HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michael S. Schechter - ISR group account)
Subject: Re: How many "Macs" do you see doing important wo
Organization: Syracuse University
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 19:37:55 EDT

In article <1992Oct02.051843.16218@CS.ORST.EDU> pricec@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (price carl wayne) writes:
>Actually the increase in Apple market share has not been that great.  In the
>October issue of UNIX World they have an article in the Industry News
>section on page 16.  A market research firm, Infocorp, surveyed 4,100 
>VARs in the US and asked what OSs the sold and supported.  The pie charts
^^^^
^^^^
^^^^
How about inquiring of major corporate/gov/edu puchasing depts ??

VARs? Sure PC's have to be sold thru 'em to anything to work
together.. But that 4 or so % figure of all VARs probably represents
just ONE Apple VAR, Falcon Microsystems, the federal supplier.
Nobody else is stupid enough to buy Macs thru VARs

Geeez!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: UC525655@mizzou1.missouri.edu (Mark Eaton)
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs Mac
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 17:19:01 CDT

In article <1992Sep22.180535.788@dragon.acadiau.ca>
890139w@dragon.acadiau.ca (John Weatherbie) writes:
 
>
>ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas Floyd) writes:
>
>
>>But, OS/2 is not all bad.  I wish the Mac could let me continue
>>my letter while it was formatting a floppy, or if a program crashes,
>>let me do a control-escape back to the Finder.  OS/2 is awesome
 
command-option-escape in sys7...
 
 
>>for its crash tolerance, but the major drawback is its lack
>>of market share.
>
>Again it only came out 5.5 months ago.  Corel and Lotus are both releasing products for OS/2 and I am sure many other companies will follow.
>
>>But don't worry, when Pink comes out, OS/2, A/UX, AIX, and System
>
>>--
>>ifbb657@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Douglas R. Floyd)
>
>>MS-Windows NT:              Disclaimer:  I speak for
>>                            myself.
>>Better DOS than Windows,
>>Better Windows than DOS.
>--
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>John Weatherbie >> 890139w@acadiau.ca
>Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada                                        Well, people who put Habs quotes in their .sig's are weenies too.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Eaton                    | Opinions? We're not allowed to have
UC525655@MIZZOU1.MISSOURI.EDU | opinions at Mizzou... get back to me
                              | in 2 years when I graduate... ;)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola)
Subject: Re: Why Macs are better (and the others aren't)
Reply-To: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 22:49:17 GMT

Wolfgang Strobl writes
> I agree that it is a good idea to design different user front-ends
> tailored to the specifics of the various GUIs, when designing an
> application which has to be ported to different platforms.
> 
> But on the other hand, I understand the desire of an application
> developer to have his application look and work the same on all
> the supported platforms. This makes application documentation
> simpler, the education of end-users is simpler,

Exactly.  Developers do this for their own convenience, not that of  
users.

> and it may
> sell a few more apps during that, in addition.

How so?  Are you more likely to say:
1. "I'll buy app A, it works the same way as app A on another 
     platform that I never use"; or
2. "I'll buy app B, it works the same way as the other apps that I
     use on my platform".

> Also, these apps are very often used
> on a 1 user, 1 app base, i.e. many users launch them in the
> morning and leave them just before they switch their machine
> off, without having switched to another app in the meantime.

Now there's an interesting argument.  "My machine is so crippled that  
I can only do one thing at once.  Therefore its ok if my apps all  
work differently."  Maybe once you get a computer that can in fact do  
more than one thing at once you'll see exactly why consistent user  
interfaces pay.

--
-
Stefano Pagiola
Food Research Institute, Stanford University
spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: chris1@uiuc.edu (Chris Trimble)
Subject: Re: Mac's Doomsday
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 17:31:06 GMT

Ivan@yalevm writes
     
    Apple must act quickly because soon another formidable competitor is going
    to enter the race:  Windows NT.  Bill Gates already succeded in turning a
    lemon like Windows into a hit.  God only knows what he'll do with a true
    gem like Windows NT.  Bill Gates is the predator and Apple may well be one
    of his most coveted preys.

Everyone must ask himself (or herself) what Windows NT is in response to.
And after thinking for .01 seconds, you'll come to the conclusion that NT is
in response to the growth NeXTStep and/or preemptive multitasking systems,
just as Apple's Pink is. So since Apple and Microsoft are both jumping on
this bandwagon, I don't think that this is really going to hurt Apple in that
NT will be much better than Windows 3.1. What WILL hurt Apple is that NT is
going to come out much sooner than Pink is. 

