From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Some more misconceptions regarding OS/2 and NT
Date: 19 Aug 92 20:29:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: mksol.1992Aug19.202912.3110
Distribution: na
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <18AUG199220345466@rosie.uh.edu> st1g9@rosie.uh.edu (Lee Preimesberger) writes:

>In article <1992Aug18.172140.15622@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes...
>#The SDK, etc., is 1 GIGABYTE in size?  Hell, what are you going to put
>#it on when you take it off the CD-ROM?  Either there's something wrong
>#with the numbers you're giving or MS lied about what size hard drive
>#you should have.
># 

>	I would assume only a total fool would put all the documentation
>and source on his hard drive.  That's one of the reasons to have a CD-ROM.

No, that's one of the reasons to have paper documentation.

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

>	Shipping out spools of 9 track tape probably isn't that good of
>an idea.  If it's shipped on 120 meg tape (the size most folk have), I would 
>assume NT would eat up 9 $20.00 tapes.  Not that smart either.  Even then, 
>you would have to do the tape drive shuffle when you wanted to read part of 
>the on-line documentation, since nobody has enough drive space to hold
>this mother.

Geez, we're back to talking about a Gigabyte of stuff again.  Just
what is in there that's so damned big, since a full-blown UNIX system
with X, the manuals, etc., takes up less than 150 MB (SunOS is
somewhat bigger, once you add in 40 MB of Open Desktop stuff).

>	You've made it fairly clear you don't like CD-ROM - if so you're
>welcome to get along without it.  Bill Gates isn't coming to your house
>and holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy one.  Like it or not,
>CD-ROM seems to be here to stay.

I've got nothing against CD-ROM, per se.  I do have something against
companies deciding that it is the ONLY distribution media, and that
everyone is just going to have to buy one (and it better be one that
the company you're getting software from supports, and you better hope
you don't need software from two companies which don't support the
same drives or you get to buy two).

>#[For those who don't know, media charges are what you get billed for
>#the cost of the medium over and above the cost of the product if you
>#opt for the 'non-optimal' medium of tape or floppies.  Lots of
>#companies manage this just fine.  Why can't Microsoft?  To which I
>#would add, why can't Sun?]

>	Walk into your local college campus CS department with your CD's,
>tapes, and $50.  Within ten minutes you'll find someone willing to copy it
>over for you.  Really, Fred...these things aren't in Sanskrit! :-)

Really?  This is news to me.  I find it particularly unlikely, since
it would require me to find someone who had both a supported CD-ROM
and the same type of tape drive that I have.  Cute rhetoric, though.
Get back to me when you're out here in the real world.


-- 
"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,comp.os.os2.advocacy