HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 23:26:37 GMT

In <6219.2addb716@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

>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.

Well, around here in Germany there are a lot of people, mostly
elder ones, who would find it extremely hard to be forced to
walk instead of riding a bike. Riding a bike a few hundred 
meters to the baker or to the next supermarket is much easier
for somebody who cannnot walk (and carry groceries) very well,
anymore.

Even a disabled person with only one useable leg can - with a little
bit of training - ride a bicycle faster than an average healthy
person can run with two legs. This isn't just a theory, I know
people who do.

Wolfgang Strobl
#include <std.disclaimer.hpp>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: mmunson@animal.es.com (Mark Munson)
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Reply-To: mmunson@animal.es.com (Mark Munson)
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, UT
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 00:35:37 GMT

In article <6166.2ad583e7@hayes.com>
> In article <1992Oct8.225238.4448@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, (Stuart Woolford) writes: 
> > I have sound players, which use the internal speaker, which sound MUCH 
> > better than any old (6bit) MAC I have heard, and as good as the newer
> > 8bit, using PCM. I find the 6bit mac's unbearable in comparison.

> You must be listening to some very unusual Macs. Macs have had 8-bit 
> sound since the start with the original Macintosh. 

> And I've heard sounds reproduced under windows with 1-bit speakers. It is
> awful. Technically, it is fasinating that it can be done. Realistically,
> the quality is retched.

> When you say PCM, what do you mean? Sound is analog, is it not? How can it
> be PCM?

> Or are you saying the 8-bit samples are COMPANDERED, using mu-law or A-law
> compandering, as used in PCM?


I think the technique that generic PC use for playing these type of sound
is to create a carrier signal of a given frequency, and use 1 bit 'clicks'
to modulate the speaker.  Knowing the speed of your computer, you can
calculate the frequency of each cycle, and select bits accordingly.
Multiple tracks can be placed on top of each other to create seperate
voices.  

This isn't really Pulse Code Modulation, since the signal doesn't contain
any analog information.  It's sort of a shift key modulation with a 1-ary
signal.  Here's how it works:

carrier: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Tone1  : 1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1
Tone2  : 1       1       1       1       1       1      1    

Result : 1000010010100001100010001100001010010000100001010010

You run through the data at a constant rate and toggle the speaker
for each 1 that you find.  The result is a low quality sound that
will reproduce tones in a limmited range that surrounds the
carrier frequency divided by two.  

Old Apple II's used this technique back in '81.  It's interesting to hear,
because the computer isn't supposed to play good music at all.  But the
quality is junk compared to a real sound circuit.  Apple improved the
sound a lot with the intro of the early Macs.  When Apple upgraded the
Apple IIe to the IIgs back in '85, they added a Ensonique Digital Oscillator
Chip that came with 64K of waveform memory. That really pushed things
forward.  Unfortunately, most PC's still come with the same audio
technology that was in use over a decade ago.

Using the shareware software that most PC users have to listen to sound,
will only give you a vague idea of what the music is supposed to sound
like.  It works, but it's like listening to Motzart on a toy piano.

[MGM]
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 23:23:45 GMT

In <6185.2ad98b8e@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

>In article <strobl.718751467@gmd.de>, strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
>> 
>> Well, the Dynamic Data Exchange protocal (DDE) was a feature
>> of MS-Windows 1.0 (released 1985). How old is Publish and Subscribe?

>What does it matter. DDE and P & S aren't the same thing. They don't do the
>same thing. P & S is a higher-level feature than DDE. P & S works over a 
>network, P & S communicates between applications even when both applications
>aren't open at the same time, or are open on different machines.

I don't know about, and I don't care. The statement which triggered my
question was 

	(Edward V. Wright) >DDE is not IAC, it's just Microsoft's (feeble) implementation
	(Edward V. Wright) >of Apple's Publish and Subscribe feature.  

>It makes no difference when DDE came out. It can't do what P & S and 
>AppleEvents do. Why bother comparing dates when the features don't compare?

This is an interesting and unconventional remark from somebody advocating 
Macintoshs, indeed. :-)

Wolfgang Strobl
#include <std.disclaimer.hpp>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: 7 Oct 92 19:44:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: convex.ewright.718487055
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 <TOMSTER.92Oct6222702@bigwpi.WPI.EDU> tomster@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble) writes:

>   >>If you really think that the GUI is faster than a CLI in every case,
>   >>try this:  Go into your favorite word processor.  Type a line.  Now 
>   >>make 5 copies of the line using command-C and command-V.  Now do the
>   >>same using the copy and paste menu items.  Time each one and tell me
>   >>which is faster.  

>   >Well, I won't go into all the reasons why it's impossible to 
>   >time yourself in an experiment like this -- I would have thought
>   >that was obvious.  However, if you set up a proper experiment,
>   >with an unbiased subject and unbiased observer, you will probably
>   >find the same thing as everyone else who has performed this experiment:
>   >using the menus is faster, although, to the user, cmd-C and cmd-V
>   >*seem* faster.

>Oh, really?  Is that what they found?  I think it's time to bring up 
the list of survey results.  Seems to me there were just as many surveys 
            ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^                                       ^^^^^^^
>saying the opposite as there were supporting your statements.

Ah, ha!  Now I think we see the crux of the problem.  You don't know
the difference between a survey and an *experiment*.  All surveys do
is count people's opinions.  Pretty easy to do but, unfortunately,
opinion is completely useless to an engineer or scientist.  The universe 
doesn't care what your opinion is.  Science does not depend on surveys,
it depends on measurements. 


>   The point is that with a GUI you have the option of using either.  With a
>   new program, you don't need to memorize obscure commands.  You can rely
>   on the actual menus to get you started, and then learn the command-key
>   equivalents for them if they are faster.

>No, no, no.  You're talking *programs* here, not the CLI / GUI.  Believe
>it or not, there *is* a difference.  Now, if you want to start talking
>graphics-based programs versus text-based programs, we can start doing
>that.  

Most DOS *programs* are CLI-based.

>If you (as you obviously seem to) want to compare 30-minute
>hack programs whith no interface to those with a good interface, I
>don't think there is any room for discussion there.  

The only difference between a "30-minutes hack program with no interface"
and DOS itself is that DOS took more than 30 minutes to write.

>Keep to the subject or start a new subject line.

We are keeping to the subject.  CLI stands for "Command-Line Interface,"
not "Command-Line Operating System."
From: ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Some misc. stuff
Date: 15 Oct 92 15:37:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: ut-emx.81700
Reply-To: ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Originator: ifbb657@dumbo.cc.utexas.edu

How do I answer this:

  A friend of mine who got a Quadra 950 w/128 megs of RAM,
a gigabyte HD, 24 bit color, and a built-in CD-ROM asked me
if ejecting his RAM disk would cause his SIMMS to pop out.

This person turns the machine on by turning the key to
Secure, and then On, like starting a car.  He did not
know that the little triangle key started up the machine.

What do you do w/ people like this?

-- 
******* ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas R. Floyd) ******
             (Insert standard disclaimer here)

   Ross Perot:  Politician "for the rest of us" or Ferengi?  The
ears know...
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle)
Subject: Re: A-MaxII+ ?
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 04:43:43 GMT

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.

Jess Holle
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ASI509@DJUKFA11.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why a mac over a PC?
Date: 9 Oct 92 15:27:59 GMT
 <1992Oct9.044828.1478@news.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Organization: Forschungszentrum Juelich

In article <1992Oct9.044828.1478@news.weeg.uiowa.edu>,
smills@news.weeg.uiowa.edu (MuffinHead) says:
>can use almost ANY Mac app without ever opening a manual.
                  /\
              Add simple here. Or do you think Mathematica or MAPLE
can be used without a manual? Aren`t compilers    apps? Of course you
can start and exit FrameMaker without a manual, but what can you do in
between without one? LabView even has a nice graphical language but
without manual you can drag the whole stuff into the trash. Ever tried to
use IGOR without manual ? You can use it, but you don`t get very far.


>   The other thing important to me is that Mac output is *exactly* the same
>as the screen rendering. Not true with many DOS graphics, word processing,
>and page layout programs I've used.

I wish it were *always* exactly the same.

>   And this is my personaly opinion which matters very much to lots of people:
>Macs look cool.

And there are even cooler looking PC`s out there. But you have to pay more for
the case than for the electronics inside :-(

Michael Bode.
From: ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: PDA's are a flop
Date: 15 Oct 92 19:59:18 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX


  One person at a Computer City got so mad at a GRiDPad that he shoved
the stylus through the glass LCD screen, causing the liquid to go over
everything.  I hope Apple does a better job than Tandy.  The GRiDPad
has no keyboard, yet it dumped to DOS? I can see why someone would
get that fustrated.

-- 
******* ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas R. Floyd) ******
             (Insert standard disclaimer here)

   Ross Perot:  Politician "for the rest of us" or Ferengi?  The
ears know...
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
Subject: Re: Mac & IBM Info Repost
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 17:19:24 GMT

In <ewright.718584090@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

>>286        ~ 68020 {This is the poorest comparison since the MMU in the 
>>286 pulls it past the 68020 and to the 68030 class 

>Why?  The 286 machines never used the MMU chip for anything.  No
>virtual memory, no memory protection.  

Then memory protection and virtual memory in OS/2 1.x must be
a hallucination?

I'm sorry, but you obviously don't know what you are talking about.

OS/2 1.x, for example, uses the Protected Mode of the 286 processor to
implement memory protection and virtual memory. It is a very good platform
to run server software like SQL server or Lan Manager on it.

Some time ago I installed an early, very buggy beta version of a 
data base system (Natural?) on my OS/2 file server machine, be-
cause one of my fellow workers had to try it, and there was no
other machine available, at that time. The thing crashed nearly
all the time with various memory protection faults. But the
other tasks, including the file server software, where completely
unaffected. I didn't have to reboot the machine a single time,
for months, during that time. 

Wolfgang Strobl
#include <std.disclaimer.hpp>
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 15:42:44 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 <1992Oct14.214506.1596@nwnexus.WA.COM> kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:


>> Steve> So the graphical interface doesn't guarantee consistency.  In
>> Steve> fact, the amount of consistency is completely independent of the
>> Steve> type of interface.  You can have a completely consistent CLI
>> Steve> (where -o always specifies an output file, for example) or
>> Steve> completely inconsistent GUI's (Windows -- need I say more?)

>>Yes, but if we're talking about the Mac's UI vs. any CLI I've ever seen
>>(this *is* c.s.MAC.advocacy, after all, though dumping on Windows is a
>>major sport), the Mac's UI is far more consistent.

>I agree.  Being a fan of CLI's as well as GUI's, that's why I'd like to
>see a Mac CLI.  

Okay, can someone send Steve a pinup photo of the MPW command line? :-)

Let's see if I can follow this.  The Macintosh interface isn't perfectly
consistent, but it is far more consistent than any CLI.  The fact that
it is more consistent than any CLI is what makes you want a CLI.

Am I missing something here?

And if you're really a "fan" of the Macintosh interface, why do you
slime it by using derogatory terms like "Gooey" for it?

     
>It would really bring out the full potential of a CLI.
>I still like UNIX a lot, however, because it offers enourmous power in
>return for its lack of consistency.

I am constantly amazed at the number of people who believe
that "user hostility" is synonymous with "enormous power."
My definition of computer power is how easy the computer
makes it to do things. 


>>The HIGs, if I recall correctly, advise application designers to use
>>menus with *disabled* options rather than adding and subtracting
>>options.  One company seems to have a fetish for having commands appear
>>and disappear though.  They're run by someone whose initials are "BG" :)

>Different tools applied to different classes of objects, plus
>there were access controls which determined whether or not you could
>apply a tool to an object.  We decided that inapplicable tools shouldn't
>appear in the menu at all, and inaccessible tools should appear
>greyed-out.  

Argh!  So all the user has to do is figure out which tools are
"inappropriate" and which are only "inaccessible."  "Access
controls" for a tool?  You mean like having an electric drill,
but you can't use it until you turn it on?  Well, that seems
to be stretching the analogy a bit to far.  If the user didn't
want to access a tool, why would he choose it from the menu?  In
fact, it seems to me that the menu item *is* an "access control"
for the tool.

Of course, it's generally better to put tools in a toolbox
instead of menu, anyway.  But this is probably no worse than
most X-Windows interfaces I've seen.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: <None>
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<6206.2adaf73d@hayes.com> <1992Oct13.234943.2150@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 19:42:38 GMT

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).

 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.  If you want a bigger SFGetFile, you can always just
toss an extension in the System Folder; not everyone has a large screen,
y'know, and if it were *too* large someone would complain about all the
extra mouse movement... :-)

You *can* keyboard-complete under MacOS.  In fact, you can do it in all
applications, not just the Finder; note that on Unix, you need tcsh or
another 'add-on' shell to get tab-completion for filenames (some systems
have a csh with ESC-completion, blech), and vi doesn't do it on :r
(though GNU Emacs does tab-completion, which is one reason I use it).

So the Mac is actually more keyboard-friendly than Unix :) :) :)
--
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>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: mtc@ledoux-gw (Mike Cutter)
Subject: Try this for fun (Was: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
Organization: WU-Wien
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 06:21:27 GMT

In article <6107.2acc59c5@hayes.com> from [2 Oct 92 14:16:36 EDT] you wrote:
 |> In article <1992Oct01.120625.11908@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
 |> > In article <kc-290992234801@chang.slip.uiuc.edu> kc@complex.ccsr.uiuc.edu (Kenneth Chang) writes:
 |> >> >Preemptive multitasking?
 |> >> For personal computers, this is by and large a non-issue. You can't word
 |> >> process in the background.
 |> > 
 |> > Ever printed a large, complicated document in a page layout program or
 |> > structured graphics program? I can work while I'm doing Postscript rendering
 |> > (a very CPU-intensive task) without hassles. I couldn't do that on a Mac,
 |> > or for that matter in Windows 3.1.
 |> 
 |> Ever tried it?
 |> 
 |> There's no technical reason why a Postscript rendering couldn't be performed
 |> in a non-preemptive multitasking environment without significant impact
 |> on other applications. 
 |> 
 |> I'm not familiar with Mac applications that do Postscript rendering on the
 |> desktop computer. (LaserWriters do the rendering for printing) However,
 |> there is no reason they couldn't cooperate with other applications during
 |> this long process.
 |> 
 |> After all, MPW can share time with other Mac apps while it is compiling....
I have an Apple Stylewriter.  It does not support Postscript.
I have Adobe Illustrator. It supports Postscript. 
My Mac will cheerfully print Postscript documents to a non-Postscript 
printer, without even slowing down noticeably.

What I love doing, is print Postscript, downloading files via my modem, debinhexing
them, decompressing them, and writing essays all at once. This is using virtual
memory, I must admit, (I have a IIci with 5Mb) and I don't often do this...
except for fun. Who says we need pre-emptive multitasking? I get what I want
done without it, and I can stuff around heaps when I want to :-)

Have you seen the System 7 File Sharing in action?

The Menu Manager does not pass processor time back to the OS when a menu is visible
but I can still get files off my neighbour's machine when he insists on holding down the
menus for ages... :-) Where is it getting the CPU cycles from? This is what I want to
know.

Interesting reading this thread, anyway...

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: raist@rmece02.upr.clu.edu (Ricardo Hernandez | 802-36-4453)
Subject: Re: A-MaxII+ ?
Organization: UPR-Mayaguez--ASEL Lab
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 20:40:03 GMT

In article <mike_steiner-131092155301@192.35.50.131>, mike_steiner@qm.claris.com (Mike Steiner) writes:
[stuff deleted]

|> > 
|> >   While I don't comment on the previous Quadra flames, as I don't know for sure,
|> > you definitively don't know about the Amiga's Video market share.  Even the
|> > Mac uses a Toaster!
|> > 
|> > - Raist
|> > 
|> >   Yes, Amiga will be here for a long time to come.  At least Amiga users can run
|> > all the OS releases properly, unlike the System 7 on a poor Mac Plus or Classic I.
|> 
|> It appears that you don't know what you're talking about.  I run System 7
|> on a Mac Plus and on an SE at home all the time.  Please stop spreading
|> these untruths.
  
   Ok,  you CAN RUN system 7 on the Mac Plus (which is why AMAX II+ can
run it so well), but the problem is that with all the system overhead
the system is very slow.  On the other hand, on the Amiga with the coming
of OS 2.xx (2.04, now 2.1 and 3.0) the Amiga became even faster and
less-overhead.


|> 
|> +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|> |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.          |
|> +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

-- 
- Raist