HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman)
Subject: Re: Be more creative than the FTC!
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 11:54:32 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.233918.14782@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu>, rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:
|> helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
|> 
|> >Why don't Novel, Lotus, et al, find a more creative solution to their problem
|> >than just using the FTC as a club against Microsoft?  Here are some better
|> >alternatives:
|> 
|> Did you whine like this when MCI forced the government to break up 
|> AT&T?

AT&T was only a monopoly because the goverment wouldn't allow other companies
to compete with it.  In fact, I challenge you to name a single monopoly
which wasn't a monopoly because a goverment outlawed competition with it.
Name one which was a monopoly in America before the antitrust laws came in.
You can even name companies in countries which don't have antitrust laws.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Date: 31 Dec 92 05:10:35 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <8238@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>
>You're once again missing the point: if MS sells me Windows for $8 if I agree
>to pay for a copy for every machine I sell, but triples the price if I don't,
>then that's force. I have no economically sound choice but to give in to their
>extortion; after all, the alternative is a tripled cost and the likelihood
>that they'll sue me to death if they can find an excuse - like, say, they
>think (independent of reality) that I've shipped copies I haven't paid for;
>the cost of the litigation and audits alone could ruin a company...

     So now you've resorted to inventing your own "sleazy, monopolistic,
anti-competitive practices"?  Please cite a single case in which
Microsoft has brought wrongful prosecution against _anyone_.

				-Phil

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
From: dlcogswe@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Dan Cogswell)
Subject: Bill Gates:  What a weenie...
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI.
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 01:31:20 GMT

Did anybody catch Bill Gates' interview on This Week with David
Brinkley?  It had to be the most awkward ten minutes of television
history.  What a geek.

One good point:  he admitted that he's the richest man in the U.S.
because he was in the right place at the right time.  

I especially like the bone he threw to IBM about how they were "still
likely to play an important role in the computer industry" followed by a
nervous grin (i.e., "I didn't really believe what I just said, but I
sure wish they still liked me...").

All in all, I'm glad I'm not buying this man's products. 

-- 
Dan Cogswell               Or as we say in Michigan:  "Dee-troit"


Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:11527 comp.os.os2.misc:41050
From: bdubbs@cs.tamu.edu (Bruce Dubbs)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: U.S. Dvorak Simplified Keyboard support
Date: 4 Jan 1993 03:56:08 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
NNTP-Posting-Host: neuron.tamu.edu

In article <1993Jan4.013218.28184@cs.uoregon.edu> tracer@majestix.cs.uoregon.edu (Roger M. Wilcox) writes:
|
|Long ago, I rearranged the platic key-caps on my keyboard to get a Dvorak
|Simplified Keyboard layout (you know, AOEUIDHTNS), so that I could type
|about 40% faster than with that (yicch) QWERTY keyboard layout.  A company
|called Seasoned Systems made a Dvorak keyboard driver for MS-DOS, which I
|bought and installed and which worked just fine.  Windows bypasses the DOS
|keyboard I/O handlers, but versions 3.0 and 3.1 of Windows come with a
|U.S. Dvorak keyboard driver.

Roger, I don't doubt that you can type 40% faster with a DVORAK
keyboard than with a QWERTY keyboard.  However, I believe I saw a
research article, {\it Human Factors} if I remember correctly, that
said expert typists can only type 2-3% faster with DVORAK keyboards.
The conclusion was that the speed difference was not enough to switch
{\em for most people}.

  -- Bruce

--
Bruce Dubbs                   |  Oxymorons of note:
bdubbs@neuron.tamu.edu        |  Honest Politician, Political Science,
                              |  Scrupulous Lawyer
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: mfraioli@grebyn.com (Marc Fraioli)
Subject: Re: OS/2 bigot meets NT....
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 17:17:26 GMT

In article <1992Dec27.011721.23160@unvax.union.edu> pallantj@unvax.union.edu (Joseph C. Pallante) writes:
>I have a question....
>
>All this debate is over:  Many, Many crashes because a PC has only
>8 megs of RAM.
>
>My question:  Why does NT crash (or OS/2 for that matter) because of lack
>of enough RAM?  I would expect it to be slow because the OS would have
>to manipulate the memory, do some swapping, etc...   But, if it follows
>all the rules it should, theoreticaly, it should not crash.  It should
>just take longer to do its job, due to the overhead of running on
>a machine with little memory.
>
>So...  NT running on mimimal memory crashes.  Now, I know what you are
>gonna say, 12 megs is the minimum.  If 12 really is the minimum, you would
>think that MS would have prevented it from running it in any system
>under 12, right?  If they can prevent it from installing on a system
>that has boot manager, surely they could prevent it from operating
>on a PC with less than 12, right?
>
>These are honest questions...  Not trying to put down NT...
>I beleive OS/2 crashes more when it doesnt have enough memory also...
>Just curious why it happens.
>
I believe that someone had suggested earlier the possibility of bugs in
the virtual memory routines.  This could certainly cause what you
describe.  Other than that, though, you're right-- the system should
just run slower.  In my experience, this is exactly what happens with
Unix machines.  I find Unix crashes to be *very* rare, even running in 8
or 12 megs on a PC. (and BTW, I have used SCO ODT 1.1 Unix SVR3.2 on a
386/20 with 12megs of memory, and it performs quite well.  That's
running X windows, TCP/IP, and NFS too.  So if NT runs as poorly as
Steve describes in 8 megs, MS has their work cut out for them.)
-- 
Marc Fraioli
mfraioli@grebyn.com	        	(So I'm a minimalist...)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! :)
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 21:31:35 GMT

In article <8244@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>In article <1992Dec30.162838.9739@tc.cornell.edu> bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>>From the above I conclude that you think that force is a bad thing.
>>After a zillion of postings claiming that there is nothing wrong
>>with force, and therefore everything is fine with the FTC forcing
>>MS to change its marketing, I becoming a little confused.
>
>It's OK for the FTC to force MS to change its marketing because this is force
>in response to force...our net.libertarians will universally agree that the
>initiation of force is wrong, but using force in response to someone else's
>first use of force is good and necessary. MS initiated the use of force.

Although I disagree with you about the meaning of force, it is at
least refreshing to see someone who finally admit that force is bad. There
were postings to the contrary.

>Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
>jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
> "Brought to you by the letters O, S, and by the number 2." -- Mike Levis

Dov
From: curt@vtucs.cc.vt.edu (Curt Tilmes)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.1 Observations
Date: 30 Dec 92 14:34:48 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
In-reply-to: gershon@husc11.harvard.edu's message of 29 Dec 92 19:18:08 GMT

In article <gershon.725656688@husc.harvard.edu> gershon@husc11.harvard.edu (Ethan Gershon) writes:

   2.1 sounds pretty good. two things:

   1) is there some way to change the icon assigned to associated data files.
   That is, instead of having all .DOC files pick up wp51's icon, can you
   have a data file icon assigned to that file (like the Mac)?

Just a guess, but you could probably make a new program object for
wp51, with a new icon, and make all your assocications with that one,
instead of the original wp51.

Curt
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman)
Subject: Re: ftc and ms
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 00:41:21 GMT

In article <1h9v4qINN607@meaddata.meaddata.com>, johnh@meaddata.com (John Holt) writes:
|> In article <1992Dec22.200742.28629@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
|> >In all of history (before or after the antitrust laws, or in a country
|> >today which doesn't have anti-trust laws) which became a monopoly?
|> >
|> >The only monopolies I can think of are things like the post office,
|> >utilites, etc which are illegal to compete against.  Really, the free
|> >market system is highly intolerant of big behemothic companies, especially
|>  
|>  I would like to direct your attention to the 1890's and in particular the
|>  rail and steel trusts.

