Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Date: Thu,  8 Oct 1992 18:10:15 -0400 
From: Carl B Jabido <cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT

Okay, it's not a reply to my post, but my post hasn't yet arrived. . .


Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.mac.advocacy: 8-Oct-92 Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2
and Window.. by Edward V. Wright@convex. 
> But not all Windows drivers are compatible with all Windows programs.
> "Device independence" on PCs is a joke.  Even programs that don't *use*
> the video display, like network drivers, won't work with some video
> drivers and displays. 
  
What kind of problems did you have?  What were you running?  

> >>> HIG in IBM world is CUA (Common User Access), current spec is CUA 92.
> >>A) is it any good? and B) is anything written to support it)
> >Good?  That's a very subjective term, each person has his/her own tastes
> >and opinions, I personally think it's quite intuitive, your milage may
> >vary.  
>  
> Yeah, well, you see, that's the problem.  Everyone in the PC world
> thinks that human factors issues are entirely subjective, each
> person has his/her own tastes and opinions, it's simply a matter
> of aesthetics, etc., etc., etc. 

Oh, and there are absolutely _no_ desenters in the Mac world?  Why then
does MPW exist?  Why do hacks exist which let you change the way windows
look?  If the Mac interface was perfect, and everyone liked it, then
there would be no need to change it.  Thus, there are people who don't
like the Mac interface as it comes out of the box.  
  
> >Specific hardware?  Not necessarily, you can run multimedia apps with
> >existing hardware, even digitized sound from the internal speaker/
> >beeper.  
>  
> You can play digitized sound using hardware that can't synthesize
> waveforms and can only play a single note of fixed duration?  You
> really haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about here,
> have you?  This is just as silly as the time you told me that two
> PC sound boards produced files that were 100% compatible, despite
> the fact that one was an 8-bit digitizer and the other 16-bit. 

Yes actually, you can!  It sounds okay, not spectacular, but YES IT DOES
WORK!!!  Before you flame somebody for something, find out the facts.  I
reiterate: Yes the internal speaker can play digitized sound.  The
driver came out a few days after Win 3.1 was released.
I can't comment on the second part because I didn't know the circumstances.
  
> >But QuickTime also needs specific hardware, for starters, you
> >need a Mac, ;-) also you need the ROMs with 32-bit QuickDraw in them.
> >Right?
>  
> Why?  32-bit Quickdraw loads just fine from disk if it isn't in ROM.
  
Okay.
  
> >>doesn't, although it fully supports additional hardware. 
> >And so does Windows and MMPM (Multimedia PM), why is it considered an
> >avdvantage of QuickTime when it supports additional hardware and a
> >disadvantage of Windows and OS/2 when they can do the same?
>  
> Please pay attention, Nan.  He said that Quicktime *supports* additional
> hardware, but Windows Multimedia *requires* additional hardware.  It's
> the difference between a car that allows you to buy a new engine and
> a car that requires you to buy a new engine.

Yes, MPC does require more hardware.  That's only because the standard
PC is cheap and doesn't come with it.  Of course, you can buy a Mac that
has all the hardware to run, but that's because you're also paying more
for it!
  
> >>Important hardware issue. Hardware is part of the system.
>  
> >But that's not what we're talking about here, we're supposed to talk
> >about features of System 7 and OS/2.
>  
> An OS generally requires hardware to run on.  You can always
> claim that your OS would do wonderful things -- if only it
> ran on different hardware.
  
Fine, keep System 7.0 only for Macintoshes, while the rest of the world
is trying to get operating systems which are _platform_independent. 
Look at Unix and NT.  Both run on different platforms.  NT will be
released on other platforms eventually.  Currently, OS/2 has been shown
running on an RS/6000 in addition to the PC's.  OS/2 has already been
shown to run on the Mach kernel, so evidence is showing that it too will
be designed to run on multiple platforms.  NeXTStep is being ported to
486's and will be released 1Q93.  It's also being ported to NCR systems.
But sure, if Apple wants to keep System 7.0 for only their hardware, go ahead.
  
> >Bill, you keep saying that features like preemptive MT have negligible
> >benefit to the user and therefore are a nonfactors, I disagree, maybe
> >users are just not aware of the potential of preemptive MT, 
>  
> Or maybe they are aware of what a dog preemptive multitasking
> really is.

Tell that to Apple!  They are going to preemptive eventually, so maybe
they just want to get rid of people like you.
  
> >when I was running Windows I was very conscious about how many apps 
> >I have running (I usually keep the number below 10, around 5), with 
> >OS/2, I don't even think twice about starting another process, since 
> >I know I can switch between them instantaneously and no one program 
> >can bog the whole system down.
>  
> Ten programs under Windows?  Hah!  Maybe if you're talking little
> toy applications.  I've seldom managed to get five programs to run 
> without crashing the system.  And if I start Ventura Publisher, I
> can't start any more programs until I quit that.

Too bad.  You really must have a bad PC!  Under Windows, when I did
newsletters and stuff, I'd have Pagemaker, Excel, Word for Windows,
Paintbrush, and all the little applets I used all running at once.  I
don't see what your problem was.

> On the Macintosh, however, I can open as many programs as I have
> memory for.

Well, this is an advocacy group, so I'll say that I can't, and it'll be
my word against yours.  How about that!
  
> Bog the whole system down?  Yes, if I pick up a brush in a paint
> program and start drawing with it, it may "bog down" those poor
> background applications.  In return, I get a nice, smooth drawing.
> When I'm done with the brush, the other applications get control
> for a while.  
>  
> On a preemptive system, if I pick up the paintbrush, the OS,
> being completely blind to what is going on, continues to give
> the background apps their fair share of CPU cycles.  As a result,  
> the brush paints unevenly, and the drawing has ugly gaps in it.

What kind of os did you get those results on?  I've never seen that
under OS/2!  Even with the standard tests, like formatting a 3.5 in the
background, while compressing 100 files to my 5.25 drive.  My cursor
never never moves unevenly, like on a Mac _trying_ to multitask and
print at the same time.
Macintosh more or less uses TASK SWITCHING!  Sure you can have as many
programs as memory can have.  Whenever I want to do something different
though, I have to stop what I'm doing in the app I'm in and then switch
apps.
  
> Oh, you say I can increase the priority of the foreground process?
> Okay, I do that.  Now, my brush paints evenly because the foreground
> process gets plenty of CPU cycles, while the background processes are
> bogged down -- not just while I'm actively painting, but all the time.
  

  
> >As to the benefit of memory protection, I think lots of Mac users here 
> >would disagree with you.
>  
> I don't think someone who apparently knows so little about the
> Mac should speak for Mac users.

Oh, so then Mac users don't care about memory protection?
  
> Even with perfect memory protection, Windows would not be any
> better than the Mac with no memory protection at all.  Why?
> Because the Windows applications I use crash at least 10 times 
> as often as my Mac applications do.  So if one crash on the
> Mac brings down 10 applications, I'm no worse off than having
> 10 crashes under Windows, each of which affects only a single
> application.  However, most programs that crash on the Macintosh
> do not bring down the entire house.  I can almost always Force
> Quit the offending application and continue with the rest of my
> work.
> The real solution to program crashes is not memory protection.
> It's for programmers to write applications that don't crash.
>  
Well tell that to the people who wrote Genie Pascal (here at CMU)
because that'll crash on anything.

"It's for programmers to write applications that don't crash."  I think
that's just a good excuse for those people who don't have memory
protection, and still want to justify their OS.  Sure, it's good for
programmers to write apps that don't crash.  That goes for any system
with or without memory protection.  No matter how many times you tell
that to people though, there will be at least one person who writes a
down and dirty shareware app that just may bring down the whole system. 
What do you tell the user who lost 10 megs on their hard drive then? 
Well, I told the programmers to write better code, but it's not my fault
they didn't.  No matter how you look at it, memory protection is just
something that will help the user.  He may never know it's working, or
what it is.  As long as he doesn't have to reboot his computer and see
what's waiting for him at the other end, he'll be happy.  Memory
protection doesn't take anything away from an OS;  it'll add to its
stability, so don't say "we don't need it" because for everyone few of
those, you'll have people who say "I'm going to X because System 7.0
doesn't have memory protection."

BTW, isn't Apple adding that at the same time they're adding preemptive?