According to the old magazines, the "Year of the LAN" was in 1986, IIRC. This is about when Novell NetWare 2.x, followed by OS/2 the next year.
Note that most of those early PC LAN installations were ArcNet (Novell) or Token Rink (IBM), or even [gasp] LocalTalk using special cards and software for the PC. Ethernet started getting real big by the late 80s, and UTP cabling cemented it's victory.
Isn't WebTen a version of BSD that runs as a Mac application? -- I know that they make a product called MachTen that is, and WebTen looks like the same thing with a prettified admin interface.
The standard MacOS context menu action is not Ctrl+click (although that often works) -- it's Click+hold for a couple seconds.
Since the default configuration of Windows is to wait about a second before the context menu comes up, it's about the same difference even with one mouse button.
"Compaq OS/2" was a branded version of MS OS/2 (like "Compaq DOS" and even "Compaq Windows") -- in the old days MS didn't feel like slathering their name all over everything.
Anyway, I thought Pathworks was something else entirely different, not that it really matters.
Thank you.
Are you the Hot Grits troll? If only I could be so honored....
I don't think it was just the impression that PS/2 and OS/2 were related -- IBM sold a special "Extended Edition" version of 1.x which only ran on PS/2 hardware. There were also an bunch of tie-ins between OS/2 and IBM's bigger iron products.
The bias was evident also when you looked at the packed-in hardware drivers. It took until version 3.0 until IBM started supporting common 'clone' things like Soundblaster CD-ROMs and HP InkJets out-of-the-box.
People were wary of IBM's plans back in the late 80s -- they were trying to close down the PC market and lock it into proprietary hardware and their closed network infrastructure. When Microsoft jumped ship in 1990, it was official -- the Good Guys were Compaq, Microsoft, Novell, and ISA -- the Bad Guys were IBM, SNA, and MCA. A few years and several billion dollars of red ink later, IBM got a serious attitude adjustment.
As long as there are people willing to write software and contribute to the community, we'll have open source alternatives to most if not all types of software.
It seems that everyone here is looking at the "free beer" Star Office sorta squinty-eyed, while forgetting the number one "free beer" commercial application staring right in their face -- Netscape Communicator 4.x.
Now, we all know that Netscape means well, and you can get source for version 6 betas. But one has to think that the wide availibility and support of a kinda-sorta working web browser is holding back people from developing better alternatives (Mozilla or KDE's thing). "It's good enough" seems to be the general attitude towards NS4, and that has to reduce people's desire to scratch that itch. So they work on something else and sit back and wait until AOL/Time/Warner finishes NS6.
Meanwhile, there are several free beer and source word processors and spreadsheets. Probably because there's no accepted market standard in Unix space, so people can feel like they are making the difference. An established market leader can put the chill on even volunteer projects.
Gack, I lurked in c.o.o.a during 1993-4, and it was pretty much the same, except more upbeat. Expecially around when 'Warp' was released, it read an awful like Slashdot on a bad day.
I says this only because the Linux community should look at the OS/2 community as an object example of how not to act. All you Linux folks -- if World Domination doesn't happen, and instead you top out with a nice 4-5% market share, please please please do not form a FUD army like "Team Linux". The OS/2 Teamers were the worst possible zealots, installing an attitude of defeatism and victimization which succeeded in scaring away the few friends they might have kept.
Well of course they fixed the serious GUI message queue problems, made performance enhancements to the shell, and made the FS layer completely 32bit....
They probably would have liked too, but these design mistakes would have required a serious rewrite. By the time Warp 4 shipped (1994?), the nail was already in the coffin -- OS/2 had been on the market for seven years, and had never found a real corporate market.
Actually, the OS/2 Community and the Linux Community only intersect at the point of Microsoft hatred. Most hard core Unix types want nothing to do with OS/2, lumping it in with Microsoft products in the big scheme of things.
IBM's real problem is that the commercial sites still running OS/2 also happen to be very big mainframe customers. So they have to be delicate. (I used to work at a place that felt shafted about the whole Microchannel thing, and consequentally ran right into Microsoft's arms.)
My understanding is that Microsoft used specific fields defined by MIT for 'vendor extentions'. You'll notice that in the copyright you posted, there is no requirement for the vendor to document their extentions.
Anyway, MS-Kerberos is real Kerberos. All existing Unix and Windows Kerberos clients work against a Win2000 server. Win2000 clients can talk to a Unix Kerberos server. (Embrace)
What Microsoft is doing with their extensions is using them for Windows RPC authentication, something that has nothing to do with the original purpose of Kerberos. (Extend, but legally) The issue is that Samba/MIT-Kerberos can't emulate a Windows 2000 domain controller without (legally) knowing what those extentions do and reimplementing them.
The document in question was a technical specification posted in a technical discussion.
Excuse me why I squirt milk out of my nose, but "Technical Discussion", my farting ass.
The title of the discussion in question was "Kerberos, PACs And Microsoft's Dirty Tricks", and was generally about Microsoft's business practices, and not the details of their Kerberos extention. The most "technical" the discussion got was 200 univac slashbots nerding out on the fact that WinZip opens CAB files. The replys to the copyrighted material were exclusively about whether it was legal to post on Slashdot, and what Microsoft might want to do about it.
Furthermore, most of the numbnuts on this board don't even know what Kerberos is, or why Microsoft would even want to extend it. They are just here to fight the flamewar.
The fact that you'd actually pull some 'fair use' argument out of your stinky bungwa just goes to show how far some people are willing to delude themselves with their own propaganda.
Windows 98 is. Microsoft could probably improve their reputation with this crowd by a couple notches if they cancelled 98 tomorrow and just went with NT.
However, the gamers would freak, because Windows 2000 means they would lose about 5% of their frames. Boo Hoo, and irrelevant with 6 months worth of new hardware. There's also still a few business users with DOS/Win31 apps, but whatever.
This is one of the most insideous aspects of MS's monopoly -- they push a sh*tty OS (9x) on everyone through preload agreements, and then charge a big premium for a nothing more than working version (NT) of they same thing.
Re:Why I gave up on Apple. (They gave up on me.)
on
Apple Delays Mac OS X
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· Score: 1
You would have been just as screwed buying a 286 in 1989 -- within a couple years all software was targeted for a Windows 386 mode.
Who says the Commercial Unix market doesn't like OpenSource? If anything, there might be a prejudice against PC hardware.
These guys think that Motif is the 'standard' because until recently, all of their customers owned machines that came with Motif pre-installed. Now they see that market evoporating, replaced by machines without Motif -- meaning that marketing to the Linux user base is a difficult and expensive task that requires relicencing Motif.
In 1989, Apple was selling the stripped down Mac IIfx model (40Mhz 030, 4MB, 40MB disk) for $10,000. The Unix version was even more expensive, running nearly $20K with a upgraded SCSI card and A/UX. On the other hand, with academic pricing, you could get a SE/30 with A/UX and a 9" screen for maybe $7,000.
An IBM MCA PC could easily run $5,000. A base level Mac SE was $3,000 with no hard drive. Prices were pretty high back then!
Now days there is the mindset that people inevitably upgrade to newer and faster chips when they are released. However, in the 1980s that wasn't necessarily true.
A friend had some old Computer Shopper mags from ~1991 (he did some advert layout back then). Even though i486s were being sold, ads for 1MB 8086 machines were still very common. Even big vendors like IBM and Compaq sold them. And it makes sense -- WordPerfect/DOS really doesn't run much better on a 486 than a 8086
I don't think history is on your side here. The average PC user in 1992 knew how to move files around at a DOS prompt, was capable of formatting their own diskettes, etc etc.
First of all, the number of personal computers in use in 1992 was probably a third of what it is today. The Secretary, Word Processor, and Accountant would have had one - the Middle Manager wouldn't. So, in the last decade, we've taken a whole group of people who primary job function doesn't revolve around computer programs and given them computers.
Second - I actually don't think that "most users" understood how to manipulate files from the DOS prompt. People primarily used the file manager that was built into WordPerfect, and launched applications from a 'boot menu' which used to be a standard part of Novell Netware. It was very common to find every document a user had ever written in their C:\WP\ directory.
Third - In those days, IT departments actually had the concept of Basic User training. They would actually pay money to send people to a class where they were told how to copy their files and print their documents. Even as late as 1996, I worked in a place that required a 4 hour training class before an e-mail logon was issued.
How many of you work at places where you offer any sort of end-user training at all? How many can say that there's been a proactive policy in place to tell users not to click mystery VBS files and so on?
I'd guess not many - the tendancy nowdays is to drop something on a users desk and let them figure it out. Which they sorta do, but not without a few disasters and much snickering by the IT goons.
WinNT4 (a slightly improved "industrial strength" version)
I think that you Mac folks need to get your facts straight. Windows NT is the 'Ground-up Rewrite Modern OS' version of Windows. It also shipped in 1993. (So Apple is ~7 years behind...)
Windows 95 is more like MS's System 7 versus Win 3.1 (System 5, if even).
Of course, NT/2000 has never had a sexy interface overhaul like OS X is getting and Windows 95 got, so the assumption is that it's just a "slightly improved version" of the old OS.
Microsoft's OS strategy is rather bizzare. Imagine if Apple introduces OS X this year, but never stops developing the old OS. In 2007 Apple introduces OS X version 3.0 to much hype, soon to be followed by MacOS System 11.1. This is exactly what Microsoft is doing with Win2000 (3rd major release of NT) and WindowsME (DOS/Windows version 4.2).
You're right -- 'AT&T Broadband Interactive TV' is a WebTV-type box that is hardwired into the Excite portal. Similar to the upcoming AOL Box that will be offered to Warner cable subscribers.
WebTV, if you haven't seen the more recent versions, displays program schedules, switches channels for you, and picks up the URLs they encode in the broadcast signal. It also has a parallel port and supports various HP printers. So AT+T and AOL aren't really blazing new ground here.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the old magazines, the "Year of the LAN" was in 1986, IIRC. This is about when Novell NetWare 2.x, followed by OS/2 the next year.
Note that most of those early PC LAN installations were ArcNet (Novell) or Token Rink (IBM), or even [gasp] LocalTalk using special cards and software for the PC. Ethernet started getting real big by the late 80s, and UTP cabling cemented it's victory.
Isn't WebTen a version of BSD that runs as a Mac application? -- I know that they make a product called MachTen that is, and WebTen looks like the same thing with a prettified admin interface.
The standard MacOS context menu action is not Ctrl+click (although that often works) -- it's Click+hold for a couple seconds.
Since the default configuration of Windows is to wait about a second before the context menu comes up, it's about the same difference even with one mouse button.
"Compaq OS/2" was a branded version of MS OS/2 (like "Compaq DOS" and even "Compaq Windows") -- in the old days MS didn't feel like slathering their name all over everything.
Anyway, I thought Pathworks was something else entirely different, not that it really matters.
Thank you.
Are you the Hot Grits troll? If only I could be so honored....
I don't think it was just the impression that PS/2 and OS/2 were related -- IBM sold a special "Extended Edition" version of 1.x which only ran on PS/2 hardware. There were also an bunch of tie-ins between OS/2 and IBM's bigger iron products.
The bias was evident also when you looked at the packed-in hardware drivers. It took until version 3.0 until IBM started supporting common 'clone' things like Soundblaster CD-ROMs and HP InkJets out-of-the-box.
People were wary of IBM's plans back in the late 80s -- they were trying to close down the PC market and lock it into proprietary hardware and their closed network infrastructure. When Microsoft jumped ship in 1990, it was official -- the Good Guys were Compaq, Microsoft, Novell, and ISA -- the Bad Guys were IBM, SNA, and MCA. A few years and several billion dollars of red ink later, IBM got a serious attitude adjustment.
As long as there are people willing to write software and contribute to the community, we'll have open source alternatives to most if not all types of software.
It seems that everyone here is looking at the "free beer" Star Office sorta squinty-eyed, while forgetting the number one "free beer" commercial application staring right in their face -- Netscape Communicator 4.x.
Now, we all know that Netscape means well, and you can get source for version 6 betas. But one has to think that the wide availibility and support of a kinda-sorta working web browser is holding back people from developing better alternatives (Mozilla or KDE's thing). "It's good enough" seems to be the general attitude towards NS4, and that has to reduce people's desire to scratch that itch. So they work on something else and sit back and wait until AOL/Time/Warner finishes NS6.
Meanwhile, there are several free beer and source word processors and spreadsheets. Probably because there's no accepted market standard in Unix space, so people can feel like they are making the difference. An established market leader can put the chill on even volunteer projects.
Somewhere around I have a Microsoft Multiplan cartridge for the TI99/4A...
I always thought that 3Com 3+Open was a branded version of MS OS/2 Lan Manager .. Now I'm confused - was there a DEC product with the same name?
Part of that "pathetic business and marketing plan" was the OS/2 operating system. One big reason it never caught on.
Gack, I lurked in c.o.o.a during 1993-4, and it was pretty much the same, except more upbeat. Expecially around when 'Warp' was released, it read an awful like Slashdot on a bad day.
I says this only because the Linux community should look at the OS/2 community as an object example of how not to act. All you Linux folks -- if World Domination doesn't happen, and instead you top out with a nice 4-5% market share, please please please do not form a FUD army like "Team Linux". The OS/2 Teamers were the worst possible zealots, installing an attitude of defeatism and victimization which succeeded in scaring away the few friends they might have kept.
Well of course they fixed the serious GUI message queue problems, made performance enhancements to the shell, and made the FS layer completely 32bit....
They probably would have liked too, but these design mistakes would have required a serious rewrite. By the time Warp 4 shipped (1994?), the nail was already in the coffin -- OS/2 had been on the market for seven years, and had never found a real corporate market.
Actually, the OS/2 Community and the Linux Community only intersect at the point of Microsoft hatred. Most hard core Unix types want nothing to do with OS/2, lumping it in with Microsoft products in the big scheme of things.
IBM's real problem is that the commercial sites still running OS/2 also happen to be very big mainframe customers. So they have to be delicate. (I used to work at a place that felt shafted about the whole Microchannel thing, and consequentally ran right into Microsoft's arms.)
Just like most opinions here, that's probably the right place for it.
My understanding is that Microsoft used specific fields defined by MIT for 'vendor extentions'. You'll notice that in the copyright you posted, there is no requirement for the vendor to document their extentions.
Anyway, MS-Kerberos is real Kerberos. All existing Unix and Windows Kerberos clients work against a Win2000 server. Win2000 clients can talk to a Unix Kerberos server. (Embrace)
What Microsoft is doing with their extensions is using them for Windows RPC authentication, something that has nothing to do with the original purpose of Kerberos. (Extend, but legally) The issue is that Samba/MIT-Kerberos can't emulate a Windows 2000 domain controller without (legally) knowing what those extentions do and reimplementing them.
The document in question was a technical specification posted in a technical discussion.
Excuse me why I squirt milk out of my nose, but "Technical Discussion", my farting ass.
The title of the discussion in question was "Kerberos, PACs And Microsoft's Dirty Tricks", and was generally about Microsoft's business practices, and not the details of their Kerberos extention. The most "technical" the discussion got was 200 univac slashbots nerding out on the fact that WinZip opens CAB files. The replys to the copyrighted material were exclusively about whether it was legal to post on Slashdot, and what Microsoft might want to do about it.
Furthermore, most of the numbnuts on this board don't even know what Kerberos is, or why Microsoft would even want to extend it. They are just here to fight the flamewar.
The fact that you'd actually pull some 'fair use' argument out of your stinky bungwa just goes to show how far some people are willing to delude themselves with their own propaganda.
Windows 98 is. Microsoft could probably improve their reputation with this crowd by a couple notches if they cancelled 98 tomorrow and just went with NT.
However, the gamers would freak, because Windows 2000 means they would lose about 5% of their frames. Boo Hoo, and irrelevant with 6 months worth of new hardware. There's also still a few business users with DOS/Win31 apps, but whatever.
This is one of the most insideous aspects of MS's monopoly -- they push a sh*tty OS (9x) on everyone through preload agreements, and then charge a big premium for a nothing more than working version (NT) of they same thing.
You would have been just as screwed buying a 286 in 1989 -- within a couple years all software was targeted for a Windows 386 mode.
Who says the Commercial Unix market doesn't like OpenSource? If anything, there might be a prejudice against PC hardware.
These guys think that Motif is the 'standard' because until recently, all of their customers owned machines that came with Motif pre-installed. Now they see that market evoporating, replaced by machines without Motif -- meaning that marketing to the Linux user base is a difficult and expensive task that requires relicencing Motif.
In 1989, Apple was selling the stripped down Mac IIfx model (40Mhz 030, 4MB, 40MB disk) for $10,000. The Unix version was even more expensive, running nearly $20K with a upgraded SCSI card and A/UX. On the other hand, with academic pricing, you could get a SE/30 with A/UX and a 9" screen for maybe $7,000.
An IBM MCA PC could easily run $5,000. A base level Mac SE was $3,000 with no hard drive. Prices were pretty high back then!
Now days there is the mindset that people inevitably upgrade to newer and faster chips when they are released. However, in the 1980s that wasn't necessarily true.
A friend had some old Computer Shopper mags from ~1991 (he did some advert layout back then). Even though i486s were being sold, ads for 1MB 8086 machines were still very common. Even big vendors like IBM and Compaq sold them. And it makes sense -- WordPerfect/DOS really doesn't run much better on a 486 than a 8086
I don't think history is on your side here. The average PC user in 1992 knew how to move files around at a DOS prompt, was capable of formatting their own diskettes, etc etc.
First of all, the number of personal computers in use in 1992 was probably a third of what it is today. The Secretary, Word Processor, and Accountant would have had one - the Middle Manager wouldn't. So, in the last decade, we've taken a whole group of people who primary job function doesn't revolve around computer programs and given them computers.
Second - I actually don't think that "most users" understood how to manipulate files from the DOS prompt. People primarily used the file manager that was built into WordPerfect, and launched applications from a 'boot menu' which used to be a standard part of Novell Netware. It was very common to find every document a user had ever written in their C:\WP\ directory.
Third - In those days, IT departments actually had the concept of Basic User training. They would actually pay money to send people to a class where they were told how to copy their files and print their documents. Even as late as 1996, I worked in a place that required a 4 hour training class before an e-mail logon was issued.
How many of you work at places where you offer any sort of end-user training at all? How many can say that there's been a proactive policy in place to tell users not to click mystery VBS files and so on?
I'd guess not many - the tendancy nowdays is to drop something on a users desk and let them figure it out. Which they sorta do, but not without a few disasters and much snickering by the IT goons.
WinNT4 (a slightly improved "industrial strength" version)
I think that you Mac folks need to get your facts straight. Windows NT is the 'Ground-up Rewrite Modern OS' version of Windows. It also shipped in 1993. (So Apple is ~7 years behind...)
Windows 95 is more like MS's System 7 versus Win 3.1 (System 5, if even).
Of course, NT/2000 has never had a sexy interface overhaul like OS X is getting and Windows 95 got, so the assumption is that it's just a "slightly improved version" of the old OS.
Microsoft's OS strategy is rather bizzare. Imagine if Apple introduces OS X this year, but never stops developing the old OS. In 2007 Apple introduces OS X version 3.0 to much hype, soon to be followed by MacOS System 11.1. This is exactly what Microsoft is doing with Win2000 (3rd major release of NT) and WindowsME (DOS/Windows version 4.2).
You're right -- 'AT&T Broadband Interactive TV' is a WebTV-type box that is hardwired into the Excite portal. Similar to the upcoming AOL Box that will be offered to Warner cable subscribers.
WebTV, if you haven't seen the more recent versions, displays program schedules, switches channels for you, and picks up the URLs they encode in the broadcast signal. It also has a parallel port and supports various HP printers. So AT+T and AOL aren't really blazing new ground here.
IIRC, Poloroid made a similar unit that printed TV stills on 600-series film.
How about Photoshop running on (very common) SMP Wintel boxes? That should beat the single CPU G4.