Back in the 1890's the goverment was _very_ actively involved in the steel and
rail business.  A legislator who wanted some money would simply propose
legislation adverse to a railroad, and then the railroad would bribe the
legislator into unproposing the bill.  The trusts of the 1890's were just
as much a result of purchased legislators as purchased stock.

And what did goverment action do to our steel industries?  There was a time
when Andrew Carnegie could afford to enhance the culture of America by
building music halls.  There was a time when Commodore Vanderbuilt could
improve the education of America by building Vanderbuilt university.

Now the biggest steel companies and the fastest trains alike reside in
Japan.  :-(
From: rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: FTC, M$ and Compuserve
Date: 22 Dec 92 16:08:18 GMT
Organization: San Jose State University - Math/CS Dept.

jg3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jason Ari Goldstein) writes:

>This whole thing witht he FTC and M$ seems to have a similar sound as to
>Compuserve - meaning Why is it that many companies will only give tech
>support via compuserve forums?  I have been rejected from support many
>times when I sent email to the businesses account from InterNet.  The
>companies response is always join compuserve.  Well, I NOT paying anyone
>to censor my mail.  And why should I pay when I can get something for
>free.  Anyway, It makes me wonder if compuserve is giving companies a
>deal to do there tech support through compuserve and part of the deal is
>that they can only do it through compuserve.  That sounds very similar
>to giving companies a deal to buy there OS and then saying they can only
>sell there OS.  So how do I contact the FTC...  
>            Later...

Boy is this a mixed bag.  First off, CompuServe does not censor mail.
It does not monitor mail.  It has fought government agency attempts to
do so.  Prodigy does monitor mail and does censor mail.  But
CompuServe != Prodigy.  Please get your facts straight.

And yes, CompuServe does make deals with companies that provide tech
support via CI$, but it is not the deal that you have dreamt up.  
Fora owners on CI$ get a proportion of the fees that CI$ collects,
based upon usage.  So MS, IBM, Borland, or whoever can collect money
for the support that they provide on CI$.  Consider this your support
fee.  There are also some licensing and copyright issues vis a vis
files that are uploaded and placed in fora file areas.  This issue
has come up most frequently in regards to requests that Novell place
all the files that are on their CI$ fora to their ftp/gopher servers.
Novell says that their contract with CompuServe prohibits this and
that they can only place files that they own (i.e., write/buy) on
their ftp/gopher servers.

It is my belief that the companies are restricting the questions to
those from CIS accounts for two reasons. [ this is speculation, BTW ].
First, the fees from CIS help defray the costs.  Second, CI$
accounts can be verified, while fraud/deception/forgery are quite
common on Internet.  Ergo, they have a higher degree of certainty that
someone with a problem on CI$ is a valid owner of their product than
they could ever have with an Internet user.

>            Jason A. Goldstein
>(or should it be J. Ari Goldstein - send in your votes)
>___________________________________________
>I've got a lot of good ideas...
>The problem is, most of them suck!
>        - George Carlin

>Over, Finished, Gone, Done, Out.  (Finally)
From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Date: 3 Jan 1993 14:48:32 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1992Dec31.051035.5065@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>after all, the alternative is a tripled cost and the likelihood
                                                       ^^^^^^^^^^
>>that they'll sue me to death if they can find an excuse
>     So now you've resorted to inventing your own "sleazy, monopolistic,
>anti-competitive practices"?  Please cite a single case in which
>Microsoft has brought wrongful prosecution against _anyone_.

