hard-sector 5 1/4 disk

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Mon Nov 5 21:48:16 2001

see below, plz.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Ford" <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 5:09 PM
Subject: Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk


> >Well, I'd have to say that, since the performance and reliability haven't
> >improved since back in the '80's, the Apple was not designed for serious use,
> >but rather for use by those who didn't value and trust computers enough to
> >make
> >the investment in one that warranted the value and trust. Oddly enough,
> >it was
> >less costly to use a much more reliable system with a larger installed
> >software
> >based, targeted at small business, yet, thanks to the Apple myths, people
paid
> >15%-25% more with the idea that it would be easier to use, which, sadly, it
> >wasn't.
> >
> >More below.
> >
> >Dick
>
> I agree with your first sentence, indeed the performance and reliability
> haven't improved, but kindly explain how that is possible when you are
> number ONE to start with. PC clones barely last a few years in the school
> systems, five is OLD, ten years and its been lost in a warehouse. Working
> 15 year old Apple computers are routine in surplus, non working is actually
> rare at any age without physical damage.
>
It's only the Apple][ 5-1/4" disk subsystem that causes the problems. The
software abuses them considerably and the approach to error handling is so
primitive that one who goes strictly by the manuals has no chance of recovering
from a single-bit error. Most of the Apple products I've seen in the garbage
have been there because of failed FD systems. As I said before, once they were
equipped with an 8" controller, not that the media size had much to do with it,
but with a standard controller, capable of employing standard time-worn
methodology to the problems of providing disk storage for a small computer, they
seemed to be quite solid. It's just that Apple][ disk subsystem that causes the
heartburn.

PC Clones last just as long in the schools as anywhere else where there are
people smart enough to use them. Kids can't be expected to learn how to use
computers when teachers can't. You can't force the teachers to be smart enough
when they have no time to get smart. Even if it's not the "real" case, thats
how many of them preceive it, and that, combined with the vast number of
donations to the schools that Apple made in order to chum the market, easily
explains why teachers gravitate toward the Apple product. Once they have to buy
and maintain their own hardware, they quickly switch to PC's. Schools seem to
have a much easier time using clearly obsolete MAC's than equally obsolescent
PC's, but that's because they have to BUY the PC's, while they can get large
discounts on the PC's, with their suppliers relying on high volume in heavily
discounted sales of last year's MAC model to the teachers. It's possible
they've outgrown that, but buyers are still quite vulnerable to the appeal of
low price, even if what they end up with isn't as useful as something a little
more costly. That goes both ways, by the way.
>
> My personal experience with many many years of consulting supporting Apple
> products has shown them with few exceptions to be the most reliable and
> easiest to use machines. If somebody was foolish enough to buy the company
> computer at Sears, and bought some Performa and tried to run their business
> with the bundled lite versions of software, they have my sympathy.
>
What's a Performa?
>
> Yes indeed the Apple GUI sadly has failed. It is merely conincidental that
> all the PC users have paid a couple hundred bucks every two years to
> attempt to copy it.
>
Actually, both Apple and M$ have copied the same model, hence the similarity.
If Apple had any claim at all to the GUI, they'd not have lost in court.

No. Only the dumb ones pay that. The rest of the PC users simply use the old
version that still works fine. The rate at which new OS versions are promoted
will slow, now that the market has reached saturation, and it won't be so easy
for M$ to motivate people to buy new versions of the software that doesn't work
any better than the previous version.
>
> Nothing new on this topic, just wintel propaganda.
>
Received on Mon Nov 05 2001 - 21:48:16 GMT