is always a market for cheap, else why would
    anyone ever have bought a yugo, but some people and businesses won't
    get suckered into that quagmire.  when i bought a 105-key keyboard for
    my mac, i looked at third-party boards ranging in price from $70 to
    $130.  when i was done looking at specs and reading reviews and tapping
    on keys that felt like fisher-price toys, i bought an apple extended
    keyboard, a $160 item, because it feels better, looks better, is 100%
    compatible, and will last a lot longer.

    >"incented"???
         
    You should hear some of what the Mac product marketing guys say when
    you're drinking wine with 'em.
    
    > i disagree with the idea that lower-cost components and the
    > "technology edge" are inherently a good thing.
    
    inherently, well, I'm not claiming that; but in the aggregate, that's
    what has driven the PC clone market prices so low.  It has the
    potential to work that way in the Mac clone market too...not that there
    won't be disasters along the way, just like there have been with
    aggressive technology lead-ins within Apple.  What was the name of that
    internal disk drive that had so many problems, that delayed or screwed
    up the Lisa intro, was it from Micropolis?  Anyway; no, certainly there
    is risk in the approach.  But some of those who risk it may pull it
    off.
    
    >but some people and businesses won't get suckered into that quagmire.
    
    Right- witness the success of the IBM PC over the clones in their first
    years. IBM had slower buses, slower drives, slower memory, but they
    were perceived as a quality vendor who would fix the product.  But the
    clones won the markets in the long run.
    
    DougO
    
    

    .114
    
    > clones won the market in the long run.
    
    indeed they did.  and they did it, as i suggest the apple clones will
    have to do, by cleaning up their act.  the ones that were shipping crap
    iron got dragged out by the heels in the bloodbath, and the ones that
    are left are, by and large, shipping quality stuff.  which i'm all for
    in the mac market, too.
    
    i will point out that there will still be some number of diehards,
    people who will buy strictly from apple (as there are who buy from ibm)
    because they have come to rely on apple.  this is a philosophy that
    dear mother digital once tried to encourage in customers, too, on the
    principle that when something goes wrong, you need to contact only one
    vendor who knows how all its products work and fit together.  what a
    joke...

Question -

If a person already wastes too much time fiddling with their PC
at home and dialing into the Enet to mess around with notes
and stuff when they've got more than enough things to do at home
which they really _should_ be spending their time on, does it
make any particular sense to subscribe to one of those services
that provides them connectivity to the world?

    Guess not...  Unless figgering out wot the future holds, and carrying
    on the continuous re-skilling that keeps a career on track, is of
    interest...
    
    :-)
    
    |-{:-)
    

You raise an interesting point, Dan.

How much can one gain from the infosuperhighway which might
be beneficial in furthering, or pursuing, careers which are
not necessarily computer oriented? How much stuff is out there
which would enable people to branch out into totally different
areas and career paths?

In this day and age when just about anything can benefit from
the application of PC's/MAC's/Etc., how's the connectivity to
other disciplines?

    Not to stick my nose in here, but... well, OK, I'll stick my nose in a
    little... :-)
    
    Pretty much anything you can think of has a newsgroup out on internet.
    A lot of the newsgroups are for professionals in a variety of fields,
    not just computers. One example is "rec.audio.pro" which is for sound
    engineers and other audio professionals. So, if you're interested
    in something you can generally find it.
    
    On the other hand, if you're looking to learn enough about a subject
    to make a career out of it, the information superhighway won't help
    much. It's not like going to college with a modem...
    
    The newsgroup structure is similar to notes files... and sure you
    can find more in-depth documents at ftp sites if you surf the
    web a bit... but you won't find the depth of information you
    need to start a new career. On the other hand, you will find the
    network an invaluable resource while you are learning. There's
    a fair amount of expertise out there, and if you ask the right
    questions you can normally get reasonable answers.
    
    Beware though, the signal to noise ratio remains pretty low and
    is generally worse when universities are in session... I know,
    I know, freshman are people too...
    
    -b

    .118> how's the connectivity to other disciplines?
    
    Neat way of asking the question, Jack.  I think the connectivity is
    broadening and deepening daily.  Part of the reason is what I've called
    the "cultural imperialism of computer science."  I.e., in the early
    days, computers were relevant to computers, then to mathematics, then
    to engineering, then to acoustics, then to architecture, then to text
    manipulation, ... and that's only one evolutionary path!  Nowadays
    there's a computer angle to sociology (modeling group dynamics) to
    business projection (modeling currency shifts, market trends), art (new
    media, digitization of old, worldwide publishing of existing and new
    works), publishing itself (with the Web and its descendants)...  More
    and more of "life" is being influenced by computers.  More and more of
    these influences are being discussed on the Web in particular, and on
    the Internet (and in CompuServe fora, etc...) in general.  So plugging
    in to "cyberspace" can get you connected to amazingly creative stuff
    across an ever-broadening spectrum of human endeavor.  Amazing, really...

    No note in the 'box is impervious to slipping in a Newt reference!!
    
    What is this I've heard about Newt wanting to put laptop computers into
    the hands of Welfare mothers?  Is this true?  Does he think the chips
    are edible?
    
    -- Jim

    re: Note 114.98 by DECWIN::RALTO
    
    > Wait'll you see "Bob" for the PC from Microsloth, assuming it ever
    > gets out the door.  It's supposed to be some kind of "alternative
    > Windows" for the PC-shy among us.  The article I'd read about it
    
    Ho ho, you got me to thinkin', maybe someone outta make a "MADMIKE".
    
    ????? <click> ???   <clickity-click>  ????? 
    
    {boink: "Hey BUDDY, what the hell are you doing?  IT'S THE OTHER GD MOUSE 
    BUTTON!!!!"}                                          

    re: Note 114.116 by MOLAR::DELBALSO
      
    > which they really _should_ be spending their time on, does it
    > make any particular sense to subscribe to one of those services
    > that provides them connectivity to the world?
    
    It makes sense for YOU to become "the service".
    
    ** Welcome to DelBlasto's whorehouse **
    $5 bucks an hour, 1st meg downloaded free...
    
    meanwhile yer out mowing the lawn (or shovelling snow, in your case).
    I haven't figured out how to hook up my PeeCee to my reloading stuff
    yet.

    re: .122
    
    Heh-heh, conjures up an image of Taz spinning around on the screen,
    growling out IRQ settings at some weekend mouse potato trying
    desperately to install a multimedia kit.
    
    Chris

        <<< Note 114.116 by MOLAR::DELBALSO "I (spade) my (dogface)" >>>

>Question -
>
>If a person already wastes too much time fiddling with their PC
>at home and dialing into the Enet to mess around with notes
>and stuff when they've got more than enough things to do at home
>which they really _should_ be spending their time on, does it
>make any particular sense to subscribe to one of those services
>that provides them connectivity to the world?
    
    No.
    
    Mark.

    
    Hi Folks,
    
    I'm looking to buy a joystick for my computer so we can play Mega Race
    and other games.  Does anyone have a recommendation based upon
    experience?
    
    jeff

    .126
    
    do you want one that's absolutely good or only relatively ? :-)
    
    ric

    
    absolutely, please!
    
    jeff

Gravis MouseStick works great for me.  I recall it costing something like $69.

Jim

    .128
    
    well i can't give an absolute recommendation cos i'm unaware of any
    absolute way of measuring this, and the Bible doesn't mention them 8^)
    
    but relative to the competition, it's the Thrustmaster (oo-er) for me
    
    ric

Are you a Soccer loving, multi-media peecee owning resident of ZKO?

If so, and you'd like a free for nothing CD entitled Sports Image
World Cup 94, be the first to reply to this note (no Email, please)
and I'll drop it in your office tomorrow.

    
    
    Any one of many works of art from any of my kids.  This stuff beats all
    the works of the masters and is worth much more.......
    
    
    
    Mike

Er, #350, perhaps, Michael?

   re: .131
   
   Soccer loving - yes
   multi-media peecee owning - sort of
   resident of ZKO - yes
   would like a free for nothing CD entitled Sports Image World Cup 94 - sure
   
   								-mr. bill

 Brought home a laptop that my former boss loaned to me..and oldie (DEC 320p).
 Anyhow, trying to set up the modem so's I could dial into work and I get
 echoing characters (eecchhooiinngg cchhaarraacctteerrs) when I start typing
 account names and passwords...now what do I do?


  Jim

    
    Jim,
    
    Something is in "half duplex" mode. The modem and the software you
    are using should be in "full duplex" mode. Sometimes, there's
    buttons on the front of the modem... or you may have to go into
    the setup menu in your terminal software and change it there.
    
    Half duplex means that the terminal itself is responsible for
    echoing characters to the screen. Hull duplex means that the
    computer you are connected to is responsible for doing this.
    If both the terminal and the computer are echoing characters,
    two of everything you type will appear on the screen. Generally,
    this does not effect the operation of the software... it's
    just annoying.
    
    -b

    If it was loaned to you by your boss, Jimbo, I would suggest the
    following:
    
    Allow cats to trample all over it and play with the keys, then, throw
    it out of the window and sigh, long and dreamilly (new word) as it 
    smashes into thousands of little useless bits of plastic.

    When the boss asked what happened, claim the character echoing caused
    you to become very distressed andyou thought that the thing was haunted
    and someone was copying everything you did.
    
    You'll get away with and get a pay rise for saving the boss from
    possible mental disturbance.

    and if it's too heavy, delete all the files from it to lighten it up...

 RE .136  Thanks Brian

 re .137/138  My cat already wandered accross the keyboard..and my old
 boss would almost expect me to toss the thing out the window.



 Jim

"Half duplex" is a term most often misused to mean "full duplex with local copy"

 How does one make the changes from half to full or whatever, on an internal
 modem?  I looked at the various set up menus and didn't see anything.





Jim

    
    Most likely, the setting you need to change is in your terminal
    emulation software... tell us what software it is and perhaps
    one of us knows enough about it to point you in the right
    direction...
    
    Most TE programs have a menu for "communications setup", generally
    the option you need to set is there... it should read "half
    duplex" or "local echo off" or "no local echo", etc.
    
    -b

  I was using the Terminal accessory with Windows.  I disabled the Local Echo,
 and when I typed nothing appeared on the screen.  :-O



 maybe what I'll do is sit the laptop on my lap, crank up the desktop PC and
 compare screens.  I put VTSTAR on the Laptop, but haven't tried it yet.



 Jim

    Dear me.  Half Duplex means only one modem may talk at a time.  Often
    the protocol used is ENQ/ACK (as opposed to XON/XOFF).  Since the other
    modem cannot send while yours is talking, your software must echo what you
    type.  Therefore the confusion re: echo.  Half Duplex does not mean
    echo.  Echo is simply a by-product.  tsk-tsk.
    
    Since half-duplex modem traffic is one-way, all of the bandwidth is
    available to the talking modem, effectively doubling your baud rate. 
    This was used in a lot of RJE stuff to dump data and retrieve reports. 
    It sucks really bad for interactive use.
    
    High speed modems have eliminated most of the need for half-dupe
    communication.  However, I still have three modems out in our data
    center running half-duplex BELL 208B for funds transfer and use with
    EDI.  The banks and VARs still haven't heard that we can go faster than
    4800 baud.
    
    Later,
    	   Mike

    Heads up you prospective `Windows 95' clients!


                                                      Monday, March 27, 1995
****************************************************************************
First!  First!  First!  First!  First!  First!  First!  First!  First!  (tm)
****************************************************************************
-- Specialized Knowledge for the Enterprise     (C) 1995 by Individual, Inc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROFILE TITLE:   Digital Equipment PC NewsWatch
CUSTOMIZED BY:   Digital Equipment Corp

============================================================================
14,770 Stories Received Today; 13 Relevant To Your Profile:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. DESKTOP OPERATING SYSTEM - WINDOWS 95 BETA FAILS TO MEET PROMISES -
    EXPECT IS HELP-DESK PERSONNEL TO LOSE BUSHELS OF HAIR WHEN

11. MICROSOFT'S WINDOWS 95 FLAWED - MAGAZINE

============================================================================
SUBJECT:  DESKTOP OPERATING SYSTEM - WINDOWS 95 BETA FAILS TO MEET PROMISES
          - EXPECT IS HELP-DESK PERSONNEL TO LOSE BUSHELS OF HAIR WHEN
SOURCE:   InfoWorld Publishing Company via First! by Individual, Inc.
DATE:     March 26, 1995
INDEX:    [10]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  InfoWorld via First! : Corporate customers who have outgrown Windows 3.1
and are waiting for Windows 95 to come to the rescue could be in for
countless problems and a colossal disappointment.  I just received what
Microsoft Corp. is calling the last beta of Windows 95.  And although it has
some improvements over Windows 3.1, it perpetuates many of the existing
problems and doesn't live up to the grandiose promises set by Microsoft.

  Among those promises are easy installation, greater reliability,
performance equal to or better than Windows 3.1, real 32-bit pre-emptive
multitasking, a friendly and more powerful desktop, and compatibility with
existing MS-DOS and 16-bit Windows applications.  This current beta falls
short in every category.

  Install we trust

  Beta M8 installs with fewer problems than the last beta I tested, but
installation still isn't trouble-free by a long shot.  You can run the
Windows 95 installation program from an existing copy of Windows.  This
makes it fairly easy to upgrade your users over the network, and it will be
the preferred method for ease of use.  But it could also be one of Windows
95's greatest vulnerabilities.

  When you install Windows 95 over an existing copy of DOS and Windows, it
inherits all of the network drivers, device drivers, and utilities that are
loaded in your CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and SYSTEM.INI files -- even the
ones it won't need or can't work with.

  It left in all of my memory manager, network, CD-ROM, and Sound Blaster
drivers, even though Windows 95 properly sniffed out and loaded its own
drivers for these features.  Redundancy like this won't always bring Windows
95 down, but it will eat up a lot of conventional RAM for DOS sessions.

  An OS must know its limits

  Unfortunately, the RAM most precious to Windows 95 is the tiny portion it
allocates for Windows resources.  That's one reason Windows 95 will prove to
be as unreliable as Windows 3.1.  I quickly ran out of resources on my 486
with 32MB of RAM when simply running the 32-bit version of Microsoft Word
for Windows 6.0 and exploring the Microsoft Network -- and believe me, there
isn't that much of the Microsoft Network to explore.

  It is preposterous enough that a 32-bit multitasking operating system
would run out of resources with 32MB of RAM simply by running too many
applications or having too many folders open.  Once resources dip below 10
percent, everything slows to a crawl, some programs stop working, and others
can exhibit bizarre behavior.  Once or twice, when resources went to zero,
Windows 95 froze hard.

  The irony of this is that it will be the multitasking, the new folder-
oriented desktop, and the best-written Windows 95 applications that exhaust
the resources.  Word isn't resource hungry, because it's simply the single-
threaded, 16-bit version recompiled for 32-bit operation.  Microsoft
Network, though, is designed to take advantage of Windows 95's
multithreading to let you do several things on the network at a time, so it
eats resources like candy.  Good luck to all those ISVs "building for
Windows 95" who are doing the same.

  A riveting performer

  This beta is unusable when using 4MB of RAM.  It is uncomfortably slow on
my 33-MHz 486DX with 8MB of RAM.  And it is excruciatingly slow on a 25-MHz
486SX with 8MB when it runs off a disk compressed with Stac Electronics
Inc.'s Stacker, because the compression forces Windows 95 into using real-
mode disk access.  You'll have to start with 12MB and add memory to work
comfortably.

  The Windows 95 beta is downright snappy on my 66-MHz 486DX2 and 90-MHz
Pentium, both with 32MB of RAM.  But neither machine is fast enough to
compensate for its poor multitasking.  My copy of cc:Mail Remote for DOS
works fine as a foreground application, but it simply times out and fails to
exchange messages when I run it in the background, even when I set the CPU
idle sensitivity for the DOS session to its lowest setting.

  Windows 95 has performance dropouts, which were most typically manifested
by the display not being able to keep up with my typing.  Don't bother
formatting any floppies or doing any other intensive floppy access if you
want to get any work done in another application.  Some operations in 16-bit
applications lock the CPU and don't let you switch to another application
until they're done.  And forget about liberal use of OLE.  Not only is OLE a
system resource hog, but OLE performance in Windows 95 is horrendous.
Typing within a Word for Windows OLE object that's embedded in a Microsoft
Excel spreadsheet under Windows 95 is a torturous experience.  This is
clearly a Windows 95 problem, because I can run the same 32-bit versions of
Word and Excel under Windows NT and not experience this lag-time typing
problem in OLE objects.

  Windows 95's flaky behavior extends into its networking, too.  Every time
I restarted Windows 95, it couldn't make up its mind about how it wanted to
log me into the network.  I started it up one time, and it asked me for a
password for each server I use, and it automatically remapped to all the
servers and drives the way I had them set up last using the Network
Neighborhood utility.  Then the next time I started Windows 95, it asked me
just once for my password and ran my NetWare log-in script and mapped the
drives according to that.

  All that glitters is not gold

  What can I say about the desktop that you haven't already read one hundred
times over?  It's pretty.

  And the relatively easy-to-use desktop is perhaps the biggest improvement
over Windows 3.1, although it falls far short of both the Macintosh desktop
and the OS/2 Workplace Shell in depth and functionality.

  Microsoft has insisted since day one that the tendency of Windows 95's
"shortcuts" (icons that point to file objects) to get lost when you move a
file is a bug, not a design problem.  If so, it's a bug Microsoft seems
unable to fix.  Shortcuts still get confused if you move the files they
point to another directory -- and get hopelessly lost if you move them to
another drive.  The only improvement in this beta is that Windows 95 will
always ask you before redirecting a shortcut to the wrong file.  But it ends
up pointing to the wrong file, nonetheless.

  As for compatibility, Windows 95 did run every application I threw at it
but not flawlessly.  To name a few of the experiences: cc:Mail for Windows
caused frequent General Protection Faults; cc:Mail Remote for DOS repeatedly
displayed long lines of extraneous letters when addressing mail; and Lotus
Notes for Windows warned me it wouldn't run properly and then couldn't find
most of the servers on the network.

  Some of these problems are bugs Microsoft may be able to fix, perhaps even
by its projected August ship date.  But the most serious problems are design
flaws -- installation gotchas, inadequate performance, poor multitasking,
resource limitations, shallow desktop functionality, and woefully inadequate
error handling.

  Windows 96?

  I fear that unless Microsoft goes back to the drawing board on this
operating system, only light home users will get anything out of it.
Corporate users will gain more headaches than advantages for the investment
in time and hardware it will take to move from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.
Given the condition of the M8 beta, I cannot recommend such a move.

  As for the resource problems in particular, Microsoft claims it can fix
them by moving the Windows class out of the 64KB user heap and into the 32-
bit address space.  They even hand-delivered me a later build to prove it.
This build does, indeed, seem to let you do more before you run out of
resources.

  But there's a problem with this strategy.  Operating system architecture
is a delicate balance of design decisions.  When you poke them in one place,
they tend to pop out in another.  And this later build is far less stable
than the M8 beta.

  Since Microsoft has known about the resource problem for some months now,
I have to question why it is trying this "fix" on one of the most
fundamental aspects of the architecture after the release of what it is
calling the "final" beta.  And if Microsoft does intend to make this change
a part of the shipping version of Windows 95, then the 400,000 people who
participate in this final beta will be reporting levels of stability and
compatibility based on a version of the operating system that no longer
exists.

  If you're committed to the Windows platform, and you're determined to move
your Windows 3.1 users to a 32-bit operating system, Windows 95 could turn
out to be one of the most compelling reasons to invest in the hardware
necessary to run Windows NT.

  Opinion: Nope

  Windows 95

  Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.  (800) 426-9400, (206) 882-8080; fax:
(206) 93-MSFAX

  Price: Not announced.

  Pros: Attractive interface; slightly better multitasking than Windows 3.1.

  Cons: This beta doesn't live up to its billing in numerous categories.

[03-26-95 at 13:00 EST, Copyright 1995, InfoWorld, File: x0326000.4di]

============================================================================
SUBJECT:  MICROSOFT'S WINDOWS 95 FLAWED - MAGAZINE
SOURCE:   Reuters via First! by Individual, Inc.
DATE:     March 26, 1995
INDEX:    [11]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  SEATTLE, Reuters Corporate World News via First! : Microsoft Corp's long-
awaited Windows 95 computer operating system is deeply flawed and unlikely
to be reliable enough for corporate customers, according to a review of the
final test version in an influential trade magazine.

  "I fear that unless Microsoft goes back to the drawing board on this
operating system, only light home users will get anything out of it," says
the review by Nicholas Petreley in Monday's issue of InfoWorld, a weekly
publication aimed at corporate computer managers.

  Yusuf  Mehdi, a product manager in Microsoft's personal systems division,
downplayed the review but acknowledged the company's programmers are working
to make the program more robust in time for its promised August
availability.

  "In later builds we're improving the capability to run more applications
at once," he said.

  He said the final test, or beta version, of Windows 95, which was shipped
this month to 50,000 users, can handle about eight tasks or applications
simultaneously, and programmers are aiming to double that before the product
goes to manufacturing in the next several months.

  "It's actually not a major change," he said.

  Top Microsoft executives from Chairman Bill Gates down have said in recent
weeks that Windows 95 is on track to meet the August availability date, the
latest in a series of targets set by the company.

  Windows 95 is expected to be Microsoft's biggest product launch ever,
generating up to $1 billion in upgrade revenue in the first year, and scores
of independent companies are developing software and hardware that builds on
its touted capabilities.

  Petreley, executive editor of InfoWorld, said the final beta, to be sent
out to 400,000 corporate users under a "Preview Program" beginning this
month, required at least 12 megabytes of random access memory, or RAM, to
work properly.

  Microsoft officials repeatedly have said that Windows 95 would work on any
machine that currently runs the current version of the company's widespread
Windows operating environment, most of which have only four or eight
megabytes of RAM.

  "If you're happy with your computer's performance under Windows 3.1,
you'll be just as happy with Windows 95," Mehdi said.

  He said Windows 95 delivers the features most important to both home and
business customers, including easy installation of peripheral devices such
as printers and CD-ROM players, compatibility with all existing DOS and
Windows programs, an improved user interface and better productivity.

  He said the "vast majority of users" would never run into the problems
described in the InfoWorld review. "The Preview Program will bear that out,"
he said.

[03-26-95 at 15:27 EST, Copyright 1995, Reuters America Inc., File:
w0326152.500]
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> NO NEED TO WAIT FOR THAT WINDOWS 95 E-MAIL CLIENT

   Microsoft Corp. is promising to include a program in Windows 95 that will
   let you send electronic mail over the Internet. While this is an
   attractive offer, don't feel like you need to wait for the operating
   system to debut to get Windows-based tools for messaging over a public
   network.
   [Network World, 499 words, 005911#]

>> USERS APPLAUD LATEST BETA OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS 95 CORPORATE AND HOME
   USERS, INDUSTRY ANALYSTS EAGER FOR SOFTWARE TO BE RELEASED IN AUGUST

   Microsoft Corp. today reported that early user feedback on the latest
   test version of the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system, known
   internally as the beta 3 release, confirms that the product is on track
   for final delivery in August. Microsoft also confirmed that based ...
   [PR Newswire, 624 words, 002464#]

>> MICROSOFT `WINDOWS 95' FLAWED

   Microsoft Corp.'s long-awaited Windows 95 operating system has a flaw
   that can freeze up computers when running several applications at the
   same time, the company acknowledged Friday.
   [Associated Press, 316 words, 003106#]

>> WIN95 BETA LAYS EGG - OPERATING SYSTEM FREEZES RUNNING 32-BIT
   MULTITASKING APPS

   What was publicized as the largest beta program in history failed to turn
   up a fundamental architectural flaw in Windows 95 that causes the
   operating system to freeze when multitasking a few 32-bit applications,
   Microsoft Corp. officials conceded last week.
   [InfoWorld, 702 words, 006076#]

Now available from Discovery Channel Multimedia at $49.95, "The Beer Hunter".

	"...highlights the American micro brewery renaissance
	 using text, video, and audio to track down the rich
	 character and heritage of more than 500 American beers,
	 events, publications, associations and Internet bulletin
	 boards that are all about brewski. A section on the art
	 of brewing and a listing of [Michael] Jackson's [no - not
	 _that_ one] Top 25 is cross referenced by fermentation,
	 color and taste."
				MultiMedia Magazine, 5/95

    I wonder if that's put together by the same guy who does "The Beer
    Hunter" on PBS...

Yes - he's the Michael Jackson in question.

    
    Speaking of "like a Mac", I hear that IBM will soon start cranking
    out Mac clones.
    

    .150
    
    IBM will be building Power Macintosh clones for Radius.  Radius is
    going after the high-end video-processing market, and their machines
    will start at something over $5,000.  Given IBM's usual manufacturing
    standards and Radius's reputation for quality, it looks like a perfect
    match.

    
    So, you didn't like the "cranking out" part?   :^)
    

    .152
    
    > "cranking out"
    
    Not reflective of IBM's manufacturing methods.  They're a six-sigma
    company.

re: 104.70, Dick

Many of the problems you point out in that note are shortcomings of
either the Program manager or the File manager, both of which can
be replaced, with moderate effort, with something of a more elegant
nature. Those in and of themselves hardly appear to be reasons to
oppose the product in general. While I will agree that there are
areas within Windows which appear non-intuitive, the fact remains that
for some strange reason we have an industry which has practically
fallen over itself for U*IX, which is less intuitive than anything
most computer professionals had ever run across in the past. Windows
isn't even close to setting those kinds of records of lack of
intuitiveness.

    .154
    
    Have you seen the new CDE interface in Digital UNIX V4.0?
    Similar to HP's dashboard.  Hot stuff.

>    Have you seen the new CDE interface in Digital UNIX V4.0?

No. I tend to stay away from those sorts of things, Colin.

    .154
    
    > shortcomings of [components] ... which can
    > be replaced, with moderate effort, with something of a more elegant
    > nature. Those in and of themselves hardly appear to be reasons to
    > oppose the product in general.
    
    The point, Jack, is that they are essential components of the system. 
    They can be replaced, surely, but they shouldn't have to be replaced. 
    They should have been done right the first time.  The Macintosh's
    implementation of the same features is straightforward and elegant out
    of the box - which means, if you stand back and look at the two systems
    impartially, that the choice is obvious.
    
    The reasons for the preponderance of DOS (and later, Windoze) in the
    world lie in Apple's horrible mismanagement of the business and in the
    fact that DOS was there before Mac and that it was backed (on computers
    intended for the business world) by IBM, which - to most people in the
    early '80s - was synonymous with quality, while Apple was still viewed
    as a little upstart that made cute toy computers.  (Of course, let us
    not forget that the very first commercial spreadsheet program was
    VisiValc.  On the Apple II.)  The Macintosh was, when it was
    introduced, too little (not enough memory, not enough expansion
    capability, not a big enough screen) to be taken seriously.  
    
    
    Now that the Mac is a more capable machine than the PC platform, people
    are sitting up and taking notice - there are now four serious clone
    vendors, some of whose products come packaged in off-the-shelf PC
    enclosures and sell for up to 30% less than equivalent Apple systems.
    But it's a long catchup road, and with PC salesdroids out there telling
    flat lies, it's even harder.  Lies I've heard within the past six
    months:
    
    "Macs cost more."  For equivalent performance, they don't, except at
    the entry level.
    
    "Macs are slower"  They aren't; the fastest Macs will wallop the
    fastest Pentiums.  Check out the Power Mac 9500.
    
    "There's no real software for Macs."  There is lots of real software;
    you can do virtually anything on a Mac that you can do on a PC, even
    play DOOM - except that on a Mac it's smoother and has faster, cleaner
    graphics.  And those Intel Inside ads, the pretty ones, e.g., with the
    camera swooping through the floppy disk slot and soaring over the
    motherboard and settling in on an Intel chip, that whole series was
    produced on a Macintosh.
    
    "They're completely incompatible with PCs."  They're not.  All Macs
    produced since 1988 can read, write, and format PC floppies.  Current
    Macs can even open PC documents in equivalent Mac applications
    automatically.  Microsoft Office is completely compatible from one
    platform to the other - give me a Word 6 document, I can edit it and
    return it to you, and you'll never know it was touched by a Mac.  There
    are Mac apps that do PKZIP.  If I had a copy of DOOM, I could network
    with my brother's PC and play head-to-head.  There is software that you
    can run on a PC that will let it talk to Macs on an AppleTalk network,
    and there's stuff you can run on a Mac that will let it talk to PCs on
    a Novell network.  The new Mac series, beginning with the 9500, has PCI
    slots and can use existing PCI cards.  PowerBook 500-series machines
    have PCMCIA slots.  There are Macs available that contain built-in DOS
    cards with a 486DX2/66, with which you can run Windoze and Mac
    applications at the same time on the same screen - or you can install
    another monitor and assign one to Mac, one to PC.
    
    So far as I can tell, the only reason for wanting a PC is that you're
    stuck in a business that already has PCs.

    
    Can I get an "Amen'!?!
    

>    The point, Jack, is that they are essential components of the system. 
>    They can be replaced, surely, but they shouldn't have to be replaced. 
>    They should have been done right the first time.

While I will grant you this, MS/Windows isn't the first system that pulled
a few boners in some of their components and it won't be the last. Is
everything on the Mac problem/fault-free? Years ago when I worked in
the RSTS group we got perpetually beat up because the utilities and
services we designed and supplied for things like backups and file
reorganization weren't to the customers' liking. As a result, a flourishing
3rd party software business arose to supply disk de-fragmentizers and
backup programs and even menu systems to hide the "Ready" prompt and
later the DCL $. This didn't detract from the overall value of the
software to the user community, nor did it affect the quality of the
underlying O/S. We sold more RSTS systems as a result of it and the 3rd
parties quite often made small fortunes.

Yes - MicroSoft could have done some things better. And, yes - perhaps
Apple has done more things better than MicroSoft has. But as long as
there's a means of overcoming the deficiencies, I don't see it as a
severe detriment to the basic product.

    .159
    
    > But as long as
    > there's a means of overcoming the deficiencies, I don't see it as a
    > severe detriment to the basic product.
    
    There's a means of overcoming the deficiencies of a Yugo, too, Jack.
    You can weld on some angle-iron for a frame, and you can undercoat and
    paint the body to slow down the rust, and you can put in an engine that
    won't hemorrhage oil, and you can replace the "seats" with Recaros, but
    according to you the need to do these things in order to give the thing
    a decent resemblance to a real automobile isn't a detriment to the
    original design.
    
    Right.

Now you're being obstinate. :^)

I should have couched my "means of overcoming" with some modifiers like
"relatively painless and inexpensive". For the price of commodity software,
few users would object to buying a third party product to mask out some
of MicroSoft's errors (e.g. File Manager). It's not in the same league
as spending twice the cost of a Yugo just to make it palatable. You and
I both know that one of the deciding factors which steered me to the PC
rather than a Mac was the availability of Visual Basic. If you ask me,
the decisions at Apple not to make some of the better tools available
is a far more serious system defect than a poorly designed .EXE or two.

    Apple doesn't own Visual BASIC, Microsquash does.  It is their decision
    not to support the Mac platform with this product that was the key
    element in your decision to go with a PC, not anything Apple did.
    
    > "relatively painless and inexpensive"
    
    Editing CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT or running MEMMAKER are relatively
    painless, if you're used to editing C source and recompiling a kernel. 
    They're not at all painless for the average user, most especially the
    average non-nerd home user.  In the business wrold, paying roughly
    $5,000 per computer more in user training and technical support for PCs
    than for Macs is not at all inexpensive.

>    It is their decision
>    not to support the Mac platform with this product that was the key
>    element in your decision to go with a PC, not anything Apple did.

I wasn't aware of the particulars, but prolly should have deduced same.
Did Apple come up with any sort of strategy to produce a competing
product which would run on their platform?

    There is a similar product, also third-party, called FutureBASIC, for
    the Mac.  It is not compatible with Visual Basic, unfortunately.
    
    It appears that Microsquash is deliberately attempting to wean users
    off the Mac by producing poorer and poorer apps for Mac while producing
    better and better apps for PC.  Word 6.0 is an example of this.  Both
    the PC version and the Mac version got a facelift for 6.0, but the PC
    version, oddly enough, adheres to a PC look and generally to PC user
    conventions.  The Mac version just happens to look and work exactly
    like the PC version except where such exact replication is rendered
    impossible by the natures of the two platforms.  Even such basic things
    as stopping a too-long operation were changed; whereas the Mac
    convention since 1984 has been to press command-period, in Word 6.0,
    it's the Escape key.  Word 5.1, on the other hand, was clearly a
    Mac-targeted version.  And although Word 6.0 on the PC performs
    acceptably, Word 6.0 on the Mac took such a severe performance hit that
    one magazine editor reported that it took EIGHT MINUTES JUST TO LAUNCH
    THE THING AND GET A BLANK NEW DOCUMENT on his machine.  The furor was
    so loud that Microsquash has bowed to the pressure and released 6.1 for
    Mac specifically to address the performance hit that was obvious from
    the start.

    
    <-- Um, Dick, you're not weaving a.... um.... conspiracy theory,
        are you? Otherwise, someone is gonna have to throw a tantrum
        and call you a liar! :-) :-)
    
    Anyway, you heard it here first: it is my humble opinion that
    Word-for-Windows 6.0 is every bit the pig on the Windows
    operating system as you accuse it of being on the Mac. Maybe
    not performance issues, but woe to the poor user who tries
    to print envelopes, labels and business cards! Oh won't
    they be happy when they spend hours trying to make that
    work right! Or maybe they'll discover the fun bug in the
    auto-save algorithm that trashes your document, and, as an
    absolutely FREE service to the user, saves the trashed
    version away as snug as a bug in a rug!
    
    -b

    Brian, Word 6.0 may have all the bugs on PC that it has on Mac, but I
    used it on a 486DX2/66 and found its performance at least acceptable. 
    On a Power Macintosh 7100/80, its performance was not acceptable.  Here
    are some interesting numbers:
    
                    ClarisWorks 4.0  MS Works 4.0       MS Office 4.0

    Launch              7.5 sec          8.1 sec           13.9 sec (Word)

    Create/Activate
    Spreadsheet in
    Word Processor     < 1 sec           3.1 sec           26.2 sec

    Text wrap around
    graphic            < 1 sec           1.9 sec           11.6 sec

    Scrolling
    (10 pg. document
    with table, chart,
    graphic)            6.2 sec         14.0 sec           56.2 sec

    Document size
    (1 pg. letter with
    chart & table)       33K              50K               66K

    *All tests performed on a Macintosh Quadra 660AV with 8MB RAM. 

CDE?  BLEECH!  Why in the ^%&^ would I want my UNIX system to look
like a PC running Windows?

Just try to find where the damn icon is to start a terminal window...

If you have a PC all is not lost.  You could get a real operating
system for it like Linux or FreeBSD.

    
    Is there a beta copy of `Windows 95' available on the net?
    

    .169
    
    Not legally, I'll bet.

    > Is there a beta copy of `Windows 95' available on the net?
    
    The first beta copies were only for those with a specific
    contract with Microsoft. Recently, the beta was extended
    to cover all "Microsoft Developer Network" level II (and
    possibly level I) members. I'm a level II, so I have the
    software. However, it's not available to the general
    public.
    
    All that aside, I would _not_ recommend installing the
    current beta release. It has some, er, problems, shall
    we say.
    
    Howver, it does address most of the issues that Dick spoke
    about, but not in any "Mac-like" way. Microsoft went their
    own way with this interface, and it's very interesting,
    both from a visual and a technical perspective. It's
    definitely _not_ the same old same old, but until they
    release a version that works reliably with existing apps,
    it's a bit hard to judge whether it's as good as, not as
    good as, or better than the Mac interface.
    
    -b

    Yes there are copies on the net, but you have to be someone to get one ;-)
    The new release works much better too.
    
    btw - UCX v3.3 SLIP stinks.  My VS4000 is collecting dust because of it
    and Trumpet/KEAterm SLIP just fine.
    
    Mike

    I'm installing Linux on my 486 at home -- or I should say, trying to.
    
    Some good stuff on the distribution cd's (GNU's C++, emacs, tex,
    XWindows, etc).
    
    
    

re: .-1, John
   re: TeX

   Without a reasonable interface, of how much value is TeX?

   I managed the engineering effort on VAX DOCUMENT for several years
   and thus had to deal with TeX issues. The major conclusion we reached
   was that if we hadn't have had the opportunity to hide/mask/obscure
   TeX as much as possible, it would have been the downfall of the
   product.

   It's a fine formatting engine, but dealing with it is like attempting
   to get an ATM machine to issue your paycheck. Knuth was/is(?) a
   funny sort of guy.

    
    Jack, what's a reasonable interface for Tex? I haven't looked into
    it yet (let alone the 'learning curve') -- but I had the thought,
    perhaps incorrectly, that X Windows would suffice.
    
    At this point, I'd be happy if I could get Linux to read from my
    CD!

>    Jack, what's a reasonable interface for Tex?

My first response would normally be -
   "Anything that keeps it hidden."

:^)

Keep in mind that TeX has "been around" for over a (human) generation.
When I was studying CS in the late 60's Donald had already proposed
TeX. TeX today isn't all that different from Knuth's original specs
with respect to data structures and general architecture. The same can't
necessarily be said regarding the rest of CS/Systems/Architectures.

I'm unsure as to how you might expect X-Windows to provide you with
any direct benefit regarding TeX.

    Agree 1000% with DelBalso.  What to do with TeX???
    
    
    
    Run away!  Run AWAAAYYYYY!!!
    
    :-)
    

    Jack, I have vague memories of someone talking about "xdvi", as a file
    viewer under X Windows. As in, master obscure Tex syntax and view 
    document under X Windows using xdvi.
    
    But you want help creating the document, yes?

    
    On a related note, looking into the Linux world has made me realize
    that there's a huge amount of free software out there.
    
    Independently of the Linux world, there's a company called
    Prime Time Freeware which is dedicated to selling free software --
    the code is free, but you pay for the cdroms, the index and the
    snippets of advice.
    
    

Ah Linux, the MS-DOS of Unix-like operating systems.

>Ah Linux, the MS-DOS of Unix-like operating systems.

hey come on, that's a bit unfair!  MS/DOS is nothing more than a boot monitor
(and worse than a lot of them)

Chris.

    Due to other work I'm doing in the driver/BIOS area, I've come
    to know some of the less-talked-about features of Windows 95.
    Everyone by now probably knows that Windows 95 contains
    significant changes to the user interface. But what you may
    not know is that Windows 95 will also be the catalyst for
    significant changes in PC hardware.

    Aside from the user interface, one of the major complaints
    about Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS is that the burden of configuring
    the software and hardware is placed largely upon the user.
    All modern computers use some combination of busses, interrupts,
    memory mapped I/O, shared memory and I/O address space. The
    two big players in the PC market, namely the IBM PC architecture
    and the Macintosh, had wildly differing views. On the Macintosh,
    everything was done to shield the user from the hardware. On
    the PC, the user was left to sort it out for themselves. Perhaps
    it was best for the cause of computer literacy to make users
    learn such things, but the fact is that even for those of
    us who have 20+ years experience hacking both hardware and
    software, the PC can be a real pain in the ass. Some of
    the strange stuff I've had to do: like disassembling driver
    code and patching it, or soldering jumpers onto a board that
    otherwise didn't support one of the few open interrupts in
    my system; not for the faint of heart! I've often wondered
    how the average user gets through it all...

    I'll leave plenty of room for Dick Binder to sneak in here
    and tell you how the Macintosh is the most wonderful box
    on the planet and how it's way too late to be addressing
    these issues on a PC and how they've still got it all wrong
    anyway, etc...

    Instead, I'll give you a brief overview of the "Plug and
    Play" initiative from Microsoft. The executive summary is
    that if you buy hardware and software that displays the
    special "Windows 95" logo, you can forget about all the
    configuration headaches. That's because to be Windows 95
    certified (thus, giving a company the right to display
    the Windows 95 logo), the product must follow the Plug and
    Play architecture.

    The P&P architecture supports all of the current bus standards:
    ISA, EISA, PCI, VESA and PCMCIA. However, P&P is not backwards
    compatible. So on existing hardware boards and drivers which do
    not follow the P&P architecture, and for which the bus in
    use doesn't add any additional configuration capability (ISA,
    for example) the user is still left to sort it out.

    P&P begins with the system box itself. The  major requirements
    for a system box to be Windows 95 certified are:

    1. Follow the PC architecture standard (IBM PC/AT) as a
       minimum, with the addition of (at least) a 20mhz 80386,
       4 meg RAM, VGA and mouse.

    2. All built in I/O connectors are labeled using the Windows 95
       icon standard.

    3. The system BIOS supports the P&P extensions.

    The P&P extensions to the system BIOS are necessary in order
    to support system "self configuration" during the power-up
    and selt-test sequences. The P&P BIOS will query each device
    it detects for configuration data. It will then set the
    configuration parameters for devices that support the P&P
    extensions. The BIOS acts as a "clearing house" for various
    system resources: interrupt numbers, DMA channels, I/O
    address space, shared memory, etc. and resolves any conflicts
    without user intervention. Some manufacturers may supply
    new BIOS ROMs, enabling existing systems to support the P&P
    standard. so don't throw that old computer out yet!

    Add-in cards which support the P&P standard will strive to
    eliminate on-board jumpers. Instead, all configuration will
    be done by system software or through driver "control
    panels". The add-in cards must also implement the interface
    through which the system and Windows 95 query the device.
    This is where there's likely to be quite a bit of old
    hardware carnage. It's unlikely that many add-in cards
    will be customer upgradable.

    The remaining ascpect of the P&P architecture is "hot-swapping";
    adding or removing cards while the system is powered on
    and running. Whether your system supports hot-swapping
    depends on the bus in use. For example, you can't hot-swap
    ISA cards, however, you can hot-swap PCMCIA devices. Windows
    95 adds software support for configuring new devices "on
    the fly" without rebooting the system or restarting Windows
    (which is, by the way, the same thing in Windows 95 - you
    don't start windows from the DOS prompt anymore. Your
    system comes up in Windows mode...)

    I'm inclined to give credit to Microsoft for trying and
    look forward to the day when I no longer have to spend
    hours resolving resource conflicts...

    -b

    .182
    
    Presumably W95 P&P really means the following:
    
    For hardware:
    
    1.  Power off your computer system.
    
    2.  Connect the new device or card.
    
    3.  Power on your computer system.
    
    For software:
    
    1.  Insert the Installer floppy.
    
    2.  Double-click the Installer icon that appears in the floppy's
        desktop window.
    
    3.  Click the Easy Install button in the Installer.
    
    Anything less simple than this is not P&P.

    
    RE: .183
    
    That's right Dick, that's what it means to the user. I was
    trying to give some of the underlying information as to
    what it means to hardware and software vendors... figured
    it might be of use to someone around here... :-)
    
    -b

    .184
    
    It's good to see that P&P might become a reality in the PC world.  We
    heathen Mac users have only had it for maybe 6 or 8 years.  :-)

Mac got a real file system yet?


Phil

PNP is pretty brain-dead.  It only really work right if the BIOS supports it,
the device supports it, and the O/S supports it.  The BIOS doesn't support it
then you haven't lost much.  

If the BIOS does support it, and the device doesn't you need to tell the
BIOS (either through a setup screen) for non-PNP devices or through ICU 
for PNP devices.  For those who think ECU (EISA configuration utility) is
wonderful, I'm sure they'll think ICU is just as great.  

If you use WindowsNT or Windows95 they get to hide all this from you.
However is you don't, be prepared to get screwed.  Intel & Microsoft 
really &*%&ed PNP by not specifying a 32bit protected-mode entry into
the PNP BIOS (to read the settings).  This forces 32bit operating systems
to either fetch all the BIOS settings in their boot blocks or create
a VM86 mode so they call it via a 16-bit protected mode callback.
The PCI BIOS at least allows calls from 32-bit protected mode.

If you are in a driver, you have to make sure you don't blow away the
setting made by the BIOS or the system can be in trouble.  Now this is
a pain if you are running a non-PNP aware O/S since it's drivers are
unlikely to know about preserving PNP state.

    .186
    
    If "real file system" means one that can't support forked files, nope,
    Macs are still using that old crappy hierarchical system that supports
    forked files and volumes up to 2 GB in size.

Wot's a forked file, then?  Do VMS and Unix support this?

Chris.

"paleface speak with forked tongue."

"thmhp mmphm mmttpthmm mmff"

    >Wot's a forked file
    
    You know it's like when it doesn't work, so your forked..  :)
    
    ...Tom

    
    And what a lovely time was had by all when we wanted to
    support forked files on the VMS and Unix Pathworks servers
    for Macintosh!
    
    -b

    .189
    
    > Wot's a forked file, then?  Do VMS and Unix support this?
    
    You asked.  Remember, fans, he DID ask!
    
    First, VMS and UNIX (not Unix, it's a registered trademark) do not
    support forked files.  The only operating system other than the
    Macintosh's that supports forked files is the Apple IIGS's GS/OS,
    versions 5.0 and later.
    
    A file on a PC or VMS or UNIX is a single entity, containing data,
    code, and so on.  Information within the file determines what's what.
    On a Mac, every file can actually be two separate files, one called the
    data fork and the other called the resource fork.  Some files lack one
    or the other fork - applications that aren't accelerated for PowerPC
    have no data fork, and TeachText documents have no resource fork.
    
    In the data fork you keep data, as you'd expect; for example,
    word-processing text or spreadsheet formulas and constants.
    
    In the resource fork are pieces called - surprise! - resources.  A
    resource is identified by a type name, such as ICON for icons, DITL for
    dialog boxes, MENU for menu items, CODE for executable code, PICT for
    pictorial screen images such as a startup logo, and so on.  What this
    means is that a relatively unsophisticated user can use a program
    called ResEdit to change the appearance of icons, the text and
    assignments of keyboard accelerators in menus, and so on.  On other
    systems, the user needs to be extremely skilled in order to find and
    extract things like these and then figure out what tools to use to fix
    them - often, it's a disassembler and a sector editor.
    
    An additional very important piece of information, part of every Mac
    file, is what's called the bundle bits; these are two fields that
    identify the file's type, such as GIFf for GIF files, HYPH for a
    ClarisWorks hyphenation dictionary, and so on, and the file's creator,
    such as GKON for GraphicConverter or ClHy for the hyphenation file. 
    The creator info allows the system to associate a document with its
    creator application without resorting to the three- letter extension
    part of the file name - in fact, Mac file names can be up to 31
    characters in length and can contain any character except a colon -
    even invisibles.  This allows the system to launch the appropriate app
    when you double-click the document file.  The file type info allows
    other applications that can manipulate the file to recognize it for
    drag-and-drop; thus, I can create a text file with ClarisWorks and
    later edit it by dropping it on SimpleText.

    RE: .193
    
    Yea, but what's a fork file??   :)
    
    
    ...Tom

    
    re: .193
    
    >You asked.  Remember, fans, he DID ask!
    
    Yeah... and you just.... JUST had to anwser him... didn't you?????
    
    You're right.... you have no self-control!!!!!
    
    
    :) :)
    
    

>    Yea, but what's a fork file??   :)

It's what you use to sharpen your tines.  Or where you store extra forks.

      <<< Note 114.193 by SMURF::BINDER "Father, Son, and Holy Spigot" >>>

>   A file on a PC or VMS or UNIX is a single entity, containing data,
>   code, and so on.  Information within the file determines what's what.
>   On a Mac, every file can actually be two separate files, one called the
>   data fork and the other called the resource fork.  Some files lack one
>   or the other fork - applications that aren't accelerated for PowerPC
>   have no data fork, and TeachText documents have no resource fork.

    In the VMS file system (Files-11), "resources" such as record attributes,
    access control information, security classification, and journalling
    information are kept in the file header blocks in INDEXF.SYS.  There is
    more more to a file than just the data.

    .198
    
    Not the same kind of resources.  The VMS stuff is useful information
    ABOUT the file, not part and parcel of the file itself.  These same
    things are kept in the Mac system, too.  But Mac resources are integral
    elements at the USER level of the file; I could twiddle a MENU resource
    for the NCSA Telnet 2.7b4 application I'm using and change the third
    item in the Network menu from >Send "Are You There?"< with a command-T
    accelerator to be >Mittere "Ibi Esne?"< with a command-I accelerator. 
    The change would be portable - all subsequent copies of the file would
    contain it.

In other words,  a forked file is an Apple only gadget,  somewhat like a VMS 
(or other real file system) subdirectory set to execute only.  Wonder why no
one anywhere has bothered to copy it?


Phil

    I certainly don't have any complaint about the Mac design - having
    standardized a place for user-interface resources is certainly a lot
    handier than the zillions of ways we currently have to do it in Motif-
    ya never know if you're gonna get a resource from an app-defaults file
    or a window manager default or your own .Xdefaults, and now that I'm
    wrestling with CDE there's a buncha new filenames and architecture to
    learn all over again.  It all works- but you gotta admit that Mac users
    got these kinds of standard interfaces on their apps six and seven and
    eight years ago, once the ISVs had figured it out and started
    delivering apps.  Calling it a 'forked' file seems stupid, given how
    many different meanings fork has in this field; but one could say the
    same about 'clusters' in VMS (how many different and valid definitions
    do you know for 'cluster' in a VMS context- I think there are over a
    dozen, but I can only name four or five.)  So, other than the name, the
    concept the Mac people came up with has proven itself useful.
    
    DougO

    RE: forks

    I think my favorite was the old threading package (used by a
    Digital software product I don't care to name at this time)
    that had something called a "fork queue".

    -b

    .201
    
    > Wonder why no
    > one anywhere has bothered to copy it?
    
    Lack of perception?  Inability to use it in the file systems they were
    saddled with?

      <<< Note 114.199 by SMURF::BINDER "Father, Son, and Holy Spigot" >>>
             -< Not that I would - command-I is >Send IP Number< >-

>   Not the same kind of resources.  The VMS stuff is useful information
>   ABOUT the file, not part and parcel of the file itself.  These same
>   things are kept in the Mac system, too.  But Mac resources are integral
>   elements at the USER level of the file; I could twiddle a MENU resource
>   for the NCSA Telnet 2.7b4 application I'm using and change the third
>   item in the Network menu from >Send "Are You There?"< with a command-T
>   accelerator to be >Mittere "Ibi Esne?"< with a command-I accelerator. 
>   The change would be portable - all subsequent copies of the file would
>   contain it.

I'm not sure what you mean by the MENU resource stuff, and it's not 
important.  However, the information that Files-11 keeps has a lot to do
with how applications pull data out of the file.  And changes get propagated
to the copies as well.

Have a nice weekend.

    .205
    
    > I'm not sure what you mean by the MENU resource stuff, and it's not
    > important.
    
    It may not be important to a VMS user, but it is the key to much of the
    Mac's ease of use, and the lack of this architecture is one of the
    reasons Windoze has never had the clean, intuitive, user-friendly
    desktop that is the hallmark of the Mac.
    
    To be more thoroughly descriptive...
    
    A Mac resource is a separable chunk of bits.  Resources can be added
    into and removed from files.  Resources have identifying information
    that tells the system what they are and how to use them.  The MENU
    resource I illustrated is exactly that:  a separable chunk of bits that
    define a menu.  They define its name, the number and order of items
    under the menu, the text and keyboard accelerators associated with
    those items, whether there are separator lines, and so on.  A given
    program will have several MENU resources, one for the Apple menu, one
    for the File menu, one for the Edit menu, and so on.
    
    You can remove a MENU resource from a program, and that will remove the
    actual menu itself.  The program will have problems because the code in
    the CODE resource will still expect the menu to be there.  But you
    could also replace a MENU resource with one that is the same except
    that its text is in Spanish instead of English, and thereby easily
    localize the application.  (You'd also change the ALRT and DITL and
    DLOG and STR# resources to change all the text displays elsewhere in
    the program.)  This modular design allows you to putz around with parts
    of a program, with significant ease and speed, without having to
    recompile the entire program.  VMS and UNIX accomplish the same job by
    the use of message libraries, but message libraries add complexity in
    that they are separate files that eat up inodes, among other things.
    
    Resource manipulation is done through system calls, so a program can
    edit another program; this is how Ethernet drivers are installed into
    the System file by the Installer, for example.  The user-level resource
    twiddler is a free Apple program called ResEdit.  If you, as a slightly
    more than casual user, want to change the colors used in an icon, you
    can edit the specific icon's icl4,ics4, icl8, and ics8  resources using
    ResEdit's pixel-based icon editor.  To change the way the program
    responds to a dialog box, a programmer can recompile and replace only
    the CODE resource - this makes updating programs in the field easy
    because updaters need not supply the whole program and because updating
    individual resources retains any customizations that have been made in
    other resources.  And so on.  It's easy, it's convenient, and it
    works very well.

If each file looks after its own resource, isn't it a bit of a bummer in
the event of all resources having to be updated?

Chris.

    There is no situation I can conceive of that would require every
    resource in every file in the system to be updated.  If there is a
    global change in the way menu items are handled, for example, it's a
    result of Apple's having changed the way the relevant system calls
    behave, and that change appears in exactly one file, either the System
    file or an updater that is installed during startup to overlay the
    stuff in question.  This will in fact happen when Copland, the next
    version of MacOS, is released.  The default font for all menu, dialog,
    file-selection box, and other system-called actions is presently
    Chicago, a font developed by Apple to display well on 1984-technology
    CRT screens.  In Copland, Chicago will be replaced by Espy Sans, a new
    font designed for modern CRTs.  The font calls will be in the System
    file, so every application will suddenly start displaying its messages
    in the new font.

Well in that case I guess it's a good idea.  I've often wondered why
Unix filesystems don't allow multiple file segments, it always looks
a bit messy when you look in a database and see a *.idx and *.dat
for each table entry...

Chris.

    > 114.197 It's what you use to sharpen your 'tines.
    
    Hah.  Ever matched witz with 'Tine?  She's plenny sharp enuf without
          any augmentation tyvm.
    
    (suck-up, eh?)
    
    |-{:-)
    

Now, now. Gerald specifically didn't use the apostrophe with which you
doctored the quote, Dan'l. No fair taking cheap liberties.

    I resent that, DelBalso.  I only take expensive libertines.   Pah!
                                                                  

(sigh)

    :-)
    

Fie Sir!  Taking liberties with my replies!

    'E plead's guilty.
    

    And who, may I ask, is 'E plead?

    You apostrophizing me, BinderSan?
    

    Better I should address you than undress you, I think we'd all agree.

| <<< Note 114.219 by SMURF::BINDER "Father, Son, and Holy Spigot" >>>

| Better I should address you than undress you, I think we'd all agree.

	Wow..... not all of us would agree..... heh heh......

    back OFF, the bothayez.
    
    the NOIVE.  I yam pledged to another.
    
    |-{:-)
    

    To return to home computing...
    
    Got home last night, my new AHD software was there.  Deluxe edition
    does everything but sit up and beg.  (Meaning it doesn't talk.  The
    talking version is CD-ROM based, and it requires you to have the CD
    mounted even if you don't want to use the talking feature.  A lotta
    good that does...)
    
    So it's a 12-disk floppy install.  Worth the time, but I wonder why
    I've not seen the floppy-based deluxe edition in stores, or even in
    catalogs...?

    Made an advance order of Window 95 yesterday. $87.95 plus sales tax,
    S&H ($97.64 total). It is promised on or before August 12th. Hope it is
    worth it.
    
    ...Tom 

    .223
    
    According to scribblings I've seen in the zines, you should expect to
    spend a few weeks going through a relearning process.  The UI is very
    different.  Most of them are saying you'll hate it at first, when the
    differences have shot your productivity to hell, but you'll end up in
    love with it once you grok it.

>      <<< Note 114.224 by SMURF::BINDER "Father, Son, and Holy Spigot" >>>
>
>    .223
>    
>    According to scribblings I've seen in the zines, you should expect to
>    spend a few weeks going through a relearning process.  The UI is very
>    different.  Most of them are saying you'll hate it at first, when the
>    differences have shot your productivity to hell, but you'll end up in
>    love with it once you grok it.


Actually it took less than a week to get up to a reasonable use level.  I 
never hated it, but wasn't thrilled with it from the first keystroke.  
However, after using it for the past 6 weeks I have to say that I really, 
really, REALLY like it.

Still a few bugs but it very rarely crashes and I don't get any out of 
memory errors and it is much faster than 3.1 or 3.11.

Geoff

Anybody in ZKO using Windows '95 who'd be willing to have me drop
by briefly for a looksee?

A Mac forked file is quite similar to a VMS library file or to a Unisys Exec 8
file with elements.

/john

    How often do you have to change the elements on those Unisys Exec 8
    jobbies?

    .227
    
    Well, of course, if you want start picking on special files, a Mac file
    is similar to a UNIX library archive, too.  But the Unisys and UNIX and
    VMS (alphabetical ordering, dontcha know) files in question aren't real
    forked files - they resemble only the resource fork.  On the Mac, forks
    are inherent to all files: application, library, and data.  (And you'll
    actually find a resource fork in SimpleText or ClarisWorks data files -
    while most applications that are accelerated for Power Macintosh have a
    data fork.)

    
    i'm in the process of setting up one of my systems as an
    internet gateway. it's going to serve as an ftp, web and
    mail server for my company, and for the standards groups
    i work with...

    prepare to gak: i've decided (for reasons too numerous
    to list here) to base the server (a dual pentium) on
    nt. however, making you gak isn't the point of this note
    (despite whatever pleasure i might derive).

    the point is: when i installed nt 3.51 from my msdn
    cd-roms, there was a directory called "newshell".
    hmmm... ok, let's go for it... the new shell, it turns
    out, is the entire win 95 user interface running on top
    of the win nt kernel. so you get the (debatably) cooler
    aspects of nt (multitasking, threads, memory protection,
    security, etc.) with the newer interface, which i think
    is far superior to the older style (3.1) windows interface.
    the combo of the win nt 3.51 kernel with the win 95 ui
    becomes win nt "4.0 beta".

    anyway, i'm a happy camper...

    -b

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Microsoft launches hype for Windows 95


    (c) Copyright the News & Observer Publishing Co.

    San Francisco Examiner

    SAN FRANCISCO -- In Great Britain, entire fields will be painted with
    Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 95 logo to catch the attention of planes
    flying overhead.

    In Australia, a four-story high box festooned with Windows 95 logos
    will be towed into Sydney harbor on a barge, as dancers perform in the
    streets.

    In the Philippines, the very first copy of the new operating system to
    hit the the country will be hand-delivered to President Fidel Ramos.

    The official launch of Microsoft Corp.'s new flagship product on
    Thursday, Aug. 24 is shaping up as an international three-ring circus
    and hype juggernaut that will exceed anything ever seen in high
    technology.

    Microsoft won't reveal its budget, but industry watchers expect the
    software giant to spend close to $300 million to introduce Windows 95,
    much of it on television commercials that will begin blanketing the
    airwaves during prime time Aug. 24.

    The rollout will be further hyped at special events in 42 U.S. cities,
    major foreign capitals and throughout cyberspace.

    In Santa Clara, the Paramount Great America amusement park will air a
    live satellite feed of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates introducing the
    product.

    Only the press and key customers will be allowed to watch live, but
    Microsoft is expecting between 5,000 and 6,000 other people to pack
    into the park's Theater Royale to watch replays of Gates' speech
    throughout the day.

    This kind of fun doesn't come free, or even cheap: to hear Gates'
    pearls of wisdom and see demonstrations of Windows 95 and new
    applications, you've got to pay admission to the park. The regular
    admission price is $26.95, but Long's is offering a two-for-one deal
    and Fry's Electronics has a coupon good for $5 off.

    "This is a way for us to be part of one of the most exciting things
    happening," said Great America spokeswoman Lina Sullivan. "It gives our
    regular visitors a chance to see these products and enhance their park
    experience."

    At the Redmond, Wash., headquarters of Microsoft, Gates will share the
    stage with a mystery celebrity guest while exalting Windows 95 in a
    multimedia demonstration for about 2,500 people.

    "I'm not allowed to tell you who the celebrity will be," said Microsoft
    spokeswoman Pam Takahama. "All I can say is that it's someone you've
    heard of and, hopefully, love."

    After the demonstration, the invitation-only crowd will be free to
    stroll the grounds of the 270-acre corporate campus, where dozens of
    companies will be showing their wares in a carnival-like setting.

    Gates' speech will be beamed by satellite to regional celebrations such
    as the one at Great America, and also to overseas launch events. A
    cyberspace version of the ceremony will be beamed onto Microsoft's
    World Wide Web home page: http://www.microsoft.com. Users will be
    invited to join an Internet scavenger hunt with a computer as grand
    prize.

    Afterward, Gates will travel overseas to launch localized versions of
    Windows 95 in France, Italy and elsewhere.

    In Paris, he'll be picked up at the airport in a specially outfitted
    Citroen covered in Windows 95 logos, filled with computers and
    outfitted with infrared networking connections. Gates will be whisked
    to the Palais des Congress, where he'll put on a presentation for 7,400
    people.

    Later, the Citroen will take him to classrooms throughout France, where
    Gates will demonstrate the product to French schoolchildren.

    In Italy, he'll arrive on the shores of Lake Como aboard a boat
    plastered with Windows 95 logos.

    Huge events are also planned for Moscow, Singapore, Hong Kong and New
    Zealand. In Poland, trade reporters will be invited for a ride aboard a
    submarine "so they can see what it's like to live in a world without
    windows," said one Microsoft spokeswoman.

    "There are still a lot of people out there who haven't heard about our
    product," said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft product manager. "It's not always
    easy to explain what an operating system is and why people need a new
    one."

    Public relations executives give Microsoft high marks for their
    handling of the rollout.

    "Microsoft is raising the bar in technology marketing," said Stephen
    Jones, senior vice president of the Burson-Marsteller (CQ) agency in
    San Francisco.

    Jones said he's most impressed not with the Aug. 24 rollout hoopla, but
    with the marketing job Microsoft has done up until now.

    "It's been a well-orchestrated strip tease," he said. "Rather than show
    you the whole thing, they've been letting little details trickle out to
    build anticipation."

    Microsoft, he said, has also done a good job controlling the potential
    damage as the release date slipped and stories of bugs and glitches
    began circulating.

    Inevitably, though, all the hype and hoopla in the world will be to no
    avail if the product doesn't stand on its own. Microsoft learned that
    lesson earlier this year with the launch of Bob, its "user friendly"
    interface for personal computing.

    Bob's rollout was a textbook case of good marketing, Jones said, but
    consumers found the product to be condescending.

    "Microsoft did an incredibly good job of getting coverage and getting
    the word out," Jones said. "Unfortunately the product cratered. No
    amount of marketing is going to help if your product's a dog."

Don't know if this is posted anywhere, but this is a story I heard today -

MicroSoft apparently wanted to buy the rights to some Rolling Stones piece
for publicity for Windows '95 (don't know which one - was never a Stones
fan). Jagger and company aren't in the habit of negotiating the rights to
any of their stuff, so, to put MS off, they came back with a price tag of
$12M. Gates wrote the check.

    <--
    
    almost true story... your version assumes the stones wanted
    to put MS off, not make a huge bundle of cash, which was the real
    reason for the price tag. they knew MS would go for it...
    
    -b

    "Start It Up" because of the ubiquitous Start button that is on the
    Win95 screen.
    
    -- Jim

    
    the war is over, and Gates has won.
    
    

    > start it up
    
    _actually_ it's "start me up" of their 1981 "tattoo you" album
    
    NNTTM	:^)

from rec.humor.funny:

Top 10 Rolling Stones songs that would be more appropriate than
"Start Me Up" for the Windows '95 commercial

10. Just My Imagination
 9. I'm Going Down
 8. Let It Bleed
 7. Gimme Shelter
 6. Bitch
 5. Shattered
 4. Play With Fire
 3. (I can't get no) Satisfaction
 2. You Can't Always Get What you Want

... and the number one.. one.. one..



 1. 19th Nervous Breakdown

    >> the war is over, and Gates has won.
    
    Well, he's still not getting any of my buckos for Winlose 95.
    
    I'm still not convinced that "95" is going to be a huge success.
    There is a real potential there for it to be a "New Coke"-class
    megamess.
    
    Chris

    Given that Microsquash admits that Winlose 95 (thanks, Chris) is a
    short-term product, I'm just sittin' here watchin'.
    
    Estimates I've seen are that about 40 percent of PeeCee owners are
    going to be willing to pony up for the extra RAM needed to run the
    thing.  A couple years from now, when the RAM manufacturers have caught
    up with the demand, and those users are all set, and maybe half of the
    product's catastrophic bugs are fixed, bang!  They will all have to
    reinstall everything on Windoze NT.
    
    I predict we'll see a very large group of very irate Microsquashed
    people out there...
    
    And of course because fewer than half of the current victi-- er,
    customers are going to "upgrade," 8.3 filenames will still be mandatory
    for compatibility.  Heh heh...

    re: .239
    
    I think I've got enough memory on my machine - 32MB :-)
    
    By the time Microsquish tries to migrate everybody onto NT, they should
    all be running WIN95 versions of their software, which by definition,
    is NT compatible.
    
    Yes, there will always be those that won't want to upgrade...look at
    all those systems out there running DOS only...the local dry cleaners,
    card shops, etc.  Most of them are probably running DOS 5.0 or lower.
    
    Me, I'm already running most of my stuff on NT, but I prefer the WIN95
    GUI.
    
    Bob

    .240
    
    > WIN95 versions of their software, which by definition,
    > is NT compatible
    
    BWAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!
    
    You'll need all 32 of those 32 megs, Bob.  :-)

    re: .241
    
    Please explain.
    
    Bob

    The fact that something is "by definition" compatible does not, in the
    real world, mean it is even REMOTELY compatible.  Compatibility is as
    compatibility does, and Microsquash's reputation for releasing things
    that actually DO work together is, to say the least, shaky.  The
    company is famous for producing applications that crash its own
    operating system.

    re: .243
    
    In order to get the WIN95 stamp of approval, the code had to be written
    (or re-written) to use one of the WIN32<mumble> interfaces.  Of course,
    there's nothing that means it has to be done correctly.
    
    Bob

    .244
    
    > there's nothing that means it has to be done correctly.
    
    Bingo.

    
    the win95 ui running on top of nt is pretty dang cool -- i've been
    running the win nt beta from the msdn cd-roms for a few weeks now --
    and at least when an app crashes it doesn't take the os with it
    (since nt is "protected")... on the other hand, such things often
    happen on certain other systems that it is my wont to praise
    overall (and which are named after fruits containing pectin), but
    that do not have a protected os (unless one is running their
    version of Unix)...
                      
    -b

    .246
    
     > named after fruits containing pectin
    
    Is Winlose95 protected?  Does it have pre-emptive multitasking?

    
    no win95 isn't protected, or pre-emptive... but its ui running
    on top of nt is... i have no idea when this will be available
    for the fawning masses... i get it because i'm a member of the
    msdn...
    
    -b

    .248
    
    > no win95 isn't protected, or pre-emptive
    
    Which means that it's no better in that regard than the so-called
    pectin-bearing fruit system.  Which will, at its Q2/96 release FOR THE
    FAWNING MASSES, be both protected and pre-emptive.  And, in all other
    respects, about a decade ahead of Winlose95 - which has been the state
    of said system since it premiered in 1984.

    Bill & Chele,
    
    What I want to know is... Did Kellogs get the rights to use the song, or s
    hould I say the words, in theirs commercials for Sustain ??!!??
    
    naughty people I think!                         

    I'm running NT in 16 Meg on this machine.  32 meg?  Who needs that?
    
    
    Phil

    re .250
    
    I haven't seen the add, Martin.

    It's the one with Kathy Freeman (Sp?) in it. Doing her exercises etc
    throughout the day.

    <----- I'll have to watch telly tonight  8^)
    
    I wonder if they use "start me up" whether we could sue them???
    
    
    .....If you start me up I'll never,never stop.......

WIN95 NEWS UPDATE
*****************************************
There will be a 1/2 hour television show called "The Start
of Something New" airing on Monday, August 28.  The
show is a documentary about Windows 95.  It will be
hosted by Anthony Edwards from TVs "ER" and will
include spots with Bill Gates.

The show will air on Monday, August 28 at 8pm
(following Jeopardy) on WKBW Cable 7 (Buffalo -
ABC).

Happy viewing!
****************************************
****************************************

Microsoft(R) WinNews Electronic Newsletter
	Canadian Supplement #1
	August 17, 1995


**********************************************

Welcome to the first Canadian-only edition of
WinNews.  For those of you who do not know,
WinNews is a electronic distribution list for updates
on Windows 95.  There is information on how to
subscribe below.  We will continue to do supplements
 of Canadian only information in the coming
 months.

For those of you with World Wide Web access,
 the Windows(R) 95 Home Page has been
updated and modified.  We will continue to
update Canadian information onto this web
 page.  You can find it at:

 http://www.windows.microsoft.com or
through Microsoft's Home Page at
http://www.microsoft.com.

Included in this issue:

1. "CANADIAN LAUNCH EVENTS" -
 Information on how you can participate
 in an event near you.

2. "FRENCH CANADIAN WINDOWS 95"
Here's news on the availability of
Windows 95 and Microsoft Office for
 Windows 95 in french for Canada.

3. "WINDOWS 95 ONLINE POSTINGS
AND FORUMS" -
our regular listing of forums, websites,
 and our ftp site.

Ken Headrick
Canadian WinNews Editor

****************************************************
SUBSCRIPTIONS

If you know someone who might be interested
 in WinNews, please instruct them to:

1.      Send Internet e-mail to:
[email protected]

2.      Send the message from the account
that you wishto subscribe (some people use
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4.      Body of message should ONLY have in the
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You may also feel free to forward this document, provided
you forward it in it's entirety, as per the copyright
notice below.  If you wish to stop receiving WinNews,
send mail to [email protected] with a blank
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have in the text:   UNSUBSCRIBE WINNEWS.

WinNews is published twice a month, on the first and
third Monday of each month.  Special editions of WinNews
may also be sent out occasionally.

****************************************************

1.  CANADIAN LAUNCH EVENTS

TORONTO

The Canadian Windows 95 launch event will
 take place starting August 24th and it will continue
 until August 27th at the base of the CN Tower.  We
 would like to invite those of you who live in the
Toronto area to come out to this great event
entitled "the World of Windows 95".   The event
is at the base of the tower and it is free.

Here is a list of the activities for the 4 days:

  View the launch event in Seattle via satellite
from 2-3 pm on Thursday.   We will tape it and
replay it over the weekend.

 Chances to win some great Microsoft, AST(R)
and Symantec(R) prizes!  Enter to win free copies
 of Windows 95, Microsoft Office for Windows 95,
Microsoft Home software titles, and Raptors
tickets every hour starting at 10:00AM each day.
We will also choose one grand prize winner every
 day for an AST multimedia computer.

 Access over 75 demo stations featuring AST
computers.  Get individual demos of Windows 95
 and other 32 bit applications built for Windows 95
 including Microsoft Office for Windows 95,
Microsoft Plus (the new companion product for
Windows 95) and the updated Microsoft Home
 products such as Microsoft Works 95,
Bookshelf '95, and The Microsoft Network.  See
 the new features and play with the new products.

 See the new computers from AST that take
advantage of Windows 95 new capabilities.
AST representatives will be on hand for questions
 and demos.

 See a member of the Canadian School of
Rescue Training rappel off the CN Tower at
3:00 pm Thursday.  He will do a mobile computing
 display half way down.

 There will be an ad in the Saturday August 18th
 Toronto Star and the Wednesday August 23rd
 Star.  Clip out the coupon in the ad and bring it to
 the CN Tower:

	The first 1000 people that arrive
between 8am and 12 pm each day and present
 the ad at the CN Tower admissions will receive
 FREE* access to the observation deck.    *This
 has a value up to $12.00 for adult admission.
Child admission price is $7.00

	After the first 1000 have been admitted,
 present this ad to receive $3.75** off of the
3 Super Combo adult admission price.  (3 Super
 Combo includes the Observation Levels, Q-Zar,
 and the Motion Simulation Theatre at the
CN Tower).** This offer is not valid for a child's
 admission price.

	These offers are not valid in
conjunction with any other discount offer.  Coupon
 has no cash value.  One original ad per person.

 Lots of events for kids including face painting,
 entertainers, games, and  The Toronto Raptors'
 Shoot to Win challenge.

 Hours are:

Thursday August 24 -  	9 - 7
Friday August 25 - 		9 - 7
Saturday August 26 -  	9 - 5
Sunday August 27 -	9 - 5

WESTERN CANADA

We will be holding a live Satellite downlink
from Redmond at Imaxs across Western
Canada:

City		Place
Vancouver	Imax at Canada Place
Calgary		Imax at Eau Claire market
Edmonton	Imax at Science Centre
Regina		Hotel Saskatchewan
Winnipeg	Imax at Portage Place

Start time is 11 am in Vancouver.
12:00 pm in the Calgary, Edmonton and Regina.
Winnipeg starts at 1 pm.
Registration 1/2 hour before start time.
To reserve a seat in any of the western cities,
please call:

 1-800-811-8788

The presentation will be 1hr 15min.

OTTAWA

The Ottawa launch event will be at 2 different
locations:

 at the Microsoft/Majic 100 booth at the
Central Canada Exhibition in the  Aberdeen
Pavilion at Landsdowne Park.  Come by for
 product demos of Windows 95, Microsoft
 Office for Windows 95 and other Microsoft
Home products built for Windows 95.

The show is open from noon to midnight each
 day of the CCE.

 Microsoft is co-hosting the satellite launch
of Windows 95 withMicrosoft Solution Provider,
 Control Data Systems at the Chateau Laurier
Hotel at 2pm on August 24th. Please contact
 Cheryl Rice at Control Data for
more information 1-800-267-3553.

 The satellite broadcast can also be seen
 at CompuSmart on Merivale Road and Fifth
Dimension Computers on Don Reid Drive.
Please contact each of these Microsoft
Partners for more information.

****************************************************

3.  FRENCH CANADIAN WINDOWS 95.

Microsoft Canada announced today that the
 French Canadian version of Microsoft
Windows 95 products will be available on
November 1, 1995.
	
"Due to dramatic growth in international grey
 markets of Microsoft French products,
Microsoft Canada will be releasing French
 Canadian versions of Windows 95 launch
 products", said Frank Clegg, General
Manager, Microsoft Canada.  Specifically,
Microsoft will be re-designing the packaging
to include changes in the End User License
 Agreement, as well as providing a
 registration card that is specifically
 designed for French Canada.

In order to introduce these changes, French
 Canadian Windows 95 products will now be
 available approximately 60 days from the
product release dates.  This will impact all
of the French language Windows 95 launch
products (i.e. Windows 95, MS Plus, Office
for Windows 95 and Works 95).

"It is our hope that these measures will clearly
 differentiate French product sold in Canada,
and help enforce the sale of products through
the proper distribution channels", said Clegg.
 "We are committed to the francophone
market and are doing everything possible
 to ensure customers receive Windows 95
 products as soon as possible."

To help make the upgrade to Windows 95
products even easier, Microsoft Canada will
 be extending the standard 45 day free
upgrade period for customers buying
French versions of Microsoft Office, Excel,
 Powerpoint, Word, Publisher and Works.
  The free upgrade for applicable Windows
 95 products began July 15, 1995.

Shipping of French Canadian Windows 95
 products to corporate customers through
Microsoft volume licensing program,
Microsoft Select, will not be affected by
 these changes.  These customers will
receive their Windows 95 products on
August 24, 1995.

***************************************************
4. WINDOWS 95 ONLINE POSTINGS
AND FORUMS

YOU CAN FIND WINDOWS 95 INFORMATION AT:

On the World Wide Web
 http://www.windows.microsoft.com

On the Internet -
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/PerOpSys/Win_News
	

On The Microsoft Network: From Main Menu:

Categories\Computers and Software\Software\
	Microsoft\Windows 95\WinNews

On CompuServe: GO WINNEWS.

On Prodigy: JUMP WINNEWS.

On America OnLine: Use keyword WINNEWS

On GEnie: MOVE TO PAGE 95

****************************************************
This document is provided for informational purposes
only.  The information contained in this document
represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation
on the issues discussed as of the date of publication.
Because Microsoft must respond to change in market
conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a
commitment on the part of Microsoft and Microsoft
cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information
presented after the date of publication.

INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT
 IS PROVIDED"AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY
OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
 INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND FREEDOM
FROM INFRINGEMENT.

The user assumes the entire risk as to the
accuracy and the use of this document. This
document may be copied and distributed subject to
the following conditions: 1) All text must be
copied without modification and all pages must
be included; 2) All copies must contain Microsoft's
copyright notice and any other notices provided
therein; and 3) This document may not be
distributed for profit.

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.
All Rights Reserved.


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    re: .251
    
    VC++ seems to speed up noticably at 20+MB.  Also, one needs at least
    32MB to do various scanning and graphics things.
    
    Bob

I read that Microsoft is spending $500 million hyping Win95!

    Apple is running an ad campaign, too.  I'm wearing a T-shirt that says,
    under the Apple logo, "Been there... Done that!  Macintosh."  On the
    back is a paragraph of fairly small text, describing an abbreviated
    list of the things the Mac had first, including a GUI, plug-and-play,
    TrueType� fonts (invented by Apple and licensed to PeeCee), QuickTime�
    (invented by Apple and licensed to PeeCee), and on and on.
    
    Apple's print ads are pretty funny.  (the following aren't direct
    quotes.)  Full recto page, black with 36-point white text:
    
    		Introducing Windows 95.  It lets you name your
    		files with more than 8 characters.
    
    			Imagine that.
    
    Turn the page, see another:
    
    		Introducing Windows 95.  It's got a trash can
    		that you can even take things back out of.
    
    			Imagine that.
    
    Turn the page, see another that I can't remember.
    
    Turn the page, get a page of "Imagine this."  The sum of it is that
    Windows 95 is now approaching where the Mac was with the introduction
    of System 7 in 1991, but most of the essential features have been on
    the Mac since 1984.  Want to see where Windows will be in another
    decade?  Visit your authorized Macintosh reseller today.

	.258  i think he must have a ton of stock.  it's the only
	      explanation i can come up with. <dangle>

    .259
    
    Ackshully, I have no stock in Apple.  I do have a certain investment in
    seeing how effective I can be at making a dent in Gresham's Law.

    Don't ya'll make fun of Mr. Binder.  Watched a Today Show clip of
    a 95 demo being done for a group of kids in junior high; they didn't
    seem all that impressed either.  Their attitude also seemed to be of
    "been there, done that" :-)  So, as some other 'boxer put it, if MAC
    is a religion, it's got a LOT of young converts out there!!
    
    For the record, I've not used either product so I've no personal
    axe to grind.
    
    

    .240
    
    Bob,
    
    Today Show also had an appearance by Gates.  I was rushing around
    getting ready for work, but I did hear Gates mention something
    about 32 megs being optimum, otherwise there might be a problem
    with some applications.
    
    Another Gates comment was that PC users with 4 megs or a bit more,
    probably "wouldn't be able to utilize the new O/S to its fullest
    potential".
    
    I interpreted this to mean a lot of folks would be forced to junk
    some older PCs and go for one of the newer models :-)
    
    

	The key thing he said too was future applications will be made for 
windows95, so if you don't have it, the applications you buy may not work.


Glen

I've been usingf Windows 95 for about 3 months and have only come accross 
one application that I can't get to run (Wing Commander II).

Other than that it is excellent.  I have had only one or two crashes in 
that time.  I can get that many in a day with 3.1 or 3.11.

The initial interface is MAC like but it can be manipulated to look however 
you'd like it to look.

So far I've been very impressed with Win95

Geoff

	>> The key thing he said too was future applications will be made for 
        >> windows95, so if you don't have it, the applications you buy may
        >> not work.
    
    Classic hi-tech scare tactic.  But I don't buy it.  I think that
    application vendors (other than Microsloth, that is) will hedge
    their bets and develop for both 3.1 and 95, especially if market
    response for 95 is as lukewarm as I'm predicting.  Of course,
    Microsloth will shut out 3.1 almost immediately (already has,
    actually), but that just might open up the market for other
    vendors the same way that Visual C++ for NT has pushed some
    folks into taking another look at Borland and other language
    vendors.
    
    Oh, it'll sell lots of copies at first, but when people realize
    that their machine isn't macho enough to run 95, or they run
    into other hangups, they'll just go back to 3.1.  I'd say that
    you'll see apps that will run on 3.1 for many years to come.
    
    They're taking a big gamble, trying to bully everyone into not
    only buying their product, but also several hundred dollars worth
    of hardware upgrades that will be necessary to effectively run
    their product.  I'm not sure they'll get away with driving the
    marketplace to this extent.
    
    Chris

    re: Note 114.258 by SMURF::BINDER
    
    You know bender, for the longest time I pictured you as the
    captain of the SS appleII, standing proud at the helm, touting
    "I AM AWESOME".
    
    Now I picture you standing on the fantail of the SS appleII screaming
    "we did it first, we're awesome" as you just been torpedoed by a Gates 
    class sub.
    
    Just an observation.  Oh ya, the Elliott museum junked their macs.
    Mrs. Elliott went on a shopping spree and bought everyone a 486/66 
    PeeCee.  
    
    MadMike

    Laugh if you like, MadMike.  Fack is that if Apple hadn't made the Mac,
    you and your PeeCee would still be talking DOS command line. 
    
    Microsquash didn't develop Windoze or Winlose95 because it was a good
    way to compute, they did it because they had to, to keep their loyal
    sucke- er, umm, victi- er, umm, customers from leaving in droves in
    favor of a superior way to compute.

I see that a bunch of stores (Staples, Computer City, CompUSA) are gonna be
open from midnight to ? tonight for people who can't wait to get Win95.

    Mosiac(tm), the exercise program for obsessive/competitive slow-walkers
    
    (one can only assume)
    

Mosiac?  Ah reckon ah'll just mosey over there.

    
    <---- bwaaaaahahahahahahahaha !!!!
    
    -b

    Whew, that WUZ a close one!! :-)
    

>> I see that a bunch of stores (Staples, Computer City, CompUSA) are gonna be
>> open from midnight to ? tonight for people who can't wait to get Win95.
    
    I don't mean to cast aspersions on anyone in general, but I really
    have to wonder about anyone who's so rabid about any computer-related
    product at all, that they cannot even wait until the next morning to
    clutch said product to their chest, but instead will lose sleep
    drooling at a computer store in the wee hours of the morning, in
    line with who knows how many others of similar ilk.
    
    I mean, c'mon.  If you're somewhere other than home in the middle
    of the night, it's either because you scored, or someone's being
    born, or someone's sick or dying.  A computer operating system
    qualifies as none of the above.
    
    Chris

>    I mean, c'mon.  If you're somewhere other than home in the middle
>    of the night, it's either because you scored, or someone's being
>    born, or someone's sick or dying.  A computer operating system
>    qualifies as none of the above.

Bill Gates scored.  He hopes something's being born.  Dick Binder thinks
something's sick or dying.

     <<< Note 114.267 by SMURF::BINDER "Night's candles are burnt out." >>>

>    Microsquash didn't develop Windoze or Winlose95 because it was a good
>    way to compute, they did it because they had to, to keep their loyal
>    sucke- er, umm, victi- er, umm, customers from leaving in droves in
>    favor of a superior way to compute.

I heard some Apple apologist from MacWorld on Christopher Lydon's talk show 
saying exactly this. I knew it was BS then and its still BS, even if it 
comes from a more respected source.:')

It's like saying we'd never have any way to talk over long distances if it 
weren't for Alex Bell. Nonsense. There's *no* way computers would've made 
the inroads into homes and offices without a GUI. And if Apple didn't do 
it, you can be sure someone else would've. Gates knows, as any smart man or 
better-lookin'-gender knows, you can make a whole lot more money a lot 
faster selling people something they'll like than making them like 
something you're selling.

It's typical of the religious enthusiasm in the MS/Apple war that 
Appleheads should so overstate their case. Stick with what's real: Mac is 
a better interface (although I still can't stomach its juvenile 
"personality"). 

Tom

    re: .276
    
    Bwah-hah, excellent...
    
    Chris

    By the way, I guess I'd rather be standing on the SS Apple II
    than on the SS Apple III, or even the SS Lisa.
    
    Chris

    .277
    
    I didn't say nobody would've developed a GUI.  I just don't think MS
    would have developed it when they did, you'd still be waiting for it.
    
    Winlose95, I'll point out, started out life intended to be Winlose93. 
    Two years late, and it's still only a pared-down version of what it was
    gonna be.  What it was gonna be was about equal to Apple's System 7.0,
    which was already out there in the real world since 1991, making users
    very happy.  Now Apple has moved on through System 7.1, with lots of
    significant enhancements, to System 7.5, with even more significant
    enhancements, and is well on the way to System 8.  MS is still playing
    catch-up, and the vast numbers of late-cycle fixes they've had to make
    after the *very last* beta suggest that tehy're going to spend a bunch
    of time and money before they get it right.

I find the "hype" that MS has introduced over not making this product
available till 8/24 somewhat comical. I mean, the kits are sitting
in racks (or something) in the back room at Computer City right
this minute. What the hell difference does it make if they sold
it this afternoon instead of at Midnight, other than MS's constraints?
Who really cares?

>             What the hell difference does it make if they sold
>it this afternoon instead of at Midnight, other than MS's constraints?
>Who really cares?

I suspect Microsoft made it very clear that retailers who sell it early
will be in big trouble.  They carry a very big stick.

    .281
    
    It's called whipping the marks into a frenzy so they'll plunk down the
    cash without consulting their brains first.

Yes - I realize that, but in the end, what's served other than the
hype by not selling it when it was available/in-stock?

    Because of the way distribution channels work, some places got it
    before others.  In order to keep customers from mobbing all the lucky
    (?) stores that got it first to the unfair detriment of the others'
    profits, MS is trying to level the playing field for its outlets.

I suppose that may have some valid merit. Years ago when I worked in the
retail trades, I know that a lot of products were "Fair Traded", usually
at the holidays. The retailers were constrained to a specific narrow
price range and offering dates, presumably in the interests of "fair
trade", however it was difficult to imagine a "run" on Coty cosmetics.
The Win95 "run" could, I suppose, be more palpable, but it still seems
like an instrument of hype above all.

    >> Microsoft has a MARKETING DEPARTMENT staffed by professionals. If the
    >> hype is comical or not doesn't enter into it as far as the bottom line
    >> is concerned.
    
    The problem with this is that by now there are many of us who are
    so cynical and jaded about yet-another-marketing-hype-campaign,
    that hype now actually has a backfire effect, in that the greater
    the hype, the more suspect we are.  If the hype is utterly gross,
    it will serve as a deterrent to my buying the product, just because
    I'm a stubborn old mule, and I'll show them, heh.  If there's
    enough Amos McCoy's like me out there, it could impact the bottom
    line.
    
    The best thing Microsoft ever did for me, adding CD-ROM caching to
    SMARTDRV in MS-DOS V6.x, was almost completely ignored by the
    marketing machine.  Yet I bought it, and it was great.
    
    Chris

    
    These Windows.. they made by Andersen???

    Chris,
    
    I think the reason so many of us are jaded about yet-another-
    marketing-hype-campaign, is that these campaigns always seemed
    to be aimed at DEC internals instead of getting the attention
    of the outside world.
    
    

    
    Only two hours now until the dawn of a new home computing era.
    
    <snicker>
    
    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa <gasp>!
    

    Odd, with the new computing era now 10 hours old, my computers are
    working EXACTLY the same way they did before.  Color me puzzled.

>     <<< Note 114.292 by SMURF::BINDER "Night's candles are burnt out." >>>
>    Odd, with the new computing era now 10 hours old, my computers are
>    working EXACTLY the same way they did before.  Color me puzzled.

Mine too...

Call me old-fashioned, but my 286 AT clone w/ math processor still does just
about all the computing functions I'm likely to ever need.

I wrote an astronomy application in C a while back, a few thousand floating
point calculations that get you accurate positions for Sun, Moon, and planets
in the sky. I ported it to Turbo C on the AT... the delay from hitting return
to getting results isn't noticable, same as on a VAX.

I suppose I could set this up to run from mouse button clicking, but why
bother? It only takes 6 keystrokes to run from the DOS line...

<INCOMING!>

    re: .292
    
    Mine too... It keeps saying something about starting WIN-95.  I guess
    I'll just have to put up with the improved UI.
    
    Bob

Hey, any of you folks run anything you *need* a computer for?

From this and the Win95 note, it looks to me like some folks have $2000
Nintendo machines...

Me:
Amateur radio stuff: antenna modeling, circuit simulation, satellite tracking
Astronomy stuff: Positions/data of Sun, Moon, planets, comets, asteroids,
                 eclipse predictor, star maps (wrote all of these myself)
The usual: word processing, label printing, etc. (wife has a home business)

PC is an old AT clone, does all of this just fine...  speed hasn't been an
issue since I put the coprocessor in it. I might save a few seconds of number
crunching time on the ham radio stuff if I got a slick new machine, but it's
hardly worth $1000-2000...

    .295
    
    > Hey, any of you folks run anything you *need* a computer for?
    
    I suppose I could maintain a card catalog for my 3000-book library. 
    And one for my CD collection.  And I suppose I could drag out my Hermes
    3000 to type the articles I send to the newspaper, but then I'd have to
    drive them over there, and the keyboarders would commit numerous typos. 
    (This latter I say from experience.)  And I suppose I could use carrier
    pigeons to fulfill my academic obligations.
    
    On the whole, I prefer using a computer.

  .296  oh huff, puff, foof.  we're impressed as all get-out, okay?

	now - on to the really important uses - i use the mac to
	plan out the vegetable garden.  yes, now we're talkin'.

    <--  hoe hoe!

    .297
    
    If I wanted to impress you, I'd have recommended you buy a PeeCee, so
    you could drive yourself nuts wondering why Binder's computer worked
    reliably while yours didn't.

    kids!

    
    
    And how else would I catalogue my 10,000 nuts and bolts in my garage
    not to mention my 1gazillion miniature stone collection that I keep in 
    my yard.

    What about your huge sea shell collection, scattered on beaches
    throught the world?

    Bill

                      Beyond the Hype (Guardian, 25-Aug-95)

	Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy,
	argues Windows 95 does not cross any frontiers

What on Earth is going on? Have we found intelligent life on other planets?
Abolished war and famine? Found Elvis? Have we even devised a new and better
way of using computers? No. All that's happened is that Microsoft has
remodelled its operating system so that it's now more like the Macintosh.

This may well be a cause for rejoicing among Windows users but it's hardly a
giant leap for mankind and doesn't warrant this sense that we're all
supposed to celebrate early and avoid the millennium rush.

As part of this billion-dollar festival of smoke and mirrors, Bill Gates has
apparently paid the Rolling Stones 8 million pounds for the right to use
Start Me Up, the song which is better known for its catchy refrain "You make
a grown man cry".

This is a phrase you may hear a lot of over the next few days as millions of
people start trying to install Windows 95. Even the best designed systems
can be a nightmare to upgrade, but whatever things Microsoft may be famous
for - the wealth of its founder, the icy grip he exerts on what is arguably
the most important industry on this planet - good systems design is not, as
it happens, one of them.

Let's dispel a few myths. There's one which says that the original PC
operating system was a brilliant feat of programming by boy genius Bill
Gates. It wasn't brilliant and Gates didn't write it. He acquired it,
"shrewdly", from the Seattle Computer Company and then immediately licensed
it on to another, larger, outfit called IBM. When the IBM PC was launched
into a market which had hitherto been serviced by garage companies named
after bits of fruit, it carried the impimatur of a world-renowned name and
sold a zillion, making Gates' operating system a world standard. IBM had
failed to realise that any fool could make the boxes, but the hand that
owned the software ruled the world. Big Blue had given the kid Gates a free
ride into the stratosphere and then, astoundingly, found itself starting to
fall away like a discarded booster rocket.

Sadly this new world software standard was actually a piece of crap.

MS-DOS, as Gates called it, had started life as QDOS-86 or the Quick & Dirty
Operating System, which told you all you needed to know about it. A whole
generation of people doggedly learned to run their businesses on a system
that was written as a quick lash-up for hobbyists and hackers. Was there
anything better around? Of course.

In the 1970's, Xerox had funded a team of the world's top computer
scientists to research the man/machine interface. They devised a graphical
system, using windows, icons and mice. Their key insight was that a lot of
needless complications could be cut short by harnessing people's intuitive
and gestural skills. Oddly, Xerox failed to follow this up, and the research
was taken up and brought to the market by Apple Computer as the Macintosh.
After a shaky, underpowered start, this machine matured into a
well-integrated system which was not only very powerful, but a real pleasure
to use. Mac users tend to have an almost fanatical devotion to their machines.

The Microsoft line on all this was that Windows was for wimps. The truth was
that plain old MS-DOS couldn't actually do them. Graphics, mice, networking,
and a whole lot else, had to be added to the basic core of QDOS as one
afterthought after another, which is why Wintel computers are so fiendishly
complicated to set up and maintain.

Gates, however, had always known which way the future lay, and for years
Microsoft managed the awkward juggling act of rubbishing Apple's user
interface while simultaneously trying to devise something like it that would
fit on top of the bloated clutter that MS-DOS had become.

BYTE magazine said recently: "It would not be an exaggeration to describe
the history of the computer in the past decade as a massive effort to keep
up with Apple."  However, the Macintosh is not the last word on interface
design, and if Microsoft had been the innovative company that it calls
itself, it would have taken the opportunity to take a radical leap beyond
the Mac, instead of producing a feeble, me-too, implementation.

An awful lot of people who try to install Windows 95 will end up having to
spend so much money buying extra RAM and upgrading their peripherals to get
features that Mac users have enjoyed for years, that they might as well give
up and buy the real thing.

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to
lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the
fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it
in the first place.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
      andy leslie, reboot ltd ([email protected])
      a world away from DEC, but having fun.

    re: .303
    
    Pretty much hits the nail on the head...
    
    -b

    
>>    Pretty much hits the nail on the head...

    so it would seem.  nicely written too.

    er, except that part about Mac users and their fanatical devotions.
    i've seen no evidence of that. 8^|

    
    I doubt that he's ever even used a PC.
    
    Adams wrote his first books on a publishing system that integrated
    Apples with Linotron typesetters, using the horrific CORA-V
    typesetting language.  One of the very first electronic publishing
    systems available in the UK that cut out the compositor stage
    of book production.  At the time the only other options cost many
    thousands of dollars and nothing was available on the PC.
    
    He's been spinning the same biased diatribe in UK newspapers for a
    decade, while PC's have taken over in DTP.  [IMHO, ;-)]
    
    Colin
    

    .306
    
    > ...while PC's have taken over in DTP.
    
    BWAHAHAHAHA!!
    
    My daughter is a DTP professional of some significant experience.  Her
    shop, which runs about a dozen Macs, bought its first PC, actually a
    Macintosh 6100 DOS-Compatible, so it could do the odd book, from
    customers like Hewlett-Packard, that is not doable with real DTP
    software such as the Macintosh versions of FrameMaker (ugly but
    powerful), Pagemaker (less ugly but less powerful) or QuarkXpress (very
    not-ugly, and lacking only a few Frame features). 
    
    "taken over in DTP."
    
    Pull the other one.

Just another flat of sour grapes, I think.

Before I used a PC, I developed applications on every DIGITAL proprietary
operating system ever marketed for the PDP-8 and PDP-11, with the exception
of MUMPS. There's nothing inherently worse about MS-DOS or Windows than
any of them, and there's a lot which is a vast improvement. I haven't
used extensively, but have seen and toyed with Apple's stuff and will
admit that it's very nice, but it isn't orders of magnitude better than
MicroSoft stuff, in the manner that VMS tends to be orders of magnitude
better than U*IX. [:^)]

The fact of the matter is that Bill Gates made some good moves at the
right times. I won't even go so far as to say he made some good decisions,
only that he was fortunate enough to have done the right things when it
mattered, and that he had the unstoppable momentum of an industry being
hauled away by an unimpeachable blue giant handy to carry him to the
top. More power to him. All of us who never managed to finish college
should be as fortunate as Bill Gates. At least he had the good sense not
to drag U*IX off of some campus after him like a trailing tail of
bathroom tissue.

    .308
    
    The point of Adams' article, in re Apple v. MeSsy-DOS, is that Apple
    really WAS orders of magnitude better when the Mac was introduced in
    1984 - all that Gates had to show then was a mouseless command-line
    interface that could sort of display 200x320 graphics.  Only now, 11
    years after Apple was there, does Microsquash come out with a GUI that
    is still not the equal in ease and convenience, of System 7.0, released
    in 1991.
    
    As for MeSsy-DOS and UN*X, allow me to mention CP/M in the same breath. 
    My experience with MeSsy-DOS is that it combines all the worst features
    of UN*X and CP/M without improving significantly on their better
    features.
    

    
    Dick:
    
    FrameMaker != "Real DTP software". Real something, yes. DTP
    software? No. I use Adobe Pagemaker, and I like it better
    than QuarkExpress and infinitely better than FrameMaker.
    I've also used Aldus Pagemaker, which is a nice package
    too.

    The charm in FrameMaker, if there be a charm, is that it runs
    on just about any box known to mankind. Which is also its
    downfall, as it seems rather ignorant of the concept of separating
    content from layout (I guess maybe I'm too SGML-oriented).
    One of my clients recently gave me >50 engineering documents,
    the lion's share of which were produced using FrameMaker on
    a Sun workstation. I'm rewriting these documents, and the
    only system I have Frame on is a PC. The documents look just
    plain _awful_ on the PC and Frame doesn't even do reasonable
    font substitution!!! (Frame is also very bad at document
    interchange; neither importing or exporting anything that
    I find useful...)

    -b

    Bri, Frame has one feature that makes it a choice over QuarkXpress,
    i.e., it has a built-in equation editor.  Otherwise, it is not Mac-like
    or otherwise a nice tool to use.

>    The point of Adams' article, in re Apple v. MeSsy-DOS, is that Apple
>    really WAS orders of magnitude better when the Mac was introduced in
>    1984 - all that Gates had to show then was a mouseless command-line
>    interface that could sort of display 200x320 graphics.  Only now, 11
>    years after Apple was there, does Microsquash come out with a GUI that
>    is still not the equal in ease and convenience, of System 7.0, released
>    in 1991.

And they (MS) still sell how many hundreds of licenses for their O/S's
to every one that Apple sells? Adams, or anyone else, can whine all
day long about MS being "behind the times" and it will still sound
like sour grapes, because, afterall, Bill Gates and MicroSoft are
the industry leaders in terms of number of installations and total
revenues/profits and everybody_else_including_Apple is not. That's
the real story. No amount of whining will change it. It's just too
damn big to pull it down at this point. IBM cain't even do it with
the stuff they've tried to develop so they could ram it down Gates'
throat. Like I said, more power to him.

    .312
    
    > how many hundreds of licenses...
    
    Actually, the number stands presently at roughly 7:1.  Macintosh holds
    about 15% of the total personal computer market, and with the licensing
    of several clone makers the MacOS market share is rising, not falling.
    
    > industry leaders
    
    You should review your Economics 101 textbook.  Pay particular
    attention to the discussion of Gresham's Law, and then extend that
    concept to software.

Nope. You'll have to help. I never took a course in economics and
didn't meet Gresham.

    .314
    
    Gresham's Law states that in any society where there are two kinds of
    money bearing the same denomination in circulation, the one with the
    greater intrinsic value will be hoarded and the one with the lesser
    intrinsic value will flood the market.
    
    Applied to personal computers, this law explains why Mac users are so
    fanatically devoted to their machines and also why there are more PCs
    out there.

What kind of grapes did this Gresham grow?

:^)

    Sir Thomas Gresham, who lived in the 16th century, was a successful
    financier and a founder of the Royal Exchange.  Grapes?  He had no need
    for any, except at table.

    Anyone with school-age kids who's contemplating dropping $90+ on
    the Wind95 bandwagon might first (or better yet, instead) drop $100
    on the (new?) World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia on CD-ROM, which
    I just got some mail about yesterday.
    
    For those of us who've been frustrated with the currently available
    kids' CD-ROM encyclopedias (fun, pretty, but low on content and depth)
    should find this to be welcome news.  It contains the full contents
    of the entire World Book Encyclopedia, their two-volume dictionary,
    a nice-looking atlas, and lots of additional built-in multimedia
    features, search tools, and the usual other stuff that you typically
    get with these encyclopedias.
    
    I've already put in an order; apparently there's a backlog already,
    because the order-taking guy said they're out of stock and there's
    about a three-week wait.
    
    Chris

    
    Chris,

    That's not a Compton's/NewMedia product is it? I'll gladly
    pay $100 for a good multimedia encyclopedia, but not one
    those pigs have anything to do with...

    -b

    .319
    
    I consider Grolier's better than Compton's despite its somewhat
    inferior GUI.  It has more and better useful stuff in it.  Haven't seen
    the World Book, however.

>      andy leslie, reboot ltd ([email protected])
>      a world away from DEC, but having fun.

ah, I wondered where Digital's chief cynic had got to!

Anyway, I still stand by my original claim about MS-DOG, my first impressions
when I was (literally) forced to use it about 10 years ago: "Yeeeeuuuckk!!!
This bugger has achived the amazing ability to combine all of VMS' and Unix'
worst features, and is still crap!"

I'm frankly amazed that as late as 1995, Microsoft can get away with heralding
an operating system with brand new features such as pre-emptive multitasking
and long file names... er, they haven't been around long, have they?

Well, as they say, the devil has all the best tunes (or, in this case, the
Microsnot marketing department)  Which reminds me, what'll all the crap about
NT being the best thing since sliced bread?  From what I understand, it doesn't
even manage things that 30 year old operating systems did well, and the rather
tacky user interface certainly doesn't make amends.

Chris.

    This looks like the real World Book that we all grew up with
    and probably had to deal with at one time or another.  I just
    got the stuff in the mail yesterday... it shows the 22 or however
    many volumes of World Book Encyclopedia, claims the entire contents
    thereof are contained in the CD-ROM version, plus the other stuff
    I'd mentioned.  The product literature mentions "World Book" all
    over the place, and goes out of its way to identify itself as such.
    
    When I called to order it, after going through the usual "To press
    one, press one" thing, the guy answered something like "World Book
    Direct Sales".  Seems like the real thing.
    
    Of course, this isn't a Britannica(sp?)-class encyclopedia, but
    if it's true to its content claim (the original full World Book
    plus multimedia), it's got to beat the pants off everything that's
    out there now, including Encarta and Compton's.
    
    Chris

    How many articles does it claim to have, Chris?  Grolier's claims
    33,000 and says that its total content is more than in the paper
    version because of movies and sounds.

>    Anyone with school-age kids who's contemplating dropping $90+ on
>    the Wind95 bandwagon

BTW - So far, Walmart's had the lowest price I've seen, at $74.99 as of
last Thursday afternoon.

RE: 114.321 by CBHVAX::CBH "Lager Lout"

> what'll all the <RO> about NT being the best thing since sliced bread?  
> From what I understand, it doesn't even manage things that 30 year old 
> operating systems did well

Like what?


Phil

    >> How many articles does it claim to have, Chris?
    
    Hmm, I don't recall, and I left the literature home this morning.
    I'll bring it in tomorrow and provide more details here.
    
    There's movies, sounds, and the usual other multimedia stuff in
    this World Book as well, so it's really a superset of the print
    version.
    
    It will no doubt make it easier than ever for kids to copy
    the encyclopedia articles for their junior-high-school reports...
    
    Chris

>> BTW - So far, Walmart's had the lowest price I've seen, at $74.99 as of
>> last Thursday afternoon.
    
    Right, so you'll be tempted to spend the savings on Microsoft Plus!
    (exclamation point theirs, not mine :-)), which has lots of stuff
    that should have gone into the Windbag 95 package.
    
    Chris

    Okay, here's some info that I scribbled down from the World Book
    glossy hype sheet:
    
    17,000 in-depth articles  (many fewer than Grolier's, depending on
    what "in-depth" means, and whether there are WB articles that just
    didn't make the cut for being "in-depth", perhaps out-of-depth?)
    
    150,000 index entries
    
    28,000 photos, illustrations, maps, etc.
    
    80 audio clips
    
    23 animations
    
    15 video clips
    
    265-map atlas
    
    225,000-entry dictionary
    
    
    Seems a bit light on the multimedia stuff (audio/video/animation),
    but I'm actually more interested in the content anyway.  I'll let
    you know how it compares with Encarta after it arrives and I get
    a few minutes to check it out.
    
    Chris

    
    YAPC.

    This one's a... oh crap what is it? Dell? Packard Bell?
    Something like that. Anyway, it's your garden variety
    133 Mhz Pentium box with PCI local bus video, IDE
    disk controller and 2.1gb disk. Pretty snappy little
    mutha. Complete with an infrared remote control for
    the telephone application, cd player (quad speed),
    etc.

    Running... you guessed it... Win95. Since this is a
    brandy-new PC it has the requisite Plug and Play
    components. It performs very well on this system, even
    though it only has 16 meg RAM outta-da-box (I'll be
    increasing that to 48 meg soon.)

    But the really nice part (ready to gag, Hare Binder?)
    is the new version of Office for Win95. Everything I
    hated about Word 6, in particular, has been fixed.
    Envelopes and business cards print correctly (which
    was the biggest hair puller for me.) The sexiest
    new feature is the real-time spell checker. As words
    are typed, if they are not in the dictionary, they
    are underlined with a squiggly red mark. You instantly
    know if something is misspelled (this is where Hare
    Binder steps in and tells us about the Mac-based
    word processor that's had that feature for at
    least a millennium.)

    Win95 is definitely a step up. Now if I can only get
    keyboard mappings set up in Procomm... I don't know
    what it is about the keyboard with this new system,
    but it does _not_ seem to generate the same keycodes
    as the "default" keyboard map... so logging on to
    my internet provider, CompuServe, or even mutha Digital
    is a bit of a challenge...

    -b

    .329
    
    > 133 Mhz Pentium box with PCI local bus video, IDE
    > disk controller and 2.1gb disk.
    
    Not bad.  Only a little less performance than the new 5300C/es
    PowerBook.  Of course, the PowerBook only has a 1-gig disk.  Does it
    have an 800x600 screen with 16-bit color, like the PowerBook?
    
    > Complete with an infrared remote control...
    
    Can you network with the IR thingie the way you can with a PowerBook?
    
    > But the really nice part (ready to gag, Hare Binder?)
    > is the new version of Office for Win95. Everything I
    > hated about Word 6, in particular, has been fixed.
    > Envelopes and business cards print correctly (which
    > was the biggest hair puller for me.)
    
    Yippee do.  But since I never bothered to waste my money on Word 6, I
    wouldn't know about printing problems.  My word processor has never
    failed to print envelopes and business cards properly.  It's available
    for Pee Sea boxes, too, so that's not even a Mac thing, it's just a
    quality thing.  I realize the Q-word is a problem for Microsquash,
    though, so I'll be nice.
    
    > The sexiest
    > new feature is the real-time spell checker. As words
    > are typed, if they are not in the dictionary, they
    > are underlined with a squiggly red mark. You instantly
    
    This is without question a good thing.  I haven't seen it elsewhere.
    
    > Win95 is definitely a step up.
    
    Not from MacOS 7.5, it's not.  Not even from MacOS 7.1.
    
    > I don't know
    > what it is about the keyboard with this new system,
    > but it does _not_ seem to generate the same keycodes
    > as the "default" keyboard map...
    
    Er, umm...  On a Mac, the system asks the keyboard what kind it is and
    uses the appropriate key map, either one that's built in or one that's
    supplied with the keyboard, as necessary.  It's called Plug and Play.
    
    :-)

        
    >Not bad.  Only a little less performance than the new 5300C/es
    >PowerBook.  Of course, the PowerBook only has a 1-gig disk.  Does it
    >have an 800x600 screen with 16-bit color, like the PowerBook?
    
    The maximum display res is 1280 x 1024, but the system
    is sold with only 1 meg of VRAM installed, which means
    that at 800x600, you only get 256 colors. But the on-
    board video is easily upgraded to 2 meg, which gives
    you 16 bit color in 800x600 mode and full 24 bit color
    in 640x480 mode. Of course, with Win95, the video
    resolution is no longer only a "system" property,
    but can also be set on a per-application basis. So
    while I would run most applications in 800x600 mode,
    I can drop the resolution for Photoshop and obtain
    greater color detail.

    >Yippee do.  But since I never bothered to waste my money on Word 6, I
    >wouldn't know about printing problems.

    I was never a Word user by choice. For example, Word
    format is one of two formats that ISO accepts for
    electronically submitted text. Several of my clients
    were also using Word and would e-mail me Word documents
    on a regular basis. I was stuck with it. In my opinion,
    Word version 2 on the Pee Sea was a lot stronger product
    than Word version 6. I've already stated several times
    in this forum that Word 6 was, in my opinion, the worst
    POS software I've owned (that cost more than $100.) The
    new version is damn snappy, although I detest Microsoft's
    "wizard" features (common to most current generation
    MS products.) Wizards are dialog boxes designed to make
    it easier to create new documents, graphics or what-
    have-you. The problem is that the wizards are all
    template driven and the templates are at their best
    pedestrian and at their worst fugly. Customizing
    the wizards is virtually impossible. But as an absolutely
    FREE service of Microsoft, regardless of how useless
    the wizards are, they're always right there to annoy
    you as soon as you start the software...

    >> Win95 is definitely a step up.
    
    >Not from MacOS 7.5, it's not.  Not even from MacOS 7.1.

    Purely from MS-DOG/Windoze 3.scum. It's definitely a step
    up from them.

    >Er, umm...  On a Mac, the system asks the keyboard what kind it is and
    >uses the appropriate key map, either one that's built in or one that's
    >supplied with the keyboard, as necessary.  It's called Plug and Play.
    
    Well, in that regard the Pee Sea sucks. Which is something
    that really makes me scratch my head... how can something
    be compatible if it doesn't generate the same key codes?
    Sure, they all generate the same key-codes for standard
    alphabetic characters and the numeric keypad, but that clump
    of keys in the middle is a free-for-all (insert, home, arrow
    keys, etc.)

    -b

    .331
    
    > The maximum display res is 1280 x 1024...
    
    The PowerBook can do that with an external monitor.
    
    > with Win95, the video
    > resolution is no longer only a "system" property,
    > but can also be set on a per-application basis.
    
    On a Mac, applications have been able to change the color depth ever
    since the Macintosh II, circa 1987.  As a user, you can change depth
    and resolution at any time with the Monitors control panel.
    
    > For example, Word
    > format is one of two formats that ISO accepts for
    > electronically submitted text.
    
    Do they accept formats older than Word 6?  Real word provessors like
    WordPerfect and Nisus Writer, and even ClarisWorks' WP module, can
    export to older formats.
    
    > Wizardsare dialog boxes designed to make
    > it easier...
    
    Yeah, ClarisWorks has 'em, too, they're called Assistants.  MacUser
    says CW's Assistants are easier and cleaner to use than the Wizards.
    But they *are* limited.  Good feature is that you don't even have to
    care that they're there unless you want to use one.  You don't even
    have to install them.
    
    > how can something
    > be compatible if it doesn't generate the same key codes?
    
    Well, yasee, on a Mac, each keyboard type has an ID.  The software has
    maps built in for all of Apple's standard keyboards, and it translates
    through the appropriate map.  (For example, if I run Snooper on the Mac
    on my desk, it will tell me that I have an Apple Extended Keyboard II
    attached.)  If a vendor wants to sell keyboards that work with a Mac,
    that vendor has to match one of the known maps or else supply an
    Installer with a resource file containing a map specific to that
    keyboard.  The Installer will install the map into the System file, and
    that Mac will thenceforth be able to use that keyboard in addition to
    any of the standard ones.

    > Only a little less performance than the new 5300C/es PowerBook.
    
    Is it good form to praise a product whose delay is one of three factors
    causing a major stock price decline, whose shipments have all had to be
    recalled because the battery ignites during recharging, and which may
    not even be fixed in time for Christmas?  
    
    That powerbook 5300 is hot stuff, sure enough.
    
    DougO

    .333
    
    > Is it good form to praise a product...
    
    No worse form than praising the Pentium chip despite knowledge of its
    FDIV problem, and incidentally BEFORE said problem was fixed.  And no
    worse form than praising the Pentium for its speed despite knowledge of
    the 100-MHz version's cache bug that made it a 66-MHz version if the
    user expected multithreaded programs not to crash.
    

    watsa powerbook?
    
    You have to pardon my ignorance.  I restrict my knowledge to "real"
    computers.
    
    ;->

    .335
    
    A PowerBook is a computer that looks similar to a Pee Sea laptop, but
    it's much easier to use.

     <<< Note 114.336 by SMURF::BINDER "Night's candles are burnt out." >>>

>    A PowerBook is a computer that looks similar to a Pee Sea laptop, but
>    it's much easier to use.

	It's only drawback is that it starts fires. ;-)

Jim

    .337
    
    > It's [sic] only drawback is that it starts fires. ;-)
    
    Sorta like guns' only drawback is that they shoot people, eh?  :-)
    

    > No worse form than praising the Pentium chip despite knowledge of its
    > FDIV problem, and incidentally BEFORE said problem was fixed. 
    
    Did anyone in here do that?  I was speaking directly of *your* praise
    for the powerbook, not Apple's.
    
    > It's only drawback is that it starts fires. ;-)
    
    Well...that has only happened with the newest model (5300), and only 
    when equipped with one particular battery type.  I understand other
    powerbooks to inspire complete and dogmatic loyalty in their users ;-).
    
    DougO

    .339
    
    > I was speaking directly of *your* praise...
    
    Ah.  Cool.  Well, *my* PowerBook, despite being only a lowly 68030/33
    wimp, is among those that have inspired dogmatic loyalty in their
    users.  Were I able to afford a hotter PowerBook, figuratively
    speaking, of course, I'd be in line for a 5300.  :-)

    Well, I hate to brag...but I'm going to inherit a 386, yes I am. 
    Not only that, it has a 540meg hd, 4 meg ram, local bus and I will soon
    be loading a nifty C-complier on it.  
    
    Yes, I know you are all mighty impressed with the technical prowess of
    my new (old) machine.  Try not to envy me too much.  8^)
    
    Well, it may not be much, but it will suit my purpose quite well until
    I can afford a better machine.  At least I won't be wasting a lot of
    time playing DOOM or similar processor-intensive games on it.  8^)
    
    
    -steve

<forwards removed>


Subject: FW: If OpSys Were Beers
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 95 10:30:00 EST

Received from the 'net'

 ----------------------

If Operating Systems Were Beers...

DOS Beer:
Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the
directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in
an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is
divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed
separately.  Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are
going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available.

Mac Beer:
At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can.
Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical.
When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients
list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you
are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds
you to drag your empties to the trashcan.

Windows 3.1 Beer:
The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that looks a lot like
Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it
allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality
you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if
you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, for
apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you
open it.

OS/2 Beer:
Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers
simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously
too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when
you open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone
drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer
Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold.

Windows 95 Beer:
You can't buy it yet, but a lot of people have taste-tested it and
claim it's wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but
tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when
you look inside, the cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most
people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their
friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients
list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same
ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer
claims that this is an entirely new brew.

Windows NT Beer:
Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This
causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators.
The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises
to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's - after Windows
95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and
suggested only for use in bars.

Unix Beer:
Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64
oz.  Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though
they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical.
Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you
have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in
which
case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who
has been drinking Unix Beer for several years.

AmigaDOS Beer:
The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been
picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an
import.  This beer never really sold very well because the original
manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS
Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came
in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was
originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the
design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now.
Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV
anyway.

VMS Beer:
Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and
sipping.  However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or
contain extremely un-beer-like contents.  Best drunk in high pressure
development environments.  When you call the manufacturer for the
list of ingredients, you're told that is proprietary and referred to
an unknown listing in the manuals published by the FDA.  Rumors are
that this was once listed in the Physicians' Desk Reference as a
tranquilizer, but no one can claim to have actually seen it.


+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Windows is like a Mac in the same way that a transvestite is like a         |
| real woman.  It's 95% the same, and actually what some people would prefer,  |
| but not really the same for those who care about small differences.          |
|                               -- John C. Dvorak, quoting his wife            |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+


---- end forwarded text ----

Pah!  PCs and laptops are for weeds, and user intuitive OSs are for real
wimps!  Gimme a *real* system like Unix or CMS, where you have to talk to
it in heiroglyphics and the host system weighs at least 3.5 tons and needs
a 415 volt power supply.  I'd include VMS in my `most favouritest systems'
but it's too easy to use.

Chris.

    .343
    
    UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries
    licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Ltd.
    
    It's not Unix, it's UNIX.  Given that our company is a player in the
    UNIX market, hoping to become the dominant player, it behooves us to
    remember the correct trademark lest X/Open decide to jerk our license
    to use the name at all.

Yeah I know, I keep getting told off for that, but I still call `Digital'
DEC anyway!

Chris.

    More thoughts on Win95...

    One thing I really like about the Mac is the way it handles
    "media change". The issue of whether the trash can is an
    appropriate way of removing media aside, it really has a
    whopping advantage over the Windoze way of life.

    On a Mac, the system "knows" when you insert or remove a
    disk... on a PC, that's not the case. The system doesn't
    know the media has changed until the next time that media
    is accessed, and sometimes not even then (run FileMangler,
    put a floppy in drive A:, double click on the floppy's
    icon, remove the floppy and insert another, and then
    double click on A: again... what you get is the first
    floppy's directory structure re-displayed... you have to
    manually select "refresh" to update the directory cache.)

    I also like the way the Mac creates an icon for media as
    it is added to the desktop. That is a much more intuitive
    way of dealing with multiple disks (hard drive, CD-ROM,
    floppy etc.)

    The bad news is that Win95, with all its improvements
    in the UI, left the media issue unaddressed. The good
    news is that Win95, with all its improvements in the
    UI, left the media issue unaddressed. Can you say "new
    product idea for -b?" I knew you could.

    -b

    Macs with PC-Card slots (formerly called PCMCIA slots) also recognize
    a PC-Card when it's inserted, and automatically configure it.

Did they change PCMCIA to PC-Card because

	People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms?

/john

�    is accessed, and sometimes not even then (run FileMangler,
�    put a floppy in drive A:, double click on the floppy's
�    icon, remove the floppy and insert another, and then
�    double click on A: again... what you get is the first
�    floppy's directory structure re-displayed... you have to
�    manually select "refresh" to update the directory cache.)

   try single click....  works for me
kb

    A Marine Captain of my acquaintance reports that after struggling
    with Winlose 95 for several days and spending countless hours on
    the phone with tech support, he's finally given up and de-installed
    it, going back to 3.1.
    
    He has a nice Pentium 90 MHz system with lots of memory, disk space,
    and the like, that he purchased from Micron a few months ago.
    
    Even after being toughened by about twenty years of being a Marine
    and even being in the Gulf War, he says that his Windows 95 experience
    has been far more anxiety-provoking than any combat or training
    maneuvers he's ever been through, including the Gulf War.  :-)
    
    He said, "I feel like I've been dragged down to Hell, and then
    escaped."
    
    
    By the way, what happened to all the hype and hundreds of millions
    of dollars on ad campaigns?  Aside from the mostly-free autodrool
    done by the mass media around the time of the "launch", I didn't
    really see all that much.  Maybe I'm just doing a good job of hiding.
    Did Windows 95 just kind of "go away"?
    
    Chris

    
    I noticed that MS dropped the Stones tune after the first two weeks.
    Think they got their $12-million worth out of it?
    

    .350
    Marine Corp officers were trained specifically to go to hell, come back
    and should have told you how much he enjoyed the trip. I hope he wasn`t
    complaining about it...if he was he should be in the Navy. :') 

    >> Marine Corp officers were trained specifically to go to hell, come back
    >> and should have told you how much he enjoyed the trip. I hope he wasn`t
    
    Actually, he did enjoy it, which I thought was weird.  The whole
    time he was giving me the horrid details of his experience, he
    was laughing, and almost giddy.  :-)  He was actually looking
    forward to attempting to re-install it!
    
    Chris

    >> I noticed that MS dropped the Stones tune after the first two weeks.
    >> Think they got their $12-million worth out of it?
    
    They'll get their money back, probably by upping the price
    of the 3.1 versions of their office apps, to attempt to strongarm
    us holdouts into upgrading to 95.
    
    In my latest Egghead mailing, the prices of the 3.1 versions
    are already significantly higher than their 95 counterparts,
    sometimes almost 50% higher.  An interesting tactic that will
    backfire with the likes of me.
    
    Chris

    I thought they only paid $2M?

    re: my own .231, pre-"launch"
    
    >> At the Redmond, Wash., headquarters of Microsoft, Gates will share the
    >> stage with a mystery celebrity guest while exalting Windows 95 in a
    >> multimedia demonstration for about 2,500 people.
    >> 
    >> "I'm not allowed to tell you who the celebrity will be," said Microsoft
    >> spokeswoman Pam Takahama. "All I can say is that it's someone you've
    >> heard of and, hopefully, love."

    So, who was the celebrity, had we heard of him/her, and most importantly,
    did we love him/her?
    
    Chris

    
    Jay Leno, yes, no.
    
    
    
    Rob
    

    Aha, thanks... I'll go along with the "yes, no" part as well. :-)
    
    Chris

Intel has announced its name for its P6 processor, follow-on to
the Pentium.

No, not 'Hexium' or 80686.

It'll be the Pentium Pro.

    .359
    
    Touted as providing twice the performance of the Pentium, the Pentium
    Pro barely manages a 15% increase.  Intel may be learning what the rest
    of the world learned a few years ago, i.e., that the days of CISC
    computing are numbered.  With a repidly decrementing integer.

    
    RE: .360
    
    Look you, stop impersonating Dick Binder. With "sporits" and
    "repidly" in one day, we know you aren't the real thing.
    
    -b

I think that the Intel range are crap too, FWIW.  Should make more room
for the Alpha, if only they'd lower the prices.

Chris.

    I agree, the alphas are way too pricey.

    economies of scale.  Intel has done one thing respectably, and that is
    to get its chips out in volumes that nobody else can touch.
    
    DougO

    Can a 486DX4 approach any Pentium performance levels?  Like a
    Pentium-75 or 90?
    
    CompUSA has a decent sale on DX4's right now.
    
    thanks,
    Mike

    Serious questions:
    
    Do you really *need* Pentium performance, Mike?  Are you going to be
    crunching gigs of floating-point numbers?  And do you plan on
    installing huge amounts of RAM and cache and a super I/O subsystem so
    that the difference in CPU speed will become a factor?  Or do you just
    think it'd be cool to have a hot box?

    Mike,
    
    Is the 486 a VL bus or PCI bus system?  If it's a PCI bus system, you
    are probably O.K. for a long time.  If a VL bus system, how long would
    you keep this computer before upgrading to a more powerful processor?  
    
    I bought a 486DX4-100 VL bus system in January because the
    motherboard/cpu price was about 1/3 the price of a P90 motherboard/cpu. 
    I did this knowing full well that when I DO upgrade to a Pentium, I
    will need to replace my motherboard, cpu, SCSI disk controller, and
    video controller.  If the 486 is a VL system, you will be faced with
    the same situation when you decide to upgrade.
    
    Bob

    It's DEC's LPv so I believe it's a PCI.
    
    And Dick, the answer is yes. ;-)  I've upgraded storage already, RAM is
    forthcoming, but I'm too cheap to get a Pentium.
    
    Mike

    .356
    
    It was Anthony Edwards, of "Top Gun" and "E.R." fame.  You can hate his
    bald head, though, just like Chris's.
    
    ;^)

    From a recent mailing list posting:
    
        "According to Philip Machanick of the Department of Computer
        Science of University of the Witwatersrand, not only is the South
        African constitution being written on a Macintosh, but the votes
        of the country's first democratic election were counted with PCs
        running Microsoft Access.
    
        "Apparently the system collapsed and the tally was delayed several
        days."
    
    Just thought someone might want to know...  :-)

    Who on earth let them use a Mac?  It's obvious that if the constitution
    were written in Word 6 the government would be far more stable, and the
    resulting election and tally would have been rock solid.

    Word 6 runs on a Mac.  Like its PeeCee counterpart, it is a pig.

    
    On the P6 (Pentium Pro):
    
    If you are contemplating buying a P6 system (for whatever reason)
    you should be aware that the major factor in the chip's performance
    increase (over the P5) is the look-ahead in the instruction
    pipeline. Intel optimized the look-ahead algorithm in such a
    way that:
    
    1. A performance penalty is paid on loop-exit conditions.
    
    2. A performance penalty is paid on 16 bit (segmented memory)
       operand fetches.
    
    If you are using Windows 3.1, or even if you are using Windows
    95 with existing 16 bit applications, you should be aware that
    you may actually LOSE performance over the same OS/application
    running on a Pentium (P5).
    
    The P6 is really a server chip, for multiple-CPU configurations
    running SMP versions of NT or other 32 bit operating systems
    (Netware, SCO UNIX, etc.)
    
    -b

    re: .373
    
    Brian,
    
    >1. A performance penalty is paid on loop-exit conditions.
    
    Are you saying that every time a loop is exited the penalty is paid?
    What is this penalty?  Flushing the pipeline?
    
    Thanks,
    
    Bob
    

    
    Yes Bob, that is correct (or at least in line with my understanding
    of the the P6 chip is supposed to work).
    
    -b

I've just been trying out Bob Supnik's excellent PDP emulators.  A great
way to run OS/8, RSX, RSTS etc in the comfort of your own PC!

Chris.

MIMIC has been ported to the PC?

    Apple is running a "Why do you prefer Mac instead of a PC with Windows 
    95?" contest at Apple's "Macintosh vs. Windows 95" web site 
    (http://www.apple.com/whymac/).  Here are a few of the entries:
    
    **********
     
    I've been working with computers either as a hobby, or to earn a living 
    since I was a teenager.  While I don't currently own a Mac, it is now 
    time for me to upgrade, and the next machine will be a Mac despite the 
    fact (or maybe because) I have been using Windows since 1990.  
    
    Maintenance and upgrades in the PC world can be a nightmare. On the 
    hardware side you have IRQs, DMA channels, I/O addresses, and more.  On 
    the software side there are .INI files, device drivers, and DLL files 
    that *all* have to work together.  Windows apps are notoriously ill 
    behaved when they install themselves as well.  A typical installation 
    dumps more mysterious DLLs into your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory (possibly 
    overwriting newer versions that other apps need in the process).  It 
    probably also makes changes to your WIN.INI and/or SYSTEM.INI files as 
    well.  Some also make changes to the little known REGISTER.DAT file as 
    well.  That's why uninstalling applications, even with helper
    utilities,  is not a task for the inexperienced or faint of heart.  Due
    to the size  of Win95 and Win95 apps the problem is only going to get
    worse,  especially since Win95 hides some directories and file
    information unless  you go through steps to change that.  With a Mac I
    can use the find  command to locate all files associated with an app
    and then delete them.
     
    What about expandability?  Well on the Mac side if I need more hard
    drive  space I simply buy an external hard disk and plug it into the
    SCSI port,  turn it and the Mac on, and viola, instant storage.  I've
    done this on  Macs; total elapsed time: 5 minutes.  Here is what I have
    to worry about  on the PC side. Is the drive compatible with my disk
    controller.  If not,  can I add one?  What are the technical specs I
    *must* type into the CMOS?  For that matter how do I get to the CMOS on
    the particular machine I'm  working on?  If the drive is bigger than
    540MB, do I have the right  drivers?  Will the drive fight with the
    other drive already there?
     
    Something similar goes on if I need to add a sound card, CD-ROM, a SCSI 
    controller for a scanner, or even a modem.  Plug and Play under Windows 
    95 does *not* solve this due to the large amount of non Plug and Play 
    compatible hardware.
     
    Microsoft touts long filenames as a productivity enhancer.  Well that
    is  partly true...if you're working in a native Win95 app that can
    handle  long file names. To maintain backward compatibility, long file
    names are  truncated internally to the old format.  This can lead to
    confusion if  you are exchanging files across a network (Microsoft
    recommends that the  long name begin with the 8 character short name
    you want) or placing the  files on floppy to exchange with someone
    else.  Older Windows and DOS  apps don't handle long filenames at all.
     
    There are other 'gotchas' in the new file system as well.  Your older 
    undelete and disk repair utilities won't work.  Neither will any disk 
    compression program you're now using.  In fact if you're using anything 
    but Microsoft's Double Space, or Drive Space, you can't even install 
    Win95 until either you uncompress the drive or the company comes out
    with  a Win95 compatible version.
     
    On a Mac, all apps handle filenames the same way and OS upgrades do not 
    render drive compression useless.
     
    Networking?  With Macs you can set up simple peer to peer networks
    right  out of the box.  With PCs you have to add network cards and
    device  drivers.  Yet again opening Pandora's Box of potential
    conflicts.
     
    Even with the advent of  Windows 95 there are still holes in the 
    interface because of its DOS roots.  Take for example starting an 
    application by double clicking on a document icon; in Windows and Win95 
    you can do this *if* the application is 'registered' with the OS
    (meaning  the OS knows a certain file extension goes with that
    program).  If the  app isn't registered you must do it manually.  
    That's why many people on  PCs open up files from inside applications,
    adding extra steps.  On a  Mac, just double click the file and start
    working.  What happens if  somebody gives you a document from a program
    you don't have?  Well on a  PC you must open up a program you have that
    reads the format and manually  tell the program to import the file.
    Macs have Easy Open.  With Easy Open  you can skip steps; just double
    click and the Mac will open up the  correct app for reading the file
    and then import it for you.
     
    I want my next system to be powerful, easy to upgrade and maintain, and 
    have a consistent and easy to use interface.  In short, I want a Mac.
     
    **********
     
    One morning around 5 am, I heard the Mac boot up.  Not unusual in this 
    household, since my five and three year old usually play games before 
    school. However, on this day, I rolled over and the house was still
    dark  and there was no chatter about...my wife just beginning to
    awaken.  We  looked at each other and simultaneously got up to look and
    to our  amazement, our 20 month old, Wyatt, was on top of the desk,
    mouse in  hand!  She was playing inside one of the interactive books!
     
    We knew she had been watching her sisters, not getting half a chance to 
    play, but today, she woke up before they could bully her out of the way 
    and put her curiosity to the test.  I could not believe my eyes, so
    later  that day, with video in hand I asked Wyatt to "show me how to
    play on the  computer."  With a casual, "okay", off she went to the
    computer.  She  hopped on the chair, climbed on top of the desk and
    pushed the upper  right hand button without hesitation. Once in the
    Finder, she located the  cd and "double clicked" her story!   She then
    proceed to click "let me  play" and off she went!
     
    Now, she is becoming as adept as the other two, except for her obvious 
    disadvantage with language, and has earned equal time on the computer.  
    She has her own At Ease folder and can navigate through it, locate the 
    Finder to play her cd books.  Its a wonderful thing to see, really.
     
    Macintosh has achieved the ultimate goal in computer friendliness by 
    making the operation of personal computers, "childsplay".  Windows 95 
    could only hope to be as faciliting as the Macs were even years ago.
     
    As an aside, I tried to call Apple's corporate offices later that week, 
    but I could not get through.  I am grateful, however, to be able to
    relay  my story now and say "thank you" for creating this avenue of
    learning for  my children. It has been worth every penny of our
    investment.
     
    **********
     
    A Macintosh is better than Windows 95 because it connects to a
    Microsoft  network easier!  I recently had the joy of attaching a Win95
    machine to a  Windows NT server.  First I had to install a network
    card. This involved  "Adding New Hardware" in the Control Panel. After
    letting it crank away  for 10 to 15 minutes while it tried to
    auto-detect, I finally had to do a  manual install.  Luckily Win95 had
    the drivers for the card I was  installing listed (why couldn't it
    auto-detect it?), so I chose them and  told it to install. This
    involved 30 files on 4 of the Win95 install  disks.  Then followed the
    half-day of troubleshooting various components  (such as login scripts)
    to get it working properly. During this entire  procedure Windows 95
    locked up 3 times requiring a hard reset each time.
     
    Prior to this, I attached a PowerMac 7200 to our Windows NT server
    where  I work.  This involved taking the new machine out of the box,
    plugging a  network cable into the built in Ethernet port, starting it
    up, and 6  mouse clicks. This required all of about 10 minutes.
     
    One final note:  I have noticed that Windows 95 frequently brings up a 
    dialog box during many installations saying (approximately) "Windows 95 
    is now installing __________.  If during this install there does not 
    appear to be any activity for a long period of time you may need to 
    restart your computer and try again."  I have NEVER seen a dialog box
    of  this nature on a Mac, ONLY in Windows 95, where it turned out to be 
    prophetic.
     
    **********
     
    My Mac is better than a PC running Windows 95 because when I installed 
    System 7.5, I was still able to use my CD-ROM drive, my hard drive
    wasn't  trashed, I didn't have to reformat my hard drive, my Mac still
    smiled at  start up, I still could print, I still had sound, my
    existing software  still worked, I didn't have to call Apple for help
    in the installation, I  didn't have to have Apple tell me how to take
    it back off, all my games  still worked (if not faster), my built-in
    Ethernet still functioned, I  had no IRQ conflicts, finding files
    became easier (as if it wasn't  before), I didn't have to buy something
    like "Apple Plus" for an extra  $70 to get better performance and
    custom sounds and backgrounds, and  finally... I didn't have to have
    someone show me how to use my computer.   I sat down and admired the
    enhancements and then, less then 30 minutes  later I was back to
    writing papers, letters, producing Web pages, and  just plain surfing
    the Internet.
     
    The complete realization came when a co-worker asked me to come and
    help  fix a PC which Windows 95 had completely reeked havoc on....ME a
    Mac user!
     
    **********
     
    Want to see something downright hilarious, just change the color depth
    on  Win95.  Laugh as you see the little message pop up that you must
    *RESTART  WINDOWS* to change the colors!
     
    I've never needed tech support on my Mac, but it gives me some
    confidence  that I do have toll free support to back up on anytime I
    need it.   Windows95 users have to call long distance for charge-free
    support.  What  about after your 90 days of tech support?  I guess
    you'll just have to  pay for it.
     
    Windows 95 will automatically recognize your CD-ROMs!  Isn't that 
    amazing? Just imagine if it could recognize floppies!  You know, I
    wonder  if the automatic recognition was an option for them, since most
    PCs are  simply constructed to be inexpensive for the initial
    investment
     
    Just got the latest game huh?  What's that?  You're running Windows 95?  
    Uh oh, I hope that you still like config.sys and autoexec.bat files. 
    DOS  is everyone's friend, right?  I mean, I love to have to reboot my 
    computer just to go into an operating system that is compatible with my 
    games, especially an archaic one like DOS.  It lets me get in touch
    with  the past.  I mean, they did away with DOS for Windows 95.  Well,
    except  for the file system.  But it's so much simpler now to name
    files since  you don't have to put it in 8.3 file names... unless you
    are taking it to  someone else's computer not running Windows 95. 
    Funny, but I've been  able to do that for ten years....
     
    But we were told that Windows95 was a revolution...SORRY WRONG GUESS! 
    If  Windows95 is really cutting edge technology, then they are using
    the  *wrong* side of the knife...
     
    I know where I want to go today.  I want to go into the future.  The 
    future is not that of limitless complexities and growing demand for 
    resources.  The future is not in Windows 95.  The future is here.  The 
    future is Macintosh.
     
    The number one reason I love my Macintosh is a piece of wisdom we could 
    all live by:
     
    Don't follow the standards...set them.
     
    **********
     
    It's hard to say what is most important, but reliability has got to be 
    first for me. There are a zillion IBM clones out there and frequently 
    it's a crap shoot as to their true compatibility.  When I buy ANY Apple 
    product I know I am getting the very best, the most consistent product.  
    With my first 128K Mac (still going by the way) ease of operation was 
    very important. The darn things are pretty nearly idiot proof. I have 
    owned conservatively speaking at least ten Apples, six of them Macs. 
    The  800 support line?  I've never NEVER had to use it, and I almost
    never  read the documentation.
     
    **********
     
    I use a PC clone at the office. My wife also uses a PC at her office. 
    We  decided that it was time to purchase a computer for home.  Our 
    requirements are as follows:
     
    - Compatibility with the Windows environment (since we will want to use 
    the machine for work at times);
     
    - Great ease of maintenance and operation (at the office, we both have 
    access to technical help, but at home we don't and, frankly, arcane 
    troubleshooting is not our idea of a good time);
     
    - Expandability (we want to add capabilities as our needs grow and our 
    budget allows);
     
    - Upgradability (we do not want to throw a whole machine away every two 
    years);
     
    - Performance (we do not want to have to upgrade in six months)
     
    - Good choice of professional applications, educational software and 
    games (that work without reconfiguring the system every time).
     
    - Price.
     
    With that list of requirements in mind, I started to gather
    information.  At first glance, the answer appeared simple: get a
    Pentium-based  computer, and Windows 95. After all, Windows 95 promised
    compatibility,  ease of use and plug and play capabilities, along with
    great performance  when used on a Pentium-based computer. Moreover,
    there is plenty of  hardware and software to choose from. It could have
    stopped there.
     
    However, by reading reviews in magazines, asking questions to friends, 
    collegues and vendors, I started to get a picture that was not so nice.
     
    First, RISC technology seems more promising than CISC technology, and
    the  Intel processors are based on the latter. Even ignoring future
    trends and  looking at today's performance, everybody agrees that
    existing RISC  processors (like the 601 or the 604) outperform
    Pentiums. IBM itself is  supposed to moving to PowerPCs. What does that
    say about the eventual  upgradability of a machine using a CISC
    processor? I am not sure, but it  does not look too promising.
     
    Second, backward compatibility with older DOS and Windows software is
    not  as perfect as it first appeared, and it comes at a price (in terms
    of  performance). Moreover, compatibility in the DOS and Windows world
    was  never that great to start with (how many times did I hear people
    swear  when trying to make a new software run properly on their
    machine). That  reduces the supposedly tremendous choice of software to
    more moderate  proportions. Moreover, it raises serious questions about
    real ease of use  and maintenance.   
    
    Third, plug and play capabilities are still a promise. We will have to 
    wait and see what hardware and software developers are doing. So, easy 
    expandability is uncertain.
     
    Fourth, there is the price issue. As a lot of people pointed out, you 
    could get very low prices on 486 machines or Pentium machines, and that 
    counts. That counts all right, but when I started to add up what it
    would  cost to get a machine with all the memory and peripherals I
    wanted, I  realized that it was not that cheap after all.
    
    My enthusiasm for a platform running Windows 95 was getting much lower.
     
    Then, I got information on Power Macintosh. Those machines are using
    RISC  technology. The Mac OS has been used and improved for ten years,
    and  every user I talked to said that it is really easy to use and
    maintain.  Plug and play capabilities are, according to users, a "fait
    accompli",  not a promise. I also learned about SoftWindows 2.0, a
    software that  emulates 486's hardware and thus offers as much
    compatibility with DOS  and Windows as you would find on any platform. 
    That meant that I could  choose among all that software and also have
    access to all the Macintosh  software. Moreover, the new Power
    Macintosh accept PCI cards. Some have  the processor on a
    daughterboard, which is great for upgrading at a  reasonable cost.  So
    far, I reasoned, a Power Macintosh seems to be the  right choice. But
    what about price?  An argument that I heard a lot was  that, although a
    lot of people would agree that Macintosh computers are  better, they
    are so overpriced that their quality-price ratio falls well  under that
    of a PC. I started to shop around. I discovered that the PC  price
    advantage is disappearing fast. A Power Macintosh equipped as I  wanted
    would not be significantly more expensive than a comparable PC.  When I
    factored in the other considerations, the PC was left in the dust.
     
    The computer we are going to buy will be a Power Macintosh.

That was very enlightening.

I've never known of anyone to name a girl Wyatt.

    Believe me I'm convinced. The more I use Windoze and Microtrash the
    more I hate it. It's ridiculously complicated to change anything.

    .378 has some excellent arguments for a closed, proprietary system.

I still use a Unix or VMS based workstation by choice for doing real stuff on
over a PC anyday.  I quite like the Win95 user interface, as I mentioned
previously, but that's about all it has going for it.  Can't really comment on
Apples, as the last one I used was a 512K `classic' with no hard disc!

I also fail to see why people get such sticky pants over NT, in my opinion this 
is what MS Windows should have aspired to in the first place, and even then it 
would hardly have been `new technology'.

Chris.

    The problem with Macs is that their users are long-winded...
    
    ;-)

    Not at all.

The Unabomber's not a Mac user.

>  The Unabomber's not a Mac user.

    Why, because he hates technology?  I guess Molly Ives isn't either.

    re: Note 114.386 by BREAKR::FLATMAN
    
    >> The Unabomber's not a Mac user.
    > Why, because he hates technology?  I guess Molly Ives isn't either.
    
    Because he already has a nintendo.

    This is Stewart Alsop's latest column in InfoWorld. Stewart is the 
    editor-in-chief. It's clear that he wasn't one of the participants in
    the  Windows/IDC useability test. 
    
    (Reprinted from an email message for whose wide distribition permission
    was given.)
    
    --------
    
    November 27, 1995
    
    The Road Ahead can get pretty rough when you shift into CD-ROM drive
    
    I crack open my early copy of The Road Ahead, Bill Gates' hot new book. 
    (I'm writing this last Tuesday.) The first thing I do, of course, is 
    check to see if my name is listed in the index. (It isn't. None of
    these  big guys ever lists me in their index!) Then I pull the enclosed
    CD-ROM  out of the book. The cover promises "hundreds of multimedia
    hyperlinks"  -- on the Web, by the way, not Microsoft Network -- and
    besides, I spend  most of my life surfing the Web these days anyway.
    
    It's not a Macintosh CD-ROM, so I turn to my PC with Windows 95 
    installed. I do my daily routine -- restart the machine because
    something  happens to it every night and the network isn't connected
    when I come in  in the morning. Oh yes, then I get the usual error
    message (in DOS text  rather than a graphical dialog box):
    
    "Cannot find a device file that may be needed to run Windows or a
    Windows  application. The Windows Registry or SYSTEM.INI file refers to
    this  device file, but the device file no longer exists. If you deleted
    this  file on purpose, try uninstalling the associated application
    using its  uninstall or step program. If you still want to use the
    application  associated with this device file, try reinstalling that
    application to  replace the missing file. Press a key to continue."
    
    As usual, I press a key to continue while wondering why the machine 
    couldn't have told me which device file it was talking about, since it 
    knows so much about what's wrong and I have no idea which application
    or  device file it is talking about. And I don't remember deleting
    anything  that would have been crucial to running Windows.
    
    I enter my password to log on to the NetWare server. I watch Starfish's 
    Sidekick 95 take forever to load, remembering when Sidekick meant fast 
    and small. I watch Steve Gibson's cool, assembler-only screen saver, 
    ChromaZone, load in seconds and start making what could only be 
    drug-induced patterns on the screen. I watch Quarterdeck's Webserver
    load  in seconds and set itself up. Now I get to load the CD that came
    with the  book -- about 10 minutes after deciding to take a look.
    
    I slide the CD carrier into the machine.
    
    Dialog box: "The Road Ahead has not been installed. Do you want to 
    install it?" OK. The CD works with Windows 3.1, but it works better
    with  Windows 95 -- interesting concept. "Installation is complete. You
    will  need to restart Windows so the new settings can take effect." I
    thought  Windows 95 reconfigured itself on the fly and didn't require
    restarts.  "Cannot find a device file..." You know the rest of the
    scenario; I press  a key to continue.
    
    Enter the password again. Now I'm 20 minutes into it and I think I can 
    finally look at the CD-ROM! (I admit I've been multitasking -- writing 
    this column and reading the book in between these events on the
    computer.)
    
    Double-click on the icon for The Road Ahead. "Installing Temporary 
    Files." Gee, I thought it had already been installed. Eventually a big 
    black window appears with the cover of the book -- Bill Gates looking 
    just a little nerdy on an empty highway -- but nothing happens. In
    fact,  the program appears to be frozen. Bring up the Task List and
    kill The  Road Ahead.
    
    Things are getting a little hinky. Excuse me while I spend another 30 
    minutes trying to figure out what's wrong.
    
    One of the really cool things about Windows 95, according to most
    people,  is Autoplay, which automatically launches a CD-ROM when
    inserted. If  something goes wrong, however, Autoplay isn't very
    graceful -- it just  keeps trying to launch the program that doesn't
    work. The only way to  bypass Autoplay is to launch Windows Explorer. I
    do this rather than  double-clicking on the icon of the CD in the My
    Computer window, which is  not Windows Explorer but looks an awful lot
    like it.
    
    I'm back again. Turns out that if I hit the Escape key after the CD 
    launches, the black window becomes active. (Very intuitive!) Start 
    cruising around the CD. First thing I remember is that I don't have
    sound  on my machine, so I get to look at Bill talking but can't hear
    him. So I  try some of those hyperlinks in the book. Whoops -- "UIuser:
    An error has  occurred, blah, blah...." I get the option to close the
    program or ignore  the message and proceed at my own risk. After some
    messing around, it  becomes clear that I'm going to get this error
    message every time I try  to click on a hyperlink. So let's forget the
    book and "Connect to the  Online World." Whoops. Same error message.
    
    My tolerance for this session is shot. The editors want the column. I 
    want to get some other work done so I can go home and give thanks for
    my  success in the computer industry. I figure I'll just leave the CD
    where  it is, pop my Macintosh out of its dock, and take the book home
    so I can  sit back and read what Bill thinks The Road Ahead is all
    about.  Information appliances. Network computing. Ubiquitous
    interactive media.  The wired world. Real soon now -- just as soon as I
    can figure out how to  get my computer to work when I want to use it.

    re: "The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates
    
    First of all, in my mind I do an immediate rewrite, to:
    
    	"What's That in the Road, a Head?" by Bill Gates
    
    Second, I was mildly repulsed the other night to see an entire
    table at Barnes & Noble stacked with this little smug unprintable's
    book, as if anyone would actually was interested in paying to read
    what he has to say about anything.
    
    This guy's more ubiquitous than h.s. in a field, and just about as
    pleasant to encounter.  Why doesn't he go back and hide in his mountain
    for a while and write some code, instead of overexposing himself on
    every possible medium.  Pretty soon he'll be showing up as a game show
    contestant.
    
    Chris

    
      Chris, yer hacker's envy is on yer sleeve.  Admit it, you are
     intensely jealous of billions made out of code kludges.  You
     think, "Why him, not me ?  I can torture bugs out of C.  I can
     incorporate maddening features so deep you'll never get them
     out in future revs.  And I, too, can set expectations of users
     grossly high until I have them in my power.  It's not fair !!"
    
      bb

    Yeah, it's not fair! :-)  I've done twisty stuff that makes
    Windows 95 look sane by comparison, and you don't see my
    gap-toothed grin all over the tube and on book covers, hmph!
    
    Actually, though, it's a constant source of amazement that anyone
    at all in this dull business would be considered a "celebrity".
    I'd have sooner expected the guy that fixes the Xerox machine
    to show up on Larry King.  Hype machines and human nature combine
    yet again to produce the astounding and/or abysmal.
    
    Chris

>     "...I can torture bugs out of C...

    Err, shouldn't that be BASIC?

    -- Dave

    I tried to use Visual BASIC, but it couldn't C me.
    
    Chris

    
    what's "hinky" mean?

    Boston's largest DTP (DeskTop Publishing) service  bureau, Graphics
    Express, charges $35 for a page of film from Mac files and $55 for
    Windows files.

    Boston's largest DTP (DeskTop Publishing) service bureau, Graphics
    Express, charges $35 for a page of film from Mac files and $55 for
    Windows files.

    "Help Wanted 
    "Senior Production Editor 
    
    "CMP Publications, a top international publisher, is seeking a
    Production Editor with 3+ years' production experience, to strengthen
    the production department of WINDOWS Magazine.
    ... [graph deleted] 
    ... along with a strong knowledge of Quark, Photoshop and Illustrator on
    a MAC."
    
    [rest deleted] [caps in original]

    From:   [email protected] (Alex Gollner)
    
    Many of you may have seen the latest movie in the James Bond series: 
    "Goldeneye". As with the previous movies, the producers are masters at 
    product placement, and few of you could have failed to notice the  
    placement of various IBM PCs products in the film. Fortunately Apple
    did save the day for world peace: the on-screen graphics were created
    on that computer we know and love: the Macintosh.

    From:        [email protected]
    
    
    But of course it's not just Aptiva.
    
    I'm a columnist on the London Times and had to squirm when that paper
    was bought up by Bill Gates on the day Windows '95 came out, and not
    least because I knew that most of the paper is designed each day on
    Macs.  It's the same with almost every British computer magazine I've
    worked for:  the pages are full of ads for PCs and articles comparing
    one lousy PC with another, and pundits talking about what wonderful
    things PCs are - and yet almost every one of them is put together on a
    Mac.  Ask me how many times I've seen articles on the wonderful things
    PCs can do nowadays with DTP applications and natty graphics packages
    with no mention that the article was produced on a Mac because that
    machine is quicker, easier, more elegant.  Don't ask. 
    
    John Diamond,
    London UK

  macbinder never rests.

    Well, I'd hate to see someone I know and care about buy the wrong
    computer for Xmas.

    MacBinder is a MacApostle MacProsolitizing the MacReligion.  Like all
    good MacMissionaries, he wants to be sure everyone buys into the one
    true religion because if they follow the heritic high-priestesses Ms
    Dos and Ms Windows they will suffer the consquences (and out of the
    kindness of his soul he doesn't want to see that happen to you).

    -- Dave

    MacProselytizing.
    
    NNTTM.

Nu?  So what about heretic and consequences?

    In this case, heresy is its own punishment.

  heresy ladle basking

    From:        [email protected]
    
    As you probably know, the Iomega zip drive is one of the hottest
    hardware  items to be had this year. I checked into the Tech Support
    section on  Iomega's web site and found this interesting tidbit...of
    the 19 tech  support articles dealing with zip, 18 of them are for the
    PC (dealing  with problems that just don't exist on the Mac like  drive
    letters and  CONFIG.SYS problems). Only one of the 19 addresses Macs
    (make sure you  set the drive's SCSI ID to an unused number).

>    As you probably know, the Iomega zip drive is one of the hottest
>    hardware  items to be had this year. I checked into the Tech Support
>    section on  Iomega's web site and found this interesting tidbit...of
>    the 19 tech  support articles dealing with zip, 18 of them are for the
>    PC (dealing  with problems that just don't exist on the Mac like  drive
>    letters and  CONFIG.SYS problems). Only one of the 19 addresses Macs
>    (make sure you  set the drive's SCSI ID to an unused number).

    my experience exactly.  Some friends with PCs have been raving about
    the Zip...but few of them have actually gotten it to work.  I bought
    a new EZ135 (far superior to the ZIP in my mind) and just
    plugged it in and it works great.  Have carried it to several
    friends Macs and just plugged it in there and it works great.  Not
    even a software driver to load!
    bob

>Few of them have gotten it to work.

I haven't heard of anyone having a problem with the Zip drive.

/john

    The following Call-of-the-Day was submitted by an Apple Assistance
    phone support person in Austin, Texas:
    
    "Customer called and indicated she is the [technology coordinator] for
    her [K12 school] district. They have roughly 500 Macintoshes and 500
    DOS boxes. About half of the Mac's are DOS compatible. Customer called
    to tell us that the ONLY computers she has been able to successfully
    install Windows 95 on  are the DOS compatible Macintoshes. She has
    spent over 40 hours on the phone with Microsoft trying to get Win95
    installed on the DOS boxes with no luck."

    I just added a SCSI Adapter and hard drive to my PC. Now I'm getting 
    memory errors. I only have 8meg on my machine. Is the conversion to
    SCSI the problem or can it be something else?
    
    Tom 

    It's all neuter me.

RE: 114.411 by DASHER::RALSTON "The human mind is neuter"

Termination problems on the SCSI bus can cause such a problem.  Make sure
you have terminators where you need them and don't where you don't.


Phil

    .414
    
    Good call, Phil.  There should be two and only two terminators on a
    SCSI bus.  One will be on the SCSI card, the other should be at the
    extreme end of the bus.  Some SCSI devices come with terminating
    resistors installed inside - if you have such a device, you should
    either remove the internal termination and install an external
    terminator or place that device at the end of the bus without an
    external terminator.

    So, if I only have one device (hard drive) I should insure that the
    adapter and the drive are terminated?

    re: .416
    
    Yep.
    
    Bob

    I will double check but I thought I configured it with both ends
    terminated. Is this the only thing it could be? Also are we saying that
    SCSI is not a memory hog, if configured correctly? 
    
    ...Tom

    .418
    
    If you configured it with both ends terminated, how did you do that? 
    Did you install a pass-through terminator on the 50-pin SCSI connector
    coming off the card?  If you did, and if the card has internal
    terminators as is usually the case, you over-terminated it.
    
    SCSI is not a memory hog if configured correctly.  The SCSI protocol is
    internal to the card and is essentially transparent to the operating
    system, which means it shouldn't take any more memory than another IDE
    adapter would.  Did you run MEMMAKER after installing it?

    I think you are right about being over terminated Dick. Except what I
    did was enabled the drive terminator and also term power to the SCSI bus. 
    I need to remove the latter as I now have three terminators.

    Three Terminators?!?!?!?!
    
    
    RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!

    .420
    
    Term power is NOT a terminator.  Standard SCSI termination is resisters
    from the signal lines to Vcc.  (Vcc is the positive rail of the +5V
    power supply.)  Term power should be supplied by all devices on the bus
    - through a blocking diode - so that when one or more devices are off
    there is power to the terminators.  Without power, the terminators are
    worthless, and SCSI signals can do ANYTHING.

    re:.422
    
    Thanks Dick, this is new to me. So, After enabling termination to the
    controller and the last device, how do I know where to set term power?
    
    The choices: 1. Terminate power from drive
    		 2. Terminate power from SCSI bus
    		 3. Terminate power to SCSI bus
    		 4. Terminate power to SCSI bus and drive
    
    The manual for the controller states nothing about term power.
    
    ...Tom

    .423
    
    This is what you *should* have:
    
    The schematic of the termination is like this, where X and Y and Z
    represent SCSI data and control signals:
    
    Ground  X  Y  Z         Term Power       SCSI Card Vcc
      |     |  |  |              |                 |
      |     |  |  |              +------|<|--------+
      |     |  |  |              |
      |     |  |  +---\/\/\------+               
      |     |  |  |              |  Terminators
      |     |  +------\/\/\------+  on or near
      |     |  |  |              |  SCSI Card
      |     +---------\/\/\------+
      |     |  |  |              |
      |     |  |  |              |
      |     |  |  |              |
      |     |  |  |              |           Disk Drive Vcc
      |     |  |  |              |                 |
      |     |  |  |              +------|<|--------+
      |     |  |  |              |
      |     |  |  |              |
      |     |  |  +---\/\/\------+               
      |     |  |                 |  Terminator
      |     |  +------\/\/\------+  at end of
      |     |                    |  SCSI bus
      |     +---------\/\/\------+
    
    The SCSI card should supply power through a blocking diode to the Term
    Power wire in the cable.  Each device on the bus should also supply
    power through a blocking diode to the Term Power wire.  If they all do,
    then any device that is powered up, even if all the other devices are
    off, will be supplying the power, while switched-off devices' blocking
    diodes will prevent Term Power from being pulled down to ground.
    
    Some improperly implemented SCSI cards, and some improperly implemented
    devices, don't do this correctly.  Some SCSI cards do not have onboard
    terminators - for these cards, you must install a passthrough
    terminator at the connector coming off the card.  Some cards do not use
    a blocking diode.  This is REALLY bad design, and it is something you
    can test for with an ohmmmeter.  (Power down the system and ohm in both
    directions between the card's Vcc and the Term Power pin in the SCSI
    connector.  One way there should be no current flow.
    
    Also, some devices have internal terminators.  If there is a device
    with internal terminators, that device must be at the far end of the
    bus, and there must be no external terminator.  If there are two or
    more such devices, the internal terminators must be either switched out
    of the circuit or removed from all but one.  You can also check your
    devices for proper application of Term power.
    
    If the SCSI card does not use a blocking diode, it should not supply
    power to Term Power - you hope, then, that your disk drive does supply
    it.  :-)  If you're clever, you can modify the SCSI card by adding an
    ordinary silicon diode of the 1N4001 variety.  Connect the anode to
    Vcc and the cathode to Term Power.

    Thanks Dick. I'm not sure I totally understand, relating to my specific
    controller and drive, but with your chart I can probably work it out.
    
    Tom

    Intel finds bug in chip performance
    Reuters
        
    LOS ANGELES -- Reviving memories of last year's embarrassing defect in
    its Pentium chip, Intel Corp. revealed Friday that a computer bug
    overstated test results for some of its processors.
        
    The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker, the world's biggest, blamed
    the error on the beta compiler it uses in an industry-standard test
    that compares the relative performances of computer chips.
        
    Accordingly, results for Pentium processors with performance speeds of
    100 MHz and higher that were reported from Sept. 1, 1995, onward, and
    Pentium Pro processors introduced on Nov. 1, 1995, were about 10
    percent higher than they should have been.
        
    ``We are embarrassed and truly sorry for this oversight,'' the company
    said in a statement.
        
    Last year, an academic discovered that the Pentium chip could go awry
    on certain high-speed math calculations. Even though the defect
    potentially affected a tiny fraction of users, Intel was slow to own up
    to the problem and found itself embroiled in a public relations
    nightmare.
        
    Intel spokesman Howard High said the company was accordingly taking a
    different tack this time.
        
    ``Rather than hiding it or saying it's not important we basically share
    that information out publicly and if we take a shot in the stomach, we
    take a shot in the stomach,'' he said in an interview. ``It's better
    than having someone discover it and say, `Oh gee, Intel's pulling a
    fast one here.'''
        
    He said the latest problem did not affect the chips themselves because
    they also underwent a battery of other tests that were not defective.
    He said the company is currently investigating whether customers had
    bought chips solely on the basis of the defective test.
        
    ``Obviously it's a minor embarrassment but I don't think it will have
    any consequence on the adoption or market share of their
    microprocessors,'' said Richard Whittington at Soundview Financial.
    ``This is trivial stuff and it happens all the time to all people in
    this business.''
        
    The error arose in the SPECint92 suite of tests devised by SPEC, a
    cooperative computer industry group that develops benchmarks for
    measuring true processor performance. This test is being phased out in
    favor of the more modern SPECint95.
        
    Each chipmaker installs its own ``compiler'' that shows its chips in
    the best light to adjust for the fact that different processors have
    different coding.
        
    Intel's results aroused suspicions among other chipmakers who came out
    with different results for the Pentium, forcing Intel to conduct a
    review of its procedures during which the bug was discovered, High
    said.
        
    He said no one would lose their jobs as a result of the error and the
    company would learn from the experience and move on.
        
    Intel's latest problem appeared to be ignored on Wall Street, where the
    company's stock was unchanged at $57.50 in late trading on Nasdaq.

    I wonder if this affects the results that gave mr. bill such
    indigestion when the Intel performance numbers microscopically edged
    some of ours a couple of months ago...

    Probably so, given that it was SPECint92 results that were in error.

    Wasn't just mr bill that had heartburn, seems to me that somebody got
    marching orders to find and fix the problem.  Wonder if those 'tests by
    rival chip makers' that forced Intel to review its procedures included
    us.  If so, seems like somebody carried out the orders...
    
    DougO

    Mac to the core 
    
    Pilgrims are gearing up for annual revival: Macworld Expo 
    
    By DAVID PLOTNIKOFF Mercury News Staff Writer 
    
    FOR MOST of the Western world, the holiday season ends with the last
    bowl game of New Year's Day or the summary ejection of the Christmas
    tree. But for 80,000-odd faithful in my tribe, the most important and
    joyous holidays have yet to come. 
    
    Right now, all across this nation, convoys are rolling toward San
    Francisco bearing precious cargo. Pilgrims from around the Pacific Rim
    and the length of the Americas are packing for flights that will take
    them to the city. Here in Silicon Valley, dozens of the most important
    firms are bracing for a week when little office work will get done.
    Children are being excused from schools. Thousands of people from all
    walks of life are arranging to quietly slip away from work for a day or
    two this week. 
    
    Tuesday, we of the Macintosh faith will don our neck badges and
    comfortable shoes and gather in the giant twin bunkers of Moscone
    Center for the West Coast's annual Macworld Expo -- four days and
    nights of non-stop parties, fellowship, product rollouts, conferences,
    fire-and-brimstone tent sermons and big-money deals. 
    
    As is the case every year, the rest of you will feel our presence: The
    airports will be jammed. There will be near-total gridlock in downtown
    San Francisco. Every good hotel room, restaurant table and parking
    space within three miles of Moscone will be spoken for. Many of you
    will think you see a very large computer trade show and, as usual, on
    that count you will be utterly wrong. 
    
    Those of us inside the hall know it's not a trade show, but a cultural
    fair, a revival meeting that leaves us refortified to return to our
    communities and our cubicles and endure another year of life in a world
    dominated by the dark forces of Microsoft and Intel. To see the true
    meaning of Macworld, look beyond the underground city of booths, beyond
    the high-powered parties and the product demos. Stand at the top of the
    escalators in the North Hall for a moment and savor the crossroads of
    the digital-culture world: Here it is, the whole flock -- from software
    engineers to schoolchildren, nuns and ne'er-do-wells, rock stars and
    retirees -- gathered in one place. Then, and only then will you
    understand the truth: Mac is not a platform. Mac is a living, breathing
    community. 
    
    I AM Mac to the core and proud of it. Brothers and sisters, this is my
    testimony: Little more than two years ago, I was a computer illiterate.
    As a native son of Silicon Valley, digital culture was all around me,
    but I shunned it. When the day came to join the migration to the wired
    world, I was hesitant and fearful and full of doubt. Twice, I
    approached the cold-hearted altar of Windows. And twice, I was
    frustrated. Then, a fellow seeker reached out to me and said, ''This is
    Mac. It is the light and the way. It is the one good interface.'' 
    
    So began my new life. I can say with absolute certainty that I would
    not be writing about digital culture without a Mac. I wouldn't be on
    the Internet. Without this elegant vehicle waiting to take me to the
    far shore, I wouldn't have made the trip at all. The learning journey
    of a lifetime would have been lost on me. I'd be just one more
    computer-phobic loser trying in vain to swim against the digital tide. 
    
    It was back then, in my days of need and confusion, that I saw the true
    difference between Mac and the Microsoft view of the world: If you have
    a problem with a Windows machine or a DOS machine, the problem is *you*
    -- your lack of computer literacy, your failure to think and act like a
    damn machine. And the solution is to change your behavior to fit the
    demands of the machine. In the Mac world, the opposite underlying
    philosophy applies: If the machine isn't doing what you want, we'll
    work on the software, not on you. 
    
    The Macintosh is the only computer ever built that has no learning
    curve. The Macintosh has a *play curve*. There are no required books,
    no classes and no tears. You plug it in, you mess around, you make
    connections. Nothing could be more obvious: This is the way humans were
    wired to learn -- intuitively. 
    
    There's a deeply satisfying wholeness and consistency of design to all
    Mac software, an interoperability similar to Lego building toys. Have
    you ever seen a child puzzle over how to operate in a Lego environment?
    No. There's not a moment's thought wasted on the ''right'' way to
    perform. All thought flows to personal expression and design. 
    
    I have seen the faces of Windows and DOS users, new and old, trying to
    make their minds conform to an interface that never should have been
    loosed on the non-geek public. They are filled with frustration, anger
    and distrust. They scoff at my brothers and sisters who name their Macs
    and shower them with other gestures of love. These people don't
    understand love. At best, they merely tolerate their machines. And they
    are relieved when their machines deign to tolerate them. 
    
    We of the Mac faith are often referred to as a ''minority sect'' or a
    ''cult.'' In the sense that we are outnumbered, grossly underserved,
    discriminated against and written off by the world at large, those
    labels hold. Except in the case of graphics software, we are almost
    always the last to receive new software tools. In the workplace,
    systems managers accord us the same level of respect they customarily
    extend to scabies-infested, cable-chewing vermin. 
    
    Let me share with you a modern parable on how persecution of the
    Macolytes only serves to make us stronger: 
    
    THERE once was a cunning systems czar who ruled his company's computer
    system with a bullwhip's length of frayed SCSI cord and an operations
    manual the size of a cinder block. He was a proud and ruthless man who
    resented anyone who complained about the closed, command-line
    architecture of his empire. His strongest bile was reserved for the
    suffering Macolytes who desired easy dial-in access to his network.
    When they asked for Mac support, the systems czar all but hissed,
    ''Take your toy computers and go figure it out yourself.'' 
    
    They took his bitter invective as inspiration. An underground, ad-hoc
    network of Mac amateurs banded together to develop better dial-in
    access software. In time, the czar came to realize the Macolytes had,
    out of adversity, created their own guerrilla support structure, one
    that was totally out of his control and independent of his whims. End
    of parable. 
    
    Our demise as a culture has been prematurely announced by charlatans,
    short-sellers and false prophets for more than a decade now. We true
    believers are of two minds when it comes to dealing with the
    possibility of Armageddon. Inside the Mac world, we joke and worry and
    argue among ourselves every time a dire sales forecast or product
    shortage hits the financial wires. We are invested in every sense of
    the word -- emotionally, financially and intellectually. And with that
    total investment comes a license to find fault. 
    
    Read the pages of MacWeek and you'll see that those of us inside the
    culture are often the harshest critics of affairs within the holy
    compound at Infinite Loop. Yet just as the Catholic Church as a world
    institution is many magnitudes larger than the structure administered
    from Rome, the Mac culture rolls on, more or less undisturbed by the
    latest ominous news flowing forth from Cupertino. 
    
    Only when outsiders predict the collapse of Apple -- as they did with
    glee for the umpteenth time last month -- do we become a little ticked
    off and hypersensitive. Briefly, let's review the standard case for the
    defense: The Mac is still the world standard for publishing and
    graphics, whether you're talking on-line publishing or paper. Based on
    my thumbnail census-taking over the past two years, a huge majority of
    the creator class -- ad agency creative types, journalists,
    moviemakers, fine artists, musicians -- are resolutely Mac and will
    remain so. Windows may own the business office, but Mac owns the
    hearts, minds and desktops of the people who create most of the images
    we devour. We are also No. 1 in the home and in the schools. Consider
    that the main selling point behind Windows 95 was that it was
    supposedly more Mac-like. Yah. Like a Mac of about six years ago. 
    
    FINALLY, there is one overarching reason we cling to our faith when the
    world rains Windows software down on us, one golden reassurance that
    Mac will live for decades to come: the children. For more than a
    decade, parents who have wanted to encourage their progeny to dream
    big, think independently and color outside the lines have chosen the
    Mac. From the time they are able to pull up to a keyboard, the ''happy
    Mac'' face has been there for millions of these kids -- at school, at
    home, at play. In the years to come, these children will be there for
    Mac. The next generation of doctors, writers, Web masters and
    moviemakers are Mac to the core. They will abandon this rainbow
    covenant the day Bill Gates walks across Puget Sound. 
    
    So this week we gather once again to party like it's the end of the
    world. If we stay the course, perhaps someday we will look back and
    laugh at the current state of siege as we pop the first champagne of
    Macworld Expo 50. But for now, all we have is this week and each other
    and the faith that Mac is alive. Now and forevermore, Mac is a promise
    -- a big, fat, rainbow-colored beacon cutting through the Microsoft
    fog, calling out in 15 languages: Dream the big dreams. Your
    imagination is the only manual you need. 
    
    Follow that light. Draw nourishment and hope from it. Come to Moscone
    Center and warm your spirit in the company of 80,000 people who are
    that light. 
    
    �1996 Mercury Center, reproduced without permission

Not all Mac users are as urbane as Herr Binder.  From comp.sys.mac.wanted:

In 1988, we had a program called "MacPuke" that ran on the
(then) current OS for 68k-based macs.  This program just
lived in the control-panel folder and made a funny puking
sound when a floppy is ejected.  The old floppy with the
software is either not readable on system 7.0, or the media
is no good.  Any know where to find macpuke for system 7.0 ??
Thanks.

>  <<< Note 114.431 by NOTIME::SACKS "Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085" >>>
>
>Not all Mac users are as urbane as Herr Binder.  From comp.sys.mac.wanted:
>
>In 1988, we had a program called "MacPuke" that ran on the
>(then) current OS for 68k-based macs.  This program just
>lived in the control-panel folder and made a funny puking
>sound when a floppy is ejected.  The old floppy with the
>software is either not readable on system 7.0, or the media
>is no good.  Any know where to find macpuke for system 7.0 ??
>Thanks.


Directory HUMANE::MAC$ROOT:[SYSTEM.CDEVS_AND_INITS]

MACPUKE_INIT.STUFFIT;1

The Mac Archives are VERY complete!!!

    .431
    
    You should be using a product called Kaboom! instead of MacPuke. 
    Kaboom! lets you assign sounds to most Mac system events.  It comes
    with hundreds of sounds, and there are thousands more available.  The
    not-current version I have lets you assign sounds to (my current
    asignments in brackets):
    
    Startup [trumpet fanfare]
    Restart ["Here we go again" in a female voice]
    Shutdown ["Uh-oh" in a different female voice]
    Disk insert
    Disk eject
    Bad disk [First phrase of Bach's toccata in d]
    Disk request [Honk! Honk! of a toy car horn]
    Beep [a sound Apple calls Sosumi]
    Key click
    Return key
    Space key
    Tab key
    Delete key
    Enter key
    Chime count (on the hour) [a very deep cathedral bell]
    Chime :00
    Chime :15
    Chime :30 [cathedral bell]
    Chime :45
    Alarm clock
    Empty trash (really charming with a toilet flushing) [bullet ricochet]
    Zoom opwn (window expansion)
    Zoom closed (window minimization)
    Grow window
    Copy done
    
    The latest version supports even more events.

    
    	If I ever find that I have utterly and completely removed any
    	and all signs of a life that I currently possess, I do believe
    	I'll buy a Mac and ask Binder to assign sound clips to all the
    	functions of same.
    

BTW, I have an unopened copy of Kaboom! that I might be talked into selling
quite cheaply.

/john

    
    	It says "Kaboom!" on the outside, but when you open it up it's
    	just a package of mixed nuts.
    

    	It says "SOAPBOX" on the outside, but when you open it up it's
    	just a package of mixed nuts.

    <- The man's nuts.  Grab'm.

Rec'd last evening -

Forwards stripped-----

        The Christian Coalition has set up a temporary 800- number service
which will direct your call to the office of any U.S. Congressperson,
ostensibly so that you can voice your support for the Computer Decency Act.
But they don't ask any questions, so you can likewise voice your support for
obscenity... or drug decriminalization for that matter.  I've been calling
my representatives during slow periods of work and thoroughly enjoying the
irony of the whole situation.  Call away!  Let Ralph Reed pay!  

1-800-962-3524
1-800-972-3524




<---- End Included Message ---->

TTHLN:

    Installed a piece of software. At the end of the installation, I'm offered
    an option to do an immediate online registration of the product. What the
    heck - I'm game.

    I answer a few questions, fill in a few blanks, push a few buttons and
    the package tells me it's now going to look for a modem by which to dial
    their 800 number to transmit the info.

    Unfortunately, it was at this point a bit on the braindead side, offering
    no options when it located the 2400 baud onboard modem on COM1, which
    hasn't any phone line connected to it, rather than the 14.4 card on COM3
    which has.

    .440
    
    Looks to me like the braindead part comes in where you failed to
    disable the 2400-bps modem.

    Or maybe, if you CAN'T disable the 2400-bps modem, the breaindead part
    is the designers of your computer.

    >Looks to me like the braindead part comes in where you failed to
    >disable the 2400-bps modem.
    
     You shouldn't have to disable a piece of hardware in order to use
    another piece of hardware (same generic type) from a given piece of
    software. Do you have to disable one printer to use another?

If I wrote a piece of software and issued a message which said "I'm
now going to look for modems", I think I'd look for as many as I could
find, realizing that there could be more than one, and, upon finding more
than one, provide the user a choice as to which one to select/use.

But, maybe that's just me.

    I sense, perhaps, that your streak of luck might be over. I hope this
    is not so.

    .443
    
    > Do you have to disable one printer to use another?
    
    The Mac has a feature called the Chooser.  To choose a printer or a
    network file server, I pull down the Apple menu to Chooser and click on
    the item I want.
    
    If it's a printer, I'm then given the option of altering its settings. 
    When I'm done, that's the printer that will be used until I choose a
    different one.  I could also use QuickDraw GX, with which I can
    establish one or more printers on the desktop - to print to a desktop
    printer, I would just drop the document onto the printer's icon.
    
    If it's AppleShare, I'm given a list of AppleTalk zones (if there are
    any on the net) from which I choose one.  I'm then given a list of
    servers in that zone.  I choose one, and I'm given a dialog box listing
    the available volumes.  I choose the ones I want, and they are mounted
    on the desktop, where I can open them to see what's in them.
    
    Modems don't show up in the Chooser, they're selected in settings boxes
    for the comm software you want to use.  I can have a telecomms package
    using an external modem and my fax software using an internal modem, if
    I want to do that.

    >The Mac has a feature called the Chooser. [...]
    
    Of course. Any decently written piece of software will provide options
    where multiple pieces of hardware could be involved. It's only logical.

RE: 114.446 by SMURF::BINDER "Eis qui nos doment vescimur."

> Modems don't show up in the Chooser, they're selected in settings boxes
> for the comm software you want to use.  

So some hacker could write an "automatic registration" feature that picked
a modem that wasn't connected to a phone line,  even on a blessed and holy
Mac.

Correct?


Phil

BTW, the Mac Chooser selects the "default printer".

There's also a feature called "desktop printing" which permits you to have
an icon on the desktop representing each printer connected to your machine
or accessible over the network.

You use it by dragging and dropping a document on one of these desktop
printers; the application which created the document is opened in its
print dialogue.

---------------

This braindead auto registration option should have asked which port to
use for the modem.  Many braindead Mac applications do _not_ use a thing
called the "comms toolbox" and instead only allow you to chose an internal
modem or a modem connected to one of the built-in ports.  No matter how hard
Apple has tried to get people to use the comms toolbox, which would also
allow access to other modems connected to additional serial ports, many
applications refuse to do so.

/john

    .448
    
    > So some hacker could write an "automatic registration" feature that picked
    > a modem that wasn't connected to a phone line,  even on a blessed and holy
    > Mac.
    
    Yes.  But what would then happen is that the program, when it tried to
    make its call, would detect a failure to obtain a dial tone and report
    the problem to the user.  Unless it were written by an idjit, which is
    apparently the quality of the programmer who wrote QuondamLucky Jack's
    automatic registration program.

    .449
    
    > There's also a feature called "desktop printing"
    
    See .446, in which I describe said feature with reference to QuickDraw
    GX.  And yes, I'm aware that Apple now provides destop printing stuff
    that doesn't require QuickDraw GX.

Unix has a print facility called lp.  It's really bizarre and arcane, and even 
after 10 years of using Unix the print system still gives me nightmares.

Chris.

    
    .430
    
    I am quite surprised, stunned actually, that the author did not have
    an orgasm right there on the spot.

    A study was performed at Westinghouse to compare the productivity of 
    engineers and support staff (including Secretaries) on the two
    different platforms (Mac vs. Intel).
    
    The results of the study was written up by Christopher Davis of 
    Westinghouse and Mark Worthington in the SciTech Journal in two issues: 
    Sept/October 1994 and Nov/Dec 1994. Here are some quotes from the 
    write-up:
    
    "Engineers using Macintosh for analysis output tasks demonstrated a 
    better than 2:1 efficiency ratio versus engineers using IBM-PCs."
    
    "The relative costs of each type of engineering activity indicate an 
    average savings of 2:1 or more by using the Macintosh platform as an 
    engineering design tool over the IBM-PC platform."

    You'll be westing on your lauwels all week?

    
    	Binder, is that with or without keyclick enabled?
    

    .456
    
    Yes.

    
    	Don't quit your day job.
    

    RE: .454

>    Sept/October 1994 and Nov/Dec 1994.

    Obviously using the latest offerings from both companies.

    -- Dave

    from Doug Lawrence:
    
    "Our 7-yr-old plays often with a little boy down the street.  He has an
    IBM clone fitted with Windows 95 on which he plays games etc..  I asked
    his mother if she also has a computer.  Oh yes!  And do you use
    Windows 95?  Absolutely not!  We put it on his computer because when it
    crashes, he just goes on to play with another one of his 'toys.'"

RE: 114.460 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

Want Windows with almost no crashes?  Windows NT.


Phil

    .461
    
    "almost no crashes"
    
    No, thanks.  I'll take something that doesn't crash at all.  When it
    gets invented, that is.  Until then, I'll take something easy to use.

> I'll take something that doesn't crash at all.

Is eight months (as long as I've had it installed) crash-free close enough
for you?

    
    	Has anyone else gotten a flyer for "First Aid '95"?  It's a
    	program that you load onto your PC to avoid "complete system
    	crashes" from GFP [and other] errors.
    
    	$30, I think.
    
    	It's my theory that the company is actually owned by Micro-
    	soft, and they're charging you more to fix a problem that
    	shouldn't happen in the 1st place.
    

    .463
    
    I'm very happy it (whatever it is) doesn't crash on your system. 
    When you can tell me it doesn't crash, period, I might be interested -
    but so far, if it's what I think it is, more than 50% of its users
    find that it crashes at least as often as its predecessor.  And far
    more often than its prototype.  If they can get it to install at all,
    which appears not at all a sure thing.

"It" is the "it" which was under discussion - Windows NT.
My personal experience, is that "it" doesn't crash, period. I can't speak
for other users, but since I installed "it", painlessly, last May, "it"
has not crashed, ever. This is V3.5 Workstation.

RE: 114.466 by MOLAR::DELBALSO "I (spade) my (dogface)"

I've had Windows NT for a couple of years now.  I've had a total of three
crashes.  One from a hardware problem (board replaced),  one from a chess 
program that seems to cause a page fault storm,  which will eventually
crash the machine,  when you get 35+ games in progress at the same time
(put in a PIF file to limit the program to 2 Mbytes of memory,  can't get
it to cause the page fault storm anymore),  and one due to a shareware
train simulator (deleted,  as was trash anyway).

Also,  as Windows NT has a real file system and real security,  I can let
my 4 and 7 year old children play with little fear that they will corrupt
the system.  Neighbor's 4 year old dragged their Mac's hard disk into the
trash can and emptied it.  My sister's 7 year old broke through "At Ease", 
changed the password,  and she had to get the new password out of him.

As for install,  I upgraded CD drives this weekend.  Deleted the old drive
(about 4 mouse clicks),  shut the system down,  swapped new for old drives, 
booted it up,  configured it (about 4 more mouse clicks),  rebooted it and
used it.  

I'll settle for secure and stable.


Phil

    
      So far as I know, there are no home computers that do not crash.
    
      I have personally crashed a 286, a 486, 2 different Mac's, a
     Digital Rainbow, and a Pentium, in my home.  If you give me any
     other machine, I will crash it.
    
      bb

    .468
    
    Bingo.  The fact that some percentage of the users of any system have
    stable setups and do not experience crashes is not ipso facto evidence
    that all users of that system have no crashes.
    
    Windows NT, although it can certainly be used by private individuals on
    their home systems, is actually not intended for that duty.  It is
    intended, according to Microsoft's own promotional materials, for use
    on enterprise servers.  It is too resource-hungry and complex to be
    economical and practical for the majority of users.  I recently
    thumbed through an inch-thick book used in a training course that
    introduces users to NT - not an in-depth course, a "Beginners" level
    thing.  A week long, no less.  I was not impressed.  Geeks will be
    geeks, of course, but I'd rather just use my computer without having to
    have an advanced degree just to set it up.

FWIW, My PC has never crashed and it runs Windows95.

    I have a DECstation 320 and have been trying to add a sound card and CD
    since Christmas.
    
    I can sometimes get static, before it hangs.
    Then I get a message "Cannot read from "C" and the usual
    Abort,Retry,Fail.
    
    It has been suggested it could be the "Scuzzy" (sp)
    
    What's a "Scuzzy"? and why is it there?
    
    
    Most of all, why did some-one tell me it would be a snap to install?
    
    
    joan                                               

>    but I'd rather just use my computer without having to
>    have an advanced degree just to set it up.

I agree, Dick. The "A" in my degree stands for "Associates", not "Advanced".
I run NT here at work, not at home (though if I had sufficient RAM on my
home system, I'd run it there in a heartbeat.) 

re: Joan

"Scuzzy" is the pronunciation for the acronym SCSI, which stands for, if I
recall properly, "Small Computer Systems Interface". It's basically a
standard which describes an architecture/protocol/interface which devices
adhere to in order to share an interchange capacity among various systems.
I ain't a hardware type, so there's probably a better/more technical way of
stating that. But what it says is that if you get a SCSI device for one
system, it should work with a SCSI controller made for another, after some 
fashion.

It sounds to me like there may be some conflict between the CD that came
with your sound card and either an existing SCSI controller or the lack of
same on your system. Do you know if your existing hard drive is SCSI or IDE?

RE: 114.469 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

> but I'd rather just use my computer without having to have an advanced
> degree just to set it up.

I'd rather just use my computer without having to restore the hard drive
after the four year old dragged it into the trash can.  


> Windows NT, although it can certainly be used by private individuals on 
> their home systems, is actually not intended for that duty. ... It is too
> resource-hungry and complex to be economical and practical for the majority
> of users.

Resource-hungry?  The recomended minimum amount of RAM for NT is 12 Mbytes, 
and for Windows 95 is 8 Mbytes.  An extra 4 Mbytes isn't that big of deal.
Disk space for Windows NT is about 100 Mbytes,  tiny compared with the 1.2
Gbyte drives on current PCs.

Complex?  Yes,  it's more complex than a Mac.  And it has to be more
complex as it's on a PC,  as the PC isn't as clean of hardware as is a Mac. 
But the point is,  again,  Windows NT has features that MacOS does not
have.  


Phil

RE: 114.471 by TROOA::TEMPLETON "No sugar added"

Sounds to me like an interrupt conflict.  If your PC is already using the
interrupt (perhaps for the hard disk) that the sound card and/or CD is
trying to use,  then it will not work.

The manual for your PC (and any installed goodies) and the documentation
for your sound card and CD will state what interrupts are used.  There is
probably jumpers on the sound card to allow you to change the interrupt it
uses.


Phil

    .475
    
    >> but I'd rather just use my computer without having to have an advanced
    >> degree just to set it up.

    > I'd rather just use my computer without having to restore the hard drive
    > after the four year old dragged it into the trash can.  

    Old versions of At Ease were easy to crack.  The current version is
    not.  But this is a specious argument; making an issue of it can be
    countered by pointing out that the 4-year-old (or maybe it'd need his
    6-year-old sibling) could enter a deltree command, which would of
    course be given to him by a pal who thought it was hilarious when Daddy
    blew up and had to spend two weeks getting the PC running again.
    
    There are also other Mac tools that will make it impossible for the
    kid to trash the hard disk.

    > Resource-hungry?  The recomended minimum amount of RAM for NT is 12
    > Mbytes,  and for Windows 95 is 8 Mbytes.  An extra 4 Mbytes isn't that
    > big of deal. Disk space for Windows NT is about 100 Mbytes,  tiny
    > compared with the 1.2 Gbyte drives on current PCs.

    The additional 4 Mb, which you call not a big deal, is the better part
    of $200 for most people.  Not a big deal?  You be the judge.  The 1.2
    Gb disks on current PCs are irrelevant - what is relevant is the size
    of the disk on the machine that Gunther Schwarz wants to upgrade so he
    can gain the features you're saying will save him.  And Gunther, with a
    340 Mb disk that contains 300 Mb of applications and games, is not
    going to be best pleased about having to shell out for another disk. 
    And, if he's already got his other IDE slot used, a SCSI card.
    
    > Complex?  Yes,  it's more complex than a Mac.  And it has to be more
    > complex as it's on a PC,  as the PC isn't as clean of hardware as is a
    > Mac.  But the point is,  again,  Windows NT has features that MacOS
    > does not have.  

    The PC's hardware cleanliness, or rather total lack thereof, is not the
    issue.  The need for DOS boxes, and for the myriad configuration files
    that require hand tuning, is the issue.  The real truth is that the Mac
    did it right in 1984, and the PC is *still* not doing it right. 
    Winlose95 didn't save the PC world, it instead added another layer of
    complexity and unreliability for the majority of current users.  People
    who buy systems with Winlose95 pre-installed, and never use any
    applications that aren't Winlose95-specific, and never want to exchange
    files with Windows sytems whose 8.3 limitation will get in the way,
    will see few if any problems.  The rest of the PC world will continue
    to struggle with the morass of bad design that Microsoft has
    perpetrated on them.  Ownership of a Wintel PC is its own punishment.

If Gunther is down to only 12% available space on his hard drive and isn't
already seriously considering the need to upgrade his storage capacity just
on general principles, then he obviously hasn't any intention of ever buying
anymore software anyway, regardless of what platform he runs.

>    The additional 4 Mb, which you call not a big deal, is the better part
>    of $200 for most people.

How do you define "the better part of $200?"  Does that mean $100.01?

    4 meg = $200+ to the best of my knowledge 

    .478
    
    But Gunther is sick and tired of crashes, and Phil sold him on
    upgrading to WNT.  The average Mac user can fit the OS into less than
    25 Mb, and Macs crash far less often than PCs.  Maybe not so rarely as
    WNT PCs when maintained by a knowledgeable person, but most users are
    not knowledgeable; they just want to USE the damn things.
    
    I know a guy who's been responsible for at least three Mac purchases by
    people looking to upgrade their PCs.  In each case, he had been doing
    technical support, and when the people announced their intention to buy
    new systems, he said he'd stop supporting them if they bought new PCs.

    .479
    
    Current price from MacWAREHOUSE for a 72-pin 4-MB SIMM is $189.95.  The
    prices for PC SIMMS may be lower.  But most people won't want to do the
    installation themselves; this means they'll take the machine to a
    dealer and pay a hefty fee for the installation.

RE: 114.477 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

>> I'd rather just use my computer without having to restore the hard drive
>> after the four year old dragged it into the trash can.

> making an issue of it can be countered by pointing out that the
> 4-year-old (or maybe it'd need his 6-year-old sibling) could enter a
> deltree command, which would of course be given to him by a pal who
> thought it was hilarious when Daddy blew up and had to spend two weeks
> getting the PC running again.

Windows NT,  not Windows,  remember?  Answer kid would get:  "No",  unless
of course he did it to his own files.  No delete access for Kids (RX only 
for almost everything) to most of my system.  A few key clicks sets this up.

I'm sure that the added complexity and cost of pasting additional layers of
software to provide the protection that the OS should have provided in the
first place removes a lot of the advantages of Macs.  Right?  


Phil

> The need for DOS boxes, and for the myriad configuration files that
> require hand tuning, is the issue.  

    
    I certainly won't miss this nonsense. The Mac and the PC are
    DIFFERENT. I agree that the Mac is a better design overall,
    but the PC has come a long way. Yes, progress has been too
    slow on the PC, but the Mac didn't have the terrible legacy
    of the original IBM design to deal with.
    
    As I've said many times, this memory and disk space stuff
    is a smoke screen. A Power Mac with 8 meg and a 1 gig hard
    drive is no more or less powerful than a comparably equipped
    PC. All the Power PC configuration come with a minimum of
    8 meg RAM too... so GET OFF the 8 meg BS, you're giving me
    a headache!
    
    My Mac crashes all the time. It gives me obscure messages that
    mean nothing (even to someone who writes software on Macs and
    PCs for a living), I spend hours trying to figure out what
    extension is hosing the system... it's the same old $#!+ with
    a different wrapper. I use the Mac because the advanced
    multimedia tools I need (things like Photoshop, Premier, After
    Effects, Director and Authorware) tend to live at least one
    rev ahead on the software curve than their PC counterparts
    (standard office apps, on the other hand, typicallly live one
    or more revs ahead on the PC side).
    
    As a professional computer user and programmer, I have one
    and ONLY one reliigous opinion when it comes to computers:
    whatever keeps my pockets full of dough is what I like best.
    C++? Lingo? Dylan? Java? Cha-ching. Windows, Windows 95, Windows
    NT? Chan-ching. All machines and software suck anyway, including
    mine. Software is inherently complex, and there's less fault-
    tolerance than at a Pat Buchanan rally. So enough already!
    
    -b

> 				But most people won't want to do the
>    installation themselves; this means they'll take the machine to a
>    dealer and pay a hefty fee for the installation.

Really?

On what do you base this assumption?

There's a guy in California who sells a 4 meg SIMM for less than $100.  His
name (interestingly) is Kenneth Olsen, and according to testimonials in
comp.sys.mac.wanted, he's very reliable.  I suspect that he sells PC memory
as well as Mac memory.

    4 megs U.S. = 5.5 megs Canadian.

RE: 114.482 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

> MacWAREHOUSE for a 72-pin 4-MB SIMM is $189.95.

PC memory is a lot less.  About $110 for 4 Mbytes last time I looked.  One
of the drawbacks of a Mac is that upgrades cost more than upgrades to a PC.


Phil

RE: 114.477 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

> The need for DOS boxes, and for the myriad configuration files that
> require hand tuning, is the issue.

Excuse me,  but what "myriad configuration files that require hand tuning"
exist on Windows NT?

Ok,  some older DOS applications (and one Windows chess program) need a PIF
file to make them work well.  No big deal.

Ok,  RAS does have one nasty configuration file if you want to autologin at
connect.

What else?  Please educate me,  as I must be missing something,  having
only owned Windows NT for a couple of years...


Phil

    .483
    
    > I'm sure that the added complexity and cost of pasting additional
    > layers of software to provide the protection that the OS should have
    > provided in the first place removes a lot of the advantages of Macs. 
    > Right?
    
    Read my lips:  The current version of At Ease patches the holes that
    kids used to be able to use.  It's secure and well integrated, and it
    offers far more than a mere security blanket.

    .484
    
    > My Mac crashes all the time.
    
    Odd.  Mine doesn't.  Have you considered buying a copy of Conflict
    Catcher?  Have you considered finding the culprit and eliminating it,
    or have you just kept on rebooting and lived with it?

    .485
    
    > On what do you base this assumption?
    
    On having consulted, for money, with a nontrivial statistical sample of
    ordinary non-geek users, of whom more than half were literally afraid
    to crack the cases of their systems.

Did you help enlighten them by explaining that it was a trivial matter?

    .493
    
    Jack, I often deal with computerphobes.  People who are afraid that
    they can BREAK THE HARDWARE by typing the wrong word in a DOCUMENT.  "A
    trivial matter" for you is life-threatening angst for some people.  You
    need to take a look around at the outside world.

>    Current price from MacWAREHOUSE for a 72-pin 4-MB SIMM is $189.95.  The

    I just bought 4MB for a Mac Performa (72 pin Simm) for about $95
    from The ChipMerchant (mail order).

    Memory prices seem to vary more widely than anything else I buy.
    bob

    > My Mac crashes all the time.
    
    > Odd.  Mine doesn't.  Have you considered buying a copy of Conflict
    > Catcher?
     
    Ah yes, software that, in theory, Mac users aren't supposed
    to need...
    
    It's not like there's a single cause to system crashes, and
    in fact, I usually know what the cause is. But with respect
    to software hanging the machine, I'd actually put the Mac 7.5
    OS lower on the evolutionary scale than both Win 95 and Win NT.
    
    For one thing, Windows 95 is pretty good about reporting
    errors in startup. When drivers or DLLs crash, Windows 95
    will tell you WHAT crashed, where, etc. The Mac, on the
    other hand, usually says nothing... the machine is just
    hung! Even Windows 3.1 had better features about reporting
    unknown errors... yes, you don't get the errors messages
    on a Mac, but what you fail to acknowledge is the same
    stuff happens, but the Mac is generally silent about it!
    
    Let's face it, applications frequently hose unprotected
    operating systems! On Windows 3.1 they'd frequently take
    the OS with them, but even then you'd get a message telling
    you who the culprit was! Now, on Windows 95, the OS tends
    to keep ticking along, EVEN WHEN some application tries
    to stomp on memory.
    
    Hangs happen all the time (on the MAc) when installing new
    harware and software. For example, recently I installed StuffIt
    and it put an extension in which hosed the system. I know enough
    to go to the extension manager and deselect, but I bet
    a lot of Mac users, the kind you like to parade who know
    nothing and like it that way, probably have an equal occurrence
    of frustration as they would with any other machine.
    
    And plug and play is never that simple... in theory, I should
    have been able to connect the Dynatek 4 gig external SCSI
    disk to my Power Mac, installed the software and restarted.
    Hours and hours and hours later, I have people at both Mac
    AND Dynatek technical support trying to figure out why the disk
    won't mount on my system.
    
    Maybe I have exceptionally bad luck, but it seems that all
    machines and software hate me...
    
    -b

    
      Memory prices are falling, and they will the rest of the year.
    
      There is overcapacity, a lag in computer demand, and a glut of
     speculatively warehoused DRAMs.  Reportedly, Intel is dumping
     memory bigtime.
    
      bb

Well, I've done some looking around on the outside - mostly 20 years ago
before I came to DEC when I OEM'ed. I dealt with a lot of computerphobes
back then. Even worse than today, because the technology wasn't nearly
as prevalent, and people weren't shamed into computer-familiarity by their 
kids. But I still made it a point to hammer into people's heads the idea
that there wasn't anything to be afraid of and they really couldn't break
it by doing as I told them. People catch on.

    .495
    
    > I just bought ... from The ChipMerchant...
    
    The majority of users don't know about Chip Merchant.  The majority of
    users go to Computer City or CompUSA.  You people keep forgetting that
    you are far more knowledgeable than the average user, both about your
    systems and about the cheapest places to buy upgrades.

    
    	500 replies!!
    

    .498
    
    > People catch on.
    
    That's obviously why two people in my circle of relatively close
    acquaintances have been fired from their jobs in the past five years
    for refusing to learn how to use computers.  One was working in desktop
    publishing, and her boss finally got tired of having to hand her
    typewritten stories to another employee with a Mac.  The other was a
    senior mechanical engineer working for Electric Boat in Groton,
    Connecticut.

Well, what's the point, Dick?

Sure - some people are ruinously adverse to any familiarity with their systems.
That doesn't necessarily mean that _most_ users haven't any recourse other than
a professional upgrade. Many can be taught/told to bite the bullet and doit.

Your protestations that PC's are user-unfriendly to the Nth degree and a bane
to man's existence in light of the panacea of appledom ring hollow in the
face of reality.

The Mac is a fine platform. The peecee is a fine platform as well. Both have
their strong points and their weaknesses.

And, all other things being equal, NT is pretty damned rugged in terms of its
reliability. Use it for a year or so and see if you don't agree.

RE: 114.490 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

>> I'm sure that the added complexity and cost of pasting additional
>> layers of software to provide the protection that the OS should have
>> provided in the first place removes a lot of the advantages of Macs.
>> Right?

> Read my lips:  The current version of At Ease patches the holes that
> kids used to be able to use.  It's secure and well integrated, and it
> offers far more than a mere security blanket.

Anyone notice that Mr Binder's response had almost nothing to do with my
comment?  

But anyway,  this game grows old.  Mac believers still have a case for the
simple reason that one size never fits all.  There are reasons to buy a
Mac,  but as the market shows,  most users are buying PCs.  Apple's share
of the overall market is dropping,  even as Apple is forced to cut prices
even below that of comparable PCs.  While MacOS was the best thing around
in 1986,  it wasn't the best thing around in 1994.  And even less so today.


Phil

    .503
    
    > Anyone notice that Mr Binder's response had almost nothing to do with my
    > comment?
    
    Say what?  You said that it's (nominally) a disadvantage to have to add
    complexity and cost to provide file protection.  This was in relation
    to the problem of a trashed hard disk, and you were implying that NT is
    better because protection is apparently built into it.  I replied that
    good protection is built into MacOS in the form of At Ease, which is
    supplied as an integral part of MacOs on every Performa system.  Not an
    extra-cost, extra-complexity add-on.  My response was therefore
    directly relevant, not at all evasive.  Nice try.
    
    MacOS offers, in addition, a checkbox in the General Controls control
    panel that prevents trashing of anything that is in the System folder. 
    And another that prevents trashing anything in the Applications folder.
    
    > Apple's share
    > of the overall market is dropping,
    
    This is of course true only if you believe that 12% is a drop from 9%,
    these two numbers being Apple's sales figures in the last two quarters
    of calendar 1995, with the larger number having been recorded three
    months AFTER the smaller.  Furthermore, Apple's share should be
    compared not to the total sales of all PC vendors (of which it is not a
    falling segment) but rather to the sales of ONE PC vendor.  MacOS
    computers made by UMAX and Daystar and Power Computing and, soon, at
    least two other vendors one of which is Motorola, are on the rise.  The
    total MacOS share of the total personal computer market is rising and
    will continue to do so.
    
    > While MacOS was the best thing around
    > in 1986,  it wasn't the best thing around in 1994.
    
    It was for people who wanted to be able to take a computer out of the
    box, plug it in, and expect it to work.  And it still is.

    > It was for people who wanted to be able to take a computer out of the
    > box, plug it in, and expect it to work.  And it still is.
    
    So-called "hot loads", in which the software (OS and apps) come
    completely configured on the hard disk (both Macs and current
    generation PCs come this way) make this a totally bogus argument.
    In fact, even Windows 3.1, hot-loaded, is as "out of the box" ready
    as any other system.
    
    -b

    
      Brian, forget Mac's for a moment - assume a pc.  Guy ran DOS, was
     dragged kicking and screaming to Windows.  Now is resisting W95
     AND WNT.  He plaintively asks, "Why do I need these ?"
    
      And your reply is...
    
      bb

> He plaintively asks, "Why do I need these ?"

Maybe he doesn't, unless he's planning on running any new apps that only
come supported on the new platforms, or he's experiencing problems with
stability on 3.1/3.11.

    .505
    
    > So-called "hot loads"...make this a totally bogus argument.
    
    ...until the user tries to run DOOM II or some similar DOS program and
    finds that it requires a side excursion into MEMMAKER and maybe another
    one into the editor to muck around with CONFIG.SYS or some other arcane
    file.  Or maybe a new sound card because the one he got on his shiny
    new hot-loaded system isn't supported by the game he wants to run. 
    Suddenly, the Mac's REAL plug-and-play ability makes most of these
    situations look pretty ugly.

Dick, if you could see yourself jumping from issue to issue because each
of your arguments in turn is shown to be indefensible, you might find it
as humorous as do the rest of us.

    .509
    
    Jack, if you could see yourself propping up strawman arguments that I
    shoot down so easily, you might find it as humorous as I do.
    
    The simple fact is that (with the specific exception of geeks) nobody
    buys a computer.  Ever.  What people buy is a solution, a way to do
    something they want to do.
    
    Often a computer is the only viable solution.
    
    The rest of the argument is that (with the specific exception of geeks)
    people don't enjoy having to fiddle with their expensive solutions just
    to get them to do what is desired.  The Mac requires far less fiddling
    than does the Wintel solution - on the order of 30% less.  At an
    average saving in the business environment, per box, of $5,000 not
    spent on system administration and maintenance or on training programs
    just to provide users a minimal proficiency with their systems.
    
    So you are free to laugh up your sleeve all you like.  While you are
    cursing after some J. Random Program crashes your system so badly you
    have to rebuild the OS from floppies, I will be playing Marathon.

    Example:
    
    Iomega has a Web page dealing with problems people have with ZIP
    drives.  Last time I checked, there were 57 different problems.  56 of
    them were PC problems, one was a Mac problem.

>							While you are
>    cursing after some J. Random Program crashes your system so badly you
>    have to rebuild the OS from floppies,

But, what people are continuing to say in here is that that is NOT what's
happening to us, and specifically it's not happening with NT. Are you going
to continue to contend that "it" (NT) is an unstable blue-screening nightmare
even in the face of testimony to the contrary?

>    I will be playing Marathon.

'snot one o' them shoot-em-up games, is it? :^)

    .512
    
    Jack, I concede that for people geeky enough to lay out the dollars and
    hours needed to install NT and get it configured, stability is probably
    not going to be a problem.  What fraction of 1% of all Wintel users can
    you tell me fall into that class?

I, for one, am tired of dicking around with my PC. Though Windows95 works 
good for me, if I leave well enough alone, adding hardware is such a bitch 
that I want to throw my PC out the window, pun intended. I have been trying
for two months now to have my computer detect a 4.3GB Seagate SCSI drive. I 
installed an Adaptec AVA-1515 adapter in my machine and it sees the adapter 
with no problem, but not the drive. I have worked with Microsoft, Seagate, 
Adaptec and AT&T (manufacturer of my PC). Nobody can figure it out. Adaptec
and Seagate, both manufacturers of SCSI devices, tell me to install another
IDE drive. I think I want to scream. If my brain wasn't so ingrained with
PC stuff, I'd purchase a MAC tomorrow.

Repent, all ye sinners!  Unix is the One True Operating System!  All others 
are false prophets!

Er, something like that, anyway.  If you want to stick to PCs, Linux or BSD 
will run quite happily on much lower spec systems than NT, and will also run 
faster.  I'm not sure about NT's reliability, but the various flavours of Unix 
will go on and on for months on end, often only interrupted because of 
reconfiguration, power loss or whatever, rather than system failure.

Shame noone seems to consider that making the system a little easier to use 
may be nice.

Chris.

    Unix?
    
    I'd rather drink my ex-wife's bathwater.

Unix,  while setting records for user unfriendlyness,  is a powerful and
stable OS.  With real file protections,  no less.


Phil

    I concur with Phil. Not only that, I agree with him too.

Unix with a proper (DCL-like, for example) interface would be awesome.
Its file structure is prehistoric, however.

    But as an apps platform, it's so uncluttered. You can do all sorts of
    wild and wacky things. If you use it enough you get use to it. Even
    using vi as an editor.
    
    

    
    re: vi editor
    
    	{shudder} Once, not so long ago, I decided I was going to learn to
    use Unix and program a bit of C at the same time. I picked up a Unix
    book and a beginning C programming book and went to work. Two months
    later I was overjoyed that they managed to get the FAB up and running
    so I could STOP using the VI editor. :)
    
    
    jim

Vi's great, but not as good as ed.  Emacs is for the terminal masochists 
amongst us.

Chris.

RE: 114.508 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

> ...until the user tries to run DOOM II or some similar DOS program and
> finds that it requires a side excursion into MEMMAKER and maybe another
> one into the editor to muck around with CONFIG.SYS or some other arcane
> file.

What is MEMMAKER?  I don't have it on my Windows NT 3.5 system.  


Phil

    re: .513
    
    Dollars??? I paid < $100 for NT Server, installed it in less than an
    hour, and have spent less time configuring the system than it has taken
    me to write this note.
    
    Bob

I didn't pay anything for the latest version of Linux.

Chris.

    re: .525
    
    I don't blame you.  I wouldn't pay anything for it either.
    
    Bob

>    I don't blame you.  I wouldn't pay anything for it either.
    
's only 'coz you don't know how it works!

Chris.

    .523
    
    I thought I admitted that NT is probably easier (for geeks) to use, and
    far more stable, than Windows 3.n.  What I also said was that MOST
    users of Intel boxes do not have NT and are unlikely to have it.  So
    praise it to the sky if you like - you're not helping the millions of
    housewives and brickmasons and musicians and beauticians and teachers
    and real-estate agents who just wish they could install a new program
    without having to get an advanced degree in DOS/Windows system
    administration.

    re: who sells a 4 meg SIMM for less than $100.
    
    No-name, and hot (stolen), most likely.  FYI.  Beware the
    computer chop-shops these days.
    
    Memory is going from $40-50/meg, depending on the type you want.
    
    MadMike

    re: .528
    
    Add in dry cleaners and auto mechanics, too.  Anyway, most of those
    apps are DOS-based and don't even run Windows.  They seem to get along
    fine with 286/386s and dot-matrix printers.  They bought the whole
    thing, software and hardware, as a bundle for under $1,000.  A Windows
    PC or a Mac would be overkill for them and they wouldn't pay the bucks
    for either.
    
    Bob

    re: Note 114.493 by MOLAR::DELBALSO
    
    Tis true, but shhhhhh!!!! This is a lucrative bizness.  Many folks
    are SCARED CHITLESS to look inside the case of a computer.  There's
    black magic in there.  And lots of folks would pay big bucks to have
    someone go bugga-bugga for them and make it better.
    
    Voodoo Wizard.

    re: Note 114.511 by SMURF::BINDER
    
    } 56 of them were PC problems, one was a Mac problem.
    
    Ah yes, statistics.
    
    I went and looked at an auto repair place and 56 of the problems
    were on Fords and one was on a Ferrari.  Does that mean Fords are
    s**tboxs (yes) and ferraris don't break?  
    
    My guess is the majority of folks own PC's and therefore have the
    most questions.                       

    .532
    
    Macs are roughly 8% of the total installed base.  That means, all else
    being equal, that you'd expect the proportion to be roughly 12:1 PC:Mac
    questions.  56:1 is more than 4 times that - I see that discrepancy as
    being significant.
    
    The Mac question was about how to set the SCSI address on the drive
    itself.

RE: 114.528 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

"Advanced degree" is needed?  I think not.

Microsoft's plan is to move all Windows to WinNT.  Windows 95 is the last
DOS based OS.  Windows NT 4.0 is in Beta,  and it's basically Win95 GUI on
top of Windows NT.  


Phil

re .529:

$40-50 a meg?  Even the computer superstores charge less than that.
If the mail order places (like The Chip Merchant and Kenneth Olsen)
were selling hot merchandise, wouldn't they be raided?

Someone was just telling me that due to an expected glut of RAM, 4MB simms
are now being liquidated for $40-$60 (per simm, not per MB) in the Bay area.

    All right, I just got mail from harney saying I'm "out of date".
    All I know is what I paid, $21/meg for 32 meg.  As recent as a
    month ago a computer guy was paying/buying 1mb simms for $30.
    Of course, I called AHHEMdirect JFTHOI, and was quoted $200 for
    a 4mb simm.
    
    Now, lets put this pissing contest aside and look at something.
    Binder touched upon the fact that many folks are afraid to work on
    PC's.  True, so they won't be the ones mail-ordering memory for cheap,
    because you get WHACKED to have someone install it.  They go to
    (superstore) and pay $50/mb and have it installed for them.
    Whatever.  Buyer beware I guess, and shop around. 
    
    MadMike

    
    	So if I wanna spend $50 I can get PC memory AND get whacked?
    
    	Hmmm, my calendar seems to be open for Friday night.
    

| <<< Note 114.535 by NOTIME::SACKS "Gerald Sacks ZKO2-3/N30 DTN:381-2085" >>>

| $40-50 a meg?  

	meg comes cheap, huh? :-)

    um... ah... er....
    
    ahem.
    
    > meg comes cheap, huh? :-)
    
    nah, never mind. 
    	{blush blush}
    

    re: Note 114.535 by NOTIME::SACKS
    
    } were selling hot merchandise, wouldn't they be raided?
    
    SURPRISE SURPRISE... didja see the snooze tonight?
    I'd say silicon valley is pretty close to "the bay area".
    
    bugga-bugga.

No, I don't have a working TV.  And I wouldn't watch the news if I did.

    re: Gerald
    well, here's a soapbox newz brief for you.
    
    FBI Raided silicon valley yesterday, grabbing folks who steal computer
    parts.  They grabbed a bunch of folks, like about 110 or so.  
    Supposedly this is a $100M bizness.
    The big spin and hot tip for a few days will be "industrial espionage".
    
    (since this is soapbox, and we're smart fellows...)
    
    We also know that this raid was coordinated & timed to snuff out the fact
    that 3 years prior to this raid, the BATF assaulted a bunch of
    religious weirdos/gunnuts/child molestors in Texas.  If yesterday was
    a slow news day, they might have mentioned this.
    
    Regards,
    MadMike

What kind of computer parts?  DRAMs?  More likely it was more expensive parts
like CPUs.

                                                              
    Nope, I'd bet memory.  At a meeting at a hotel near SGI, a thief opened
    a running Indigo2 and grabbed half the sims.  Memory is easy to
    launder.  So easy, that people actually believe there is a memory glut
    and that's why cheap 4MB simms are available, oddly, only in selected
    areas like the Bay Area.
    
    Left absolutely untouched - half a dozen high end laptops.
    
    								-mr. bill

    On ABC, as they were talking about the valuable computer parts being
    taken, the camera was panning by a box labeled "486SX-20".  I'm
    surprised they didn't dub in sounds of automatic weapons fire:-)
    
    Bob

    CUPERTINO, California--February 28, 1996--For the third consecutive
    time,  Apple Computer, Inc. has received top marks for reliability and
    service  from PC World magazine. In an article entitled, "Homeward
    Bound or Bound  for Trouble?" featured in PC World`s March issue, the
    magazine features a  detailed consumer report of PCs based on the
    experiences of 17,800  readers.
    
    ...
    
    In addition, an October 1995 study by Gartner Group Consulting Services 
    found that there was no incremental technical support cost for
    companies  supporting dual-platform computing, such as Macintosh and
    Windows, and  that the more Macintosh systems in a computing
    environment, the lower the  overall technical support costs. The
    Gartner Group is a leading  independent advisor to business
    professionals making information  technology decisions.

    
    
    So.... how much longer should I wait before I buy my very own PC (Mac
    or otherwise)??
    
    A recent article in the Boston Globe stated the market is pretty well
    saturated, and the next step is gonna be price wars...
    

    PC WORLD RATES MAC OS BEST OPERATING SYSTEM
    
    Though PC World magazine's main focus is the Wintel world
    (IBM-compatible  computers running Microsoft Windows software), when it
    does industry-wide  comparisons, it includes Apple and the Mac OS. So
    it's no faint praise  when the February 1996 issue of PC World (page
    145) rated the Mac OS as  the best 32-bit operating system--over
    Windows 95, Windows NT, and IBM  OS/2 Warp.
    
    PC World conducted tests that asked eight "typical users" to do a
    variety  of common tasks, then rate the operating system used on a
    scale of 1 to  5. The rating categories used were disk and file
    management, desktop  customization, hardware and driver installation
    and use, and on-screen  help. The composite scores were:
    
    Mac OS 7.5.2                - 3.6
    Windows 95                  - 3.4
    Windows NT Workstation 3.51 - 2.9
    OS/2 Warp 3.0               - 2.8
    
    Apple's biggest win was in the on-screen help category, where it bested 
    Windows 95 by a score of 4.6 to 3.4. According to the article, Apple 
    Guide "received particularly glowing reviews from most of our testers."
    
    In its overall recommendations, PC World said, "Even with the long 
    strides Windows 95 has made in usability, our testers gave the Mac OS 
    7.5.2 a slight edge in overall usability. The Mac also aced our
    graphics  speed tests, one of many strengths prized by artistic users.
    These  virtues aren't so compelling that you should scrap your PC, but
    they're  reason enough to consider a Mac (or Mac clone) when you shop
    for a  computer." (PC World went on to say that the 100 MHz Power
    Macintosh 7500  completed the assigned graphics tasks "in well under
    half the time of any  other 32-bit OS.")

    Andy, if there is something you want to do that requires a computer,
    buy now.  If there isn't, wait until there is.  Then buy.
    
    Whatever you buy, Mac or PC, buy the system that will do what you want
    to do, in the way you want to do it.  That includes price, features,
    compatibility, the whole ball of wax.  My MacEvangelism is intended to
    make sure people at least give Mac a look.  If they decide it's the
    wrong system for them, I'm cool with that.

    
    
    My main concern with not knowing what to buy is the dread of being
    stuck with a "Beta" vs. VHS type system....
    
    

    .551
    
    If you like Mac, you can be confident that Mac isn't going to go away. 
    It's not a "Beta" system.  Apple is a $12B company, it is cash rich, it
    is firmly entrenched in many markets, and the MacOS share in the
    overall personal computer market is growing, not shrinking.
    
    If you like Wintel, any version thereof, go with a name brand like
    Gateway 2000 or Compaq or IBM or Digital.  Off-brand stuff is cheaper,
    but what makes it cheaper is usually a lack of built-in quality - and a
    similar lack of customer support for when it breaks.

    I still weep over the passing of Beta. It was so very good.

    
    
    re: .552
    
    Thanks Dick...
    
    I'll make sure to take you with me when I'm ready to buy...
    
    :)
    

   having richard with you is very helpful.  he doesn't pressure you
   about Macs or anything.  he just swings that pocket watch in front
   of your face for a while, and before you know it, it's over and
   you own one.

    Stupid question time.
    
    I know nothing of Mac's.  What exactly is the difference between a Mac
    and an IMB (or clone) type PC besides the operating system?  I would
    imagine the internal architecture is different in some meaningful way,
    but I really don't know the specifics.
    
    I too am looking to buy a PC. 
    
    
    -steve

    If you enjoy the three following key strokes, <Ctrl><Alt><Delete>, then
    an IBM, Intel Based, MS Windows PC is the one for you.

    <--- Oh yes, indeed I do.  I use them often.  8^)

>    Stupid question time.

>    I know nothing of Mac's.  What exactly is the difference between a Mac
>    and an IMB (or clone) type PC besides the operating system?  I would
    
    Not sure whether this is a sucker question or serious.

    the Mac was based on the old Motorola 68K chip set and the
    'IBM' based on the 8086 (etc) chip sets.  Each chip set has gone through
    several design cycles.  The Motorola chip set relects a far more
    'modern' basic architecture, avoiding (for example) the serious memory
    limitations that still plague PCs (who would EVER want more than
    640K bytes).

    The Mac was designed from day one with basically the same look
    and feel that Macs still have today and that IBM PCs are still attempting
    to achieve.  In the 'old days' this made them more expensive than
    the other PCs.  All Macs have simple hardware/software built is to network
    Macs right out of the box.  Always have.  All Macs have sound in and out.
    All Macs have at least one SCSI port.  Since all Macs have always
    had these things, Mac software could easily incorporate them into
    programs and did not have to code for the lowest common denominator or
    try to support a wide range and different vendor options.

    Apple refused to license their OS to other hardware vendors so no one
    but Apple could sell Macs (almost).  IBM didn't even own the license
    and Microsoft was quite happy to sell its OS to anyone so clone
    vendors quickly filled the PC market.  This drove down the
    cost of PC hardware.  Apple kept their prices artificially high and
    eventually lost a LOT of market share.  They began seriously dropping
    their prices about 1991.

    Since Apple designed and sold all the Mac hardware and the Mac OS,
    it could exert a lot of control over the software community that
    wrote software for the Mac.  (no one controlled the PC software in the
    same way).  Mac programmers tended to use the OS services much more
    than on the PC (since the early PC OS had very few services available).
    So Mac software has always been much more consistant than PC software.

    Apple was able to very successfully manage a recent transition to a
    completely new chip architecture (68K to PowerPC).  This was partially
    accomplished through a perfect 68K emulator that did not have to be
    all that fast to provide exceptional speed when running 68K code.  It
    did not have to be all that fast because a lot of the time that
    application code is running, it actually is running OS service calls
    (and these run in native PPC code).  A similar transition for the PC
    will be very difficult since a much larger proportion of the
    application is running outside the OS (just like we have difficulties
    getting our Alpha emulation of the intel code to be fast).

    Most good software runs on both platforms.  A LOT more bad software
    exists for the PC than for that Mac.  PC software gets a LOT more
    shelf space than Mac software in most computer stores, but I suspect
    that most software is actually sold mail order.  both machines can support
    all the neat things that you hear about....multi media, nice speakers,
    CDs, modems, video conversion hardware, etc. etc.

    So, the differences....night and day.  Or almost nothing.
    depending on how you look at it.
    bob

    A little more info.
    
    Not all Macs have SCSI.  SCSI was introduced with the Mac Plus in
    January 1986.  The original Mac (the 128K), the 512K, and the 512Ke do
    not have SCSI.  The last of these machines was built in April 1988.  My
    oldest Mac is an SE, which does have SCSI.
    
    Not all Macs have sound in.  I don't have data on which ones do or
    don't.  All current production Macs do have sound in, and most of them
    have 16-bit stereo sound out as well.  My SE and PowerBook 150 do not
    have sound in; my LC 475 does.
    
    When Apple was not licensing the operating system, the only clone maker
    was a company called Outbound, which made some superb MAc-compatible
    laptops that used scavenged Mac ROMs.
    
    The consistency of Mac programs goes further than just the use of OS
    calls.  Apple developed a document called the Apple Human Interface
    Guidelines that describes what Apple believes is the right and wrong
    way to do things.  There are some very subtle features in the Mac
    interface, such as the way the zoom boxes are implemented (four on the
    screen at any one time) and the way the mouse pointer disappears when
    you begin typing in a document.  Microsoft, when it brought out the
    latest version of Office for Windows and Mac, caused a firestorm of
    protest from the Mac community by its decision to base the user
    interface of the programs  on the Windows interface.  Suddenly, the
    "stop a long process" keystroke on Mac was no longer command-period, it
    was escape.  Microsoft is not noted for its elegant user interface
    design, not even for PC programs.  :-)  The general feeling among Mac
    users about Microsoft is that Microsoft is arrogantly saying "We don't
    care about how you want to work.  Do it our way or don't do it."  This
    perception, coupled with the abysmal performance of Office products on
    Mac, has resulted in an exodus from Word to WordPerfect and Nisus
    Writer.
    
    Most of the OS in MacOS is NOT running PPC calls; in fact about 75% of
    it is still in 68K code.  This is one reason for the brilliant success
    of Connectix Corporation's Speed Doubler, one of whose components is a
    68K emulator that is on average twice as fast as Apple's.  But Apple's
    emulator has the advantage of being bulletproof, and bugs are still
    cropping up in Connectix's product.  The preponderance of 68K code in
    the OS is relieved by Apple's carefully crafting the PPC-native pieces
    to be the ones that are most frequently used.  Sound Manager and SCSI
    Manager 4.3, for example, are native, as is the QuickDraw code that is
    burned into ROM.
    
    > Most good software runs on both platforms.
    
    Rephrase that.  Most good software comes in versions for both
    platforms.  However, most current Macs can accept a daughter card
    containing a 486 or 5x86 processor and the necessary glue such that you
    can run any and all Mac, DOS, Windows, Windows95, Windows NT, and OS/2
    software on the same box.  You can run any one of the Intel-based
    systems simultaneously with MacOS, sharing a monitor or on two heads,
    and you can cut and paste from one side to the other.  The Mac can
    read, write, and format MS-DOS floppies, and you can partition your
    hard disk for any or all of the systems you want to run.  There is also
    a piece of Mac software that will run all the Intel stuff, called
    SoftWindows.  There is now a piece of software for Intel boxes that
    claims to run MacOS - I haven't seen it or read any reviews of it.
    
    The point was made that Mac has stuff built in that makes it more
    standard.  Some of this, such as stereo sound in/out, a standard video,
    and SCSI, saves Mac users from many compatibility headaches that Intel
    ysers face.

    Thanks for the replies.  It was a serious question, as I really know
    next to nothing about Macs (and little more about the Intel-based PCs).
    
    How do you do comparison shopping between the Intel-based PC's and the
    Macs?  Obviously, Macs won't use Intel's Pentium processors, so how do
    you compare price for performance?   
    
    I know that the MHZ rating for the 5x86 processors are not consistent with 
    similar ratings for the Pentiums (I think a 133MHZ 5x86 is equivalant
    to a Pentium 75 or thereabouts)...something that further confuses me, as I 
    am not up on all the techno wiz-bang PC stuff.  I also realize that
    other things make a difference is the relative "speed" of the computer:
    cache, memory, hard drive access speed, video card, etc., can make or break
    performance of even a high end Pentium processor.
    
    How would one directly compare a Mac with an Intel-based PC?
    
    Thanks for the info.  I'm not prejudiced either way, and want to have a
    general knowledge so I can compare the two platforms fairly before I
    lay down my money.
    
    
    -steve

    I believe that the 5x86 is the same as Pentium.  It's just not made by
    Intel.
    
    The way to do a direct head-to-head comparison between a Mac and a PC
    is to run the same processing tasks on both.  You have to find places
    that will let you run the software you want to see, and you might have
    to go to several stores.  And you have to do the same task, using the
    same data, on both systems.
    
    If you are going to be doing a lot of graphics-intensive stuff, see how
    long it takes Photoshop to do a negative or a color separation on a
    large image.  If you're going to be using databases, see how long it
    takes FileMaker Pro or Access to sort a 3,000-record database - as a
    quick example, ClarisWorks can sort a 3500-record database, sorting on
    all 13 fields, in about 30 seconds on my Mac LC 475.  If you're going
    to run disk-intensive stuff, do some I/O benchmarks.  If you're going
    to do C or C++, compile and run the same platform-independent program
    on both machines.
    
    Consider, however, that for most ordinary users it isn't the absolute
    pedal-to-the-metal speed of the computer that makes the difference.  A
    couple of years ago, an independent organization ran a study and found
    that, on average, Mac users were 35% more productive than Windows 3.11
    users.  That was at a time when the fastest Macs were roughly
    comparable in speed to the fastest Intel boxes; at present, the fastest
    current MacOS machine (a 4-processor system made by Daystar and costing
    well into five figures) is several times faster than the fastest
    Pentium machine - and in fact faster even than a Silicon Graphics
    workstation.  The fastest single-processor MacOS box is about 30%
    faster than the fastest single-processor Pentium.  The point of this
    is, however, that the way the machine's user interface works can be the
    biggest single factor in your real-world performance.  If you take 10
    minutes to make edits in a database, the difference between 5 seconds
    and 7 seconds to sort it isn't that big a deal.  Buy what you like, as
    long as it will do the job.

RE: 114.562 by SMURF::BINDER "Manus Celer Dei"

> I believe that the 5x86 is the same as Pentium.  It's just not made by
> Intel.

No.  All of the x86 processors are basically the same as the original 8086,
After the 386,  Intel stopped second sourcing it's processors,  so Intel
could make more money.  Lots more money.  As a result,  other companies
have produced upgraded 386 processors that have the same sorts of
enhancements as the Intel line,  but without using Intel's designs.  These
parts by other companies are comparable to,  and not the same as,  the
Intel parts.  One way that they differ is in how much work is done on a
single clock period,  so just comparing clock frequency is misleading.  


> on average, Mac users were 35% more productive than Windows 3.11 users.

Useless factoid.  What about Windows 95 users?  Both Windows NT and Windows
95 users are more productive than Windows 3.11 users.  


Phil

Can anyone recommend a good [comprehensive, complete, barely abridged]
online dictionary for Windows which doesn't require a resident CD?

I'm finding American Heritage V1.0 from Wordstar to be less than acceptable
and would like to upgrade to something more extensive.

    .564
    
    Find out if Softkey offers American Heritage Third Edition for Windows. 
    There are two AH3 versions for Mac, the "standard" and the "deluxe." 
    The diff is that the standard omits abbreviations, etymological info,
    geographical entries, lists of colleges, the Dictionary of Cultural
    Literacy, and the Roget's Thesaurus.  The trick here is that when the
    deluxe is advertised in catalogs, it's only advertised for CD-ROM.  I
    contacted Softkey and obtained the deluxe version on diskettes, without
    the fancy "pronounce the words" feature.  (There's a new CD-ROM version
    of the AHD3 out, with a bunch of multimedia features that I neither
    need nor want.)
    
    Softkey's tech support phone number is 404-428-0008, and you can get
    their sales department's number from that if what you want is
    available.

Talking of Windows NT, *why the hell* doesn't it allow remote interactive 
access?!  I'm tempted to say `Unix has had remote graphical interactive access 
for years', but that doesn't answer my question.  NT would be *much* more 
useful if you could gain proper access to your system when you're not actually 
at your desk, or wherever the system is situated.

Chris.

    
  |  Talking of Windows NT, *why the hell* doesn't it allow remote interactive
  |  access?!  
    
    that's a good question.  a lot of it has to do with the fact that
    it lives on the window's sdk primitives which were originally invented
    to serve one person working alone on his pc.  in other words the
    window sdk was not intended to serve multiple sessions remotely
    from a server.     
    
    there is a lot of PC centric aspects of NT that are almost comical.
    for instance, you have behemoth NT alpha servers (the ones behind
    the glass walls) that still require being connected to one
    monitor and one mouse (sometimes with a very long cord winding
    its way around the machine). 
    
  |  I'm tempted to say `Unix has had remote graphical interactive
  |  access for years', but that doesn't answer my question.  NT would be *much*
  |  more useful if you could gain proper access to your system when you're not
  |  actually at your desk, or wherever the system is situated.
    
     nt was positioned as a workstation alternative and is making 
     major marketing inroads on both the pc front and the server front. 
     companies are bypassing windows95 completely for a much more stable
     and mature windows nt 3.5 product.  the server front is more
     problematic since the whole server paradigm is so foreign to 
     microsoft.  so is the notion of field support etc.  
    
    
     

 Is it possible to use PKUNZIP in Windows 95 without having to go do DOS?  I
 was helping a friend out tonight, and I'm not familiar with W95, so I did a 
 bunch o' directory creating and moving this and that and took care of what he
 needed to do, but I wonder if there is an easier way with W95...



 Jim

    
    
    	I know there was a WINZIP years ago, but I used that with 3.1.
    
    

Find WinZip95.

Search the www.windows95.com website.  They have it.

\john

	i think you might be able to associate a .ZIP file with the
	application and double click on a file from file manager (or
	probably from explorer) ?
	

>	i think you might be able to associate a .ZIP file with the
>	application and double click on a file from file manager (or
>	probably from explorer) ?

yes, you can.  Alternatively, use Linux.  :)

Chris.

    .571
    
    > i think you might be able to associate a .ZIP file with the
    > application and double click...
    
    Or, alternatively, use ZipIt on a Mac, and just drop the .ZIP file on
    it.

    > Or, alternatively, use ZipIt on a Mac, and just drop the .ZIP file on
    > it.
    
    Or, alternatively, use WinZip on a PC, and just drop the .ZIP file on
    it.  Although I find that once the association has been setup, it's
    simpler to double-click on the file rather than click and drag the file
    over to the WinZip application window.
    
    -- Jim