Subject: Re: MacOS X 10.1
From: ../randydog (yellowdog@randys.org)
Date: Fri Nov 09 2001 - 11:26:36 MST
this is the yellowdog list, right?
I don't get it. I ask a question pertinent to the list and no
one makes a peep. Some schmuck makes a comment about OS X and
here comes the peanut gallery. Can we please move this off the
list and move on to other, more pertinent, issues?
this is not a soap box, or a history class
On Friday, November 9, 2001, at 10:08 AM, nathan r. hruby wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Michael Giffin wrote:
>
>>
>> nnow, i have a question for Joe B:
>> i know little about Apple's systems pre-OSX, but was Apple's stuff at
>> such a competitive disadvantage against M$, given that the latter was
>> really DOS? my understanding was that Apple's main failure was in
>> marketing. Windows2000 is the only operating sys from M$ i would
>> use, especially if i never had to fix it when it breaks, yet they
>> dominated the world on on lousy GUIs slapped onto a weak and ancient
>> system. but i imagine i do not fully understand the situation.
>>
>
> Marketing and Licensing and Timing is what made Microsoft the
> giant it is
> today.
>
> Back in the 80's MSFT got a deal with IBM to ship DOS (aka: cp/m with
> hacks) on all of it's "personal computers." IBM didn't care,
> they thought
> PC's were not going anywhere and their cash flow came from Big Iron
> anyway.. so out shipped the IBM PC and others started to make clones.
> People wanted the same software to run, so they used MS-DOS.....
> (Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall theat MSFT had a
> stipulation in their contract with IBM that said all clones that were
> licensed through IDB also has to ship with MS-DOS, but I'm not sure if
> that's true or not.. I've never been able to confirm it) So
> the PC took
> off and it took DOS along for the ride. Bill Gates knew it would, and
> played IBM's disrespect for the PC maket to his advantage.
> After clones
> started becoming commonplace Microsoft began branding the DOS
> as MS-DOS,
> along with MS-Word, MS-Multiplan, etc... They kicked the
> marketing machine
> into high gear and made lots of folks belive that they needed DOS.
> granted at the time there weren't a host of other OS's to
> choose from for
> your x86 hardware. The 386 made a difference, and Quarterdeck's X
> implementation became popular with some.. but successive
> releases of DOS
> ensured that it wouldn't run. as well as their own DOS implementation.
>
> Enter Apple and the Mac. They drive PC's one step further. A
> GUI OS that
> runs on a machine the size of a large toaster with just the
> same amount of
> RAM as most PC's were shipping with (4MB). This pisses Bill off. He
> finds out where the GUI technology comes from (Xerox) and does
> the same,
> but Microsoft, now already loaded down with a legacy OS to
> support, can't
> just up and break every DOS application out there -- enter
> Windows, a GUI
> that runs atop DOS. Interesting, and similar to the way X
> works.... But
> now with the need to process more data to power the GUI, DOS can't keep
> up, so windows pretty much has to glue a whole new operation
> system ontop
> of DOS so that legacy apps still work. They do several revsions of
> windows, and by version 3 they finally get it right (and yes, I've used
> Windows-286).. sort of... there's still the legacy of DOS underneath
> win3.x, 95, 98 and ME. I think more that this is a testiment
> to DOS than
> of windows :) I have a $30k magnetic motion capture system
> sitting in a
> rack down the hall from me. What's it run? DOS-6.22. (why?
> 'casue you
> can pretty much use DOS as a el-cheapo embedded system on standard x86
> components..)
>
> But clearly, power users and folks running <gasp> NetWare
> servers wanted
> to run Windows on all their machines for *all* their tasks.
> Well, enter
> again, IBM. IBM and MSFT make an agreement to create "the next
> generation
> operating system" after about a year this falls apart. IBM
> comes up with
> OS/2 and MSFT creates WindowsNT. Market market market.. nd you
> know the
> rest.
>
> A great deal of why MSFT is so big is beacuse most people (who
> aren't CS
> majors) just don't know about anything else, and when presented with
> something like Linux, Darwin, FreeBSD.. well they don't know it
> and it's
> scary. No one wants to be scared, right? No one wants to re-learn a
> whole new OS, right? So like dutiful sheep tens on millions of
> people go
> out and buy Microsoft products becasue it's the path of least
> resistnace.
> MSFt go into the right market at the right time and blinded
> enough people
> for long enough that they could entrench themselves into the PC
> market so
> well that it would take an act of god to remove them (and as
> we're seeing
> now.. an act of Congress, just won't cut it :)
>
> -n.. wowsa... I'm a ranty little mofo today :)
>
> --
> ......
> nathan hruby - nhruby@arches.uga.edu
> computer support specialist
> department of drama and theatre
> http://www.drama.uga.edu/
> ......
>
>
-- randy
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