Newsgroup Idea: alt.ms-windoze.smash.smash.smash
Mats Ljungqvist
> I have gripes galore about it, which I will be happy to detail in
>more detail. Summary:
> The time when I installed a compiler (Borland C++), found that it
>could not find certain files, and then discovered that there had been *two
>version of MS Windoze in the system. I deleted the Windoze 3.0 directory
>and moved out or deleted all its contents, including those missing
>compiler files.
Seems to me like a problem with Borlands install program. It [the install
program] placed the missing files in the wrong directory. Nothing Windows
can do anything about that, is it?
> I wanted to capture some LEdit (DOS computer-chip CAD program)
>displays with HiJaak Pro, and I found that I had to quit Windoze entirely
>and run its DOS screen-capture part -- and to reboot Windoze just to look
>at what I produced.
Isn't that a problem with HiJaak Pro? How can it be Windows' fault if
HiJaak is a lousy program? (If it is, I havn't tested it, but it sure
seems like it from the description above).
BTW: Windows *HAS* screen capture included. See below.
> Macintosh screen-capture is built-in -- just type
>command-shift-3, and you get a snapshot file in your startup disk's
>root-level directory.
How about RTFM? Print Screen and ALT-Print Screen works fine for me.
Print Screen saves a copy of the entire screen in the clipboard, and
ALT-Print Screen saves a copy of the active window in it.
// Mats (ma...@jd.se)
---
* Mats Ljungqvist * #pragma message("Standard disclaimer in use")
* Juristdata AB, SWEDEN * Professional development for Win32
* Phone +46-500 412150 * Fax +46-500 412848
My hat is too flat
While you're at it create alt.jackintoy.black-box.clic.clic.clic
Tom O'Toole - ecf_...@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu - JHUVMS system programmer
Homewood Computing Facilities - Johns Hopkins University, Balto. Md. 21218
The sea was angry that day, my friends... Like an old man
trying to return soup at a deli. -- George Castanza
Loren Petrich
Given all the negativity associated with Microsoft Windows (to use
MS's name for Windoze), I've thought of the above as the perfect name
devoted to commentary to that effect. I can start out with these renamings
of that operating system:
Windoze
Winblows
Winlose
I have gripes galore about it, which I will be happy to detail in
more detail. Summary:
The time when I installed a compiler (Borland C++), found that it
could not find certain files, and then discovered that there had been *two
version of MS Windoze in the system. I deleted the Windoze 3.0 directory
and moved out or deleted all its contents, including those missing
compiler files.
I wanted to capture some LEdit (DOS computer-chip CAD program)
displays with HiJaak Pro, and I found that I had to quit Windoze entirely
and run its DOS screen-capture part -- and to reboot Windoze just to look
at what I produced.
Macintosh screen-capture is built-in -- just type
command-shift-3, and you get a snapshot file in your startup disk's
root-level directory.
The Macintosh has now caught up with CLI OSes like UNIX with
AppleScript, and where does that leave Windoze? Less scriptable than DOS?
--
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
pet...@netcom.com Happiness is a fast Macintosh
l...@s1.gov And a fast train
Loren Petrich
>pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>> I have gripes galore about it, which I will be happy to detail in
>>more detail. Summary:
>> The time when I installed a compiler (Borland C++), found that it
>>could not find certain files, and then discovered that there had been *two
>>version of MS Windoze in the system. I deleted the Windoze 3.0 directory
>>and moved out or deleted all its contents, including those missing
>>compiler files.
>Seems to me like a problem with Borlands install program. It [the install
>program] placed the missing files in the wrong directory. Nothing Windows
>can do anything about that, is it?
It turned up that there were *two Windoze versions installed: 3.0
in C:\WINDOWS and 3.1 in C:\WINDOWS\WINDOWS. The installer placed some of
the Borland files in the wrong place, and it took awhile before I worked
out what was going on and got rid of version 3.0.
>> I wanted to capture some LEdit (DOS computer-chip CAD program)
>>displays with HiJaak Pro, and I found that I had to quit Windoze entirely
>>and run its DOS screen-capture part -- and to reboot Windoze just to look
>>at what I produced.
>Isn't that a problem with HiJaak Pro? How can it be Windows' fault if
>HiJaak is a lousy program? (If it is, I havn't tested it, but it sure
>seems like it from the description above).
LEdit could be run from inside Windoze, but its colors got all
wrong. So I had to quit to DOS to run it. I had first tried to do that by
running DOS from Windoze, but I could not capture the screen with the DOS
part of HiJaak (DOSCAP). Only after entirely quitting Windoze could I
capture an LEdit display.
>BTW: Windows *HAS* screen capture included. See below.
>> Macintosh screen-capture is built-in -- just type
>>command-shift-3, and you get a snapshot file in your startup disk's
>>root-level directory.
>How about RTFM? Print Screen and ALT-Print Screen works fine for me.
[it winds up in the Windoze clipboard...]
In what version of Windoze? I tried it and it gave no feedback about
anything going on. There was also no documentation of it in the help
facility bundled with my version of Windoze, and I think I used most of
the plausible keywords for it (yes, I did RTFM :-).
Loren Petrich
>>MS's name for Windoze), I've thought of the above as the perfect name
>>devoted to commentary to that effect. I can start out with these renamings
>>of that operating system:
>>Windoze
>>Winblows
>>Winlose
>How original and mature of you! I have a friend who has a 6-year-old
>who can help you come up with more.
Thank you. And I could certainly use the help. :-)
Here's some more about you-know-which-company:
Microsloth
Microsnot
Microsloppy
Microsquish
David Charles Leblanc
> Given all the negativity associated with Microsoft Windows (to use
>MS's name for Windoze), I've thought of the above as the perfect name
>devoted to commentary to that effect. I can start out with these renamings
>of that operating system:
>Windoze
>Winblows
>Winlose
How original and mature of you! I have a friend who has a 6-year-old
who can help you come up with more.
--
David Charles LeBlanc
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
Internet: gt6...@acme.gatech.edu
Loren Petrich
My hat is too flat <ecf_...@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes...
>While you're at it create alt.jackintoy.black-box.clic.clic.clic
OK. But I'm sure alt.ms-windoze.smash.smash.smash will be *much
more populated than alt.jackintoy.black-box.clic.clic.clic, given what
the MacOS and Windoze are like.
More seriously, I've seen even Windoze users use the term
"Windoze", and I've even seen "Winblows" and "Winlose", while I *rarely
see terms like "Macintoy" and "Macintrash". I wonder why.
914-664-1844
: More seriously, I've seen even Windoze users use the term
: see terms like "Macintoy" and "Macintrash". I wonder why.
: --
: Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
: pet...@netcom.com Happiness is a fast Macintosh
: l...@s1.gov And a fast train
You gotta get out more often then. Macs have there own problems, but at
least Bill isn't reigning over them making false claims, although Apple
has had some good ones too!
--
/\/******\/\ TOADEAtER-THE \/OiCE BBS
\| o..o |/ toad...@escape.com
\ \____/ / THE VOiCE BBS 914-664-1844
V V
Tris Orendorff
> : More seriously, I've seen even Windoze users use the term
> : see terms like "Macintoy" and "Macintrash". I wonder why.
> : --
> : Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
> : pet...@netcom.com Happiness is a fast Macintosh
> : l...@s1.gov And a fast train
>
> least Bill isn't reigning over them making false claims, although Apple
> has had some good ones too!
Let's hear a few.
--
Sincerely Yours: Tris Orendorff aa...@freenet.carleton.ca
GCS (v2.1): d++ H- s g+ p? !au a w+ v++ C+ UC++++ P+ L 3 E- N++ K++ W+ M !V
-po+ Y+ t+ !5 j+ R- G? !tv b++ D+ B? e++ u+ h f+ r++ n+ y+
Peter Coffin
: In a previous posting, 914-664-1844 (toad...@escape.com) writes:
[..snip..]
: >
: > You gotta get out more often then. Macs have there own problems, but at
: > has had some good ones too!
: Let's hear a few.
You got it.
Item 1: Due to the increasing presence of PowerMac machines, increasingly
applications are being provided as "fat" files, with PowerMac code in the
data fork and 68K code in the resource fork. This guarantees that the
application file is going to be about twice as big as it needs to be,
since no Mac needs both versions.
Item 1A: This also ruined a nice place to put chunky tables or other
large pieces of data that the application might need. The program lived
in the resource fork, and the data fork was a handy place to put support
information, from things as small as personalization information to world
maps in games and the like. This made things very easy to maintain
because there was only one file that needed to be taken care of. Any
idiot could install the thing 'cause nothing could get lost or separated.
Next item anyone?
Dan Pop
>In article <8FEB1995...@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu>,
>My hat is too flat <ecf_...@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu> wrote:
>>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes...
>
>>While you're at it create alt.jackintoy.black-box.clic.clic.clic
>
> OK. But I'm sure alt.ms-windoze.smash.smash.smash will be *much
>more populated than alt.jackintoy.black-box.clic.clic.clic, given what
>the MacOS and Windoze are like.
>
> More seriously, I've seen even Windoze users use the term
>"Windoze", and I've even seen "Winblows" and "Winlose", while I *rarely
>see terms like "Macintoy" and "Macintrash". I wonder why.
1. Because there are an order of magnitude less Mac users than MS/Win
users.
2. Because the average Mac user is too brainwashed to even realize the
limitations of his "OS".
MacOS is definitely better than MS/Win, but it's still one decade behind
the Mac hardware, lacking many essential features for a modern/stable/
performant computing environment.
Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: dan...@cernapo.cern.ch
Mail: CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland
El Technicolour
> Microsloth
I've never understood this name. Surely it should be Macrosloth.
--
Quote: "The symbols are so illuminating that the fact that the text is
incomprehensible doesn't much matter" - A.N. Prior
jim frost
>Item 1: Due to the increasing presence of PowerMac machines, increasingly
>applications are being provided as "fat" files, with PowerMac code in the
>data fork and 68K code in the resource fork. This guarantees that the
>application file is going to be about twice as big as it needs to be,
>since no Mac needs both versions.
Question: Why doesn't someone build a "slim" utility to strip out
extraneous architectures from "fat" files? That seems like the kind
of thing you'd be able to write in about an hour.
jim frost
ji...@world.std.com
--
http://www.std.com/homepages/jimf
Loren Petrich
El Technicolour <m...@math.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>> Microsloth
>I've never understood this name. Surely it should be Macrosloth.
An even better one:
Megasloth
ALEXANDER, DYLAN FLYNN
> More seriously, I've seen even Windoze users use the term
>"Windoze", and I've even seen "Winblows" and "Winlose", while I *rarely
>see terms like "Macintoy" and "Macintrash". I wonder why.
In my CS lab, when you log onto the Novell network from one of the PC's, you
get a menu with the commands for all of the progs available. Whoever set
this up has it set up: Turbo Pascal : tc
MS Windoze : windows
Even the people who set up the damn PC networks can't stand Windows! I have
yet to meet anyone who liked it. I've found some _very_ warped people who
like DOS, but for most CS majors and grad students, it's Linux or OS/2. Who
can blame them? Of course they _should_ get a Mac.
Dylan Alexander
Loren Petrich
ALEXANDER, DYLAN FLYNN <dfa...@venus.tamu.edu> wrote:
>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes...
>> More seriously, I've seen even Windoze users use the term
>>"Windoze", and I've even seen "Winblows" and "Winlose", while I *rarely
>>see terms like "Macintoy" and "Macintrash". I wonder why.
>In my CS lab, when you log onto the Novell network from one of the PC's, you
>get a menu with the commands for all of the progs available. Whoever set
>this up has it set up: Turbo Pascal : tc
> MS Windoze : windows
I agree that that is pretty clueless; "tc" is not only too short, but
suggests C instead of Pascal.
>Even the people who set up the damn PC networks can't stand Windows! I have
>yet to meet anyone who liked it.
There aren't a lot of Windoze PC's around where I work (some
places in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), it's mostly Macs
and Suns. I myself use a Sun for number crunching and a Mac for just about
everything else (writing papers, composing diagrams, graphing data, etc.)
Someone in a nearby office had use a Mac for data analysis and a PC for
data collection, using a program that runs in DOS. We have a PC, but we
mainly use it for stuff that only runs on DOS, such as a program for
setting up chip layouts. Unfortunately, I have a boss who seems to be a
PC-head, on the grounds that PC's are cheap. He even has an IBM ThinkPad
laptop that runs DOS/Windoze, and for a long time he had only 4 megabytes
of RAM, which made it do a humongous amount of swapping. Upgrading to 8
meg made it swap a *lot less. I always like to comment that he's the sort
who'd buy a Yugo because one's so *cheap.
