Will MS get away with this one?
r...@swissonline.ch
--
Over 100 security bugs in Microsoft SW last year. An infamous
record. The worst offending piece of SW, by far, IIS. 2001 isn't
looking any better.
Rick
m$ will get away with it. They always have, they probably always will.
--
Rick
Sean
No way you will get good software....but maybe the
ocassional illegal monopoly!!!
Sean
====
Aaron R. Kulkis
Where's Tim McVeigh when you need him?
>
> --
> Rick
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
DNRC Minister of all I survey
ICQ # 3056642
L: This seems to have reduced my spam. Maybe if everyone does it we
can defeat the email search bots. tos...@aol.com ab...@aol.com
ab...@yahoo.com ab...@hotmail.com ab...@msn.com ab...@sprint.com
ab...@earthlink.com
K: Truth in advertising:
Left Wing Extremists Charles Schumer and Donna Shalala,
Black Seperatist Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan,
Special Interest Sierra Club,
Anarchist Members of the ACLU
Left Wing Corporate Extremist Ted Turner
The Drunken Woman Killer Ted Kennedy
Grass Roots Pro-Gun movement,
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
Aaron R. Kulkis
Where's Tim McVeigh when you need him?
--
Donn Miller
"Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
> Where's Tim McVeigh when you need him?
He'll be in the gas chamber next Monday in case you need anything...
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Charles Lyttle
"This page may not be modified and must be displayed only in its
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in transit, please notify ________ . For your information a list of all
links originally included in this page may be found at _____. By viewing
this page you agree with the above terms. All violation of these terms
will be pursued to the full extent of the law."
--
Russ Lyttle
"World Domination through Penguin Power"
The Universal Automotive Testset Project at
<http://home.earthlink.net/~lyttlec>
The Ghost In The Machine
<dmmi...@cvzoom.net>
wrote
on Fri, 08 Jun 2001 08:33:11 -0400
<3B20C607...@cvzoom.net>:
>
>
>"Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
>
>> Where's Tim McVeigh when you need him?
>
>He'll be in the gas chamber next Monday in case you need anything...
Pedant point:
s/gas chamber/guerny/
Although I'll admit the idea is tempting. :-) However, Oklahoma
law apparently doesn't include death by cyanide gas. (Or if it
does, McVeigh didn't take that option.)
[.sigsnip]
--
ew...@aimnet.com -- insert random misquote here
EAC code #191 39d:16h:12m actually running Linux.
This is a pithy statement. Please watch where you pith.
Ian Pulsford
You realise that nobody will ever be able to trust content displayed by
a M$ browser after this. A very cunning plan though; M$ fails to take
control of internet content hosted on webservers, so they take control
on the browser. I suspect that this feature will be turned off by savvy
enough individuals. I want to see the links, I don't want every second
word being a link to M$ or some porn site. How long will it be before
IE begins editing out certain words with suitable M$ replacements from
webpages? No thanks, I wan't to trust what I'm looking at is what's on
the webserver.
IanP
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> On Sat, 09 Jun 2001 10:07:48 +1000, Ian Pulsford
> <ia...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> >How long will it be before
> >IE begins editing out certain words with suitable M$ replacements from
> >webpages?
>
> Or inserting Microsoft's own ads onto every page Windows users view.
This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses. They may not be
great, but they generally work for most users. They produce a reasonably
competent server/workstation OS (W2K). They produce reasonably competent
office applications. But their business ethics appear to come from the
gutter.
If after Bill Gates had made his first billion (who needs more than that?)
he'd stepped back from trying to put every competitor out of business by
assimilation or extermination, if he hadn't tried to blackmail every OEM
into loading his, and only his, OSs, if he hadn't tried to include spyware
in his latest products, and now this; if instead he'd promoted his products
in a fair and equitable manner, if he'd introduced updated file formats in a
manner that didn't blackmail users into upgrading, if he didn't try to ram
his browser down everybody's throats, he wouldn't be embroiled in a fight
with the DoJ, he wouldn't be looking over his shoulder at Linux, he wouldn't
be accused at every turn of devious and underhand tactics, and I expect his
products would still be installed on 95%+ of the world's office and home
systems.
If Gates had put half the energy into fixing the flaws in his products that
he's put into his attempts at taking over the world's computers he'd have
produced products that we'd *want* to install and use, instead of these
constant devious tactics, the sole result of which is that nobody trusts
Microsoft to give you the time of day.
The man's a moron.
Peter
T. Max Devlin
[...]
>This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
>
>They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses.
That really sums up all that is mistaken about your thinking.
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
LShaping
>> >How long will it be before
>> >IE begins editing out certain words with suitable M$ replacements from
>> >webpages?
>> Or inserting Microsoft's own ads onto every page Windows users view.
>This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
>They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses. They may not be
>great, but they generally work for most users. They produce a reasonably
>competent server/workstation OS (W2K). They produce reasonably competent
>office applications. But their business ethics appear to come from the
>gutter.
Yup. Only an deranged zealot would deny that Microsoft has done some
good. Fortunately, the court case is shedding much needed light on
Microsoft's business practices.
>If after Bill Gates had made his first billion (who needs more than that?)
>he'd stepped back from trying to put every competitor out of business by
>assimilation or extermination, if he hadn't tried to blackmail every OEM
>into loading his, and only his, OSs, if he hadn't tried to include spyware
>in his latest products, and now this; if instead he'd promoted his products
>in a fair and equitable manner, if he'd introduced updated file formats in a
>manner that didn't blackmail users into upgrading, if he didn't try to ram
>his browser down everybody's throats, he wouldn't be embroiled in a fight
>with the DoJ, he wouldn't be looking over his shoulder at Linux, he wouldn't
>be accused at every turn of devious and underhand tactics, and I expect his
>products would still be installed on 95%+ of the world's office and home
>systems.
>If Gates had put half the energy into fixing the flaws in his products that
>he's put into his attempts at taking over the world's computers he'd have
>produced products that we'd *want* to install and use, instead of these
>constant devious tactics, the sole result of which is that nobody trusts
>Microsoft to give you the time of day.
>The man's a moron.
>Peter
Other executives at Microsoft deserve some of the credit. Steve
Ballmer apparently is as brutal. I share your empathy with what
Microsoft could have been. Programmers must have "compassion and
vision" as the old song goes. Besides the attempted genocide,
Microsoft has become a perpetual dark cloud over the computer world.
LShaping
~¿~
"LShaping" <nos...@all.please> wrote in message
> Yup. Only an deranged zealot would deny that Microsoft has done some
> good. Fortunately, the court case is shedding much needed light on
> Microsoft's business practices.
Well, that would be > 75% of cola (-:
Isn't that your audience here?
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> Said Peter Hayes in alt.destroy.microsoft on Sat, 09 Jun 2001 20:05:42
> >On Fri, 08 Jun 2001 19:35:39 -0600, Dave Martel <nos...@nospam123.com>
> >wrote:
> [...]
> >This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
> >
> >They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses.
>
> That really sums up all that is mistaken about your thinking.
Really Max, learn to control your anti-Microsoft reflexes :-)
Who were the major players in the early 80's home/office computing market?
IBM/Microsoft with their PC/XT and Apple with the Lisa and Macintosh. DOS
and, later, Windows, together with the cloning of the IBM BIOS outcompeted
Apple's closed expensive hardware/software solution.
Be ever so slightly grateful to IBM/Microsoft, else we'd be hostage to
Apple. With their closed architecture Apple would be far more predatory than
Microsoft.
You'd have a lot more to moan about then...
Peter
T. Max Devlin
>wrote:
>
>> Said Peter Hayes in alt.destroy.microsoft on Sat, 09 Jun 2001 20:05:42
>> >On Fri, 08 Jun 2001 19:35:39 -0600, Dave Martel <nos...@nospam123.com>
>> >wrote:
>> [...]
>> >This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
>> >
>> >They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses.
>>
>> That really sums up all that is mistaken about your thinking.
>
>Really Max, learn to control your anti-Microsoft reflexes :-)
Why?
>Who were the major players in the early 80's home/office computing market?
Commodore pretty much owned the territory. Apples were popular with the
richer folk. Atari was doing good business. That was the home market.
There was no home/office market in the early 80s.
>IBM/Microsoft with their PC/XT and Apple with the Lisa and Macintosh. DOS
>and, later, Windows, together with the cloning of the IBM BIOS outcompeted
>Apple's closed expensive hardware/software solution.
Well, it competed. It could only "outcompete" if it could somehow be
both a commodity PC and a slick high priced proprietary system at the
same time, and it can't do that. Apple still sells millions of
Macintoshes a year, did you know that?
>Be ever so slightly grateful to IBM/Microsoft, else we'd be hostage to
>Apple.
I was never "hostage" to Apple. I liked their systems. They're still
better for many people and easier than a PC. Just more expensive. I
don't have to be grateful to Microsoft for anything. It isn't rhetoric;
it is knowledge and honesty. They really did do nothing but harm. We'd
have all been better off with a better open architecture than the PC to
begin with, and Microsoft only managed to prevent development of the
hardware (IRQ problems, anyone? 640K barrier?) years behind where
competitive markets would normally have had it.
>With their closed architecture Apple would be far more predatory than
>Microsoft.
That is impossible. Apple makes hardware; you can't be predatory in a
software market if you are only making money selling hardware. Apple
has always had a great balance between compatibility and proprietary
value-add, I think.
>You'd have a lot more to moan about then...
Don't confuse your imagination with history or your delusions with
facts, Peter.
T. Max Devlin
>Peter Hayes <pe...@seahaze.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Dave Martel <nos...@nospam123.com> wrote:
>>> Ian Pulsford <ia...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
>>> >How long will it be before
>>> >IE begins editing out certain words with suitable M$ replacements from
>>> >webpages?
>
>>> Or inserting Microsoft's own ads onto every page Windows users view.
>
>>This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
>>They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses. They may not be
>>great, but they generally work for most users. They produce a reasonably
>>competent server/workstation OS (W2K). They produce reasonably competent
>>office applications. But their business ethics appear to come from the
>>gutter.
>
>Yup. Only an deranged zealot would deny that Microsoft has done some
>good.
You mean on purpose, or by accident? Is it "good" if it is only by
accident?
>Fortunately, the court case is shedding much needed light on
>Microsoft's business practices.
You want some real fun, check out the evidence from the Caldera case.
http://www.drdos.com/fullstory/incomp.html
>Other executives at Microsoft deserve some of the credit. Steve
>Ballmer apparently is as brutal. I share your empathy with what
>Microsoft could have been. Programmers must have "compassion and
>vision" as the old song goes. Besides the attempted genocide,
>Microsoft has become a perpetual dark cloud over the computer world.
I don't get the "empathy with what MS could have been." They have
always been nothing but the 'attempted genocide dark cloud.' This silly
naive idea you people have that somehow they aren't just a predatory,
anti-competitive criminal monopolist that has never competed at all,
despite the fact that their products actually nominally function is not
really very bright. I know I sound like an incredible zealot when I say
that, but the force of my emphasis is not provided to somehow make my
case more strongly because it is born of simple zealotry. The emphasis
comes because of how truly silly and naive *your* assumptions are.
Picking out which executives at Microsoft are responsible is
counter-productive. It is the *corporation* which is the problem. The
executives, individually, are probably just incompetent businessmen.
Sure, Gates and Ballmer should go to jail, and maybe a half dozen
others, but that isn't the real issue. The real issue is the
indescribably severe but transparent damage done to the technology world
by Microsoft's anti-engineering forced on the public.
Ayende Rahien
"Dave Martel" <nos...@nospam123.com> wrote in message
news:uev7itkspupfnbfko...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2001 18:14:34 +0100, Peter Hayes
> <pe...@seahaze.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Who were the major players in the early 80's home/office computing
market?
> >IBM/Microsoft with their PC/XT and Apple with the Lisa and Macintosh. DOS
> >and, later, Windows, together with the cloning of the IBM BIOS
outcompeted
> >Apple's closed expensive hardware/software solution.
> >
> >Be ever so slightly grateful to IBM/Microsoft, else we'd be hostage to
> >Apple. With their closed architecture Apple would be far more predatory
than
> >Microsoft.
>
> market for long. Take away IBM/Microsoft and I believe we would have
> seen true competition.
We would've to standartise on something, you know.
Java if there wasn't a common chip/instruction set, API & ABI if there was.
At a bare minimum, we would get source compatability.
Probably a common GUI, too.
People wants to run at home/work what they are running at work/home.
And it help when you've prior experiance in something, you don't have to be
retrained.
Rex Ballard
Actually,
The ILoveYou Virus caused over $2.8 Billion in damages to nearly 50
million
users (roughly $500/user on average). The total average damages
resulting
from Microsoft sponsored security holes now exceeds $2000/user/year
(so much
for TCO).
Microsoft has created a legal loophole which allows it to evade direct
liability.
They have a "service pack" which blocks all VBS, EXE, and disables all
ActiveX
controls. It also shuts off all trusted java applets and overrides
the
file access classes in the JVM. It quite effectively "locks down" the
machine.
Unfortunately, it also renders all of the Microsoft features
completely useless.
It effectively turns IE into Mosaic, turns Outlook into PINE, and
turns Exchange into a sendmail server.
Of course, if you've already paid thousands in royalties for
Enterprise Edition,
you have to use all those MS features right? Otherwise you have all
those
Linux and UNIX advocates just laughing behind your back. Of course,
either way, you have the CEO and CFO giving you the hairy eyeball
every time you tell them
"Microsoft has the Solution".
Blessing Microsoft has become a CEO move. That's "Career Ending
Opportunity".
--
Rex Ballard
It Architect
http://www.open4success.com
Erik Funkenbusch
news:3B263B72...@open4success.com...
>
> Actually,
>
> The ILoveYou Virus caused over $2.8 Billion in damages to nearly 50
> million
> users (roughly $500/user on average). The total average damages
> resulting
> from Microsoft sponsored security holes now exceeds $2000/user/year
> (so much
> for TCO).
Interestingly enough, a recent Macintosh virus has come out that does the
equivelant of the ILoveYou virus, using Applescript instead. It does use
Outlook Express, but it also works with non-MS email clients as well.
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> Said Peter Hayes in alt.destroy.microsoft on Sun, 10 Jun 2001 18:14:34
> >On Sun, 10 Jun 2001 03:20:45 GMT, T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net>
> >wrote:
> >
> >> Said Peter Hayes in alt.destroy.microsoft on Sat, 09 Jun 2001 20:05:42
> >> >On Fri, 08 Jun 2001 19:35:39 -0600, Dave Martel <nos...@nospam123.com>
> >> >wrote:
> >> [...]
> >> >This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
> >> >
> >> >They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses.
> >>
> >> That really sums up all that is mistaken about your thinking.
> >
> >Really Max, learn to control your anti-Microsoft reflexes :-)
>
> Why?
Because there's more than just "They produce OSs that brought computing to
the masses." Read the rest.
> >Who were the major players in the early 80's home/office computing market?
>
> Commodore pretty much owned the territory. Apples were popular with the
> richer folk. Atari was doing good business. That was the home market.
> There was no home/office market in the early 80s.
I didn't mean a home-office market, but a home market and an office market.
Commodore in the US home market perhaps, various formats in the UK,
including Commodore, Sinclair, Atari, Acorn, MSX, others if I thought about
it.
But for the business market the killer app was the spreadsheet for the Apple
IIe (SuperCalc or something like that). It put the boss's data on the his
desk instead of in the mainframe. That was what persuaded IBM to enter the
desktop market. (Paraphrased, but that's essentially it).
> >IBM/Microsoft with their PC/XT and Apple with the Lisa and Macintosh. DOS
> >and, later, Windows, together with the cloning of the IBM BIOS outcompeted
> >Apple's closed expensive hardware/software solution.
>
> Well, it competed.
To the extent that it acquired monopoly status. Or is it suddenly not a
monopoly any more? Sounds like out-competed to me. The methods used to
out-compete are on the whole somewhat dubious, as I said before, which you
would have known had you read all my post instead of those bits that
appeared to you to be pro-Microsoft.
> It could only "outcompete" if it could somehow be
> both a commodity PC and a slick high priced proprietary system at the
> same time, and it can't do that.
Of course it can. Wintel cloners have their AMD Thunderbird 1.333GHz,
256/512Mb, blah, blah, blah, and their humble entry-level PII whatevers.
> Apple still sells millions of
> Macintoshes a year, did you know that?
Something under 10% of the personal computer market, around 5% IIRC.
> >Be ever so slightly grateful to IBM/Microsoft, else we'd be hostage to
> >Apple.
>
> I was never "hostage" to Apple.
Lucky you.
You might feel differently if you'd just shelled out several thousand bucks
for a Quadra 800 only to be told that NuBus was being dropped in favour of
PCI. This obsoletes your kit overnight. Shell out another several thousand $
if you want to stay in business.
At least Microsoft have ensured backwards compatability, for better or
worse. You can run an app written for an 8088/6 on a Pentium 4 or Athlon
Thunderbird system running Windows 2000 sp2.
> I liked their systems. They're still
> better for many people and easier than a PC. Just more expensive. I
> don't have to be grateful to Microsoft for anything. It isn't rhetoric;
> it is knowledge and honesty. They really did do nothing but harm.
They, by fair means or foul, have established a software standard. Imagine a
world with 10 or 20 competing hardware and software manufacturers. It'd be
horrendous. You'd have to manufacture CDs for 20 different platforms
whenever you wrote a new game or office app, hardware would cost orders of
magnitude more, and would be at the stage we were in 1990. For better or
worse we have a hardware and software platform that has generated immense
competition driven mainly by the games market. The result is dirt cheap
hardware that has incredible performance and works across a wide range of
apps and OSs, and even in Macs. That's due to the domination of Microsoft.
So they've done some good, or would you prefer a disparate market in chaos
and going nowhere?
> We'd have all been better off with a better open architecture than the PC to
> begin with,
I don't think you'll find anyone disagreeing with that statement. The
original IBM PC was a stopgap to establish IBM in the new home and office
market that threatened their mainframe business. But once this particular
Pandora's box was open there was no going back.
> and Microsoft only managed to prevent development of the
> hardware (IRQ problems, anyone? 640K barrier?) years behind where
> competitive markets would normally have had it.
That's an example of what I mean when I say Microsoft should have put half
the energy into developing and improving their produces that they put into
their predatory attempts at world domination. But you'd have known I'd
already said that if you'd read all my post.
> >With their closed architecture Apple would be far more predatory than
> >Microsoft.
>
> That is impossible. Apple makes hardware; you can't be predatory in a
> software market if you are only making money selling hardware.
Erm, I thought Apple produced MacOS, plus a number of other apps. I could be
wrong though...
But let's imagine a world dominated by Apple. All the hardware is
manufactured by Apple. All the software is written by Apple or has to meet
stringent Apple guidelines "to preserve the Apple brand image". Ergo, a
world where everything is hostage to the whim of Jobs & Co. Think it
through, Max, rather than assume Apple would sit back and let control slip
out of their grasp. Still don't believe me? Remember the poor sod who was
threatened with Apple's lawyers because he dared to produce a KDE theme that
resembled Aqua. Sheesh, anyone else would have thanked him for the
publicity.
> Apple has always had a great balance between compatibility and proprietary
> value-add, I think.
So the overnight obsolescence of NuBus is "collateral damage", is it? Tell
that to the guys put out of business by it.
So Apple withdrawing the cloners' licences is all right, is it? Tell that to
the guys put out of business by it.
You need to take off those rose-coloured spectacles, and see Apple for what
they are, for example they sued someone because they dared to make their
computer cube shaped (is this lawsuit still progressing or has common sense
prevailed?).
> >You'd have a lot more to moan about then...
>
> Don't confuse your imagination with history or your delusions with
> facts, Peter.
No imagination necessary and no delusions either. Apple screwed their
customers on several occasions, as did Microsoft. My point previously was
that Microsoft have got themselves into the position they are today, in the
context of customer trust or the lack of it, because they went down the road
of world domination by brute force, instead of by having the best products.
If Gates had applied himself to producing the best product possible he'd
still be extraordinarily rich, and he'd still have his software on every
desktop (nearly) but this time because we *wanted* it, and we wouldn't be
looking at this meta-tags business as a scam, we wouldn't be looking at
everything they come up with as a scam...
Peter
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Jun 2001 18:14:34 +0100, Peter Hayes
> <pe...@seahaze.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Who were the major players in the early 80's home/office computing market?
> >IBM/Microsoft with their PC/XT and Apple with the Lisa and Macintosh. DOS
> >and, later, Windows, together with the cloning of the IBM BIOS outcompeted
> >Apple's closed expensive hardware/software solution.
> >
> >Be ever so slightly grateful to IBM/Microsoft, else we'd be hostage to
> >Apple. With their closed architecture Apple would be far more predatory than
> >Microsoft.
>
> I don't think so. Apple's always been too disorganized to dominate the
> market for long.
Not so disorganised that they don't sue at the drop of a perceived patent or
copyright infringement.
> Take away IBM/Microsoft and I believe we would have
> seen true competition.
From whom?
Peter
GreyCloud
I just wish whoever writes these damn viruses would just quit or get a
life.
Its screwing up computing.
--
V
Matthew Gardiner (BOFH)
> life.
> Its screwing up computing.
Hunt the bastard down, and send him to 20 years hard labour. Something the
Soviet Union did, which worked quite effectively to ensure that idiots don't
cause too many problems. But of course you would have all the constitution
wavers, libertarians, and other tosspots complaining. Maybe what the US
needs is a ruthless dictator, like Alberto Pinoche or General Tito (former
dictator of Yugoslavia) to shake some sense through the community that
acting like a dick head is unacceptable, and yes Aaron, you are on the Dick
Head list.
Matthew Gardiner
--
I am the blue screen of death
nobody hears your scream's
Michael Vester
mayhem. Prison and a publically accessable list of convicted offenders.
--
Michael Vester
A credible Linux advocate
"The avalanche has started, it is
too late for the pebbles to vote"
Kosh, Vorlon Ambassador to Babylon 5
LShaping
in the (free) world.
Michael Vester
>
> That is why neither of your opinions make a hen's shit of difference
> in the (free) world.
>
I never thought it would.
--
Form@C
news:gvg7itgm7pippglug...@4ax.com:
<snip>
> That is impossible. Apple makes hardware; you can't be predatory in a
> software market if you are only making money selling hardware. Apple
> has always had a great balance between compatibility and proprietary
> value-add, I think.
