A few weeks ago I bought a whole pallet of older CPUs. There were 8 or ten PPC Macs (older PCI-bus machines), and four Pentium and Pentium-Pro boxes. I paid $1 for the whole pallet.
The cost threshold for a non-gaming PC usable for what most people (particularly a busy student) use computers for has dropped to zero.
Actually, Microsoft takes into account a reasonable user experience issues in their minimum requirement specifications. I have installed Microsoft products numerous times on hardware that was well below Microsoft's specified minimum. I have Office 2000 on a 486DX-2 50Mhz laptop. It works adequately for some purposes.
When Microsoft says 'it works on this machine' it generally means it works adequately.
The bandwidth suck that would result from 95% of the people on the Internet regularly running apt-get as you describe would be staggering.
I won't go into the 'centralized lock-step authority' stuff inherent in your suggestion that everybody regularly and automatically update their OS software in a process they aren't even aware of.
Since an automobile inherently consumes oil, leaks tire inflation pressure, consumes anti-freeze, the product is 'defective when it leaves the manufacturer.' Your criticism of his analogy is flawed.
It's a list of specific hardware platforms, which are composed of G3 processors and a compliment of various hardware features, that Apple promised OS X would be full-featured on.
The way I read it, this isn't about minimal functionality on the lowest end hardware. It's about specific features, i.e. DVD viewing, not working as advertised on hardware well above what the minimum requirement Apple set.
I know, I know. We're only supposed to slag Microsoft for stuff like this.
His point was that because Apple is the perfect company with only kool-aide drinkers^w^w satisfied zealots^w as customers, that there's clearly no need for a discussion of the fact that a lawsuit was needed to force them to admit they've reneged on their promise that MacOS 10 would work on any Apple hardware that originally shipped with a G3 or better processor.
Go to the thrift stores. There's always tons and tons of badly aging Apple hardware in fashionable-last-year 'industrial design' cases, available for cheap. Wintel hardware ages that way, too, but you can swap out the motherboard for something new.
People who spent big bucks upgrading their Mac hardware now find themselves shut out. That expensive G3/G4 processor upgrade isn't such a good deal now, eh?
That'll teach you meddlesome kids. Just bring your credit card to the Apple Franchise store shut up.
Heck, there might be people who would be more likely to buy a Macintosh to run Mandrake or Debian on, if Apple didn't have that forced bundling of MacOS on their hardware. Clearly there needs to be a MacOS Refund Day rally. Can we get ESR running around in his R2D2 kitchen trashcan costume for this one??
Hmmmm. That sounds like either a 'coverup' or, again, crank media reporting that couldn't get past professional journalists in big markets.
Really, the solution to becoming well informed is not, and never is, reading random websites. Remember, anybody can throw up a website that says anything. That's just a way of proving the holocaust didn't happen, that tinfoil is a necessary against death rays, etc.
Good. You've established that this can't be pinned on the Bush Administration. We'd better spread the word, as I suspect the wires are buzzing on sites like Indymedia right now.
'convergence' probably wasn't the proper term scientifically. What I meant was that for a given task, a code base should just get tighter and tighter, as the errors are wrung out of it and everybody takes their shot at optimizing it. A word processor, if we'd just continued optimizing and tweaking WordStar, should live in less than 512K of memory and run so fast that slowdown code is needed to keep it from scrolling to the bottom of a 50 page document before you can lift your fingers off the scroll-down button. That specific problem is a 'bug' btw, if you run WordStar 2.2 for MS-DOS on a modern Pentium computer.
Software should 'converge' and get better over time.
Out here in 'flyover country' we're not interested in having your polluting power plants. Do you really need to string wires all the way out there? Can't you build some plants locally?
The 8086 architecture was around LONG before IBM used it in any volume. There was a period before Intel produced any processors at all (before the 4004 and 8008) where Intel was mostly making RAM memory for IBM, and when I believe they were mostly owned (or outright owned?) by IBM.
I just tried Windows Update here, too. It doesn't connect at all, but I figured it was a bandwidth problem on my connection, as I am downloading all the Solaris 9 iso images right now over my 512K DSL and figured I was clogging the pipe. I guess I wouldn't be reading and commenting to slashdot, though, if it was the Solaris download clogging my 'last mile' connection.
Just look at the language you're using: 'Not deregulated.' Now, that could easily be changed, since it's a double negative. Regulated, i.e. controlled by an outside body.
Why should anything be regulated unless it's necessary for it to be regulated? Are we all big enthusiasts for government granted monopolies? Maybe Microsoft should be in charge of all computer opeating systems. Prices might end up being cheaper. (service wouldn't be better, but please don't claim that you get good service from 'you've got nowhere else to turn' utility companies....)
It's always about you and your code, huh? That's kind of a mine, mine, mine! attitude, there. I bet it sucked to play on a baseball team with you when you were a kid...
Engineering people know that the reason to buy a 'low-end' Sun Workstation is that then you can run the engineering design apps in your cube that the company has licenses for on the server.
The whole world doesn't revolve around servers on the Internet. Yet. Nor will it ever revolve around commodity tasks like that. And while Windows NT is trying to take over the entire market for engineering design/CAD applications, they're not likely to ever do so.
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Shit. Where do you get an old 486 these days?
A few weeks ago I bought a whole pallet of older CPUs. There were 8 or ten PPC Macs (older PCI-bus machines), and four Pentium and Pentium-Pro boxes. I paid $1 for the whole pallet.
The cost threshold for a non-gaming PC usable for what most people (particularly a busy student) use computers for has dropped to zero.
Actually, Microsoft takes into account a reasonable user experience issues in their minimum requirement specifications. I have installed Microsoft products numerous times on hardware that was well below Microsoft's specified minimum. I have Office 2000 on a 486DX-2 50Mhz laptop. It works adequately for some purposes.
When Microsoft says 'it works on this machine' it generally means it works adequately.
Wow. I've heard people say the same about the price of the Microsoft OS that comes bundled with various OEM boxes.
I've heard people say the same thing about the price of Internet Explorer bundled with Windows.
I guess it's okay when it Apple does it, but not okay when Microsoft does it.
Being sued more than once in 100+ years calls it into question. Why did the customer have to sue at all?
The bandwidth suck that would result from 95% of the people on the Internet regularly running apt-get as you describe would be staggering.
I won't go into the 'centralized lock-step authority' stuff inherent in your suggestion that everybody regularly and automatically update their OS software in a process they aren't even aware of.
Since an automobile inherently consumes oil, leaks tire inflation pressure, consumes anti-freeze, the product is 'defective when it leaves the manufacturer.' Your criticism of his analogy is flawed.
Try again.
Well, that's nice. Logitech is now selling internal track pads for the Powerbook line?
Or are you proposing dangling wires off the side of the Powerbook, and a nonfuctional 'dead zone' on front of it's keyboard?
It's a list of specific hardware platforms, which are composed of G3 processors and a compliment of various hardware features, that Apple promised OS X would be full-featured on.
You're pretty loyal, there.
Sort of an Astroturfer for Apple, it seems.
Apple Computer loves people like you who will flap out the wallet and show the plastic regularly.
Unfortunately, the rest of us can't afford that.
The way I read it, this isn't about minimal functionality on the lowest end hardware. It's about specific features, i.e. DVD viewing, not working as advertised on hardware well above what the minimum requirement Apple set.
I know, I know. We're only supposed to slag Microsoft for stuff like this.
All Hail Steven Jobs.
You're forgetting about Copeland.
And 'Pink' and whatever-the-hell else. Tagilent or something, wasn't it?
All that egg on the Apple system programmers' faces when they finally gave up and bought NeXtStep.
His point was that because Apple is the perfect company with only kool-aide drinkers^w^w satisfied zealots^w as customers, that there's clearly no need for a discussion of the fact that a lawsuit was needed to force them to admit they've reneged on their promise that MacOS 10 would work on any Apple hardware that originally shipped with a G3 or better processor.
Go to the thrift stores. There's always tons and tons of badly aging Apple hardware in fashionable-last-year 'industrial design' cases, available for cheap. Wintel hardware ages that way, too, but you can swap out the motherboard for something new.
People who spent big bucks upgrading their Mac hardware now find themselves shut out. That expensive G3/G4 processor upgrade isn't such a good deal now, eh?
That'll teach you meddlesome kids. Just bring your credit card to the Apple Franchise store shut up.
Heck, there might be people who would be more likely to buy a Macintosh to run Mandrake or Debian on, if Apple didn't have that forced bundling of MacOS on their hardware. Clearly there needs to be a MacOS Refund Day rally. Can we get ESR running around in his R2D2 kitchen trashcan costume for this one??
Enron 'death star' huh?
Sounds like a code word for Internet cranksites.
It only got reported in a few local newspapers?
Hmmmm. That sounds like either a 'coverup' or, again, crank media reporting that couldn't get past professional journalists in big markets.
Really, the solution to becoming well informed is not, and never is, reading random websites. Remember, anybody can throw up a website that says anything. That's just a way of proving the holocaust didn't happen, that tinfoil is a necessary against death rays, etc.
Good. You've established that this can't be pinned on the Bush Administration. We'd better spread the word, as I suspect the wires are buzzing on sites like Indymedia right now.
'convergence' probably wasn't the proper term scientifically. What I meant was that for a given task, a code base should just get tighter and tighter, as the errors are wrung out of it and everybody takes their shot at optimizing it. A word processor, if we'd just continued optimizing and tweaking WordStar, should live in less than 512K of memory and run so fast that slowdown code is needed to keep it from scrolling to the bottom of a 50 page document before you can lift your fingers off the scroll-down button. That specific problem is a 'bug' btw, if you run WordStar 2.2 for MS-DOS on a modern Pentium computer.
Software should 'converge' and get better over time.
If you're an assembly language programmer, you'll have a hell of a time writing enough code to fill up 640Kb.
But you didn't even look at what I was typing, you just made a quip.
Out here in 'flyover country' we're not interested in having your polluting power plants. Do you really need to string wires all the way out there? Can't you build some plants locally?
The 8086 architecture was around LONG before IBM used it in any volume. There was a period before Intel produced any processors at all (before the 4004 and 8008) where Intel was mostly making RAM memory for IBM, and when I believe they were mostly owned (or outright owned?) by IBM.
I just tried Windows Update here, too. It doesn't connect at all, but I figured it was a bandwidth problem on my connection, as I am downloading all the Solaris 9 iso images right now over my 512K DSL and figured I was clogging the pipe. I guess I wouldn't be reading and commenting to slashdot, though, if it was the Solaris download clogging my 'last mile' connection.
Most of North America?
Naw. Most of flyover country is doing just fine.
So you're saying a regulated power industry has no qualms about wasteful excess capacity? Because they're guaranteed a sure-thing market?
There's an ideological component involved, too.
Just look at the language you're using: 'Not deregulated.' Now, that could easily be changed, since it's a double negative. Regulated, i.e. controlled by an outside body.
Why should anything be regulated unless it's necessary for it to be regulated? Are we all big enthusiasts for government granted monopolies? Maybe Microsoft should be in charge of all computer opeating systems. Prices might end up being cheaper. (service wouldn't be better, but please don't claim that you get good service from 'you've got nowhere else to turn' utility companies....)
It's always about you and your code, huh? That's kind of a mine, mine, mine! attitude, there. I bet it sucked to play on a baseball team with you when you were a kid...
You're thinking like an IT person.
Engineering people know that the reason to buy a 'low-end' Sun Workstation is that then you can run the engineering design apps in your cube that the company has licenses for on the server.
The whole world doesn't revolve around servers on the Internet. Yet. Nor will it ever revolve around commodity tasks like that. And while Windows NT is trying to take over the entire market for engineering design/CAD applications, they're not likely to ever do so.