Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <E0o9r8.8t3@boss.cs.ohiou.edu>,
Stavros Robert Karatsoridis <skaratso@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu> wrote:
>If you look at who programmed ClarisWorks v4.0 on the Mac and Win 95,
>you'll see a lot of the people who programmed AppleWorks GS as well. Why
>don't they create the translators needed???

   Heck. Why doesn't Mickeysoft put even an Appleworks Classic 2.0
translator in 'Word', despite the fact that the format's publically
documented on the net?[1] Two probable reasons: (1) no percieved
interest, (2) programmers are busy putting in other features.

   Translators are a specialty market, especially graphics converters
like Debabelizer. Big companies would rather let someone else come up
with the niche product used by 1% of the population, but would cause a
LOT of problems with users trying to get it to work. If you think MS's
tech support lines are bad now, can you imagine it if they were
fielding a lot of calls despite putting "You CANNOT read an Apple II
5.25" disk on a standard IBM PC" on every page of the manual and in
every dialog box?[2] 

   For every 10 people that used AW classic, I'd expect only one used
AWGS. Although it appears and runs halfway decently, it's a
programming nightmare internally.[3]

Nathan Mates

[1] ftp.apple.com, dts/aii/ftn/ftn-1*
[2] They could even make users type it in 100 times before they could
run the program, and I don't think most of them would get the clue.
[3] Hand-patching the binary rather than a recompile/reassemble is BAD
style. And a lot of other quirks.
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
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