Re: Alltech Electronics-- full-speed accel?

[wsmith@NOSPAM.ctron.com (Will Smith)]

On Thu, 19 Feb 1998 03:50:13 -0600, Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>
wrote:

|>     More important, PC is not where Apple II was _15_ years ago. As you
|>may recall, there was once a time when a large proportion of users could
|>easily write at or near 'state of the art' programs. Today, about the
|>most complex 'programming' task PC users even try is pasting together a
|>web page.

the sad thing is that this is very true.  i find it annoying.

another side effect of this is that the programmers of today's apps
have (largely) become very sloppy.  their code is bloated, their data
is VERY bloated, and they don't really need to care; they can store
everything on a CDROM and call it good.

10-15 years ago, programmers that were experienced wrote tight code--
they HAD to.  those were the days when 48k (!!) RAM was the cutting
edge.  my //gs (running at 2MHz) crunched numbers in Appleworks GS's
spreadsheet faster than a 286 running Lotus 1-2-3 with similar data.
the 286 ran at what- 12 MHz?  needless to say, i was impressed...  :)
(if you care to refute that, go nuts.  i won't believe you.  i was
there, you weren't.  <g>)

|>     The PC's message is that the vast majority of users must give up
|>any hope of coming even remotely close to mastering their machines.
|>Their PC is a black box crammed with other black boxes, none of which is
|>ever well documented because the user has no 'need to know'. At best,
|>these users can, maybe, learn to use a few applications without bombing
|>Windows too often.

ahhhhh...  the Curse of PunySquishy rears its ugly head!  <evil grin>

>     II users "bother" because they do not buy the PC message. As much
|>as possible, the user _should_ be the master of his/her machine. That,
|>really, is where you discover the power and the fun of being a computer
|>user.  

that's what got me interested in computers in the first place: the
sense of control over the machine...  :)   maybe it's why i prefer a
command line to the GUI?  unix is cool that way...  <g>

ttyl...

---
William Smith
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