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A Microsoft-Speak Timeline - From Altair to Zune

Posted by Zonk on from the always-he-is-looking-to-the-future-to-the-horizon dept.

netbuzz writes "No company has had more to say about software over the past 30 years than Microsoft (for better or worse). How they've said it — the actual language used — reveals a lot about the company's evolution and is the focus of a new timeline. There's a look back at a 'tag cloud' provided by the Seattle P-I. In addition to analyzing the linguistics of about 90 documents, there are also links to such gems as Bill Gates' Playboy interview and his famous 'Open Letters to Hobbyists.' From the article: 'We're talking all the way from Altair to Zune, with stops along the way for every technology the company developed, bought or borrowed, right on through to current entanglements with Vista, Linux and Google. The tool allows for an at-a-glance view of company priorities as they evolve and shift.'"

114 comments

  1. The most surprising thing to me by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Was the missing three years- just what in the hell was Microsoft doing from 1977 to 1980 anyway?

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    1. Re:The most surprising thing to me by camperdave · · Score: 4, Funny

      Was the missing three years- just what in the hell was Microsoft doing from 1977 to 1980 anyway?

      Downloading CPM on a 300 baud acoustic modem?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    2. Re:The most surprising thing to me by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

      They were probably watching Star Wars and figuring out if they have enough computational power to design themselves a deathstar. I doubt they were listening to the Bee Gees.

    3. Re:The most surprising thing to me by Orange+Crush · · Score: 1
      Was the missing three years- just what in the hell was Microsoft doing from 1977 to 1980 anyway?

      Bill was understudying with Jim Henson for Kermit in case the whole software thing didn't pan out.

    4. Re:The most surprising thing to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Getting Level II basic ready

    5. Re:The most surprising thing to me by jbrader · · Score: 1

      cocaine

      --
      You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
    6. Re:The most surprising thing to me by dryeo · · Score: 1

      Well one thing that occurred to me was the one MS product I actually bought. The Microsoft Softcard (http://apple2history.org/museum/peripheralcards_n onapple/softcard.html) which was actually released in Mar of 1980. Always wondered if MS actually engineered this or bought it from someone else.
      Ah, digging up the manual it lists Don Burtis of Burtronix as the designer and Vista Computer Co as the manufacturer. Guess this where Vista's name comes from :)
      Also I'm sure they were also working on various forms of Basic.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    7. Re:The most surprising thing to me by default+luser · · Score: 1

      Oh, MS was busy selling away their Basic on the 6502 for a song.

      From the same page, Apple also got a similar deal on 6502 Basic for the Apple II. MS sure didn't make that mistake again with IBM.

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

  2. Keep on getting away with it... by PurifyYourMind · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just like with politicians or rich movie stars, there's a giant marketing machine that can erase past wrongs/lies/etc. by blasting the message of the week. Even when you catch them in a blatant lie, with evidence--like those Jon Stewart clips comparing what Bush said a few years ago to what he says now--they can shrug it off, because they know people will A) forget or B) only get exposed to the message of the week or C) be too cynical/disillusioned to act.

    1. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by alexhs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      people will A) forget or B) only get exposed to the message of the week or C) be too cynical/disillusioned to act. and don't forget :

      D) pretend the non-mainstream message is a lie.

      (somewhat related to B : if you say something loud enough it becomes the truth...)
      --
      I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
    2. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by kahei · · Score: 0, Troll


      And just as with politicians, sometimes no matter what you do or say, no matter how much greater the sins of your rivals are, no matter what your contribution, there'll be pasty-faced losers sitting on the sidelines going "But but but... Clinton got a blow job!" or "But but but... Microsoft don't innovate!"

      The good news is that in business, these guys don't have votes }:>

      And yeah, I'd say that inventing component-based systems after the world had stagnated for years piping streams of ASCII text around was quite a step, and no, I don't really see a competitor to Excel emerging until someone takes that step. Although it would be good if they did. It's easy to dismiss OLE now but at the time, it was such a vast step -- and then when it was backed up by a highly performant component system, COM, that's when the whole thing became unstoppable. With WordPerfect, you could edit a document. With Notes, you could check your calendar. With Lotus, you could edit a spreadsheet. With MS, you could embed an image in a spreadsheet in a document in your calendar -- it was a whole nuther level of flexibility and interoperability.

      And lo, they captured the market and made el dollars.

      And now, back to your scheduled programme of people sitting around furiously typing about how MS don't innovate! You can almost _hear_ the sweat trickling down their necks!

      --
      Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
    3. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      No offense, but Jon Stewart is a registered Democrat. All anyone has to do is pull up Clinton's finger-wagging "sexual relations" denial. If you're in the public eye and everything you say gets recorded, I guarantee you will say things that eventually contradict something you once said before for whatever reasons. Especially if you're a business where industry trends come and go and you have to adapt to market changes. Holding Bill Gates to a letter he wrote in 1976 is just being anal.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    4. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by xappax · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Try embedding an Excel spreadsheet into your non-MS calendar, or pasting a MS Word doc into a non-MS email app. It doesn't work so well, does it? The incredible inter-operability and compatibility that you're describing exists because MS has direct control over all the specifications and interfaces for pretty much all the apps most people use today.

      MS didn't "innovate" the idea of getting everyone to use only MS apps for everything. If any company held such a powerful monopoly, they could do something similar. MS enjoys a greater degree of compatibility and interoperability in their software because they control the whole game - the OS, the browser, the word processor, the spreadsheet, etc. are all totally under the control of MS. If a small company has a truly innovative idea, they have to fit it within the existing inflexible MS specs and APIs, or they're out of luck. Meanwhile, if MS has even the slightest idea for a new feature, they can just re-mold the entire OS and application architecture to implement it.

      What if you could get better gas mileage in a Ford, but you could only use Ford gas and drive on Ford roads? Would that be considered "innovative"? Requiring people to commit themselves to a restricted proprietary environment in order to get the benefits of interoperability is a sign of lazy development at best and anti-competitive profiteering at worst - but if that's what they call "innovation" these days, who am I to argue?

    5. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Just like with politicians or rich movie stars, there's a giant marketing machine that can erase past wrongs/lies/etc

      Whereas for Linux we have slashdot instead

    6. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by drew · · Score: 1

      Sometimes I have to wonder whether this was really such a great step forward as people like to think it is. After all, when was the last time that you had a reason to embed an image in a spreadsheet in a document in your calendar? Other than just to show somebody that you could?

      After all, it's innovations like this that have led to an endless stream of clients sending me screenshots as Word documents.

      --
      If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
    7. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by value_added · · Score: 1

      And yeah, I'd say that inventing component-based systems after the world had stagnated for years piping streams of ASCII text around was quite a step, and no, I don't really see a competitor to Excel emerging until someone takes that step. Although it would be good if they did. It's easy to dismiss OLE now but at the time, it was such a vast step -- and then when it was backed up by a highly performant component system, COM, that's when the whole thing became unstoppable. With WordPerfect, you could edit a document. With Notes, you could check your calendar. With Lotus, you could edit a spreadsheet. With MS, you could embed an image in a spreadsheet in a document in your calendar -- it was a whole nuther level of flexibility and interoperability.

      That's quite a speech. I don't even how to begin to respond, so instead, I'll suggest you expand on the above into a book. In fact, let's have a contest. You write your book in Word (be sure to embed some spreadsheets, email messages, pictures and movies into it, and collaborate with others while you're at it), and I'll write mine using groff. We can see who finishes, and who has the best results.

      As for interoperability, I know you don't know the meaning of that word. Maybe your book publisher can explain it to you when you try and email him your finished product. ;-)

    8. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Sique · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I think the U.S. opinion makers are much too obsessed with what people have said in other times, in other circumstances and with other knowledge. The usus to pull out obscure sources from 25 years ago to bash it on people looks pretty pervert to me.
      It seems to me that they live under the presumption that
      • there are never any errors in judgement.
      • people should never admit errors in judgement.
      • people who ever err in judgement are bad to the cores and should be thrown out.
      • there are no new developments possible which change the circumstances in a way that an once perfectly reasonable judgement might now be rather problematic.
      • people are unable to learn from mistakes.
      • people are unable to learn from mistakes other people make.
      • people who admit that they got more experienced by making mistakes are at best liars, worse they are traitors.


      The first West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer once said: "I don't care about my silly babble from yesterday." (The original german statement was: "Was interessiert mich mein dummes Geschwätz von gestern!")

      Sometimes I guess this attitude would be healthy to some in the U.S..
      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    9. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by rainman_bc · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      All anyone has to do is pull up Clinton's finger-wagging "sexual relations" denial. If you're in the public eye and everything you say gets recorded

      Give me a break. The Republicans tried to impeach Clinton for lying about that sexual relations, but no one has gone after Dubya for lying about the presence of WMD's and invading a country on false information.

      I know this is off topic, and the mods will have at me for this, but I have Karma to burn...

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    10. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's too funny. The last few (large) publishers I worked with on multi-author reference books required you to use their Word template and submit chapters in .doc files.

    11. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Tom · · Score: 1

      The problem is that this compatability is only within the MS monopoly. Try to Cut&Paste some Excel data into any non-MS document. Even plain text doesn't always behave as expected once you cross the boundary between MS turf and 3rd party "wilderness".

      On a solid system, you cut cut&paste or drag&drop anything from anywhere to anywhere and it would at least make us much out of it as possible. The Mac has most of that working, I can mark text in Firefox, drag it to the desktop and a new text file with its contents will be created. I can drag&drop stuff from any application to any other and in the vast majority of cases it'll work, no matter if it's an Apple app or not.

      Not so on windos. The whole undocumented API mess pays for MS, but only for MS.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    12. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by abigor · · Score: 1

      The OP's point was that they introduced such functionality, period. Yeah, it only works with their stuff, but that's not the point. It was a genuine innovation. There's no requirement for innovation to be open and cross-platform, sorry to say. Nevertheless, OLE/COM allowed people to do things other apps would not.

    13. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by jbrader · · Score: 1

      Can we get a link? So far as I know most publishers are pretty open about their submission requirements. Also is "multi-author reference book" really a representative sample of the publishing industry? Third, who are you? If you really are a published writer why are you submititng as AC?

      --
      You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
    14. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 1

      Jon Stewart... pull... Clinton's... wagging sexual... things

      Truth, Republican style.

    15. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      Screenshots as Word documents is stupid I agree, but there are serious advantages to the functionality in Office 2003+, especially when paired with SharePoint. It makes it a lot simpler to share documents and link things together, for example making sure everybody attending a meeting has exactly the same versions of the documents, all linked to the calendar entry, even if others have changed them in the meantime.

      When working solo it has very little benefit I'll admit, but in larger organisations that kind of functionality is a Godsend.

      And yes I'm aware that you can do it with a strange combination of OSS offerings, piping, cron and a few custom scripts, but businesses can't afford a full-time OSS Integration Specialist.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    16. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by triffid_98 · · Score: 1
      That may not work 'out of the box', but via COM automation it's trivial to take excel data and export it as comma delimited text, provided your application understands how to talk Windows/COM.

      The problem is that this compatability is only within the MS monopoly. Try to Cut&Paste some Excel data into any non-MS document. Even plain text doesn't always behave as expected once you cross the boundary between MS turf and 3rd party "wilderness".
    17. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Yeah, it only works with their stuff, but that's not the point. It was a genuine innovation"

      Yeah, and we got viruses embedded in document and e-mail files. Great idea. Embedded executable code. What security conscience company would of thought of that?

    18. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by abigor · · Score: 1

      What does that have to do with COM?

      Obviously, MS has an abysmal security record, but I'm not sure I see the connection here, sorry.