Read that line again. I'm not claiming that they did; I would have no trouble
believing that they would do so.
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
 "Brought to you by the letters O, S, and by the number 2." -- Mike Levis
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: mfraioli@grebyn.com (Marc Fraioli)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 20:36:39 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.052018.5365@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>In article <8240@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>>>     Only if you're a paranoid.  Why is it easier to ascribe the
>>>incompatibilities to some nefarious (and utterly without evidence)
>>>plot by Microsoft than to a bug in a competing product?  Bugs
>>>happen all the time - nefarious plots that no one can produce
>>>any substantiation for only happen in the Weekly World News,
>>>alt.conspiracy, and the minds of certain Microsoft bashers.
>>
>>If "bugs happen all the time", then why was MS positively eager to work out
>>incompatibilities with Windows 3.1 with _everyone_but_DR_???
>
>     Windows applications help to sell Windows.  DR-DOS does not.
>Seems pretty obvious to me.
>
Not to me.  Some people use DR-DOS.  Fine, so Microsoft lost a sale of
MS-DOS to those people.  But MS can still potentially sell those people
a copy of Windows, provided that it works.  So it seems to me that it
would be in Microsoft's interest to make Windows work with DR-DOS, if
all they were looking at was the success of Windows.  But if you
consider it from the perspective that MS believes that EVERYONE wants
Windows, then preventing it from running on DR-DOS makes sense, as it
should sell more MS-DOS, again assuming that every buyer of any version
of DOS intends to buy Windows already.  This, of course, leaves us with
two potential explanations.  I don't pretend to know which is valid.  We
can all have our suspicions/opinions, but no one outside of MS really
knows.


-- 
Marc Fraioli
mfraioli@grebyn.com	        	(So I'm a minimalist...)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
From: prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr)
Subject: Re: OS/2 bigot meets NT....
Organization: Neuroclinical Trials Center, University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 12:17:17 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.033418.28702@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
>In article <1992Dec24.035348.26595@actrix.gen.nz> Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz writes:
>>the 125 meg drive. I have 8 megs of 70ns RAM and the system runs very much
>>like OS/2 on 4 megs with no HPFS. 
>
>
>	As it should.  8 megs is the NT minimum.
>
>	Plus, you *should expect crashes*.  Installing any OS,
>	NT or OS/2, is not the same as just plugging in an HD 
>	with the os installed.  It must be configured for your hardware
>	and your motherboard.

What crap is this???  An ISA bus system in the clone world behaves much
like any other ISA bus system.  Are you saying that Microsoft has
developed different drivers for different motherboards??  Gee, how
inovative.  NOT!  As long as the drive boots and the devices attached to
the motherboard are the same (or close enough), the system should
perform normally.  Now if you have some flaky bios (like HP-Vectra BIOS)
you are right.  But there ain't much difference between a Gateway and a
Zeos...

I did exactly what Steve did with OS/2, going between a Gateway and a
Zeos with no problems.  And BTW, isn't Microsoft the company that
invented the pre=installed hard disk?  You know the one, it comes with
DOS/Windows and a couple of MS apps...  Now if you want to argue that
DOS/Windows isn't an operating system, I'm with you...  but...


>
>	I should tell you some of what you get when moving 
>	OS/2 by backing up to tape.  
>
>
>>I don't hink I am in any danger whatever of becoming an NT bigot based on what
>>I have seen so far. Having gone from the OS/2 2.1 beta to the NT
>>beta.....there is no real comparison. 
>
>
>	Add 8 more megs and reinstall the system from scratch, then
>	repost.  As it stands, you're FUDding.

Gee, so are you.

>
>
>
>-- 
>       "If you can't eat sand, why the hell are you living in a desert?"
>     Equality is a delusion, suffering is a fairy tale and God is a fantasy.
>                 Buy American as if your job depended on it.
>       Blaming society for inequality is like blaming the sky for rain.

	-Phil
-- 
PHIL SCARR        \      We are Microsoft...     /          (o) 804.243.0229
 University of    /     OS/2 is irrelevant.      \          (f) 804.243.0290
 Virginia,        \     UNIX is irrelevant.      /        prs9k@Virginia.EDU
 Neurosurgery     /     Openness is futile.      \     prs9k@Virginia.BITNET
 HP-UX is my life!\ Prepare to be assimilated... /   ...uunet!virginia!prs9k

Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 03:48:15 GMT

In article <wiegand.725820437@lido16>, wiegand@rtsg.mot.com (Robert Wiegand) writes:
|> robertre@microsoft.com (Robert Reichel ms2) writes:
|> 
|> >Why not look at the current history of IBM: stock price at a 20 year low,
|> >forced layoffs, massive writeoffs, talk of a cut in the sacred dividend.  
|> >And this is the company that was harrassed for over 10 years by the government 
|> >for anti-trust violations, with nothing but a huge waste of taxpayer 
|> >money to show for the effort.  IBM didn't change its business practices
|> >one iota.
|> 
|> >The fact that a company who once totally dominated its industry could
|> >fall on the hard times that IBM has is proof enough that the market
|> >takes care of itself, without any "help" from the government.
|> 
|> This proves nothing. IBM's problems are mostly internal, not caused
|> by the external market. Just because one big company has problems
|> doesn't mean this will be true of all big companies. If IBM had been
|> better managed the results could have been quite different.

If the market hadn't changed, IBM would be doing just fine.  The only reason
IBM is having woes is because of competition.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: More advertising
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 18:34:38 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.170048.21562@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> heiland@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (david.j.heiland) writes:
>I'd like to see *any* new adertising from IBM for OS/2.  I can hope that 
>they're saving up for a big push for the new, improved, bug-fixed, enhanced,
>faster, documented 2.1.  I see the OS/2 ads in the magazines, but they're
>still the same old ones from months ago.  Any new ads would help.  I know
>IBM can advertise - everywhere I turn I see a ValuePoint billboard.


	The valuepoints are making IBM a lot more money than OS/2 has.
	I wonder if they've recovered even 1/10th the investment.


>Going to a two page ad would be a big change - so far IBM seems set on
>maintaining the same old format of graphics on the left, text on the right.
>Maybe these ads work well for corporate buyers, but IBM has to realize
>that home users need something more to get their attention.


	The problem is not that IBM doesn't advertise, IBM does.  The 
	problem is that IBM ads are very poor and very dull.

	Anyone remember all those M*A*S*H ads for the PS/2 and OS/2 when
	they were released?  *Those* were more exciting than the current
	round (almost a year and a half now--although I remember the ones
	for 1.3 "Buy 1.3 now and get 2.0 when we finally release it!") 
	of goofy picture of hallways or doors or whatever and some promotional
	text full of 

	And, we at IBM
	Because, with OS/2
	
	sentences.  Dull, boring.  Like they're trying to sell you a funeral
	plot.

	IBM should go with something dynamic and not be so afraid
	to experiment.  Hell, so what if they flood rags like PCWorld
	and PC Magazine--or even Byte-- with flashy, zippy ads 
	that catch the users mind and get the message across:
	OS/2 is what you want.  Right now.  Anyone who sees fit
	to be an ad critic will have to consider that these magazines have
	turned into cheap flop-houses for the big time advertisers, and
	that makes flashy, loud ads appropriate.

	IMHO, they should go with the people who didthe ads for Dell
	(not the Murphy's ones, but the dead piggybank ones..) or
	Compaq's new notebook (car driving on it, guy standing on it,
	etc) -- but jazz them up a little.  IBM doesn't *need* to boast 
	about the OS/2 technicals--anyone who knows them knows that
	OS/2 is really quite good--and anyone who can understand them will
	be quite offended when they see moronic ads promoting OS/2 on
	30mb/4mb systems.

	Even the HP ads ("We didn't start the PC price war") are more
	interesting, if a little dull. 

	What IBM needs is attention.  With attention will come questions--
	let the stores handle those.  You can't answer'em all in a two
	page ad anyway.


-- 
	Blaming society for your problems is like blaming clouds for rain.
	         ---  Boycott == censorship == cowardice  ---
	Do I even need to point out that my views do not represent
	those of my employer, institution or relations?
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy