From: tomster@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Trepidations of a potential mac-user
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:11:46
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609-2280
	<1992Sep16.165722.16334@gvl.unisys.com>
	<1992Sep16.201201.26307@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
	<lbiq0hINNjlk@bovina.cs.utexas.edu> <19cqdiINNm47@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>
	<5999.2abd9a83@hayes.com> <TOMSTER.92Sep23112307@wpi.wpi.edu>
	<6029.2ac1cd3b@hayes.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu
In-reply-to: bcoleman@hayes.com's message of 24 Sep 92 14:14:19 EDT

In article <6029.2ac1cd3b@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

   In article <TOMSTER.92Sep23112307@wpi.WPI.EDU>, tomster@wpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble) writes:
   > In article <5999.2abd9a83@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
   > 
   >    In article <19cqdiINNm47@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>, nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) writes:
   >    > Must be the same kind of people who think the PCs are still running
   >    > MS-DOS.
   > 
   >    Oddly enough, the majority of people are.
   > 
   > 'The majority of people' OWN dos.  That doesn't mean they USE it.  In fact,
   > 'The majority of people' DON'T use it, at least, not straight. For instance,
   > I use 4-Dos, which is a marked improvement on MS's command interpreter.  'nan'
   > uses OS/2, which is a complete replacement for MS-DOS and all its fumblings.
   > I would be willing to bet that nan, too, OWNS ms-dos.  It came with his
   > computer, most likely.

   In order not to use DOS, you have to have either OS/2 or a Unix variant. If
   you are running 4-DOS, you have replaced the command interpreter, but the
   DOS operating system is still there. Same for Windows, it runs over DOS.

Which is exactly what I just said.  Most people don't use *straight* DOS.

Most of the complaints I have seen regarding DOS (not hardware itself) can
be repaired by utilizing a different command shell.  The main complaints are
as follows:
	1)  'I just spent hours typing in that command line, misspelled one
		word, and now have to start all over again!'  First, this
		doesn't happen as often as you'd like to think.  Somebody
		(was that YOU Bill?) a few days ago estimated that this
		happens one out of every ten times.  In order for that to
		happen, however, the typist would have to be particularly
		inept, an assumption I am unwilling to accept without proof.
		In other words, once you've typed in a few lines you start
		to recognize a typo immediately, before you've pressed 'Enter'.
		4-DOS, however, does have a quick and easy remedy for this.
		Press up-arrow, then edit the command line just as you would
		in your favorite word processor.
	2)  'I don't like having to retype commands ...'  Command History nixes
		this complaint.  Press up-arrow to scroll through the previous
		commands, or, if that is too tiresome, narrow down the history
		recall by typing in the first few letters of the command you
		trying to repeat, then start pressing the up-arrow.  If you
		don't like typing in file names, press <Tab> to cycle through
		the files matching what you have already typed.
	3)  'I can't provide a sufficient description of my files in only eight
		letters.'  Great.  You shouldn't.  Type 'describe' and add
		a description to any file you want.  40 chars max, of course.
	4)  'I don't know where to begin <copying, editting, etc>'  Press
		F1 for sytem help.  The help system is more than adequate
		if not almost intuitive.

   Now, the installed base of IBM PC type equipment is estimated at 80 million.
   Let's assume that half of them are still in use. Of that 40 million, I'll be
   generous and say that 2 million are running OS/2. I'll be even more generous
   and say that three times that many are running Unix. That leaves 32 million
   running DOS. That's a vast majority.

Again, you missed my point.  *Straight* DOS.  As in, Made By MicroSoft.  4-DOS
is significant enough of an improvement to be seperated from DOS, as is Windows
(though I would definitely prefer one of those two over the other, both are
better than straigh DOS).  Hell, if we wanted to, there are a dozen 'shells'
out there (not including DosShell, which is just a PoC), like Norton Commander,
X-Tree, whatever you prefer.  These also fix many of the problems associated
with DOS.
Not including those, however, you will find that Windows + 4-DOS + OS/2 (last
time I checked it had gotten beyond the 2million mark) + Unix is significantly
larger than DOS alone.  DOS may have the plurality here, but *not* the
majority.

   Just adding utilities or command interpreters or even a graphic shell doesn't
   change the fact that there is DOS running underneath. The user is still
   fraught with the stupid DOS limitations.

Granted, but many of those 'stupid limitations' (most of them related to
backwards-compatibility, a thing the Mac is somewhat free of for the time
being) are aleviated if not annihilated altogether by these 'shells'.

Perhaps this is why they are so popular?

   >    >>-"double-click" a document to open, no matter where the app is on the disk
   >    > 
   >    > I can do this too, take a guess, what OS am I using?
   > 
   >    Oh? Can you move the application to another place and have the OS find
   >    it? What about moving it to another (mounted) disk?
   > 
   > Even in DOS, I can set a path which spans all my directories and drives.
   > That would be the same effect as what you are saying about the finder.

(The above was meant as a ldicrous statement, not to be taken seriously.  I
will now add the smileys for the humor impaired:   :->  :->  )

   While this is true, it falls short of the finder in two important ways. First,
   if you had any sort of removable media (diskettes, CD-ROMs, optical disks,
   network disks), you'd have to modify your path to search these volumes. Every
   time you changed one out, you'd have a lot of path modifying to do. Ditto for
   any creation of any directory on any drive. Sounds like a lot of hassle. Not
   to mention the fact that having diskette drives in your search path would
   really slow things down, especially when the machine doesn't have the sense
   to know there isn't a disk in the drive.

Which brings up an interesting point.  What is the benifit in having to eject
the disk on the screen with a mouse rather than with your hand.  I have often
been told that it is so you don't take the disk out while the drive is reading
or writing from it, but this is an extremely lame reason.  We Cloners can
figure out that when the light is on, the drive is busy.  I normally wouldn't
really care about this, but I have so far, in my limited Mac usage, had three
seperate disks gotten stuck in three seperate Macs (one of which was brand new)
here at school.  I can think of nothing more inconvenient than the stupid
little drill-hole provided beside the drive bay.

BTW, when I need to eject a floppy disk, my hand is going to travel to the
drive bay anyways, whether the computer popped the disk out or I have to press
a button (oh, such labor!).  I don't see any time or energy savings here.

   > Think about it.  People who use DOS have come up with tricks to get around
   > DOS's limitations.  They always will.  True, the limitations are bad, but
   > that's a problem in the OS, not in the platform.

   I've stated repeatedly that you cannot separate the hardware from the software.
   The two are inseperable. Hardware is just so much silicon space heater without 
   software. Software won't run without hardware. It is the combination that 
   makes a computer useful, not one or the other.

But on systems such as the one *I* use, outside companies can -- and have, and
*will* -- produce different os's which put DOS to shame.  Think os/2.  Think
Windows NT.  Granted, IBM and Microsoft are hardly 'outside companies', but
they are also hardly the same entity, as Mac and Claris.  Competition, my
friend, is the *real* mother of invention.


   > But then, I wouldn't expect a Macoid to understand the benifits of competition.

   If you really feel this way, might I suggest that there's really no point
   in your continued reading of this group.

No, I don't really believe that *all* Mac users are beyond the help of modern
economics.  It just seems that way many times when I read this NG.

   -- 
   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.

		---- tomster@wpi.wpi.edu
--
/^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\
|  The bleeding hearts and the artists  \ /  Words of Wisdom, Inc.            |
|  make their stand.  And when they've  / \  Thomas R. Dibble, esquire, C.E.O.|
|  given you their all, some stagger &  \ /  aka, The Tomster, Tomahawk, etc. |
|  fall,  after  all,  it's not  easy,  / \  send mail/ money to:             |
|  banging your heart against some mad  \ /  tomster@wpi.wpi.edu              |
|  bugger's wall. ---R. Waters, _Wall_  / \  (or don't send it at all)        |
\vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv/