From: petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly)
Subject: Re: Windows == OS (NOT!)
Date: 01 Oct 92 23:13:30 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.

In article <1ad9buINNllh@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@lyapunov.ucsd.edu wrote:
> MBT3@psuvm.psu.edu (Mike Tierney) writes:
> : In article <jbone.717778010@splat>, jbone@splat.dell.com (Jeff Bone) says:
> : >925wardell@gw.wmich.edu writes:
> : >> ...[Windows] certainly has great usefulness and has done more to
> : >> speed up the PC revolution than anything yet...
> : >I'll take that flame bait...  ;)
> : >Windows is nothing but a low-grade rip-off of the Mac GUI, which is
> : >what *truly* revolutionized PCs and the way we use them.  Windows is
> : 
> :      The only thing MacOS truly revolutionized was a whole new way to
> : usurp other's ideas (aka Xerox PARC), and call them your own.
> 
> Apple took ideas from a research lab and made them into a real product.
> (No I don't believe in look'n'feel patents)  Xerox's work showed that
> "a solution exists".  Apple solved it.

Xerox's work culminated in a PRODUCT name the STAR, I believe.
So xerox showed the solution exists, and then solved it.  Apple,
GEM, MS, etc the copied, er, built upon it.



> I think they came up with a few ideas on their own, too.
Good.

> 
> Consider:  1) 1 button mouse  2) 3.5 inch floppy disk  3) unified
> graphics interface 4) Postscript laser printer 5) integrated sound modules
> 6) international language support 7) built in inexpensive networking
> hardware and software. 8) Easy system administration
> 
> No, they didn't *invent* these things (then again most anything useful
> was proposed in some paper 10 years ago anyway), but who was doing them
> for real before Apple?

1)Xerox
2)someone I don't remember, but not apple, HP maybe? 
3)Xerox, 
4)I don't know, 
5)Video game companies,
6) I don't know
7) mainframe manufactures worth their beans, 
8) Nobody, including apple.


> 
> :  Probably
> : the only favorable quality about the Macintosh is that the hardware is
> : all one standard (thanks to Apple's closely-guarded monopoly), and
> : therefore, programs could have been written since 1984 without worrying
> : too much about hardware variances.  If Intel PC's had that kind of
> : single architecture guiding it since the beginning, you'd find PC
> : software surpassing anything the Mac could offer in ease of use (instead
> : of the simply better performance, which equivalent DOS machines have always
> : had over Macs, Windows or not.)
> 
> Oh I don't know.  It think the variation in hardware among macintosh models
> is as large among PC clones. 
Recently, after Apple opened up their archetecture.

Until the Mac 2, however, Apples hardware was very uniform.
PC's had to deal with a number of different types of graphics cards,
Multiple types of floppy disks, Random brand floppy and hard disk
controllers, etc.

<I deleted some 'cause it was only flame bait with little content>

> 
> But of course, there's still more innovation that can be done.  For
> example, take NeXT.  (Jobs did this one too, you know.).   Much superior
> to either the Mac or certainly windows. Display postscript & 
> interface builder >> X windows  >> quickdraw
> or windows.  NeXT OS > average unix > WindowsNT >> Macintosh OS >> DOS.

You've seen WindowsNT, You think it is better than UNIX?  Well, that's a 
religious war.  NeXT is an excellent system, and hopefully that innovation
will spread throughout the industry.  Unix definitely needs a shot in the
arm though, but I fear it may be suffering from "design by comittee",
far more than just single-vendor products.  WindowsNT is WindowsNT,
you can decide how it is yourself.

petesk@microsoft.com
My Opinions...