HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sammy@anagld.analytics.com (Sam Blackburn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM Funny
Date: 30 Sep 92 21:36:52 GMT
Organization: Computer Sciences Corporation - Systems Engineering Division

terjer@ifi.unit.no (Terje Rydland) writes:

>Is this really true (if you only count Windows software on the PC's) ?
>Don't
>think so.
>There is really a LOT of PD and Sharewre on the Mac - in fact I think you
>can
>do a lot on a Mac without buying many applications.

Well, look at this way, I go into EggHead, Babbages, CompUSA or any other major
retail store and I see tons of PC software and only a couple of aisles of
Mac stuff.  As for shareware, a lot of companies ban this outright.  I know that
this is extremely stupid on their part.  I happen to work with a company that
believes that all shareware (even source code) is infested with viruses (virii?)
and you can get fired for bringing it in.  They constantly reinvent the wheel.


                                                               o
Sam Blackburn                                                    \
Internet:   sammy@sed.csc.com                                  \O/
Compuserve: 76300,326                     ||====================|====||
GEnie:      SAMMY                         ||-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-/\+-+-||
                                          ||===================\=\===||
                                          ||                         ||
                                          || Kill or be killed.      ||
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: How many "Macs" do you see doing important work?
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 17:50:44 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

chris@lynx.msc.cornell.edu.UUCP (Chris Manly,,,2577951) writes:
>From article <dpenner.717568208@ee.ualberta.ca>, by dpenner@ee.ualberta.ca (Darren E. Penner ):
>> Even putting all else to the side, one has to admit the IBM are the INDUSTRY
>> standard control device.  How many major factories, power plants and process
>> control systems do you see macintoshes tied to ..
>> 
>> ALMOST NONE.

        You don't see that much engineering work done on the Mac, either.
The PC board design programs for the Mac are inferior to the ones for
Intel-based machines.  CAD on the Mac has never really taken off, although
CAD ought to be a great Mac application.  Vendors who have products on both 
platforms report that the Mac versions just don't sell.

        Part of the problem is that, in CAD and engineering work, sheer
speed, especially floating point speed, matters.  Macs have traditionally
had less price/performance, and floating point coprocessors are not all
that common in the Mac world.  SANE, Apple's numerics library, is
painfully slow, even with a coprocessor present.  (There's a big
performance degradation, perhaps 10x, from using SANE vs compiling floating
point instructions for a coprocessor).

        Apple is finally getting enough compute power in its machines for
serious CAD users, but it's probably too late.

					John Nagle

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: terjer@ifi.unit.no (Terje Rydland)
Subject: Re: IBM Funny
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Organization: IfI, UNIT-AVH
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 07:50:48 GMT

In article <1669@anagld.analytics.com>, sammy@anagld.analytics.com (Sam
Blackburn) wrote:
> 
> terjer@ifi.unit.no (Terje Rydland) writes:
> 
> >But what can you do with Windows? Are you saying that if you buy a 
> >PC with Windows you don't need to buy applications?
> 
> Do you need to buy applications for Mac?  When it all boils down, there are
> more choices (software and hardware) for PCs than there are with a Mac.

Is this really true (if you only count Windows software on the PC's) ?
Don't
think so.
There is really a LOT of PD and Sharewre on the Mac - in fact I think you
can
do a lot on a Mac without buying many applications.

> 
> >Dept. of Informatics, UNIT, Trondheim, Norway
>                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>                              Beautiful place! I'd love to go back.

Please do, but mail me first! I'll give you a guided tour!

Dept. of Informatics, UNIT, Trondheim, Norway
Internet : terjer@ifi.unit.no
AppleLink: NOR0103
Tlf : +47-7-591845
Fax : +47-7-591733
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: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 21:55:59 GMT

In article <yjc-031092024555@b61539.student.cwru.edu> yjc@po.cwru.edu (Jerome Chan) writes:
>In article <1992Oct3.042710.11799@cgrg.ohio-state.edu>,
>derek@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Dariusz Bolski) wrote:
>> I have something more than 700 commands in my PATH (programs, utilities, scripts). 
>> How many commands can you add to a menu?
>> 
>> And yes, I added a few of them to the menu. But there is not enough many spots for
>> them all.
>> 
>> >Chris Wood     Bellcore     ...!bellcore!prefect!ccw
>> 
>> Dariusz Bolski
>
>  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 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.

Coming back to the original question of the speed. One could say by analogy
that you speak faster if you learned the language you try to use.
You don't have to learn it though - and you might try to lookup every
word as you need it - but this is exactly what work with GUI and browsing
through windows, buttons and menus is about. You can do it. But it ain't
fast unless you have it in front of the eyes.

> The Evil Tofu

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
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: wallmann@backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de (Natuerlich!)
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 20:51:25 GMT
Organization: MSD software vault #9 @THD

In article <6114.2acc7f7e@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

>But the experienced graphic user interface user has the same advantage.
>He can anticipate results, plan ahead, and keep an accurate model of
>the human-machine system in his head.
I'd just argue that with the mouse, you can't pipeline commands to begin
with, that the machine response time is larger than with a CLI and that
time expended on physical motion is quite large.

>(The user interface designer in me asks the question -- why the heck do you
>have to press "esc"? Why not just match the command as you type, and erase
>your match if the user types more -- I implemented an interface like this
>for file name matching in Smartcom III and Smartcom Exec)
The Symbolics does this too. I don't know whether it's the response time
or what, but I always hated it.

>Command completion doesn't seem to be very useful. The only thing I can
>see is that is saves a few characters of typing. You still have to remember
>the right command in the first place. It would make long command names
>more palatable, however.
BTW if you just remember the first letter[s] you can press [ctrl]-[d]
in csh and it gives you the list of possible matches.


Anyway, I am wimping out of this discussion. I have a few other flamefests
to attend, and I see myself going around in circles here. Have fun!

Nat!
-- 
 -----   Email: wallmann@backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de  -----
                "Bang that bit that doesn't bang"                 
 Album of the month: "Psalm 69" Ministry
From: fzchen@othello.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: How many "Macs" do you see doing important work?
Date: 29 Sep 92 05:38:28 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis

In article <dpenner.717568208@ee.ualberta.ca> dpenner@ee.ualberta.ca (Darren E. Penner ) writes:
>Even putting all else to the side, one has to admit the IBM are the INDUSTRY
>standard control device.  How many major factories, power plants and process

What's your point?  The Macintosh was never designed to be a "standard
control device".  It is very good at display of information and front end.

I work for a company that provides Macintosh integration solutions for 
LARGE companies.  Usually Macs are connected to mainframes for better end
user productivity.  The Mac is very successful.  Some of the stuff done
on the Mac is VERY important work , though not control applications.
As a matter of fact many companies now want Macs in their information 
systems to do just that--front end mainframes where PC's and terminals
once existed.  I don't just mean data display.  Often the the integrated
system is part of a very important operational network.  



 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: IBM SUCKS!
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 11:48:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.023345.14053@sfu.ca> flui@fraser.sfu.ca (Francis Wai
Gee Lui) comes up with a complete non-sequiter.
> Well, it seems to me that Mac and Amiga prices are similar for similar
> configurations.

We're not talking Mac versus Amiga. We're talking Mac versus IBM-PC. I would
not put an Amiga in either of these roles (POS terminal or timeshare) either.
And PC-clones are dirt cheap. (what was that about "free, and worth every
penny")
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   "Segodnja volka obnimal?"
  'U`  
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Macintosh emulation on Amiga
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 23:08:17 GMT

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.  'NNuff said.

Nah, stick the Emplant board in an Amiga, pop in the IIcx ROMs, and you
can use 16 colors on most Amigas, 256 on the A4000, and possibly more
using the 24bit frame buffers.  One of the great things about the Mac,
the device-independence of QuickDraw, makes it that much easier for the
Amiga to emulate the Mac.  :-)

Skip Sauls
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu
From: charestm@IRO.UMontreal.CA (Martin Charest)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: How many "Macs" do you see doing important work?
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:07:16 GMT
Organization: Universite de Montreal

> Even putting all else to the side, one has to admit the IBM are the INDUSTRY
> standard control device.  How many major factories, power plants and process
> control systems do you see macintoshes tied to ..
>
> ALMOST NONE.

Hey, Buddy! what do you think about that;
the big particles accelerator at Fermi Lab is entirely controled by a couple of
Mac II !...
From: yjc@po.cwru.edu (Jerome Chan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs Mac
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Date: 28 Sep 1992 02:26:41 GMT
Organization: The Tofu Society of Singapore
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: b61539.student.cwru.edu

In article <1686FF389.UC525655@mizzou1.missouri.edu>,
UC525655@mizzou1.missouri.edu (Mark Eaton) wrote:
>  
> command-option-escape in sys7...
>  

This doesn't always work. Sometimes typing Cmd-Opt-Esc kills the system.
It's very dependant on what each particular application is doing at the
moment.

---
 The Evil Tofu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A)
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Organization: University of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 17:29:31 GMT

In article <meharg.716925402@sfu.ca> meharg@fraser.sfu.ca (Gersham William Meharg) writes:
>Ive just read a message where another person has said that a CLI
>is faster than the Mac Interface for some things.
>
>What things?
>
>What would you do on your CLI that a user of similar experience
>couldn't do as fast or faster on a Macintosh?
>
>A click is faster than typing a word... maybe these people cant
>use a mouse?

On my PC, 'move *.mod' moves all the soud modules up a level.  FAST.

How easy is it to move dozens of files this way via GUI/mouse?

>


--
*Dan Stephenson   das9674@usl.edu  
*
* "To conquer death, you only have to die,..."                   
*                             -Jesus , from _Jesus Christ Superstar_
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: johnsd2@lib106.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: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 23:49:53 GMT

In article <1992Oct01.113803.11359@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|> In article <ydkz3z#@rpi.edu> johnsd2@rpi.edu writes:
|> > IMHO, your subordinate doesn't speak English. He speaks a limited
|> > pidgeon of swahili, with occasionaly English words thrown in. The
|> > gramar is minimal, and primitive where it does exist, the vocabular
|> > is near zilch. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to point the dude
|> > in the right direction? [ie, gesture?] Perhaps if you happened,
|> > just be chance, to have picture of a cup o' coffee lying around
|> > (now how'd that get there?)....
|> 
|> Fine, except he gets the coffee from room 221-A, and you'd rather have him g
|> to the third floor machine in 332-G because they clean their coffee maker
|> more often.

No he don't. He knows a clean coffee maker from a dirty one. Where
are you getting this?

The Macintosh will open a program with any app you want, or choose
for you if you like (it just picks the creator)

|> If he couldn't learn English, I'd fire him or learn pidgin.

Fire him:	Do wo/ a computer. Fine, if you like. Many people do this.
Learn Pidgin:	You can do this, but pidgin is limited and awkward.
		this seems to be what you hve done.

-- 
			- 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: coolidge@sirius.aux.apple.com (John L. Coolidge)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: IBM SUCKS!
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:27:37 GMT
Reply-To: coolidge@apple.com
Organization: Open Systems Development, Porting&I/O Group, Apple Computer, Inc.

tomster@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble) writes:
>In article <6051.2ac3aa51@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
>   And that was a few years ago, before the introduction of lower cost Macs.
>   While PC hardware has gotten even cheaper, those maintainence and training
>   costs haven't!

>I beg to differ.  Have you bought and/or maintained a pc built in the last
>year or so, Mr. Apple Spokeman?  It is quite difficult to get a machine which
>will break on you.  Open up a brand new machine -- even a 286 -- and compare
>it to a standard computer of three years ago.  Note the difference in
>structural as well as component integrity.

It's quite difficult to _not_ get a machine which will break on you in
the PC world; that's why one-day service is such a major selling
point. AST and Dell, who are both known as both price- and quality-
leaders in the PC-clone world, have return rates greater than 60%
(yes, that's not a misprint. Well over half the machines they ship are
DOA). Compaq's are about 40%. Most screwdriver shops actually have
lower failure rates (apparently 10% is common) since they do more
burn-in testing (less volume), but a much higher short-term failure
rate.

Note that I'm not actually contradicting Mr. Dibble's claim that the
machines now are better made than they were three years ago, or that
they have pretty good structural and component integrity. The cases
are usually pretty solid, and I very rarely see components that are
actually smashed into little pieces. However, the components are also
usually cheap parts with low tolerances and high failure rates. The
system integration tends to be pretty poor (insert tab A into slot B,
and just write off the ones were tab A breaks off in slot B).

My friends who have PC-compatibles (virtually any vendor, though I
don't know any IBM owners) all seem to have major hardware failures
on a fairly regular basis. I've owned three Macs; the only hardware
failure I've had was a dead floppy on my PB140 (Apple's not perfect
either, folks -- this one is pretty common). Experience with campus
computer labs I've been around is similar -- usually about 10-20% of
the PCs are toast at any given time. It's rare for even a single Mac
to be down.

--John

	"Character is what you are in the dark."
		-- Dr. Emilio Lizardo, _Buckaroo_Banzai_

+++John L. Coolidge++++++++++++++++coolidge@apple.com+++++++++++++++++++++++
I speak for myself, not for Apple Computer. Copyright 1992 John L. Coolidge.
Copying allowed only if attributed, and if all copies may be further copied.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: "Marc VanHeyningen" <mvanheyn@mango.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
X-Quoted: 12%
Reply-To: mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu
Organization: Computer Science Dept, Indiana University
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 00:49:24 -0500

Thus said ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright):
>In <TOMSTER.92Sep27210027@bigwpi.WPI.EDU> tomster@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble) writes:
>
>>A non-ASCII .txt file?  Whoever created that should be shot!  
>
>Well, we could start with IBM, then.  Have you ever heard of EBSDIC?

No.  What is EBSDIC?

Is it related to EBCDIC in some way?

It it related to the issue of .txt files in UN*X in any way?

Is it related to the issue of whether Macs suck in any way?

Or is it just the millionth example of a lame pedantic argument in a
thread full of them, mostly hurled by one person?

\begin{not-to-be-taken-seriously}
Suppose you are addressing a subordinate in how to do something you want
done.  You are in a hurry, and want to express the idea quickly.  Which
of the following two subordinates is more valuable to you in this
situation:

- The one who takes a pithy textual description of the task and performs
  it immediately.  "Get coffee from 332-G."
- The one who requests you express the task to be done by playing
  charades, making particular movements to represent "go to room",
  selecting the room 332-G from a lengthy list, making gestures indicating
  that "coffee" is the thing you want him to get (or perhaps pointing to
  a little picture of coffee on a poster of lots of different items.)

The only time you might consider using the second method of
communication is if your subordinate only speaks Swahili and you can't
address him in his language.

Thus, by analogy, Mac-like GUIs appeal mostly to people who can't or
won't learn the computer's language.
\end{not-to-be-taken-seriously}
-- 
Marc VanHeyningen     mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu     MIME accepted


The number of millionares in the U.S. has increased fourteen fold since 1980.
From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:02:52 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 <strobl.717622336@gmd.de> strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:

>That is, a dialog box saying

>    Now deleting file 723 of 1324,
>    Now deleting file 817 of 1324,
>    Now deleting ... 
>and so on, with a big ABORT button is a solution to that 
>and similar problems?

>I doubt it.

A dialog that tells you what is about to happen, contains
an icon signifying a dangerous operation, and contains a button
you must choose *before* the operation can commence is a pretty
good solution.

Furthermore, Macintosh programs do not have "abort" buttons
because the Macintosh interface guidelines prohibit using
this word in software.  The button says "cancel" instead.
If you believe this is a minor interface issue, I will gladly
find you a couple of pro-choice and pro-life activists who 
you can "calmly" discuss it with.
From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: When is a CLI faster than a GUI?
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:08:58 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <1992Oct01.114158.11450@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <ewright.717800868@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>> People make mistakes.  CLIs make it easy to make mistakes.
> 
> If you make it hard to do stupid things, you make it hard to do clever things.

This proposition is false. It would only be true if stupid == clever, which
is clearly not the case.

There's no reason why you can't prevent stupid things, while retaining the
ability to do clever things.

I believe I see the emotionalism you decried just a few messages ago creeping
in.

-- 
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: parvin1@husc10.harvard.edu (Douglas Parvin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: How many "Macs" do you see doing important work?
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:13:50 GMT

I've interned in several publishing houses, and Macs are the standard in all
of them.
-- 
===========================================================================
Douglas Parvin
parvin1@husc.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Macintosh emulation on Amiga
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1992 01:29:00 GMT

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!
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   "Segodnja volka obnimal?"
  'U`