Related Digression :

Does anyone remember the '1984' commercial that Apple made for the introduct-
ion of the Macintosh? If you ask me, this commercial is really representative
of what the DOS/Windows market is - just following what's been done in the
past. That's why people keep using those totally un-user-friendly programs
like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS. That's why people use DOS. It's 
functional fixedness. The entire MS-DOS market IS functional fixedness,
from its birth it has been. Think about it : people bought IBMs originally
because they were made by the mega-huge mainframe corporation that everyone
could feel comfortable with. MS-DOS just happened to be the OS that was
used on this platform. People tolerated the deficiencies of both of these
simply because IBM was a reputable company. They tolerated WordPerfect and
Lotus for so long because they wanted to use a computer made by a reputable
company. And people will continue to tolerate a terrible GUI (namely, 
Windows) simply because it is made by a mega-huge conglomerate software
company also. I wonder what will happen when people figure out that MAYBE
the top 100 Windows and DOS apps will run under NT.

--
 Chris Trimble 	      | "Tell me why... don't we try...not to break our hearts
 chris1@uiuc.edu      | and make it so hard for ourselves."    - Pet Shop Boys
 NeXTMail Preferred   | "Ar-oo-gull-ah, it's a vege-et-a-ble"   - Steve Martin
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Dariusz Bolski)
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI
Organization: OSU Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 21:09:17 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.001054.3773@javelin.sim.es.com> mmunson@animal.es.com (Mark Munson) writes:
>In article <6031.2ac1d1f3@hayes.com> tomster@banzai.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble)
>I hope your understanding of DOS is better than that of the English language.
>The real intersting part here is that in the same sentance that you tell us
                                                   ^^^^^^^^

>how infrequently you misspell short commands, you make mistakes with words
>of lengths between three and four letters in length.

How about you first take care of your English spelling before you knock
the others'?

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
From: johnsd2@jec314.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM Funny
Date: 7 Oct 92 02:35:14 GMT
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

In article <1992Oct6.213607.19951@cgrg.ohio-state.edu>, derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Dariusz Bolski) writes:
|> In article <mcpz53_@rpi.edu> johnsd2@rpi.edu writes:
|> >In article <1992Oct03.033319.19328@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|> >|> No, I'm talking about a *real* GUI. It's sitton on top of a shitty O/S,
|> >|> but it's really real. Apple could learn a lot from it if they'd try.
|> >
|> >Unfortunately, the shitty OS affects teh GUI deeply, in lots of ways.
|> 
|> I think this is an invitation for a flame. What you wrote is exactly
|> what many NeXT or Amiga advocates think about the MacOS. :-) (I would call
|> it shoot-the-foot-point)

I presume you mean multitasking (as you mention it a couple of lines)

I think I have made my feelings on this very clear.

Ill restate them anyway.

Pre-emptive multitasking is Good. It is Your Friend. I want
Pre-emptive multitasking. The Mac should have it. The Amiga
does have it, as does the NeXT, and hence they multitask better
than the Macintosh.

I just deny that this renders co-operative multitasking useless or
nonfunctional.

I also think that multithreading and memory protection are Good Things.
I want them too.

I also dont think that was an invitation to flame. I didn't flame you.

|> >To get past this, you need to be much more specific about what you
|> >want to argue. Example: standard file dialogs. 
|> 
|> Example: multitasking ...

Presumable you mean the pre-emptive kind. How does this affect the GUI?

-- 
			- 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: johnsd2@vccnw05.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: Macintosh emulation on Amiga
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 20:02:17 GMT

In article <1992Oct03.040926.20644@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|> In article <sjmzdg+@rpi.edu> johnsd2@rpi.edu writes:
|> > In article <1992Oct01.012900.5186@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|> > |> In article <ibhan.717796628@husc8> ibhan@husc8.harvard.edu (Ishir Bhan) writes:
|> > |> > RE: What the Amiga can't do with a Mac Emulator that a IIci can.
|> > |> > A good percentage of the software coming out for the Mac today is color
|> > |> > based, which means that your Amiga couldn't run it.
|> 
|> > |> What, you *can't* run color software on a B&W Mac? I thought Mac had
|> > |> this device independence stuff down pat!
|> 
|> > You were mistaken. 68020, 030 and so on Macs do, but 68000 based macs
|> > do not. They only support a few color commands (and not the right ones,
|> > imho.).
|> 
|> But my Amiga has a 68030.

That's why I said "...030 and so on Macs do, but 68000..."
				    ^^^^
With Macintosh emulators, it depends on the ROMS you put
in the emulator (and also the processor, because the
ROMs with Color QuickDraw do not run on  68000)

If you put suitable ROMs in, you could have color. (well,
the Emulator would have to patch it so it could use Amiga
hardware, but it has to do that to the B&W roms too, no?)

Incidentally, this patch sounds rather nontrivial to me, since
the ROMs don't support much in the way of oddness. You're
HAM modes wont work, since the pixels are interdependant. The
Mac needs each pixel to be separate from its neighbors, and
for it to either completely specify its color or to be an
index into a table somewhere. Also, Macs expect their
monitors to have a 1 to 1 aspect ratio. So this might put
a damper on things, tho I expect there'd be modes that work.

But all that's kinda irrelevant until someone comes up with
a Mac emulator on the Amiga that supports color ROMs (they
are larger than Plus roms- the smalest are 256k, to the
plus ROMs 128k).

Is there an emulator out there yet that can do this?
-- 
			- 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: putzolu@toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (David Putzolu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI  (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: 30 Sep 92 05:59:11 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of California, Davis

In article <6082.2ac8918b@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
>In article <TOMSTER.92Sep28222039@bigwpi.WPI.EDU>, tomster@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble) writes:
>>    > happier with a GUI. I as a programmer would be VERY unhappy if I just
>>    > had a GUI.
>> 
>>    I have a surprise. I'm a programmer.
>> 
>> I feel sorry for you, really I do.
>
>I fail to see why.

I really have to agree with Bill here. Thomas is only showing here
that he is a CLI fanatic. Arguments like, "I feel sorry for you" are
about as weak as it gets.

To pick a good example of how good (excellent, I daresay) a
programming environment can be on a GUI based system, consider Think
Pascal. To trace a variable, drag it to the trace window. To see the
status of the registers, click the register button. To put a
breakpoint in, click next to the line you want it at. To put a file
into the project you are working on (the equivalent of the makefile on
a Unix system) just add it to the project window (via the standard
file open dialog). To remove it, just hit the delete button after
hilighting it. To do a make, just pull down to the make option. Etc.
While using a CLI may be all well and good for some things, it is by
no means the "only" or "best" way to do programming. I'd argue, in
light of the above, that it is simply the "old" way, and a good GUI
designed development system can be just as good and much easier to
boot.

| David M. A. Putzolu               | putzolu@cs.ucdavis.edu              |
| Senior Undergraduate              | op disclaimer(opinion : ptr mine)   |
| Computer Science and Psychology   |      Money? Who needs money?        |
| University of California at Davis |          I've got fish!             |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: andrew@cubetech.com
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:41:39 GMT

In article <ewright.717957953@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <1992Sep30.221751.13000@leland.Stanford.EDU> spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola) writes:
>
>>You'll be glad to know that now you can have your cake and eat it  
>>too.  Executor is a mac emulator that runs under NeXTSTEP; it is not  
>>yet perfect, as discussion in this group over the last few days has  
>>shown, but it already works quite well and is improving fast.  Now  
>>you wouldn't want to run all your apps this way, but the availability  
>>of this emulator lets you (1) shift gradually to the NeXT while  
>>retaining mac compatibility, 
>
>No it doesn't.  Not unless the Executor also comes with a coupon
>for $5000 off on the purchase of a NeXT.

You are missing the point.  You buy a NeXT to run or write NeXT apps,
not to run Mac apps.  Executor is only for running something that you
must have that does not currently exist on NeXTSTEP (like an obscure
app or something that reads a specific file-format).

The exact same thing can be said of Macintosh and Soft-PC.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "We shall not cease from exploration
Andrew Loewenstern      |  And the end of our exploring
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Will be to arrive where we started
                        |  And know the place for the first time." -T.S. Eliot
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Date: 1 Oct 92 17:25:14 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <1992Sep30.181654.28352@leland.Stanford.EDU>, spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola) writes:
>> 
>> The NeXT is still a little short in this area, and some people
>> just don't WANT TO WAIT for the NeXT application market to 
>> improve.
>> 
> 
> Ah yes.  Don't I remember hearing this argument from DOS people,  
> sometime back in the mid-1980s sometime?  Something about the mac  
> having nice features but not having many apps?

This was true in 1984 and 85. By 1986, the applications were there in
force for the Mac.

The same hasn't been true for the NeXT. It's been four years, and we're
just starting to hear about applications in beta test.

Every new platform goes through this transition. On the Mac, it took
about two years. For the NeXT, it's four years and counting. That doesn't
look as promising.

> In any case, the argument is, for the most part, wrong.  Yes, there  
> are still a few gaps, but there is no longer any shortage of NeXT  
> apps.

If that were true, we'd see a surge in NeXT purchases. How fast are NeXT
sales growing? Are they growing?

-- 
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.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: walk@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Todd Walk)
Subject: Re: How many "Macs" do you see doing important work?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 21:42:55 GMT

rwb00@loon.as (Robert W Beveridge) writes:


>In article 18520@javelin.sim.es.com, mmunson@animal.es.com (Mark Munson) writes:
>>
>>My own experience has shown that given a choice, most users would
>>pick a Mac over a PC w/Windows.  The Arizona State Univ. Electrical
>>Engineering wing has Mac II's on nearly every desk.  Only a few
>>users choose to stick with the PC technology that they started 
>>with.
>>

>This may be true when someone else is paying....but current sales figures
>(from someone elses earlier post) show PCs outsell Macs by 5 to 1

One thing that has always bothered me about these figures is the fact that
there is about 35 mil 8088 class machines out and about the same # of
286 class machines out.  How many of the pc's being sold are replacing
older computers and how many are not?  (can anyone get any figures on this?)


					Todd Walk
					walk@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI  (there, I changed the subject ... )
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<9aqzm-g@rpi.edu> <1992Oct05.031819.26841@NeoSoft.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:29:54 GMT

Peter> == Peter da Silva <peter@NeoSoft.com> 

 Peter> Yes, the system should know. The Mac doesn't... it just knows
 Peter> what the application that created it was. This is *similar*, but
 Peter> not the same.

Nope, it knows both the type (say, "TEXT") and the creator (say,
"ALFA").  That's different from a TEXT/WDBN file created by MS Word, or
a TEXT/"MDS " file created by MDS Edit, etc...

 Peter> How would you repeat (say) a print command, with all options the
 Peter> same, on a different file?

A properly-written application should preserve print options as
defaults, so that if you set your YakWriter for draft mode with an extra
sledge and print "The Khan and I", if you then print out "Khan With The
Wind" it should still be in draft mode with an extra sledge, and you can
just hit the OK button (or return) to print it.
--
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
Subject: Re: the NeXT option (Was Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT)
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Date: 5 Oct 92 14:07:10 -0700
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu

In article <ewright.718301680@convex.convex.com>  writes:
>In <1992Oct03.231600.20280@NeoSoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da  
Silva) writes:
>
>>Um, the mouse tracking in a preemptive multitasking system is rarely  
done by
>>the foreground program. It's more often handled by a separate program  
that
>>just manages mouse position and sends messages to programs as requested.
>
>Implementation details.  The point is, there will always be programs
>that *need* 100% of a machine's CPU cycles for short periods of time.
>The only way to guarantee this is either 1) cooperative multitasking
>or 2) setting the program's priority so high that it gets more cycles
>that it needs, depriving other programs, at other times.

At the risk of furthering this thread, I must disagree, if we're just  
talking about things like mouse tracking.  In this case (for example), the  
system could manage the mouse with a custom program with high priority,  
which checks to see if the mouse has changed, and if it hasn't,  
immediately traps and goes to sleep.  As a result, very little power  
wasted.

At any rate, I don't think that an effective argument can be made for  
*prefering* cooperative multitasking over preemptive multitasking for  
everything but very unusual tasks, simply because cooperative multitasking  
has a BIG BAD side-effect:  because it allows programs to grab 100% of the  
time-slices, programs can grab 100%.  The other nasty is that programs  
have to be written to multitask efficiently, yet another problem a  
programmer has to face in addition to the multitude of stuff the Mac GUI  
already imposes in terms of program-making-toughness.

--

Sean Luke
Brigham Young University                   MILK:  It Comes From Cows
sean@digaudio.byu.edu  
NeXTmail and nifty Mac stuff welcome