... I've found some _very_ warped people who
>like DOS,
I confess I sometimes find it more convenient to manage files in
DOS than with the Windoze File Manager.
... but for most CS majors and grad students, it's Linux or OS/2.
Linux is, of course, is a version of that hackers' all-time
favorite: UNIX
OS/2? I've seen such early names for it as "Oh Shit Two!" and
"Half an OS", but I've seen a lot of positive comments about more recent
versions of it. Maybe IBM has finally got its act together :-)
And the nicest thing of all is that they run on Intel 80x86
chips, providing competition for Chairman Bill.
UNIX will never be able to compete on the ease-of-use front (I've
found the online help of VMS and some IBM mainframes [VM/CMS] easier to
use than the UNIX "man: facility; they offer selection of subtopics and
even sub-subtopics, while UNIX "man" does not), unless someone writes an
easy-to-use front end for it.
How is OS/2 in that department?
... Who
>can blame them? Of course they _should_ get a Mac.
I agree :-) But the Mac still has a way to go on the OS-innards
front, like:
Preemptive multitasking
Multiple protected memory spaces
[Well, at least Apple is working on those two...]
Remote logins
[Apple Events can, at least in principle, provide something like it;
it all depends on the level of support :-)]
Loren Petrich
Wendell Gee <jg...@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>pet...@netcom.com writes:
>[talking about Mac OS problems]
>> Remote logins
>> [Apple Events can, at least in principle, provide something like it;
>> it all depends on the level of support :-)]
>Try using Timbuktu. It's wonderful.
What's Timbuktu?
And I'm surprised that I did not get any flames from Windoze
defenders about the title of this post -- that insulting terms for it are
more commonly used than insulting terms for the Macintosh. Personally, I
think that Windoze is a poor copy of the MacOS and trash that makes DOS
look good in some ways (DOS doesn't eat up nearly as much processor time,
RAM, or disk space).
Frank McConnell
> And I'm surprised that I did not get any flames from Windoze
>defenders about the title of this post -- that insulting terms for it are
>more commonly used than insulting terms for the Macintosh.
You expected to find W-nd-ws defenders in a.f.c?
Followups. Please keep 'em that way.
-Frank McConnell "I want my MPE" (w/apologies to Dire Straits)
<f...@aphasia.us.com>
Greg Bickel
--->>Have you ever tried *maintaining* a Windows system? Upgrading it?
--->>Deinstalling software? The total lack of revision control for Windows
--->>means that once something's been installed (scattering files around
--->>WINDOWS and WINDOWS\SYSTEM and entries in your INI files) it's there for
--->>life. Damn stupid...
-
Try UnInstaller for windows. Does a wonderful job.
,,, gregb@server.@nlbbs.com ,,,
(o o) http://www.nlbbs.com/gab.htm (o o)
-----oOO--(_)--OOo-------------------------oOO--(_)--OOo--------------
The Northern Lights BBS Portland, Maine
Jeremy William Yackel
: In article <18FEB199...@venus.tamu.edu>,
: ALEXANDER, DYLAN FLYNN <dfa...@venus.tamu.edu> wrote:
: >In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes...
: >> More seriously, I've seen even Windoze users use the term
: >>"Windoze", and I've even seen "Winblows" and "Winlose", while I *rarely
: >>see terms like "Macintoy" and "Macintrash". I wonder why.
What about Crapintosh? or winbloze.
: >In my CS lab, when you log onto the Novell network from one of the PC's, you
: >get a menu with the commands for all of the progs available. Whoever set
: >this up has it set up: Turbo Pascal : tc
: > MS Windoze : windows
: I agree that that is pretty clueless; "tc" is not only too short, but
: suggests C instead of Pascal.
What kind of an idiot set that up. TC stands for Turbo C.
: >Even the people who set up the damn PC networks can't stand Windows! I have
: >yet to meet anyone who liked it.
Nope, I don't like it either. I think its a huge virus that
slowly slows down your computer. Constantly degrading the
performance.
: ... I've found some _very_ warped people who
: >like DOS,
Games work a heck of a lot better under DOS.
: I confess I sometimes find it more convenient to manage files in
: DOS than with the Windoze File Manager.
: ... but for most CS majors and grad students, it's Linux or OS/2.
Linux is great (if you have software for it). I kinda like X.
: Linux is, of course, is a version of that hackers' all-time
: favorite: UNIX
: OS/2? I've seen such early names for it as "Oh Shit Two!" and
: "Half an OS", but I've seen a lot of positive comments about more recent
: versions of it. Maybe IBM has finally got its act together :-)
hehehe.
: And the nicest thing of all is that they run on Intel 80x86
: chips, providing competition for Chairman Bill.
: ... Who
: >can blame them? Of course they _should_ get a Mac.
Why?
Why not a workstation.
: I agree :-) But the Mac still has a way to go on the OS-innards
: front, like:
: Preemptive multitasking
: Multiple protected memory spaces
Warp does that sort of.
: [Well, at least Apple is working on those two...]
: Remote logins
Haven't seen too many Mac ftp servers. (none actually)
: [Apple Events can, at least in principle, provide something like it;
: it all depends on the level of support :-)]
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jwya...@acs.ucalgary.ca
jwya...@FreeNet.Calgary.ab.ca
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
engelkes
MS-Windoze, I suggest the name Windoze 3.12 of 3.11a in stead of 95.
Matt Kennel
: UNIX will never be able to compete on the ease-of-use front (I've
: found the online help of VMS and some IBM mainframes [VM/CMS] easier to
: use than the UNIX "man: facility; they offer selection of subtopics and
: even sub-subtopics, while UNIX "man" does not), unless someone writes an
: easy-to-use front end for it.
They have, a long time ago.
For example, Sun Answerbook and Nextstep Help and Digital Librarian.
--
-Dr. Matt Kennel m...@inls1.ucsd.edu
-Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego
-
- Archive for nonlinear dynamics papers & programs (***SITE CHANGED!!**)
- --> ftp://inls.ucsd.edu <--
Nix
: In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes...
They seem to be Anti-Pascal, too...
Sysadmins are the people who hate Windows most, unless you've got one of
those warped bastards who likes restricting what you can do and when you
can do it to ridiculous extremes...
Have you ever tried *maintaining* a Windows system? Upgrading it?
Deinstalling software? The total lack of revision control for Windows
means that once something's been installed (scattering files around
WINDOWS and WINDOWS\SYSTEM and entries in your INI files) it's there for
life. Damn stupid...
--
---------------------------------------------------
Windows Terminal - aptly describes Windows in two words.
'Whoev'r it was, I've gotta blow up with a chaaaaainsaw' - 'Stuss'
by...@phoenix.princeton.edu
>
>Mac apps are still much smaller than their Inferior But Marketable (IBM)
>equivalents..
Have we already forgotten about word 6 for mac?
>Wordperfect for mac is about 6 meg (i think). My friend
>told me the IBM version is 36 meg.
Just maybe the mac version is a bit behind in features?
-Ben
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Team OS/2 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
| "Don't marry a person you can live with, // "Imagination is more important |
| marry someone you can't live without." // than knowledge..." - Einstein |
'''''''''''''''''''' Bye BYe BYle BYLe BYLee BYLEe BYLEE '''''''''''''''''''
Dan Pop
>Loren Petrich (pet...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: UNIX will never be able to compete on the ease-of-use front (I've
>: found the online help of VMS and some IBM mainframes [VM/CMS] easier to
>: use than the UNIX "man: facility; they offer selection of subtopics and
>: even sub-subtopics, while UNIX "man" does not), unless someone writes an
>: easy-to-use front end for it.
>
>They have, a long time ago.
>
>For example, Sun Answerbook and Nextstep Help and Digital Librarian.
AIX info browser, HPUX lrom, IRIX Insight and DEC book reader complete
the picture.
And free hypertext man page browsers do exist (e.g. tkman).
But the real point is that good old "man" is a lot better than the VMS
and VM/CMS help facilities: it provides more information and in a easier
way. All you need to get started with man is "man man".
Compare, for instance, the output of "man fopen" on Unix with
"help cc run fopen" on VMS.
Nix
: In article <18FEB199...@venus.tamu.edu>,
: ALEXANDER, DYLAN FLYNN <dfa...@venus.tamu.edu> wrote:
: >In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes...
[crunch]
: >In my CS lab, when you log onto the Novell network from one of the PC's, you
: >get a menu with the commands for all of the progs available. Whoever set
: >this up has it set up: Turbo Pascal : tc
: > MS Windoze : windows
: I agree that that is pretty clueless; "tc" is not only too short, but
: suggests C instead of Pascal.
A typo?
[crunch]
: I confess I sometimes find it more convenient to manage files in
: DOS than with the Windoze File Manager.
Only *sometimes*???!!!???
: ... but for most CS majors and grad students, it's Linux or OS/2.
Or both. (I've got DOS too, and even Windoze, I'm ashamed to say; I keep
my options open.)
: Linux is, of course, is a version of that hackers' all-time
: favorite: UNIX
<wolf whistles> <cheers>
: OS/2? I've seen such early names for it as "Oh Shit Two!" and
: "Half an OS", but I've seen a lot of positive comments about more recent
: versions of it. Maybe IBM has finally got its act together :-)
I wouldn't go *that* far.
[crunch; re help, front ends]
: How is OS/2 in that department?
It comes with about 20Mb of hypertext help, and (unlike Windoze) you can
have loads of help boxes up at once, which move with the app window when
it moves. It was easy to learn; and to be quite frank, its properly OO
environment beats the ********** out of the Windoze kludge.
: ... Who
: >can blame them? Of course they _should_ get a Mac.
: I agree :-) But the Mac still has a way to go on the OS-innards
: front, like:
: Preemptive multitasking
: Multiple protected memory spaces
: [Well, at least Apple is working on those two...]
: Remote logins
: [Apple Events can, at least in principle, provide something like it;
: it all depends on the level of support :-)]
Macs are OK; but I prefer knowing my cash goes towards development, not
lawyers fees :)
Kai Grossjohann
Greg> Try UnInstaller for windows. Does a wonderful job.
Is there actually a way for UnInstaller to know what to remove or is
there just a big table saying
IF (ProgramToBeRemoved == "MS Word 6.0")
THEN { DELETE foo.txt ; DELETE bar.exe }
and so on?
I wonder.
\kai{}
--
Life is hard and then you die.
Kai Grossjohann
Kip> Try a lovely program called Remove-It from Vertisoft Systems
Kip> (US) which deinstalls programs, deletes the matching .dll's
Kip> (unless they're called by another program that remains
Kip> installed) and strips the matching entries out of the .ini
Kip> files. Not perfect, but it does 90% of the job, quickly, with
Kip> complete control and optional (comprehensive) reversibility.
How does Remove-It know how to remove XYWrite 42.4711 beta? Is there
a table detailing which files to delete for each version it ``knows''?
What about programs Remove-It doesn't ``know''?
\kai{}
--
Have you seen my signature?
Loren Petrich
>In <3ieddf$3...@network.ucsd.edu> m...@inls1.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes:
>>Loren Petrich (pet...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>: UNIX will never be able to compete on the ease-of-use front (I've
>>: found the online help of VMS and some IBM mainframes [VM/CMS] easier to
>>: use than the UNIX "man: facility; they offer selection of subtopics and
>>: even sub-subtopics, while UNIX "man" does not), unless someone writes an
>>: easy-to-use front end for it.
>>They have, a long time ago.
>>For example, Sun Answerbook and Nextstep Help and Digital Librarian.
>AIX info browser, HPUX lrom, IRIX Insight and DEC book reader complete
>the picture.
>And free hypertext man page browsers do exist (e.g. tkman).
I've yet to see *any of these on *any of the UNIX systems I've
used, and I've used *several.
>But the real point is that good old "man" is a lot better than the VMS
>and VM/CMS help facilities: it provides more information and in a easier
>way. All you need to get started with man is "man man".
>Compare, for instance, the output of "man fopen" on Unix with
>"help cc run fopen" on VMS.
I disagree. The nice thing about VMS help is that it is
hierarchical; one gets a paragraph or two of information, and one gets
pointers to where one can find out more. Even VM/CMS help is like that,
though it is less interactive than VMS help. UNIX man is total trash --
print out all the documentation at once, and force one to wade through it
to find out what one wants to know.
