Re: What computer would you buy to replace your //* ?

[glaurent@aye.inria.fr (Guillaume Laurent)]

In article <2504n6$pdg@kruuna.Helsinki.FI>, cust_ts@kruuna.Helsinki.FI (Tero
Sand) writes:

> I'm curious as to what constitutes a closed system. Macs - depending on
> the model - and PCs most definitely are not not closed in the 128K Mac
> or //c sense of the word.

What I mean by "closed" is that you can't customize it easily, you know nothing
about the system unless you dig up in hundreds of pages of docs.

For example, Unix and X Windows (or the Amiga OS) is not "closed" : you have
directories such as /dev, or /bin, you have a file that is executed each time
you log in and that you can easily edit to suit your needs, you can change your
defaults files to have any application look the way you like...

You can understand a lot of things by just looking at the contents of system
directories. On a mac, what you see with the Finder may have nothing to do with
the real files, because Apple's policy is : "let's not tell the user he's
sitting in front of a computer".Try to boot under anything else than the Finder
on a mac, it a real pain to do...  

Also, documentation is freely (or almost) available on the amiga. Not on the
mac. Same for compilers and editors (eg. gcc and emacs).

On a mac or an IBM, you have to purchase a huge development kit to compile the
slightest program, because these machines are intended to be "used", not to be
programmed. The Apple II was intended to be used AND programmed. So is the
Amiga.