Re: Booting An Apple IIGS From Linux

[Linards Ticmanis <ticmanis@coli.uni-sb.de>]

Jalapeno wrote:

> What does a person's ethnic heritage have to do with software 
> development?

I think it's simply a result of the tradition of having lots of people
with deep knowledge of math and engineering theory, combined with having
to make do with hardware that's often a generation or two behind that
available in the average Western software firm.

Teaching math, physics and the theoretical side of engineering was one
of the few things the commies were rather good at, after Stalin was
dead. For example, during the cold war many Western German scientists
and most engineers used GDR-published math reference books, usually
translations from Russian. They were cheaper and better than the
Western-published stuff. The "Bronshtein/Semandaev" might be the most
well-known of those books.

Examples that come to my mind other than IDA would be Tetris, PTS-DOS,
FineReader OCR Software, the ACB compression software... all of them
with rather backwards user interfaces but technically brilliant.

(And no, I am not of Russian descent. Just an observation.)

-- 

Linards Ticmanis

 The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows the
preparation of the plain ground."