Re: Wozniak vs Jobs

[pubpc1@library.ucla.edu]

Regnirps wrote:
> >Forrest <squitaur@net-gate.com> wrote:
> >On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Perry Dueck wrote:
> >
> >> Hrrrmmm...my Mac always spits the floppy disk out automatically when I
> >> choose "Shut Down" from the Finder's 'Special' Menu. Which, incidentally,
> >> is the proper way to shut down a Mac (not just flipping the on/off switch
> >> of off any old time).
> >
> >  Which, I feel obliged to say, is the most stupid intentional design
> >flaw ever foisted on the computing public.  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. 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! Its all memory you know. If you can't figure this out then you are
> an "in betweener" in between the old days of removable hard disk packs that had
> to be logically mounted and dismounted and the modern system where the Mac does
> the logical work for you. You are stuck in the DOS doldrums where the OS was
> too stupid and the hardware to ill concieved to do it right.
> 
> Charlie Springer

The GS started out like the Mac.  In System 1.0 (MouseDesk), using a
SuperDrive, the disk eject button is disabled.  It works just like a
Mac where you _must_ wait until shutdown to get the disk back.  Later
System revisions handed the eject option back to the drive, but still
not as dangerous as the mechanical eject on PC drives.

As more and more motor eject drives (Zips, CD-ROMs, Sysquests) make
it to the PC scene, the PC can easily implement the same system as the
Mac.  The days of the mechanical eject 3.5" floppy are numbered.

Laser made a third party Mac drive with a mechanical plunger eject as
well as motor drive eject.  This drive eliminated paper clip problems,
but it also meant the danger was back.  Most Mac and GS users still
waited for the system to eject the disk.

-Scott G.