please see my remarks embedded below.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Pechter <pechter_at_pechter.dyndns.org>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
> > Almost on the mark, but see my remarks below.
> >
> > Dick
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith_at_earthlink.net>
> > To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 12:12 AM
> > Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
> >
> >
> > All the talk about the browser market is a red herring. Internet
Explorer
> > was never a product separate from Windows.
>
> Wrong.,. It was in the 95 PLUS pack an add on product I spent extra
> for. IE2 really sucked. It was basically a badly reworked Mosaic.
> The v3 product was pretty good... however.
>
The Netscape version of the time openly credited its origins to MOSAIC,
which, by the way worked OK, too, but, like Netscape, required a WINSOCK be
provided.
>
> > It was a part of the OS utility package called PLUS!
>
> Yup. Which was SEPERATE from Win95 and not available for download until
> Netscape was taking off and Bill Gates had the internet epiphany..,
>
Now, isn't that what I previously wrote, that it was on the PLUS! disk?
None of the applications and utilities on the PLUS disk worked anywhere
other than under '95, so I doubt you'd classify them as separate
applications. The wouldn't even run under the '95 beta versions I had. The
utilities on the PLUS! disk weren't ready for publication until the OS was
released, while the OS had probably been put off three months waiting for
the utilities. Aside from IE, the System Agent was and is probably the most
important feature. Drivespace3 is another feature that wasn't ready until
the last minute. Both of the latter two are pretty handy.
I'd had Netscape almost a year before the official release of Win95. Of
course, I'd also had IE, but that didn't work particularly well, since there
wasn't much interest in it at the time. The Netscape was for Win3.1 with
the Win32S extensions. Of course, back then, only a few of the available
ISP's supported PPP and SLIP, while most allowed shell access only. If you
wanted to surf the few sites on the web, you could do that via LYNX or, if
your provided would allow it, you could use ICOMM, which worked from the
shell. Neither NETSCAPE nor IE were as convenient as the NETCOM browser,
NETCRUISER, which was pretty well debugged and almost convenient to use.
The IE of the time would run on some Win95 beta versions, but it was ready
for prime time much later than the OS was. Nevertheless, the two were
released at more or less the same time. The IE for Win3.1x was released
about a half-year later.
>
> > Internet Explorer always was a part of the Windows 9x package.
Netscape,
> > OTOH, was a commercial product intended for sale, but initially offered
> > gratis to individual users.
>
> Nope, it was only 3.x of IE that was a download.
>
> > HOWEVER . . . they did have to purchase the
> > WINSOCK from a third party, i.e. Trumpet, in most cases. This was never
the
> > case with Internet explorer.
>
> Nope Winsock and Networking was a direct part of Win95, WinNT etc.
> It was an addon to Win3.1. Most of us used Trumpet until the IE3
> package added all the goodies.
>
I believe you've confused the two products to which I referred. NETSCAPE is
the one that was a free download and for which you needed the third-party
WINSOCK.
IE was always complete and working. And v3.01 was on the PLUS! CD. Release
3.1 was a download as were all the subsequent releases.
>
> > Only after Internet Explorer became as popular
> > as it did under '95 did Microsoft release the "made for WIndows 3.1x"
> > version, also at no charge, but complete with its own WINSOCK and the
32-bit
> > runtime libraries it needed for operation under the 16-bit OS.
>
> Yup The Win9x version was about 6 months to a year ahead of the Win9x
> version.
>
What?
>
> >
> > In the meantime, IBM had acquired LOTUS, primarily in order to take over
the
> > Lotus Notes program. With the spread of Netscape, people found that
> > Netscape would replace Lotus Notes quite easily, hence IBM quickly
acquired
> > them, only to distance themselves from it later, in order to APPEAR to
be an
> > outsider to the conflict which I'm quite certain they actually scripted,
and
> > which is now being played out in the courts.
>
> Well, they rather quickly realised Notes Servers needed web
> accessibility so Domino became a hot upgrade to Notes Server and Client.
>
> >
> > Unfortunately, there does appear to be evidence that MS overreached its
> > rightful position in the industry, giving their applications developers
an
> > advantage by giving them information they didn't publish as part of the
> > standard API. That was an anticompetitive act, and should be reversed
in
> > some way.
>
> Yup.
> >
> > Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am
not
> > among them, however, because, at least for now, MS is the only
organization
> > capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate application
> > software that pretty much functions as it should within the framework of
> > this extremely complex OS.
> >
>
> Believe me, I think the appllications could be done by hundreds of
> companies -- if the MS apps folks were divorced of early access to the
> API's the lead MS got over everyone else would dissapear.
>
Out of all the applications I saw, for Win3.1x and for '95, only one or two
that I saw worked at all well, with the exception of those put out by
Microsoft. I simply disposed of WordPerfect once I saw their Windows
version. AmiPro, though better than WordPerfect for WIndows, was obviously
not up to what WinWord v2.0 was. Only a few vendors, notably Corel and the
guys who made Procomm Plus for WIndows, particularly v1.0 seemed to have a
real grasp of how to build Windows applications that really worked. Corel
apparently hasn't forgotten how, but I doubt their attempt to revive
WordPerfect will last.
>
> > Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously doubt, it's unlikely
> > anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if
the
> > same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS'
practices
> > monopolistic or anticompetitive. If the complete source code for
Windows is
> > to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone who wishes
to
> > write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding that the code
be
> > released only to companies who, including all their employees as
> > individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from
participating
> > in the production of any operating system which might be used as a
> > competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers, utilities,
or
> > ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
>
>
> Actually, if there was a GUI like the IBM Workplace Shell from OS/2
> available on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc there could be some
> competitive apps. Right now I'm watching Koffice and the KDE stuff and
> really enjoying WordPerfect Office 2000 on Linux.
>
>
> > If they're to "fix" this thing in a permanent way, then they will have
to
> > legislate a solution which would require that no person involved in the
> > development of any major software product be permitted to communicate
with
> > anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
> > except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than
five
> > years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt that
> > will happen.
> >
>
> Nope. Make the OS vendor, the Tooks vendor and the Desktop apps vendor
> diferent companies and let the fun begin.
>
Tooks?
>
> I bet there would be an MS Office for Unix in about 6 months.
> I also think they would see Borland tools back in the windows area
> if they had the same API info as the Visual-whatever folks.
>
You really believe MS would waste its time producing Office for UNIX?
That's rather a small market. Of course, since they already have all the
code . . .
>
> IBM's stuff might even expand their toolsets even further.
>
> Bill
>
> --
> bpechter_at_monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
> | Linux: Where do you want to go
tomorrow?
> | BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
>
Received on Sun May 07 2000 - 20:42:38 BST