Several factors over many years contributed to the decline and demise of 1-2-3:
- What eventually became Lotus Symphony was originally planned to be 1-2-3 Release 2.0. Lotus fixed this by releasing Symphony as a separate product; Symphony did very well, but the more tightly focused 1-2-3 out-sold it. However...
- Lotus's first product for the Mac, Lotus Jazz, was a GUI implementation of Symphony, not 1-2-3, and was relatively unsuccessful because it was more than many customers wanted (and too much for the 512K Mac of its day. So, where Microsoft had a successful implementation of a GUI spreadsheet on the Mac, Lotus perceived that it had a failure (although Jazz's implementation was quite nice, if perhaps ahead of its time). (An implementation of 1-2-3 for the Mac wouldn't appear until 1991.)
- Lotus's Intel-based GUI efforts were targeted at OS/2, which turned out to be a dead-end. It should be noted that Microsoft strongly encouraged Lotus to follow that path even as Microsoft was pursuing Windows.
- The first major effort to "modernize" the 1-2-3 codebase with a re-implementation in C (vs. assembler), Release 3, took a long time and was targeted specifically at DOS, lacking any accommodation for GUIs. Rudimentary graphics support was later bolted on the side with acquired (as opposed to in-house) software, requiring an awkward auxiliary file format.
- Trying to catch up in the Windows space, Lotus rushed an implementation for Windows on top of the awkward implementation of Release-3-with-graphics. This implementation was as weak as one might expect. (1-2-3 for Mac was built on top of the same infrastructure; necessarily, much more time and effort was spent adapting the code base for a new platform, with arguably better, but still compromised, results.)
I'm 58. During my career, I have worked with PDP-11 assembly language, 68000 assembly, FORTRAN and PL/I on VAX/VMS, x86 assembly and C on MS-DOS, "C with Objects" and later C++ on Classic Mac, C++ and Java on Windows, server-side Java for a short time, Curl, client-side Java, Objective-C/C++ on MacOS and iOS, and I'm currently doing cross-platform Qt development while I spin up a new phase of my career doing independent and/or contract iOS development.
The thing that saved my career was the personal computer, which allowed me to develop new skills at home on my own time. A lot of my Java training was self-driven, and I am completely self-taught on Objective-C and Cocoa.
At 40, I wouldn't hesitate to go back to school for formal training if I could find an appropriate program, but until then, pick something that looks like fun (in my case, it's iOS development), pick a project that's fun enough to motivate you (even if it'll never get marketed, or even "finished"), and dig in.
If you don't find software development fun or motivating, find something else that is. On this anniversary of Steve Job's death, remember that life is too short to do something that doesn't motivate you.
It's more likely that Apple's competitors are going to look at this thin slice of evidence and apply it badly, as has been done so frequently in the past.
I'm more worried about Apple drifting away from its own successful values than I am about somebody else "discovering" them on the basis of this trial's discovery.
Steve Jobs used the analogy of trucks and cars; some of us need trucks for heavy lifting and special tasks, but most of us don't. The PC running Solitaire on a receptionist's desk will probably go away; the engineer's workstation will not.
This. I can't even count how many people I went to school with in the CS major who only were on programming because they played video games, or they thought it would be a good idea. They now struggle to find jobs. The few who actually enjoyed it are fairly well off.
Excellent point! It reminds me of something I noticed among my fellow CS students in the 70's: If someone hated debugging, they would drop out of CS within a year or two; if they enjoyed, it, they thrived. I think there are corollaries that hold true in the present: a willingness to dig into intractable problems (as opposed to complaining about the tools) is a marker for longevity.
I started software development at 22 and I'm turning 58 next month; I've spent a grand total of about 12 months out of work due to layoffs. I haven't been back to school since I got my master's in CS in '87; everything I've learned since has been on the job or on my own time. It's not that hard.
Frankly, it is more difficult to land a new position when competing with younger workers who are freshly trained in current technologies, and who don't have family obligations eroding their work days, but I still bring something to the table, most especially experience that helps prevent making old mistakes new again. At least twice in the last few years, my past experience with assembly helped me resolve issues that had my co-workers scratching their heads even after I explained it to them.
Current expertise: Objective-C (OS X and iOS), C++, and picking up Qt and Ruby. Java is getting a little rusty now. My skills and the language.;-)
I guess books could be loaded on the devices, not needing internet access for most functions, but still I'd like to know if you have some take on this.
A couple of thoughts:
If my wife is any indication, tablets (the natural target of the e-texts) will be embraced much more enthusiastically than computers. Although she is considered a technology early adopter in her school, she struggles with what we/.ers would consider rudimentary use of our iMac at home. In contrast, she and some of her colleagues are totally caught up with their iPads.
Our local system is already shifting its technology strategy toward tablets, assuming they can get the town to approve the funding this year.
Your question anticipated this, but, yes, a key benefit of e-texts is that they can be loaded onto readers and aren't reliant on internet access. Internet access at my wife's school is unreliable; part of the problem is an infrastructure problem, but managing a system-wide network with almost no IT staff is a problem in and of itself. Pre-loaded content is essential.
My wife is a first grade teacher in the school system I and my children attended. (I graduated high school in 1972, so technology had a whole new meaning back then.) I have volunteered for many technology-related projects, including a committee overseeing a complete overhaul/rebuild of the schools, so I have some first-hand experience with this.
There was a big national (sorry, U.S.) initiative in the 90's to get every classroom connected to the Internet. I participated in several "Net Days", or something like that, where we volunteers ran Cat5 through ceilings and musty basements and punched down net drops In every classroom of every school in our town.
After that initiative, finding net-capable computers to hook up was a problem (two of my wife's four classroom computers were formerly our home Macs); most school systems are stretching their budgets to put teachers (and mandated special Ed aides) in the classrooms and keep textbooks current; technology is a luxury few systems can afford.
Don't even get me started on staffing to maintain systems and networks. Most school systems get by with less than a tenth of what a comparable sized company would expect to have in place for IT support.
As someone pointed out earlier, there was a time not that long ago where you could not assume every home had a computer with decent access to the Internet, and you could not make it the primary means of communication without excluding too many people.
For a while, my wife paid out her (our) own pocket to maintain a web presence.
Things are improving; our town is using a system called X2 for web presence, report cards, communication, etc. But refer back to the support staffing issues. There is no real support; the system is maintained and updated by marginally technical personnel for whom this is a secondary responsibility (after, say, actually teaching), for a miserly stipend that works out to less than minimum wage if calculated by the hour.
I know some people who wish schools did a better job at this would be willing to spend the extra tax dollars to support it, but you'd be amazed at how many want more for less.
I've actually been writing software since getting a BS in CompSci in '76 (and updating it with an MS in '87): assembler (PDP-11 and some early microprocessors), FORTRAN, PL/I, 8086 assembler on MS-DOS, C/C++ on classic Mac & Windows, Java, and now Objective-C on MacOS and iOS, and finally experienced an IPO for the first time. I went down the management path for a while, but I like coding so much I do it as a hobby, so I'm really getting paid to do something I enjoy. I can't imagine working at anything else and maintaining my enthusiasm at it.
I now have co-workers younger than my kids. If I retire any time soon, it will probably be into independent development.
Guess you missed my first post. Comparison of still images is one thing. I've spent considerably more time than 20 seconds looking for video of contrails that are similar to the LA footage, and haven't found it. Your first case (the 747) has the potential to convince me if there is comparable video.
I've seen two, very slightly different, angles of the object and the orange light is only present in one of them. Seems to me that a rocket exhaust should be quite visible regardless of the angle, and that it's appearance/disappearance would make a reflection seem more likely. As for the contrail forming right on the object, if it is an airplane most of it's velocity is directly away from the camera. There could be a mile between the contrail and the plane and from that angle it would look like they were right next to each other.
Actually, I think the aircraft theory is that the airliner was approaching the camera; the flight was eastbound, coming over the western horizon, and the helicopter was over land. Yes, I'm nit-picking. But at a reasonably high azimuth (45 degrees?), you're not really looking head on at an aircraft.
As for the missile theory, if was pitching over to a westbound trajectory, might not the plume hide the flame from an observer to the east at some point?
Yeah, I'm straining a bit. Occam's Razor favors the airliner.
TFA makes its case by comparing still images of contrails; and the static comparison is compelling. However, Mr. Richardson assessed the motion video of the event.
Watching the video, I was struck by two things: a light source, which could have been either the flame from a solid-fuel rocket or a reflection off the skin of an airliner, and the fact that there was no separation between the object and the contrail. When I watch airliner contrails (way too much free time on my hands), they usually form some distance behind the aircraft and expand over time; they are not so robust immediately behind the aircraft.
How has private industry done so far with american healthcare? Cost more, gets less. Yup, that is a sign of success.
Cost more, yes. Gets less, I don't think so.
Overall cost of health care is up because the tests, treatments, and medications that are now mainstream are all dramatically better than they were not all that long ago, when they were prohibitively expensive and rarely employed. They are used more widely now because they are less expensive (economies of scale), and, after all, nobody wants sub-standard treatment.
There are a lot of things that could be done to reduce the cost of health care and therefore make it more accessible to more people, and this bill does none of them:
- Move the tax incentive for health insurance from employers to individuals (McCain proposed this before the election). This extends the benefit of cost reduction to those who aren'y insured through an employer, such as the self-employed and those who work for very small businesses.
- Tort reform, to reduce doctor's malpractice insurance and the practice of overdone preventive testing to ward off lawsuits.
- Promote Health Savings Accounts (and make them less damned complicated) for non-catastrophic health care, so patients have a vested interest in the cost of the tests and treatments chosen for them.
- Remove state mandates for coverage of arguably elective medical procedures (such as in-vitro fertilization) that drive up the cost of insurance packages. [For the record, my wife and I couldn't conceive children and might have benefitted from the mandate my state now imposes.]
- Streamline the regulatory environments so that insurance can be bought across state lines.
One aspect of the current HCR bill really drives me nuts: it imposes a small penalty for not being insured, and eliminates restrictions on pre-existing conditions. The incentive here is to remain uninsured, which is cheaper than paying for coverage, until you're sick. The end result will be higher premiums for those who are insured. There are already protections for pre-existing conditions: the Kennedy-Kassenbaum (HIPAA) Act disallows exclusions for pre-existing conditions if you maintain continuity of insurance coverage (with an allowance of several months gap in coverage). I was protected by this 12 years ago when I was laid off and re-hired less than a year after being treated for cancer.
I'd like to know where these teachers are. My wife teaches first grade in a Massachusetts suburb, and, following school policy, none of the teachers in her acquaintance would dream of suggesting a diagnosis, let alone a treatment. If asked by a parent (and she occasionally is), she suggests that the question be directed to her family doctor.
Whether you want to say Apple doesn't make notebooks most people can afford or their [fixed that for you] notebooks are too expensive in general, it's essentially a wash.
Also, the entire basis for this comparison is wrong... as the ad shows, it has nothing to do with the "exact" features. Consumers look for a couple key features and operate "within a market." If you want the real take-away here it's that Apple either a) doesn't understand the market they're targeting with the 13" macbook or b) is purposely trying to drive people to the more expensive machine. Either way, they don't have a product that meets what I think you can safely say is the "vast majority" of US consumers.
Personally I just hate the "I know what's good for you" Apple mantra. I be surprised if more/.ers wouldn't agree given the fact that Apple is essentially the antithesis of open source.
The point that you've missed is that Apple intentionally targets a much narrower market than "the vast majority of... consumers". Call it arrogant if you want, but the approach has served Apple well. Their sales and profits have been quite healthy since Jobs led them away from the previous many-SKU madness that tried to offer something to all users.
Similarly, if Apple does think it knows "what's good for you", it is using a very selective definition of "you". Macs may well not be the best choice for many PC users, and Apple is fine with that. If a Mac is not right for you, and you have alternatives, what's the problem?
The first two were found in source code, but never encountered in the wild (as far as I know):
I wanted a Mallomar; why was this prevented? This was an error message for an "impossible condition" in Lotus Agenda. A customer did find this message by dumping the.EXE file, and saw fit to complain about it.
DOS FORTRAN SUCKS This message was generated in one of the two FORTRAN modules (amid hundreds of assembler modules) in an Applicon CAD system in the 70's. "DOS" refers to DEC's DOS/BATCH operating system, and "sucks" was less socially acceptable than it is today.
These were actually observed on an RCA Spectra 70 that was crashing after a nasty encounter with static electricity on one of the line printers.
PROCESS nnnnn HAS DEVICE LPT0 IN SILENT DEATH This message was displayed repeatedly on the system console, one for each device (and the process that owned it), until the final message:
Slashdot Mirror
Several factors over many years contributed to the decline and demise of 1-2-3:
- What eventually became Lotus Symphony was originally planned to be 1-2-3 Release 2.0. Lotus fixed this by releasing Symphony as a separate product; Symphony did very well, but the more tightly focused 1-2-3 out-sold it. However...
- Lotus's first product for the Mac, Lotus Jazz, was a GUI implementation of Symphony, not 1-2-3, and was relatively unsuccessful because it was more than many customers wanted (and too much for the 512K Mac of its day. So, where Microsoft had a successful implementation of a GUI spreadsheet on the Mac, Lotus perceived that it had a failure (although Jazz's implementation was quite nice, if perhaps ahead of its time). (An implementation of 1-2-3 for the Mac wouldn't appear until 1991.)
- Lotus's Intel-based GUI efforts were targeted at OS/2, which turned out to be a dead-end. It should be noted that Microsoft strongly encouraged Lotus to follow that path even as Microsoft was pursuing Windows.
- The first major effort to "modernize" the 1-2-3 codebase with a re-implementation in C (vs. assembler), Release 3, took a long time and was targeted specifically at DOS, lacking any accommodation for GUIs. Rudimentary graphics support was later bolted on the side with acquired (as opposed to in-house) software, requiring an awkward auxiliary file format.
- Trying to catch up in the Windows space, Lotus rushed an implementation for Windows on top of the awkward implementation of Release-3-with-graphics. This implementation was as weak as one might expect. (1-2-3 for Mac was built on top of the same infrastructure; necessarily, much more time and effort was spent adapting the code base for a new platform, with arguably better, but still compromised, results.)
I'm 58. During my career, I have worked with PDP-11 assembly language, 68000 assembly, FORTRAN and PL/I on VAX/VMS, x86 assembly and C on MS-DOS, "C with Objects" and later C++ on Classic Mac, C++ and Java on Windows, server-side Java for a short time, Curl, client-side Java, Objective-C/C++ on MacOS and iOS, and I'm currently doing cross-platform Qt development while I spin up a new phase of my career doing independent and/or contract iOS development.
The thing that saved my career was the personal computer, which allowed me to develop new skills at home on my own time. A lot of my Java training was self-driven, and I am completely self-taught on Objective-C and Cocoa.
At 40, I wouldn't hesitate to go back to school for formal training if I could find an appropriate program, but until then, pick something that looks like fun (in my case, it's iOS development), pick a project that's fun enough to motivate you (even if it'll never get marketed, or even "finished"), and dig in.
If you don't find software development fun or motivating, find something else that is. On this anniversary of Steve Job's death, remember that life is too short to do something that doesn't motivate you.
Good luck!
These are the important secrets?
It's more likely that Apple's competitors are going to look at this thin slice of evidence and apply it badly, as has been done so frequently in the past.
I'm more worried about Apple drifting away from its own successful values than I am about somebody else "discovering" them on the basis of this trial's discovery.
Steve Jobs used the analogy of trucks and cars; some of us need trucks for heavy lifting and special tasks, but most of us don't. The PC running Solitaire on a receptionist's desk will probably go away; the engineer's workstation will not.
Correcting myself: it was Chuck Yeager who called the Mercury program "spam in a can".
...to quote Gordon Cooper.
It does help that I love what I do.
This. I can't even count how many people I went to school with in the CS major who only were on programming because they played video games, or they thought it would be a good idea. They now struggle to find jobs. The few who actually enjoyed it are fairly well off.
Excellent point! It reminds me of something I noticed among my fellow CS students in the 70's: If someone hated debugging, they would drop out of CS within a year or two; if they enjoyed, it, they thrived. I think there are corollaries that hold true in the present: a willingness to dig into intractable problems (as opposed to complaining about the tools) is a marker for longevity.
Agreed.
I started software development at 22 and I'm turning 58 next month; I've spent a grand total of about 12 months out of work due to layoffs. I haven't been back to school since I got my master's in CS in '87; everything I've learned since has been on the job or on my own time. It's not that hard.
Frankly, it is more difficult to land a new position when competing with younger workers who are freshly trained in current technologies, and who don't have family obligations eroding their work days, but I still bring something to the table, most especially experience that helps prevent making old mistakes new again. At least twice in the last few years, my past experience with assembly helped me resolve issues that had my co-workers scratching their heads even after I explained it to them.
Current expertise: Objective-C (OS X and iOS), C++, and picking up Qt and Ruby. Java is getting a little rusty now. My skills and the language. ;-)
It does help that I love what I do.
Wait; a lot of meteors are going to burn up when they hit Earth's atmosphere and it will be visible from Earth? Who'd have thought?
Next thing you know, they'll want to drink their own beer, too.
What do you think of that initiative in the US to have all textbooks be digital in five years?
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/30/apple_others_challenged_to_make_digital_textbooks_a_reality_in_five_years.html
I guess books could be loaded on the devices, not needing internet access for most functions, but still I'd like to know if you have some take on this.
A couple of thoughts:
If my wife is any indication, tablets (the natural target of the e-texts) will be embraced much more enthusiastically than computers. Although she is considered a technology early adopter in her school, she struggles with what we /.ers would consider rudimentary use of our iMac at home. In contrast, she and some of her colleagues are totally caught up with their iPads.
Our local system is already shifting its technology strategy toward tablets, assuming they can get the town to approve the funding this year.
Your question anticipated this, but, yes, a key benefit of e-texts is that they can be loaded onto readers and aren't reliant on internet access. Internet access at my wife's school is unreliable; part of the problem is an infrastructure problem, but managing a system-wide network with almost no IT staff is a problem in and of itself. Pre-loaded content is essential.
My wife is a first grade teacher in the school system I and my children attended. (I graduated high school in 1972, so technology had a whole new meaning back then.) I have volunteered for many technology-related projects, including a committee overseeing a complete overhaul/rebuild of the schools, so I have some first-hand experience with this.
There was a big national (sorry, U.S.) initiative in the 90's to get every classroom connected to the Internet. I participated in several "Net Days", or something like that, where we volunteers ran Cat5 through ceilings and musty basements and punched down net drops In every classroom of every school in our town.
After that initiative, finding net-capable computers to hook up was a problem (two of my wife's four classroom computers were formerly our home Macs); most school systems are stretching their budgets to put teachers (and mandated special Ed aides) in the classrooms and keep textbooks current; technology is a luxury few systems can afford.
Don't even get me started on staffing to maintain systems and networks. Most school systems get by with less than a tenth of what a comparable sized company would expect to have in place for IT support.
As someone pointed out earlier, there was a time not that long ago where you could not assume every home had a computer with decent access to the Internet, and you could not make it the primary means of communication without excluding too many people.
For a while, my wife paid out her (our) own pocket to maintain a web presence.
Things are improving; our town is using a system called X2 for web presence, report cards, communication, etc. But refer back to the support staffing issues. There is no real support; the system is maintained and updated by marginally technical personnel for whom this is a secondary responsibility (after, say, actually teaching), for a miserly stipend that works out to less than minimum wage if calculated by the hour.
I know some people who wish schools did a better job at this would be willing to spend the extra tax dollars to support it, but you'd be amazed at how many want more for less.
I've actually been writing software since getting a BS in CompSci in '76 (and updating it with an MS in '87): assembler (PDP-11 and some early microprocessors), FORTRAN, PL/I, 8086 assembler on MS-DOS, C/C++ on classic Mac & Windows, Java, and now Objective-C on MacOS and iOS, and finally experienced an IPO for the first time. I went down the management path for a while, but I like coding so much I do it as a hobby, so I'm really getting paid to do something I enjoy. I can't imagine working at anything else and maintaining my enthusiasm at it.
I now have co-workers younger than my kids. If I retire any time soon, it will probably be into independent development.
57 and still kicking ass!
How is this different from the canceled Ares? Or they just trim out the LEO variant?
Guess you missed my first post. Comparison of still images is one thing. I've spent considerably more time than 20 seconds looking for video of contrails that are similar to the LA footage, and haven't found it. Your first case (the 747) has the potential to convince me if there is comparable video.
I've seen two, very slightly different, angles of the object and the orange light is only present in one of them. Seems to me that a rocket exhaust should be quite visible regardless of the angle, and that it's appearance/disappearance would make a reflection seem more likely. As for the contrail forming right on the object, if it is an airplane most of it's velocity is directly away from the camera. There could be a mile between the contrail and the plane and from that angle it would look like they were right next to each other.
Actually, I think the aircraft theory is that the airliner was approaching the camera; the flight was eastbound, coming over the western horizon, and the helicopter was over land. Yes, I'm nit-picking. But at a reasonably high azimuth (45 degrees?), you're not really looking head on at an aircraft.
As for the missile theory, if was pitching over to a westbound trajectory, might not the plume hide the flame from an observer to the east at some point?
Yeah, I'm straining a bit. Occam's Razor favors the airliner.
TFA makes its case by comparing still images of contrails; and the static comparison is compelling. However, Mr. Richardson assessed the motion video of the event.
Watching the video, I was struck by two things: a light source, which could have been either the flame from a solid-fuel rocket or a reflection off the skin of an airliner, and the fact that there was no separation between the object and the contrail. When I watch airliner contrails (way too much free time on my hands), they usually form some distance behind the aircraft and expand over time; they are not so robust immediately behind the aircraft.
I dunno; just sayin'...
How has private industry done so far with american healthcare? Cost more, gets less. Yup, that is a sign of success.
Cost more, yes. Gets less, I don't think so.
Overall cost of health care is up because the tests, treatments, and medications that are now mainstream are all dramatically better than they were not all that long ago, when they were prohibitively expensive and rarely employed. They are used more widely now because they are less expensive (economies of scale), and, after all, nobody wants sub-standard treatment.
There are a lot of things that could be done to reduce the cost of health care and therefore make it more accessible to more people, and this bill does none of them:
- Move the tax incentive for health insurance from employers to individuals (McCain proposed this before the election). This extends the benefit of cost reduction to those who aren'y insured through an employer, such as the self-employed and those who work for very small businesses.
- Tort reform, to reduce doctor's malpractice insurance and the practice of overdone preventive testing to ward off lawsuits.
- Promote Health Savings Accounts (and make them less damned complicated) for non-catastrophic health care, so patients have a vested interest in the cost of the tests and treatments chosen for them.
- Remove state mandates for coverage of arguably elective medical procedures (such as in-vitro fertilization) that drive up the cost of insurance packages. [For the record, my wife and I couldn't conceive children and might have benefitted from the mandate my state now imposes.]
- Streamline the regulatory environments so that insurance can be bought across state lines.
One aspect of the current HCR bill really drives me nuts: it imposes a small penalty for not being insured, and eliminates restrictions on pre-existing conditions. The incentive here is to remain uninsured, which is cheaper than paying for coverage, until you're sick. The end result will be higher premiums for those who are insured. There are already protections for pre-existing conditions: the Kennedy-Kassenbaum (HIPAA) Act disallows exclusions for pre-existing conditions if you maintain continuity of insurance coverage (with an allowance of several months gap in coverage). I was protected by this 12 years ago when I was laid off and re-hired less than a year after being treated for cancer.
The teachers wanted to drug me up.
I'd like to know where these teachers are. My wife teaches first grade in a Massachusetts suburb, and, following school policy, none of the teachers in her acquaintance would dream of suggesting a diagnosis, let alone a treatment. If asked by a parent (and she occasionally is), she suggests that the question be directed to her family doctor.
The author must be color-blind. Seriously, I have a headache from attempting to finish reading it.
You're missing some other details about who Ray Ozzie is - he was the creator of Lotus Notes.
And he was biased toward Microsoft way back then.
Whether you want to say Apple doesn't make notebooks most people can afford or their [fixed that for you] notebooks are too expensive in general, it's essentially a wash.
Also, the entire basis for this comparison is wrong... as the ad shows, it has nothing to do with the "exact" features. Consumers look for a couple key features and operate "within a market." If you want the real take-away here it's that Apple either a) doesn't understand the market they're targeting with the 13" macbook or b) is purposely trying to drive people to the more expensive machine. Either way, they don't have a product that meets what I think you can safely say is the "vast majority" of US consumers.
Personally I just hate the "I know what's good for you" Apple mantra. I be surprised if more /.ers wouldn't agree given the fact that Apple is essentially the antithesis of open source.
The point that you've missed is that Apple intentionally targets a much narrower market than "the vast majority of ... consumers". Call it arrogant if you want, but the approach has served Apple well. Their sales and profits have been quite healthy since Jobs led them away from the previous many-SKU madness that tried to offer something to all users.
Similarly, if Apple does think it knows "what's good for you", it is using a very selective definition of "you". Macs may well not be the best choice for many PC users, and Apple is fine with that. If a Mac is not right for you, and you have alternatives, what's the problem?
Agreed. I have Apple stock bought in 1997 (at about $4/share) and 2007 (at about $130), and I'm holding it all.
The first two were found in source code, but never encountered in the wild (as far as I know):
I wanted a Mallomar; why was this prevented? This was an error message for an "impossible condition" in Lotus Agenda. A customer did find this message by dumping the .EXE file, and saw fit to complain about it.
DOS FORTRAN SUCKS This message was generated in one of the two FORTRAN modules (amid hundreds of assembler modules) in an Applicon CAD system in the 70's. "DOS" refers to DEC's DOS/BATCH operating system, and "sucks" was less socially acceptable than it is today.
These were actually observed on an RCA Spectra 70 that was crashing after a nasty encounter with static electricity on one of the line printers.
PROCESS nnnnn HAS DEVICE LPT0 IN SILENT DEATH This message was displayed repeatedly on the system console, one for each device (and the process that owned it), until the final message:
PROCESS *SYS* HAS DEVICE CPU0 IN SILENT