And though I think that DOS and Windoze leave a lot to be desired,
I will at least give Microsoft credit for including some good help systems
with their more recent versions. It's hard to beat a good hypertext help
system, and I'd prefer even the help system they now have for DOS to UNIX
man.
The Macintosh? It has a reputation for one not needing a manual to
run a Mac app. But many of the more recent Mac apps, and the MacOS as
well, now have good help systems. There is even a "?" at the upper right
corner of the screen where all the help menus live.
Loren Petrich
>Loren Petrich (pet...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: In article <18FEB199...@venus.tamu.edu>,
>: ALEXANDER, DYLAN FLYNN <dfa...@venus.tamu.edu> wrote:
>: >In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes...
>: I confess I sometimes find it more convenient to manage files in
>: DOS than with the Windoze File Manager.
>Only *sometimes*???!!!???
A misstatement on my part, I'm afraid. I avoid the File Manager
as much as possible; I prefer the Norton Desktop, PCShell (a DOS utility
that operates in character-GUI fashion and displays lists of files and
directories), and even the straight DOS CLI.
>: Linux is, of course, is a version of that hackers' all-time
>: favorite: UNIX
><wolf whistles> <cheers>
I'm afraid I've never really liked UNIX. Sorry :-)
>: OS/2? I've seen such early names for it as "Oh Shit Two!" and
>: "Half an OS", but I've seen a lot of positive comments about more recent
>: versions of it. Maybe IBM has finally got its act together :-)
>I wouldn't go *that* far.
>[crunch; re help, front ends]
>: How is OS/2 in that department?
>It comes with about 20Mb of hypertext help, and (unlike Windoze) you can
>have loads of help boxes up at once, which move with the app window when
>it moves. It was easy to learn; and to be quite frank, its properly OO
>environment beats the ********** out of the Windoze kludge.
It seems like I ought to look at OS/2 some time, at least to see
if it is worthwhile competition for Windoze or the MacOS :-)
Dan Pop
>In article <D4EzF...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <3ieddf$3...@network.ucsd.edu> m...@inls1.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes:
>
>>>Loren Petrich (pet...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>>: UNIX will never be able to compete on the ease-of-use front (I've
>>>: found the online help of VMS and some IBM mainframes [VM/CMS] easier to
>>>: use than the UNIX "man: facility; they offer selection of subtopics and
>>>: even sub-subtopics, while UNIX "man" does not), unless someone writes an
>>>: easy-to-use front end for it.
>
>>>They have, a long time ago.
>>>For example, Sun Answerbook and Nextstep Help and Digital Librarian.
>>AIX info browser, HPUX lrom, IRIX Insight and DEC book reader complete
>>the picture.
>>And free hypertext man page browsers do exist (e.g. tkman).
>
> I've yet to see *any of these on *any of the UNIX systems I've
>used, and I've used *several.
I see your logic: if I can't see it, it doesn't exist. How about asking
your sysadmin?
>
>>But the real point is that good old "man" is a lot better than the VMS
>>and VM/CMS help facilities: it provides more information and in a easier
>>way. All you need to get started with man is "man man".
>>Compare, for instance, the output of "man fopen" on Unix with
>>"help cc run fopen" on VMS.
>
> I disagree. The nice thing about VMS help is that it is
>hierarchical; one gets a paragraph or two of information, and one gets
>pointers to where one can find out more. Even VM/CMS help is like that,
>though it is less interactive than VMS help. UNIX man is total trash --
>print out all the documentation at once, and force one to wade through it
>to find out what one wants to know.
On the contrary: it gives the user the required information and lets him
browse it with his preferred pager. Its much easier and faster to get
at the info you actually need than with VMS HELP, where you have to read
a lot of stuff until you find what you're actually looking for.
What is the VMS equivalent of "apropos" (aka "man -k")?
>
> And though I think that DOS and Windoze leave a lot to be desired,
>I will at least give Microsoft credit for including some good help systems
>with their more recent versions. It's hard to beat a good hypertext help
>system, and I'd prefer even the help system they now have for DOS to UNIX
>man.
You're entitled to your preferences. This doesn't mean that what _you_
don't like is "total trash". Only idiots use to think this way.
> The Macintosh? It has a reputation for one not needing a manual to
>run a Mac app. But many of the more recent Mac apps, and the MacOS as
>well, now have good help systems. There is even a "?" at the upper right
>corner of the screen where all the help menus live.
I can do all the system programming I need using only the man pages that
came by default, with the OS. Can a Mac programmer do the same thing?
Sorry, I forgot that the Mac isn't programmer friendly. And the lack
of preemptive multitasking (aka true multitasking) and memory protection
makes it far less user friendly than the average Mac apologist wants to
admit.
rhaw...@iastate.edu
<by...@phoenix.princeton.edu> wrote:
>>Mac apps are still much smaller than their Inferior But Marketable (IBM)
>>equivalents..
>Have we already forgotten about word 6 for mac?
Nah, that is the windows version with a windows emulator to run it :)
--
R E HAWKINS
rhaw...@iastate.edu
Matt Simmons
: Try UnInstaller for windows. Does a wonderful job.
I did. I mistakenly purchased it thinking that it could Uninstall
applications (hence the name). I learned that it only cleans up the pieces
after you go in and try to remove an app. This product would be much more
valuable if it would simply record everything the installer does when it
installs an app, so it could reverse those changes when needed.
Mr. Damon Kelly
>Its much easier and faster to get
>at the info you actually need than with VMS HELP, where you have to read
>a lot of stuff until you find what you're actually looking for.
As opposed to, say, reading the "hints" guide to VMS Help, which
provides a faster pointer to the VMS-specific information. For the
site-specific info, you can enter the wildcard character "*" to search
for a subject under a hierarchal level of help, or dump whatever
information is in the wildcarded hierarchal level. Such dumping
wouldn't be much of a difference from reading a man page.
Heh heh.
Steps taken to find a subject in a man page:
-Use "sed" and "grep" (-n or not, it doesn't matter) to find the topic
that you want to read about. Hope that the writer of the man page thought
of the same keywords that you have.
-Jump to each of the grep hits.
-Wail in frustration because the writer did *not* think of the same
keywords that you have. Go back to step 1 until the subject is found.
Man pages would be easier to handle if they had a table of contents at
the top. Some type of hypertext system compatible with graphic or
ANSI terminals wouldn't hurt, either. Have any of the Linux
developers thought about this?
>What is the VMS equivalent of "apropos" (aka "man -k")?
search sys$help:*.hlp keyword
-d
R!ch
> >But the real point is that good old "man" is a lot better than the VMS
> >and VM/CMS help facilities: it provides more information and in a easier
> >way. All you need to get started with man is "man man".
> >Compare, for instance, the output of "man fopen" on Unix with
> >"help cc run fopen" on VMS.
>
> I disagree. The nice thing about VMS help is that it is
> hierarchical; one gets a paragraph or two of information, and one gets
> pointers to where one can find out more. Even VM/CMS help is like that,
> though it is less interactive than VMS help. UNIX man is total trash --
> print out all the documentation at once, and force one to wade through it
> to find out what one wants to know.
Uh, you don't *have* to wade through all the info on a man page; you can
search for a string by hitting the '/' key. Hell, if you insist, you can
hit 'v', and go in to vi, to peruse the file at your leisure.
---
R!ch
If it ain't analogue, it ain't music.
#include <disclaimer.h> \\|// - ?
(o o)
/==============================oOOo=(_)=oOOo=====\
| Richard Teer ri...@isltd.insignia.com |
| Insignia Solutions |
| Voice: 01494 453409 |
| Fax: 01494 459720 |
\================================================/
R!ch
> Steps taken to find a subject in a man page:
> -Use "sed" and "grep" (-n or not, it doesn't matter) to find the topic
> that you want to read about. Hope that the writer of the man page thought
> of the same keywords that you have.
> -Jump to each of the grep hits.
> -Wail in frustration because the writer did *not* think of the same
> keywords that you have. Go back to step 1 until the subject is found.
No, no no! It's 'man -k'!!
> >What is the VMS equivalent of "apropos" (aka "man -k")?
>
> search sys$help:*.hlp keyword
My, how inuitively obvious. :-/
Kip Crosby
>Have you ever tried *maintaining* a Windows system? Upgrading it?
>Deinstalling software? The total lack of revision control for Windows
>means that once something's been installed (scattering files around
>WINDOWS and WINDOWS\SYSTEM and entries in your INI files) it's there for
>life. Damn stupid...
Try a lovely program called Remove-It from Vertisoft Systems (US) which
deinstalls programs, deletes the matching .dll's (unless they're called by
another program that remains installed) and strips the matching entries out of
the .ini files. Not perfect, but it does 90% of the job, quickly, with
complete control and optional (comprehensive) reversibility. -- kc
David Spencer
>I can do all the system programming I need using only the man pages that
>came by default, with the OS. Can a Mac programmer do the same thing?
>Sorry, I forgot that the Mac isn't programmer friendly. And the lack
>of preemptive multitasking (aka true multitasking) and memory protection
>makes it far less user friendly than the average Mac apologist wants to
>admit.
Thus spake a Mac and unix bigot:
With the right tools, the Mac is a nice development environment (not
as nice as unix, but nice). One can get or simulate most of the best
unix programming tools.
One must buy the better tools, but given the trend to unbundling
(which I wholeheartedly support), one has to pay for tools in
commercial unices, too. Even without unbundling, the all-in cost of a
nice Mac development kit is about the same as a nice unix with a nice
development kit. [Please don't bring up Gnu and linux. They are very
nice, but one pays for them in different ways if one's time isn't
free.]
But the main problem with programming the Mac is indeed that its
"cooperative multitasking" and unprotected memory are _horrible_
design flaws. [The filesystem calls are incomprehensible, too.] When
the Mac was concieved, unix had had a working task scheduler, memory
protection and filesystem for more than a decade. The code was
available, or duplicable from public-domain descriptions of the
internals. If you're going to do it, why not do it right?
It won't do to say that the hardware was inadequate. The m68k's had
the support for it. By the time "cooperative multitasking" came along
there was enough room on ROM to do it right. Performance is a red
herring: Forcing each program to do task scheduling is certainly a
bigger hog than having it done right, in one place, and providing it
as a service to the program.
Leaving aside this essential brokenness, it's interesting to look at
what each OS makes easy and hard to program. On the Mac, one wastes
time programming services that unix provides in the system, with
simple call structures: scheduling, memory allocation, files. To do a
GUI on unix -- assuming you can figure out X at all -- one wastes time
programming services that the Mac provides in the interface.
The last seriously broken element of the Mac is that the system call
interface and documentation are (I kid you not) in Pascal. I never
had the misfortune of dealing with Pascal; I taught myself programming
from K&R. _Inside Mac_ could as well have been written in Greek.
And the worst of it is that a/ux, which fixes so much of this
brokenness, and combines the best features of the Mac and unix, has
essentially been discontinued.
*Sigh*
--
dhs spe...@panix.com
The artist formerly known as Tom O'Toole
>But the real point is that good old "man" is a lot better than the VMS
>and VM/CMS help facilities: it provides more information and in a easier
>way. All you need to get started with man is "man man".
>
>Compare, for instance, the output of "man fopen" on Unix with
>"help cc run fopen" on VMS.
oh, right. Tell me what you get with man backup or man convert. VMS is at least
giving you something on what is (and I gainsay in advance all arguments to the
contrary) a goddam UNIX call!!!!!
$man alias
No manual entry found for alias
I'm stoked!
Tom O'Toole - ecf_...@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu - JHUVMS system programmer
Homewood Computing Facilities - Johns Hopkins University, Balto. Md. 21218
The sea was angry that day, my friends... Like an old man
trying to return soup at a deli. -- George Castanza
Dave Brown
Loren Petrich <pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.950223...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com>,
>R!ch <ri...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com> wrote:
>>Uh, you don't *have* to wade through all the info on a man page; you can
>>search for a string by hitting the '/' key. Hell, if you insist, you can
>>hit 'v', and go in to vi, to peruse the file at your leisure.
>
>screen-mode editor I've *ever used. I prefer emacs, some VMS editors, and
>even some CMS editors (on Intimidating Big Machines :-). If "man" gave me
>some way to start up emacs, then it might be OK.
It's not that arcane.
EDITOR=emacs
VISUAL=emacs
export EDITOR VISUAL
Use the Creeping Evil Of setenv if you're using the Creeping Evil Of
The C Shell.
--Dave "Next question?" Brown
--
http://armf18.dow.on.doe.ca:6700/~dbrown/ Dave Brown, sysadmin for
Environment Canada. I charge for any unsolicited advertising that
appears in any system I administer, at the rate of $200/hr for my
time in dealing with the ad (min. 1/2 hr) and $100/kB for storage.
Dan Pop
>In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.950223...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com>,
>R!ch <ri...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com> wrote:
>>On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Loren Petrich wrote:
>
>... UNIX man is total trash --
>>> print out all the documentation at once, and force one to wade through it
>>> to find out what one wants to know.
>
>>Uh, you don't *have* to wade through all the info on a man page; you can
>>search for a string by hitting the '/' key. Hell, if you insist, you can
>>hit 'v', and go in to vi, to peruse the file at your leisure.
>
> And it just so happens that I HATE vi. The most confusing
Then don't use it. Set the PAGER variable to your favourite pager and
use it.
>screen-mode editor I've *ever used. I prefer emacs, some VMS editors, and
>even some CMS editors (on Intimidating Big Machines :-). If "man" gave me
>some way to start up emacs, then it might be OK.
Ask Mr Stallman to implement a pager mode in emacs and "setenv PAGER emacs"
or "export PAGER=emacs" :-)
>
> ObWindoze: I'd like to give Microsoft for having a great hypertext
>help facility -- one can wander around it to one's heart's content.
And waste a huge amount of time until you find the piece of info you were
actually looking for.
Dan Pop
> Actually, all the _Inside_Macintosh_ documentation is now on
>CD-ROM. So you can just read whatever docs you want with DocViewer.
And, of course, the CD-ROM and the CD-ROM drive are included in the
price of every Mac.
>
> And I really think that comparing Mac system programming to UNIX
>system programming is a bit like comparing apples to oranges :-), unless
>one is writing UNIX/X GUI apps. How does X-windows fare in this department?
Pretty well. You don't risk to crash the system while doing X development.
And if your system is too slow, you can develop the code on a faster one
and see the results on your screen. Quite handy.
But, most important, the non-GUI part of the X application is still written
using the Unix API, which is much more elegant and powerful than the Mac API.
And you don't have to spend any time thinking about cooperative
"multitasking".
>
> Also, the lack of preemptive multitasking and multiple protected
>memory spaces is not a big disaster if one is running well-behaved apps.
This is a big if, especially if you're developing applications and you're
trying to get them well behaved, because in their alpha stage they keep
crashing your Mac.
>I agree that both are nice to have, however, and Apple is moving in that
>direction. ObWindoze: how the Mac works in that regard is like how Win16
>apps are run; though the Mac is 32-bit, it won't catch up to Win32-app
>execution in Windoze NT and Windoze 4.0/9x in a while.
Why? After all, MacOS is older than any flavour of Windows. Is its
internal design that brain dead that Apple couldn't fix in ten years and
it's still in the "but wait until version X" stage?
Matt McLeod
dfa...@venus.tamu.edu (ALEXANDER, DYLAN FLYNN) wrote:
> In my CS lab, when you log onto the Novell network from one of the PC's, you
> get a menu with the commands for all of the progs available. Whoever set
> this up has it set up: Turbo Pascal : tc
> MS Windoze : windows
>
> Even the people who set up the damn PC networks can't stand Windows! I have
> yet to meet anyone who liked it. I've found some _very_ warped people who
> like DOS, but for most CS majors and grad students, it's Linux or OS/2. Who
> can blame them? Of course they _should_ get a Mac.
The guys who set it up might hate it, but I can tell you who
hates it even more - anyone trying to support a large NetWare
network with Windoze. Actually, anyone supporting a large
number of Windoze machines hates it, networked or not.
--
Matt McLeod "Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston
Freelance General-Purpose Geek lausajne estas rano en mia bideo."
ma...@scorch.hna.com.au - AJ Rimmer
Loren Petrich
>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>> And it just so happens that I HATE vi. The most confusing
>Then don't use it. Set the PAGER variable to your favourite pager and
>use it.
Sure. But how would I find out about it other than spending an
inordinate time reading man files?
>> ObWindoze: I'd like to give Microsoft for having a great hypertext
>>help facility -- one can wander around it to one's heart's content.
>And waste a huge amount of time until you find the piece of info you were
>actually looking for.
I personally find it *much more pleasant than doing a lot of man -k's
with this or that keyword, hoping to find one that matches what I want to
do, and *then wading through several pages of man file -- tolerable for
very short commands, like the pbmplus ones, but try doing that for xv or
csh :-(.
Loren Petrich
Shimpei Yamashita <shi...@leland.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.950223...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com>,
>R!ch <ri...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com> wrote:
>:> >But the real point is that good old "man" is a lot better than the VMS
>:> >and VM/CMS help facilities: it provides more information and in a easier
>:> >way. ...
>:> I disagree. The nice thing about VMS help is that it is
>:> hierarchical;
>:Uh, you don't *have* to wade through all the info on a man page; you can
>:search for a string by hitting the '/' key. Hell, if you insist, you can
>:hit 'v', and go in to vi, to peruse the file at your leisure.
>Of course, this / things is NOT documented in the man man pages, the help
>screen in man, or the man pages for more, less, vi, etc., etc., for that
>matter....(It says to use /string to search for string. Nowhere does it say
>that you can use / by itself to repeat a search.) The man pages are good
>for jogging memories, but are horrible for actually learning something from
>scratch. (Of course, there are exceptions, but I'm speaking in general
>terms.)
That's been my experience also. They are tolerable for such
things as the pbmplus package, which consists of a lot of programs, each
of which does one tiny little thing (scale a picture, rotate it, convert
it into another format, etc.). The man files there aren't terribly long,
but just consider xv or csh -- is it any fun wading through the long man
files for *those programs?
I wonder why UNIX seems to be so behind the curve in help
facilities? Of the other CLI systems I've used, VMS and even VM/CMS have
had easier-to-use systems. And why isn't there a good X-windows version
that is (1) comprehensive and (2) easy-to-use like MS's hypertext help?
Dan Pop
>Of course, this / things is NOT documented in the man man pages, the help
>screen in man, or the man pages for more, less, vi, etc., etc., for that
>matter....(It says to use /string to search for string. Nowhere does it say
>that you can use / by itself to repeat a search.) The man pages are good
Which proves that you didn't bother to even read the "more" man page.
Of course, this doesn't prevent you from displaying your ignorance to
the rest of the world. From the "more" man page:
/expression
Searches for the ith occurrence of the regular expression expres-
sion. If there are less than i occurrences of expression, and the
input is a file rather than a pipe, then the position in the file
remains unchanged. Otherwise, a screenful is displayed, starting
with the line matching expression. You can use Erase and Kill char-
acters to edit the regular expression, which must be terminated by
pressing <Return> (with no trailing / character). Erasing back past
the first column cancels the search command. If expression is null,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
more uses the last regular expression entered.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
?expression
Same as /, but searches backward in the file.
n Searches for the ith occurrence of the last regular expression
entered.
N Searches for the ith occurrence of the last regular expression
entered, but reverses the direction of that search.
Anyway, to repeat the last search, 'n' is the easiest way, since it
requires only one key press. And you can find similar information in
the "less" and "vi" man pages. But you have to read them, of course :-)
>for jogging memories, but are horrible for actually learning something from
>scratch. (Of course, there are exceptions, but I'm speaking in general
>terms.)
You're speaking in bullshit terms. The man pages are the Unix Reference
Manual. A reference manual is not intended for learning anything from
scratch, this is the purpose of a guide or tutorial document.
DoN. Nichols
[ ... ]
> So it's something like a brain-damaged version of Microsoft's
>hypertext help facility? I actually find that very nice, because I can
>wander through it by clicking on the names of topics that appear in the
>text, and I can also search for a topic if I want to.
>
> If someone could write a version of that for UNIX/X, and supplied
>a lot of good hypertext-ified UNIX info, I'd be willing to use it.
Have you tried Sun's AnswerBook? It is essentially what you
describe. (Of course, it is an extra-cost option.) :-(
>>Granted, I still think VMS help was nicer than UNIX man though.
Well ... I've never used VMS, so I can't speak to that, but I have
used unix for quite a while -- learning most of it from reading man pages.
While it isn't at the hypertext level, at least the concept is there with
the "See Also" section. And "man -k" (as has been mentioned before in this
thread) is a help in finding relevant man pages. (Of course, some topics
will give too many suggested starting points, especially since X11 came in,
but judicious use of the section numbers can help narrow the selection. --
But, you do need to know the meaning of the section numbers.)
> I'm glad that someone around here agrees with me and doesn't have
>this "UNIX right or wrong" attitude some seem to have.
I would simply say that it has been a major improvement over any
other OS which I have used enough to have an opinion on. I did like OS-9
greatly, however, and there are some ideas there which would be nice to add
to unix.
--
Email: <dnic...@d-and-d.com> | ...!uunet!ceilidh!dnichols
Donald Nichols (DoN.) | Voice (Days): (703) 704-2280 (Eves): (703) 938-4564
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
Loren Petrich
>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>"less" is bidirectional. Learning about your tools is better and more
>productive than griping.
Sure. But if I didn't know in advance that there *was such as
thing as less, how would I learn about it???
>>... Its much easier and faster to get
>>>at the info you actually need than with VMS HELP, where you have to read
>>>a lot of stuff until you find what you're actually looking for.
>> Actually, I like VMS help better because it's easier to find
>>something unfamiliar with it, and I like systems that allow one to learn
>>on one's own.
>I wasn't aware of the fact that man is so limited that you can't learn
>on your own, so I learned Unix on my own, using man and apropos.
I've learned a lot of what I know about UNIX by that process, and
it isn't very easy. I've had a *lot easier time with other help
facilities, including the VM/CMS one that runs on IBM dinosaurs.
... The
>user friendly VMS HELP, after an extremely short and incomplete description
>sends you to one of the VMS reference manuals, which exist only in hard
>copy form, and most of the time aren't available, because someone else
>needs them, too (see, you were not the only one using HELP on that VMS
>box :-)
Actually, I was usually the only one using the VMS paper manuals
at where I was at :-)
>man pages are _reference_ documents, not pointers to reference documents.
My experience, however, was somewhat different -- I could find
much of what I wanted to know from VMS online help (and even IBM-dinosaur
online help). And of course, they don't stand a candle to good GUI
hypertext help like what MS offers.
[Macintosh programming...]
>And if you make a mistake in your code, you crash your Mac, a la MSDOS.
>What's the use of a CLI type program on a Mac? Do you have a shell,
>pipes, everything else that actually makes the CLI paradigm so powerful?
I would if I had the Macintosh Programmers' Workshop, but MPW is
rather expensive and a big memory hog.
>> It's just taking full advantage of the Mac's GUI that's
>>difficult. One has to set up an event loop, and write routines that take
>>care of the various events received (opening a file, quitting,
>>redisplaying a window, ...). And, if anything, Windoze is *worse.
>Of course it's worse. It's only a very bad copy of MacOS. But why should
>a programmer use Windows, unless he's a Solitaire addict?
That seems to be the general consensus regarding Windoze -- that
it is just plain trash that is mainly good for playing Solitaire on. The
icons and icon groups of the Program Manager give me a *severe case of
crossed wires of the brain -- they are not for files, which must be
handled in the File Manager. And that's *so horrible that I prefer Norton
Desktop, PCShell (a DOS program), or even the straight DOS CLI.
Loren Petrich
David Spencer <spe...@panix.com> wrote:
>dan...@cernapo.cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes:
>But the main problem with programming the Mac is indeed that its
>"cooperative multitasking" and unprotected memory are _horrible_
>design flaws. ...
Let us not forget that the Macintosh was designed in the early
1980's, when it would have been a *lot more difficult to design a
preemptively-multitasking system with multiple protected memory spaces
that ran a bitmap-display GUI -- and cost only $2500.
As it was, the original 128K Mac was single-tasking -- and slow.
What I find really remarkable is how many of the limitations of
the original Mac have been overcome without breaking just about every old
app. So that's why I have confidence that Apple will come out with
preemptive multitasking and multiple memory spaces someday.
... Forcing each program to do task scheduling is certainly a
>bigger hog than having it done right, in one place, and providing it
>as a service to the program.
Not really. With the Macintosh, it's handled with periodic
WaitNextEvent() calls; when an app decides to wait for its next event,
the kernel decides what other process to give time to.
>The last seriously broken element of the Mac is that the system call
>interface and documentation are (I kid you not) in Pascal. ...
That *can't be too difficult to translate into C, can it?
DoN. Nichols
The artist formerly known as Tom O'Toole <ecf_...@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu> wrote:
[ ... ]
>oh, right. Tell me what you get with man backup or man convert.
man -k backup shows me vmsbackup(1) (which is a tool for reading VMS
savesets from tape.
man -k convert gives me 64 references, including one to a program
convert(1), which is an image file conversion program. I have no idea
whether that one came with the OS, or was part of one of the many packages
added to the system from net.sources over the years.
How do you go about adding information about new programs which you
have written, or which came from some other source, to this help facility?
Is it as easy as it is on unix, where the makefile copies the man pages into
place when you "make install" (usually). To have them visible in the
database used by man -k, you use either catman(8) or makewhatis(8) in the
appropriate man directory.
> VMS is at least
>giving you something on what is (and I gainsay in advance all arguments to the
>contrary) a goddam UNIX call!!!!!
>
>$man alias
>No manual entry found for alias
======================================================================
$ man -k alias
mkfontdir, fonts.dir, fonts.scale, fonts.alias (1) - create an index of X
font files in a directory
checkalias (1L) - check to see if an alias is defined.
elmalias (1L) - expand and display Elm address aliases
listalias (1L) - list user and system aliases
newalias (1L) - install new elm aliases for user and/or system
aliases, addresses, forward (5) - addresses and aliases for sendmail
csh, %, @, alias, bg, break, breaksw, case, continue, default, dirs, else,
end, endif, endsw, eval, exec, exit, fg, foreach, glob, goto, hashstat,
history, if, jobs, label, limit, logout, notify, onintr, popd, pushd,
rehash, repeat, set, setenv, shift, source, stop, suspend, switch, then,
umask, unalias, unhash, unlimit, unset, unsetenv, while (1) - C shell
built-in commands, see csh(1)
newaliases (8) - rebuild the data base for the mail aliases file
services (5) - Internet services and aliases
which (1) - locate a command; display its pathname or alias
======================================================================
Granted this is not all places where alias is covered, but it is all
that had the word 'alias' in the synopsis line. Of these, the long one
which points you to "see csh(1)" tells you that it is one of the built-ins
for at least one shell, so you should consider looking at the man page for
your preferred shell, as well.
David Glynn
>Compare, for instance, the output of "man fopen" on Unix with
>"help cc run fopen" on VMS.
How "intuitive", as the Mac crowd puts it.
DG
David Glynn
dagb...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca says...
>It's not that arcane.
>EDITOR=emacs
>VISUAL=emacs
>export EDITOR VISUAL
>
>Use the Creeping Evil Of setenv if you're using the Creeping Evil Of
>The C Shell.
>
>--Dave "Next question?" Brown
Again, as the Mac crowd puts it, "how intuitive".
DG
David Glynn
>
>In <3ilri1$t...@amy25.Stanford.EDU> shi...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Shimpei Yamashit
Jeez Dan, you sound like me last week. Take a pill.
Of course, the point some of us have been trying to make is that we have been sent
to the man pages to set us straight in our attempts to "do" Unix. Yet you say it
is a reference manual and not to be used for learning. Which part of Unix were we
supposed to use to learn Unix? And if we did not find it before we gave up is it
our fault for not understanding that this was significant knowledge?
Please Dan, point us to where we can recieve the essential knowledge that will
allow us to relate to the acolytes of the Church of Unix.
And if you say a 4 year institution....
DG
Loren Petrich
>In <3ilri1$t...@amy25.Stanford.EDU> shi...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Shimpei Yamashita) writes:
> /expression
> Searches for the ith occurrence of the regular expression expres-
> sion. ...
...................................................... If expression is null,
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> more uses the last regular expression entered.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That's not what I call a clear way of stating it. I'd prefer
something like:
To repeat the search, type simply '/'
I am insulted at being told to RTFM, when the FM isn't even very
R'able.
>You're speaking in bullshit terms. The man pages are the Unix Reference
>Manual. A reference manual is not intended for learning anything from
>scratch, this is the purpose of a guide or tutorial document.
But if the online help is only for reference purposes, how is one
supposed to *learn UNIX??? I think that documentation is something that
one ought to be able to learn from, since everybody has to learn how to
use the software they use sometime.
Just for comparison, I started Microsoft Excel on my Macintosh,
and used its help facility to look around a bit. VERY easy. And VERY good
even by Macintosh standards. I also used Apple Guide a bit, and it was
also very good. Now why can't UNIX help be anything like that???
Nix
[someone else wrote]
: : ... I've found some _very_ warped people who
: : >like DOS,
Nah, WARPed people like OS/2 3.0 :)
: : I confess I sometimes find it more convenient to manage files in
: : DOS than with the Windoze File Manager.
: : ... but for most CS majors and grad students, it's Linux or OS/2.
: Linux is great (if you have software for it). I kinda like X.
OS/2 with the XFeel DLL installed is very nice.
: : Linux is, of course, is a version of that hackers' all-time
: : favorite: UNIX
: : OS/2? I've seen such early names for it as "Oh Shit Two!" and
: : "Half an OS", but I've seen a lot of positive comments about more recent
: : versions of it. Maybe IBM has finally got its act together :-)
: hehehe.
What's *that* supposed to mean?
: : And the nicest thing of all is that they run on Intel 80x86
: : chips, providing competition for Chairman Bill.
: : ... Who
: : >can blame them? Of course they _should_ get a Mac.
: Why?
: Why not a workstation.
After all, workstations cost less...
: : I agree :-) But the Mac still has a way to go on the OS-innards
: : front, like:
: : Preemptive multitasking
: : Multiple protected memory spaces
: Warp does that sort of.
'Sort of'?
: : [Well, at least Apple is working on those two...]
: : Remote logins
: Haven't seen too many Mac ftp servers. (none actually)
I heard of one, once. Only once.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Windows Terminal - aptly describes Windows in two words.
'Whoev'r it was, I've gotta blow up with a chaaaaainsaw' - 'Stuss'
Dan Pop
>In article <D4J5M...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>>> And it just so happens that I HATE vi. The most confusing
>
>>Then don't use it. Set the PAGER variable to your favourite pager and
>>use it.
>
> Sure. But how would I find out about it other than spending an
>inordinate time reading man files?
Ask another user (or your sysadmin). Or if you're the sysadmin, ask
the net wisdom.
>
>>> ObWindoze: I'd like to give Microsoft for having a great hypertext
>>>help facility -- one can wander around it to one's heart's content.
>
>>And waste a huge amount of time until you find the piece of info you were
>>actually looking for.
>
> I personally find it *much more pleasant than doing a lot of man -k's
>with this or that keyword, hoping to find one that matches what I want to
>do, and *then wading through several pages of man file -- tolerable for
>very short commands, like the pbmplus ones, but try doing that for xv or
>csh :-(.
For longer man pages, the '/' command of your pager really helps. You
get at the desired piece of information orders of magnitude faster than
using a hypertext help facility. But if you prefer wasting your time
browsing hypertext...
Dan Pop
> I wonder why UNIX seems to be so behind the curve in help
>facilities? Of the other CLI systems I've used, VMS and even VM/CMS have
>had easier-to-use systems. And why isn't there a good X-windows version
Because real Unix users (as opposed to Mac appologists) find the online
Unix Reference Manual (aka man pages) much better than the above mentioned
alternatives.
>that is (1) comprehensive and (2) easy-to-use like MS's hypertext help?
What X hypertext man pages browsers that were not comprehensive not much
easier to use than MS help have you tried?
I see your "logic": if I don't know about it, then it doesn't exist.
DoN. Nichols
[ ... ]
>>"less" is bidirectional. Learning about your tools is better and more
>>productive than griping.
>
> Sure. But if I didn't know in advance that there *was such as
>thing as less, how would I learn about it???
By bitching on the net, where someone would tell you about 'less',
and point you to an archive site for it. It is one of those programs which
is in the freely-distributable source world, and not shipped with most
versions of unix. However, under SunOs 4.1.1 and later, most of the
features of less seem to be rolled into more.
Dan Pop
>In article <D4J6B...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>>>In article <D4Gq5...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>
>>"less" is bidirectional. Learning about your tools is better and more
>>productive than griping.
>
> Sure. But if I didn't know in advance that there *was such as
>thing as less, how would I learn about it???
But if you didn't know in advance that there was such a thing as VMS
HELP, how would you learn about it?
>
>>man pages are _reference_ documents, not pointers to reference documents.
>
> My experience, however, was somewhat different -- I could find
>much of what I wanted to know from VMS online help (and even IBM-dinosaur
If you ever needed detailed information, you had to go and find it
elsewhere. This is not the case with the man pages. Try to do VMS
system administration using only the VMS help. Or to do some serious
programming.
> [Macintosh programming...]
>
>>And if you make a mistake in your code, you crash your Mac, a la MSDOS.
>>What's the use of a CLI type program on a Mac? Do you have a shell,
>>pipes, everything else that actually makes the CLI paradigm so powerful?
>
> I would if I had the Macintosh Programmers' Workshop, but MPW is
>rather expensive and a big memory hog.
The best Unix shells are free and memory efficient. But Unix was designed
for programmers, not for losers.
Dan Pop
>In article <3ikoun$e...@panix3.panix.com>,
>David Spencer <spe...@panix.com> wrote:
>>dan...@cernapo.cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes:
>
>>But the main problem with programming the Mac is indeed that its
>>"cooperative multitasking" and unprotected memory are _horrible_
>>design flaws. ...
>
> Let us not forget that the Macintosh was designed in the early
>1980's, when it would have been a *lot more difficult to design a
>preemptively-multitasking system with multiple protected memory spaces
>that ran a bitmap-display GUI -- and cost only $2500.
Why? It was only a matter of better designed system software.
>
> As it was, the original 128K Mac was single-tasking -- and slow.
Unix was designed on a system with 8 kw (kilowords) of RAM and it was
multitasking and fast. And it became a success on a system with 56k of
RAM.
>
> What I find really remarkable is how many of the limitations of
>the original Mac have been overcome without breaking just about every old
>app. So that's why I have confidence that Apple will come out with
>preemptive multitasking and multiple memory spaces someday.
It should have come long ago with these features. Even MS managed to
get them on the PC.
>
>... Forcing each program to do task scheduling is certainly a
>>bigger hog than having it done right, in one place, and providing it
>>as a service to the program.
>
> Not really. With the Macintosh, it's handled with periodic
>WaitNextEvent() calls; when an app decides to wait for its next event,
>the kernel decides what other process to give time to.
And if the app gets caught in a loop... bye bye multitasking, hello hanged
system :-)
Thomas Charles CONWAY
>>Uh, you don't *have* to wade through all the info on a man page; you can
>>search for a string by hitting the '/' key. Hell, if you insist, you can
>>hit 'v', and go in to vi, to peruse the file at your leisure.
>
> And it just so happens that I HATE vi. The most confusing
>screen-mode editor I've *ever used. I prefer emacs, some VMS editors, and
>even some CMS editors (on Intimidating Big Machines :-). If "man" gave me
>some way to start up emacs, then it might be OK.
>
set your visual editor environment variable to 'emacs'. One line
in your .profile/.cshrc/etc (yay! lets start a shell war while we're
at it) is all it should take.
And if you don't like 'more' then set your pager environment variable to
your favourite pager...
Thomas
Dan Pop
>Of course, the point some of us have been trying to make is that we have been sent
>to the man pages to set us straight in our attempts to "do" Unix. Yet you say it
>is a reference manual and not to be used for learning. Which part of Unix were we
>supposed to use to learn Unix? And if we did not find it before we gave up is it
>our fault for not understanding that this was significant knowledge?
>
>Please Dan, point us to where we can recieve the essential knowledge that will
>allow us to relate to the acolytes of the Church of Unix.
>
>And if you say a 4 year institution....
No, I don't say a 4 year institution because I learned Unix long after
leaving my 5 year institution :-)
If you want to be a Unix user, read one Unix tutorial. There are plenty
of such books available in any CS bookshop. After this, man pages are
all you need.
If you want to do Unix system administration, read a book about Unix
system administration. Try to use a non vendor-specific one. After this,
man pages are all you need.
If you want to do Unix system programming, read a book about Unix system
programming. After this, man pages are all you need.
If you need specific references, feel free to ask them by email.
Dan Pop
>In article <D4JHq...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <3ilri1$t...@amy25.Stanford.EDU> shi...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Shimpei Yamashita) writes:
>
>> /expression
>> Searches for the ith occurrence of the regular expression expres-
>> sion. ...
>...................................................... If expression is null,
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> more uses the last regular expression entered.
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> That's not what I call a clear way of stating it. I'd prefer
>something like:
>
> To repeat the search, type simply '/'
It was written according to the author's preferences. And it seems pretty
clear to me.
>
> I am insulted at being told to RTFM, when the FM isn't even very
>R'able.
In this particular case it was _very_ readable, even for someone like me,
who is using English only when dealing with computers. I expect the
mileage of native English speakers to be much better than mine.
>
>>You're speaking in bullshit terms. The man pages are the Unix Reference
>>Manual. A reference manual is not intended for learning anything from
>>scratch, this is the purpose of a guide or tutorial document.
>
> But if the online help is only for reference purposes, how is one
>supposed to *learn UNIX??? I think that documentation is something that
>one ought to be able to learn from, since everybody has to learn how to
>use the software they use sometime.
And that's what introductory books are for. There are plenty of good ones
available.
>
> Just for comparison, I started Microsoft Excel on my Macintosh,
>and used its help facility to look around a bit. VERY easy. And VERY good
>even by Macintosh standards. I also used Apple Guide a bit, and it was
>also very good. Now why can't UNIX help be anything like that???
Because Unix is not an application program. When MS Excel will be ported
to Unix :-) it will be as easy to learn as Excel on the Mac. When Linux
will be available on the Mac (RSN) it will be as easy (or difficult :-) to
learn as any other Unix. Your comparison is pointless.
Mats Andtbacka
>In article <D4Gq5...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
> [on GUI help facilities for UNIX/X, etc....]
>>I see your logic: if I can't see it, it doesn't exist. How about asking
>>your sysadmin?
> I'm afraid that I was never aware that such help facilities
>existed for UNIX systems until recently.
Neither was I, until the idea surfaced on one of the c.o.linux groups
recently. The concept of HTTP format help files to be viewed with any
good web browser seemed to become the "thing to be realized by someone
when they get the time to do it", but everybody seemed to agree _they_
didn't have the time to do it. *sigh*...
(Speaking of c.o.linux, BTW, maybe this thread ought to be moved somewhere?)
>/// UNIX man is total trash --
>>>print out all the documentation at once, and force one to wade through it
>>>to find out what one wants to know.
>>On the contrary: it gives the user the required information and lets him
>>browse it with his preferred pager.
> As long as it's more or vi :-(
That's very odd, I use less as my manpager under both SunOS and Linux
- it's not even difficult to set it up. Are you sure you didn't miss
anything in the manpage for man?
>... Its much easier and faster to get
>>at the info you actually need than with VMS HELP, where you have to read
>>a lot of stuff until you find what you're actually looking for.
> Actually, I like VMS help better because it's easier to find
>something unfamiliar with it, and I like systems that allow one to learn
>on one's own.
As I've gone on record with before, I essentially agree. Moving from
VMS to SunOS, it took me a while to realize those manpages _were_ the
help facility... However, I tend to get flamed every time I say that
on any of the Un*x groups. ;->
--
" I've come to know the cold / I think of it as home
an' when there ain't enough of me / to go around
I'd rather be left alone ... " -- G'n'R
David Glynn
>Unix was designed on a system with 8 kw (kilowords) of RAM and it was
>multitasking and fast. And it became a success on a system with 56k of
>RAM.
Yeah, I really miss the old paper tape. You can't pin an algorithm to the wall and
rake in the admiration your peers, as they read the individual bit-placements,
with a floppy disk. :)
My grampa told me once that he had to walk 5 miles to school, uphill, BOTH ways!
And he was glad to have the chance to do it! Not like these kids nowadays...
DG
Kai Grossjohann
>>>>> In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren
>>>>> Petrich) writes:
Loren> I prefer emacs, some VMS editors, and even some CMS editors
Loren> (on Intimidating Big Machines :-). If "man" gave me some way
Loren> to start up emacs, then it might be OK.
Dan> Ask Mr Stallman to implement a pager mode in emacs and "setenv
Dan> PAGER emacs" or "export PAGER=emacs" :-)
Or, dare I suggest, hit M-x man RET while within Emacs...
See, you don't run Emacs from within another program, you run the
program from within Emacs. Hough! (sp?)
\kai{}
--
Life is hard and then you die.
Loren Petrich
>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>> Sure. But if I didn't know in advance that there *was such as
>>thing as less, how would I learn about it???
>But if you didn't know in advance that there was such a thing as VMS
>HELP, how would you learn about it?
In whatever introductory instructions there are. An online-help
facility would be on the top of the list, while something like "less"
would be far below :-)
After using MS hypertext help, the Apple Guide, and VMS help, I
find it hard to imagine how *anyone could *possible think that the UNIX
man facility is superior.
>If you ever needed detailed information, you had to go and find it
>elsewhere. This is not the case with the man pages. Try to do VMS
>system administration using only the VMS help. Or to do some serious
>programming.
With what had been available, it would be a bit difficult. But DEC
reportedly has full-scale help on a CD-ROM.
>The best Unix shells are free and memory efficient. But Unix was designed
>for programmers, not for losers.
I'm insulted at being called a "loser". And I don't see the point
of going through needless contortions to do what I want to do.
Loren Petrich
>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>> Let us not forget that the Macintosh was designed in the early
>>1980's, when it would have been a *lot more difficult to design a
>>preemptively-multitasking system with multiple protected memory spaces
>>that ran a bitmap-display GUI -- and cost only $2500.
>Why? It was only a matter of better designed system software.
But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit
into a 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while
doing a lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip
at reasonable speeds?
>> As it was, the original 128K Mac was single-tasking -- and slow.
>Unix was designed on a system with 8 kw (kilowords) of RAM and it was
>multitasking and fast. And it became a success on a system with 56k of
>RAM.
But it did not have to do *any GUI stuff.
>> What I find really remarkable is how many of the limitations of
>>the original Mac have been overcome without breaking just about every old
>>app. So that's why I have confidence that Apple will come out with
>>preemptive multitasking and multiple memory spaces someday.
>It should have come long ago with these features. Even MS managed to
>get them on the PC.
Present-day PC's, maybe, but back in the early 1980's, they only
ran DOS, and it took a while for MS to come up with a successful Windoze
design (does *anybody remember Windoze 1? Windoze 2?). And even *that has
none of those wonderful features.
Currently, one can have all those nice features with Windoze NT
running Win32 apps, but I'm not sure how well Win16 apps can do. Windoze
9x won't be out for a while, but only Win32 apps will be multitasked on
it; all the Win16 apps will have to run in a compatibility box and be
cooperatively multitasked in a single memory space with respect to each
other. So if one has a big pile of Win16 apps, one either has to get
something big and fast to run NT or else one is stuck without these
wonderful features (PMT and MMS).
Apple's commitment to OpenDoc also makes me a bit more confident
that Apple's new MacOS versions will be a bit less bloated than MS's new
Windoze ones.
Dan Pop
>In article <D4L2F...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>
>>> Sure. But if I didn't know in advance that there *was such as
>>>thing as less, how would I learn about it???
>
>>But if you didn't know in advance that there was such a thing as VMS
>>HELP, how would you learn about it?
>
> In whatever introductory instructions there are. An online-help
>facility would be on the top of the list, while something like "less"
>would be far below :-)
>
> After using MS hypertext help, the Apple Guide, and VMS help, I
>find it hard to imagine how *anyone could *possible think that the UNIX
>man facility is superior.
I used the same help systems, plus a few more (HP Vue-Help, AIX info,
SGI Insight) and I find man to be the best one, in terms of time-to-answer
and completeness of the answer. Not all people are created equal, hence
different opinions.
>
>>If you ever needed detailed information, you had to go and find it
>>elsewhere. This is not the case with the man pages. Try to do VMS
>>system administration using only the VMS help. Or to do some serious
>>programming.
>
> With what had been available, it would be a bit difficult. But DEC
>reportedly has full-scale help on a CD-ROM.
Which contains electronic versions of the printed documentation. Not really
a help system.
>
>>The best Unix shells are free and memory efficient. But Unix was designed
>>for programmers, not for losers.
>
> I'm insulted at being called a "loser". And I don't see the point
Sorry, I thought you were a programmer :-)
>of going through needless contortions to do what I want to do.
Those doing Mac programming _have_ to go through needless contortions
to do what they need to do, because the Mac API is a horrible mess. The
Mac looks nice only on the outside.
Dan Pop
>In article <D4L2r...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>
>>> Let us not forget that the Macintosh was designed in the early
>>>1980's, when it would have been a *lot more difficult to design a
>>>preemptively-multitasking system with multiple protected memory spaces
>>>that ran a bitmap-display GUI -- and cost only $2500.
>
>>Why? It was only a matter of better designed system software.
>
> But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit
>into a 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while
>doing a lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip
>at reasonable speeds?
Of course. Amiga proved it.
>
>>> As it was, the original 128K Mac was single-tasking -- and slow.
>
>>Unix was designed on a system with 8 kw (kilowords) of RAM and it was
>>multitasking and fast. And it became a success on a system with 56k of
>>RAM.
>
> But it did not have to do *any GUI stuff.
Multitasking and GUI are two completely unrelated aspects. Adding true
multitasking would require a few extra kb. There was plenty of room for
it in the original Mac design.
>
>>> What I find really remarkable is how many of the limitations of
>>>the original Mac have been overcome without breaking just about every old
>>>app. So that's why I have confidence that Apple will come out with
>>>preemptive multitasking and multiple memory spaces someday.
>
>>It should have come long ago with these features. Even MS managed to
>>get them on the PC.
>
> Present-day PC's, maybe, but back in the early 1980's, they only
>ran DOS, and it took a while for MS to come up with a successful Windoze
Wrong. Back in the early '80's they ran Xenix, an 8086 (later 286) Unix
port.
>design (does *anybody remember Windoze 1? Windoze 2?). And even *that has
Never seen Windows 1 but I've used data acquisition software for Windows 2.
It was in no way less stable than on later versions of Windows.
>none of those wonderful features.
>
> Currently, one can have all those nice features with Windoze NT
>running Win32 apps, but I'm not sure how well Win16 apps can do. Windoze
>9x won't be out for a while, but only Win32 apps will be multitasked on
>it; all the Win16 apps will have to run in a compatibility box and be
>cooperatively multitasked in a single memory space with respect to each
>other. So if one has a big pile of Win16 apps, one either has to get
>something big and fast to run NT or else one is stuck without these
>wonderful features (PMT and MMS).
The cost of progress. We don't use hardware forever, why should we use
software forever? You're speaking like a MS appologist, trying to justify
the brain damage in MSDOS and Windows.
>
> Apple's commitment to OpenDoc also makes me a bit more confident
>that Apple's new MacOS versions will be a bit less bloated than MS's new
>Windoze ones.
And now you switched to vapourware. Let's stick to what we have now.
Speculations about how future releases will look a pure waste of time.
And right now, MacOS is way behind NT and Unix. When this will change,
please let me know.
Shimpei Yamashita
:In <3ilri1$t...@amy25.Stanford.EDU> shi...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Shimpei Yamashita) writes:
:
:>Of course, this / things is NOT documented in the man man pages, the help
:>screen in man, or the man pages for more, less, vi, etc., etc., for that
:>matter....(It says to use /string to search for string. Nowhere does it say
:>that you can use / by itself to repeat a search.) The man pages are good
:
:Which proves that you didn't bother to even read the "more" man page.
:Of course, this doesn't prevent you from displaying your ignorance to
:the rest of the world. From the "more" man page:
Well, I'm happy your site has good man pages. The man pages for SunOS
installed at our site did not mention it.
--
Shimpei Yamashita, Stanford University shi...@leland.stanford.edu
Steven Marcotte
> >>The best Unix shells are free and memory efficient. But Unix was designed
> >>for programmers, not for losers.
> >
> > I'm insulted at being called a "loser". And I don't see the point
>
> Sorry, I thought you were a programmer :-)
>
> >of going through needless contortions to do what I want to do.
>
> Those doing Mac programming _have_ to go through needless contortions
> to do what they need to do, because the Mac API is a horrible mess. The
> Mac looks nice only on the outside.
The Macintosh Toolbox is not a "horrible mess", the Windows API is a
horrible mess. Macintosh programming takes discipline, something many
programmers don't have. You sound very open minded, yet I don't think
you could understand.
Steven Marcotte
sdo...@cis.ksu.edu
Matt McLeod
gros...@linus.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Kai Grossjohann) wrote:
> >>>>> "Greg" == Greg Bickel <gr...@server.nlbbs.com> writes:
>
> Greg> Try UnInstaller for windows. Does a wonderful job.
>
> Is there actually a way for UnInstaller to know what to remove or is
> there just a big table saying
>
> IF (ProgramToBeRemoved == "MS Word 6.0")
> THEN { DELETE foo.txt ; DELETE bar.exe }
>
> and so on?
The better uninstallers (there're heaps of them around now) scan
the EXE files to find out which DLLs they use. They generally
also make sure that the DLLs aren't needed for something else.
The safest one(s) take a snapshot of the system before you
install, then another after you install - so then it knows
exactly what belongs to what.
--
Matt McLeod "Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston
Freelance General-Purpose Geek lausajne estas rano en mia bideo."
ma...@scorch.hna.com.au - AJ Rimmer
Bruce Ediger
:Let us not forget that the Macintosh was designed in the early
:preemptively-multitasking system with multiple protected memory spaces
:that ran a bitmap-display GUI -- and cost only $2500.
After which, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
:Why? It was only a matter of better designed system software.
Loren Petrich respondes:
:But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit
:into a 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while
:doing a lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip
:at reasonable speeds?
Almost certainly. MicroWare, of Des Moines, Iowa had a multi-tasking OS
called OS-9 that ran on one-lung 6809 chips in the early 80s. The way
the 6809 addressed memory, 64K was the max any process could have, so
the original OS-9 fit in 64K. There was no problem ROMming OS-9: it was
semi-designed to do that anyway.
So I guess the answer is "yes". If Apple had cared, or at least not been
blinded by past experience with goofy architectures like the 6502, they
could have produced a multi-tasking OS that fit on the machine you describe.
Richard Morrell
>
[part of article deleted to save you reading it for the nth time]
>
> But if the online help is only for reference purposes, how is one
> supposed to *learn UNIX??? I think that documentation is something that
> one ought to be able to learn from, since everybody has to learn how to
> use the software they use sometime.
>
> Just for comparison, I started Microsoft Excel on my Macintosh,
> and used its help facility to look around a bit. VERY easy. And VERY good
> even by Macintosh standards. I also used Apple Guide a bit, and it was
> also very good. Now why can't UNIX help be anything like that???
>
OK Mac boys and girls, listen up. If you want to learn UNIX, go and read a book on
it. I recommend "UNIX in a nutshell" by O'Reilly et al. I would also recommend
finding a UNIX wizard to teach you some of the more "undocumented" features of the
OS. UNIX was never meant to be easy, it was meant to be powerful. There are so many
things that UNIX has, that the Mac doesn't. The question is whether you want these
extra features or not.
Having said that, any monkey can use X windows. I definitely recommend it, if you've
got the hardware to run it...
--
______________________________________________________
_________|Richard Morrell | |_________
\ |---------------------| r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk | /
\ |CS Undergraduate at | R.C.M...@sms.ed.ac.uk | /
\ |Edinburgh University | | /
\ |------------------------------------------------------| /
/ | Never hit a man with glasses. | \
/ | Hit him with a baseball bat. | \
/ |______________________________________________________| \
/____________) (___________\
David Spencer
>David Spencer <spe...@panix.com> wrote:
>>But the main problem with programming the Mac is indeed that its
>>"cooperative multitasking" and unprotected memory are _horrible_
>>design flaws. ...
> Let us not forget that the Macintosh was designed in the early
>1980's, when it would have been a *lot more difficult to design a
>preemptively-multitasking system with multiple protected memory spaces
>that ran a bitmap-display GUI -- and cost only $2500.
Let's not forget that unix was designed to run with a lot less
machinery than even the 128k (singletasking) Mac.
Let's not forget that the 128k Mac was not multitiasking in any sense;
by the time the Mac got "multitasking" it was certainly capable of
doing what unix machines had been doing for a decade.
>... Forcing each program to do task scheduling is certainly a
>>bigger hog than having it done right, in one place, and providing it
>>as a service to the program.
> Not really. With the Macintosh, it's handled with periodic
>WaitNextEvent() calls; when an app decides to wait for its next event,
>the kernel decides what other process to give time to.
I love the indefinite pronoun: by "it's handled with" you of course
mean "the user program is forced to make". A real OS provides this
service to every user program, rather than forcing every user
programmer to include it in his code. And what do you do when the
competing task doesn't "cooperate"?
>>The last seriously broken element of the Mac is that the system call
>>interface and documentation are (I kid you not) in Pascal. ...
> That *can't be too difficult to translate into C, can it?
Translation isn't the issue. It's being forced to translate from a
toy language for college students to a real language.
--
dhs spe...@panix.com
Francesco Benvenuto
>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
>writes:
>>
>[part of article deleted to save you reading it for the nth time]
>>
>> But if the online help is only for reference purposes, how is one
>> supposed to *learn UNIX???
>OK Mac boys and girls, listen up. If you want to learn UNIX, go and read a book
>on it.
Good tip. Amazing, for someone with a pretty warlordable .sig like yours.
I did learn VMS from the online HELP system somehow, but RTFM'd at the very
beginning and every now and then (and thoroughly browsed the big gray
wall when I started managing VMS systems). Something you cannot do
(i.e. learning from man) with Unix, nor with VM/CMS, even if it has a better
online help than most Unices.
BTW, there is a widespread agreement on the self-evident fact that neither
one of {AIX, HP-UX, Ultrix, Unicos, Linux} is a True Unix(tm) OS; so I think I
never used an Unix system, short of a brief (bot intense) experience on a
Convex years ago. Could some Unix wizard out there point me to the True
Direction?
francesco "let's start several flame wars at once!" Benvenuto
--
fB - benv...@mvcomo.fis.unico.it - http://mvcomo.fis.unico.it:8000/~benvenuto/
Tommy Usher
David Spencer <spe...@panix.com> wrote:
>pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>>>The last seriously broken element of the Mac is that the system call
>>>interface and documentation are (I kid you not) in Pascal. ...
>
>> That *can't be too difficult to translate into C, can it?
>
>Translation isn't the issue. It's being forced to translate from a
>toy language for college students to a real language.
I agree. For a very funny piece on this, go find the infamous April Fool's
issue of Computer Language, around 1982, 1983, or such. It has an "interview"
with Wirth that explains this in a truly hilarious way.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tommy Usher No Frills Software | Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: |
| hac...@ns.secis.com | There's always one more bug. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Loren Petrich
Bruce Ediger <bed...@teal.csn.org> wrote:
>pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) wrote:
>:But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit
>:into a 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while
>:doing a lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip
>:at reasonable speeds?
>Almost certainly. MicroWare, of Des Moines, Iowa had a multi-tasking OS
>called OS-9 that ran on one-lung 6809 chips in the early 80s. The way
>the 6809 addressed memory, 64K was the max any process could have, so
>the original OS-9 fit in 64K. There was no problem ROMming OS-9: it was
>semi-designed to do that anyway.
And did it have any GUI features??? GUI stuff tends to eat up
memory and processing power.
Ray Jones
: In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.950223...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com>,
: R!ch <ri...@blackdeath.isltd.insignia.com> wrote:
: >On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Loren Petrich wrote:
: ... UNIX man is total trash --
: >> print out all the documentation at once, and force one to wade through it
: >> to find out what one wants to know.
: >Uh, you don't *have* to wade through all the info on a man page; you can
: >search for a string by hitting the '/' key. Hell, if you insist, you can
: >hit 'v', and go in to vi, to peruse the file at your leisure.
: And it just so happens that I HATE vi. The most confusing
: screen-mode editor I've *ever used. I prefer emacs, some VMS editors, and
: even some CMS editors (on Intimidating Big Machines :-). If "man" gave me
: some way to start up emacs, then it might be OK.
If you don't like vi and wish the "man" command could drop you into "emacs",
change the man command. It is just a shell script. Copy it to your
personal "bin" directory, change the name to "Man", edit it (with emacs if
you like) and change the occurance of "vi" to emacs.
Then use "Man command" instead of "man command". That is one of the vary
nice parts of Unix, if you don't like it, change it.
: ObWindoze: I'd like to give Microsoft for having a great hypertext
: help facility -- one can wander around it to one's heart's content.
: --
: Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
: pet...@netcom.com Happiness is a fast Macintosh
: l...@s1.gov And a fast train
--
INTERNET: r...@Celestial.COM Ray A. Jones; Celestial Systems, Inc.
URL: http://www.celestial.com One Mercer Plaza, Suite S100
Manufacturer of Internet Gateways Mercer Island, WA 98040; (206) 236-1676
The probability of one or more spelling errors in this missive approaches
unity. If this bothers you, run it through your spell checker!
Matt McLeod
[Comment on Windoze help]
> And waste a huge amount of time until you find the piece of info you were
> actually looking for.
Not necessarily. It depends a lot on how well the help file was
put together. If it was done properly, then you just click
"Search", type in your criteria, and click OK.
Me, I'm happy with man, winhelp, VMS help, IPF, and just about
anything else - so long as the content is useful.
Malcolm Purvis
>>>>> "Bruce" == Bruce Ediger <bed...@teal.csn.org>
Loren> But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit into a
Loren> 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while doing a
Loren> lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip at
Loren> reasonable speeds?
Bruce>> [OS-9: Small, multitasking, and around at the time]
Loren> And did it have any GUI features??? GUI stuff tends to eat up memory
Loren> and processing power.
OS-9 doesn't have a native GUI, but the version of OS-9 we run here on 68040s
has an 85k kernel, which includes the filesystem, real-time multitasking and
the like. I presume a 68000 only version would be even smaller because it
wouldn't have to worry about MMUs, and the floating point co-processor. Even
so, that leaves > 40K in the ROM for a GUI, which should have been plenty for
something of the original QuickDraw's capabilities.
--
Malcolm Purvis (malc...@calvin.abc.gov.au)
Consultant, ABC TR&D, Ultimo, Sydney, Australia
Brian Connors
> In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren
Petrich) writes:
> >
> [part of article deleted to save you reading it for the nth time]
> >
> > But if the online help is only for reference purposes, how is one
> > supposed to *learn UNIX??? I think that documentation is something that
> > one ought to be able to learn from, since everybody has to learn how to
> > use the software they use sometime.
It helps, yes...
> >
> > Just for comparison, I started Microsoft Excel on my Macintosh,
> > and used its help facility to look around a bit. VERY easy. And VERY good
> > even by Macintosh standards. I also used Apple Guide a bit, and it was
> > also very good. Now why can't UNIX help be anything like that???
I suppose that's one more point in Micro$oft's favor. Hmmm...
Multimedia...4
Help systems...3
Applications...-8
Operating Systems...-12
Good faith treatment of users...-3
Adds up to about -16. I still don't like Microsoft. My question is, if
their help facility is so good (personally I prefer at times to just read
a document straight), how come their apps don't measure up?
Apple Guide has promise, but I wonder who plans on supporting it.
> >
>
> OK Mac boys and girls, listen up. If you want to learn UNIX, go and
read a book on
> it. I recommend "UNIX in a nutshell" by O'Reilly et al. I would also
recommend
> finding a UNIX wizard to teach you some of the more "undocumented"
features of the
> OS. UNIX was never meant to be easy, it was meant to be powerful.
There are so many
> things that UNIX has, that the Mac doesn't. The question is whether you
want these
> extra features or not.
Ouch... skating close to flamebait there...
The feature sets are different. I'd think the Mac set is somewhat larger
myself, especially considering as how Inside Mac beats out the System V
docs from USL by about ten volumes. But the features are concentrated in
a different area. As for "UNIX was never meant to be easy, it was meant
to be powerful," I consider that a bit fallacious. The Mac OS, though it
lacks preemptive multitasking and memory protection, is quite powerful.
It's just a question of what power you want.
>
> Having said that, any monkey can use X windows. I definitely recommend
it, if you've
> got the hardware to run it...
True, but if you're a dedicated Mac user it feels definitively strange at
times. It responds differently from a Mac. At times I swear I'm actually
used to the printout delay and all that.
Brian Connors
Boston College
914-664-1844
: In article <3ikoun$e...@panix3.panix.com>,
: David Spencer <spe...@panix.com> wrote:
: >dan...@cernapo.cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes:
: >But the main problem with programming the Mac is indeed that its
: >"cooperative multitasking" and unprotected memory are _horrible_
: >design flaws. ...
: Let us not forget that the Macintosh was designed in the early
: 1980's, when it would have been a *lot more difficult to design a
: preemptively-multitasking system with multiple protected memory spaces
: that ran a bitmap-display GUI -- and cost only $2500.
Haven't you ever heard of an Amiga? Minus protected memory ofcourse.
: --
: Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
: pet...@netcom.com Happiness is a fast Macintosh
: l...@s1.gov And a fast train
--
/\/******\/\ TOADEAtER-THE \/OiCE BBS
\| o..o |/ toad...@escape.com
\ \____/ / THE VOiCE BBS 914-664-1844
V V
Erik Svensson
In article <D4Gq5...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
Seriously, "more" is unidirectional, and I don't enjoy going back
to the beginning just to catch something I might have missed.
It is?
I didn't know that so I scroll backwards by pressing the 'b' key.
Tho' less is much better.
cheers
--
Erik Svensson ATM Division
Stockholm, Sweden CelsiusTech AB
"Oh, come on. It can't be THAT bad."
-- Overheard at the entrance to Twice is Nice couloir, Jackson Hole, Wy
Dave Brown
David Glynn <dgl...@ncsa.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>In article <D4Iv3...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca>,
>dagb...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca says...
>
>>It's not that arcane.
>>EDITOR=emacs
>>VISUAL=emacs
>>export EDITOR VISUAL
>
>Again, as the Mac crowd puts it, "how intuitive".
Aye, but if it were to be intuitive, there wouldn't even *be* a method
for setting your pager and editor. Unix is meant to be empowering, not
easy.
--Dave
--
http://armf18.dow.on.doe.ca:6700/~dbrown/ Dave Brown, sysadmin for
Environment Canada. I charge for any unsolicited advertising that
appears in any system I administer, at the rate of $200/hr for my
time in dealing with the ad (min. 1/2 hr) and $100/kB for storage.
Doug Siebert
>In article <D4nqo...@dcs.ed.ac.uk> r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Richard Morrell) writes:
>>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com>, pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
>>writes:
>>>
>>[part of article deleted to save you reading it for the nth time]
>>>
>>> But if the online help is only for reference purposes, how is one
>>> supposed to *learn UNIX???
>>OK Mac boys and girls, listen up. If you want to learn UNIX, go and read a book
>>on it.
>Good tip. Amazing, for someone with a pretty warlordable .sig like yours.
>I did learn VMS from the online HELP system somehow, but RTFM'd at the very
>beginning and every now and then (and thoroughly browsed the big gray
>wall when I started managing VMS systems). Something you cannot do
>(i.e. learning from man) with Unix, nor with VM/CMS, even if it has a better
>online help than most Unices.
I learned Unix from the man pages, eventually I moved on to hacking existing
code before I was able to write my own from scratch. I think the availability
of 'man -k' makes learning from the man pages infinitely more likely than
learning VMS from the online HELP system -- you never know what sections
pertain to what you want when you know what you want to do, but not what
command (let alone /options) do it. On Unix can you find out, on VMS (to the
best of my knowledge) you cannot.
Surely somebody, somewhere, is hard at work HTML-izing Unix man pages, when
that is done people won't even need to know about the -k option to man!
--
Doug Siebert =/= dsie...@isca.uiowa.edu
Microsoft Network is prohibited from redistributing this work in any form, in
whole or in part. License to distribute this post is available to Microsoft
for $1000. Posting without permission constitutes an agreement to these terms.
Bruce Ediger
:David Glynn <dgl...@ncsa.uiuc.edu> wrote:
:>Again, as the Mac crowd puts it, "how intuitive".
:
:Aye, but if it were to be intuitive, there wouldn't even *be* a method
:for setting your pager and editor. Unix is meant to be empowering, not
:easy.
It's an old saw, I know, but the only really, truly "intuitive"
interface is the human nipple.
Larry Pyeatt
...and if Microsoft made it, you can bet it is a MALE nipple!
Edward Rice
DB> Aye, but if it were to be intuitive, there wouldn't even *be* a method
DB> for setting your pager and editor. Unix is meant to be empowering,
DB> not easy.
The two do not, I hope you will agree, need to be diametrically opposed.
Darin Johnson
> >beginning and every now and then (and thoroughly browsed the big gray
> >wall when I started managing VMS systems). Something you cannot do
> >(i.e. learning from man) with Unix, nor with VM/CMS, even if it has a better
> >online help than most Unices.
Heck, you should have been there with the big blue wall or the big
orange wall. Manuals were almost usable by the time of the gray wall :-)
Anyway, your comment is incorrect. Many UNIX systems comes with
small or medium sized walls of manuals, and the manuals are of the
same caliber as VMS (this should not imply that either are of high
caliber, just that they're the same). Ie, there are tons of Sun
manuals, HP manuals, etc, that come with the systems (and like DEC,
you pay extra for them). And they are more than just printed man
pages, although you can get those too.
What you don't get are walls of manuals for generic UNIX. for
that, you can get generic intro-to-unix books, unix programming
books, shell books, etc. But you still need some of the system
specific books for many things. So if you run a mixed UNIX shop,
you end up with a big multicolored wall.
Granted, online UNIX help is not very good for learning. But then
again, entire generations learned computers this way. And in my
opinion, they learned it better that way.
--
Darin Johnson
djoh...@ucsd.edu
Where am I? In the village... What do you want? Information...
Jonathan Badger
Timothy Roddis
it probably isn't worth it.]
When I was eight, I used a few Z80 boards with hydralics connected
up to them. They could be programmed in one thing: machine code.
They didn't have help and I really couldn't be bothered to figure out
why they used numbers with the first six letters of the alphabet in
them. I figured out how to work them, and they made the hydralics do
K001 things.
Years later I came across DOS. I didn't like it. When I last tried
using it in earnest it didn't have help and I still didn't like it.
The first system I used with online help was Cambridge University's
'Phoenix' (running over VM MVS over TSO). Unique as it was, it was
probably the best online help system I've ever come across. Thw next
system that I cam across was unix. The system was, by its very nature,
flexible and provoded oudles of programming info. man -k was an
astounding advancement from what I was used to and I was very
impressed. Since then I have tried Macs (at the time next to
non-existent), VMS (frustrating, always following the next link),
TSO (does what it's supposed to, not a lot) and RISC OS (does what
it's supposed to). For reference, Windows was also a wash-out.
Basically, like operating systems themselves, no one seems to
have found The Right Way of implementing it.
[Ditto: programming languages, architectures, processors, politics,
religion, VCRs and Christmas tree decorations.]
--
. /-----------------------------------------------------------------\
. o . | Timothy Roddis [Tim the Tiger] tro...@nyx.cs.du.edu |
o _ o | I claim nothing, save that facts are subject to interpretation. |
( ) \-----------------------------------------------------------------/
Lon Stowell
>
>What you don't get are walls of manuals for generic UNIX. for
>that, you can get generic intro-to-unix books, unix programming
>books, shell books, etc. But you still need some of the system
>specific books for many things. So if you run a mixed UNIX shop,
>you end up with a big multicolored wall.
Yeah. Somehow I got an entirely different impression from the
statement "paperless society". Seems like it just moved the
ex-trees from the users to the supporters.
>
>Granted, online UNIX help is not very good for learning. But then
>again, entire generations learned computers this way. And in my
>opinion, they learned it better that way.
To start the eternal thread again.... Real Unix folks learn
Unix from 'truss -rall -wall -paef foo'.
Kim Pugh
>Subject: Re: "Windoze","Winlose" more common than "Macintoy","Macintrash"?
>Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 20:06:13 GMT
>In article <D4L2r...@news.cern.ch>, Dan Pop <dan...@cernapo.cern.ch> wrote:
>>In <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
> But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit
>into a 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while
>doing a lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip
>at reasonable speeds?
You mean like AmigaDOS 1.3 did?
Kim Pugh <k...@telepath.com>
dun...@ac.dal.ca
Johnson) writes:
snip.........
> What you don't get are walls of manuals for generic UNIX. for
> that, you can get generic intro-to-unix books, unix programming
> books, shell books, etc. But you still need some of the system
> specific books for many things. So if you run a mixed UNIX shop,
> you end up with a big multicolored wall.
>
> Granted, online UNIX help is not very good for learning. But then
> again, entire generations learned computers this way. And in my
> opinion, they learned it better that way.
> --
> Darin Johnson
Manuals? Online help? Why in my day all we had we a few words
scrawlled on the back of a Cherrios box by the tech who installed
the system. You had it easy, lad. (Insert rest of Python sketch here).
Alan Hurshman
Loren Petrich
>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>>From: pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
>> But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit
>>into a 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while
>>doing a lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip
>>at reasonable speeds?
>You mean like AmigaDOS 1.3 did?
I guess I'll have to concede on preemptive multitasking. However,
the Amiga does not have multiple protected memory spaces if I remember
correctly.
It would be interesting to find out if the Macintosh designers
had ever thought of putting in the software equivalent of expansion slots
so that preemptive multitasking and multiple protected memory spaces
could be added later without any trouble. If they had done that, then it
would mean that Apple would have been spared the major MacOS rewrite it
is now engaged in.
It would also be interesting to find the same thing out for DOS
and Windoze; given what Microsloth is now going through, they seem to
have had a similar lack of foresight. They've had to introduce NT, Win32
apps and all, to make up for the deficiencies of plain Windoze, and their
long-awaited Windoze 4.0 / 9x looks like some sort of NTjr.
Bruce Ediger
:
: I guess I'll have to concede on preemptive multitasking. However,
:correctly.
Spoken like a true Gentleman, sir. Now about that fish license...
Dan Pop
>In article <kim.42....@telepath.com>, Kim Pugh <k...@telepath.com> wrote:
>>In article <petrichD...@netcom.com> pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich) writes:
>>>From: pet...@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
>
>>> But would this "better-designed system software" have easily fit
>>>into a 400K floppy disk, 128K of RAM, and a similar size of ROM, while
>>>doing a lot of GUI stuff? And would it have run on a Motorola 68000 chip
>>>at reasonable speeds?
>
>>You mean like AmigaDOS 1.3 did?
>
> I guess I'll have to concede on preemptive multitasking. However,
>the Amiga does not have multiple protected memory spaces if I remember
>correctly.
>
> It would be interesting to find out if the Macintosh designers
>had ever thought of putting in the software equivalent of expansion slots
>so that preemptive multitasking and multiple protected memory spaces
>could be added later without any trouble. If they had done that, then it
>would mean that Apple would have been spared the major MacOS rewrite it
>is now engaged in.
So, you have the answer.
>
> It would also be interesting to find the same thing out for DOS
>and Windoze; given what Microsloth is now going through, they seem to
>have had a similar lack of foresight. They've had to introduce NT, Win32
>apps and all, to make up for the deficiencies of plain Windoze, and their
>long-awaited Windoze 4.0 / 9x looks like some sort of NTjr.
MSDOS design was completely brain dead. MSDOS system calls aren't
reentrant and when a program does "nothing", it actually calls an MSDOS
routine to get a key. This means that a TSR which wants to take control
over the system cannot make any MSDOS system calls, because MSDOS itself
would crash when INT 21H will be invoked before the previous invocation
returns. There are workarounds, but they're incredibly complicated and
kludgy and there is no guarantee that any two TSR's can peacefully
coexist.
Windows could have fixed the problem, but it was written by the same guys
who couldn't fix MSDOS and it relied on some MSDOS services (you couldn't
boot Windows without MSDOS).
MS's motto: it doesn't have to be good, it has to be good enough to
be sold to the public.
Apple's motto: it doesn't have to be good, it has to be better than
MS's competing product.
Now, that MS has W/NT and it might have Win95 as well, Apple has to move
fast to recover its handicap. They did a good move when they dropped
the Mac prices, to be competitive with PC's, now they have to fix their
software problem.
Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: dan...@cernapo.cern.ch
Mail: CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland
Mark D. Roth
[...snippage...]
>Manuals? Online help? Why in my day all we had we a few words
>scrawlled on the back of a Cherrios box by the tech who installed
>the system. You had it easy, lad. (Insert rest of Python sketch here).
hehehe In a similar vain, check out what I put in my .plan... (finger
ro...@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu).
--
ro...@uiuc.edu | Mark D. Roth | http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/roth
"Note that if I can get you to \"su and say\" something just by asking,
you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should
look into it." -Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes