From: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: PC and Mac OEs (was Re: 1 Thing Windows can do but OS/2 can't.)
Date: 31 Jul 92 09:55:56 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland

In article <bynm91f@lynx.unm.edu> jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth) writes:
>
>No, a five year old pc wouldn't be ready for the dust bin.  It is a very easy
>matter of opening up the box and slipping in an above-board 386 or a new
>motherboard.

Still be an expensive (compared to new) option. Speed choked by c 1987
motherboard/peripherals.

>Exactly, but since there are currently few makers of Mac clone computers and
>of hardware,  you have to pay much more to get one that says "for Macs" on it.
>(even though some of the components are identical or are different by a single
>connector).

Yes, but replacing PC's seems to happen more opten. Only a year of so back
a 286 was perfectly fine. Today it's a 386 or forget it. Most old Mac's
still trundle along fine.

>Why is the command/menu bar stuck at the top of the screen?  Why is it so
>drab looking?  Why can't you open the menu bar with the touch of a key
>(like the alt-key in Windows) and keep the menus open so that you can read
>them?  Why do most mice on public access Macs seem to not work well after
>a limited time when after the same time, the mice on pc's, Suns, X's, and
>Sparcs still work flawlessly?

Why does Window's menu's keep moving and there are multiple copies of them for
each open app/window. You can only use one App in the forground. All the
other App's Menu bars are a clutter/waste of space.

>I like it that way because most of my work is not editing existing files but
>is useful for creating new ones.  If I do need to edit a file, I usually
>launch the app by clicking on the file in the fileman, by launching the app
>and opening the file, or by editing the properties of the app to automagically
>load the file.  Very simple to do.

But totally seperate from Program Nanager. The 'normal' place to launch
App's.

>>the Mac. Many of the shortcuts are different to Word for Windows. Does MS
>>have a clue about look and feel !?).
>
>Yes, M.S. has a clue about look and feel.  They saw what people like about
>macs and the many things that they dislike.  They kept the features that 
>people like, and added many more that people want.  People don't want 
>dialog boxes that have plain rounded-corner rectangular buttons.  They
>really don't look like buttons at all. Instead, they want buttons that look
>like buttons.

Take a look at Excel 3 and Word 5 for the Mac. The 'hypertext' help systems.
Developed by seperate divisions and it looks like it. They have totally
different interaction styles and going between the two is VERY confusing.

Microsoft: Look and Feel still has a long way to go.

>We can go on forever listing all the problems with macs, but why waste the 
>bandwidth on already known and proven failures?  People use Windows/OS 2
>because they contain all the good parts of a mac's GUI without all the
>ugly, tedious parts.

One thing I would like on the Mac however, is a cli so you can quickly and
easily run a little baqckground task. Something like an X-Term in X Windows.
Some things work better this way. Window's sort of does, with the DOS box,
but that is excruciatingly slow.

Neil