If OSs were TVs...
conr...@yvax.byu.edu
DOS: This TV is inexpensive and black and white. You can watch 200
channels, but you have to turn the TV off when you want to change channels.
You can only watch shows that last less than 64 minutes, 53 minutes if you want
sound, 51 minutes if you have a clock display on the screen, and 47 minutes if
you have a VCR.
DOS with QEMM: The TV is inexpensive and black and white. You still have to
turn the TV off when you want to change channels, but you can now watch up to 4
hours of TV even with a VCR.
Windows 3.1: The TV is inexpensive, but all the colors are out of the 60s.
You can change channels easily, but the TV sometimes turns off unexpectedly.
You can use it with your VCR, but only some VCRs and you can only record in
MONO.
OS/2: The TV is a little expensive. You have nice color and can change
channels easily, but you only have a few channels in stereo. Most of your
channels are colored like the 60s and some are black and white. You can only
use 2 VCRs, but you can watch 25 channels at the same time and in stereo.
Unfortunately the TV takes up the entire wall.
System 7: This TV only has a small selection of channels, but they are
the major channels. It installs itself, and has the easiest remote. Sometimes
a bad channel will cause the TV to turn off, but it always apologizes and makes
a nice sound when it comes back on. The TV is a little expensive, but it comes
with stereo and a VCR.
Windows NT 3.1: This TV is expensive. Although it is the first TV it is called
3.1 because it was made by the same people as the Windows 3.1 TV, and can show
some of the same channels--only slower. Unlike OS/2 this TV does not take up
the whole wall, it takes up the whole room. It requires you to prove who you
are before allowing you to watch TV. You can set up additional TV's around the
room which can share this TV's channels. Only a very few VCRs work with this
TV and they only play, you cannot record.
Chicago: With this TV you do not have to worry about room space or expense
because although people talk about it as if it exists, it doesn't. This makes
this TV a perfect replacement for whatever you are using now, except you cannot
get it now. This TV does everything, but is inexpensive and small.
NextStep: This TV is in its own world. It has a wide perspective tube for
watching movies like in theatres. It has quadrophonic, and surround-sound.
This TV is large, but not as expensive as the Windows NT TV. It shows many of
the UNIX channels, and some other of its own channels in 3D! It is very easy
to make shows for this TV.
Taligent: This TV comes in little pieces which can be mixed and matched
by the purchaser to get the TV they want. It does not exist yet as a complete
unit, but you can buy some of the pieces. It does not have a price, but it is
expected to take up a large part of your living room--if not all of it. The
designers explain that by the time you can buy this TV houses will be bigger,
of course that is what the Windows Nt people said too.
Newton OS: This is an itty-bittey TV for your suit pocket. It is easy to
use, but it only gets a few channels. You add channels one at a time through a
slot on the top. Unfortunately you can only have one channel in the slot at a
time. If you want to use the VCR you need to put it into the slot, so you
cannot use the VCR and a channel at the same time. However, you can connect it
to your old TV. This TV is very friendly and an assistant will help you
program the VCR. The designers of this TV have said that this is the first of
a family of TV's, but haven't said more. This TV has been the butt of a lot of
jokes from reporters who were unable to figure out how to set the time (because
they failed to read the manual or listen to it try and help.)
WorkPlace OS: This is often confused as a TV, but it is actually a TV stand.
You can
put any of the TV's on top of this stand, but some of them are a little too
heavy for it to be practical. This stand is not yet available, but the wood
top and the roller wheels have been seen at trade shows. It will probably be
expensive, but may not be very large on its own.
GeoWorks: This is a small black and white TV with some real nice
transistors. It only gets a few channels, but it comes in a variety of boxes.
It is inexpensive and has delusions of superiority. You can watch several
shows at the same time.
Amiga OS: This is a lonely TV and bitter TV. It once looked like it
would be the best TV ever, but the manufacturers thought it was a toaster. It
has done well as a toaster and can play many of the same channels as the other
TVs. People who own this TV tend to be very defensive and very vocal about it
not being a toaster. It has stereo sound, and very nice color. It works with
many VCRs, much to the surprise of the VCR producers who thought this TV was a
toaster. It is good about not turning off in the middle of a show, and you can
watch several shows at the same time.
Jon Conradt
CONR...@YVAX.BYU.EDU
J.B. Nicholson-Owens
owners something to say when Mac owners point out the QuickTime
support they have had for a while now?
I know it's "gonna be great" or "well worth waiting for", but frankly
it doesn't mean a thing until it's out and working in applications.
If nothing happens soon, I think this could be something more people
choose to use their Macs for simply because QuickTime has been out
longer and will have support from apps that aren't v1.0.
--
J.B. Nicholson-Owens (*NO* NeXTmail please)
Michael B. Johnson
I know a lot of researchers (here at the MIT Media Lab and other places)
that are doing interesting things. When I show them my gnarly collection
of objects and demo my development environment (all integrated into
IB thanks to palettes), they all drool. We're talking die-hard weenies
here. 2D? oh, it uses PostScript. Apps? Look at Virtuoso, Diagram2,
DataPhile, etc. Sound? 16-bit 44KHz. Let me show you the real-time
multi-channel mixer I wrote in a night. Platforms? Runs on Intel boxes,
and should be running on the Snakes before next summer. UI development?
IB and my palettes. 'nuff said. How about 3D? Hey man, it's got RenderMan.
Better than the SGI, especially when it runs on the Snakes. The real
time isn't going to smoke our OnyX, but try and shove a programmable shader
down the Geometry Pipeline. And all those modelers we've got for the
SGI and Macs? Hey, they put out RIB, so no problem. So how about digital
video? Umm, err, well, Jobs gave this awesome technology demo, and I
know the guys working on it, so it should be great when it comes out...
sigh.
Because of QuickTime, all the ones doing anything with digital
video develop on Macs. The one stumbling block from them throwing their
128MB RAM, Quadra 950 with 3 19" 24 bit monitors out the window for a
Pentium/Snake based solution is the fact that there is no synchronized
media standard under NeXTSTEP.
Damn shame, really.
--
--> Michael B. Johnson -- wa...@media.mit.edu
--> MIT Media Lab -- Computer Graphics & Animation Group
--> 20 Ames St. E15-023G -- (617) 547-0563 (day office)
--> Cambridge, MA 02139 -- (617) 253-0663 (night office)
Jim_...@transarc.com
> NextStep: This TV is in its own world. It has a wide perspective tube for
> watching movies like in theatres. It has quadrophonic, and surround-sound.
> This TV is large, but not as expensive as the Windows NT TV. It shows many of
> the UNIX channels, and some other of its own channels in 3D! It is very easy
> to make shows for this TV.
>
On the downside, it doesn't pick up most of the network channels, at
least not with all the bells and whistles just mentioned. You can
watch most of the network shows, but only in a small box, without the
special sound and so forth. In fact, for those who want to watch the
network shows, the older TVs are better.
******************************************************************
Jim Mann jm...@transarc.com
Transarc Corporation
The Gulf Tower, 707 Grant Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 338-4442
Steven C Weintz
> conr...@yvax.byu.edu writes:
>
> > NextStep: This TV is in its own world. It has a wide perspective
tube for
> > watching movies like in theatres. It has quadrophonic, and
surround-sound.
> > This TV is large, but not as expensive as the Windows NT TV. It shows
many of
> > the UNIX channels, and some other of its own channels in 3D! It is
very easy
> > to make shows for this TV.
> >
>
> On the downside, it doesn't pick up most of the network channels, at
> least not with all the bells and whistles just mentioned. You can
> watch most of the network shows, but only in a small box, without the
> special sound and so forth. In fact, for those who want to watch the
> network shows, the older TVs are better.
>
confidently expect spiffy new models of my Preferred TV rsn, and some
nifty tools for surfing 500 channels...
..Paranthetically, there's a learning-curve issue here that I haven't
seen addressed. Given that black hardware offered its users the multimedia
capabilities that are only now becomeing widely available, it would seem
to me that NS users are "pre-adapted' to making the most of multimedia. As
with any new tool, it takes time to find its potential. NeXTMail has been,
for me, a powerful revolution in expression and communication. I'm ready
now to make my e-mail more closely approach my conversational style (not
that it doesn't already :-)), by including NeXTIME icon-sized clips from
my favorite films in my .sigs, just as I now quote great movie lines and
scenes when talking.
(Don't panic! I try to respect bandwidth!)
Best regards, Steve weintz
scwg...@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu