From: rankin@ms.uky.edu (David W. Rankin Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: "Why I hate System 7..."
Date: 29 Sep 92 20:04:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: ms.1992Sep29.160414.10085
    <sulkanen.717773444@xanth>
Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences

In article <sulkanen.717773444@xanth> sulkanen@xanth.msfc.nasa.gov (Martin Sulkanen - NRC/ES65) writes:
>I find most of what sys 7 adds to 6.0.x useless, or trivial inclusions
>of capabilities that were available from third party software (eg. new apple 
I call System 7's higher stability a prime feature. I've had < 5 major crashes
on my Mac (i.e. non-recoverable) before except for the ones I've caused 
myself (like putting together the most helacious combinations of extensions,
cdevs and programs ever imagined). Better than 6, which seemed to go down
a heck of a lot more.... (course, my luck might come from not being able to
afford Micro$oft programs. ;)

>menu = on cue, but with less capability). And the my 5MB IIsi is actually only
>a 2.7MB machine (this should be a danger flag when the system requirements 
>*halve* the available memory for a system with a reasonable amount of memory).
I have a 5MB IIsi, keep it in 8bit color mode, and my system is at 1.3~1.5 M,
depending on what's going on at the time. I don't run lots of extensions or
keep fonts though.

>But then again with sys 7 I can do important things like make my hard disk
>icon look like Curly Howard. Now a *real* improvement in the OS would be 
>to make it truly (preemptively) multitasking, but apple isn't interested 
>in doing that. They have a kilobuck OS out there to do that, A/UX.  But then 
>OS/2 is only $50 bucks...hmm...time to post to comp.sys.mac.dump! I would 
>like to see two things from a new mac OS: (i) premptive multitasking 
>without the pain of unix (come on, this is 1992)
Ever seen a beta of Maple running loose on a NeXT?? It happens in our
NeXT lab a lot, and pre-emptive multi-tasking or not, that NeXT still
slows down. IMHO, no matter the OS, when you run a bad program, you'll
suffer, whether it be time hogging, memory hogging, or what. The Mac is
no more succeptable here than ay other machine.
>                     and/or (ii) much less 
>memory used (not suggestions on the net about how to strip stuff to save 300K).
Take a gander at SunOS 4.0 or NeXTStep's memory usage sometimes. They don't
come close to 2 megs... And Windows NT is rumored to require 8 megs before you
have a decent amount of working memory....
>
>
>|_________________________________________________________________|
>| martin sulkanen      ][ internet: sulkanen@xanth.msfc.nasa.gov  |
>| es 65                ][ span:     ssl::sulkanen                 |
>| nasa/msfc            ][ voice:    205/544-5823     >>,--```;('> |
>| huntsville, al 35812 ][ institute for troutphysics              |
>|_________________________________________________________________|

David W. Rankin, Jr.,  Mac Archiver for f.ms.uky.edu   Yorick on IRC
rankin@ms.uky.edu  rankin@ukma.BITNET rankin@ukma.UUCP uunet!ukma!rankin
Alternate addresses: rankin@mik.uky.edu  djrank00@aix3090b.uky.edu
---<Insert standard "These are my thoughts, and only mine." disclaimer here>---
"Now all has been heard;/ Here is the conclusion of the matter:/ Fear God and
keep his commandments,/ for this is the whole duty of man."
    "The Teacher", Ecclesiastes 12:13 (NIV)