Re: Why the Apple II was on the right track...

[lesherjt@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Tilghman Lesher)]

Nathan Mates (nathan@visi.com) wrote:
: Sheldon Simms <sheldon@atlcom.net> wrote:
: >In both cases, adding a new hard
: >drive amounts to "plug", "power on". Adding memory is "open lid", "snap",
: >"power on". Adding a video card is "open lid", "plug", "power on". No
: >screwing around with dip switches, whacked up drivers, configuration
: >files, IRQ conflicts, etc... I guess I'm just a lazy moron since I prefer
: >not to have to get my hands dirty.

:    HD and memory installs in my PC have been just as simple; video a
: matter of booting, picking from a menu, rebooting. In fact, my RamFAST
: 'complained' more about a new HD being installed than my PC. About the
: only DIPs my PC has inside it are for the CPU and associated
: motherboard speeds. PCs were getting pretty close to plug and run
: before MS came along with their bass-ackward plug-and-pray
: implementation. 

:    A lot of these 'horror stories' of PCs with hardware installation
: nightmares may just be either marketing hype from Apple, or stuff
: messed up by the idiots who shouldn't have been touching a computer to
: begin with, such as the true tech support nightmare tales-- idiots who
: think their CD-ROM drive is a cupholder, etc. Some idiot of that
: caliber trying to muck with their system *will* mess it up to a state
: requiring a full reinstall of whatever OS runs on it.

The statistic found by a popular publishing company which puts out a 
publication for PCs and a publication for Macs was that PC owners spend
four times as much time (on average) with tech support (trying to get
their PC running as Mac owners.

:    Don't make a computer that any idiot can use, keep any idiot away
: until they've been educated enough not to do any damage.

If the computer industry followed this advice, we'd still be using
mainframes.  The PC revolution would not have taken place.  Computers
would be viewed largely as "unfriendly machines", with the same
hysteria about AI as 1950s movies.

--
__ __|_) |       |                    
   |   | |  _` |   \   ` \   _` |   \ 
  _|  _|_|\__, |_| _|_|_|_|\__,_|_| _|
          ____/