Re: Apple Drops Backward Compatibility for Next MacOS

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <54u362$285u@uni.library.ucla.edu>,
 <pubpc1@library.ucla.edu> wrote:
>The Pentium with Win 95 is as close to a next generation II we will ever see.
>Sad.

   I'd prefer an expandable box with a un*x variant on it as the
successor to the hacker's machine. In this thread, people are saying
how great the A2 was for giving ROM listings in the early manuals. The
free un*x variants do one better: they give (or you can trivially get)
the _source_ code for the OS, the i/o systems, the user interface,
most programs (excepting Netscrape and other commercial things) and
you can recompile up any tweaks you want. Sure, you get to deal with
other people's C code, but it's marginally easier to understand most[1]
C code than assembly if you don't understand either.

   My pentium box is running Linux probably 80% of the time, and DOS
games (Duke Nukem 3D is aawesome with a Logitech Wingman Warrior)
probably another 15% of the time. Win95 is useful for the remaining 5%
of the time, for stuff like generic word processing (I use
Clarisworks; the OS is enough Microsloth for me) and occasional runs
of photoshop.  With that distribution of what I want to do, is it any
wonder why I don't see any need for a Mac personally?

   I also haven't been bitten by these horror stories of PC technical
problems that Mac ads try and exaggerate. Manuals have gotten good
enough that anyone who _wants_[2] to read the **** manual can figure
out what to do. Since getting my system, I've added an additional HD,
sound card, serial ports, ethernet card, and the like. In pretty much
each case, it was plug it in, boot the computer, install the
drivers. (And on the ethernet card, run a setup program once to set it
to a different IRQ) The only part of the system that's given me any
form of trouble was the MAG MXP17F monitor (PC, Mac, Unix ready, so
I'm not going to call it a PC-specific problem) that kept flaking out
and was repaired twice and replaced twice.

   On my GS, I usually boot into GNO/ME, and run GUI programs (AWGS,
GSHK, BTGS, etc) when I want, or boot to ProDOS 8 and run other
stuff. I have the _choice_ to do so. Same thing on my PC-- Linux, DOS
or Win95, depending on what I want to do. Macs, on the other hand,
force me to do things _only_ in their GUI, unless I was to install Mac
MkLinux or some other sane OS. I like choices in what I'm doing; Macs,
for better or for worse, don't have half as many options. Oh well;
it's a free country and I have the choice not to be forced into using
Macs.

Nathan Mates


[1] Excepting most gnu code, and anything written by someone when they
are (A) drunk, (B) been awake for 30+ hours, (C) insane (D) all of
the above.

[2] There are people who *refuse* to read the manual, look something
up in the index, or in any other way get help on their own before
asking for help from a human. I hate to say this, but my parents
(using a Mac LC II for pretty much only Eudora and Clarisworks 2.0)
fit in this category. I've also chalked up many hours at Caltech's
computing center's help desk and helping others who are similarly
stubborn.

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein