No, it isn't. NT is based on its own microkernel, which is more like VMS than anything else. It has a POSIX-compliant Unix layer that runs on top of the kernel, but it is nearly useless, as you can't use it to write graphical applications. At least, that was the case last time I looked.
The Mac had sound from the very beginning. Good sound, even. I recall Apple Records having kept their peace until Apple Computer tried to have Apple Records' trademark nullified.
Rather than debasing yourself by resorting to puerile insults, why don't you look up my User Info, read some of my past posts, and make an informed decision regarding my expertise? By the way, it's "candor".
You don't need to tell me what's in a modern OS. Just because these features are old doesn't mean they aren't considered essential for a modern OS. I was just mentioning the features that Unix and NT bigots usually kvetch about.
I'm still waiting for those systems to adopt modern features like aliases that follow their target file when it gets moved; windows that can display across multiple screens run by different video cards at different color depths; knowing when a floppy disk is in the drive; and knowing where applications are without being told.
Welcome to the fray. I can't be rejecting you, because I'm responding to you. Sorry, I do have my hot buttons, and one of them is people describing how much less a given level of computer from a first-tier maker would cost if you only would buy it from Joe's Beige Box Assembly of Black Duck, Minnesota (JBBAoBDMN.com). There's a reason cheap boxes are cheap: because their makers have no R&D, no marketing (okay, that's a plus), no QA, no support, and no infrastructure. They often have little or no knowledge, too. Big companies and schools couldn't buy from them if they wanted to, because the little guys can't scale to those numbers.
Gawd, am I ever sick of people whining about the price difference between a first-tier maker and a noname box builder. You really do get what you pay for. Name me ONE bargain-basement vendor with out-of-the-box failure rates of under 10%. That designs any board-level component themselves. That can effectively support 100 corporate accounts with 25,000 desktops each.
I don't believe you children. Apple finally delivers the full-blown modern microkernel-based, multiuser, preemptive multitasking, protected memory, command-line capable, Unix OS with the friendly GUI on it, just what you've spent years flaming them for not delivering. So what do you do? You flame it just because it's from Apple! Why can't you grow up and admit Apple is capable of making something really good (and then overcharging for it)? Are you really so insecure that you have to believe your chosen OS or kerner or GUI or CPU is the only good one? Also, for the naysayers who doubt Apple's commitment to Unix: A/UX; NeXTSTEP; AIX; MAE; MkLinux; OS X. 'nuff said.
1. Microsoft in 1997 threatened to kill their Mac projects due to not having enough users to justify development. (If 6 million current paying customers isn't enough, what is? But I digress.)
Fanatic platform boosterism aside, I think we all agree that there are at least 3x as many Mac users as Linux desktop users. Just keep that in mind.
2. Office 98 for Mac is light years better than Office 4.2, which was so much like the Windows version that they even changed the menu bar font! Anyone remember Microsoft Arcade for Mac, from the same time frame? I kid you not: It took over 10 minutes to load Asteroids. I could load and play a whole game of Maelstrom in that time!
Virtual PC ran Word 97 emulated as fast as the same machine ran Word 6 native. While Office 98 may be bloated and slow, at least it doesn't load up an entire emulated Windows API each and everytime you try to launch an application! Word 98 actually loads almost as fast as Word 5.1a.
3. Don't kid yourself about Linux. First of all, Windows is totally, 100% locked into the minds of most, I'd guess 75%, users. In other words, if you got everyone for whom there is even the smallest possibility to not use Windows, you're still looking at a solid 75% Windows market share.
The remaining 25% will be split between all other platforms, of which, frankly, Linux is not the easiest to deal with. I should know, I've dealt with Unix systems that are even worse yet. Given the trouble I'm having installing Linux on an ordinary Compaq with one little SCSI card, I could not possibly recommend Linux to any non-expert, and I think most users would agree with me.
Where this is going is, if the Mac (the platform all the Office apps were first developed on, recall) doesn't have enough users to justify MS supporting Office on it, Linux surely never will. For the first person that proves me wrong on this point, lunch is on me.
Sorry, Windows is here to stay and Office on Linux is a pipe dream. Linux becoming anything more than the choice of the lunatic fringe depends on it becoming easier to use AND having better application support than Windows.
(Aside: The Initio install images don't have Ethernet support. I need to do an FTP install. If anyone has RedHat 5.2 Install and Boot disks with drivers for both Initio 9xxxU and 3Com 3C509b, I'd love to hear from you!)
You could fairly argue that Microsoft thrives at the whim and pleasure of its users, too. Theoretically, there's nothing stopping the approximately 250 million users of MS products from installing Linux and running Applix or Star, and demanding en masse that all their other application vendors port to Linux.
Believe me, every MS product I use except one (Windows 95) I use by choice because it is truly better than the alternatives I have tried in some way. This same principle is why many people choose RedHat.
The rest just go with brand name recognition and don't even consider the other choices. For a great many Linux users: Wipe that smug grin off your face - you're guilty, too!
I believe journalists noted a drastic increase in late night pizza deliveries to the White House and Pentagon shortly before the Gulf War started.
What was that about using military resources to aid private corporations? Oh, yes, I recall both Israeli and Chinese intelligence engage in industrial espoinage too. Looks like we're in good company.
I do not believe there exist many nations that do not spy on all their buddies.
There's sensitive and then there's sensitive
on
Pentagon Cyber Wars
·
· Score: 1
I suspect that there's actually quite a lot of potentially dangerous information even on the "public" network. You never know what might turn out to be damaging. Many organizations' telephone directories are confidential, with good reason; memos and spreadsheets get passed around; file sharing gets left on accidentally or on purpose; you name it. It's too easy to just happen to leave indirectly sensitive information on the wrong machine.
If my assumptions about basic human nature are correct, there are probably illegal gateways from the "secure" net to the "public" net, too. It's just too inconvenient to have to go to a different machine to get your email, and just to cool to "beat the system" and make your own solution.
The most insidious walls are the ones that don't block us, but rather guide us so effortlessly we don't even realise they exist. I'm going to buy a new PC. Do I get Intel or AMD? That's a waveguide - I don't even consider the non-X86 option. I need some vegetables. What does the supermarket have? That's a waveguide, too. I forgot, there's a Mom 'n' Pop store on my own block! I also forgot, I can grow fresh veggies in my own yard! Which car should I drive to work? How 'bout my feet? I have even cross-country skied to work.
So don't just think about barriers, think about the subtle parameters that guide your choices, and spend some time thinking what might be just outside the walls of the waveguide you're bouncing through.
I, for one, am glad there exist gateways that can prevent the whole world from examining the contents of every hard drive on every computer I have connected to the net. Information freedom, sure, but there's a need for privacy, too.
In response to requests by carriers that the Commission clarify how local telephone companies should compensate one another for delivering traffic to Internet service providers, the Commission today concluded that carriers are bound by their existing interconnection agreements, as interpreted by state commissions, and thus are subject to reciprocal compensation obligations to the extent provided by such agreements or as determined by state commissions. The Commission declared that Internet traffic is jurisdictionally mixed and appears to be largely interstate in nature. But the decision preserves the rule that exempts the Internet and other information services from interstate access charges. This means that those consumers who continue to access the Internet by dialing a seven-digit number will not incur long distance charges when they do so. In a notice of proposed rulemaking, the Commission also asked for comment on proposals governing future carrier-to-carrier compensation for handling this traffic.
But examples of a little learning curve leading to greater productivity are numerous. For instance, CLI vs GUI, TeX vs Word.
Since I am intimately familiar with these four items, I can't help but jump in with $0.02. I find GUI to be 10x more productive than CLI 99% of the time. Similarly for Word and TeX (or even LaTeX). For that remaining 1% of the time, I prefer to have a "mini environment" that lets me revert to the old-fashioned way.
Of course, even the old way gets better and better. I now use PERL almost exclusively instead of any shell language - even (especially!) in a Windows environment. But in the end, the new paradigm improves productivity so much, it stands on its own merit even without a path to the past.
While I enjoyed the article, I believe the author oversells Englebart's contributions. AFAIK, Vannevar Bush invented hyperlinking and Alan Kay invented windowing. Of course, who exactly invented what when the inventors all know each other is subject to debate. For further details, please refer to the article I wrote last weekend on this subject. Hint: Read the second (HTML) version. There was a posting error.
Also, regarding Apple ignoring the network: I find that claim to be absurd, since even the first 1984 Mac had 57kbps serial networking built in. It merely lacked a TCP/IP stack, but then even in the late '80s there was a raging debate over which competing transport protocol would win out. Remember X.25, Bitnet and UUCP? DECnet? Anyone want to recall another?
I believe typing posture is the most important factor in keyboard comfort, then you can do a lot with different layouts without spending lots of money. I also happen to prefer fairly strongly sprung keys, especially the clicky IBM ones. Here's one of my past posts on ergonomics. Here's another. My solution to the sore hand problem was to switch from QWERTY to Dvorak. I use this layout about 85% of the time now. The benefits: It's more comfortable than QWERTY, and it costs absolutely nothing. Here's how to get it:
Win32: Open the Keyboard control panel and select Language. Click Properties, then select United States-Dvorak.
X-Windows: Create a remapping and run it through xmodmap. My xmodmap files are included at the end: One to switch to Dvorak and one to go back to QWERTY.
Another interesting looking keyboard is the Maltron. The original is quite pricey, but Teleprint sells a cheaper one. Note that it is largely similar in key sequence to Dvorak, but ergonomically sculpted. I have also created an Xmodmap for this one (mapped to a regular keyboard) that is more optimized for programming, but I haven't tested it out yet.
dvorak.kb ========= keycode 0x2f = bracketleft braceleft keycode 0x30 = bracketright braceright keycode 0x3d = apostrophe quotedbl keycode 0x3e = comma less keycode 0x3f = period greater keycode 0x40 = p P keycode 0x41 = y Y keycode 0x42 = f F keycode 0x43 = g G keycode 0x44 = c C keycode 0x45 = r R keycode 0x46 = l L keycode 0x47 = slash question keycode 0x48 = equal plus keycode 0x54 = a A keycode 0x55 = o O keycode 0x56 = e E keycode 0x57 = u U keycode 0x58 = i I keycode 0x59 = d D keycode 0x5a = h H keycode 0x5b = t T keycode 0x5c = n N keycode 0x5d = s S keycode 0x5e = minus underscore keycode 0x6b = semicolon colon keycode 0x6c = q Q keycode 0x6d = j J keycode 0x6e = k K keycode 0x6f = x X keycode 0x70 = b B keycode 0x71 = m M keycode 0x72 = w W keycode 0x73 = v V keycode 0x74 = z Z keycode 37 = 1 exclam keycode 38 = 2 at keycode 39 = 3 numbersign keycode 40 = 4 dollar keycode 41 = 5 percent keycode 42 = 6 asciicircum keycode 43 = 7 ampersand keycode 44 = 8 asterisk keycode 45 = 9 parenleft keycode 46 = 0 parenright keycode 49 = grave asciitilde keycode 95 = backslash bar brokenbar
qwerty.kb ========= keycode 0x2f = minus underscore keycode 0x30 = equal plus keycode 0x3d = Q keycode 0x3e = W keycode 0x3f = E keycode 0x40 = R keycode 0x41 = T keycode 0x42 = Y keycode 0x43 = U keycode 0x44 = I keycode 0x45 = O keycode 0x46 = P keycode 0x47 = bracketleft braceleft keycode 0x48 = bracketright braceright keycode 0x54 = A keycode 0x55 = S keycode 0x56 = D keycode 0x57 = F keycode 0x58 = G keycode 0x59 = H keycode 0x5a = J keycode 0x5b = K keycode 0x5c = L keycode 0x5d = semicolon colon keycode 0x5e = apostrophe quotedbl keycode 0x6b = Z keycode 0x6c = X keycode 0x6d = C keycode 0x6e = V keycode 0x6f = B keycode 0x70 = N keycode 0x71 = M keycode 0x72 = comma less keycode 0x73 = period greater keycode 0x74 = slash question keycode 37 = 1 exclam keycode 38 = 2 at keycode 39 = 3 numbersign keycode 40 = 4 dollar keycode 41 = 5 percent keycode 42 = 6 asciicircum keycode 43 = 7 ampersand keycode 44 = 8 asterisk keycode 45 = 9 parenleft keycode 46 = 0 parenright keycode 47 = minus underscore keycode 48 = equal plus keycode 49 = grave asciitilde keycode 95 = backslash bar brokenbar
In my original post to Slashdot, boldly titled I Got News for All of You, I made the following rash, unsubstantiated claim:
Overlapping windows were thought up in the '40s, the mouse in the '50s, and WYSIWYG in the '60s, before PARC existed.