>
<snip>
Isn't it suprising how quickly Apple supporters (in particular) have
forgotten Apples past "dirty tricks"?
Remember the hard-sector disks that Apple kept using for years after
everyone else (almost) had ditched them? They were a neat way of copy
protection.
While I'm on that subject, remember their other trick of burning a
microscopic hole through a floppy to produce a guaranteed error at a fixed
position on the disk? The software wouldn't run without that error... (I
can't guarantee that this actually happened, but I did read about it
somewhere)
--
Mick
Olde Nascom Computers - http://www.mixtel.co.uk
Form@C
news:qt66it0dnai4nd0gi...@4ax.com:
<snip>
> Yup. Only an deranged zealot would deny that Microsoft has done some
> good. Fortunately, the court case is shedding much needed light on
> Microsoft's business practices.
>
<snip>
I *have* to argue with this...
Before the IBM/Intel/Microsoft triopoly there simply wasn't a standard.
You couldn't write a text file on one machine and expect to read it on one
produced by a different manufacturer.
CP/M helped a lot. It gave a common OS (of sorts) but there wasn't a
standard disk format when it first appeared. Some firms made cash simply by
copying files from one manufacturer's disk format to another (providing
that they were both CP/M files of course).
Microsoft, no matter what their faults, did help to produce a common
software platform that worked on hardware from different manufacturers.
That could only happen because IBM released lots of hardware info. Until
that point *every* hardware manufacturer tried to lock their users into
their way of doing things - you *had* to buy your word processor from your
hardware manufacturer or one of his associated companies.
How can you blame a fledgling software company for trying to start a
business under those conditions? With 20/20 hindsight you can see how
Microsoft's buying of QDOS could be taken as being a bit dodgy, but at the
time QDOS wasn't really worth anything. Bill G was simply astute enough to
see that it could be modified & sold to IBM, who needed an OS badly.
(By the way, there is reason to believe that QDOS wasn't original either.
Similar routine calls appear in CP/M, QDOS and MS-DOS and it is quite
possible that QDOS was actually part of a heavily modified CP/M. Certainly
some CP/M-like calls remained in MS-DOS for many years.)
Sorry, Microsoft *did* some good. They may have a *very* tarnished
reputation now, but that isn't the point of my argument.
[deranged zealot wearing flame-resistant undies...]
T. Max Devlin
>news:gvg7itgm7pippglug...@4ax.com:
>
><snip>
>> That is impossible. Apple makes hardware; you can't be predatory in a
>> software market if you are only making money selling hardware. Apple
>> has always had a great balance between compatibility and proprietary
>> value-add, I think.
>>
><snip>
>
>Isn't it suprising how quickly Apple supporters (in particular) have
>forgotten Apples past "dirty tricks"?
>
>Remember the hard-sector disks that Apple kept using for years after
>everyone else (almost) had ditched them?
No, I don't. When was that?
>They were a neat way of copy
>protection.
Never a problem AFAIK.
>While I'm on that subject, remember their other trick of burning a
>microscopic hole through a floppy to produce a guaranteed error at a fixed
>position on the disk? The software wouldn't run without that error... (I
>can't guarantee that this actually happened, but I did read about it
>somewhere)
Apple did this? Was this, like, Apple II or something? It certainly
sounds like some typical 'copy protection' stories from way back. It
can hardly be anti-competitive when you have competitors and they do it,
too. I remember that defeating copy protection on the C64 was a whole
industry and a major hobby for many C64 owners. They kept trying new
tricks, and we kept merrily figuring out how to crack them.
Apple has always had a great balance between compatibility and
proprietary value-add, I think. Hardly anybody makes non-PC
microcomputers these days, but Apple is still in business. Very
competitive, obviously, regardless of how many corporate myths and urban
legends and naive teleologies employed by armchair CEOs to claim
otherwise.
T. Max Devlin
>news:qt66it0dnai4nd0gi...@4ax.com:
>
><snip>
>> Yup. Only an deranged zealot would deny that Microsoft has done some
>> good. Fortunately, the court case is shedding much needed light on
>> Microsoft's business practices.
>>
><snip>
>
>I *have* to argue with this...
>
>Before the IBM/Intel/Microsoft triopoly there simply wasn't a standard.
No, there weren't standard*s*. It is not that we lacked them, it is
that the idea had not been invented yet. All computers sold at the time
were proprietary. IBM/Intel/Microsoft did not realize the PC was going
to be anything different. But when the *market* created the PC
architecture standard (Compaq and other clone and compatible OEMs used
the PC design), Bill Gates lucked out. He had *thought* he was going to
have to coerce and cajole each individual computer manufacturer to
include his BASIC in their system. Things got easier when all he had to
do was give away MS-DOS until he could start forcing people to buy it.
>You couldn't write a text file on one machine and expect to read it on one
>produced by a different manufacturer.
You couldn't when IBM/Intel/Microsoft systems were compared to any other
proprietary design, either. Interoperability gets REAL easy once you
start dealing with networking, though, and even before that, both Mac
and PC systems had floppy compatibility.
>CP/M helped a lot. It gave a common OS (of sorts) but there wasn't a
>standard disk format when it first appeared. Some firms made cash simply by
>copying files from one manufacturer's disk format to another (providing
>that they were both CP/M files of course).
Well, now you're getting in to senseless prattling, I'm afraid.
>Microsoft, no matter what their faults, did help to produce a common
>software platform that worked on hardware from different manufacturers.
Well, here's the truth of the matter:
In the very early years of the 'PC revolution', from the perspective of
the average consumer at that time, you didn't have a PC standard. What
you had were other computer manufacturers copying IBM's design. These
were the 'PC compatibles', and it is worth noting that, as products,
they've all disappeared entirely. The products which still survive in
the "IBM compatible" market are not compatibles, but clones.
Now, the thing that makes them clones, rather than compatibles, more
than anything else in the world, is the BIOS. Compaq (or somebody)
cloned the original BIOS, and IIRC, there was even a bit of suing going
on. But in the end, IBM could not stop anyone anywhere from reverse
engineering (wasn't tough; the first couple versions had the schematics
and code!) the PC/XT/AT 'platform' and producing a clone computer.
This is the market monopolized by Microsoft. The question is, was this
'monopolization', the fact that Microsoft completely dominates all PC OS
markets, the result of market forces? It does seem possible, even
reasonable, to consider that maybe the reason we have a PC market today
was this "standardizing influence" of DOS-compatibility. If MS's
product had not been available to be the market of compatibility (if it
could run DOS, it was a PC) then we wouldn't have a 'PC market', but
only IBM's product competing with everybody else's.
Weren't Compaq and these other manufacturers just trying to compete in
the market that *Microsoft* had established, for computers which could
run their Operating System, which rapidly gained application support in
the pre-packaged software market that was still emerging? Was it
Microsoft's fault that the thing everybody selected was the cheapest
alternative OS that IBM offered, and then everybody clambered for more
computers that could be compatible with that OS?
Is a PC defined as "that which runs DOS"? Are Microsoft's actions to
maintain their dominance for twenty years, until today, when a PC is
defined as "that which runs Windows", simply competitive development of
a successful product?
Well, go back to the beginning of the story for the answer. It wasn't
compatibility with DOS that people wanted. If that were the case, the
compatibles would still be around. This would have been a GREAT thing,
by the way, because we would have dumped the problems of the COM ports
and the IRQs and the 640K barrier and all that other shit. The only
problem with it was that, even if DOS had been the standard for defining
the PC platform, they could not have prevented competition for DOS
clones. All Microsoft would have been doing is selling a successful
product, with tremendous market power and a leading role in the
industry.
Apparently, that was not their goal, or perhaps it simply wasn't within
their capabilities. The compatibles which ran DOS did not win out in
the marketplace. This could have been because, while they had the
luxury of improving on the design of the hardware, the software had to
be retrofit to every change they made, so compatibility with the PC was
not enough to maintain compatibility with DOS. Or perhaps it was
because Microsoft knew they could not control the market and could not
keep up with the competition unless the PC were a single hardware
platform.
Whatever was the cause, the result was that the compatibles went away,
and the compatibles that supported MS-DOS went with it, if there ever
were any. The market was left with the clones. Clones could run MS-DOS
without any modification, because they used the same BIOS. But it
wasn't because it needed MS-DOS. It was because it needed the same
BIOS. DOS was little more than a boot-loader, and most applications
were written to exploit BIOS calls, even those that worked "through
DOS". So any competitive product (even one given away for free by an
OEM, had they been able to maintain compatibility with DOS without
Microsoft launching a legal suit) could have replaced DOS, but it
couldn't replace the BIOS. A BIOS clone could, so the PC clone market
was only nominally based on compatibility with MS-DOS. Any DOS would
have done.
Now, if that isn't enough to convince you I will mention that as the
clones and compatibles were still slugging it out, the market seemed to
recognize that it was application compatibility that it was really all
about. It doesn't matter what architecture or OS you run, all the
consumer really cares about is running particular applications.
Now, when you have a product, the IBM system, and a market that is
created by competition with it as a complete substitute, the clones, and
you have a market that is created by competition with it as a partial
substitute, the compatibles, you're dealing with some obviously abstract
groupings of systems. If you have a microcomputer of a proprietary
design that runs a DOS-like OS and the same applications (at least,
enough to gain your interest) as a PC compatible, that would be a PC
compatible. The clone market was defined by the PC hardware
architecture itself. The compatible market was defined by running a
DOS-like OS. But not all compatible ran MS-DOS. So how can you really
tell the difference between the PC compatible and the general market of
microcomputers? You might end up buying a Commodore 64. So how can you
tell the difference for sure when making a purchase whether what you are
buying is sufficient for your needs, is a PC compatible?
If Microsoft fan's retelling of history were true, there should be no
confusion. Compatibility with MS-DOS should have been enough to define
a PC compatible, just as the BIOS defined a PC clone. Except, it isn't,
"just as the BIOS". Remember, the BIOS was cloned; it was not a
proprietary product. So being DOS-like should have been enough, so long
as the applications ran. And so that was what the market used, for a
brief time in the mid-to-late 1980s. If it could run Lotus 1-2-3, it
was a PC compatible. This was a hard-core rule, if you knew anything
about the market at the time. If it did not run Lotus, it was not
acceptable, and if it did run Lotus, you could call it a PC. If you
didn't need Lotus, you could buy a microcomputer without getting a PC,
or "IBM-clone", or "PC compatible" computer. A Mac or a Commodore or a
Sun or any other proprietary microcomputer design was generally
substitutable, though each was at rather dramatically different price
points, from the average consumer's point of view.
If MS hadn't attempted to monopolize the OS market for all PC
compatibles (indeed, all microcomputers, even, now, all computers), then
Commodore would probably dominate a home PC market, compatible and
competing mostly with Gateway, interoperable with but distinct from the
business market, serviced by the usual suspects. But that is just a
guess, and it has been twenty years since this "what-if" scenario forked
from the real world, where Microsoft engaged in a purposeful and
unremitting effort to avoid competing on the merits of their product.
>Sorry, Microsoft *did* some good. They may have a *very* tarnished
>reputation now, but that isn't the point of my argument.
