Subject: Re: Ease Of Use and Hardware Support (WAS: Linux Laptops)
From: Eric D. (liriodendron@mac.com)
Date: Thu Jan 10 2002 - 18:18:28 MST
on 9/3/02 21:24, Timothy A. Seufert at tas@mindspring.com wrote:
> Folks, if you ain't interested in increasingly trivial details, just
> hit whatever key your mail program uses for delete right now...
Same caveat applies.
> My MacOS X retail box, made long before the lawsuit was filed, is
> basically the same as the website. They give a list of systems MacOS
> X can run on and how much RAM and HD space it will need. That makes
> the claim roughly "seller guarantees the software will run on this
> config" while saying nothing about how many features are supported.
<snip>
> That's really what I was getting at; "requirements" or "minimum
> requirements" is such a common technique for avoiding liability that
> Apple's legal department is unlikely to ever allow phrasing like
> "fully supported" to be associated with any software product, purely
> on general principles. I don't know if it did happen -- but it seems
> unlikely. Lucky break for the class action if it did.
Regardless of the legal nuances, minimum requirements are only that.
Companies are in the business of making money, and, even though I'm not a
fan of unbridled capitalism or a believer in the Any Rand free market myth,
I do understand that pumping $$$ into supporting old hardware when your
competition doesn't do the same is tantamount to suicide.
>> Linux doesn't drop support for older hardware - MS doesn't drop support for
>> older hardware
>
> As for MS -- of course they drop support for old hardware. XP's
> minimum hardware requirements are pretty high. And it's quite
> interesting to note that XP's drivers for Rage II/II+/Pro support
> none of the chip's features beyond basic 2D acceleration -- same as
> MacOS X. So far as I can tell, neither ATI nor Microsoft plans to
> write better drivers in the future.
I can't speak to old hardware but XP is dropping support for old software
left-right-and-centre -- there are many apps which are saying Win 95/98 ONLY
or are even warning on the box: "Do not install this on XP". I got to
finally play with XP Home Edition (he had to re-install XP because
installing Easy CD-Creator 4 apparently took out his CD drivers... he could
no longer use either his CD-ROM or his CD-RW). It looks a bit better and
loads QUICKLY but underneath the hood, when push comes to shove, it still
reverts back to the ugly Win 9x-interface (and this was the "Luna" thingy...
he hadn't even set it to Win 9x). Plus, the user-unfriendly concepts are
still present (e.g. an app runs in a window, and the menu bar is not at the
top of the screen).
L8r
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Sun Mar 10 2002 - 18:33:03 MST