Re: Wozniak vs Jobs

[Forrest <squitaur@net-gate.com>]

On 27 Apr 1998, Regnirps wrote:

> >Since power failures can 
> >happen at any time, and since total system lockups can happen
> >at any time, the only rational way to design a
> >computer system is to keep things as stable as possible as much of the
> >time as possible; instead Apple seems to have gone out of its way to do 
> >the exact opposite.  And the idea seems to have spread all over the place.
> 
> Which I feel obliged to say is required for a deterministic operating system
> and a chief factor that makes the Mac workable and reliable.

  Since power failures can happen at any time, and since total system 
lockups can happen at any time [is there an echo in here?] this factor 
would appear to make the Mac LESS reliable, not more reliable.

  On my primitive Appleworks machine I can lose power, or if necessary hard 
reboot, at any time but during a disk write with no harm done; on the
"sophisticated" PowerMac downstairs* this is not the case as Norton Disk 
Doctor can testify.

  Also, the purpose of the system is to serve the operator, not vice 
versa.  

> Allowing a user to pop out a disk at any time wether writing and reading
> or not, is like allowing them to pop out RAM SIMMS when they feel like it
> and expecting the computer to not notice!

  An exaggeration.

> You are stuck in the DOS doldrums where the OS was
> too stupid and the hardware to ill concieved to do it right.

  Do what right?  Make unwarranted presumptions about what constitutes 
appropriate behavior?  When the thunder starts rumbling, the capability 
of an immediate safe power-off is a _requirement_.

  But then, I'm also crazy enough to wonder why apparently every 
hard-drive designer left write-protect capability off the specs.


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* Which locked up only once so far today, hurrah!  Granted, it was a 
rear-panel-power-button four-star thermonuclear lockup, but still...