From: nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Date: 9 Oct 1992 09:26:47 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu

ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) writes:

[...]

>>>commonplace in the Mac market, and some Macs have this built in. I haven't
>>>seen the same for the PC market.

>>All the 24-bit video cards have Windows drivers, if they don't, they
>>can't expect to stay in business.

>But not all Windows drivers are compatible with all Windows programs.
>"Device independence" on PCs is a joke.  Even programs that don't *use*
>the video display, like network drivers, won't work with some video
>drivers and displays. 

I don't care what problems you had with your network driver, Device
Independent Graphics means one thing to me: it's a software implemen-
tation that lets you use the full capability of your video hardware 
with the appropriate device driver, nothing else.  If certain programs 
doesn't work with such driver, it doesn't mean Windows or OS/2 don't 
have DIG, it only means that such program (or the device driver) are 
poorly written.

>>>> HIG in IBM world is CUA (Common User Access), current spec is CUA 92.
>>>A) is it any good? and B) is anything written to support it)
>>Good?  That's a very subjective term, each person has his/her own tastes
>>and opinions, I personally think it's quite intuitive, your milage may
>>vary.  

>Yeah, well, you see, that's the problem.  Everyone in the PC world
>thinks that human factors issues are entirely subjective, each
>person has his/her own tastes and opinions, it's simply a matter
>of aesthetics, etc., etc., etc. 

Right, all Mac users are sheeps and they simply follow the herd.

>>Specific hardware?  Not necessarily, you can run multimedia apps with
>>existing hardware, even digitized sound from the internal speaker/
>>beeper.  

>You can play digitized sound using hardware that can't synthesize
>waveforms and can only play a single note of fixed duration?  You
>really haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about here,
>have you?

Oh realllllly????  Boy I'm going to enjoy this.  It is you, Edward V.
Wright, who doesn't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about,
ftp to ftp.cica.indiana.edu, go to directory /pub/pc/win3/sounds, get
the file speak.exe, any idea what this file is for?  If you don't know,
why don't you download it and see what it is, instead of spreading non-
sense here and accusing me of being ignorant.

There're also plenty of MS-DOS programs that will play digitized sound
on the internal speaker, using variable-rate pulse-width modulation.  
I did a grep on the index file of directory /mirrors/msdos/sound on 
wuarchive.wustl.edu, look what showed up:

...
MP219B.ZIP    B  160264  920526  Play Amiga Protracker on D/A, SB, speaker
NUSND102.ZIP  B  223104  920930  Plays .WAV sound files through PC speaker
PCTALK21.ZIP  B  139748  920312  Digitized speech/music on PC speaker. DEMO
REMAC.ZIP     B  114453  900913  Plays Macintosh sound files through PC speaker
REPLA101.ZIP  B  137100  900311  Plays 8bit digital sampled audio files on spkr
SOUND.ZIP     B   21174  920312  Plays .VOC, .SND & .AU files thru PC speaker
...

By the way, Edward, why do you have to use such abrasive tones in 
these discussions?  I don't think I've said anything provocative in my
original post to deserve your insults.  If I'm wrong, then tell me I'm
wrong, you don't have to make some comment about the other person's 
intelligence to get your point across.  My reply would be a lot more
polite if you'd extended the same courtesy to me.

You can't expect people to respect what you have to say if you continue
to act like an abusive jerk, even if what you say is true, not to
mention when it's not (as in this case).

>           This is just as silly as the time you told me that two
>PC sound boards produced files that were 100% compatible, despite
>the fact that one was an 8-bit digitizer and the other 16-bit. 

Tsk, tsk, tsk, trying to resume our old conversation?  Unfortunenately
you seem to have a little memory lapse.  Let me help refresh your
memory: 

A few month ago there was a discussion on c.s.mac.misc named "Macs cost
too much", which seemed to last for months (more like years), anyone
remember that one?  During this discussion, someone brought up the
subject of standard audio hardware on the Mac, to which Andrew Ross 
(ajross@husc9.harvard.edu) replied:

"O.K., fine, tack on ~$230 for a PAS-16 sound card... Or just cut corners 
 and shell out $80 at Egghead for a Thunderboard (Soundblaster clone).  It's 
 sound quality is on par with the Mac's (i.e. not worth the 80 bucks), but it 
 IS cheap."

And you replied on c.s.mac.misc:

"Let's keep in mind, of course, that the PAS-16 is incompatible with
 the Thunderboard, which is incompatible with the FooSoundBoard, etc..."

Now, it's apparent you've never used either the PAS-16 or the Thunder-
board, how you came to the conclusion that they're incompatible with
each other (they are not) is beyond my comprehension, so I sent you mail
to correct you:

"The PAS-16 is compatible with the Thunderboard, they both come from the
 same company, after all.  PAS-16 is also compatible with the SoundBlaster,
 and SoundBlaster Pro, the de facto PC sound standard."

And in an email reply (which I won't post), you still won't admit you're
wrong, and I just kind of shrugged it off.

And now you insinuate that I said something to the effect that these two
sound cards "produced files that were 100% compatible", I didn't.  But I
did say that the PAS-16 (16-bit sampling) is compatible with the 
Thunderboard (8-bit sampling), not vise versa, meaning the PAS-16 can do
everything the Thunderboard can do.  Don't twist my words, I've got
everything on record here.

>>Bill, you keep saying that features like preemptive MT have negligible
>>benefit to the user and therefore are a nonfactors, I disagree, maybe
>>users are just not aware of the potential of preemptive MT, 

>Or maybe they are aware of what a dog preemptive multitasking
>really is.

[...]

>>As to the benefit of memory protection, I think lots of Mac users here 
>>would disagree with you.

>I don't think someone who apparently knows so little about the
>Mac should speak for Mac users.

Can't resist slipping a little cheap shot in there, can you?  When did I
presume to speak for all Mac users?  I just made a comment based on my
observation of other Mac users' postings, Daniel Johnson, Douglous
Floyd, and a few others have all stated they want memory protection.

[...]

>The real solution to program crashes is not memory protection.
>It's for programmers to write applications that don't crash.

We've gone through this in email before and I really don't feel like
going through it again.  If you think preemptive MT and MP is useless,
fine, just don't change your mind when the microkernel from Apple 
comes out that has MP and preemptive instead of cooperative MT.

-- Nan