You have a point. I have seen very lousy programmers too. Unfortunately also with people that actually have a computer at home. I was talking about programmers on big company machines (AS/400, good 'ole VAXes, Oracle PL/SQL wizards). Those people have no need to code at home to learn at home: they learn on the spot and are trained as nessecary. I agree that people developping for the desktop/internet (as I do, and I don't claim being a good programmer, a decent one tough) have to keep up with the fast pace, but backend people are a bit more relaxed. Of course I work in a conservative environment (banking), so they are not very likely to update to other types of machines in the backend.
I actually refused a company laptop (which upset management very badly) because I run my own systems and cherish my old hardware (but that's another story) Truly excelling programmers have indeed what you call passion for the machines, and will like to code at home and learn on themselves completely new (and eventually weird) things. This is what I called "tech-lifestyle" but "passion" is, I agree, the better word.
Glad I got a truly insightful posts as a reply. It is so rare these days:-)
I bought a Psion Revo Plus about 2 months ago...at full price (435 Euro). I have been very pleased with it: it is a great machine and stylish too. Problem with Psion PDA's is they last a very very long time: I had my Siena (512K) for about 3 years before the keyboard started having trouble. Great excuse to buy a new PDA...which I did. But disassembling the Siena and cleaning it a bit and it works again: my sis now uses it. I know some people who still use Psions that only have 2 or 4 line text displays. Those had keyboards in alphabethical order by the way.
Now, I count on my Revo for the next 3 years (ouch, synchornization software might become hard to find! Damnit!), but after that? I hope there will be *good* alternatives then. I mean with build in spreadsheet (I use that all the time, and Palms do not have it *by default*), and preferably with a keyboard. I tried Palms, even tough grafitti is fun, it cannot be used to write a 3 page email. (Yes, I do that, and yes I check email with my Psion by using my cellphone)
Yes, this is not bound to CS at all: it is a human problem of over-inflated ego and not knowing what "to work" is. The problem is more apparent in CS because you are valued for your "so-said" technical skills and are often hired by unknowledgable people.
If you come from a university context where you saw all the beautiful theory and you tell yourself "I will never make dirty hacks because it is A Bad Thing(tm)". You see: you can get through CS education without ever learing more than what is told in classes. Believe me, I have seen this. Working on private projects really helps to see how things really are, it prepares you at least a bit for what is to come when you have a degree and have to make your daily dollar. The day you come in a working environment you will see badly designed databases, overcomplex-class structures, dirty unmaintainable code...you will see it, and you will have to *work* with it. Those that adapt quickly become the average/good programmers that get the job done and get along with everyone, those that refuse to adapt, well that IMHO are the potential primadonna's.
Oh, and yes, I have a CS-degree, but I quickly learned that any degree is just a key to start a bit higher in the carreer ladder. After that, you're on your own.
Pulled out of context this looks stupid. But why do programmers increment typically a index (i)? Simple in a loop: and if the code within the loop is quite complex a nice "increment i" comment can do wonders, because it *screams* "Hey look here, the index is incremented here", you know i++ is very easily overlooked when skimming over code.
Never put anything out of context...oh, well, you might, if you were a reporter or a politician;-)
I have seen software engineers that didn't know clusters from sectors in a FAT16 partition. I had to teach them as a fresh-out-of-university guy. (Note I didn't learn about such things in CS) I like the guy, he is very competent in most other fields.
I tell you this to make clear that being a "professional programmer" of "software engineer" isn't nessecary knowing every detail. Not every programmer is a tech in the slashdot-sense. I know tons of programmers that do a good (great?) job that do not even have a PC at home, neither an internet connection. For them "programming" is their job, and that's it: the techies slashdot is talking about are those that have taken the tech-lifestyle which are two completely different things.
As a final note: remember that it is not possible to remember every tiny little detail about every platform you ever worked on. Hey even when I had to switch form NT to W2K at work I got disoriented, or using Linux at home make me hit the man pages all the time (if I know what I'm looking for). It's just not possible to know all nitty-gritty details. So not knowing about clusters or network control panels is not a sign of incompetence, because in other fields the person might excell.
I had a Model M (Belgian Layout), sad thing is last week I spilled a glass of wine over it. No way to get to run it again:-((( It was still sooo young, from 1989 (if I recall correctly).
Wish I could get a replacement for it that has the same feeling. I wouldn't even mind shelling out some good hard earned cash to replace it. I'm going to check that link out, perhaps I'll find recomfort:-)
I am willing to pay for content. I actually do, but not the way you actually think. Most people think of Micropayments when they say "paying for content", and Micropayments are just not there yet. At least not for Europe, and I just will not use my credit card to pay something like 0.075$. Most of the time, I try to buy products associated with the "online" services. For example I like online comics. Two regulars I visit are Userfriendly and General Protection Fault . For both comics I bought the albums, not because I expected new content but to make sure I still can get my comics online. This can have adverse effects, because I once had the bad luck buying books from a service that became paying afterward. Of course I was pissed, but it's the gamble you take.
If you consider slashdot as "content", well, in some way I payed: I saw the ThinkGeek ads and some products appealed to me, and so I bought those items. Perhaps not the best example, but you get the idea.
Oh, and how explain that people pay for pr0n? That is "content", isn't it? Well, okay, perhaps not "content" in the usual form, but nevertheless.
Now as a final, I think your example of ringing tones for your cellphone is really ridiculous. I don't really care that my cellphone rings some Britney Spears song or the nice classic "Dring Dring" that was anyway built into my phone. Up until 6 months ago, I had a 5 year old cellphone (may it rest in peace) that "only" had 10 ringing tones. I can hardly count ring-tones as "content", I'm really sorry. A phone is for calling and not for listening to rings.
So in summary:
People will pay for content
The content must be worthwhile
Some international easy way of paying small amounts must be set into place by major banks. (So don't start egold and the likes, because they are at the fringe of legality...yes I work at a bank)
May I know how VAT is bad? The concept of the "Value Added Tax" is this: you have a product, for example "Wood", you do work on it and make a "Table" of it. You added value to the wood by doing some work. You now sell this with profit. So far everything is okay, now the VAT is just a tax on "the work you did". Since you don't want to pay it, it will be your customer that pays it. This is economy 101. Oh, you complain that VAT is unfair, but excuse me: I think taxes on gasoline are unfair (they are calles "accijns" in my language and I have no clue what it is in english). I have to pay them anyway! If you don't want taxes, abolish governement and see how well that goes. Besides, did you ever shop in the US? I did. All the prices are shown without taxes, and thus you get your "surprise" (Sales Tax etc...) when paying. Honestly, I prefer the european system: take the tax for granted and don't even notice it anymore.
To stay on topic a bit at least: I think that even the name "KIllustrator" should be kept. I mean, next time I refer to my uncle as an illustrator (which is his job) I have to fear for a letter from Adobe's Lawyers. It's a word, nothing more nothing less.
Okay, the author agrees to change the name, that is very obedient of him, I repect that, but the "fine" is outrageous. Sounds like extortion to me: their are friendlier way to communicate.
As for concerning the lawyers in Germany (I work for a german bank, heard the following from native germans), it seems that Germany has a an enourmous amount of lawyers because the laws are so complex, that nobody really understands them anymore. This is especially true for tax-law, but it could be very well that it is worse in IP-law.
Actually at work I always use a large injury (with a number so I don't have to change it completely): fuckWorkAgain12 or so....
Really is a good start in the morning, believe me;-)
...but don't you think the GBA looks really like the Sega Game Gear (I own one, didn't turn it on in ages tough) but just slightly flatter and in white. Oh, well probably the technology is much different (Sega Game Gear was a Z80 IIRC). Oh, why the change of size: I always thought that the form of the original Gameboy was used to easily put it in the back pocket of your jeans.
Well I like the boot messages....At least you see what your computer is working on. A lot of modern computers show a bitmap while doing POST (Dell screen, Toshiba screen, Tulip screen, whatever...). I disable it when possible because I like to see my puter check it's memory, giving a report of IRQ usage, PCI bus stuff, SCSI finding the drives, etc...
I just like to be informed...That's all...
Ehm, yes...but actually I would prefer that it would open Eudora, because that is what I use on my Windows machines. Does it do that, or do I have to hack the registry manually?
Besides, I don't think saving the "user session completely" is a good thing. I do very different things every day: and it's not that I'm coding Java today that I will be doing that the next time I start my computer. The few clicks that I need to start a program won't kill my productivity. In KDE2, I never choose to "save a session". I don't need it, I know what I do.
The smart Start menu (like in W2K and 98) is a pain: I prefer to keep my Start Menu clean myself. Like grouping applications in one folder...ditching folders with company names,ditching links to helpfiles and/or textfiles, etc....You get a lean small start menu. Of course I turn of the "Smart Start Menu", because I just don't find it smart.
But of course you could call me conservative, I guess?
We can at least hope. Maybe, eventually, they'll even get rid of Clippy.
Clipp got fired/retired with the release of Office XP. Go and visit the website, it's quite funny. (Was reported on/. I just don't seem to find the link)
I was talking about the waiting times that apply on the network I have set up personally...I guarantee you: it's not much slower. So on the network I set up it was completely "user transparent". The only thing that freaked out users was the weird question with the 30 second timeout if they did not properly shut down their machine.
As for the redirection of My Documents: I never ever had a problem with it (not at home, not at work). Points to "J:\Eigene Dateien" fine all the time and I'm working with a roaming profile here. Be sure to search the *whole* registry for "My Documents" each time you installed a MS product. They are quite pedantic on it (I loathe it...what is wrong with "home"?), and don't use theire base registry keys. Same for "Program Files", I have seen it hardcoded in many installers...on my machine it's E:\WinApp and it stays that way.
Of course I prefer an XSession to the local Solaris machine...
I stand corrected.... I didn't think of it that way: I thought more of less effectieve old power supplies or so. You make sense...any idea where I can get those silent 100W 486es?
Insighful? Flamebait at most!
Recycling old machines for more apropriate tasks is a noble cause IMHO. You give opportunities to people with a lesser income. Not everyone is able to buy a 1000$ machine (where I live, that's the about price of a low-end new machine) Don't count on second-hand machines (think P-II), they are in comparison overpriced to the new machines.
I'm not a tree-hugger, but think about the waste that is in older computers. Modern machines are built a bit more with environment-issues in mind (more easy to recyle the components), but older machines weren't at all. So dumping those machines just makes toxic landfill (lead for example) Of course, you can still argue that old machines use much more electricity.
I don't think the re-using of old machinery is done by the common Joe-Sixpack: it will be done by knowledgable people (IT departements, geeks). Imagine: graphics card fried, no problem: some of the old machines will just serve as "organ donors".
In your argumentation everyone should be running a AMD Athlon 1.4GHz or a P-IV 1.4Ghz. Now, well: for most work this power is overkill (think secretary using Word, or Manager making a powerpoint presentation). In your mind everyone should buy a computer every 6 months, which implies migration from one machine to another (data, preferences). This is a lot of work if you have a lot of data, eventually getting used to a new OS. I'd say: think again. A lot of people (even a lot of geeks) prefer to see a computer as an investment over a longer time. For me this period of time is 5 years. 1 year Top-machine, 2 years mid-machine and 3 years low-end machine. I am gratefull for 486 firewalls/router at home, and if I can get hold on another a nice fileserver will be implemented. Obsolete doens't mean unusable...it just means a bit more work (and fun) to continue to use it.
Have to agree on this one: Peanut is an excellent distro for older machines. I run the 8.4 right now on an older P120/32Meg....with KDE2 it slacks a bit now, but with KDE it worked really fine (not even swap was used!). And as an X-term, it works like a dream.
Well I like the Roaming Profile thingy to some extent: it protects the user from losing things due to BSODs and is quite transparent to the user....The big problem is the "writing" of the "My Documents" part. (You can redirect it to a mounted "drive" on your samba-server, i know, so it is fixable) If some people store all stupid joke-movie they get by email in their My Documents and also all their MP3's you have to transfer all those files over the network to the server. Very funny if nearly everyone leaves work at about 17:30.... It nearly takes half an hour to log out! (100Mps network...seen this personally)
Now, you sound like someone who did the DOS -> Win311 -> Win9x -> W2K path (except for the comment you compiled the Linux kernel on a 386, but I doubt that, I suspect a Troll you know). No harm done, so did I. Just about a year and a half ago (seems ages to me) I started to experiment with Linux. Separate partition of my P-III/384Meg desktop and pure Linux on my laptop (P120/32Meg). You know....just for experimenting. Real work(tm) was done under W2K.
But fortuna was not with me: three weeks ago my workstation screen got busted (power-supply, *urks*). Then I remembered (well, I use it every day at work) that X-Terms could be used instead of logging in locally to the machine. It was some (slow, on the P120) surfing to find a HOW-TO and some hours of fiddling. I'm sure it is not the *best* setup aound, but it works. Everything is fast on my P-III and the P120 doesn't even swap when working.
Could I have done this with a Windows solution? Probably...but not without buying third party software (okay, I know about VNC....no flames needed). At least, I can do everything I need. X-terminals "converted" me: as soon as I have my screen back, I think I'll have some partitions to kill (or at least reduce...you know for the games *grin*)
See, so your so called "old technology" saved me from buying a new screen for the month the repair takes (yup, that's what they said at the shop...lazy worthless bunch!) and my work is done. Neat, isn't it?
Oh, and what goes for the comment about "bad video cards" in 486 machines. Ehm, it doesn't have to be the latest NVidia GeMaxiForce 3000. You know it is 2D most of the time, so think more like an older Matrox PCI card (very good in 2D!), with 8Meg video RAM you can easily display 1600x1200@24bit...My monitor doens't even do that.
I was a major OS/2 fan back in the days (1993-1995), so my opinions may not be completely accurate.
OS/2 had a major drawback: the lack of applications and drivers (I remember buying drivers for OS/2 for a certain device...). This was a really serious issue. Back in the day, I ran mostly DOS stuff and Win 3.11 stuff on it. The advantage was simple: app goes down, system stays up. I even used the office package (very usable!) that came with the bonus pack with OS/2 Warp to write papers. Needless to say that I can't read those docs nowadays. (not that I need to, mind...) For the rest: nope...nothing available for reasonable prices. This lack kept back a lot of WfW3.11 users to jump over to the sleeker OS/2.
Linux doesn't have this disadvantage: most things do exist....not always completely usable by the "normal user" but usable nevertheless. The backing of a big company could for instance make the support/implementation better for existing appications.
As for marketing campaings: back in the days OS/2 was "hot" there were numerous full-page ads in business magazines (mouse talking to an elephant comes to mind, so does a ferrari with bike pedals which made a bit of a derision of Windows without naming it). The ads were not targeted to the general public as for Windows 95 (no TV ads, no hype) but they were there. Don't forget that OS/2 was thought back then for the business customer...I think that was the major mistake, but IBM can learn from mistakes, I hope. Besides, did you ever see a mainstream ad for Windows NT4? I don't think so.
Look at the definition of RISC. First thought to look it up in the jargon lexicon but to my surprise RISC/CISC weren't included. But then, I probably have been trolled?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that people developping for the desktop/internet (as I do, and I don't claim being a good programmer, a decent one tough) have to keep up with the fast pace, but backend people are a bit more relaxed. Of course I work in a conservative environment (banking), so they are not very likely to update to other types of machines in the backend.
I actually refused a company laptop (which upset management very badly) because I run my own systems and cherish my old hardware (but that's another story) Truly excelling programmers have indeed what you call passion for the machines, and will like to code at home and learn on themselves completely new (and eventually weird) things. This is what I called "tech-lifestyle" but "passion" is, I agree, the better word. :-)
Glad I got a truly insightful posts as a reply. It is so rare these days
Now, I count on my Revo for the next 3 years (ouch, synchornization software might become hard to find! Damnit!), but after that? I hope there will be *good* alternatives then. I mean with build in spreadsheet (I use that all the time, and Palms do not have it *by default*), and preferably with a keyboard. I tried Palms, even tough grafitti is fun, it cannot be used to write a 3 page email. (Yes, I do that, and yes I check email with my Psion by using my cellphone)
Yes, this is not bound to CS at all: it is a human problem of over-inflated ego and not knowing what "to work" is. The problem is more apparent in CS because you are valued for your "so-said" technical skills and are often hired by unknowledgable people.
If you come from a university context where you saw all the beautiful theory and you tell yourself "I will never make dirty hacks because it is A Bad Thing(tm)". You see: you can get through CS education without ever learing more than what is told in classes. Believe me, I have seen this. Working on private projects really helps to see how things really are, it prepares you at least a bit for what is to come when you have a degree and have to make your daily dollar.
The day you come in a working environment you will see badly designed databases, overcomplex-class structures, dirty unmaintainable code...you will see it, and you will have to *work* with it. Those that adapt quickly become the average/good programmers that get the job done and get along with everyone, those that refuse to adapt, well that IMHO are the potential primadonna's.
Oh, and yes, I have a CS-degree, but I quickly learned that any degree is just a key to start a bit higher in the carreer ladder. After that, you're on your own.
Never put anything out of context...oh, well, you might, if you were a reporter or a politician ;-)
I tell you this to make clear that being a "professional programmer" of "software engineer" isn't nessecary knowing every detail. Not every programmer is a tech in the slashdot-sense. I know tons of programmers that do a good (great?) job that do not even have a PC at home, neither an internet connection. For them "programming" is their job, and that's it: the techies slashdot is talking about are those that have taken the tech-lifestyle which are two completely different things.
As a final note: remember that it is not possible to remember every tiny little detail about every platform you ever worked on. Hey even when I had to switch form NT to W2K at work I got disoriented, or using Linux at home make me hit the man pages all the time (if I know what I'm looking for). It's just not possible to know all nitty-gritty details. So not knowing about clusters or network control panels is not a sign of incompetence, because in other fields the person might excell.
Wish I could get a replacement for it that has the same feeling. I wouldn't even mind shelling out some good hard earned cash to replace it. I'm going to check that link out, perhaps I'll find recomfort :-)
Most of the time, I try to buy products associated with the "online" services. For example I like online comics. Two regulars I visit are Userfriendly and General Protection Fault . For both comics I bought the albums, not because I expected new content but to make sure I still can get my comics online. This can have adverse effects, because I once had the bad luck buying books from a service that became paying afterward. Of course I was pissed, but it's the gamble you take.
If you consider slashdot as "content", well, in some way I payed: I saw the ThinkGeek ads and some products appealed to me, and so I bought those items. Perhaps not the best example, but you get the idea.
Oh, and how explain that people pay for pr0n? That is "content", isn't it? Well, okay, perhaps not "content" in the usual form, but nevertheless.
Now as a final, I think your example of ringing tones for your cellphone is really ridiculous. I don't really care that my cellphone rings some Britney Spears song or the nice classic "Dring Dring" that was anyway built into my phone. Up until 6 months ago, I had a 5 year old cellphone (may it rest in peace) that "only" had 10 ringing tones. I can hardly count ring-tones as "content", I'm really sorry. A phone is for calling and not for listening to rings.
So in summary:
....because I'm sure she smells exactly like me, after she has been running and jumping through that movie all the time. ^_^
Oh, you complain that VAT is unfair, but excuse me: I think taxes on gasoline are unfair (they are calles "accijns" in my language and I have no clue what it is in english). I have to pay them anyway! If you don't want taxes, abolish governement and see how well that goes.
Besides, did you ever shop in the US? I did. All the prices are shown without taxes, and thus you get your "surprise" (Sales Tax etc...) when paying. Honestly, I prefer the european system: take the tax for granted and don't even notice it anymore.
To stay on topic a bit at least: I think that even the name "KIllustrator" should be kept. I mean, next time I refer to my uncle as an illustrator (which is his job) I have to fear for a letter from Adobe's Lawyers. It's a word, nothing more nothing less.
Okay, the author agrees to change the name, that is very obedient of him, I repect that, but the "fine" is outrageous. Sounds like extortion to me: their are friendlier way to communicate.
As for concerning the lawyers in Germany (I work for a german bank, heard the following from native germans), it seems that Germany has a an enourmous amount of lawyers because the laws are so complex, that nobody really understands them anymore. This is especially true for tax-law, but it could be very well that it is worse in IP-law.
Shoudn't this article have the "funny" icon?
Actually at work I always use a large injury (with a number so I don't have to change it completely): fuckWorkAgain12 or so.... ;-)
Really is a good start in the morning, believe me
...but don't you think the GBA looks really like the Sega Game Gear (I own one, didn't turn it on in ages tough) but just slightly flatter and in white. Oh, well probably the technology is much different (Sega Game Gear was a Z80 IIRC).
Oh, why the change of size: I always thought that the form of the original Gameboy was used to easily put it in the back pocket of your jeans.
Read the post again please...I clearly state that the P120 is a laptop. I want to see how you connect a laptop screen to a desktop machine.
Well I like the boot messages....At least you see what your computer is working on. A lot of modern computers show a bitmap while doing POST (Dell screen, Toshiba screen, Tulip screen, whatever...). I disable it when possible because I like to see my puter check it's memory, giving a report of IRQ usage, PCI bus stuff, SCSI finding the drives, etc...
I just like to be informed...That's all...
Ehm, yes...but actually I would prefer that it would open Eudora, because that is what I use on my Windows machines. Does it do that, or do I have to hack the registry manually?
Besides, I don't think saving the "user session completely" is a good thing. I do very different things every day: and it's not that I'm coding Java today that I will be doing that the next time I start my computer. The few clicks that I need to start a program won't kill my productivity. In KDE2, I never choose to "save a session". I don't need it, I know what I do.
The smart Start menu (like in W2K and 98) is a pain: I prefer to keep my Start Menu clean myself. Like grouping applications in one folder...ditching folders with company names,ditching links to helpfiles and/or textfiles, etc....You get a lean small start menu. Of course I turn of the "Smart Start Menu", because I just don't find it smart.
But of course you could call me conservative, I guess?
Clipp got fired/retired with the release of Office XP. Go and visit the website, it's quite funny. (Was reported on /. I just don't seem to find the link)
As for the redirection of My Documents: I never ever had a problem with it (not at home, not at work). Points to "J:\Eigene Dateien" fine all the time and I'm working with a roaming profile here. Be sure to search the *whole* registry for "My Documents" each time you installed a MS product. They are quite pedantic on it (I loathe it...what is wrong with "home"?), and don't use theire base registry keys. Same for "Program Files", I have seen it hardcoded in many installers...on my machine it's E:\WinApp and it stays that way.
Of course I prefer an XSession to the local Solaris machine...
I stand corrected.... I didn't think of it that way: I thought more of less effectieve old power supplies or so. You make sense...any idea where I can get those silent 100W 486es?
Recycling old machines for more apropriate tasks is a noble cause IMHO. You give opportunities to people with a lesser income. Not everyone is able to buy a 1000$ machine (where I live, that's the about price of a low-end new machine) Don't count on second-hand machines (think P-II), they are in comparison overpriced to the new machines.
I'm not a tree-hugger, but think about the waste that is in older computers. Modern machines are built a bit more with environment-issues in mind (more easy to recyle the components), but older machines weren't at all. So dumping those machines just makes toxic landfill (lead for example) Of course, you can still argue that old machines use much more electricity.
I don't think the re-using of old machinery is done by the common Joe-Sixpack: it will be done by knowledgable people (IT departements, geeks). Imagine: graphics card fried, no problem: some of the old machines will just serve as "organ donors".
In your argumentation everyone should be running a AMD Athlon 1.4GHz or a P-IV 1.4Ghz. Now, well: for most work this power is overkill (think secretary using Word, or Manager making a powerpoint presentation). In your mind everyone should buy a computer every 6 months, which implies migration from one machine to another (data, preferences). This is a lot of work if you have a lot of data, eventually getting used to a new OS. I'd say: think again. A lot of people (even a lot of geeks) prefer to see a computer as an investment over a longer time. For me this period of time is 5 years. 1 year Top-machine, 2 years mid-machine and 3 years low-end machine. I am gratefull for 486 firewalls/router at home, and if I can get hold on another a nice fileserver will be implemented. Obsolete doens't mean unusable...it just means a bit more work (and fun) to continue to use it.
Have to agree on this one: Peanut is an excellent distro for older machines. I run the 8.4 right now on an older P120/32Meg....with KDE2 it slacks a bit now, but with KDE it worked really fine (not even swap was used!). And as an X-term, it works like a dream.
Well I like the Roaming Profile thingy to some extent: it protects the user from losing things due to BSODs and is quite transparent to the user....The big problem is the "writing" of the "My Documents" part. (You can redirect it to a mounted "drive" on your samba-server, i know, so it is fixable)
If some people store all stupid joke-movie they get by email in their My Documents and also all their MP3's you have to transfer all those files over the network to the server. Very funny if nearly everyone leaves work at about 17:30.... It nearly takes half an hour to log out! (100Mps network...seen this personally)
But fortuna was not with me: three weeks ago my workstation screen got busted (power-supply, *urks*). Then I remembered (well, I use it every day at work) that X-Terms could be used instead of logging in locally to the machine. It was some (slow, on the P120) surfing to find a HOW-TO and some hours of fiddling. I'm sure it is not the *best* setup aound, but it works. Everything is fast on my P-III and the P120 doesn't even swap when working.
Could I have done this with a Windows solution? Probably...but not without buying third party software (okay, I know about VNC....no flames needed). At least, I can do everything I need. X-terminals "converted" me: as soon as I have my screen back, I think I'll have some partitions to kill (or at least reduce...you know for the games *grin*)
See, so your so called "old technology" saved me from buying a new screen for the month the repair takes (yup, that's what they said at the shop...lazy worthless bunch!) and my work is done. Neat, isn't it?
Oh, and what goes for the comment about "bad video cards" in 486 machines. Ehm, it doesn't have to be the latest NVidia GeMaxiForce 3000. You know it is 2D most of the time, so think more like an older Matrox PCI card (very good in 2D!), with 8Meg video RAM you can easily display 1600x1200@24bit...My monitor doens't even do that.
OS/2 had a major drawback: the lack of applications and drivers (I remember buying drivers for OS/2 for a certain device...). This was a really serious issue. Back in the day, I ran mostly DOS stuff and Win 3.11 stuff on it. The advantage was simple: app goes down, system stays up. I even used the office package (very usable!) that came with the bonus pack with OS/2 Warp to write papers. Needless to say that I can't read those docs nowadays. (not that I need to, mind...) For the rest: nope...nothing available for reasonable prices. This lack kept back a lot of WfW3.11 users to jump over to the sleeker OS/2.
Linux doesn't have this disadvantage: most things do exist....not always completely usable by the "normal user" but usable nevertheless. The backing of a big company could for instance make the support/implementation better for existing appications.
As for marketing campaings: back in the days OS/2 was "hot" there were numerous full-page ads in business magazines (mouse talking to an elephant comes to mind, so does a ferrari with bike pedals which made a bit of a derision of Windows without naming it). The ads were not targeted to the general public as for Windows 95 (no TV ads, no hype) but they were there. Don't forget that OS/2 was thought back then for the business customer...I think that was the major mistake, but IBM can learn from mistakes, I hope. Besides, did you ever see a mainstream ad for Windows NT4? I don't think so.
....now we will get links to http://www.spaceport.cx/ hidden all over the place. Oh, well it's better than goatse.cx ^_^
Look at the definition of RISC. First thought to look it up in the jargon lexicon but to my surprise RISC/CISC weren't included.
But then, I probably have been trolled?