Re: Apple II-Or Come on people, It's a 20 year old computer

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <3956EA8A.871F4ABB@wanadoo.nl>,
ruud.dingemans <ruud.dingemans@wanadoo.nl> wrote:
 
> Paul Schlyter wrote:
> 
>> If WIMP interfaces are so important to you, then by all means choose
>> one and use it!  It's there on many computers -- so what are you
>> complaining about?
> 
> That wasn't my point. My point was that nowadays, a lot more computers
> are GUI computers than IBM PC-style DOS machines.
 
Sorry, but so far I haven't encountered one single modern PC which
refuses to boot up MS/PC-DOS.  Thus, most modern computers are both a
GUI computer, a PC-style DOS machine, or a Unix computer -- it's all
a matter of which software you choose to run on that computer.
 
> So in general, I'd say the Alto and the Lisa have had a lot more
> influence on general computer design (not specific types as such, like
> AMD-machines or PowerPC-machines etc.)
 
The Alto + Lisa had more influence on the UI design; however a computer is
more than just an UI ......
 
>> You don't think that may be because the GUI then had been moved into
>> ROM's, instead of being read off disk?
> 
> The Lisa GUI was not read from disk entirely.
 
But those parts of the Lisa GUI which was read from disk probably
mattered more to the overall speed than the CPU clock rate of 5 vs 8
MHz.
 
>>> Anyhow, from 5 to 8 MHz does matter.
>> 
>> If you seriously think so, then throwing out the GUI will matter even
>> more...
> 
> Irrelevant. The Lisa was a GUI machine, the IBM was not, and that's that.
 
Whether the IBM was a GUI machine or not depended on what software you
chose to run on it.  The original IBM PC ran both Windows 1 and GEM,
so you even had some choice of *which* GUI to run on it.....
 
>>> I care about which design had the most influence on the personal computer
>>> of today. And today, personal computers look a lot more like the
>>> mouse/gui-driven Lisa than the commandline ibm pc, and that's that.
>> 
>> That's your religious belief, and since you appear unable to have a
>> rational discussion about this
> 
> Well, just prove me wrong - show me the majority of thousands of
> commandline personal computers in use today that I must've missed.
> Even Windows 3.x isn't sold anymore, let alone DOS.
 
Most of today's computers run either Windows-95 or Windows-98.  Both
of them are command-line based, and commandlines are executed every
time you boot them up or whenever you click an icon.  You can even
invoke an explicitly visible commandline anytime by opening a
so-called "DOS box".  So your claim that Windows-95/98 aren't
command-line based is false.  Yes, there's a GUI too there, so
they're really both GUI based and command-line based -- so the
user has a choice.
 
> Unix is cli-based,
 
You can run X on top of Unix, and hide its commandline, just
like Win-95/98 runs a GUI to hide its CLI.  So one could argue
that Unix isn't CLI-based either, if you choose to configure it so
that the CLI is hidden for the average user.
 
> but hardly the majority of personal computers out there run on it,
 
Linux is getting more popular all the time.  Perhaps in a few years... ?
 
>> The PC clones also forced Apple to lower their price on the Macintoy,
> 
> Like I said, it was the clones that made the difference, not the IBM PC
> itself.
 
WHich was my point all the time, but then you always wanted to talk
about *only* the original IBM PC.....
 
> If it hadn't been cloned (and therefore it's price would've stayed high)
> it wouldn't have had much impact at all. Ergo, the computer itself wasn't
> that influential, the fact that it got cloned was.
 
The fact that it *could* be cloned was very influential, thus the computer
itself *did* matter....
 
>>> Yes you were. You brought the *IBM PC* up as the originator of modern
>>> computing.
>> 
>> No I didn't!  I brought it up as the mother of most modern personal
>> computERS !
> 
> You mean most pc's.
 
I mean virtually all PC's -- the days of the IBM-PC incompatible MS-DOS
computer are gone since a long long time ago.....
 
> That's just one type of computer, there are more, you know.
 
It's the most common kind of computer: the number of PC's outnumber
the total number of all other kinds of computers (if we exclude all
those small embedded systems we all sorround us with today).
Therefore "all PC's" is equal to "most personal computers".
 
>> Well, the clone makers certainly didn't clone the price of the
>> original IBM PC --- thus your earlier remark about the IBM PC
>> being expensive is irrelevant: most PC buyers didn't buy the IBM
>> PC, but some clone instead.
> 
> Indeed, and that's why the IBM PC *itself* wasn't all that important.
> But you brought it up as being the most important.
 
I don't think I ever said it was most important -- you claimed I said so
though.
 
> It wasn't, it's cloning was - so maybe the first Compaq clone would
> have been more appropriate.
 
Not quite -- the fact that the IBM PC was cloneable was the important
deciding factor here.
 
> And yes, because of the cloning the pc software format became something
> of a standard.
 
And a standard diskette format is a Good Thing, don't you agree?  BTW
the Apple computers always used non-standard disk controllers, until the
Mac switched to MFM disks like the rest of the industry already had used
for many years.
 
>> So why aren't Amigas outselling PC's today?  You said it was better....
> 
> Being better doesn't always mean dominating the market. Microsoft is a
> prime example, it seems...
 
Then what's the point of making a better computer if you don't care to
market it well enough?  That's a wasted effort, don't you think so?
 
>>> Oh yes you did. You said in your original argument that modern computers
>>> are descendants of the *commandline* IBM PC,
>> 
>> No.  I said "IBM PC", not "*commandline* IBM PC" -- the latter is your
>> twisted quote of what I wrote.
> 
> Since the IBM pc *was* a commandline machine
 
Not if you did hide the commandline by loading a GUI (e.g. Windows 1,
or GEM), according to your logic....
 
> and most of today's machines are not,
 
Sorry, byt the CLI is still there in all PC's.
 
> it's obvious which design has had more of an influence in general
> design terms. And no, most machines don't use an 8088 anymore today,
> either.
 
Most machines use an 8088 compatible though.....
 
>> I have some proof for you: pick an old IBM PC application, and an old
>> Lisa application, and try to run it on a modern PC.  Which one do you
>> think will have the greatest chance to run successfully?   <evil grin>
> 
> Irrelevant, since most original ibm pc's software doesn't run on a gui
> either, and most of today's machines are, for all intents and purposes,
> gui machines. I doubt DOS 1.0 runs too well on a modern Win2000 Repentium
> III, anyway.
 
If you boot from a floppy, and don't care to use the HD, it should
run fine.
 
>> Fine -- then you must agree that the PC clone market was a Good Thing,
>> and that the absence if a similar clone market for the Mac was a Bad Thing.
> 
> In general, yes. But it's not like IBM *wanted* to have its computer cloned.
 
If IBM had got what it wanted, the PC would not dominate the personal
computer market as it does today.  It would then be a niche computer, like
the Mac.
 
>>> The Lisa was.
>> 
>> No it wasn't.  It was only remarkable, for its time, in the user interface
>> terms.  But the actual computing was quite non-remarkable.
> 
> This is just plain silly again. In terms of what was available on the
> market *at the time*, it
> was an enormously remarkable machine. Why do you think Lisa got such
> attention back then (look it up in the old
> magazines - I have several here), and are now in computing history musea.
 
The IBM PC is in computer musea too.....   <grin>
 
> Anyway, it's been nice ramblin' with ya, but this is taking too much of
> my time.
 
It indeed does -- and it's boring in the long run to sound like a broken
record....
 
-- 
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