HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 17:07:52 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <bmccnnll.718761911@unix1.tcd.ie> bmccnnll@unix1.tcd.ie (Barry McConnell) writes:

>Oh for heaven's sake. Your Mac's successful operation depends on all your
>software being written correctly. What's your point? Do you think people set
>out to write unfriendly programs?

Okay, for anyone who missed it.

******** MY POINT ********

Both the Macintosh and the Amiga use cooperative multitasking schemes.
The programmer must cooperate by doing, no doing, or undoing certain
things at certain points in the program to make the system work correctly.
Without this capability, it is impossible to write programs that guarantee
timely and effective interaction with the user. 

***************************

>You might justify having co-operative multitasking in that it's a lot easier
>to use from the end user's point of view. But pre-emptive is just the same;

Try *using* a preemptive system.  X-Windows running on UNIX, for example.
See how slow it really is.



>>This has nothing to do with multitasking; it's a user interface
>>issue.  A modal dialog, by definition, does not allow you to do
>>other things while it's open.  That's because a modal dialog box
>>is meant for situations that require immediate interaction between
>>the application and the user.  If immediate interaction is not
>>required, the programmer should use a nonmodal dialog box instead.

>Nothing should require "immediate" attention. 

Nonsense.  How about "Rocket chamber pressure 50% above spec?"
(American Rocket Company used a Macintosh to control the launch 
of its hybrid-fueled launch vehicle.)  


>>And, ah, what happens to the Amiga when a programmer fails to
>>match up every call to Forbid() with a call to Permit() ?

>What happens to the Mac when a programmer leaves a bug in his code?

But that's exactly the argument (the only argument) *for* using
preemptive multitasking:  "Macintosh programs can have bugs that
prevent cooperative multitasking because the programmer fails to
call WaitNextEvent."

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: johnsd2@vccsouth15.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: A-MaxII+ ?
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 21:40:18 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.205818.25427@rmece49.upr.clu.edu>, raist@rmece02.upr.clu.edu (Ricardo Hernandez | 802-36-4453) writes:
|> In article <mike_steiner-141092124141@192.35.50.131>, mike_steiner@qm.claris.com (Mike Steiner) writes:
[deletia- mac needs pre-emptive multitasking. Nobody actually said real.]
|> |> For the 10e100th time, co-operative multitasking is just as real as
|> |> pre-emptive multitasking.
|> 
|>    Major BS.  When you have a cooperative multitasking OS, things do not
|> run as "smoothly" as in a pre-emptive multitasking.

You're being a little too general. Sometimes other factors overcome
the advantage of pre-empting. (take X-windows... very nasty... bleah)

Its not such a vast advantage as to outweigh everything else.
Indeed, its just plain not such a vast advantage. :)

[deletia- advantages of pre-empting I agree with]
|> 
|>    This all translates to POOR PERFORMANCE and OVERHEAD.

All this MAY so translate, but does not necessarily.

|>   And say, for example,
|> can you on a Mac FORMAT a disk while continue working?
|> 
|>     Answer NO.
|> 
|>   What happens when you are donwloading through the modem on a Mac and
|> try to access the disk drive at the same time?

The download contines unphazed. For me anyway, but maybe it was a pluke.
I dont do this much.

|>   What happens when you are copying a file to disk and you write on 
|> MS Word very fast (like I do)? - the copying temporarily stops

Actually, you just dont write fast. It wont work. (not for me anyway)
Kinda obnoxious.

[deletia- more Pre Empting is Good, DTP is Mac, Amiga is Kumquat, etc...]


-- 
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

These opinions have had all identifiying marks removed, and are untraceable.
You'll never know whose they are.
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:23:18 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <jb2z4q#@rpi.edu>, johnsd2@vccnw04.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
> 
> Nope. Quite relevant. Everyone can can walk; not everyone can bike.
>

Daniel,

I'd just like to point out that not everyone can walk. Most people can.
There are people with various spinal injuries, amputees, people with
various nerve disorders and the elderly find it quite difficult to
walk.

By the same token, those who can't walk would find it much harder to
ride a bike, even.

(Then there's my father in law's story of a guy in WW II who got so drunk
 every night that he couldn't stand, yet he managed to ride his motorcycle
 back to the base....)

-- 
Bill Coleman, AA4LR                ! CIS: 76067,2327    AppleLink: D1958
Principal Software Engineer        ! Packet Radio: AA4LR @ W4QO
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. ! UUCP: uunet!hayes!bcoleman
POB 105203 Atlanta, GA 30348 USA   ! Internet: bcoleman%hayes@uunet.uu.net
Disclaimer: "My employer doesn't pay me to have opinions."
Quote: "The same light shines on vineyards that makes deserts." -Steve Hackett.
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Date: 12 Oct 92 14:40:58 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <bmccnnll.718761911@unix1.tcd.ie>, bmccnnll@unix1.tcd.ie (Barry McConnell) writes:
> 
> Applications rarely use Forbid(). They shouldn't, unless there is a damn good
> reason for it. There is just no need. So of course, if they "forget" (ha!) to
> call Permit(), you'll end up with a dead machine... It's called a "bug".

[ more deleted ]

> Oh for heaven's sake. Your Mac's successful operation depends on all your
> software being written correctly. 

So does the Amiga. (See above)

Indeed, if an application doesn't multitask well, we don't end up with a 
dead machine, but we do call it a "bug."

-- 
Bill Coleman, AA4LR                ! CIS: 76067,2327    AppleLink: D1958
Principal Software Engineer        ! Packet Radio: AA4LR @ W4QO
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. ! UUCP: uunet!hayes!bcoleman
POB 105203 Atlanta, GA 30348 USA   ! Internet: bcoleman%hayes@uunet.uu.net
Disclaimer: "My employer doesn't pay me to have opinions."
Quote: "The same light shines on vineyards that makes deserts." -Steve Hackett.
From: mvanheyn@spinner.cs.indiana.edu (Marc VanHeyningen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI  (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: 9 Oct 92 04:50:00 GMT
Reply-To: mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu
Organization: Computer Science Dept, Indiana University
X-Quoted: 45%

Thus said bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman):
>In article <1992Oct3.235607.14542@nwnexus.WA.COM>, kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:
>Big deal. All it appears to do is save a bit of typing. Worse, it doesn't
>help you unless you know how many characters to type to get a unique name.

This is false.

>> For example, if I have files named "Letter to Bob" and "Letter to 
>> Fred" I can type "Le<tab>B<tab>" to get "Letter to Bob".  If I only
>> had one file that began with "Le" in the current directory, I could
>> just type "Le<tab>". 
>
>And what would happen if you had "Letter to Fred" as well as your
>"Letter to Bob". This completion stuff wouldn't help you at all.

Yes it would.  It would complete "Letter to ", as much as could be
completed unambiguously.  You could then bring up a list of "Bob" and
"Fred" with another keystroke (a second tab for my shell, depending) and
type "B<tab>" to get it to work.  Have you ever even used filename
completion in a shell?

>> If I forget what files I have, I can always type a couple letters and
>> then type ctrl-D, which will show me a list of all the files that
>> match.  

>You shouldn't have to type ctrl-D. You should see the list automatically.

Just like on the Mac where you see the list automatically.  Well,
actually you need to open it up by double-clicking on it.  But double
clicking is much easier than typing control-D, at least by an order of
magnitude. :-)

>> Tcsh also provides command-history editing.  

>Again, a shortcut to save typing. Big deal.

>> There are dozens of other shortcuts which simply don't make sense in a
>> GUI 

>My point exactly. Rather than have all these tricks to attempt to make a CLI
>more palatable by reducing redundant typing, a graphic user interface 
>elminates the typing in the first place.

Yes, instead it makes you do redundant pointing and clicking.  Much
different than redundant typing; in one case you're moving your hands
and fingers, while in the other case you're... er, nevermind.
-- 
Marc VanHeyningen    mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu    MIME & RIPEM accepted
Oh, so UNIX uses slashes for directory stuff!  Did they get that idea
from MS-DOS?  
		- <name withheld to prevent terminal embarassment>
From: yjc@po.cwru.edu (Jerome Chan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Date: 7 Oct 1992 06:15:01 GMT
Organization: The Tofu Society of Singapore
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: b61539.student.cwru.edu

In article <1992Oct6.215559.20080@cgrg.ohio-state.edu>,
derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Dariusz Bolski) wrote:
> 
> In article <yjc-031092024555@b61539.student.cwru.edu> yjc@po.cwru.edu (Jerome Chan) writes:
> >  How many can you remember? Do you have to look up certain commands to
> >find out what they do? I can't remember more than a handful of commonly
> >used Unix commands AND their parameters. You can remember 700 of them?
> 
> Do you remember what WordPerfect can do? Yet you can use it perfectly
> without knowing all its functionality.
> I remember how to invoke it:
> >wp
> 
> I know many of the commands to work in it.
> I save work, I quit.
> 

I'm sorry but I've never used WordPrefect before (really! honest!) but I've
used wordstar(urgh!) for several years. I'm sure the Macintosh version of
WordPrefect is quite easy to use. :)

> I remember names of every command I have put into my path and all what
> I learned about them when I was putting them in there. I do not say
> I learned all what they can do. When I was putting them in there, I did
> it for I needed some particular functionality of it. Thus all I really
> need is to learn of this functionality.
> 
> And please, it is not that difficult to learn 700 words with their meanings.
> 
> It is kind of normal experience for everyone who ever learned foreign
> language.
> 

True but if you don't use these commands often, you'll tend to forget them
or their parameters. 


---
 The Evil Tofu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
Subject: Re: What I *LIKE* (and didn't) about MS-DOS & Windows
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1992 00:20:50 GMT

In <1992Oct16.054324.4881@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes:

>In article <30bC025Q26Bq01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> rwb00@loon.as writes:

[...]

>>To have some programs to play around with the moment you get your machine
>>up and running seems to make a lot of sense - to argue that its best not to
>>include some small applications and games seems pretty short sighted.

>The biggest reason that Microsoft does it is that they are SELLING Windows,
>so they can afford to include nearly worthless applications.  Also, Apple 
>gives its OS away with each Mac.

Not so. Apple charges thousands of dollars for their operating system,
without any useable applications. In order to be able to keep their prices
hight, they copy protect their system by forcing you to use that big, 
oversized and underpowered dongle.

:-)

Wolfgang Strobl
#include <std.disclaimer.hpp>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ttn@cs.tut.fi (Tero Nieminen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Date: 17 Oct 92 04:03:53
Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland.
Distribution: world
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NNTP-Posting-Host: kivikkorastas.cs.tut.fi
In-reply-to: ewright@convex.com's message of Wed, 14 Oct 1992 16:29:08 GMT

In article <ewright.719080148@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

   The Macintosh interface, you see, was designed by people 
   who recognize that what it the appearance affects the
   performance and that the appearance should be designed
   to optimize performance, not simply to be aesthetic.

   The same way BMW puts a lot of thought and planning
   into the design of an automotive instrument panel.
   You might think it's more aesthetically pleasing to
   have the speedometer located on the floor beneath the
   driver's feet, maybe, but that doesn't mean it's a 
   good idea for BMW to give you that option.   

The speedometer was a good choice. It has very good reasons of beeing
exactly where it is rignt now (in BMW:s). It's close enough to be
observed without taking your eyes too far off the road. And that's
exactly why it's not located at the roofline. Then why is apple still
insisting on putting the menu bar on the roof line? It may not bee too
high for most people having small displays, but having a large screen
puts the manubar right next to the sealing. Allso it's very tiresome to
hunt after the opposite end of the scroll bar everytime you want to
reverse the scroll direction (allthough this is allso a problem with
mswindows). So it they we're designed for speed, I must say I have a
quite different idea about speed..
-- 
         Tero Nieminen                      DANGER!
         ttn@cs.tut.fi                   Computer Bytes!
From: "Marc VanHeyningen" <mvanheyn@spinner.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: Completion garbage (was <None>)
X-Quoted: 50%
Reply-To: mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu
Organization: Computer Science Dept, Indiana University
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 16:05:14 -0500

Thus said ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis):
>Marc> == Marc VanHeyningen <mvanheyn@spinner.cs.indiana.edu>
>
> Marc> Depends what level you want to consider it on.  The basic task I expect
> Marc> it to perform is to inform me of whether the pattern matches 1, >1 or <1
> Marc> files.  The algorithm for that is simple
>
> Marc> If it doesn't beep at you, n=1 and you win the alleged slot machine.
> Marc> If it does, if there is no other output on tab, n<1 and you screwed up.
> Marc> If there is output, n>1 and you need more characters to disambiguate.
>
>Or, if you typed up to a point in the filename where any additional
>character would be ambiguous, you'll get a beep but there will be no
>output, making you think that n<1 when n>1 (and you'll have to ^D to
>find out what's going on).

With my shell, I hit tab again if I'm unsure, which I often am.  I
mentioned this in my original article.

But, for the last time, filename completion is not a significant
argument as to why Macs are allegedly pieces of junk.

> Marc> And the time to read the list, and to scroll up and down the list
> Marc> to find the appropriate item because the darned window is too
> Marc> small to show all the files in that folder even though it's only
> Marc> using a little portion of the middle of the screen and should be
> Marc> able to be big enough to display everything at once...
>
>If you know the file starts with 'l' you hit the 'l' key, and, wham,
>there you are.  If you know it starts with 'letter' you can start typing
>'letter' and it will jump to the first potential completion with each
>letter you type.   [ ... ]

Ah, but what is the difference between:

	Complete "le"
	Decide that isn't the right tack
	Complete "d"

and:

	Complete "led"

The answer?  How fast you type the "d"!

This is a race condition in the user interface which is even worse
than double-clicking.  I'd rather have to hit the tab key than have to
race the computer.
-- 
Marc VanHeyningen    mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu    MIME & RIPEM accepted


The number of millionares in the U.S. has increased fourteen fold since 1980.
From: mike_steiner@qm.claris.com (Mike Steiner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM Funny
Date: 13 Oct 92 00:04:40 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy

In article <6187.2ad99a29@hayes.com>, bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
wrote:

> Not at all. There's nothing mnemonic (spelled correctly) about Command-W,
> Command-X, Command-V, Command-Z -- but every Mac users knows these operations
> are Close, Cut, Paste and Undo.

Actually, there is a bit of mnemonics involved.  

Command-W for Window Close
              ^
Command-C for Copy
              ^
Command-X for Cut because a pair of scissors looks like an "X"

Command-V for Paste is not a mnemonic, but it follows the XC keys on the
keyboard.

Command-Z for Undo is not a mnemonic, but it precedes the XCV keys on the
keyboard.

And, just as important, they are right next to the Command key, which
allows for one-handed operation.

We're in complete agreement on the rest of your message.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Now that I have a reader that can do .sigs, I can't think of a witty |
|one to put here, so I won't.  All normal disclaimers apply.          |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 17:21:53 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <strobl.718769075@gmd.de> strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:

>Most preemptive
>multitasking OS have one or more synchronizing functions,
>including some which enable a task to block some or all
>other tasks for a short time. This capability is usefull
>for various purposes: to guarantee the consistency of
>shared, global data, to guarantee that an interrupt is
>serviced in time, and so on. 

Well, you've just shot yourself in the foot.  The argument,
used over and over again, in favor of preemptive multitasking
on the Macintosh, is that it "doesn't require the programmer
to do anything" to make a program multitask efficiently. Now
you're saying that it does.  If preemptive multitasking is 
multitasking that doesn't require the programmer to do anything, 
this is not preemptive, by definition.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 17:41:07 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <1992Oct14.191227.4217@nwnexus.WA.COM> kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:

>In fact, it's possible that the extra mental effort
>involved in composing command lines keeps you on your mental toes, so to
>speak, and helps you perform better in tasks which really require a lot
>of mental effort.  

The same benefit, then, could be derived by requiring the user to
compose poetry rather command lines.

Hm.  Perhaps this opens up a new paradigm.  The "poetic interface."
With sonnets taking the place of shell scripts. :-)


>Personally, I prefer to be mentally stimulated, and I
>get a thrill when I come up with a really good command line or script.

You must have a dull life.
From: ibhan@husc8.harvard.edu (Ishir Bhan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why Macs are better (and the others aren't)
Date: 7 Oct 92 12:43:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc8.ibhan.718461820
 <TOMSTER.92Oct4193442@wpi.WPI.EDU> <1992Oct6.083928.212@tamsun.tamu.edu> <strobl.718394939@gmd.de>

strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:

>In <1992Oct6.083928.212@tamsun.tamu.edu> sfuller@tamsun.tamu.edu (Steve Fuller) writes:

>>In article <TOMSTER.92Oct4193442@wpi.WPI.EDU> tomster@wpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble) writes:
>>>In article <1992Oct2.045258.27262@tamsun.tamu.edu> sfuller@tamsun.tamu.edu (Steven Eric Fuller) writes:
>>>
>>>   Name *ONE* OS that you can buy that is completely hardware independant.
>>>
>>>Well, I can name *three* os's for which I can buy the hardware from literally
>>>*thousands* of vendors around the world ...  Hell, and that's without even

>>Well, I am assuming you are talking PC's here. All PCs are based on an Intel
>>80x86 processor. While there are a couple of sources for 80x86-compatibles,
>>this hardly counts as 'hardware independant'

>Well, "completely hardware independant" is a strawman type of argument.

>The original point was that Windows is open enough so that you 
>can buy the processor it is running on from the manufacturer of your 
>choice (Intel, AMD, ...), the motherboard from the manufacturer of
>your choice, the computer from the manufacturer of your choice, the 
>peripherals from the manufacturer of your choice, and so on.

>Apple sells hardware, and makes the OS a bundled component. Its 
>main purpose is to make the hardware more attractive to the 
>customer. Technically, I believe that they could sell a "hardware
>independent" variant of their OS, just like Microsoft does it with
>Windows. But for some reason or another, they don't. 

>On the other hand, I've heard the argument that the Macs OS software
>is much more important (and worth) than its hardware. Given that,
>one could think that the Macintoshs hardware simply is some kind 
>of oversized dongle. :-)

I think you miss the point of Apple's current marketing strategy, but the
hardware independant OS you are talking about is the PowerOpen/Pink
combination by Talligent.
-- 

             --      Ishir Bhan (ibhan@husc.harvard.edu)      --
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: faheyr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Bob Fahey)
Subject: Re: A-MaxII+ ?
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 07:18:03 GMT

In <1992Oct14.044343.24767@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes:

>In article <Bw38ss.3Lp@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> faheyr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Bob Fahey) writes:
>>Game machines do not appear in academia. Amigas do. Macs do. IBM's do. NeXT's
>>do. and, yes, unfortunately IBM PC's do as well. Nintendos do not. Why? Because
>>it IS a game machine. Period. We use Amigas here for multimedia. I know of
>>many other univeristies which also use Amigas. (And it's not so the profs can
>>sit around playing games! That's what xtank and nettrek are for) ;-)

>I'm sure that Amiga's appear SOMEWHERE in academia.  Among the college
>campus's that I have been to, I have NEVER seen an Amiga anywhere but
>in a student's room, where Nintendo's are equally likely to reside.

Well, I'm surprised that you would say that, since you are from Purdue. From
what some people told me from Purdue, you have Amigas on your campus, just
as we do here.... surprise!! There's a college that you have been to that
has them! :-) Ok, to be fair about your response, we don't have  public
Amiga clusters like Mac's & IBM's. We have special clusters for people in
media classes, & (I think) in Fine Arts...

>Jess Holle

-Bob Fahey