From: vhs@darkcube.radig.de (Volker Herminghaus-Shirai)
Subject: Re: What's in a name?
Reply-To: vhs@darkcube.radig.de
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 14:56:16 GMT

In article <DOCONNOR.92Jul23085513@potato.sedona.intel.com>  
doconnor@sedona.intel.com (Dennis O'Connor) writes:
> 
> vhs@darkcube.radig.de (Volker Herminghaus-Shirai) writes:
> ] In article <> davidsen@ariel.crd.GE.COM  (william E Davidsen) writes:
> ] > In article <1992Jul20.092822.7666@spool.cs.wisc.edu>,  
> ] mfrank@wilma.cs.wisc.edu (Matt Frank) writes:
> ] > 
> ] > |> 1)  Backwards compatability is a waste of everyones time.
> ] > 
> ] >   Fortunately for the vendors, consumers disagree with that statement.
> ] > In millions.
> ]
> ] You're right. Fortunately *for the vendors*.
> 
> Give me a break. Intel's employees would love to take off with a bold new
> architecture that would be the pinnacle of microprocessor performance,
> completely free of the baggage of the past.
> 
> It's the CUSTOMERS who INSIST on compatability. Customers also
> insist on performance. It's the hard-working 86 architects and
> engineers who have to suffer and jump through hoops to deliver both.
> I've got a lot of respect for those guys, and always have had.
> And it's a good thing process technology keeps improving.

> Perhaps Volker Herminghaus-Shirai is smarter than all those customers:

Yes, I think that's not very hard.

> maybe his freely-given opinion is somehow more important than the 
> "voting with their wallets" millions of PC buyers have done.

PC-customers have been demanding an OS that would take advantege of their
hardware since the AT came up. They didn't get it, although a migration to an
80286 protected-mode, later 80386-(now what's that mode called again?)OS would  
have been possible, if not 100% painless. They didn't get it for one of three
reasons:
	1) M$ was not able to deliver a decent OS: Likely, since they
		never did before (Xenix comes from AT&T, not M$).
	2) IBM decided that customers don't want to hassle even with slight
		incompatibilities. They didn't mention the hassle customers
		get from software that has to act as an OS because there is
		no OS to do the elementary functions well.
		And besides, 640K is plenty for the rest of the century.:
		Also likely, from what we know of their /370-family.
	3) (pathetic music on)
		The customers demanded that henceforth, software shall be
		compatible with the one and only, the real standard. Never
		shall we want an Operating System, especially not with such
		disgusting features like multitasking, networking, and virtual
		memory (Don't try telling me windows is *multitasking*, it's
		not even time-slicing). Each application shall use
		it's own drivers for each preipheral card supported. Never
		shall a driver for a peripheral be compatible with more than
		one single piece of software, the application it is delivered
		with. Always shalt thou upgrade all your drivers, and
		applications, and windowing software, and Operating System,
		whenever any of the aforementioned is upgraded.
	(pathetic music off)

> But it's not important to Intel's bottom line.

Yes, I guess their bottom line is the only thing intel is interested in.
May I quote myself:
> ] You're right. Fortunately *for the vendors*.

Followups to alt.jokes.

--
Volker Herminghaus-Shirai (vhs@darkcube.radig.de)

OK, no offensive .sig this time
Newsgroups: comp.arch