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Seems Steve Jobs, upon the success of the first Macs, was getting ready for the next step and he went to Cray Computer to buy one (probably to help design the PowerPC?).
Anyway, Cray Computers were not just sitting on the shelf waiting to be sold, so it seems Jobs created an altercation and demanded to see the manager about getting one, so they called Seymour down to the lobby. Steve introduced himself and said words to the effect of "I'd like to use a Cray to design the next Apple Computer". Seymour replied "Thats great. I used an Apple Computer to design my Cray".

Not sure about your quote, but Apple did have a Cray. That's why they're address is "1 Infinite Loop" - the joke was the Cray was so fast, it ran an infinite loop in seconds.

Then again, a quick Google came up with these links
http://www.clock.org/~fair/computers/sgi-cray.html (it was used for a supercomputing project, and it was Sculley)
http://www.thocp.net/biographies/cray_seymour.htm claims the quote is "When told that Steve Jobs bought a CRAY to help design the next Apple, Seymour Cray said, "Funny, I am using an Apple to simulate the CRAY-3." http://www.spikynorman.dsl.pipex.com/CrayWWWStuff/Cfaqp3.html#TOC23 seems to have a more detailed version of the Apple-Cray connection.

I guess the next question is - why didn't Microsoft have one?

Has there ever been a major OS that simply went away, period?"

Michigan Terminal System

It was a mainframe system used by several universities, including the one I went to. According to http://www.clock.org/~jss/work/mts/timeline.html the last site shutdown June 1999.

The whole thing just reminds me of the parable of Ruritania

On this subject I would recommend the Parable of Ruritania: http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/parable.html

http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/javascript-is-e vil.html Mod parent plagiarist.

I would write a long rant about firewalls and people thinking, "Oh, it's OK, we have a firewall" and not dealing with internal security, but this article does it adequately:

Firewall Systems Considered Harmful

What you're describing is more like identd.

He also has an essay about why ATM is bad for computer networks here.

He also has an essay about why ATM is bad for computer networks here.

Heh, that last link even has some funny source code I didn't notice at first glance. ;)

http://identd.sourceforge.net/
http://freeware.teledanmark.no/identd/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winidentd/
http://identd.dyndns.org/identd/

But on the other hand, here are some reasons why your question is valid...

Just wanted to echo that sentiment. My wife and I met on TooMush when the admins there were kind enough to provide us refugees from the temporarily siteless SouCon MUSH a temporary home to play. (We'd both been playing on SouCon, but hadn't played together until the TooMush move).

A few weeks after we started playing together, we started talking on the phone. Then a few meetings in person, then a long period of dating. We were married August 2, 1997, and so far, so good.

Ironically, when friends of ours told us that they were dating people they'd met over the Internet, our first reaction was to freak out. "Oh," we'd say, "the Internet was different back when we met online ('93 and '94). It's not the same anymore." Which is, of course, true, but to a degree we're just vulnerable to the same stupid hysteria that affects everyone else (read: non geek types) regarding online relationships.

The authorities have tried port blocking before in the history of the Internet to prevent sharing of objectionable data, and it utterly failed then, as it will fail now.

Though it will be interesting to see if the ISPs try to claim common carrier status as a protection, after avoiding it (and the regulations that come with that status) for so many years. I bet the TelCo associated ISPs will go for it (it's what they know), and the small-fry independent ISPs will fold under pressure from the MPAA and RIAA.

I wonder which way Starbuck's will go when their IEEE 802.11b Internet access networks are deployed. Will they live up to their Corporate Social Responsibility Policy and support free speech, fair use of copyright, and open Internet access?

Java and JavaScript both suck when used with the web. Here is an explanation why.

Javascript is evil. ECMAscript is just JavaScript.

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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.

Those pictures are very detailed (and this tech is only a year or two old). Expect it to show scars and moles in a few years. But what's really scary to me is this: How long before it can show people through the walls of their homes? It's the ultimate law enforcement wet dream: all houses made out of transparent material! Reminds me of Perry Metzger's privacy parable:

http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/parable.html

Every computer company, whether hardware vendor or software vendor, plays the "customer lock-in" game. The object is to foster customer dependence on technology that only one company can deliver, and then take the customers to the proverbial cleaners because the customer has no alternatives.

Open standards for computer networking protocols, and for file formats, serve to mitigate or prevent customer lock-in, and this is why more open standards are a good thing, rather than a bad thing. Unfortunately, it appears that this seemingly obvious truth is lost on the majority of Information Systems (IS) professionals in the business world.

Open standards of this type are the central message of the Internet. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) requires demonstrated "interoperability", i.e. disparate computers and software successfully communicating, as the primary requirement for any standard specification to be advanced in their process.

Imagine this scenario: you're the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a major corporation. You, in order to promote the efficient flow of information through the company, issue an edict to the effect that Microsoft Word (or WordPerfect, or whatever) shall be the standard software package for producing and exchanging documents throughout the company.

While this should work fine provided that there is a version of that software for every computer in your enterprise - an iffy proposition these days; there are two unhappy outcomes from this kind of "standard":

1. It is very difficult for a single software package to fully meet the needs and working styles of every person or group in a medium or large company, aside from the issue of finding a version of that single software for every computer your enterprise owns & operates.

   Some people and departments will be very unhappy with your order, and will likely defy it, by using a different and probably incompatible software package that better fits their department's business needs. This will cause problems when they try to exchange documents.

2. You've just locked your company's document destiny to this one software vendor, and they can bleed you dry if they so choose. Or, worse, if they go out of business, you're stuck.

What's worse is that converting from one document format to another is usually difficult because of semantic information loss - different document representations have different assumptions, and it's usually not possible to cleanly translate from one set to another. This is the "lock-in." In strict terms, the software vendor can't charge you more than it could cost you to convert your documents to another format, but who has that particular price at his fingertips at any given moment?

Now, let's change the scenario a bit: instread of standardizing on a particular word processing software package, you order that all documents shall be in a standard file format, e.g. SGML with a particular DTD.

In this world, your company makes it clear to all software vendors that this is your chosen corporate document standard and that if they wish your business, their software must implement appropriate interpretation and manipulation of that file format.

This puts those software vendors into competition with each other for your business; presumably the one who can produce the best results with the most pleasant and efficient user interface will win your dollars.

This also gives the various different groups inside your company the freedom to pick the software that best suits their working style, so long as it produces the standard document file format. Everybody wins.

If we take this scenario further - you contact your fellow CIO's in other companies and promote this idea, then even more people and organizations win. Just by doing the right kind of standard.

This is precisely what the Internet is about: standards for networking protocols, for E-mail & messaging, for file transfer, for remote access, and file formats like HTML. The Universities and Research Institutions that initially designed the Internet had exactly this result in mind: no one vendor in control, all competing on a level playing field for the business, with the best results for the customers.

Of course, the big companies will fight this kind of initiative because it requires them to compete harder - they can't rest on their laurels. Small companies will welcome this kind of initiative, because it gives them a foot-in-the-door with potentially big accounts, for (relative to their size) lots of money.

Some vendors will counter with "standards" of their own. Of these, some will be honest attempts to extend an existing public standard in a useful way, and some will be an attempt to stymie the process. The things to watch out for are:

1. no published specification (or an insufficiently published specification that cannot be independently implemented for lack of particular details).

2. onerous license or patent restrictions.

3. No alternative vendors of software for that "standard."

All of these end in customer lock-in to a proprietary "standard" - a situation which is not to the customer's benefit in the long run.

Open, public standards for file formats, and computer networking protocols are the right thing for everybody.

Another essay on this issue can be found at the Best Viewed With Any Browser campaign site.

This article is at http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/open-standards. html