Re: PC or Mac?

["Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill" <byron@b60z27hbb464i.ab.hsia.telus.net>]

In comp.sys.apple2, you wrote:
> Curious--in the US, these machines are considered door stops.

There we go with the psychological barrier, once again.  As you said
with the '74 dodge: people would rather not be seen with it.  Well,
there is nothing wrong with something old if it does the job properly.
I have noticed that a lot of people think that new things are great,
while old things are naturally bad.  This is not always the case.

> The highway analogy is not so apt, because a highway is a very
> "loose" standard--just a wide ribbon of hard material.

And protocols on the internet are not "loose" standards?  The fact
that we can put an Apple IIgs online, or use a Commodore 64 as a web
server should prove that TCP/IP is capable of handling anything.
Also, minor changes to webpages would make them navigable by a much
larger audience: all you need is enough consideration to add ALT
flags to images (which is defined in the HTML standards), and use
standard linking methods as defined by the HTML *standards*.  Using
JavaScript links to force users to turn on JavaScript is inexcusable:
I can make my own decisions, thank-you.

> Perhaps the QWERTY keyboard itself is one of the most awful
> examples of standardization gone awry.  It's design objective was
> to slow down human typists so that they would be less prone to
> jamming the keys!

That is the biggest myth in the book.  QWERTY was designed to prevent
the jamming of keys, slowing typists down is a *side effect*.  The
consequences may be the same, but the motivations are very different.

> "installed base" of people who have adapted to the standard.

It probably has a lot to do with relearning how to type too!

> Byian Randell once said [...] that "a philosophy of evolution not
> revolution is, in fact, a philosophy of fewer but bloodier
> revolutions."

Are our needs for new technologies so pressing that the human
condition must be ignored?  That is to say: is it more important for
the few to have access to better tools, or for there to be relative
equality in access?  Computers will not, after all, solve our problems.
They are simply tools which we can use to solve problems.  If we do
not properly contemplate and evaluate their use, we will make little
progress at all.

> And so it is.  As evolutionary development, constrained by backward
> compatibility, falls further and further short of the full capability that
> technology can deliver

We have extraordinarily capable technology in our hands.  What we need
is time to digest what we have.  What we need is time for people to
exploit its capabilities.  Progress is not in invention alone.  Progress
is in our creativity and improving the social condition.

Byron.