    19. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      NeXT was doing embedding of objects in different applications seamlessly in a fully functional GUI back when Microsoft was still marketing overlapping windows as a shiny new feature. The earliest versions of ClarisWorks on the Mac, likewise had this kind of functionality. It is certainly not a Microsoft innovation. UNIX may have been behind, but then UNIX was behind in most things in the 80s.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    20. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by flight_master · · Score: 1
      After all, it's innovations like this that have led to an endless stream of clients sending me screenshots as Word documents.
      Amen brother! This is the most annoying thing I have to deal with on a daily basis, and something I don't understand. *WHY* can't they just send the image??? Oh wait, I get it... they just PrtScn -> Paste into Word... Bleh, I'm rambling.
      --
      "Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price.
    21. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      http://www.quepublishing.com/about/write_for_us.as p

      From their authoring guidelines:

      Which word processor should I use?
      We would prefer that you use Microsoft Word, as our internal operations are set up to work most easily with this program. Your Acquisitions Editor will work with you if a special format is needed.

      Que published/publishes lots of big technical reference books that are written by multiple authors. The last one I participated in (more than 5 years ago), they gave you an automated word template in which to write your chapter(s) and mark them up appropriately.

      Note that I'm not suggesting the entire publishing industry runs on MSWord (far from it) or that Word is used to typeset (although occasionally I've heard of that as well), just that it's far more common than most people would suspect.

      Anonymous for my own reasons...

    22. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by node+3 · · Score: 1

      We're not talking about "silly babble from yesterday", we're talking about people *lying* about what they said in the past.

      John Kerry admits he changed his mind, and he's skewered in the media.

      George Bush lies about saying Saddam had WMDs, was tied to Al Qaida, and whether he ever said "stay the course", and no one cares.

      It's not that the past shouldn't matter, it definitely should. It's just that it shouldn't be used as a meaningless gimmick. As it stands, our media plays it completely backwards.

    23. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Sique · · Score: 1

      That's exactly what I am talking about. To pass the mustering of the opinion makers you have to reinterpret your past, you have to lie about it and you should never, ever admit that in the past you might have been wrong, because no one will believe you if you say that you have learned from your mistakes. You have to be perfect from birth, even if the perfection is retroactively fitted on your past.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    24. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Skrynesaver · · Score: 1
      To quote John Maynard-Keynes,
      When the facts on the ground change, I change my mind, what do you do?
      Having held in the past opinions that differ from those you currently hold should be no shame, lying about what you have said/believed in the past shows a lack of intelectual honesty and integrity that is worrying in someone whose role is to interpret events and decide policy on the basis of their interpretation.

      Declaration: The above opinions may be effected by my belief that the current US president is a fsking muppet

      --
      "Linux is for noobs"-The new MS fud strategy
    25. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by Pope · · Score: 1
      Amen brother! This is the most annoying thing I have to deal with on a daily basis, and something I don't understand. *WHY* can't they just send the image??? Oh wait, I get it... they just PrtScn -> Paste into Word... Bleh, I'm rambling.

      Because they've had no training, and the company doesn't require demonstrating competancy/skills in the standard MS Office suite. You wouldn't believe how many tips/tricks I've taught to people about using Outlook, Excel, etc. after I've futzed around in the settings. and I haven't owned a Windows running PC since the days of 3.1 on a 386!

      It all comes down to people being lazy, untrained, or unwilling to learn about the software they use on a daily basis. So many people I work with run all their programs with the default settings, no matter how bad they are, simply because they either don't know how to change them or don't care enough to learn how to make their lives easier.

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    26. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by whereiswaldo · · Score: 1

      Or stop questioning how and why the 9/11 attacks happened or were allowed to happen? Why was a large - no HUGE - body of evidence ignored indicating that the towers were detonated rather than falling on their own. Watch for yourself:

      http://youtube.com/watch?v=fp3FzSoMUYo
      http://youtube.com/watch?v=ckMWO_w4iNY
      http://youtube.com/watch?v=CcRs1fv8i3I

      It's amazing what can be covered up as time passes. Interesting when you hear declassified information which reveals how much lying the government actually has done in the past and undoubtedly continues to do.

    27. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by unitron · · Score: 1
      "
      Note that I'm not suggesting...that Word is used to typeset (although occasionally I've heard of that as well)...
      "

      Using Word for typesetting?

      Now there's an idea on a par with trying to shave with a chainsaw. Theoretically possible, but extremely taxing on the nerves and likely to have very ugly and unpleasant results.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    28. Re:Keep on getting away with it... by xappax · · Score: 1

      My point was that yes, they did introduce such functionality first, but the reason wasn't because they were technological visionaries who came up with the idea of interoperability before everyone else. Plenty of programmers and software companies had ideas about making things compatible and interoperable, but the software scene was so balkanized that it was impossible on a practical level to get all these different software vendors to cooperate on standards of interoperability.

      Microsoft's advantage was (and is) that it doesn't /have/ to cooperate with anyone, because their own company controls all of the major software. They want a new feature or a new standard, they can just add it. It's sort of like the difference between a democracy - where you have to spend a lot of time convincing and organizing disparate groups in order to make a social change - and an autocracy, where the leader makes a decree and the entire society shifts immediately to accommodate it. Autocrats can certainly make more dramatic changes to a society, and some of them will maybe even be good ones, but it's not because they're skilled statesmen, they just have a lot of power.

      I'm not denying that Microsoft created things that never existed before, I'm just pointing out that the reason was more because of their cutthroat business posture and economic dominance rather than any technical innovation.

  3. Huh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think I'd rather read the eulogies of President Ford.

  4. Like the saying goes... by camperdave · · Score: 1

    Like the saying goes... "There's no such thing as bad publicity"

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  5. Obvious joke. by Lethyos · · Score: 1

    Gee, I am surprised that every cloud did not contain the word “developers” in huge, bright-white type!

    --
    Why bother.
    1. Re:Obvious joke. by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      And then there's all the years where "infermayshun" was every third word out of Gates' mouth.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    2. Re:Obvious joke. by Basehart · · Score: 1

      Bill uses the word Users a lot. Sounds like a drug lord. MSFT vs Apple become Crack vs Cocaine

    3. Re:Obvious joke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slide it back to October 2005, and that's exactly what you get.

    4. Re:Obvious joke. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gee, I am surprised that every cloud did not contain the word "developers" in huge, bright-white type!

      Surely you meant "copy off Apple/Netscape/...{insert name of company here}" instead?

  6. A key to MS success is exposed here by mattnuzum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even in their marketing material, "programmers" and related terms are often more prominent than "users." Bill & co realized early on that the way to get users is to get software that users want/need. They've been courting developers since the beginning and I've never seen (historically speaking - since I was born about the time Altair came out) that they deviated from that plan. Apple didn't start this model until OS X came out and even Linux is only just starting to lower the barrier to entry for developers of *desktop software*. (that's not entirely true, actually, but we in the Linux community have generally treated trolltech/QT like redheaded step children so if you don't count them the previous statement is passable)

    1. Re:A key to MS success is exposed here by HappySqurriel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Linux's problem isn't that they lack developers nearly as much as all development for linux is by developers for developers which produces really awful user interfaces.

      Linux has tons of powerful applications that do amazing things, but you have to read a manual of highly technical gibberish in order to use the most basic of features; when I'm using linux as a multimedia PC I don't want to have to press ctrl-p to play and shift-alt-r to record, I want something that is simple and straight forward to use. Windows dominates because it is simple and familiar.

    2. Re:A key to MS success is exposed here by blankaBrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

      GNUstep could be that amazing development environment for linux. It (NeXTSTEP) was designed to be the perfect environment for producing elegently powerful apps very rapidly with as little code as necessary. If this project was strongly adopted by the community, the number and quality of linux apps would increase.

      Unfortunately, the project seems like its stuck in stasis.

    3. Re:A key to MS success is exposed here by Nasarius · · Score: 2, Informative
      Linux has tons of powerful applications that do amazing things, but you have to read a manual of highly technical gibberish in order to use the most basic of features; when I'm using linux as a multimedia PC I don't want to have to press ctrl-p to play and shift-alt-r to record, I want something that is simple and straight forward to use.
      Have you actually...used Linux in the past five years? There are quite a few distros and applications that cater to your desires. I click on a video file in Konqueror, and it opens in VLC. I even get little preview screenshots of the video on the file icon, which was in KDE long before Vista was released.
      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
  7. The word "users" by JamesTKirk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's interesting that the word "users" features much more prominently in some of the earlier texts than it does in the later ones.

    1. Re:The word "users" by ivoras · · Score: 1

      Haven't you heard? It's no longer politically correct to call them "users". The lowest applicable designation right now is "geniuses"...

      --
      -- Sig down
  8. That isn't a troll by mattnuzum · · Score: 1

    By the way, the above isn't a troll, I'm just lamenting that we in the Linux development world don't have a great portfolio of tools to attract developers from outside the world of computer science. Windows has Access, VB, Visual Studio, Borland Builder and etc.

    1. Re:That isn't a troll by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Access is the worst POS to ever hit the streets... except for maybe VB. Why are these so bad? Because they by design encourage horrible development. Access by ignoring everything a DB should be and making regular business folks think they're as good as developers and then wondering why their personal system when opened to multiple users blows up and loses data, and VB because where else do you get built-in incompatibilities and virii for free?

      I'd have to say it's a toss-up as there are few products that ever did more harm to the computing world than those two.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  9. Open by Caesar+Tjalbo · · Score: 3, Funny

    I could've known Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists" is in a closed format.

    --
    "I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
    1. Re:Open by solevita · · Score: 1

      I would have read it, but I've been trained not to open Word documents from untrusted or unexpected sources, even though it's a Tuesday!

  10. animalbabies? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 2, Funny

    Anyone know the context in which the word "animalbabies" appears in the Bill Gates April 1987 Byte Magazine article?

    --
    This guy's the limit!
    1. Re:animalbabies? by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe they asked him what he ate for breakfast.

      --
      Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
    2. Re:animalbabies? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Anyone know the context in which the word "animalbabies" appears in the Bill Gates April 1987 Byte Magazine article?

      Didn't MS tinker around with singing fluff-doll toys around that time? If I remember correctly, they pulled the plug.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:animalbabies? by luxdex · · Score: 1

      Anyone know the context in which the word "animalbabies" appears in the Bill Gates April 1987 Byte Magazine article? From Factiva's full text archive:

      Figure 3: A Microsoft Excel macro program called AnimalBabies. AnimalBabies is a guessing game where the program displays an animal randomly selected from a table named ''animals'' and asks the user to guess what the offspring is called.
  11. Interesting phrases appear by truthsearch · · Score: 2, Funny

    87: programmatic programmers propose protocol redesign
    87: excel expertise fact fixing
    87: foolish formulated graphical guiding
    95: maintenance march messy
    95: studying super tracking users
    98: undermine unintentional unix users

    --
    Developers: We can use your help.
    1. Re:Interesting phrases appear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those aren't phrases from the documents--the tag clouds show individual words from the docs in alphabetical order...

  12. 2007 by ShorePiper82 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    2007 with Microsoft/Novell SuSE could yield: MS-UX (pronounced "M SUCKS")

  13. Windows CeMeNT by viking80 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Our shop is 100% Microsoft, including:
    Windows Ce
    Windows Me
    Windows NT

    Due to the flexibility, nimble, responsive solutions we have, we call this

    Ce-me-nt

    --
    don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
    1. Re:Windows CeMeNT by forkazoo · · Score: 1

      Our shop is 100% Microsoft, including:
      Windows Ce
      Windows Me
      Windows NT

      Due to the flexibility, nimble, responsive solutions we have, we call this

      Ce-me-nt


      Well, if You would just add Win95, Linux, BSD, and Sun with Open Firmware on the front end of that infrastructure, you could have

      95 Lbs Of Cement

    2. Re:Windows CeMeNT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never noticed, that when you put them up there like that. It spells cement .... hmmmm.

    3. Re:Windows CeMeNT by WilliamSChips · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you used Windows 2000 instead of 95 you would have a ton of cement.

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
    4. Re:Windows CeMeNT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hard as a Rock,
      Thick as a Brick

    5. Re:Windows CeMeNT by PPH · · Score: 1

      So a system with 3 O/S partitions would have CeMeNt boots?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  14. My favorite quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    from TFA:

    "Who were we imitating . . . When we did the Altair BASIC? . . . And who were we imitating when we did Microsoft Word? When we did Excel? It's just nonsense"

    Bill, you must've been kidding. Those were exactly the same sort of imitiations that your company now accuses FOSS of and derides them for it.

    1. Re:My favorite quote by ch-chuck · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Who were we imitating..

      Oh, DEC BASIC, Wordstar and Lotus 123.

      --
      try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
    2. Re:My favorite quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      close, but no cigar

      1) DARTMOUTH BASIC (an open source program!)
      2) the IBM DisplayWriter
      3) VisiCalc & SuperCalc

      how soon we forget...

  15. Where's the word security? by millia · · Score: 4, Insightful


    I find the absence of the word 'security' very interesting. I wasn't expect to see a word like 'quality' of course.

    --
    stored on computers from birth to the grave
    1. Re:Where's the word security? by Chysn · · Score: 1

      Yes, "plaintiff" makes the tag cloud more often than "security."

      --
      --I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
      -- See?
  16. in the recent speeches... by corerunner · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm intrigued by the prominence of "blah"... maybe Bill is borrowing George W's approach of deliberately dumbing down the audience

    --
    "Don't hate the media, become the media." -Jello Biafra
    1. Re:in the recent speeches... by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I'm intrigued by the prominence of "blah"... maybe Bill is borrowing George W's approach of deliberately dumbing down the audience

      W's current approach is vague mamby pamby chearleading kinds of statements, like "We must move forward with determination or risk slipping backward."

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  17. Blah? by zlogic · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check out Ballmer's July 2004 speech: the dominant words are "innovation" and "blah" :-)

  18. Don't have to go all the way to Zune... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just stop at MS Bob.

    Bob.

    Damn, snuffy...

  19. FOSS by Bryansix · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?
    If only Bill Gates knew.
  20. Just one more... by IvanCruz · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    slashvertsing sponsored by Microsoft.

    Nothing to see here. Move along.

    Ivan.

  21. TDS is a very MIXED bag by FallLine · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Even when you catch them in a blatant lie, with evidence--like those Jon Stewart clips comparing what Bush said a few years ago to what he says now--they can shrug it off, because they know people will A) forget or B) only get exposed to the message of the week or C) be too cynical/disillusioned to act.
    I watch the Daily Show fairly regularly (tivo). Though he is often funny and sometimes really pings people for lies and disingenious spin, I also think his sort of humor can be harmful to intelligent political discourse. Yes, he sometimes rightfully cuts Bush and others down (and I'm saying this as someone that voted for Bush twice, albeit grudgingly...you can mod be down the -10 TROLL now), but he has also pulled things out of context numerous times and reduced all too many questions to only one very limited and often emotion driven dynamic. This is particularly troubling when his own political leanings are very much to the left and when many of his younger views get their news largely from him.

    I hate the sensational/soundbyte news system that we have today. Stewart does a great job of pointing out the absurdity of CNN/FOX/MSNBC/etc (when it suits him at least), but in many ways he is part of that very same system now. Politics has become a game whereby the winners win by making the shortest and simplest statements designed to appeal to their constituency such that they cannot be cut up and taken out of context. The middle and well argued ground has been all but cut out of the media (and I do not think BLOGs particularly help with this either--as they usually target one extreme or the other). Anything controversial is strictly verbotten. It does not pay to try to express a complex-thought to the media or to make meaningful off the cuff remarks because any small mistatement will be thrown back in your face and your actual statements and any nuance in them will not remain intact for the listeners to hear (especially shows like TDS). Sure, many Democratic-leaning* voters may find it less-noticable and less-objectionable, but I suspect that if and when Fox or whomever comes out with the equivalent conservative leaning show there will be increased scrutiny... even if the humor is the same.

    * Yes, I recognize he has taken jabs at Kerry and other Democrats, but these usually aren't aimed at policy and certainly not usually at mainstream Democratic policy itself (the fringe stuff, perhaps).
    1. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There won't be a successful conservative version of TDS for the same reason AirAmerica fails horribly - they are different audiences. Clearly there are exceptions, but what works for one won't work for another.

    2. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There won't be a successful conservative version of TDS for the same reason AirAmerica fails horribly - they are different audiences. Clearly there are exceptions, but what works for one won't work for another.Why not?

      If this is the case, then it might be a result of the fact that democratic political wisdom is much simpler and less nuanced than the fiscal/tax/military/moral (not the bible thumpers) moderate-conservatism typically found amongst Republicans and can thus be reduced to a better and more soundbyte-proof spin. However, I'd have to disagree with you as Rush Limbaugh finds similar kinds of ammunition as his counterpart, Stewart, only without the youth, the wit and the talent for humor, not to mention the forum, he makes less of it. Consequently, his appeal is largely isolated to the lowest common denominator and those that want the occasional break from political correctness offered in the mainstream media. There is plenty of material to work with: Moore, Dean, Pelosi, Sharpton, Clinton, Reid, Feinstein, Kerry, Dobbs (practically Dem), Gore, Edwards, P. Murray, Schumer (and, god forbid, a Dem in the whitehouse)... that host will need a thicker-skin and a network willing to endure the lashing from the media.

      Though it would not be much of a contribution to sensible Republicanism (or to meaningful political discourse for that matter), I would not be surprised if something emerged here.

    3. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by thommoose · · Score: 3, Insightful
      What the parent poster is forgetting here is the fact that TDS is on a network called, "Comedy Central." It in no way purports itself as a news station.
      In fact, there's the famously funny exchange on crossfire where Stewart has to remind his hosts their show is on CNN whereas his show is followed by puppets making crank calls.

      C'mon buddy--- get real... If anyone's looking to "Comedy Central" for news on what's going on in the world, they've got bigger problems than a left-wing bias- that's for damn sure.

      And as much as Blogs might be a concern, frankly, if you have the wherewithall to subscribe/read a blog, then you're far better off than the remote jockey that takes in his news in the 30 minutes before South Park. Chances are you're aware of the slant and prefer that blog for that specific reason- and remember, blogs are not governed with the same liability and adherence to source material as traditional broadcast media... But, hey, at least you're literate- Congrats!

      I'd have modded ya up anyway just for the assertion that FOX/CNN/MSNBC are absurd- even sans the caveat... My .02--- keep the change.

    4. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by Vellmont · · Score: 1


      I also think his sort of humor can be harmful to intelligent political discourse.

      Sure, if your only view of the world is a comedic look at politics. But then too much of ANY viewpoint is harmful to intelligent political discourse. As someone else pointed out, TDS is on a network called "Comedy Central", so expecting them to be some pure news source is really missing the point. As far as young people only getting political news from TDS.. well I guess the alternative is for them to get no news at all and not be interested in politics. I guess if I had to choose, I'd choose some largely accurate knowledge to none at all.

      This is particularly troubling when his own political leanings are very much to the left

      Nonsense. Stewart isn't easy to pin down, and he doesn't exactly state his position on different issues, but it's pretty clear he's not "very much to the left". I'd say if you had to pin him down somewhere on a 2 dimensional scale (a silly and misleading way to represent anyone), most people would say he's somewhat of a moderate democrat.

      but in many ways he is part of that very same system now...It does not pay to try to express a complex-thought to the media or to make meaningful off the cuff remarks because any small mistatement will be thrown back in your face and your actual statements and any nuance in them will not remain intact for the listeners to hear (especially shows like TDS).

      I'd have to strongly disagree. When Stewart interviews anyone political he's constantly letting themselves dig themselves out of a hole they've inadvertantly dug, but he doesn't let them get away with anything either. I'm not sure what you're talking about as far as small miss-statements. The quotes I've seen on TDS are almost all large intentional statements. The closest thing I can think of that TDS has lampooned is Bush referring to himself as "The Decider" (which he's done more than once). Perhaps his language shouldn't be taken too literally, but I find it very interesting that Bush refers to himself as a "Decider" as opposed to a leader.

      --
      AccountKiller
    5. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by stuartrobinson · · Score: 1

      It's a sad commentary on the state of the American news media that The Daily Show keeps being held to journalistic standards. Jon Stewart and the rest of the regulars on the show aren't journalists, nor do they claim to be. They're comedians. If the news coverage provided by the show compares favorably to CNN, MSNBC, or Fox, that doesn't say good things for the mainstream news outlets.

    6. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by FallLine · · Score: 1, Interesting
      I'd have modded ya up anyway just for the assertion that FOX/CNN/MSNBC are absurd- even sans the caveat... My .02--- keep the change.
      Well Thanks :-)

      What the parent poster is forgetting here is the fact that TDS is on a network called, "Comedy Central." It in no way purports itself as a news station.
      I don't care what it purports itself to be. I care what its impact on political discourse is. If Bill O'Reilly renamed his show to the "a lighthearted entertainment show with a moral-conservative reactionist spin" that wouldn't absolve him of all responsibility for his coverage. It is reasonable to examine the outcome of the show on the viewers (whether through intentional spin or simply aweful coverage). I'm not suggesting that we try to regulate it in any way, just that we perhaps re-think how we talk about these shows.

      I don't have the survey at hand, but I have seen polls that suggest that something like ~25% of young voters got most of their 2004 election coverage news from TDS and SNL. I know some young voters like this myself. Even if some of those voters also get "news" from a blog/website heavily slanted towards their favorite political party, they are missing out. I see value in news that at least makes some attempt at providing a more moderate and informed discussion -- if nothing else to present some basic and indisputable facts (not just those that support one view or the other). There have been a number of studies that have shown that people of both political persuasions that just talk to people of their own leanings tended to get more extreme and entrenched in their views (and were more hostile to others), whereas those that talked to people of other political views tended to at least adopt a much more nuanced and open view. I suspect this is at least part of the reason why politics of both stripes has gotten more radical and combative.

      To the extent that the Daily Show acts as a replacement for up-to-date news for some of its viewers and to the extent that it embarrasses politicians (or makes them look absurd/extreme) for what would otherwise be sensible and reasonable discourse (leaving aside the balance for a minute) by selective editing and quotation, I have concerns for society at large. Calling it entertainment does not automatically mean it has no negative impact on politics.

      And as much as Blogs might be a concern, frankly, if you have the wherewithall to subscribe/read a blog, then you're far better off than the remote jockey that takes in his news in the 30 minutes before South Park.
      Well, maybe, but someone can't pretend they follow the world news by watching Southpark and, regardless, both in and of themselves can leave the viewer/reader in pretty sorry shape as far as balanced coverage of world events and politics goes. Slanted blogs might have their place, but when they are consumed to the exclusion of any balanced news, I suspect they a harmful to our political system.
    7. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by CCW · · Score: 1

      You can't be much of a TDS watcher if you haven't noticed that Stewart frequently has fairly right wing guests on that are uniformly warmly welcomed, treated with courtesy and allowed to speak. William Kristol from the Daily Standard, and John Ashcroft are two recent examples. That courtesy is a massive departure from other shows and a huge good example for the young audience.

      The comedy comes from pointing out the absurdities in the news coverage - particularly in what they select as important enough to emphasize, and from the direct words of the politicians. I expect that the new congressional leadership will become more frequent targets in the next year as they will be making news, rather than simply watching from the sidelines.

    8. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by thommoose · · Score: 1

      You might have missed my point--- lemme try to put it a little more eloquently... Fact is, lamenting the sad state of affairs betwixt the media & body politic in on a forum like /. is either of two things: futile or redundant. Items like this meet with malaise or abject apathy probably 90% of the time. For the remainder, it's simply preaching to the choir, oh citizen... Seriously, a line needs to be drawn between media for entertainment's sake (The Onion, TDS, TV Guide)- and media as an information bullhorn (CNN, NYT, Barbara Walters Specials.) It cannot be the media's responsibility to educate every slack jawed person too lazy to read below the fold (already lost 85% of the gen. pop. on that one...) Comments like that, those that hold media responsible- are the kind that are, imho, causing the gradual 'dumbing down' of our fair nation... Each outlet of the media has a simple responsibility- to provide profits to it's shareholders of the parent companies... Anything beyond that is ludicrous and, though utopian and nice, simply not gonna happen. Of course, we can throw all this out the window and go with a model like Al Jazeera... That would come closer to responsible programming... But it would still do nothing to motivate anyone to be any more civic minded. (Maybe if you pre-empted the reruns of "Friends" for a week with a 10 minute discourse on Constitutional Ammendments pending decision... but sponsors would complain too much and TIVO would make it futile...) Frankly, I doubt 1/4 of the people looking at this could tell the majority needed for a vetoed bill to become a law... But I can guarantee all of the could get the answer in just over 1.25 seconds if they were motivated... Alas, I come back to apathy...

    9. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      It in no way purports itself as a news station.

      Too bad there are millions of people who actually do get their news from TDS. This is no different from the millions of people who get their news from talk radio, despite talk radio billing itself as commentary and not news.

      People get their news from who best validates their world views. That the "reality based community" gets their news from Comedy Central is very revealing of their world view. That they think Stewart and Colbert are funny is every bit as frightening as those people who think Hannity and Limbaugh are erudite.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    10. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by Shag · · Score: 2, Informative
      What the parent poster is forgetting here is the fact that TDS is on a network called, "Comedy Central." It in no way purports itself as a news station.

      That's right... in the U.S. Outside the U.S., folks in some areas see The Daily Show on this other network, called "CNN International." Maybe you've heard of it?

      (Yes, there is a little disclaimer message on black at the beginning of the show...)
      --
      Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
    11. Re:TDS is a very MIXED bag by thommoose · · Score: 1

      And these people that don't understand satire are the same the make Jerry Springer our top entertainment export.

      Since they're owned by the same parent coporation (read: Turner) then I'm not surprised that CNN would want to snag CC's Stewart to include something intelligent...

      http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/daily.show/

      To clarify for everyone else: Internationally it's still called, "The Daily Show"- just with "Global Edition" added- and it appears on our export version of CNN (aka CNNI)

  22. windows is for the internet "Zombies" by Angelox · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You know, the ones that know nothing else but click with the mouse? Can't type, can't make a script, can't do anything, but "click". You have to know more than that if you want to own a real OS like Linux.

  23. If only M$ had that level of quality. by Erris · · Score: 1

    It's amazing how people can still fall for that line of reasoning. Witness this gem from Network world:

    If you've never read Bill Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists," published in February, 1976, it's highly recommended as Gates goes off on the "majority of hobbyists" who are "stealing" their software. He was right, of course, but the language he uses sounds so incredibly whiney that you wonder how the man ever became Bill Gates.

    As your single quote from Gate's infamous whine shows so well, Gates' fundamental operating principle was wrong and everything built off it is a lie. Anyone who's used free software knows that the quality exceeds Mr. Gate's wished for 3 many years and the quality of most non free software projects. People co-operating under a completely different principle have completely outclassed M$ and the non free way.

    The game is nearly over and this word analysis will soon have interest only to business historians.

    --
    DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
    1. Re:If only M$ had that level of quality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Gates' fundamental operating principle was wrong

      as was his fundamental operating system... :-)
    2. Re:If only M$ had that level of quality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      As your single quote from Gate's infamous whine shows so well, Gates' fundamental operating principle was wrong and everything built off it is a lie.

      I don't think his principle was wrong. I think it was true enough when he said it, but the Internet has changed the world. It is a rare hobbyist who can put in three years of full-time, uncompensated work on a project, but there are plenty of people who can and will put in 10-20 hours per week on a project. With the power of the Internet to enable their collaboration, a half-dozen part-time developers can easily exceed the output of a full-time developer.

      Anyone who's used free software knows that the quality exceeds Mr. Gate's wished for 3 many years and the quality of most non free software projects.

      I have to disagree here as well. I use F/LOSS almost exclusively, and I'll be the first to say that Free Software isn't uniformly good. There is a lot of very good Free stuff, but there's also plenty that needs a great deal of work. The same goes for commercial software, actually. If I had to pick some overall themes, I'd say that commercial software tends to be a little less reliable but a little more polished, and Free software tends to be more solid but more "fiddly".

      For those, like me, who don't much care about polish and actually enjoy fiddling a bit (and the control that implies), F/LOSS is unquestionably better. For others, commercial software may make more sense, as long as the costs are acceptable. By "costs" I mean all of the limitations that come with non-Freeness, not just the dollars paid to purchase the software.

      F/LOSS is here to stay, and matches up quite well against commercial offerings in many spaces. There's no need to try to recast the proprietary software world as an evil edifice of lies. Let Gates and company play that game. We don't need to.

    3. Re:If only M$ had that level of quality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      twitter, please read this carefully. Following this advice will make Slashdot a better place for everyone, including yourself.

      • As a representative of the Linux community, participate in mailing list and newsgroup discussions in a professional manner. Refrain from name-calling and use of vulgar language. Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer. Your words will either enhance or degrade the image the reader has of the Linux community.
      • Avoid hyperbole and unsubstantiated claims at all costs. It's unprofessional and will result in unproductive discussions.
      • A thoughtful, well-reasoned response to a posting will not only provide insight for your readers, but will also increase their respect for your knowledge and abilities.
      • Always remember that if you insult or are disrespectful to someone, their negative experience may be shared with many others. If you do offend someone, please try to make amends.
      • Focus on what Linux has to offer. There is no need to bash the competition. Linux is a good, solid product that stands on its own.
      • Respect the use of other operating systems. While Linux is a wonderful platform, it does not meet everyone's needs.
      • Refer to another product by its proper name. There's nothing to be gained by attempting to ridicule a company or its products by using "creative spelling". If we expect respect for Linux, we must respect other products.
      • Give credit where credit is due. Linux is just the kernel. Without the efforts of people involved with the GNU project , MIT, Berkeley and others too numerous to mention, the Linux kernel would not be very useful to most people.
      • Don't insist that Linux is the only answer for a particular application. Just as the Linux community cherishes the freedom that Linux provides them, Linux only solutions would deprive others of their freedom.
      • There will be cases where Linux is not the answer. Be the first to recognize this and offer another solution.

      From http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO/Advoca cy

  24. Typical Gates logic.... by jsimon12 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Keep saying something enough and it will become true. Gates just lies and lies in the Playboy interview:

    What was the first microcomputer software company? Microsoft.

    WRONG Digital Research was found the year before, it was also the company Microsoft stole DOS from....

    And who were we imitating when we did Microsoft Word? When we did Excel?

    WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3......

    1. Re:Typical Gates logic.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      And wasn't Altair BASIC derived from a pirated copy of Dartmouth BASIC, and developed on (then rather expensive) computer time "donated" by Harvard?

    2. Re:Typical Gates logic.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Tiny BASIC design and the full source code were published in 1976 in DDJ.

      wikipedia

    3. Re:Typical Gates logic.... by Axello · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think MS Word -the Windows version- resembled MacWrite more than it did WordPerfect.

    4. Re:Typical Gates logic.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      In the playboy article he states that Word was so innovative. I believe WordPerfect was around for a while before Word ever came out...

    5. Re:Typical Gates logic.... by Inthewire · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Gary Kildall wrote CP/M in 1973 for the Intel 8080, one of Intel's first microprocessors. He then began writing various versions for popular (and unpopular) microprocessors. He soon tired of reimplementing common functionality, isolated those routines, and created a distinct BIOS for each new chip. Now he had a standard OS that could be ported to any appropriate chip with relatively little effort. Digital Research was formed to sell this product, which it licensed at $10 per copy to manufacturers.
      During that same time Microsoft was formed to sell programming languages for microcomputers. They actually supported CP/M and recommended it to clients. When IBM showed up with Project Chess, Microsoft suggested that CP/M should be the OS. IBM was unable to come to terms with Digital, so Microsoft bought and modified Q-DOS from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, licensing it to IBM as MS-DOS (called PC-DOS by IBM).
      Customers purchasing a new IBM PC had the option of PC-DOS for $40 or CP/M for $350 (IIRC). Digital sued, but the court found in favor of Microsoft.

      In other words, Digital and Microsoft were both options for the IBM PC, and Digital got screwed, but not because Microsoft stole CP/M - though Tim Paterson did pattern Q-DOS after CP/M. Linus patterned Linux after Unix, right? Same interface, different internals.

      --


      Writers imply. Readers infer.
    6. Re:Typical Gates logic.... by science_gone_bad · · Score: 1

      "Actually, I think MS Word -the Windows version- resembled MacWrite more than it did WordPerfect."

      That's because it was.....copied that is.

      MS Word started on the PC (bought of course.. never developed in house), then was ported to the Mac. Then they took the UI stuff they learned there and ported them back to the Windows version. Then making sure that the feature set for the 2 versions was at least 1-2 years behind for the Mac versions.

      Where do you think the Cut(Cmd-X) Copy (Cmd-C) and Paste (Cmd-V) came from? They were original Mac UI command sequences (I don't remember if those also were part of the PARC implementations). They are listed in the Original Human Interface Guidelines Book (~1986) from Apple that I still have a copy of.

      Interestingly when MS Word first showed up on the Mac Platform, they tried to force the Alt-key sequence onto the users at the time, and were laughed off the platform for a little while.

      --
      "I never get lost because everybody tells me where to go"
  25. I see a trend by jbrader · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As you move the slider forward through time you start to see less "computer" words (like Altair, cassette, floppy etc) and more "business" words (agreement, indemnification, patented etc). That's very telling all by itself.

    --
    You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
  26. Is that lag? No, it's Microsoft by svunt · · Score: 1

    What I noticed most strikingly was that words start popping up from MS about two or three years after the rest of us have been using them. 'Internet' 'linux' and many others made me think the picture was lagging behind my mouse-dragging, but it was just MS being part of the uncool crowd,who only get to hear about shit after it's already out of fashion.

  27. A lack of Progress? by Mystic+Silverfox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not that should surprise any of us here, but I found somewhat humorous anyway. In the time line, for November 1984 is an ad for MS Word. While praising "Spell"'s ability to have custom words added to a dictionary they used the words cryptococcosis and aepyornis as examples of technical terms that could be added. Interestingly enough, 20+ years later, they're both still "addable". If a company was aware of these words over 20 years ago why not add them to the built-in dictionary somewhere along the way?

    1. Re:A lack of Progress? by theurge14 · · Score: 1

      Blame marketing.

    2. Re:A lack of Progress? by kabz · · Score: 0, Redundant
      If a company was aware of these words over 20 years ago why not add them to the built-in dictionary somewhere along the way?
      640 words should be enough for anyone.

      Thanks, I'll get my coat.
      --
      -- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
    3. Re:A lack of Progress? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because if you add one medical word, you have to add bunches and bunches, bloating up the spelling dictionary. It would make more sense to sell medical terms separately.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  28. USERS has no respect. by recharged95 · · Score: 1
    I love it how the word USER got a lot of respect before 1980 (DOS release), then near the OS2 release (1987), then near the windows 95 release (1995) and now near the Vista release (2007). Otherwise, the USER wasn't that much important.

    So it looks like users will be forgotten soon after this month and until Vienna comes out.

  29. What wasn't said by Rick+Genter · · Score: 1

    I scanned through the timeline -- granted rather quickly -- but what I found interesting were some of the words that didn't appear in any of Gates' or Ballmer's documents: secure or security.

    I think some people believe that if you deny a problem exists it will "just go away."

    --
    Don't underestimate the power of The Source
  30. Sorry, copied again by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    You do realize that OLE/COM is largely based on DDE, an IBM patented technology? And that IBM told MS that they shouldn't use it, because it was unsuited to task? And that IBM was right, as witnessed by the huge problems they've had with it?

    This entire concept existed in its best form to date as SOM/DSOM on OS/2, which actually supported distributed COM objects long before MS ever got COM or DCOM to sort of work correctly.

    IOW, OLE/COM is merely yet another stolen/copied subpar tech, brought to you by those ever helpful friendly overlords at MS.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  31. ClarisWorks by Udderdude · · Score: 1

    I remember ClarisWorks that came with my old Performa 550. I was doing that kind of fun stuff in '93. Go Macs.