A clever Anonymous Coward noted that I was a dumbass and provided no references to back up my statements. Some might argue that merely saying, "You didn't document your sources so what you say is shit!" fails to constitute stimulating intellecutal discourse. It's nothing more than small-minded heckling.
Some might even suggest that you can provide a counter proposition of your own, and if you then "up the ante" and back your own position with documented sources, you've pretty effectively proven your point and made your opponent look like a hothead besides.
I would like to thank my anonymous benefactor for not doing that to me, because I made several mistakes. Then again, within the context of the discussion, I believe the A.C. was implicitly defending the position that the whole WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers; a shorthand for describing the essential ingredients of a modern GUI) shebang was invented at Xerox PARC, which would be even more wrong than I was.
My primary source of information is the book (please forgive me) Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything, by Steven Levy. Sure, it's about the Mac, but really, how can you have any kind of meaningful discussion of GUI based computing without mentioning the Mac?
Yes, I was wrong. It was not multiple windows that were invented in the 1940s, it was information surfing. Vannevar Bush, in his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think describes the sort of ad-hoc, stream-of-consciousness, associative method that characterizes the way we access information on the Web. Bush envisioned a work station with multiple screens, not multiple windows.
I was also wrong about the mouse being invented in the 1950s. Douglas Englebart didn't invent the mouse until the mid 1960s, when he was at SRI. Here's an interesting Smithsonian Institution interview with Douglas Englebart.
Sometime after 1966, Alan Kay at the University of Utah (later to join PARC) designed a "personal" computer called Flex that featured high-resolution graphics, icons and multiple windows. However, Kay himself admits (in Insanely Great) its interface was "repellent to users." Kay went on to work on the Alto and Macintosh.
In his own words, Jeff Raskin developed an idea for a graphical, multi-font WYSIWYG computer interface based on a bitmapped display in the mid-1960s, which is described in his 1967 Penn State thesis, A Hardware-Independent Computer Drawing System Using List-Structured Modeling: The Quick-Draw Graphics System. I couldn't find a link to the thesis itself, but it is referenced in the database of the Software Patent Institute Raskin started the Macintosh project at Apple.
Xerox PARC was founded in the year 1970. According to Levy, the Alto prototype was built at the end of 1972. Here's a nice A HREF="http://www.research.microsoft.com/users/blam pson/38-AltoSoftware/WebPage.html">artic le about the Alto.
Here is another interesting site with a number of links to articles on History of Computing
So, in the end, I was wrong about multiple windows, wrong about the mouse, right about WSIWYG, and right about all of these existing before the creation of PARC. I apologize for not checking my facts before posting.
In my original post to Slashdot, boldly titled I Got News for All of You, I made the following rash, unsubstantiated claim: Overlapping windows were thought up in the '40s, the mouse in the '50s, and WYSIWYG in the '60s, before PARC existed. A clever Anonymous Coward noted that I was a dumbass and provided no references to back up my statements. Some might argue that merely saying, "You didn't document your sources so what you say is shit!" fails to constitute stimulating intellecutal discourse. It's nothing more than small-minded heckling. Some might even suggest that you can provide a counter proposition of your own, and if you then "up the ante" and back your own position with documented sources, you've pretty effectively proven your point and made your opponent look like a hothead besides. I would like to thank my anonymous benefactor for not doing that to me, because I made several mistakes. Then again, within the context of the discussion, I believe the A.C. was implicitly defending the position that the whole WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers; a shorthand for describing the essential ingredients of a modern GUI) shebang was invented at Xerox PARC, which would be even more wrong than I was. My primary source of information is the book (please forgive me) Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything, by Steven Levy. Sure, it's about the Mac, but really, how can you have any kind of meaningful discussion of GUI based computing without mentioning the Mac? Yes, I was wrong. It was not multiple windows that were invented in the 1940s, it was information surfing. Vannevar Bush, in his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think describes the sort of ad-hoc, stream-of-consciousness, associative method that characterizes the way we access information on the Web. Bush envisioned a work station with multiple screens, not multiple windows. I was also wrong about the mouse being invented in the 1950s. Douglas Englebart didn't invent the mouse until the mid 1960s, when he was at SRI. Here's an interesting Smithsonian Institution interview with Douglas Englebart. Sometime after 1966, Alan Kay at the University of Utah (later to join PARC) designed a "personal" computer called Flex that featured high-resolution graphics, icons and multiple windows. However, Kay himself admits (in Insanely Great) its interface was "repellent to users." Kay went on to work on the Alto and Macintosh. In his own words, Jeff Raskin developed an idea for a graphical, multi-font WYSIWYG computer interface based on a bitmapped display in the mid-1960s, which is described in his 1967 Penn State thesis, A Hardware-Independent Computer Drawing System Using List-Structured Modeling: The Quick-Draw Graphics System. I couldn't find a link to the thesis itself, but it is referenced in the database of the Software Patent Institute Raskin started the Macintosh project at Apple. Xerox PARC was founded in the year 1970. According to Levy, the Alto prototype was built at the end of 1972. Here's a nice article about the Alto. Here is another interesting site with a number of links to articles on History of Computing So, in the end, I was wrong about multiple windows, wrong about the mouse, right about WSIWYG, and right about all of these existing before the creation of PARC. I apologize for not checking my facts before posting. Finally, to my "small-minded heckler", thank you.
Neither MS, nor Apple, nor even Xerox invented the WIMP interface we know and love. Overlapping windows were thought up in the '40s, the mouse in the '50s, and WYSIWYG in the '60s, before PARC existed.
First off, I do not recall any Intel CPU after the 80386 being expected to do anything other than sell like hotcakes. But that's not my point.
According to my analyses, all chips in the Pentium family have performance that scales almost perfectly with clock speed. The "great Intel performance lie" is my name for any claim that a new Pentium has substantially better performance than an older one on the basis of architectural advances.
The PIII is not even the first Pentium to have lower performance per clock rate than its predecessor (if in fact it does). Readers may remember reports that the Pentium Pro ran 16-bit code slower than a Pentium, and all code slower than a Pentium MMX (clock rates being equal).
I maintain that this is the reason Intel generally doesn't make versions their older chips in the same clock rates as the new ones.
I've won some, I've lost some. If you're afraid of losing, make a small, regular investment in an S&P 500 index fund. After 25 years, you'll probably have a fortune.
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No, it isn't. NT is based on its own microkernel, which is more like VMS than anything else. It has a POSIX-compliant Unix layer that runs on top of the kernel, but it is nearly useless, as you can't use it to write graphical applications. At least, that was the case last time I looked.
The Mac had sound from the very beginning. Good sound, even. I recall Apple Records having kept their peace until Apple Computer tried to have Apple Records' trademark nullified.
Please refer to my comment in response to the immediately previous article about insults and name-calling. Not that you exactly come across as an Apple booster yourself. Pot, meet Kettle.
You don't need to tell me what's in a modern OS. Just because these features are old doesn't mean they aren't considered essential for a modern OS. I was just mentioning the features that Unix and NT bigots usually kvetch about.
I'm still waiting for those systems to adopt modern features like aliases that follow their target file when it gets moved; windows that can display across multiple screens run by different video cards at different color depths; knowing when a floppy disk is in the drive; and knowing where applications are without being told.
A native kernel will run faster than one built on top of Mach. The advantage of Mach is modularity, not speed.
Welcome to the fray. I can't be rejecting you, because I'm responding to you.
Sorry, I do have my hot buttons, and one of them is people describing how much less a given level of computer from a first-tier maker would cost if you only would buy it from Joe's Beige Box Assembly of Black Duck, Minnesota (JBBAoBDMN.com).
There's a reason cheap boxes are cheap: because their makers have no R&D, no marketing (okay, that's a plus), no QA, no support, and no infrastructure. They often have little or no knowledge, too. Big companies and schools couldn't buy from them if they wanted to, because the little guys can't scale to those numbers.
Gawd, am I ever sick of people whining about the price difference between a first-tier maker and a noname box builder. You really do get what you pay for. Name me ONE bargain-basement vendor with out-of-the-box failure rates of under 10%. That designs any board-level component themselves. That can effectively support 100 corporate accounts with 25,000 desktops each.
I don't believe you children. Apple finally delivers the full-blown modern microkernel-based, multiuser, preemptive multitasking, protected memory, command-line capable, Unix OS with the friendly GUI on it, just what you've spent years flaming them for not delivering.
So what do you do? You flame it just because it's from Apple! Why can't you grow up and admit Apple is capable of making something really good (and then overcharging for it)? Are you really so insecure that you have to believe your chosen OS or kerner or GUI or CPU is the only good one?
Also, for the naysayers who doubt Apple's commitment to Unix: A/UX; NeXTSTEP; AIX; MAE; MkLinux; OS X. 'nuff said.
A couple points:
1. Microsoft in 1997 threatened to kill their Mac projects due to not having enough users to justify development. (If 6 million current paying customers isn't enough, what is? But I digress.)
Fanatic platform boosterism aside, I think we all agree that there are at least 3x as many Mac users as Linux desktop users. Just keep that in mind.
2. Office 98 for Mac is light years better than Office 4.2, which was so much like the Windows version that they even changed the menu bar font! Anyone remember Microsoft Arcade for Mac, from the same time frame? I kid you not: It took over 10 minutes to load Asteroids. I could load and play a whole game of Maelstrom in that time!
Virtual PC ran Word 97 emulated as fast as the same machine ran Word 6 native. While Office 98 may be bloated and slow, at least it doesn't load up an entire emulated Windows API each and everytime you try to launch an application! Word 98 actually loads almost as fast as Word 5.1a.
3. Don't kid yourself about Linux. First of all, Windows is totally, 100% locked into the minds of most, I'd guess 75%, users. In other words, if you got everyone for whom there is even the smallest possibility to not use Windows, you're still looking at a solid 75% Windows market share.
The remaining 25% will be split between all other platforms, of which, frankly, Linux is not the easiest to deal with. I should know, I've dealt with Unix systems that are even worse yet. Given the trouble I'm having installing Linux on an ordinary Compaq with one little SCSI card, I could not possibly recommend Linux to any non-expert, and I think most users would agree with me.
Where this is going is, if the Mac (the platform all the Office apps were first developed on, recall) doesn't have enough users to justify MS supporting Office on it, Linux surely never will. For the first person that proves me wrong on this point, lunch is on me.
Sorry, Windows is here to stay and Office on Linux is a pipe dream. Linux becoming anything more than the choice of the lunatic fringe depends on it becoming easier to use AND having better application support than Windows.
(Aside: The Initio install images don't have Ethernet support. I need to do an FTP install. If anyone has RedHat 5.2 Install and Boot disks with drivers for both Initio 9xxxU and 3Com 3C509b, I'd love to hear from you!)
You could fairly argue that Microsoft thrives at the whim and pleasure of its users, too. Theoretically, there's nothing stopping the approximately 250 million users of MS products from installing Linux and running Applix or Star, and demanding en masse that all their other application vendors port to Linux.
Believe me, every MS product I use except one (Windows 95) I use by choice because it is truly better than the alternatives I have tried in some way. This same principle is why many people choose RedHat.
The rest just go with brand name recognition and don't even consider the other choices. For a great many Linux users: Wipe that smug grin off your face - you're guilty, too!
I believe journalists noted a drastic increase in late night pizza deliveries to the White House and Pentagon shortly before the Gulf War started.
What was that about using military resources to aid private corporations? Oh, yes, I recall both Israeli and Chinese intelligence engage in industrial espoinage too. Looks like we're in good company.
I do not believe there exist many nations that do not spy on all their buddies.
I suspect that there's actually quite a lot of potentially dangerous information even on the "public" network. You never know what might turn out to be damaging. Many organizations' telephone directories are confidential, with good reason; memos and spreadsheets get passed around; file sharing gets left on accidentally or on purpose; you name it. It's too easy to just happen to leave indirectly sensitive information on the wrong machine.
If my assumptions about basic human nature are correct, there are probably illegal gateways from the "secure" net to the "public" net, too. It's just too inconvenient to have to go to a different machine to get your email, and just to cool to "beat the system" and make your own solution.
When it costs over a $Billion to build a modern fab, don't you figure only the biggest chipmakers can actually afford to run their own?
The most insidious walls are the ones that don't block us, but rather guide us so effortlessly we don't even realise they exist. I'm going to buy a new PC. Do I get Intel or AMD? That's a waveguide - I don't even consider the non-X86 option. I need some vegetables. What does the supermarket have? That's a waveguide, too. I forgot, there's a Mom 'n' Pop store on my own block! I also forgot, I can grow fresh veggies in my own yard! Which car should I drive to work? How 'bout my feet? I have even cross-country skied to work.
So don't just think about barriers, think about the subtle parameters that guide your choices, and spend some time thinking what might be just outside the walls of the waveguide you're bouncing through.
I, for one, am glad there exist gateways that can prevent the whole world from examining the contents of every hard drive on every computer I have connected to the net. Information freedom, sure, but there's a need for privacy, too.
Then make up your own mind.
But examples of a little learning curve leading to greater productivity are numerous. For instance, CLI vs GUI, TeX vs Word.
Since I am intimately familiar with these four items, I can't help but jump in with $0.02. I find GUI to be 10x more productive than CLI 99% of the time. Similarly for Word and TeX (or even LaTeX). For that remaining 1% of the time, I prefer to have a "mini environment" that lets me revert to the old-fashioned way.
Of course, even the old way gets better and better. I now use PERL almost exclusively instead of any shell language - even (especially!) in a Windows environment. But in the end, the new paradigm improves productivity so much, it stands on its own merit even without a path to the past.
While I enjoyed the article, I believe the author oversells Englebart's contributions. AFAIK, Vannevar Bush invented hyperlinking and Alan Kay invented windowing. Of course, who exactly invented what when the inventors all know each other is subject to debate. For further details, please refer to the article I wrote last weekend on this subject. Hint: Read the second (HTML) version. There was a posting error.
Also, regarding Apple ignoring the network: I find that claim to be absurd, since even the first 1984 Mac had 57kbps serial networking built in. It merely lacked a TCP/IP stack, but then even in the late '80s there was a raging debate over which competing transport protocol would win out. Remember X.25, Bitnet and UUCP? DECnet? Anyone want to recall another?
My solution to the sore hand problem was to switch from QWERTY to Dvorak. I use this layout about 85% of the time now. The benefits: It's more comfortable than QWERTY, and it costs absolutely nothing. Here's how to get it:
Mac: Download the keyboard layout.
Win32: Open the Keyboard control panel and select Language. Click Properties, then select United States-Dvorak.
X-Windows: Create a remapping and run it through xmodmap. My xmodmap files are included at the end: One to switch to Dvorak and one to go back to QWERTY.
Another interesting looking keyboard is the Maltron. The original is quite pricey, but Teleprint sells a cheaper one. Note that it is largely similar in key sequence to Dvorak, but ergonomically sculpted. I have also created an Xmodmap for this one (mapped to a regular keyboard) that is more optimized for programming, but I haven't tested it out yet.
In my original post to Slashdot, boldly titled I Got News for All of You, I made the following rash, unsubstantiated claim:
A clever Anonymous Coward noted that I was a dumbass and provided no references to back up my statements. Some might argue that merely saying, "You didn't document your sources so what you say is shit!" fails to constitute stimulating intellecutal discourse. It's nothing more than small-minded heckling.
Some might even suggest that you can provide a counter proposition of your own, and if you then "up the ante" and back your own position with documented sources, you've pretty effectively proven your point and made your opponent look like a hothead besides.
I would like to thank my anonymous benefactor for not doing that to me, because I made several mistakes. Then again, within the context of the discussion, I believe the A.C. was implicitly defending the position that the whole WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers; a shorthand for describing the essential ingredients of a modern GUI) shebang was invented at Xerox PARC, which would be even more wrong than I was.
My primary source of information is the book (please forgive me) Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything, by Steven Levy. Sure, it's about the Mac, but really, how can you have any kind of meaningful discussion of GUI based computing without mentioning the Mac?
Yes, I was wrong. It was not multiple windows that were invented in the 1940s, it was information surfing. Vannevar Bush, in his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think describes the sort of ad-hoc, stream-of-consciousness, associative method that characterizes the way we access information on the Web. Bush envisioned a work station with multiple screens, not multiple windows.
I was also wrong about the mouse being invented in the 1950s. Douglas Englebart didn't invent the mouse until the mid 1960s, when he was at SRI. Here's an interesting Smithsonian Institution interview with Douglas Englebart.
Sometime after 1966, Alan Kay at the University of Utah (later to join PARC) designed a "personal" computer called Flex that featured high-resolution graphics, icons and multiple windows. However, Kay himself admits (in Insanely Great) its interface was "repellent to users." Kay went on to work on the Alto and Macintosh.
In his own words, Jeff Raskin developed an idea for a graphical, multi-font WYSIWYG computer interface based on a bitmapped display in the mid-1960s, which is described in his 1967 Penn State thesis, A Hardware-Independent Computer Drawing System Using List-Structured Modeling: The Quick-Draw Graphics System. I couldn't find a link to the thesis itself, but it is referenced in the database of the Software Patent Institute Raskin started the Macintosh project at Apple.
Xerox PARC was founded in the year 1970. According to Levy, the Alto prototype was built at the end of 1972. Here's a nice A HREF="http://www.research.microsoft.com/users/blam pson/38-AltoSoftware/WebPage.html">artic le about the Alto.
Here is another interesting site with a number of links to articles on History of Computing
So, in the end, I was wrong about multiple windows, wrong about the mouse, right about WSIWYG, and right about all of these existing before the creation of PARC. I apologize for not checking my facts before posting.
Finally, to my "small-minded heckler", thank you.
In my original post to Slashdot, boldly titled I Got News for All of You, I made the following rash, unsubstantiated claim: Overlapping windows were thought up in the '40s, the mouse in the '50s, and WYSIWYG in the '60s, before PARC existed. A clever Anonymous Coward noted that I was a dumbass and provided no references to back up my statements. Some might argue that merely saying, "You didn't document your sources so what you say is shit!" fails to constitute stimulating intellecutal discourse. It's nothing more than small-minded heckling. Some might even suggest that you can provide a counter proposition of your own, and if you then "up the ante" and back your own position with documented sources, you've pretty effectively proven your point and made your opponent look like a hothead besides. I would like to thank my anonymous benefactor for not doing that to me, because I made several mistakes. Then again, within the context of the discussion, I believe the A.C. was implicitly defending the position that the whole WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers; a shorthand for describing the essential ingredients of a modern GUI) shebang was invented at Xerox PARC, which would be even more wrong than I was. My primary source of information is the book (please forgive me) Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything, by Steven Levy. Sure, it's about the Mac, but really, how can you have any kind of meaningful discussion of GUI based computing without mentioning the Mac? Yes, I was wrong. It was not multiple windows that were invented in the 1940s, it was information surfing. Vannevar Bush, in his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think describes the sort of ad-hoc, stream-of-consciousness, associative method that characterizes the way we access information on the Web. Bush envisioned a work station with multiple screens, not multiple windows. I was also wrong about the mouse being invented in the 1950s. Douglas Englebart didn't invent the mouse until the mid 1960s, when he was at SRI. Here's an interesting Smithsonian Institution interview with Douglas Englebart. Sometime after 1966, Alan Kay at the University of Utah (later to join PARC) designed a "personal" computer called Flex that featured high-resolution graphics, icons and multiple windows. However, Kay himself admits (in Insanely Great) its interface was "repellent to users." Kay went on to work on the Alto and Macintosh. In his own words, Jeff Raskin developed an idea for a graphical, multi-font WYSIWYG computer interface based on a bitmapped display in the mid-1960s, which is described in his 1967 Penn State thesis, A Hardware-Independent Computer Drawing System Using List-Structured Modeling: The Quick-Draw Graphics System. I couldn't find a link to the thesis itself, but it is referenced in the database of the Software Patent Institute Raskin started the Macintosh project at Apple. Xerox PARC was founded in the year 1970. According to Levy, the Alto prototype was built at the end of 1972. Here's a nice article about the Alto. Here is another interesting site with a number of links to articles on History of Computing So, in the end, I was wrong about multiple windows, wrong about the mouse, right about WSIWYG, and right about all of these existing before the creation of PARC. I apologize for not checking my facts before posting. Finally, to my "small-minded heckler", thank you.
Since you know so much, you're going to tell me when these ideas really were first published, aren't you? Didn't think so.
Neither MS, nor Apple, nor even Xerox invented the WIMP interface we know and love. Overlapping windows were thought up in the '40s, the mouse in the '50s, and WYSIWYG in the '60s, before PARC existed.
According to my analyses, all chips in the Pentium family have performance that scales almost perfectly with clock speed. The "great Intel performance lie" is my name for any claim that a new Pentium has substantially better performance than an older one on the basis of architectural advances.
The PIII is not even the first Pentium to have lower performance per clock rate than its predecessor (if in fact it does). Readers may remember reports that the Pentium Pro ran 16-bit code slower than a Pentium, and all code slower than a Pentium MMX (clock rates being equal).
I maintain that this is the reason Intel generally doesn't make versions their older chips in the same clock rates as the new ones.
I've won some, I've lost some. If you're afraid of losing, make a small, regular investment in an S&P 500 index fund. After 25 years, you'll probably have a fortune.