WARNING: RANTING COMPUTER NUT...

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Tue Jun 15 12:07:50 2004

Rumor has it that David V. Corbin may have mentioned these words:
>
>Fair warning, the following message contains the ratings of a single
>individual.

Danger, Will Robinson!!! ;-)

>As shown by the above quote, there is a strong anti "PeeCee" bias by many
>here. While I completely agree that there are significant *problems* with
>both the hardware and (Windoze) software, I do believe that the more extreme
>views are off base.

*Everything* extreme is off-base to someone (quite often to a large
installed base of someones!)

That's human nature. (BTW, I'm not denigrating or disagreeing with what you
stated -- I'm reinforcing it.)

>IF the computer industry had remained with a large number of completely
>different hardware/software environments which required trained operators
>for even the most basic operations, then computing would not have become a
>household commodity.

I disagree. I do think it would have been more difficult, but it by no
means would have been impossible.

> Even neglecting price, consider the concept of everyone
>having a [fill in the machine of your choice] in their home, at school (even
>at the lower grade levels or preschools!], and in all of the other locations
>where it is common to find computer access.
>
>Standardization of both hardware and software HAD TO HAPPEN, if computers
>were to become the commodity they are today.

Noper -- look at game consoles. Granted, some are a bit more popular than
others, but there are still 3 main (and mainstream) platforms to choose
from, all of which are incompatible with each other (and sometimes with
themselves! ;-) ).

>IBM/Intel had the technology, manpower, and finances to create a platform
>that was (reasonably) affordable

and the tech, manpower & most importantly finances to jam said inferior
platform down everyone's throat. From IBM, it was by no means even
reasonably affordable. (When I worked for GM/EDS on "da big iron" I was
vacillating between purchasing an IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 w/30Meg HD and a
<mumble> Color Macintosh <mumble>[1] -- neither of which I could afford,
even on GM's plans. I bought a 386SX16 clone with 2x memory, 2x HD, better
video, better monitor (which was actually OEMmed by IBM anyway, believe it
or not) at .5x the price.)

That's why Goatway, Hewlett Putrid & Hell computers are king, not IBM.
(Compaq used to be king... where are they now?)

When IBM said "You buy our PCs for your company, or you'll lose the lease
for that IBM 3090..." What do you think those companies did?

>, and significantly exceeded the
>capabilities of the current generation of "personal" computers.

That clone I purchased above, I bought for 1 reason: Games. It was an $1800
Nintendo. When I wanted to do *real* work, I sparked up my CoCo, as I could
do more work in less time under OS-9. In 512K, sans HD, on a <2Mhz CPU, I
could run a telecommunication software in one window, my spreadsheet in a
second, word processor in a 3rd, Basic09 in a fourth, keep one window just
at the prompt in case I needed it, and *still* had room for a 200K
RamDrive. I didn't have a snowballs chance in Hades of doing *anything*
like that with my IBM.

>Bill Gates had the opportunity to develop an operating system [MS-DOS]

Erm, it's well known he *bought* that. He did *not* develop it. The last
thing BG worked on himself was the OS for the Tandy Model 'T' (Kyocera
OEMmed) series of laptops. And that was back when Micro$haft still knew how
to make decent software, instead of buy crap & selling it to IBM.

>[snippety]
>So does the PC Hardware Platform have some serious shortcomings? YES
>Could a machine be build with significant technology advantages over a PC
>architecture? YES
>Does Windows have some real technology problems? DEFINITELY
>Is the current pricing/licensing model out of line? DEPENDS IF YOU ARE A
>VENDOR OR CUSTOMER <g>

Yea, and judging from *my* margins, you're one helluva lot better of if
you're a customer instead of a vendor... Unless you're name's Michael Dell,
you won't get rich selling PCs in your hometown anymore...

>Even with these issues, lets face the facts Windows/PC is going to be around
>[and dominant] in most business and personal environments for a significant
>period of time, unless something RADICAL happens on the technology level
>[Bio-Neural-Networks come to mind]. So lets stop the bashing, and just LEARN
>TO DEAL WITH IT!

Gee, thanks for yelling. Just when I thought you were going to keep a
logical, professional slant to your (up until now) well-thought-out missive.

Sad, really.

Regards,
Roger Merchberger

[1] I'm not denigrating said Macs -- I *really* wanted one. I just don't
remember the model #s I was looking at buying - hence the <mumble>.

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | "Profile, don't speculate."
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers |     Daniel J. Bernstein
zmerch_at_30below.com          |
Received on Tue Jun 15 2004 - 12:07:50 BST

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