I suspect you haven't seen Windows 1.x. I've got a copy running on an old IBM PC/AT-339.
It is color on an EGA system (and B&W on a CGA system). It has tiled windows. They'd only be quarters if you had four programs running. It has icons, fucking or otherwise.
Obviously you've never seen a Xerox Alto or or Xerox Star. Obviously you've never seen Smalltalk-80 running on them.
These systems had mouse support, pop-up menus, scrolling resizable windows, bitmapped fonts in various sizes, a bitmapped graphics display. None of which was "random menus and buttons everywhere". Nor was it a command line interface although you could open a command line window.
About the biggest differences between the Xerox system and the Mac system is:
Xerox had dynamically appearing scrollbars on the left
Apple had statically appearing scrollbars on the right
Xerox used context sensitive popup menus keyed off the right mouse button that appeared at the mouse location
The lawsuit filed against Microsoft ended in a settlement, which means that Microsoft didn't want it to go to court. Wrong. It went to court. Repeatedly. Apple lost. Apple appealed and Apple lost the appeal.
The read story is that Apple sued Microsoft for Windows 2.1 and HP for their Windows shell. During the trial, Xerox sued Apple. Xerox claimed that the look and feel was not copyrightable but that if it was then Apple had no claim to sue since the elements sued over had been developed by Xerox and not Apple.
Actually, that was a separate incident many years later. The look and feel lawsuit was done about Windows 2.1 and was resolved around the time of Windows 3.0. The Apple bailout was only a couple of years ago.
And the look and feel case (brought by Apple not by Microsoft) was settled by Apple losing almost every one of the points they sued over. And it was settled almost a decade before the $200M investment. (Gee, seems like the original poster got about none of it right)
OS X is exactly the mix of GUI and hard-core "from a main-frame" heritage foundation we need
The "from a main-frame" is exactly what Raskin designed the original Mac (not the one that was produced) and the Canon Cat to avoid. Mainframes are good at supporting a large number of not particularly interactive users who are paid to enter data. Exactly the right model for when processors cost more than a years salary. Exactly the wrong model for computing when throwing processors at a problem is cheaper than throwing people at it. Face it. Big Iron and Big Brother are generally friends.
Nah, it isn't a waste when the people you give the money to give some of it back to elect your friends and pay for your next campaign. Remember that we've got a Bush in the White House again.
Remember Win3.* that would not run under ANY DOS unless it was MS DOS?
No. I don't. What I do remember (and I was around then) was a beta test version of Win 3.1 which would only run on a few specific versions of MS-DOS because that was what the beta was actually testing and blocked any other choices. Of course, you may find the urban legend more fun...
This is easily the first time I've ever seen a report about Microsoft on the local Eleven O'Clock News before it was on Slashdot.
Then you haven't been paying attention! Remember that this is the same site that refused (repeatedly) to have any stories on Windows 2000 shipping. It was considered less newsworthy than reposting the latest driver betas from freshmeat.
And Transmeta got it. The AMD deal has allowed Transmeta to produce the only things they've been competitively successful at shipping: Press Releases and Slashdot articles.
We've got 50 posts or so and most of them are about them being evil for not supporting the posters favorite choice of licensing agreement. Is Slashdot now News for Lawyers?
The remaining ones are about whether they should call themselves an OS and whether they should use the name Athena. Is Slashdot now News for Editors?
How about some actual discussion of the technology involved? Are there no nerds left on here?
1 - I would like to see your figures on Visual Basic being the most popular programing language in history. It might be the most popular in the last three years for Virus writers, but we have a long history of programing languages going back to ADA. I am sure that there have been PLENTY of programing languages which have beat out Visual Basic in popularity.
The press releases about VB being the most used programming language in history came out about two years ago. Before that it was COBOL. Look it up if you think there's anything else close. And remember that for every C++ programmer, there are about 100 VB programmers.
The language that a few e-mail viruses (actually trojan horses not viruses) were written in is not Visual Basic but VBScript and could just have easily been written in JavaScript if the script kiddies who pasted them together had copied those routines instead. Most actual viruses seem to be written in C, by the way.
ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act. You're probably referring to Ada Augusta Byron, Countess of Loveless (or the DOD specified programming language but that would make even less sense.)
2 - You are trying to oversimplify my statement. What I am, in fact, saying is this: Standards are only good when they are IN FACT standards. A standard that only works on one platform is HARDLY a true standard. Standards, by reason, should be able to be implement on ANY platform - Windows, UNIX, OS/2, MacOS, BEOS, etc. To claim something to be "The Standard" when it only operates on a single platform is JUST WRONG.
No, I'm not oversimplifying, I'm restating.
So you are saying that standards aren't True Standards but are something else unless they are standards? But then they may or may not be "The Standard" (which is a newspaper) OK.
And you're saying that a de facto standard is the only real standard but only if it is implemented on multiple platforms but a fully documented standard controlled by an open international standards body that isn't used on more than one system isn't a standard. Oh, and lastly to be a standard, it has to appeal to what you thing isn't JUST WRONG.
By the way. To actually answer your point, there are lots of standards. Some are designed to be cross platform, some aren't. The UI standard for the MacOS is a standard. It is hardly cross platform. The specifications for IBM's PL/AS programming language is a standard. It is not cross platform. Cross platform standards need to be cross platform. Other ones don't. Your deciding that only one type of standard should exist may be self gratifying but it isn't based on anything else.
You'd have to look hard to find it. The accusations were big front page articles. The analysis that showed that MS didn't do what they'd been loudly accused of was a small page 4 (or so) article since "Man didn't really bite dog as implied in earlier stories" isn't headline material.
As I recall, the uproar was over Bill repeatedly asking for clarification of the wording of questions in the deposition to the point where it annoyed the DOJ lawyer.
Depositions are typically very precise and "Did you send this e-mail" and "Do you remember sending this e-mail" are very different questions. In one case I remember, Bill was asked if he remembered sending a piece of e-mail and said no. Later, he was asked if he sent the e-mail in question and he said that he probably did send it. Not a contradiction (if you send several thousand pieces of mail a year it is unlikely you'll remember them all several years later especially under oath) but it is lousy television and something that can look like being caught in a lie if the viewer doesn't pay attention.
Apparently a number of them caused uproar in the court room.
Yes, they apparently did. But you said that he had been "saying stuff that only 15 minutes before had been determined to be false" and that he "openly lied" and called for a perjury charge.
That's a little different than "they caused uproar".
The real question is why this is better for the public (not just for competing software companies) than what the Appeals Court set down as their test. What they said was that an integrated product constitutes a single product for purposes of antitrust law as long as there are facially plausible benefits to the consumer from the integrated design. They also said that this analysis does not require a court to find that an integrated product is superior to its stand-alone rivals.
Remember he was on a big screen saying stuff that only 15 minutes before had been determined to be false?
No. Actually, I don't remember that happening at all. What was it about? What was "determined to be false"? And where did you see it considering that the video testimony wasn't televised except in a few 5-10 second sound bites? Oh, and do you remember that Bill Gates didn't actually testify at the trial? (check the witness list if you don't remember that)
Remember the judge violating his own gag order to tell the media that he couldn't believe how brash Microsoft had been?
Yes. That I remember. Last I'd heard, being brash wasn't "openly lying" nor was it grounds for perjury. (of course, a seated federal judge discussing testimony during a trial with the press may well be grounds for dismissal but that's another issue)
Microsoft openly lied to this court on numerous occasions...
Care to actually cite when this happened? I've read the transcript and didn't see it. Maybe I missed it in the several thousand pages of testimony. I suspect this is just wishful thinking on your part.
You don't need to cite the actual court record details but at least which person and what you say they lied about. (Since you're accusing them of a felony, it seems reaonable to at least mention the details)
Remember, there is a big difference between having some organization stamp it's approval on a piece of software and claiming that it is a "standard" and having the programing community actually use your software (which is where real standards show themselves.)
So you are arguing that de facto standards based on what programmers are really using are good and standards held by international standards bodies are bad. So you are saying that the Visual Basic language is good since it is the most popular de facto standard for a programming language in history and C is bad since there's an actual standards organization specifying it?
Slashdot Mirror
It is color on an EGA system (and B&W on a CGA system). It has tiled windows. They'd only be quarters if you had four programs running. It has icons, fucking or otherwise.
No. They sued Digital Research over GEM and DR caved and changed their look and feel. It never went to court.
These systems had mouse support, pop-up menus, scrolling resizable windows, bitmapped fonts in various sizes, a bitmapped graphics display. None of which was "random menus and buttons everywhere". Nor was it a command line interface although you could open a command line window.
About the biggest differences between the Xerox system and the Mac system is:
The lawsuit filed against Microsoft ended in a settlement, which means that Microsoft didn't want it to go to court. Wrong. It went to court. Repeatedly. Apple lost. Apple appealed and Apple lost the appeal.
The read story is that Apple sued Microsoft for Windows 2.1 and HP for their Windows shell. During the trial, Xerox sued Apple. Xerox claimed that the look and feel was not copyrightable but that if it was then Apple had no claim to sue since the elements sued over had been developed by Xerox and not Apple.
Actually, that was a separate incident many years later. The look and feel lawsuit was done about Windows 2.1 and was resolved around the time of Windows 3.0. The Apple bailout was only a couple of years ago.
Not exactly. Apple lost the suit. Then they lost the appeal. Then the second appeal. Then they settled.
And the look and feel case (brought by Apple not by Microsoft) was settled by Apple losing almost every one of the points they sued over. And it was settled almost a decade before the $200M investment. (Gee, seems like the original poster got about none of it right)
The "from a main-frame" is exactly what Raskin designed the original Mac (not the one that was produced) and the Canon Cat to avoid. Mainframes are good at supporting a large number of not particularly interactive users who are paid to enter data. Exactly the right model for when processors cost more than a years salary. Exactly the wrong model for computing when throwing processors at a problem is cheaper than throwing people at it. Face it. Big Iron and Big Brother are generally friends.
Nah, it isn't a waste when the people you give the money to give some of it back to elect your friends and pay for your next campaign. Remember that we've got a Bush in the White House again.
Nobody reads Santayana anymore.
Yep, the Republicans are back.
No. I don't. What I do remember (and I was around then) was a beta test version of Win 3.1 which would only run on a few specific versions of MS-DOS because that was what the beta was actually testing and blocked any other choices. Of course, you may find the urban legend more fun...
With half a million less votes than the Democrats, this would have to be a new definition of "majority".
286? Nah, XENIX was from the days of the Tandy 6000 (Motorola 68000 processor) and was out way before the 8088 based PCs.
Then you haven't been paying attention! Remember that this is the same site that refused (repeatedly) to have any stories on Windows 2000 shipping. It was considered less newsworthy than reposting the latest driver betas from freshmeat.
And Transmeta got it. The AMD deal has allowed Transmeta to produce the only things they've been competitively successful at shipping: Press Releases and Slashdot articles.
The remaining ones are about whether they should call themselves an OS and whether they should use the name Athena. Is Slashdot now News for Editors?
How about some actual discussion of the technology involved? Are there no nerds left on here?
The press releases about VB being the most used programming language in history came out about two years ago. Before that it was COBOL. Look it up if you think there's anything else close. And remember that for every C++ programmer, there are about 100 VB programmers.
The language that a few e-mail viruses (actually trojan horses not viruses) were written in is not Visual Basic but VBScript and could just have easily been written in JavaScript if the script kiddies who pasted them together had copied those routines instead. Most actual viruses seem to be written in C, by the way.
ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act. You're probably referring to Ada Augusta Byron, Countess of Loveless (or the DOD specified programming language but that would make even less sense.)
2 - You are trying to oversimplify my statement. What I am, in fact, saying is this: Standards are only good when they are IN FACT standards. A standard that only works on one platform is HARDLY a true standard. Standards, by reason, should be able to be implement on ANY platform - Windows, UNIX, OS/2, MacOS, BEOS, etc. To claim something to be "The Standard" when it only operates on a single platform is JUST WRONG.
No, I'm not oversimplifying, I'm restating.
So you are saying that standards aren't True Standards but are something else unless they are standards? But then they may or may not be "The Standard" (which is a newspaper) OK.
And you're saying that a de facto standard is the only real standard but only if it is implemented on multiple platforms but a fully documented standard controlled by an open international standards body that isn't used on more than one system isn't a standard. Oh, and lastly to be a standard, it has to appeal to what you thing isn't JUST WRONG.
By the way. To actually answer your point, there are lots of standards. Some are designed to be cross platform, some aren't. The UI standard for the MacOS is a standard. It is hardly cross platform. The specifications for IBM's PL/AS programming language is a standard. It is not cross platform. Cross platform standards need to be cross platform. Other ones don't. Your deciding that only one type of standard should exist may be self gratifying but it isn't based on anything else.
You'd have to look hard to find it. The accusations were big front page articles. The analysis that showed that MS didn't do what they'd been loudly accused of was a small page 4 (or so) article since "Man didn't really bite dog as implied in earlier stories" isn't headline material.
Depositions are typically very precise and "Did you send this e-mail" and "Do you remember sending this e-mail" are very different questions. In one case I remember, Bill was asked if he remembered sending a piece of e-mail and said no. Later, he was asked if he sent the e-mail in question and he said that he probably did send it. Not a contradiction (if you send several thousand pieces of mail a year it is unlikely you'll remember them all several years later especially under oath) but it is lousy television and something that can look like being caught in a lie if the viewer doesn't pay attention.
Apparently a number of them caused uproar in the court room.
Yes, they apparently did. But you said that he had been "saying stuff that only 15 minutes before had been determined to be false" and that he "openly lied" and called for a perjury charge.
That's a little different than "they caused uproar".
The real question is why this is better for the public (not just for competing software companies) than what the Appeals Court set down as their test. What they said was that an integrated product constitutes a single product for purposes of antitrust law as long as there are facially plausible benefits to the consumer from the integrated design. They also said that this analysis does not require a court to find that an integrated product is superior to its stand-alone rivals.
No. Actually, I don't remember that happening at all. What was it about? What was "determined to be false"? And where did you see it considering that the video testimony wasn't televised except in a few 5-10 second sound bites? Oh, and do you remember that Bill Gates didn't actually testify at the trial? (check the witness list if you don't remember that)
Remember the judge violating his own gag order to tell the media that he couldn't believe how brash Microsoft had been?
Yes. That I remember. Last I'd heard, being brash wasn't "openly lying" nor was it grounds for perjury. (of course, a seated federal judge discussing testimony during a trial with the press may well be grounds for dismissal but that's another issue)
Care to actually cite when this happened? I've read the transcript and didn't see it. Maybe I missed it in the several thousand pages of testimony. I suspect this is just wishful thinking on your part.
You don't need to cite the actual court record details but at least which person and what you say they lied about. (Since you're accusing them of a felony, it seems reaonable to at least mention the details)
So you are arguing that de facto standards based on what programmers are really using are good and standards held by international standards bodies are bad. So you are saying that the Visual Basic language is good since it is the most popular de facto standard for a programming language in history and C is bad since there's an actual standards organization specifying it?