From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Some more misconceptions regarding OS/2 and NT
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 18:17:30 GMT

In <1992Aug19.182943.630@terminator.cc.umich.edu> potts@itl.itd.umich.edu (Paul Potts) writes:

>At the Win32 conference we received three CD-ROMs, and while they weren't

>The thing is, much of that is reference material. For example, the 
>international versions of Windows. Suppose I want to develop for the
>Hebrew version - I would just pull that off the CD/ROM, and install it,
>not copy all the versions over. It is the same way with the on-line 
>technical database. I would use the searching tools and look for info
>on the CD-ROM for a particular problem. 

So in other words, you should really have THREE CD-ROM drives, since
much of this is reference material that you'll need to be referring to
fairly constantly (no paper docs, remember?).  Either that, or you're
going to have to load the stuff onto your hard drive and/or print it
out on paper yourself.  

>>
>>Ever heard of TAPE?  Ever heard of MEDIA CHARGES?
>>

>Tape is not random-access, and it is not standardized.

Gee, tell me something I DON'T know; you mean tape isn't random
access?  Geeeeeee!

As for standardized, it doesn't really have to be.  Include one floppy
with the software to read the files on the tape and device drivers for
the common tapes.  But this is a moot point, anyway.

>You also made a comment about backing up - unfortunately, right now
>I have to back up 100+ megs to disks, so I am quite familiar with
>using floppies, but I hate doing it. I would love a cheap, standard
>read-write optical format and love to receive things like NT on it,
>but for now it looks like CD-ROM is it as far as these large volumes
>of data go. I really recommend a CD-ROM drive; they are coming down
>in price. Although many of the existing titles are still pretty weak,
>they are improving. Also, at work we have a PortaDrive, which can work
>with a card on our PCs or without one on our Macs, and can be moved
>between machines easily. If you really have an office full of developers
>with hot machines, it doesn't seem unreasonable for someone to have a
>CD-ROM drive by now. It is only through a medium like this that
>Microsoft could manage to sell the SDK for $69.00.

I would rather (before I wasted money on 'nice to have' bits like
CD-ROM) spend my money on:  more memory, a larger display, a tape
drive, a bigger disk (or more disks), and just about any other
hardware bit you can mention.  I simply have no need for a CD-ROM
drive (or three of them, to be able to go through the documentation).

I still find it amazing that a whole software development kit AND the
complete operating system/GUI/etc./ for UNIX can be shipped on
floppies or tape, but for NT it's so large that it takes a CD-ROM or
three.  

What's wrong with that picture?


-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy