"Thank goodness I only share and download pornography!"
I fear for you that one day, the MILF Hunter and Captain Stabbin' will come knocking at your door! Or Shannon Doherty will knock your teeth out for watching that video starring her husband and Paris Hilton...
I'd like to know who is getting the screw job from Wal*Mart due to the $0.88 price tag they are offering their songs at?
Why do I ponder this? Because Apple isn't making profits off $0.99 per song because they have to pay for the micropayments to the credit card companies, the large cut to the RIAA, the cut to the record label, the hosting fees, and finally, the artist.
So am I to believe the RIAA cut its staggering cut to appease Wal*Mart? Was it the individual labels? (doubtful) Or did the artist lose out yet again?
If Apple can't clobber Wal*Mart, I will root for Sony...and I will feel odd doing so.
btw: isn't this a bad idea to sell WMA formatted songs on walmart.com when their great selling Linux PCs won't be able to take part in such a business endeavor?
"Whether you love Apple or hate 'em, you have to admit that it's remarkable that a computer company that is often viewed as a niche player may have actually outfoxed Wal-Mart and has put that company (often viewed as an unstoppable force in business) on a bit of a defensive position. Sort of amusing when you think about it. It would be really amazing to see if Wal-Mart, of all companies, were unable to compete with Apple in this regard (although I have no doubt that this won't be Wal-Mart's last effort.)"
How is that remarkable? NetFlix has held off Wal*Mart and BuckBuster (excuse me, BlockBuster) and Hollywood Video. TiVo defeated Microsoft in the second round of the PVR battles. Look how long Palm held off WindowsCE (three revisions)?
I will agree that it is commendable, and I salute both Apple and NetFlix in these endeavors.
"When you go to their online store, will they have simulated sound effects of kids crying, video games, awful country music, and in store pages all playing through your speakers? You know, so that you get the genuine Wal-Mart experience. Now they just need to find a way to simulate that horrible smell of cheap plastic shoes."
Even better would be if the online simulation included the per capita of customers who actually resembled the term "land whale in sweatpants."
Or, if you had the option to play the interactive game my friends and I used to play in the store when we were bored and there was a Wal*Mart close, that being "count the teeth of the average Wal*Mart customer." Actually, it was the "absence of teeth" that was the most amazing.
Wal*Mart definitely will not be offering a dental plan for employees or their customers any time soon. Forget what anyone ever says about British teeth unless they walk into a Wal*Mart and document how bad our own countrymens smiles are...
"Censored? Sweet! When did Wal-Mart become a part of the federal government, and which branch do they belong to?"
They [Wal*Mart] belong to the Department of Labor. Yes, definitely the Department of Labor. Some portions are under the jurisdiction of the agency responsible for migrant farm labor from Mexico, given Wal*Mart's known practices of employeed undocumented workers...
Microsoft definitely would be part of the Department of Defense. Why? Because they fund all sorts of weird things off-the-books, like SCO for example. That's the equivalent of the "black project" funds that do not get revealed in the general budget to Congress. You know, stuff like Majestic 12, Saddam appearing at a dinner theatre act in New Jersey, payments in gold from the Annunaki to prepare for the future invasion of the Cybermen, etc. etc. etc.
"I'm a proud user of the Wal-Mart DVD rental service (Net-Flix basically)"
If you are happy with the business model, why not try the original, NetFlix?
NetFlix has the larger amount of titles, they'll have more special interest than Wal-Mart, they won't be edited like Wal-Mart, and you won't be surprised if you receive a full-frame version (since we know Wal-Mart prefers that) instead of a widescreen edition?
It seems to me if there is a better competitor out there, you might ought to give your business to them instead of a huge wage-depressing monolith like Wal-Mart.
Then again, I'm a NetFlix subscriber. A majority Windows PC user but favors OS X, and TiVo subscriber. Oh yeah, I own the Xbox too, but that's the only thing Microsoft does right (see Xbox Live)...
"Apple keeps releasing Adobe me-too apps. Better? Maybe. Either way, Adobe isn't happy about it, and rightfully so. All of your attempts to redirect this into an anti-MS tirade aside, Apple is dicking Adobe around when Adobe was one of a few companies that supported them through some rough years. It should come as no surprise that cannibalizing your supporters might have some consequences."
Funny how I see other companies doing to Apple what you accuse them of doing to Adobe without Apple taking retaliatory measures against them.
For instance, Roxio owns Napster and is now a direct competitor with Apple's iTunes (and to a lesser extent, the iPod with the licensed "Napster" co-branded MP3 players). I don't see Apple implementing better CD/DVD burning support within OS X to destroy the market for Roxio's Toast (that's Easy Media Creator on the Windows side of the 'biz) product.
I also do not see Apple taking any measures against Real Player for being able to use AAC files either.
As for your accusation that Apple's own PDF viewer in OS X is somehow damaging the market for Acrobat, I do not see this as credible. If anything, Apple strengthens the importance of PDF, and we all know that if you want to create great PDF's, you need to have Adobe Acrobat. That's quite different than Microsoft coming up with a rival format just because they are upset with PDF's marketshare and the fact that documentation in PDF looks exactly like its real world hard copy counterpart, unlike Microsoft Word documents. Apple's PDF viewer is no more damaging to Adobe Acrobat than Print Shop's manipulation of PDF files.
"I think it's Adobe finally getting sick of giving Apple all their ideas for iRippoff iApps, particularly after being such a stauch supporter through the roughest years."
Hey, if Adobe wanted to be treated decently by Apple, perhaps they should stop labeling Windows PCs as their "preferred platform of choice." And Adobe sucking up to Microsoft will only cause them to become the next SpyGlass; after all, it is Microsoft, NOT Apple, that is trying to kill off the PDF file format for more proprietary versions of XML in the Office line.
As noted by practically everyone else on Slashdot in earlier threads back to near Creation, if Adobe was smart, they'd start supporting Linux instead of Windows or Mac...
Furthermore, if Premiere was actually a better product than Final Cut Pro, Adobe could actually compete upon merits instead of resorting to dropping all support because they have their panties all bunched up. Just like if Microsoft was actually concerned about developing Internet Explorer (but we all know that was just an exercise in killing off Netscape), they wouldn't have dropped Mac support - citing Apple's own internal knowledge of their operating system as reason...how ironic...
"Macintosh LC Apple II emulator card: http://apple2history.org/museum/screenshots /lc2e_c ontrol.html "
Ah. Thanks for the clarification. However, the Macintosh LC hit the market in 1990; the Mac first debuted in 1984. That's a six year gap from the release of the initial machine to the hardware emulator. Granted, Atari and Commodore didn't get serious about their emulator projects, although it could also be argued that they had less resources to devote to such endeavors since the ST and Amiga platforms had much less marketup and therefore both companies had to sell more machines per single sale of Apple products to generate the same amount of profit. Look how long the Apple IIe was being sold at commanding prices. My Atari 1040ST with a full megabyte in 1986 cost less than an 8-bit Apple IIe with what, 128k in 1986? Although I will fess up that the IIe had one leg up on the standard ST platform, expansion slots - and plenty of them. Granted, you'd have to waste several of them to bump up to basic level ST features, like extra memory, 80 column display, etc.:0 To think how much money America's schools wasted on such machines well beyond their obsolescence because of the Apple brand (and even with educational discounts back then). Then again, I really like OS X today!:)
"Yeah, he worked for Atari but I'm not going to give his real name as he has chosen not to do so. Any boy detective can find it if they make the slightest effort. I'll even give you a clue. He wrote Super Pac-Man for the Atari 5200 before going on to operating systems. He's mentioned in this article too. Sadly, he's right about TOS, or TOS-off as we disaffectionatelly called it. It sucked. Oh how I wish the Atari ST had shipped with OS 9. If it had, I might still have my hair."
Gklinger, thanks for the info, but I wasn't asking for his name. I was merely inquiring about how weird it must've been dealing with former Atari Inc. staff working for Digital Research right along side the members of the ST development team and those DRI staff members failing to mention anything about the alledged prototype computers sitting at Atari that turned out to be more powerful than what the STs wound up being.
Strangely enough, www.atarimuseum.com is no longer mentioning anything about those prototypes. Perhaps they were frauds...of course, that's why I was posting about them.
As for OS9...maybe if Atari Corp. didn't waste time building a simulated version of National Semiconductor's competing chip and made the decision outright to stick with the Motorola platform, perhaps they would've settled on OS 9. Or not. I myself look back and wish out loud that Atari wouldn't have offered the single-sided disc drive (SF354) and would've standardized on the SF314 double sided drive. Then standard software would've always shipped on the higher capacity discs and not been hampered by a lower standard. It was bad enough the Amigans got to brag that their floppy drives handled 880k versus the 720k the Atarians had as the maximum for such a long time. That and had Atari went with the 68010 as the microprocessor of choice, everything would've been closer to fully 32-bit and applications wouldn't have broken so much moving up to the 68030 with the TT and the Falcon. Or including the 68881 math co-processor - that would've made up for the lack of the blitter chip... Granted, either one of those options probably would've raised the MSRP by $100 at the time... Alas, it was not meant to be...
"Kind of ironic, given Apple did the opposite and produced GS/OS (IIRC), a Mac OS clone for the Apple IIGS. And Apple wanted to phase out the II series, whereas Atari were still milking their eight-bitters in the early nineties."
Well, chaulk that up to internal politics at Apple for having two different platform groups in competition with one another. The Mac dept. and Apple execs didn't want to cut the prices on the Mac, yet they still had to respond to the threat at the lower price point that Atari and Commodore (Amiga) were hitting them upside their heads with - especially in the European Community *member states*. So alas, you had the Apple IIgs, which really had no hope of continuing with a long term future. Apple could've thrown in an accessory emulator card to coax Apple II diehards to move up to the Mac, but they didn't.
Atari, on the other hand, maintained the 8-bit computer line until the ST's dropped down to their price point. Software companies used the 8-bit computer line to demonstrate their resolve against computer piracy and decided to make the line and example and generally cut off support. At the time, the software companies could not afford to cut out the Commodore 64 end users despite rampant piracy because there was a larger active user base than the XL/XE line. Atari tried to beef up the 8-bit line by bringing out the XE Game System...the 65XE as a game system. It generally was not successful. I could go into how Atari Corp. staff didn't understand the 8-bit computer line since most of the old school Atari Inc. engineers were long gone, but that's best saved for a different discussion. I would not classify that as "milking" the line.
After all, one of Atari's great engineers went on to work for Intel, where he created the USB ports...a modernized version of what he created at Atari called the SIO port, way back in the late 1970s...
"I really wanted to RTFA, but even the google cache is mostly dead. I saw the Commodore GUI mentioned, but missed any mention of the following both in what little of the article I was able to get or previous comments:
*Atari"
They probably did, but they (the website) seem to be suffering from "the Slashdot effect." Putting that in Atari ST terms, that would be the equivalent of a "TOS Error 44"... followed by four or five cherry bomb icons. My 1040ST used to suffer that after running it for too long. In one particular case, Mastertronic's "Ninja Master" (or whatever it was called) started allowing myself and my friends to decapitate and perform amputations to the enemy characters...and to this day, I never saw that happen again with the system...
"I remember GEOS - it was actually a nice little Mac-style OS for C64. It's funny to see a complete package, with "paint", "wordpad" and so on run in less than 64k of memory."
Did GeOS ever make it out for the XL/XE Atari 8bit computers? I remember they were talking about it, but I think Atari Corp. did its best to discourage the effort and instead "recommend" 8-bit Atari computer owners migrate up to the ST line instead...
However, it did make it to the 8-bit Apples and Commodores...
"Nah, TOS sucked. (I was on the team that shipped it. TOS *definitely* sucked, even 15 years ago)."
Kabdib, please clarify. Were you a member of the Atari Corp. team or a contracted employee at Digital Research at the time?
And if you were an employee of Atari Corp. (which I believe you were), did any of the Digital Research folk (and some had been former Atari, Inc. employees) ever casually mention that Atari, Inc. had developed more powerful computers (the Gaza and Phoenix) based upon the 68000 (I believe the Gaza was the parallel-processing 68000) running C/PM prior to the development on the ST? That's what has bugged me for some time. I remember the Tramiel's went to great lengths to squash the rumor the ST had been developed prior to their takeover (which it wasn't) but thanks to the www.atarihistory.com website, the Gaza and Phoenix - the machines that apparently sparked such rumors - have been "discovered".
And if such machines did exist, I find it hard to believe none of the DRI employees wouldn't have casually mentioned that, even if DRI specifically instructed them not to in the hopes of pocketing more money from an Atari company for basically duplicating work. Sounds like something EDS would do - and then charge extra for delays on top of that!:)
"So let me follow this: "Apple's Quicktime pop-ups are good, and Microsoft is bad for not making IE block other companies' pop-ups." I think that is your argument."
Not at all. I don't like pop-ups one bit regardless of who the vendor is. However, to complain about one single application like that when you are operating on a platform whose dominant browser creates a massive pop up problem is similar to the cliche involving gnats and camels and the art of swallowing each. I mean, which was the worst type of pop-up, QuickTime or Windows Messenger?
"1. Mining: There are asteroids out there that are nearly entirely composed of precious metals. These would fetch quite a price on the market. The less valuable materials (e.g. water, carbon, hydrogen, iron, etc.) all are very valuable for perpetuating the space economy."
Yeah, but you don't want to bring those minerals back to the Earth, and I'm not even bringing up the bacteria as the basis of that decision. If you bring an abundance of gold back to Earth, you'd destroy its scarcity. You'd create massive inflation (I guess it would be a good thing the US Dollar is not on the Gold Standard).
If you don't believe this analysis, all you have to do is check the history of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish looted the Aztecs and other South American civilizations and when they brought the gold back to Europe, it created inflation in Spain. They ruined themselves, and the English (British) made a fortune off selling goods to the Spanish too.
So ideally, you'd keep the gold and other minerals in space for the use of the space program. You'd also save all the costs associated with getting those materials off-planet, not to mention environmental degredation (sic).
"Well, the typical Mac homosexual will gladly pay 4x the normal retail price as long as it looks cool. Maybe Sony can put a transparent door on the thing or give it a cool name like iDVD, then the flamers will gobble it up."
Sorry, but I use Macs AND PCs (and mainly PCs). And I most certainly am not, as you put it, a "flamer." I would guess you have deep-seated issues with your own sexuality, to be stereotypical about it.
"Since when is -R the most compatible with set top players? Last time I checked, which was about a month ago, all of the major brand DVD players handled the +R format, while some of them didn't handle the -R format. I got a multi-format burner anyway, but I think your comment is wrong."
+R wasn't very compatible with 3rd generation DVD players...that generation being when the players reached a certain level of maturity.
"And if blue wins, it'll be MPEG-2 and those same folks will get their quarter anyway. Anyone here ever heard of MPEG-LA? MPEG-2 ain't free."
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't MPEG-LA hold most of the patents to MPEG4, and that is what was holding up its adoption prior to this WMP9 decision fiasco?
Slashdot Mirror
"Thank goodness I only share and download pornography!"
I fear for you that one day, the MILF Hunter and Captain Stabbin' will come knocking at your door! Or Shannon Doherty will knock your teeth out for watching that video starring her husband and Paris Hilton...
"We all see what happened to their video editing product already.... So that leave what "killer app" from them? Illustrator, maybe?"
:)
How about PostScript? Oh yeah, Microsoft killed that off long ago...never mind...
I'd like to know who is getting the screw job from Wal*Mart due to the $0.88 price tag they are offering their songs at?
Why do I ponder this? Because Apple isn't making profits off $0.99 per song because they have to pay for the micropayments to the credit card companies, the large cut to the RIAA, the cut to the record label, the hosting fees, and finally, the artist.
So am I to believe the RIAA cut its staggering cut to appease Wal*Mart? Was it the individual labels? (doubtful) Or did the artist lose out yet again?
If Apple can't clobber Wal*Mart, I will root for Sony...and I will feel odd doing so.
btw: isn't this a bad idea to sell WMA formatted songs on walmart.com when their great selling Linux PCs won't be able to take part in such a business endeavor?
"Whether you love Apple or hate 'em, you have to admit that it's remarkable that a computer company that is often viewed as a niche player may have actually outfoxed Wal-Mart and has put that company (often viewed as an unstoppable force in business) on a bit of a defensive position. Sort of amusing when you think about it. It would be really amazing to see if Wal-Mart, of all companies, were unable to compete with Apple in this regard (although I have no doubt that this won't be Wal-Mart's last effort.)"
How is that remarkable? NetFlix has held off Wal*Mart and BuckBuster (excuse me, BlockBuster) and Hollywood Video. TiVo defeated Microsoft in the second round of the PVR battles. Look how long Palm held off WindowsCE (three revisions)?
I will agree that it is commendable, and I salute both Apple and NetFlix in these endeavors.
"When you go to their online store, will they have simulated sound effects of kids crying, video games, awful country music, and in store pages all playing through your speakers? You know, so that you get the genuine Wal-Mart experience. Now they just need to find a way to simulate that horrible smell of cheap plastic shoes."
Even better would be if the online simulation included the per capita of customers who actually resembled the term "land whale in sweatpants."
Or, if you had the option to play the interactive game my friends and I used to play in the store when we were bored and there was a Wal*Mart close, that being "count the teeth of the average Wal*Mart customer." Actually, it was the "absence of teeth" that was the most amazing.
Wal*Mart definitely will not be offering a dental plan for employees or their customers any time soon. Forget what anyone ever says about British teeth unless they walk into a Wal*Mart and document how bad our own countrymens smiles are...
"Censored? Sweet! When did Wal-Mart become a part of the federal government, and which branch do they belong to?"
They [Wal*Mart] belong to the Department of Labor. Yes, definitely the Department of Labor. Some portions are under the jurisdiction of the agency responsible for migrant farm labor from Mexico, given Wal*Mart's known practices of employeed undocumented workers...
Microsoft definitely would be part of the Department of Defense. Why? Because they fund all sorts of weird things off-the-books, like SCO for example. That's the equivalent of the "black project" funds that do not get revealed in the general budget to Congress. You know, stuff like Majestic 12, Saddam appearing at a dinner theatre act in New Jersey, payments in gold from the Annunaki to prepare for the future invasion of the Cybermen, etc. etc. etc.
"I'm a proud user of the Wal-Mart DVD rental service (Net-Flix basically)"
If you are happy with the business model, why not try the original, NetFlix?
NetFlix has the larger amount of titles, they'll have more special interest than Wal-Mart, they won't be edited like Wal-Mart, and you won't be surprised if you receive a full-frame version (since we know Wal-Mart prefers that) instead of a widescreen edition?
It seems to me if there is a better competitor out there, you might ought to give your business to them instead of a huge wage-depressing monolith like Wal-Mart.
Then again, I'm a NetFlix subscriber. A majority Windows PC user but favors OS X, and TiVo subscriber. Oh yeah, I own the Xbox too, but that's the only thing Microsoft does right (see Xbox Live)...
"Apple keeps releasing Adobe me-too apps. Better? Maybe. Either way, Adobe isn't happy about it, and rightfully so. All of your attempts to redirect this into an anti-MS tirade aside, Apple is dicking Adobe around when Adobe was one of a few companies that supported them through some rough years. It should come as no surprise that cannibalizing your supporters might have some consequences."
Funny how I see other companies doing to Apple what you accuse them of doing to Adobe without Apple taking retaliatory measures against them.
For instance, Roxio owns Napster and is now a direct competitor with Apple's iTunes (and to a lesser extent, the iPod with the licensed "Napster" co-branded MP3 players). I don't see Apple implementing better CD/DVD burning support within OS X to destroy the market for Roxio's Toast (that's Easy Media Creator on the Windows side of the 'biz) product.
I also do not see Apple taking any measures against Real Player for being able to use AAC files either.
As for your accusation that Apple's own PDF viewer in OS X is somehow damaging the market for Acrobat, I do not see this as credible. If anything, Apple strengthens the importance of PDF, and we all know that if you want to create great PDF's, you need to have Adobe Acrobat. That's quite different than Microsoft coming up with a rival format just because they are upset with PDF's marketshare and the fact that documentation in PDF looks exactly like its real world hard copy counterpart, unlike Microsoft Word documents. Apple's PDF viewer is no more damaging to Adobe Acrobat than Print Shop's manipulation of PDF files.
"I think it's Adobe finally getting sick of giving Apple all their ideas for iRippoff iApps, particularly after being such a stauch supporter through the roughest years."
Hey, if Adobe wanted to be treated decently by Apple, perhaps they should stop labeling Windows PCs as their "preferred platform of choice." And Adobe sucking up to Microsoft will only cause them to become the next SpyGlass; after all, it is Microsoft, NOT Apple, that is trying to kill off the PDF file format for more proprietary versions of XML in the Office line.
As noted by practically everyone else on Slashdot in earlier threads back to near Creation, if Adobe was smart, they'd start supporting Linux instead of Windows or Mac...
Furthermore, if Premiere was actually a better product than Final Cut Pro, Adobe could actually compete upon merits instead of resorting to dropping all support because they have their panties all bunched up. Just like if Microsoft was actually concerned about developing Internet Explorer (but we all know that was just an exercise in killing off Netscape), they wouldn't have dropped Mac support - citing Apple's own internal knowledge of their operating system as reason...how ironic...
"Last time I checked, MacOS X was at least as "Unix-Based" (darwin) as Linux, if not more..."
:)
:0
Can't the same be said about Windows since it was discovered that Microsoft implemented the TCP/IP stack straight from BSD? (ducks for cover)!
So that's why Microsoft took out the Unix license from SCO*!!!
*considering SCO made a statement that they believed UnixWare IP was in the BSD distributions, including OS X...
"Macintosh LC Apple II emulator card:s /lc2e_c ontrol.html "
:0 To think how much money America's schools wasted on such machines well beyond their obsolescence because of the Apple brand (and even with educational discounts back then). Then again, I really like OS X today! :)
http://apple2history.org/museum/screenshot
Ah. Thanks for the clarification. However, the Macintosh LC hit the market in 1990; the Mac first debuted in 1984. That's a six year gap from the release of the initial machine to the hardware emulator. Granted, Atari and Commodore didn't get serious about their emulator projects, although it could also be argued that they had less resources to devote to such endeavors since the ST and Amiga platforms had much less marketup and therefore both companies had to sell more machines per single sale of Apple products to generate the same amount of profit. Look how long the Apple IIe was being sold at commanding prices. My Atari 1040ST with a full megabyte in 1986 cost less than an 8-bit Apple IIe with what, 128k in 1986? Although I will fess up that the IIe had one leg up on the standard ST platform, expansion slots - and plenty of them. Granted, you'd have to waste several of them to bump up to basic level ST features, like extra memory, 80 column display, etc.
I take that back. The machines are still quoted on the Atari Museum website:
h tm l
http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/computers.
The two machines were known as "Sierra" and "Gaza." Both were based on the Motorola 68000, but the "Gaza" machine had two of them and ran in parallel.
Oh, the humanity.
"Yeah, he worked for Atari but I'm not going to give his real name as he has chosen not to do so. Any boy detective can find it if they make the slightest effort. I'll even give you a clue. He wrote Super Pac-Man for the Atari 5200 before going on to operating systems. He's mentioned in this article too. Sadly, he's right about TOS, or TOS-off as we disaffectionatelly called it. It sucked. Oh how I wish the Atari ST had shipped with OS 9. If it had, I might still have my hair."
Gklinger, thanks for the info, but I wasn't asking for his name. I was merely inquiring about how weird it must've been dealing with former Atari Inc. staff working for Digital Research right along side the members of the ST development team and those DRI staff members failing to mention anything about the alledged prototype computers sitting at Atari that turned out to be more powerful than what the STs wound up being.
Strangely enough, www.atarimuseum.com is no longer mentioning anything about those prototypes. Perhaps they were frauds...of course, that's why I was posting about them.
As for OS9...maybe if Atari Corp. didn't waste time building a simulated version of National Semiconductor's competing chip and made the decision outright to stick with the Motorola platform, perhaps they would've settled on OS 9. Or not. I myself look back and wish out loud that Atari wouldn't have offered the single-sided disc drive (SF354) and would've standardized on the SF314 double sided drive. Then standard software would've always shipped on the higher capacity discs and not been hampered by a lower standard. It was bad enough the Amigans got to brag that their floppy drives handled 880k versus the 720k the Atarians had as the maximum for such a long time. That and had Atari went with the 68010 as the microprocessor of choice, everything would've been closer to fully 32-bit and applications wouldn't have broken so much moving up to the 68030 with the TT and the Falcon. Or including the 68881 math co-processor - that would've made up for the lack of the blitter chip... Granted, either one of those options probably would've raised the MSRP by $100 at the time... Alas, it was not meant to be...
"Kind of ironic, given Apple did the opposite and produced GS/OS (IIRC), a Mac OS clone for the Apple IIGS. And Apple wanted to phase out the II series, whereas Atari were still milking their eight-bitters in the early nineties."
Well, chaulk that up to internal politics at Apple for having two different platform groups in competition with one another. The Mac dept. and Apple execs didn't want to cut the prices on the Mac, yet they still had to respond to the threat at the lower price point that Atari and Commodore (Amiga) were hitting them upside their heads with - especially in the European Community *member states*. So alas, you had the Apple IIgs, which really had no hope of continuing with a long term future. Apple could've thrown in an accessory emulator card to coax Apple II diehards to move up to the Mac, but they didn't.
Atari, on the other hand, maintained the 8-bit computer line until the ST's dropped down to their price point. Software companies used the 8-bit computer line to demonstrate their resolve against computer piracy and decided to make the line and example and generally cut off support. At the time, the software companies could not afford to cut out the Commodore 64 end users despite rampant piracy because there was a larger active user base than the XL/XE line. Atari tried to beef up the 8-bit line by bringing out the XE Game System...the 65XE as a game system. It generally was not successful. I could go into how Atari Corp. staff didn't understand the 8-bit computer line since most of the old school Atari Inc. engineers were long gone, but that's best saved for a different discussion. I would not classify that as "milking" the line.
After all, one of Atari's great engineers went on to work for Intel, where he created the USB ports...a modernized version of what he created at Atari called the SIO port, way back in the late 1970s...
"I really wanted to RTFA, but even the google cache is mostly dead. I saw the Commodore GUI mentioned, but missed any mention of the following both in what little of the article I was able to get or previous comments:
*Atari"
They probably did, but they (the website) seem to be suffering from "the Slashdot effect." Putting that in Atari ST terms, that would be the equivalent of a "TOS Error 44"... followed by four or five cherry bomb icons. My 1040ST used to suffer that after running it for too long. In one particular case, Mastertronic's "Ninja Master" (or whatever it was called) started allowing myself and my friends to decapitate and perform amputations to the enemy characters...and to this day, I never saw that happen again with the system...
Hmmm...where is that 1040ST of mine...hmmm....
"I remember GEOS - it was actually a nice little Mac-style OS for C64. It's funny to see a complete package, with "paint", "wordpad" and so on run in less than 64k of memory."
Did GeOS ever make it out for the XL/XE Atari 8bit computers? I remember they were talking about it, but I think Atari Corp. did its best to discourage the effort and instead "recommend" 8-bit Atari computer owners migrate up to the ST line instead...
However, it did make it to the 8-bit Apples and Commodores...
"Nah, TOS sucked. (I was on the team that shipped it. TOS *definitely* sucked, even 15 years ago)."
:)
Kabdib, please clarify. Were you a member of the Atari Corp. team or a contracted employee at Digital Research at the time?
And if you were an employee of Atari Corp. (which I believe you were), did any of the Digital Research folk (and some had been former Atari, Inc. employees) ever casually mention that Atari, Inc. had developed more powerful computers (the Gaza and Phoenix) based upon the 68000 (I believe the Gaza was the parallel-processing 68000) running C/PM prior to the development on the ST? That's what has bugged me for some time. I remember the Tramiel's went to great lengths to squash the rumor the ST had been developed prior to their takeover (which it wasn't) but thanks to the www.atarihistory.com website, the Gaza and Phoenix - the machines that apparently sparked such rumors - have been "discovered".
And if such machines did exist, I find it hard to believe none of the DRI employees wouldn't have casually mentioned that, even if DRI specifically instructed them not to in the hopes of pocketing more money from an Atari company for basically duplicating work. Sounds like something EDS would do - and then charge extra for delays on top of that!
"So let me follow this: "Apple's Quicktime pop-ups are good, and Microsoft is bad for not making IE block other companies' pop-ups." I think that is your argument."
Not at all. I don't like pop-ups one bit regardless of who the vendor is. However, to complain about one single application like that when you are operating on a platform whose dominant browser creates a massive pop up problem is similar to the cliche involving gnats and camels and the art of swallowing each. I mean, which was the worst type of pop-up, QuickTime or Windows Messenger?
"1. Mining: There are asteroids out there that are nearly entirely composed of precious metals. These would fetch quite a price on the market. The less valuable materials (e.g. water, carbon, hydrogen, iron, etc.) all are very valuable for perpetuating the space economy."
Yeah, but you don't want to bring those minerals back to the Earth, and I'm not even bringing up the bacteria as the basis of that decision. If you bring an abundance of gold back to Earth, you'd destroy its scarcity. You'd create massive inflation (I guess it would be a good thing the US Dollar is not on the Gold Standard).
If you don't believe this analysis, all you have to do is check the history of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish looted the Aztecs and other South American civilizations and when they brought the gold back to Europe, it created inflation in Spain. They ruined themselves, and the English (British) made a fortune off selling goods to the Spanish too.
So ideally, you'd keep the gold and other minerals in space for the use of the space program. You'd also save all the costs associated with getting those materials off-planet, not to mention environmental degredation (sic).
Here's a link for you!:
http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/
And quite possibly, the PowerBooks will have a G5 processor in them if you come Stateside within the next week or two...
"- Macdonalds"
Sorry, chap, but it is McDonald's... MC (Mc), not MAC.
May you not address Lord McDonald in that manner either, or suffer his wrath...
"Well, the typical Mac homosexual will gladly pay 4x the normal retail price as long as it looks cool. Maybe Sony can put a transparent door on the thing or give it a cool name like iDVD, then the flamers will gobble it up."
Sorry, but I use Macs AND PCs (and mainly PCs). And I most certainly am not, as you put it, a "flamer." I would guess you have deep-seated issues with your own sexuality, to be stereotypical about it.
"Since when is -R the most compatible with set top players? Last time I checked, which was about a month ago, all of the major brand DVD players handled the +R format, while some of them didn't handle the -R format. I got a multi-format burner anyway, but I think your comment is wrong."
+R wasn't very compatible with 3rd generation DVD players...that generation being when the players reached a certain level of maturity.
"And if blue wins, it'll be MPEG-2 and those
same folks will get their quarter anyway.
Anyone here ever heard of MPEG-LA? MPEG-2 ain't
free."
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't MPEG-LA hold most of the patents to MPEG4, and that is what was holding up its adoption prior to this WMP9 decision fiasco?