I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'

From: jpero_at_cgocable.net <(jpero_at_cgocable.net)>
Date: Sat May 6 16:37:57 2000

> From: "Richard Erlacher" <edick_at_idcomm.com>
> To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
> Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 17:37:46 -0600
> Reply-to: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org

> Please see embedded comment(s) below.
Ditto look at comments I made.

Wizard

>
> Dick
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: John Wilson <wilson_at_dbit.dbit.com>
> To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 10:36 AM
> Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'

snip

>
> >
> > Well that works out nicely for you, but for many of the rest of us, M$
> > products are designed to solve problems we don't have, and totally fail
> > to address the problems we *do* have. It's designed for the drooling
> > masses *only*, it's absolutely not good for normal utility use by nerds.
>
> That's because use by nerds is seldom normal.

Let me switch this comments around:

Nerds usually know what they doing correctly with common sense. The
people out in the wild usually breaks M$ stuff because it has too
much ways to happen.

Like Allison's comments about user space kept away from OSes and this
limits the blowups if a typical user make an miss is spot on.

Best devices are those very limited functions that does their
intended functions and no more. Examples: electronic reminder and
scheduler devices with personal data like birthdays, appts etc.
Another one that would do very well are web surfer, i-opener, email
devices such as Vtech w/modem built in and like for common users.

What is missing is real innvoative user-interface (ala i-opener
style) for office applications and hide the OS and be Untouchable.

win9x is more suitable for users who should know bit more clueful
with common sense to get help and not like "mmm, try this one?"
like Mr Simpson would do and push a button. Boom!

win9x, Unices, Vaxens, Linux is more of nerd's dormain and clueful
users who know better to call for help first if some kind of problems
becomes out of their depth understanding how to deal with it.

I find NT more of configuring and using without enough understanding
and things go bump in the night often, tons of BODs and kernel dumps.
I find this takes full understanding how hardware interacts with this
NT and use software drivers correctly to make sure it's reliable
enough. Also doing configurations in software especially in
networking stuff takes lot of understanding because I find reading
the wood ludicious especially without looking at whole picture why
OS or software barfed. Probs I find are: with hardware
mis-configuration and shoddy installation, 4/10 of that in software
or sloppily written drivers and/or software, 1/10th of that in true
hardware failures flaking out and low quality hardware parts or wrong
type used for given OS.

> > I recently installed Win98SE in the hope that it would be more reliable
> > for web browsing than Win98 was (on my machine, W98 was very flakey about
> > connecting to the net, and the video driver ignored my settings and always
> > ran in 640x480x16 mode), but the stupid thing has already locked up the
> > machine several times while sitting totally idle.

Check that "power management" and cooling, insure memory is good.
Even top of 1 grand dollars Diagnostic stuff aka the best of world
will not detect this. I know, because I fixed few times like this
and had to rely on softwares and good working hardware to cause DUT
to act up and alteratively turn off and on one settings in bios one
at a time to flush out the problem. Had to do that on a motherboard
using win9x and bunch of games, sound card. This problem finally
solved it by swapping out pair of soldered 512K pipelined cache
chips. When I turned off that faulty cache part in bios, everything
went plum and sweet, got even better when CORRECT part got replaced.

Even the unmanageable IRQs got shifted when I toggle certain parts in
bios menu. Many didn't realize the power of managing this by this
route.

> This is because you're not installing your video driver correctly. It often
> means you must delete the driver that appears in "Device Manager" before
> proceeding. This is often a problem when W9x knows about several versions
> of the same hardware. That's also why they refer to the common installation
> mode as "lug-n-pray." It defaults to the lowest common denominator. If you
> then install the driver precisely written for your version of the hardware
> in question, it will work fine. If you're off, even by one bit, your're
> stuck with the lowest common denominator, however.

Any hardware drivers not just for video no matter what. Once in
awhile drivers breaks or win 9x actually lost a soundcard, happened
to me few times before and two programs didn't give any errors other
than both refused to start which deepens the mystery till I check DM.

> I feel forced to point out that although the W9x isn't even near to being
> perfect, it's one heck of a lot better for the "average" home user than any
> version of *NIX or any other commercially offered OS. The half-day install
> for OS/2 (admittedly last attempted when OS/2 was new) would certainly
> discourage these "average" users. Moreover, Win9x wouldn't cost <$100 if it
> weren't for the fact that the "average" user buys a computer and the
> software he wants. Not only would Win9x not exist, but if it did exist in
> spite of the lack of home users, it would cost like VMS. The hardware would
> cost quite a bit more, too.
>

_at_100 bux is upgrade version for any 9x always. Ones that is true
version without buying a computer or certain items is over $300.
And another way is to buy whole new system which is too much for me.

That is why I'm angry at M$. And still running on 95a upgrade
version.

Wizard
Received on Sat May 06 2000 - 16:37:57 BST