I think you are mistaken. MS didn't prevent all good from occurring in
the PC market, that is true. They did not prevent the GUI or
connectivity or Internet applications from being common on all
microcomputers. They didn't entirely prevent the concept of middleware,
they implemented comprehensive APIs and they provided desktop
integration systems like COM and COM+ and DCOM and ActiveX and assorted
other buzzwords. Without ever originating any of the ideas, they didn't
prevent every good idea from improving OS software no the 95% of the
systems using their product.
That is the most that can be said for them. Despite popular opinion,
there is no "fine line" between monopolization and competing. There is
no legal way to act anti-competitively, and just because it might take
twenty years to understand just what the difference is if you aren't
watching to begin with doesn't mean it doesn't occur.
I cannot know what particular anti-competitive actions MS took to
prevent competition. But that competition did not form is certain, and
that does not happen in a free market. PARTICULARLY in a new market on
a product which has barely any costs and can be of rather arbitrary
quality in a consumer market. Competition will always form in a free
market, so it is worth looking at what really happened, without vague
teleologies and second-guessing and urban legend myths about why any
company acted as they did. If we presume all companies act to increase
the profit they make, then Microsoft's actions, alone, don't make any
sense. They had a business model which could only pay off if they had
market dominance, monopoly power. That, my friend, is illegal.
So in case nobody else has the ingenuity to explain it to the
businessmen, print out this message and give it to anyone who seems like
they don't understand this point. Take it to the Supreme Court if you
have to. Anti-competitive activity must be stamped out or the great
economy that we are all enjoying is going to come to a crashing halt, or
become a technocratic nightmare.
If you are engaging in commerce, your business plan must be capable of
providing sustainable profits NO MATTER WHAT YOUR MARKET SHARE IS. If
it cannot, you are breaking the law, even if you think you are
innocently engaging in commerce. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, so
be sure, if there is some professor in your business school who taught
you something different, print out a copy of this message and give it to
him. Have him take it to a lawyer to discuss it.
Businesses in a capitalist free market are profit-seeking entities.
They MUST be allowed to seek profit wherever might be possible, for such
trial-and-error-with-feedback attempts are the only way to efficiently
produce goods without centralized control, something nobody wants. If
there is a business that does not act in their own self-interest in this
manner, then competitive businesses are incapable of preventing them
from gaining control of every sale. Anti-competitive actions, tactics
used to fulfill a strategy of restraining trade or monopolizing to boost
profits, are a federal felony.
As I said, it is not a thin line between competition and monopolization.
A monopoly strategy has a certain unmistakable tell-tale, even when you
work to hide it thoroughly with special accounting practices and
marketing and sticking to entirely 'virtual' products. If you don't
have monopoly power, you'd be losing money. If a business relies on
market share as a 'competitive advantage', they are not acting
competitively, but anti-competitively. If a business needs any certain
amount of market power or market share to profitably sell the number of
units they are selling, they are monopolizing; they are breaking the
law.
Now, every law has a loophole, and it is possible for a short-term
business strategy to require a producer or vendor to take a loss. But
Sherman Act violations can be thought of as kind of like getting a
ticket for reckless driving (though they carry a three year sentence in
federal prison). If you had to swerve to avoid a deer, then you
certainly weren't driving recklessly. But when there are no deer
around, and you were seen swerving all over the road or running without
your headlights, the vagueness of the term "reckless" is not something
that a judge is going to take seriously as a defense.
And this is the situation, ultimately, that Microsoft finds itself in.
Metaphorically, they were caught on video tape doing stunts on a public
highway. And now they claim they couldn't have been driving recklessly,
because their car was moving, and that means they must have been going
somewhere, and not just using the highway to do stunts, like the cops
claim.
Despite any naive assumptions made because it is possible to endure
being massively overcharged for shoddy goods, monopoly is not ever to
the advantage of the consumer. The "value" the producer or vendor
extracts from their market share to maintain 'profits' does not ever
benefit the consumer.
Yes, there is benefit to the consumer in the software code that
Microsoft licenses. That does not salvage Microsoft's reputation in any
way. The issue is not whether they actually employed engineers, but
whether those engineers were actually employed by businessmen. Surely
there is a large segment of the consumer base that doesn't care about
the business stuff, as long as they can use a PC. Some developers, as
well, credit MS with providing the software they use. About 95% of
them, probably.
You are ignorant of the historical facts if you think MS ever had a
reputation that could be 'tarnished'. The only reputation they've ever
had is for mediocre crapware and anti-competitive business tactics. The
few positive reports concerning Microsoft are noticeable primarily
because they stand in sharp contrast to the facts.
The fact that Windows is monopoly crapware in no way indicates that
millions of people have not successfully used it as an OS on their PC.
It isn't the numbers, it is the proportions, that damn the product as
monopoly crapware. Since competitive merit was obviously not what got
it on 95% of the PCs, it is rather naive to presume that it being better
than anything else in *any* particular way is simply due to the fact
that Microsoft illegally prevented competition in the PC OS market. To
say "only Windows has COM" is to admit that Microsoft has acted
illegally. If COM were any good, there would be a competitive market
for suppliers of it, since it cannot be defined as something that is
covered by either copyright or patent, explicitly. This is no surprise;
when you examine whatever is called "COM" it rapidly vanishes into
"whatever MS says 'COM' is, though they won't point to any single
specification or code or product or thing that it is."
Bob Hauck
>While I'm on that subject, remember their other trick of burning a
>microscopic hole through a floppy to produce a guaranteed error at a fixed
>position on the disk? The software wouldn't run without that error...
I don't know if Apple did that, but a number of companies that made software
for PC-compatibles certainly did. There's plenty of "dirty tricks" to go
around in the software industry.
--
-| Bob Hauck
-| Codem Systems, Inc.
-| http://www.codem.com/
Ayende Rahien
"Bob Hauck" <b...@this-is.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrn9ihp...@hauck.codem.com...
> On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:09:58 GMT, Form@C <mi...@mixtel.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >While I'm on that subject, remember their other trick of burning a
> >microscopic hole through a floppy to produce a guaranteed error at a
fixed
> >position on the disk? The software wouldn't run without that error...
>
> I don't know if Apple did that, but a number of companies that made
software
> for PC-compatibles certainly did. There's plenty of "dirty tricks" to go
> around in the software industry.
As a note, some of the currect CD-protection schemes carry much resemblences
to this one.
David Petticord
<snipped reasonable summation of PC history>
> >Sorry, Microsoft *did* some good. They may have a *very* tarnished
> >reputation now, but that isn't the point of my argument.
>
<snip>
> That is the most that can be said for them. Despite popular opinion,
> there is no "fine line" between monopolization and competing. There is
> no legal way to act anti-competitively, and just because it might take
> twenty years to understand just what the difference is if you aren't
> watching to begin with doesn't mean it doesn't occur.
There is no legal way to act anti-competitively when you define
anti-competitive to mean "illegal".
The government can, and does, impose anti-competitive tariffs and have
it still be legal. Congressmen can, and do, give targeted
anti-competitive breaks to companies and it is still legal. Patents
are legal, 17-year, permits to be anti-competitive. Max, you have yet
to define what "anti-competitive" means other than to say it is
illegal and it is what Microsoft does.
>
> I cannot know what particular anti-competitive actions MS took to
> prevent competition. But that competition did not form is certain, and
> that does not happen in a free market. PARTICULARLY in a new market on
> a product which has barely any costs and can be of rather arbitrary
> quality in a consumer market. Competition will always form in a free
> market, so it is worth looking at what really happened, without vague
> teleologies and second-guessing and urban legend myths about why any
> company acted as they did. If we presume all companies act to increase
> the profit they make, then Microsoft's actions, alone, don't make any
> sense. They had a business model which could only pay off if they had
> market dominance, monopoly power. That, my friend, is illegal.
That, my friend, is exactly what you would expect in a low
transactional cost market. This is a market where the Cost of Goods
sold is less than 0.1% of the product price. For sake of argument,
zero transactional cost. Assume three potential companies start with
equal shares of the market. Natural perturbations will cause them to
become unequal. The one with the larger share will then have more
money for advertising, research, etc. This will cause the share to
increase even more. It is a positive feed-back loop.
Max, you may not like anti-competitive effects of Marketing but it is
very effective and it is legal. It is especially effective on the
herd mentality that was brain-washed by a generation of TV commercials
telling them that expensive Brand Name products are much better than
low-cost alternatives.
Yes, it is very possible for a new, low transactional cost market to
become dominated through legal means. Call it FUD, call it Vaporware,
call it Marketing. In the United States, call it legal.
Did Microsoft violate Section 2? I think it did. It is virtually
impossible to be a monopoly and not be guilty of maintaining a
monopoly. But it may be possible monopolization is inevitable in this
market. Even the DoJ lawyer didn't answer the Appellate Court
question "We are going to replace one monopoly with another if you're
right; right?"
<snip>
> If a business relies on
> market share as a 'competitive advantage', they are not acting
> competitively, but anti-competitively. If a business needs any certain
> amount of market power or market share to profitably sell the number of
> units they are selling, they are monopolizing; they are breaking the
> law.
Are you suggesting there is no such thing as efficiencies of scale? A
company with a large market share has a lower cost per unit than one
with a smaller market share. It is perfectly normal for a company's
profit to be very dependent on the cost benefits of being a larger
operation than its competitors.
<snipped>
> Since competitive merit was obviously not what got
> it on 95% of the PCs, it is rather naive to presume that it being better
> than anything else in *any* particular way is simply due to the fact
> that Microsoft illegally prevented competition in the PC OS market.
or convinced the herd mentality to buy a Brand Name product.
> To
> say "only Windows has COM" is to admit that Microsoft has acted
> illegally. If COM were any good, there would be a competitive market
> for suppliers of it, since it cannot be defined as something that is
> covered by either copyright or patent, explicitly. This is no surprise;
> when you examine whatever is called "COM" it rapidly vanishes into
> "whatever MS says 'COM' is, though they won't point to any single
> specification or code or product or thing that it is."
Is that illegal? So far the strongest evidence you, and the DoJ,
presented is that Microsoft must have violated Section 2 because they
agressively achieved and maintained a dominate position in an
important market. As Section 2 of the Sherman Act is written, it is
difficult to disagree with that simple logic. That is, as long as the
Supreme Court holds it to be constitutional.
Provoking Thought,
David Petticord
Complete Networks, Inc.
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> Said Form@C in alt.destroy.microsoft on Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:09:58 GMT;
> >T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net> wrote in
> >news:gvg7itgm7pippglug...@4ax.com:
> >
> ><snip>
> >> That is impossible. Apple makes hardware; you can't be predatory in a
> >> software market if you are only making money selling hardware. Apple
> >> has always had a great balance between compatibility and proprietary
> >> value-add, I think.
> >>
> ><snip>
> >
> >Isn't it suprising how quickly Apple supporters (in particular) have
> >forgotten Apples past "dirty tricks"?
> >
> >Remember the hard-sector disks that Apple kept using for years after
> >everyone else (almost) had ditched them?
>
> No, I don't. When was that?
Instead of identifying sectors in software as happens when you format a
floppy, Apple's hard sectored disks had a series of holes, generally 16 of
them, to identify the sectors. Wozniak did it that way because he didn't
have the cash for disk controller hardware.
<...>
> Apple has always had a great balance between compatibility and
> proprietary value-add, I think.
Doesn't matter how many times you say it Max, it doesn't make it true.
Apple have shafted just as many people as Microsoft, the only difference
being that Apple's victims were the little guy and Microsoft took on the big
boys.
Peter
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> Said Form@C in alt.destroy.microsoft on Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:59:51 GMT;
> >LShaping <nos...@all.please> wrote in
> >news:qt66it0dnai4nd0gi...@4ax.com:
> >
> ><snip>
> >> Yup. Only an deranged zealot would deny that Microsoft has done some
> >> good. Fortunately, the court case is shedding much needed light on
> >> Microsoft's business practices.
> >>
> ><snip>
> >
> >I *have* to argue with this...
> >
> >Before the IBM/Intel/Microsoft triopoly there simply wasn't a standard.
>
> No, there weren't standard*s*. It is not that we lacked them, it is
> that the idea had not been invented yet.
Of course the idea had been invented, railways, radio communication, gold,
whatever. What you mean is that a standard hadn't emerged. It took the
marketing clout of the IBM/Intel/Microsoft triopoly to establish standards.
> All computers sold at the time
> were proprietary. IBM/Intel/Microsoft did not realize the PC was going
> to be anything different. But when the *market* created the PC
> architecture standard (Compaq and other clone and compatible OEMs used
> the PC design), Bill Gates lucked out. He had *thought* he was going to
> have to coerce and cajole each individual computer manufacturer to
> include his BASIC in their system. Things got easier when all he had to
> do was give away MS-DOS until he could start forcing people to buy it.
>
> >You couldn't write a text file on one machine and expect to read it on one
> >produced by a different manufacturer.
>
> You couldn't when IBM/Intel/Microsoft systems were compared to any other
> proprietary design, either. Interoperability gets REAL easy once you
> start dealing with networking, though, and even before that, both Mac
> and PC systems had floppy compatibility.
>
> >CP/M helped a lot. It gave a common OS (of sorts) but there wasn't a
> >standard disk format when it first appeared. Some firms made cash simply by
> >copying files from one manufacturer's disk format to another (providing
> >that they were both CP/M files of course).
>
> Well, now you're getting in to senseless prattling, I'm afraid.
Sorry Max, it's you that's indulging in senseless prattling.
Advert in PC Plus, February 1992 page 432:-
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Disk and Tape Conversions."
"We can transfer your data across more than 1,000,000 permutations of
Micros, Minis, Mainframes, Typesetters and Wp's".
etc,etc
"A.L Downloading Services, London"
------------------------------------------------------------------
And that's just the first one I found.
Which is why, if nothing else Microsoft did was any good, at least they gave
us a standard.
Otherwise half your hard drive would be occupied by format converters. You'd
still have to convert irrespective of whether networks made the physical
exchange of bits and bytes easier or not.
> >Microsoft, no matter what their faults, did help to produce a common
> >software platform that worked on hardware from different manufacturers.
>
> Well, here's the truth of the matter:
>
> In the very early years of the 'PC revolution', from the perspective of
> the average consumer at that time, you didn't have a PC standard. What
> you had were other computer manufacturers copying IBM's design. These
> were the 'PC compatibles', and it is worth noting that, as products,
> they've all disappeared entirely. The products which still survive in
> the "IBM compatible" market are not compatibles, but clones.
Actually neither. The BIOS moved on from IBM's original, BIOSs created by
the likes of Ami and Award, and licenced by motherboard manufacturers. Then
the so-called "compatibles" and "clones" disappeared. Gates was still
working on his first billion at that time.
> Now, the thing that makes them clones, rather than compatibles, more
> than anything else in the world, is the BIOS. Compaq (or somebody)
> cloned the original BIOS, and IIRC, there was even a bit of suing going
> on. But in the end, IBM could not stop anyone anywhere from reverse
> engineering (wasn't tough; the first couple versions had the schematics
> and code!) the PC/XT/AT 'platform' and producing a clone computer.
More prattling, Max.
To clone the IBM PC BIOS those doing the reverse engineering had to have no
prior knowledge of the BIOS. They had to produce a BIOS that functioned 100%
as IBM's BIOS, but which was developed in isolation, otherwise IBM were
certain to sue for patent/copyright infringement, whichever.
It cost Compaq over $1M to do it.
So I guess "(wasn't tough; the first couple versions had the schematics and
code!)" is pure prattle. The code might have been there, and anyone can do a
disassembly of the BIOS anyway, but as far as the cloners are concerned it
might have been locked up as tight as Fort Knox.
And there weren't any "clones" anyway, except those made by IBM and someone
licencing the BIOS code from IBM, and I never saw any described as "clones",
maybe they were, but the vast majority were "compatibles" made by Compaq and
others who also reverse engineered the BIOS, until the BIOS moved on as I
explained above.
<megasnip>
> If Microsoft fan's retelling of history were true, there should be no
> confusion. Compatibility with MS-DOS should have been enough to define
> a PC compatible, just as the BIOS defined a PC clone. Except, it isn't,
> "just as the BIOS". Remember, the BIOS was cloned; it was not a
> proprietary product.
Of course the BIOS was a proprietary product, IBM's proprietary product. IBM
developed it as the unique item in their jumble of third-party bits and
pieces that went to make the first IBM PCs. They hoped that their hold over
the BIOS code would be sufficient for them to retain control of the IBM PC
market. When Compaq reverse engineered the BIOS the genie was out of the
bottle.
<snip massive rambling rant>
> The fact that Windows is monopoly crapware in no way indicates that
> millions of people have not successfully used it as an OS on their PC.
> It isn't the numbers, it is the proportions, that damn the product as
> monopoly crapware.
Eh? Are you saying that just because something is used by 95% of its target
market then it automatically becomes " monopoly crapware"? Monopoly, yes.
Crapware? That's down to the individual product.
Whatever Microsoft's faults, they've established a product that has resulted
in dirt cheap hardware. Do you think for one minute that there would be a
games market on any "personal computer" if Windows 9.x hadn't happened? No,
Sega and Nintendo would have 99% of the market and personal computer
hardware would cost the earth even if there was such a thing as the personal
computer market remotely like what we have today. To buy a graphics card
with 32 meg of ram and a GPU capable of billions of t&l calculations/second
would set you back tens of thousands of dollars instead of about 100. To buy
even a card capable of up to 24 bit colour at 1024x768 would be hundreds,
instead of which that is now a sub entry level specification.
So thank Microsoft that, as a (necessary) by-product of their quest for
world domination, they've established the conditions that made today's
hardware affordable. You don't need to thank them for anything else.
Peter
Rick
>
> On Thu, 14 Jun 2001 05:40:30 GMT, T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Said Form@C in alt.destroy.microsoft on Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:09:58 GMT;
> > >T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net> wrote in
> > >news:gvg7itgm7pippglug...@4ax.com:
> > >
> > ><snip>
> > >> That is impossible. Apple makes hardware; you can't be predatory in a
> > >> software market if you are only making money selling hardware. Apple
> > >> has always had a great balance between compatibility and proprietary
> > >> value-add, I think.
> > >>
> > ><snip>
> > >
> > >Isn't it suprising how quickly Apple supporters (in particular) have
> > >forgotten Apples past "dirty tricks"?
> > >
> > >Remember the hard-sector disks that Apple kept using for years after
> > >everyone else (almost) had ditched them?
> >
> > No, I don't. When was that?
>
> Instead of identifying sectors in software as happens when you format a
> floppy, Apple's hard sectored disks had a series of holes, generally 16 of
> them, to identify the sectors. Wozniak did it that way because he didn't
> have the cash for disk controller hardware.
>
Are you high?
I have never seen an Apple floppy with 16 holes. And Wozniak didnt
design his drive controlle card until Apple had already incorporated.
Markula was already there too. His design was described as another
engineering work of art.
> <...>
>
> > Apple has always had a great balance between compatibility and
> > proprietary value-add, I think.
>
> Doesn't matter how many times you say it Max, it doesn't make it true.
>
> Apple have shafted just as many people as Microsoft, the only difference
> being that Apple's victims were the little guy and Microsoft took on the big
> boys.
>
> Peter
How has Apple shafted as many as micro$oft. Just by sgeer size, m$ HAS
to have shafted more. After all, everyone that uses an m$ OS is getting
a big one from Gates.
Erik Funkenbusch
news:8u9kitg6atk0t83r6...@4ax.com...
> Instead of identifying sectors in software as happens when you format a
> floppy, Apple's hard sectored disks had a series of holes, generally 16 of
> them, to identify the sectors. Wozniak did it that way because he didn't
> have the cash for disk controller hardware.
Not true. Actually, the first Disk drivers had 13 sectors, not 16. It did
have a single hole in the ring to signify track 0, but all other sectors
were calculated. This was called a "soft sectored" disk, while the type you
describe was called a "hard sectored" disk.
Wozniak is quoted as saying "If i'd known anything about how disk drives
were supposed to be made, the Apples drive wouldn't have been half as good".
Form@C
<snip>
> Are you high?
> I have never seen an Apple floppy with 16 holes. And Wozniak didnt
> design his drive controlle card until Apple had already incorporated.
> Markula was already there too. His design was described as another
> engineering work of art.
>
<snip>
I'm afraid that *I* may have been! I always understood that early apple
drives used hard sectoring in conjunction with their own electronics. I
have just been doing a search to confirm that, but have drawn a blank! It
looks like I was wrong folks. I must have been getting confused with
something else (getting confused is getting easier nowadays!)
Peter Hayes
> Peter Hayes wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 14 Jun 2001 05:40:30 GMT, T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Said Form@C in alt.destroy.microsoft on Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:09:58 GMT;
<...>
> > > >Remember the hard-sector disks that Apple kept using for years after
> > > >everyone else (almost) had ditched them?
> > >
> > > No, I don't. When was that?
> >
> > Instead of identifying sectors in software as happens when you format a
> > floppy, Apple's hard sectored disks had a series of holes, generally 16 of
> > them, to identify the sectors. Wozniak did it that way because he didn't
> > have the cash for disk controller hardware.
> >
>
> Are you high?
> I have never seen an Apple floppy with 16 holes. And Wozniak didnt
> design his drive controlle card until Apple had already incorporated.
> Markula was already there too. His design was described as another
> engineering work of art.
http://www.classiccmp.org/mail-archive/classiccmp/1997-04/0558.html
> > Apple have shafted just as many people as Microsoft, the only difference
> > being that Apple's victims were the little guy and Microsoft took on the big
> > boys.
> >
> > Peter
>
> How has Apple shafted as many as micro$oft. Just by sgeer size, m$ HAS
> to have shafted more. After all, everyone that uses an m$ OS is getting
> a big one from Gates.
OK, maybe I should have said "in proportion to its size .....
Peter
GreyCloud
I dont' recall any holes in any floppy disk I used to have on my Apple
II.
The sector writing and positioning was all done in software on two proms
on the disk controller.
When I purchased UCSD pascal for it I also received two new proms.
--
V
GreyCloud
There were some CP/M machines that used hard sectored floppies. North
Star Horizon was one of them.
--
V
GreyCloud
No problem... it happens to me a few times as well. Besides that was
quite a while ago. :-)
--
V
GreyCloud
I saw an article by Dvorak ... he looked at the disk controller and said
it was a pure genius to have all the trace on one side and components on
the other side.
--
V
Form@C
news:3ff8f065.01061...@posting.google.com:
> T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net> wrote in message
> news:<jjofitostgcc6l9r8...@4ax.com>...
>
><snipped reasonable summation of PC history>
>
>> >Sorry, Microsoft *did* some good. They may have a *very* tarnished
>> >reputation now, but that isn't the point of my argument.
>>
>
><snip>
>
>> That is the most that can be said for them. Despite popular opinion,
>> there is no "fine line" between monopolization and competing. There
>> is no legal way to act anti-competitively, and just because it might
>> take twenty years to understand just what the difference is if you
>> aren't watching to begin with doesn't mean it doesn't occur.
>
> There is no legal way to act anti-competitively when you define
> anti-competitive to mean "illegal".
>
Also, you cannot act anti-competitively unless there is already something
to compete with. When M$ first started producing DOS there simply wasn't
anything else apart from CP/M - and that was aimed strictly at the business
market. IBM wanted a disk OS for the "small computer" market so that it
could put a disk drive onto its (provisionally?) cassette tape based XT
series. (I havn't tried this personally, but I am told that if you
disconnect the drives before booting an XT it boots into ROM BASIC with
cassette support - although the necessary hardware may not be present). M$
ROM BASIC gained popularity simply because it ran from ROM. No-one else
bothered with the ROM BASIC market. There were tiny BASICs in ROM (and on
tape) of course, and there were disk-based floating point BASICs, but
virtually no other ROM-based versions. (Apple did their own AFAIK).
In these two instances did M$ have a monopoly or were they just producing
original products? OK, so they guarded the code closely, but so did
everyone else!
Rick
Maybe you shouldnt have said anything at all. You are spouting nonsense.
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> "Peter Hayes" <pe...@seahaze.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:8u9kitg6atk0t83r6...@4ax.com...
> > Instead of identifying sectors in software as happens when you format a
> > floppy, Apple's hard sectored disks had a series of holes, generally 16 of
> > them, to identify the sectors. Wozniak did it that way because he didn't
> > have the cash for disk controller hardware.
>
> Not true. Actually, the first Disk drivers had 13 sectors, not 16. It did
> have a single hole in the ring to signify track 0, but all other sectors
> were calculated. This was called a "soft sectored" disk, while the type you
> describe was called a "hard sectored" disk.
Yes, I've a pile of 5 1/4" disks that have one hole to signify track 0, but
I understood hard sectored disks could have a variety of designs with 13 to
16 holes. Woz used the 16 hole variety, but relied on software to do the
controlling - as I understand it :-)
>
> Wozniak is quoted as saying "If i'd known anything about how disk drives
> were supposed to be made, the Apples drive wouldn't have been half as good".
The BBC micro had a Cumana disk drive that used single sided 5 1/4" floppies
and we would line up the hole on the disk with the hole on the case and
punch a hole through the other side with a leather hole punch. This gave us
double-sided floppies.
Peter
Rick
>
> dpett...@hotmail.com (David Petticord) wrote in
> news:3ff8f065.01061...@posting.google.com:
>
> > T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net> wrote in message
> > news:<jjofitostgcc6l9r8...@4ax.com>...
> >
> ><snipped reasonable summation of PC history>
> >
> >> >Sorry, Microsoft *did* some good. They may have a *very* tarnished
> >> >reputation now, but that isn't the point of my argument.
> >>
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >> That is the most that can be said for them. Despite popular opinion,
> >> there is no "fine line" between monopolization and competing. There
> >> is no legal way to act anti-competitively, and just because it might
> >> take twenty years to understand just what the difference is if you
> >> aren't watching to begin with doesn't mean it doesn't occur.
> >
> > There is no legal way to act anti-competitively when you define
> > anti-competitive to mean "illegal".
> >
>
> Also, you cannot act anti-competitively unless there is already something
> to compete with.
By monopoly defintion you can indeed act anti-competitively. a monopoly
has to be able to dictate pricing in the market. If youa re the only
one, at the time, in the market, you can price the product so that you
effectively bar entrance into the market.
> When M$ first started producing DOS there simply wasn't
> anything else apart from CP/M - and that was aimed strictly at the business
> market.
Was it now. WHat huge market for micros were in business? Visicalc was
the first killer business app, and it ran only on Apples for a couple of
years. I think you need to look at the usage of CP/M in the non-business
marktet a little more. Besides, even if you are correct, DOS was aimed
at business too.
> IBM wanted a disk OS for the "small computer" market so that it
> could put a disk drive onto its (provisionally?) cassette tape based XT
> series. (I havn't tried this personally, but I am told that if you
> disconnect the drives before booting an XT it boots into ROM BASIC with
> cassette support - although the necessary hardware may not be present). M$
> ROM BASIC gained popularity simply because it ran from ROM. No-one else
> bothered with the ROM BASIC market. There were tiny BASICs in ROM (and on
> tape) of course, and there were disk-based floating point BASICs, but
> virtually no other ROM-based versions. (Apple did their own AFAIK).
Apple has a couple versions of BASIC, at least one was done inhouse, and
one licensed from micro$oft. That license caused some problems in later
licensing talks between Apple and m$.
>
> In these two instances did M$ have a monopoly or were they just producing
> original products?
Very shourtly after the IBM license deal, m$ did indeed have a onopoly.
They did NOT produce an original product, since they got DOS from
someone else.
. OK, so they guarded the code closely, but so did
> everyone else!
>
They guard their code, and steal from others.
Form@C
<snip>
> By monopoly defintion you can indeed act anti-competitively. a
> monopoly has to be able to dictate pricing in the market. If youa re
> the only one, at the time, in the market, you can price the product so
> that you effectively bar entrance into the market.
>
<snip>
What M$ did was offer their customers bulk pricing. This was really a first
for the computer software market. Up until this point every machine was a
proprietory product with its own method of doing things. No-one *really*
had control of the hardware market. The M$ approach stimulated the hardware
manufacturers into producing systems which could run M$ products - simply
because the M$ software became cheaper as they bought more! This isn't an
anti-competitive approach by M$, it is simply a matter of scaled pricing.
Just because no-one else was willing to try this in the computer market
place you can't blame M$.
Rememnber where we are in time at this point. The home computer market has
just started and has been perceived to be a short term source of income by
IBM. The home/desktop computers currently available are *very* expensive
and, in the UK at least, all imported. Manufacturers are looking for *any*
way to reduce production costs since these new-fangled microprocessor
thingies & dynamic RAM chips are still hellish expensive to buy, but are
slowly getting cheaper. They *need* to get their production costs back: the
general opinion is that the home computer "fad" probably has 5 years or so
to run at maximum then the market will drop to just supplying a few nerds
in the US.
>> When M$ first started producing DOS there simply wasn't
>> anything else apart from CP/M - and that was aimed strictly at the
>> business market.
>
> Was it now. WHat huge market for micros were in business? Visicalc was
> the first killer business app, and it ran only on Apples for a couple
> of years. I think you need to look at the usage of CP/M in the
> non-business marktet a little more. Besides, even if you are correct,
> DOS was aimed at business too.
>
As I pointed out above, the cost of computers was a major issue. Yes, home
users could use CP/M - but it was so expensive that only the well-heeled
could consider it! There are probably home users writing in COBOL for
entertainment even as I type this...
CP/M *did* become popular as a home home computer OS, but not on bottom-end
machines where floppy disk drives just weren't an option. The majority
of home computers just couldn't include floppy drives in the price. BASIC
*had* to be in ROM. IIRC the big attraction of CP/M for home users was the
"huge" collection of free programs which became available from the CP/M
User Group. Consequently CP/M suffered a hell of a lot of piracy...
I don't think DOS was really aimed at specific users! It was aimed at the
small computer market place in general.
>> IBM wanted a disk OS for the "small computer" market so that it
>> could put a disk drive onto its (provisionally?) cassette tape based
>> XT series. (I havn't tried this personally, but I am told that if you
>> disconnect the drives before booting an XT it boots into ROM BASIC
>> with cassette support - although the necessary hardware may not be
>> present). M$ ROM BASIC gained popularity simply because it ran from
>> ROM. No-one else bothered with the ROM BASIC market. There were tiny
>> BASICs in ROM (and on tape) of course, and there were disk-based
>> floating point BASICs, but virtually no other ROM-based versions.
>> (Apple did their own AFAIK).
>
> Apple has a couple versions of BASIC, at least one was done inhouse,
> and one licensed from micro$oft. That license caused some problems in
> later licensing talks between Apple and m$.
>
I bet it did!
>>
>> In these two instances did M$ have a monopoly or were they just
>> producing original products?
>
> Very shourtly after the IBM license deal, m$ did indeed have a onopoly.
> They did NOT produce an original product, since they got DOS from
> someone else.
>
From what I remember, QDOS wasn't being considered as a usable OS by its
owners. They didn't mind selling it to M$ as it had already done its job
for them. If I am wrong on this then no doubt someone will correct me.
QDOS, (with not much modification), became MS-DOS1. It was rather
crude and didn't really take off until the directory structure system was
added later.
OK, I'll grant you that the original code in MS-DOS1 was mainly QDOS, but
since QDOS wasn't a product at the time, M$ made it into one. They
certainly built on it very quickly because the life span of MS-DOS1 was
only about 12 months IIRC.
> . OK, so they guarded the code closely, but so did
>> everyone else!
>>
>
> They guard their code, and steal from others.
>
They may well do now, I'm not arguing that point, but at the time they had
clean noses!
GreyCloud
Correct. The first one was Apples Integer basic and was quite fast and
was on the mobo.
The second was MS floating-point basic. At the time I bought my Apple I
had to buy a separate card that had a red paddle switch in the back to
switch between the two basics.
I didn't like loading floating-point basic from cassette tape.
> >
> > In these two instances did M$ have a monopoly or were they just producing
> > original products?
>
> Very shourtly after the IBM license deal, m$ did indeed have a onopoly.
> They did NOT produce an original product, since they got DOS from
> someone else.
>
> . OK, so they guarded the code closely, but so did
> > everyone else!
> >
>
> They guard their code, and steal from others.
--
V
Peter Hayes
If you like, but it doesn't change the fact that Apple are just as bad as
Microsoft.
An Apple dominated home and office environment would be far worse than the
one we have now, since Apple would control both the hardware and the
software.
Ciao
Peter
Cyberbear
machines at the time, I really don't know the reasoning behind it.
"Form@C" <mi...@mixtel.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Xns90C1D84E7F7BFmi...@194.117.133.24...
Rick
Why do you think the desktop should be dominated by any one vendor? And
there is nothing worse for the marketplace that being dominated by
micro$oft.
> Peter
Mark
>On Thu, 14 Jun 2001 05:40:34 GMT, T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net>
>wrote:
>
>
>> >software platform that worked on hardware from different manufacturers.
>>
>> Well, here's the truth of the matter:
>>
>> In the very early years of the 'PC revolution', from the perspective of
>> the average consumer at that time, you didn't have a PC standard. What
>> you had were other computer manufacturers copying IBM's design. These
>> were the 'PC compatibles', and it is worth noting that, as products,
>> they've all disappeared entirely. The products which still survive in
>> the "IBM compatible" market are not compatibles, but clones.
>
>Actually neither. The BIOS moved on from IBM's original, BIOSs created by
>the likes of Ami and Award, and licenced by motherboard manufacturers. Then
>the so-called "compatibles" and "clones" disappeared. Gates was still
>working on his first billion at that time.
He's quite right. The early IBM compatibles were not very compatible,
some software wouldn't run at all on some of those machines. Zenith
spring to mind as 'not very compatible'. Compaq made their mark
by producing a computer that would do anything the IBM one would.
>
>> Now, the thing that makes them clones, rather than compatibles, more
>> than anything else in the world, is the BIOS. Compaq (or somebody)
>> cloned the original BIOS, and IIRC, there was even a bit of suing going
>> on. But in the end, IBM could not stop anyone anywhere from reverse
>> engineering (wasn't tough; the first couple versions had the schematics
>> and code!) the PC/XT/AT 'platform' and producing a clone computer.
>
>More prattling, Max.
I recall that IBM did try to sue Compaq, but I'd thought it was
over hardware design copying, rather than firmware.
>
>
><snip massive rambling rant>
>
>> The fact that Windows is monopoly crapware in no way indicates that
>> millions of people have not successfully used it as an OS on their PC.
>> It isn't the numbers, it is the proportions, that damn the product as
>> monopoly crapware.
>
>Eh? Are you saying that just because something is used by 95% of its target
>market then it automatically becomes " monopoly crapware"? Monopoly, yes.
>Crapware? That's down to the individual product.
No, he didn't say that.
>
>Whatever Microsoft's faults, they've established a product that has resulted
>in dirt cheap hardware.
No, that was a result of IBM making the PC designs open.
> Do you think for one minute that there would be a
>games market on any "personal computer" if Windows 9.x hadn't happened?
The computer games market has existed since the days of 8-bit computers.
It was 'made' in the DOS days, mainly by third party hardware and
software houses - the hardware guys made the sound and graphics capabilities,
the software guys wrote games to use them.
Other software guys fixed Microsoft's very poor OS well enough that it
would work. Dos4GW springs to mind, as does DRDOS.
>No,
>Sega and Nintendo would have 99% of the market and personal computer
>hardware would cost the earth even if there was such a thing as the personal
>computer market remotely like what we have today.
The reason hardware is cheap is because the standards are open. It has
nothing whatsoever to do with Microsoft. This was an IBM decision.
>To buy a graphics card
>with 32 meg of ram and a GPU capable of billions of t&l calculations/second
>would set you back tens of thousands of dollars instead of about 100. To buy
>even a card capable of up to 24 bit colour at 1024x768 would be hundreds,
>instead of which that is now a sub entry level specification.
This is hypothetical, total, speculation.
>
>So thank Microsoft that, as a (necessary) by-product of their quest for
>world domination, they've established the conditions that made today's
>hardware affordable. You don't need to thank them for anything else.
No, the hardware is affordable because IBM made the standards open.
--
Mark Kent
Mark
>On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 19:22:37 -0400, Rick <nom...@nomail.com> wrote:
>
>> Peter Hayes wrote:
>> >
>> > On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 14:31:31 -0400, Rick <nom...@nomail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> > > How has Apple shafted as many as micro$oft. Just by sgeer size, m$ HAS
>> > > to have shafted more. After all, everyone that uses an m$ OS is getting
>> > > a big one from Gates.
>> >
>> > OK, maybe I should have said "in proportion to its size .....
>> >
>> > Peter
>>
>> Maybe you shouldnt have said anything at all. You are spouting nonsense.
>
>If you like, but it doesn't change the fact that Apple are just as bad as
>Microsoft.
Apple are like the playground bully whereas Microsoft are like the Mafia.
They are most certainly not 'just as bad as'. I don't recall Apple
having a monopoly of anything.
>
>An Apple dominated home and office environment would be far worse than the
>one we have now, since Apple would control both the hardware and the
>software.
More hypothetical nonsense.
--
Mark Kent
Mark
Err, apple's are renowned for it, the CPM ones, at least!
--
Mark Kent
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> In article <no6kit070vue697c2...@4ax.com>, Peter Hayes wrote:
> >On Thu, 14 Jun 2001 05:40:34 GMT, T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net>
> >wrote:
> >> The fact that Windows is monopoly crapware in no way indicates that
> >> millions of people have not successfully used it as an OS on their PC.
> >> It isn't the numbers, it is the proportions, that damn the product as
> >> monopoly crapware.
> >
> >Eh? Are you saying that just because something is used by 95% of its target
> >market then it automatically becomes " monopoly crapware"? Monopoly, yes.
> >Crapware? That's down to the individual product.
>
> No, he didn't say that.
Reads like that to me.
> >Whatever Microsoft's faults, they've established a product that has resulted
> >in dirt cheap hardware.
>
> No, that was a result of IBM making the PC designs open.
No, it's software that sells. A computer without software is like a car with
no petrol, just so much scrap metal.
Of course the hardware design being open helped, Compaq cloning the BIOS
helped, but it was having apps that people wanted to run, plus "no-one ever
got fired for buying IBM" that established Microsoft. Plus, of course, their
dirty tricks department.
Given time and the economic motivation someone would have cloned the IBM
hardware anyway. Being open just saved time and money.
> > Do you think for one minute that there would be a
> >games market on any "personal computer" if Windows 9.x hadn't happened?
>
> The computer games market has existed since the days of 8-bit computers.
That was pre Sega and Nintendo. Yes, you're right, there would be some
computer games, but not the market we have today.
<...>
> >To buy a graphics card
> >with 32 meg of ram and a GPU capable of billions of t&l calculations/second
> >would set you back tens of thousands of dollars instead of about 100. To buy
> >even a card capable of up to 24 bit colour at 1024x768 would be hundreds,
> >instead of which that is now a sub entry level specification.
>
> This is hypothetical, total, speculation.
Of course it is, but one of the high-end Oxygen cards would set you back
thousands only four or five years ago. You can get the equivalent for under
100 today. Extrapolate from that.
I conclude that with the economies of scale, combined with one dominant
platform, the drive for ever faster gaming and intense competition between
manufacturers (as you say, because the hardware standard is open) we have
incredibly powerful hardware at rock bottom prices.
Microsoft provided that dominant platform in their quest for world
domination. They've done little else good, and this current SmartTags
controversy is another example of them at their worst, but at least most
people can exchange files and data with little hassle.
Peter
Ayende Rahien
"Mark" <ma...@otford.kent.btinternet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d0bgg9...@192.168.1.1...
>
> Apple are like the playground bully whereas Microsoft are like the Mafia.
> They are most certainly not 'just as bad as'. I don't recall Apple
> having a monopoly of anything.
>
They have a monopoly on PPC based desktop computers.
Can you buy a Mac without MacOS?
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> Apple are like the playground bully whereas Microsoft are like the Mafia.
Only an accident of opportunity. Could easily have been the other way round
if Jobs had managed the company properly.
> They are most certainly not 'just as bad as'. I don't recall Apple
> having a monopoly of anything.
MacOS?
Their hardware?
See? Hardware and software under their control. Microsoft only had software
control, and that stranglehold is well on its way to being broken.
> >An Apple dominated home and office environment would be far worse than the
> >one we have now, since Apple would control both the hardware and the
> >software.
>
> More hypothetical nonsense.
That's as maybe, but Apple's behaviour suggests that given the opportunity
they'd be the Mafia twice over. Anyone who sues over the "Qube" has to have
megalomaniac tendencies.
Ciao
Peter
Rick
They do not have monopoly on PPC based computers. Doesnt IBM make
desktop PPC's? And there are CHIRP/PREP based PPC mchines in the works
now.
> Can you buy a Mac without MacOS?
It wouldnt be a MAc if you could buy it without MacOS. You m$ shills
will never get this through your head. The Mac is a hardware/software
combo as bought from Apple. And if Apple has a monopoly on Apple
computers, Ford has amonoply on Ford cars, Sears on Sears
refrigerators... the list is endless.
GreyCloud
The NorthStart Horizon that I had was a true hard-sectored floppy
drive. Examination of the hard-sectored floppy diskette shows there is
one-index hole and 10 sector holes near the hub ring.
Apple was not hard-sectored. It only had one index sector hole near the
hub-ring.
Also in that day there was an attempt to prevent piracy by writing to
the floppy controller to move over the sectors or even change the sector
count. In other words you couldn't copy the diskette because the proms
would use the default settings. It was all done in software.
--
V
Peter Hayes
> The NorthStart Horizon that I had was a true hard-sectored floppy
> drive. Examination of the hard-sectored floppy diskette shows there is
> one-index hole and 10 sector holes near the hub ring.
>
> Apple was not hard-sectored. It only had one index sector hole near the
> hub-ring.
Just like a 5.25" floppy disk today.
But aren't we going back to the earliest Apples put together by Woz around
1978/79 for these hard sectored disks?
> Also in that day there was an attempt to prevent piracy by writing to
> the floppy controller to move over the sectors or even change the sector
> count. In other words you couldn't copy the diskette because the proms
> would use the default settings. It was all done in software.
And sometimes even when you installed an app on your hard disk the copy
protection took note of where it was on the disk. You'd to uninstall the app
before you defragged the drive or it wouldn't run, and the master copy
wouldn't reinstall because it knew it had already been installed.
Peter
T. Max Devlin
>wrote:
>
>> Said Form@C in alt.destroy.microsoft on Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:09:58 GMT;
>> >T. Max Devlin <tm...@commercelinks.net> wrote in
>> >news:gvg7itgm7pippglug...@4ax.com:
>> >
>> ><snip>
>> >> That is impossible. Apple makes hardware; you can't be predatory in a
>> >> software market if you are only making money selling hardware. Apple
>> >> has always had a great balance between compatibility and proprietary
>> >> value-add, I think.
>> >>
>> ><snip>
>> >
>> >Isn't it suprising how quickly Apple supporters (in particular) have
>> >forgotten Apples past "dirty tricks"?
>> >
>> >Remember the hard-sector disks that Apple kept using for years after
>> >everyone else (almost) had ditched them?
>>
>> No, I don't. When was that?
>
>Instead of identifying sectors in software as happens when you format a
>floppy, Apple's hard sectored disks had a series of holes, generally 16 of
>them, to identify the sectors. Wozniak did it that way because he didn't
>have the cash for disk controller hardware.
I believe the question was when, not who or how.
>> Apple has always had a great balance between compatibility and
>> proprietary value-add, I think.
>
>Doesn't matter how many times you say it Max, it doesn't make it true.
Doesn't matter how many times you say that, it is never anything but
squirming for lack of an argument.
>Apple have shafted just as many people as Microsoft,
I would say that would be impossible; Apple's customer base is certainly
no more than 10% of Microsoft, according to sales figures.
>the only difference
>being that Apple's victims were the little guy and Microsoft took on the big
>boys.
Which "little guy" are you referring to? Is he a metaphoric "little
guy", or do you have some real "little guy" in mind.
I used to be a "little guy". I've used an Apple II, though I owned a
C64 myself. When I started in business we used Macintosh. Apple
brought computing to the masses; how does that make a victim out of any
"little guy"?
--
T. Max Devlin
*** The best way to convince another is
to state your case moderately and
accurately. - Benjamin Franklin ***
Form@C
<snip>
> C64 myself. When I started in business we used Macintosh. Apple
> brought computing to the masses; how does that make a victim out of any
> "little guy"?
>
LOL! Not on this side of the pond they didn't! In the "good old days" the
tendency was to swap the $ sign for a £ sign and then, if it was Apple, add
a fair bit more. That made Apple machines some of the most expensive and
least accessible items around for the "little guy". I wouldn't class this
as bringing computing to the masses - that had to wait for "uncle" Clive
several years later.
Apple did some really good things - don't get me wrong - but most of their
stuff was too "leading edge" to be affordable over in the UK.
Peter Hayes
wrote:
> Which "little guy" are you referring to? Is he a metaphoric "little
> guy", or do you have some real "little guy" in mind.
The guy I knew who bought a Quadra NuBus just before Apple ditched NuBus.
This obsoleted his kit overnight and two years later he was out of business.
And the clone makers who had their licences withdrawn, although I've no
personal experience of that.
Peter
GreyCloud
>
> On Sat, 16 Jun 2001 21:00:50 -0700, GreyCloud <whol...@tscnet.com> wrote:
>
> > The NorthStart Horizon that I had was a true hard-sectored floppy
> > drive. Examination of the hard-sectored floppy diskette shows there is
> > one-index hole and 10 sector holes near the hub ring.
> >
> > Apple was not hard-sectored. It only had one index sector hole near the
> > hub-ring.
>
> Just like a 5.25" floppy disk today.
>
> But aren't we going back to the earliest Apples put together by Woz around
> 1978/79 for these hard sectored disks?
I bought one with a serial number below 500. Then when UCSD pascal came
out I bought another one and its serial number was up around 25,000 and
I also had to install two proms on the diskette controller card. Apple
II never did have hard sectored disks.
Woz was always into programming hardware and relying more on software to
get the most out of the least of hardware. He built a unique phone
modem, but the some part of the U.S. Gov. put a stop to that because it
could be used to trick any phone system into making long distance calls
without paying any charges.
>
> > Also in that day there was an attempt to prevent piracy by writing to
> > the floppy controller to move over the sectors or even change the sector
> > count. In other words you couldn't copy the diskette because the proms
> > would use the default settings. It was all done in software.
>
> And sometimes even when you installed an app on your hard disk the copy
> protection took note of where it was on the disk. You'd to uninstall the app
> before you defragged the drive or it wouldn't run, and the master copy
> wouldn't reinstall because it knew it had already been installed.
>
> Peter
--
V
JamesW
pe...@seahaze.demon.co.uk says...
> That's as maybe, but Apple's behaviour suggests that given the opportunity
> they'd be the Mafia twice over. Anyone who sues over the "Qube" has to have
> megalomaniac tendencies.
>
Er - weren't Apple the ones threatened with legal action by Cobalt over
the 'Qube'?
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2609260,00.html
T. Max Devlin
>wrote:
>
>> Which "little guy" are you referring to? Is he a metaphoric "little
>> guy", or do you have some real "little guy" in mind.
>
>The guy I knew who bought a Quadra NuBus just before Apple ditched NuBus.
Too bad for him. Is this the "little guy" you were referring to?
>This obsoleted his kit overnight and two years later he was out of business.
Given the caliber of his choices, it is no wonder. NEVER buy the newest
thing in business unless you REALLY know what you are doing. Obviously,
he didn't; NuBus was certainly something to be avoided.
>And the clone makers who had their licences withdrawn, although I've no
>personal experience of that.
Another way that Apple could have shot themselves in the foot, and
realized their mistake before it was too late. I know that a vast
majority of those who take "popular wisdom" to heart think that Apple
choosing not to license clones and to aggressively prevent unlicensed
clones was some sort of "anti-little guy monopolization" or some such
bullshit, but that really is just naive babbling.
Apple's decision to maintain their platform as proprietary is not, in
and of itself, anti-competitive, no matter how long the anti-Mac
(pro-MS) crowd has been using it as a canard.
T. Max Devlin
>news:6vmpitcfq0taq4o66...@4ax.com:
>
><snip>
>> C64 myself. When I started in business we used Macintosh. Apple
>> brought computing to the masses; how does that make a victim out of any
>> "little guy"?
>>
>
>LOL! Not on this side of the pond they didn't! In the "good old days" the
>tendency was to swap the $ sign for a £ sign and then, if it was Apple, add
>a fair bit more. That made Apple machines some of the most expensive and
>least accessible items around for the "little guy".
Or, more probably, is why their microcomputers were so much more
valuable to the little guy than a PC knock-off or a Commodore.
>I wouldn't class this
>as bringing computing to the masses - that had to wait for "uncle" Clive
>several years later.
Clive?
>Apple did some really good things - don't get me wrong - but most of their
>stuff was too "leading edge" to be affordable over in the UK.
Again, this is how they brought computing to the masses. SOMEBODY has
to start producing, before things can get real cheap due to 'economies
of scale'. If you were a smart little guy, you understood why the Mac
was worth the price. Perhaps you couldn't afford it, true, but all you
had to do was wait a couple years until somebody starts using the ideas
on other, cheaper systems.
GreyCloud
It seems Apple is threatened with a law suit... but over a simple look
of a square block?
--
V
T. Max Devlin
>JamesW wrote:
[...]
>It seems Apple is threatened with a law suit... but over a simple look
>of a square block?
Over a design patent for a cube-shaped desktop computer. An iffy
proposition, obviously, but that's no reason to misrepresent the
situation.
LShaping
> This really sums up all that is wrong with Microsoft.
> They produce OSs that brought computing to the masses. They may not be
> great, but they generally work for most users. They produce a reasonably
> competent server/workstation OS (W2K). They produce reasonably competent
> office applications. But their business ethics appear to come from the
> gutter.
> If after Bill Gates had made his first billion (who needs more than that?)
> he'd stepped back from trying to put every competitor out of business by
> assimilation or extermination, if he hadn't tried to blackmail every OEM
> into loading his, and only his, OSs, if he hadn't tried to include spyware
> in his latest products, and now this; if instead he'd promoted his products
> in a fair and equitable manner, if he'd introduced updated file formats in a
> manner that didn't blackmail users into upgrading, if he didn't try to ram
> his browser down everybody's throats, he wouldn't be embroiled in a fight
> with the DoJ, he wouldn't be looking over his shoulder at Linux, he wouldn't
> be accused at every turn of devious and underhand tactics, and I expect his
> products would still be installed on 95%+ of the world's office and home
> systems.
> If Gates had put half the energy into fixing the flaws in his products that
> he's put into his attempts at taking over the world's computers he'd have
> produced products that we'd *want* to install and use, instead of these
> constant devious tactics, the sole result of which is that nobody trusts
> Microsoft to give you the time of day.
> The man's a moron.
> Peter
I agree 100% with that opinion. I think Microsoft has a serious
problem with making so many enemies. Destroying other businesses puts
people out of work. Free people do not like being forced to use one
company's products. If the public ill will rises high enough,
Microsoft's fight to maintain control becomes a do or die situation.
In my opinion, this is a good chance for our (United States)
government to correct a grave injustice.
LShaping
David Petticord
> Peter Hayes wrote:
>
<snip>
>> If Gates had put half the energy into fixing the flaws in his
>> products that he's put into his attempts at taking over the
>> world's computers he'd have produced products that we'd
>> *want* to install and use, instead of these constant devious
>> tactics, the sole result of which is that nobody trusts
>> Microsoft to give you the time of day.
>> The man's a moron.
>> Peter
>
> I agree 100% with that opinion. I think Microsoft has a serious
> problem with making so many enemies. Destroying other businesses puts
> people out of work. Free people do not like being forced to use one
> company's products. If the public ill will rises high enough,
> Microsoft's fight to maintain control becomes a do or die situation.
> In my opinion, this is a good chance for our (United States)
> government to correct a grave injustice.
I realize this is mostly ranting about Microsoft, but if you really
believe this, why get the government involved?
Public ill will and a lack of trust will seal Microsoft's fate more
efficiently than any court inspired remedy.
We do not want the DoJ or our courts succumbing to mob rule any more
than listening to special interests (like Microsoft or its
competitors). Ideally, the DoJ upholds the law the same for popular
and friendly companies as they do for unpopular and aggressive
companies. It is more than an ideal, it is the law.
I would much rather see Microsoft's competitors forming a Gang of Four
to educate the masses and get Microsoft directly, than to see them as
witnesses for a government agency trying to impose a harsh remedy that
isn't allowed to be punitive in intent and taking over five years to
do it.
My Opinion,
David Petticord
P.S. for the record. The Appellate Court's decision was as bad as it
could have been for Microsoft and still be called objective and legal,
IMO.
T. Max Devlin
[...]
>I realize this is mostly ranting about Microsoft, but if you really
>believe this, why get the government involved?
>
>Public ill will and a lack of trust will seal Microsoft's fate more
>efficiently than any court inspired remedy.
You seem to think that "public ill will" is nice and civilized, as if
everyone will just do without PC OSes until MS quietly fades away. No,
the "public ill will" to be avoided by government action involves death
and destruction. It is dishonesty, not economy, that arouses public ill
will, and pedant rhetoric does not stop an angry crowd as it does a
politician or a lawyer.
>We do not want the DoJ or our courts succumbing to mob rule any more
>than listening to special interests (like Microsoft or its
>competitors).
Certainly not; those are the legislature's and the executives jobs,
respectively. The courts job is to succumb to reason. Before the death
and destruction occurs, hopefully.
>Ideally, the DoJ upholds the law the same for popular
>and friendly companies as they do for unpopular and aggressive
>companies. It is more than an ideal, it is the law.
Certainly not. Unpopular companies are to be destroyed as inefficient
or dishonest; that is the law. Return on investment is available only
to those who can gain them through popularity (ethical commerce); any
anit-competitive attempt to restrain trade or monopolize is certainly
going to be unpopular. "Aggression" is not suitable in this analysis,
either, though I think you mistake it for "competent in business".
BTW, the law cannot possibly be more than an ideal, as ideals are always
by definition greater than laws. Or at least, that's the way it is for
those of us who do not have an idealistic view of the law, as you
certainly do, David. I try to think of it as a virtue, really I do, but
you just get way too creepy when you indulge yourself so much.
>I would much rather see Microsoft's competitors forming a Gang of Four
>to educate the masses and get Microsoft directly,
What? Now collusion is appropriate, simply because Microsoft refuses to
compete honestly, ethically, and legally?
Believe it or not, David, Microsoft's competitors have been educating
the masses, and "getting Microsoft directly", since Microsoft started.
I would much rather see Microsoft stop lying, cheating, and stealing,
engaging in rampant propaganda tactics and dishonest rhetoric to obscure
their patently and factually illegal activities.
>than to see them as
>witnesses for a government agency trying to impose a harsh remedy that
>isn't allowed to be punitive in intent and taking over five years to
>do it.
Indeed; you'd prefer if everyone ignored the fact that Microsoft has a
twenty year history of illegal anti-competitive behavior.
[...]
>P.S. for the record. The Appellate Court's decision was as bad as it
>could have been for Microsoft and still be called objective and legal,
>IMO.
P.S. Empty pedantry is empty pedantry, whether post-scripted or honestly
stated.
LShaping
> P.S. for the record. The Appellate Court's decision was as bad as it
> could have been for Microsoft and still be called objective and legal,
> IMO.
> David Petticord
Zeal for serving justice to a vile entity probably is something which
makes them good judges, even if they are pro Microsoft to begin with.
I hope the review gives another trial judge a good long look at
Microsoft. Maybe we will get to see Microsoft display its hallmark
contempt towards another judge.
LShaping
--
No court will stop us from innovating.
(Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft)