HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mmunson@animal.es.com (Mark Munson)
Subject: Re: trepidations of a longtime Mac user
Reply-To: mmunson@animal.es.com (Mark Munson)
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, UT
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:35:27 GMT

In article: <81327@ut-emx.uucp> Douglas Floyd writes:

> This morning, I went to scan a graphic for Pipeline, and merely
> turned a //si that the university had.  The thing crashed.  I
> used the Extensions Manager and disabled everything that was
> not needed for scanning.  I ran the scanning stuff, scanned the
> photo, spent 10 to 15 minutes tweaking the image, and saved
> it onto disk.  The Mac froze so solidly that the 4-finger
> salute did not work (Command-Option-Control-Power key).  I
> had to power cycle the !@#$!@$#$@!#!$@# thing to get it to
> work.  And to boot, the directory on the floppy I was using
> was trashed.

Funny, we scan color images on a variety of Mac II's all the time.
There is virtually never any problems.  Have you ever considered
that you might have bad software or a damaged machine/memory?
Perhaps a computer virus is at hand here.

Then again, I've had programs/software get trashed on a UNIX
workstation.  The problem was bad software.  I wouldn't blame
UNIX or the computer for this type of problem.

Another consideration that you look into is memory.  Some poorly
written applications don't know what to do if there isn't 
enough.  You could switch on virtual memory if you have System
7, but usually better to purchase some extra SIMMs.

[MGM]

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: tzs@stein.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Subject: Re: What I *LIKE* (and didn't) about MS-DOS & Windows
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 04:35:54 GMT

In article <derosa.718492104@marble> motcid!derosa@uunet.uu.net writes:
>1) Windows comes with some applications!!!  A Word
>processor!!!  A painting tool!!!  While they are not
>exactly MS Word or MacDraw, they suffice and get the 
>average user off the ground.  Apple...bundle something
>already!

Apple used to do this, but they stopped.  Before they stopped, there weren't
many writing or painting programs for the Mac.  Why write one when Apple is
giving them away?  Now there are many paint programs and many write programs
at many prices.

--Tim Smith
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Multiple Video (was: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Date: 9 Oct 92 15:45:39 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <4eoxNRS00YV949Gsxy@andrew.cmu.edu>, cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu (Carl B Jabido) writes:
> Yes, Windows and OS/2 can have multiple monitors.  

You can have as many monitors as you want. The problem is you can't *USE*
multiple monitors. On the Macintosh you can.

> And no, it's not as nice or as easy as in a MacinToy 
> (as per Re: Essence of flame:-)).  

And that moniker belongs only in that thread. It has no place here, smiley
or not.

> It's mostly a hardware thing remember.  PC's probably could have defined a
> better standard, but today, most people prefer to go to a big monitor
> rather than two monitors at 640x480 (or whatever), although I'd love to
> have two big monitors, rather than just one.

I have yet to see a PC with a two-page display. Squeezing 1240 by 1024 on a
16" monitor doesn't cut it.

Further, it isn't cost effective to have one giant monitor. I think the best
combination for programming is a 13" 24-bit color monitor (for all those
color applications), and a b/w full page display (for all that code and
debugging windows). 

You can probably buy such a setup for around $1500, maybe less. However,
to buy the equivalent space in form of a 2-page, 24-bit color monitor would
set you back about $4000. Ouch.

> Anyway, here are possible setups:
> Monitor one    Monitor two
> XGA            XGA

(I don't think this will work)

> 8514           VGA

I've seen this. The VGA repeats the 8514 display in character mode. (Hence,
it is just a duplicate of the same monitor) In graphics mode, the 8514
dominates. You can't run both in graphics mode with Windows or OS/2. Sorry,
it isn't the same thing.

> VGA            EGA (or maybe MDA, monochrome text)

I've seen this, too. EGA won't work. You have to use an MDA. That's a
character interface only. Again, it isn't the same thing as multiple
monitors on the Mac.

> Of course, I've never done any of this, but I've heard it done.  

Well, I've seen the first two. I haven't heard of using two XGAs, and I
feel that you'd probably run into an address conflict. So I doubt it
would work. 

> I think that neither OS/2 nor Windows has the ability to virtualize
> monitor 2 as part of monitor 1, producing one big monitor (a la mac). 

And that is exactly the problem.

-- 
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: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:50:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: convex.ewright.719254202
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 <92290.134050ASI509@DJUKFA11.BITNET> ASI509@DJUKFA11.BITNET writes:

>Perhaps you tell us what companies make those bug-free apps you use. 

Let's see.  Aldus makes Pagemaker and Superpaint, Fractal Designs
makes Painter, Ashton-Tate made FullWrite Professional (before they
acquired by Borland :-), Image is from the National Institutes of
Health, Harpoon V1.2 is from 360 Systems (V1.0 was very buggy and
crashed often, but the new version seems to be okay), Flight Simulator
is from Microsoft, Trapeze is from a company that doesn't exist any
more, Think Pascal and Think C are from Symantec... do you really
want me to go down the entire list?  

>Most of the Mac apps I use have bugs and some of them do crash the system. 

Well, then, why don't you tell us what applications those are,
so that other people will know not to buy them?  Then the companies
that make those products will either have to fix them or go out of
business.  
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<ewright.719081702@convex.convex.com> <x_2zcrp@rpi.edu>
	<ewright.719104145@convex.convex.com> <zh2znf-@rpi.edu>
	<ewright.719169334@convex.convex.com> <va3zf_n@rpi.edu>
	<ewright.719255058@convex.convex.com> <5_4zwmg@rpi.edu>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 21:38:15 GMT

Daniel> == Daniel Norman Johnson <johnsd2@rs6216.ecs.rpi.edu> 

 Daniel> You can (of course) implement a multitasking arrangement with
 Daniel> no user interface, so that your program just sits there and
 Daniel> computes (or what have you) without comment about it, and the
 Daniel> user can switch to annother app or whatever. Its better,
 Daniel> however, to put up a movable modal dialog with some text in it
 Daniel> saying what the app is doing, and a thermometer, and use the
 Daniel> watch cursor, and so on. This requires code. More than one line
 Daniel> of it. Now do you see what this has to do with multitasking?

And the same arguments apply to a program if it's the only one you're
running (say under System 6 unifinder) or the foreground app.  You still
need a watch cursor, a thermometer would be nice, etc, etc, etc.

There are a number of faceless background apps for System 7 now (like
Trashman Engine).  They have no interface, because they don't need it.
Yet they multitask.
--
Christopher K. Davis      |       NET.INSIGHTS INTO ARTISTIC CRITICISM:
<ckd@eff.org>   EFF #14   | ``[Y]ou don't cure bad art by locking it all up
System Administrator, EFF | in one museum, you cure it by throwing tomatoes
+1 617 864 0665  [CKD1]   | at bad artists.'' --Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>
From: jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: What I *LIKE* (and didn't) about MS-DOS & Windows
Date: 15 Oct 92 02:07:25 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <16WZ02D.261m01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> rwb00@loon.as writes:
>So its a FEATURE of the mac that no useful software is bundled with it ?
 
As if Windows comes with any useful software!  The average free/shareware
programs for the Mac are much more useful.
 
MS Write does not have a parallel in Mac freeware.  It, however, is
something that VERY few people can consider useful.  Almost everybody
needs something more/different.  It makes MUCH more sense for the user
to purchase a word processor that suits their likes and needs.  If I
HAD Windows, one of the first things that I would do would be to remove
MS Write from my hard drive.
 
Jess Holle
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: kc@complex.ccsr.uiuc.edu (Kenneth Chang)
Subject: Re: trepidations of a longtime Mac user
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Organization: Center for Complex Systems Research
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 15:19:41 GMT

In article <81327@ut-emx.uucp>, ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd)
wrote:
> This morning, I went to scan a graphic for Pipeline, and merely
> turned a //si that the university had.  The thing crashed.  I
> used the Extensions Manager and disabled everything that was
> not needed for scanning.  I ran the scanning stuff, scanned the
> photo, spent 10 to 15 minutes tweaking the image, and saved
> it onto disk.  The Mac froze so solidly that the 4-finger
> salute did not work (Command-Option-Control-Power key).  I
> had to power cycle the !@#$!@$#$@!#!$@# thing to get it to
> work.  And to boot, the directory on the floppy I was using
> was trashed.
> 
>   The Dell 386-33 I have has only froze up on me a total
> of five times in the three months I had the thing.

Sound like the system file on the Macintosh might have been corrupted.
It's somewhat unfair comparing a personal machine with an university
one. The latter tends to get a lot more use, are often poorly configured
and don't get enough maintenance attention. (Ever wonder *why* Unix
machines are usually pretty stable? It's not so much the protected memory
& pre-emptive multi-tasking as (1) users can't write to the system
directories, (2) there's someone who's paid a healthy sum of money
to make sure it stays stable.)

Similarly, J. Hardy of Indiana University writes:

>About a month ago I started using the macs on campus.  Since that time I've 
>lost about 20 files, and utterly trashed 3 disks.  How you ask?
>By having them in the mac drive just long enough to copy files to and from the
>hard disk.  I do all the work from the hard drive copies for fear of destroying
>even more disks.  Even the trs-80 wasn't this unreliable!  My DOS machine didnt
>have any ort of problem until this last cross country move.  At that time, as
>you may have noticed, I started having a few keys stick.  Not bad for 10 yrs.

Probably the main problem with the disk drives is that they need to be
cleaned.
Not surprising for public machines. Again, I assume you treat your computer
well; you don't know what the heck the other 50 people who've used that Mac
today have done.

Standard rebuttal testimonial: I've a Mac II for five years now. During
that
time, the floppy drive has worked without flaw or trashing any floppy
disks,
except for the time it wouldn't read anything. Went out, bought a $3
cleaning kit, cleaned the floppy drive and it worked again. Roommate has
a Mac II as well. No trashed floppy disks. Three Macs in the office. No
trashed floppy disks...

Kenneth Chang
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.hardware,comp.sys.mac.misc
From: jstc_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (j. collins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: trepidations of a longtime Mac user
Date: 9 Oct 92 04:38:50 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <Bvu4rC.J7K@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jhhardy@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (J. Hardy) writes:

>In <1992Oct9.015213.4074@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> jstc_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (j. collins) writes:

>>In <81327@ut-emx.uucp> ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd) writes:


>I've been word processsing on computers for 13 yrs now.  I've used CPM, MS-DOS,
>UNIX in several flavors, and an old trs-80 that a roomate had.  Since I've
>been in college for most of that 13 yrs (ich, have I been in that long?  time
>to get a life)  I've spit out a fair bit of paper.  I've never had any problems
>with losing files.  I treat my 10 yr old MDOS machine like hell.  I treat the
>51/4 floppie with utter diregard.  Most of the time theyre not in a sleeve
>and frequently they get covered with dust or sosme such.  In 13 yrs I've only
>lost about 3 files.

>About a month ago I started using the macs on campus.  Since that time I've 
>lost about 20 files, and utterly trashed 3 disks.  How you ask?
>By having them in the mac drive just long enough to copy files to and from the
>hard disk.  I do all the work from the hard drive copies for fear of destroying
>even more disks.  Even the trs-80 wasn't this unreliable!  My DOS machine didnt
>have any ort of problem until this last cross country move.  At that time, as
>you may have noticed, I started having a few keys stick.  Not bad for 10 yrs.

In a month you have lost 20 files you say, I find that kind of amazing, since
I have not lost that many files in 11 years of computer use.  Especially since
I have found that the mac disk drives are some of the best around.

>I count on a mac spontaneouly crahing about once every two hours.  About
>1/5 of those will be hard enough crashes that i have to turn the machine off.

then you are probably using system prior to 7.0.  I agree that system 6.0.x
was very buggy and prone to crashing.

>>Reality check is needed here.

>Oh?  let me know if you find reality.

I have it is called the real world.  We have already had a discussion on 
macintoshes being used in vital work please refer back to it.

-justin m. collins <jstc_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: johnsd2@vccnw01.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:52:40 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.224154.3141@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, stuartw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Stuart Woolford) writes:
|> johnsd2@rs6220.ecs.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
[deletia- ARGH!]
|> 
|> >|> especially as my work desk is piled with approx 10 layers of coffee/
|> >|> printouts/books/etc, and the mouse is usually at the BOTTOM.... and ever tried
|> >|> using a mouse on you're lap when you need that extra little bit of room...
|> 
|> >Oh, _THAT'S_ why! :)
|> 
|> >Every try typing when your keyboard is buried under your books (say)?
|> 
|> >Its teh same priniciple.
|> 
|> not really, I find that all the auto-repeating characters get in all sorts of
|> places.... ;-)

:) Oddly enough, I HAVE lost my keyboard under piles of paper wo/
that happening. Its a bit of a pain. :)

[deletia- ARGH ARGH!]
|> 
|> >|> It is also useable at 2400Baud, try that with a GUI..
|> 
|> >Ow. Your right about this. But why VI? You could use other editors at
|> >2400, tho not GUI ones.
|> 
|> >[pardon me if I hate vi :) ]
|> 
|> all praise the great _V_I_

ARGH!

You said the Word that the Serfs of Mac cannot hear!
[now cut that out!]

|> >[deletia- command completion]
|> >|> 
|> >|> and I just love the csh commands such as !-8/s/foo/bar/ ...... try that with
|> >|> a GUI..
|> 
|> >I just gotta ask. Just what does that do? :)
|> 
|> execute the command 8 back in the command history with bar substituted for foo,
|> simple, really...

Easy for you to say.  Bit ristky tho. What if it was really
command #9? Bigtime bizzare results no?

|> >|> and remember, a MicroVax(tm) will easily handle 20 or more CLI term's, but
|> >|> imagine 1 Xstation.... B-)
|> 
|> >CLI terms ain't difficult. :)
|> I will assume you mean under, say, X???? in which case THEY ARE...
|> If you do not, then I agree, CLI's are easy, that's the whole point...

I actually meant to maintain. It doesn't take much CPU time to
run a cli, compared to a GUI anything. If u think X clis are slugish,
get a load of X guis! (or rather, don't. You'll never come back. :)

|> 
|> 			>>>>In VI Where Available<<<<
|> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARGH!

-- 
			- 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.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: rob@hobbes.cuc.ab.CA (Rob Parkhill)
Subject: Re: Why Macs are better (and the others aren't)
Organization: The Ohio State University Department of Computer and Information Science
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 14:15:31 GMT

Inspired by all those great screen-savers...
Anyone have a Mac that they would like to sell me? I want to gut it and use it 

as a fishbowl... it would look great beside my NeXT 8^)

---
Rob Parkhill
rob@hobbes.cuc.ab.ca
(NeXTmail preferred!)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: kocks@jessica.stanford.edu (Peter Kocks)
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Organization: Academic Information Resources
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 23:48:16 GMT

In article <6182.2ad988cb@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
>In article <1992Oct9.212807.13564@leland.Stanford.EDU>, kocks@jessica.stanford.edu (Peter Kocks) writes:
>> In article <6167.2ad589f4@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
>>>A) An OS with memory protection to protect you when applications crash
>>>B) An OS whose applications don't crash.
>> 
>> A leads to B in this case.  By having memory protection the
>> programmer is able to examine a crashing program and thereby
>> fix the bug.  Of course, it is possible to fix the bug by other
>> means, but they take longer and are less reliable.  
>
>You didn't include the rest of my posting. I pointed out that memory protection
>is useful for the DEVELOPER, who expects to have frequent crashes. Memory
>protection may or may not help to target the actual bugs. 

Excuse me?  Memory protection "may not help" to target bugs?  You must
be totally dreaming, or you never programmed in C.  Ever leak a little
memory?  I used to program my mac ci in c and every once in a while I
would mess (by accident) with the a region of memory that I was not
supposed to be in.  The ci would crash. I would wait 1 minute while
rebooting and then I would carefully trace the execution of the
program until just before the crash.  On any unix-like system, you
simply run the program in a debugger, when the program crashes (not
the os) you type "where" (aka gdb) and the debugger tells you exactly
where the crash occured.  You can then look at memory, the core dump etc.

>
>The USERs apps
>shouldn't crash. Period.
>

Agree. Totally.  To get to the point where a program does not crash
comes much faster and at less cost when you have memory protection.
This is a clear benefit to the user.  New programs arrive faster and
at lower cost.

>> had the Mac had basic memory detection.  The biggest delays in
>> getting system 7 out the door were bugs.  Memory protection makes
>> bug detection much easier.
>
>I disagree. System 7 wasn't delayed by bugs. It was delayed because it had
>few bugs. It had few bugs because it was so outrageously tested. That testing
>effort took a lot of time, not fixing tons of bugs.
>

And you mean to tell me that none of those few bugs caused the mac to
crash because of a memory problem?  I highly doubt it.  Even if the
mac did not crash, would you still claim that the bug was not related
to a memory problem?  None of the bugs were memory related?  Every c
programmer at Apple is perfect and does not have any run away
pointers? Get real.

Also, why did system 7 need to be "outrageously" tested?  Perhaps
because in the Mac when a bug occurs, the system crashes.

Memory protection certainly does not substitute for a stable system.
Applications should not crash.   Unfortunatley, they sometimes do --
even on a Mac.  


--Peter Kocks
  kocks@chemistry.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Dariusz Bolski)
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Organization: OSU Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 01:01:29 GMT

In article <Bvx5Lr.3rI@rice.edu> jimwong@owlnet.rice.edu (Jim Wong) writes:
>In article <1992Oct10.075603.11316@cgrg.ohio-state.edu> derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Dariusz Bolski) writes:
>>In article <6169.2ad59050@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
>>>HAD to use the mouse. Now, I would never go back.
>>
>>That is the whole difference between you and for example me.
>>I would hate if I was forced by the machine to do something.
>>
>>I expect the machine to do what I want and not the opposite.
>>>much)
>>
>>Decent editor in my opinion lets me work as I want and not as the editor wants.
>So, I assume that you popped out the the womb using vi proficiently.
>vi doesn't "do what you want" any more than any other editor;

I didn't argue for a vi. I did argue against the editor where I am
forced to use mouse from time to time. It is taking my hands off
the keyboard.

> it simply
>happens to be the one you learned how to use first and/or best.  

Neither first nor best. The first was edt on SM/4 (czechoslovakian
version of PDP/11. Never mastered it though.

>You've merely managed to convince yourself that it works exactly the way
>you expect an editor to work and believe an editor should work because you have
>completely locked out the alternatives.

I always work with any editor I have available. Some (on a Mac) force
me to use a mouse. Actually how do you know that I locked myself out
of the alternatives? Is every Mac user like me locked out too?
I think you assume too much about your counter partner in discussion.

>Jim Wong (jimwong@owlnet.rice.edu)

Dariusz Bolski
-- 
Dariusz Bolski     Ohio Supercomputer Center, IBM POWER Visualization System
Systems Programmer Ohio State University , Columbus U.S.
                   The Advanced Computing Center For The Arts And Design
e-mail: derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu  derek@osc.edu
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Date: Fri,  9 Oct 1992 12:34:18 -0400 
From: Carl B Jabido <cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Sorry (was Re: System 7.0 vs OS/2 and Windows NT)

I would like to apologize to all those who found my last two posts
offensive. They were not in response to the Mac population in general;
they were only in response to Edward V Wright who based some of his
arguments on incorrect assumptions and "facts" such as the "fact" that
there is no standard sound form (while .wav files are exactly what he
was talking about).  He then suggested to Nan Zou that he (Nan) should
learn some facts before arguing.

I posted this apology in response to a few messages I recieved which
said I was rude and obnoxious.  My intention was not to offend the Mac
population, it was to flame Ed V Wright.

Carl Jabido
cj00@andrew.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy