What about using a CD dubbing deck? They don't make bit-for-bit copies. They make SCMS-protected digital audio duplicates of the original. Seems to me if you want to break the protection, just copy the disc in a CD-dubbing deck and your problem is solved: You'll wind up with a perfect digital version of your CD that's now UN-copy protected and can be ripped with ease. Granted, this is not for the casual pirate, but for someone (like me) who refuses to let the RIAA dictate how I use a CD that I've paid for it will solve the problem quite nicely.
Oh and Mr. RIAA - I have over 700 CDs and buy copies of all of the music I listen to, so if you have a problem with what I've said, bite me. I could care less.
Actually the reason cats survive falls has been studied separately has has to do with the overall physiology and the shape of the cat. It *also* has to do with how far they are falling. When cats fall they go into a 'trance' like state and actually change the way their body is positioned into more of a 'parachute' type of shape. Ever notice during a fall that cats legs tend to 'spread out' as if they're trying to catch the wind? Well, they are. However they need a few seconds to figure out rate of decent vs. distance to know how to absorb the impact. A fall of less than 9 feet is usually no problem. However a fall of 9 to 12 feet usually proves harmful (I don't *even* want to know *how* the people who did this study figured that out - or how many cats that took). Here's the interesting part: a fall of *more* than 12 feet is as survivable for them as the fall of *less* than 9 feet. This gives them time to make their 'parachute' and determine the best landing posture.
They also found that falling into the mouth of a waiting dog proved harmful from *any* height. The results of this part of the study remained inconclusive but they think it might have had something to do with fear of -or some sort of allergy to - dog breath...;-)
So we're going to have the UNISYS/GIF patent issue all over again? Look how popular UNISYS was for doing that. I would think that NCR has better things to do than go after people on a patent infringement lawsuit that has no merit.
Oh, wait.. I remember their last attempt at making computers... maybe they don't...!
Especially when you consider that Borland Delphi has sold more than 3 million copies and MS Visual Basic has sold more than 5 million copies. I'd say that 50,000 active Microsoft platform developers is just a *bit* off...:-P
However, I *am* a Java advocate and would welcome *any true* JDK 1.3 compatible implementation of Java on a PDA...:-)
At home, Sharp has been selling its own Zaurus devices since 1993. Though it introduced a model in the U.S. in 1997 running Microsoft's Windows CE operating system, the product failed to gain popularity amid stiff competition.
That is so much bullshit. First of all, Sharp introduced an anemic PDA with the brand name Zaurus before 1997. It was no more than a Sharp Wizard with a few extra features and a different CPU. If you want to read about the american Zaurus you can at my archives at http://www.davenet.net/archives/. Now as for their attempt at a PDA in 1997 - that was the Mobilon. And it was easily the biggest piece of junk that SharpUSA has ever done. I wrote an article about it here: http://www.davenet.net/archives/mobilon.htm. To sum up.. my Mobilon had a battery compartment meltdown and I had to exchange it. The problem with anything from SharpUSA is simple.. They think the american consumer is a retard and needs to have their products made accordingly. Sharp-Japan-made Zaurus products look like PADD's from Star Trek, have great HWR and are very fast and *very* cool. Don't get me wrong.. Sharp does a good job making a Linux-based PDA I'll be the first to buy it - I just have no faith in them.. All I have to say about Sharp's attempt at PDAs can be summed up as this:
Isn't this what SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) was invented for? So that you could copy your stuff, but no one else could make a copy *from* that? WTF is up with the recording industry? They make *more* money each and every year than the previous year and they *still* cry poor.
Hopefully the RIAA et al will realize that using this will do more harm than good....
Act now and we'll throw in a free bottle of Zap-It! for all your cleaning needs... Just look at that plastic.. Zap-It!(sm) made it look like new after that Ginsu 2000 knife ripped it to shreds...
Nonsense. 3D Accellerators for professional use used to cost in the 5-10k range. And some still do (tho why I have no idea). The GeForce3 is no where *near* that price range. And as for SGI, the 'profesional' Indigo graphics workstations went from 5k to 50k depending on the configuration you purchased. Again, the GeForce3 isn't anywhere near that.
Yes, when a card is new it will always cost a considerable chunk of change. But what happens 6 months after any of these new cards ships? They drop in price by half. If you don't want to pay 600 then wait a few months and pay 350. And that 350 will probably include a free game or two....
It doesn't matter *how* cool it is. Once it gets to Sharp USA, it'll be another hunk of junk like the Zaurus-5800, the Mobilon, and every *other* attempt in the PDA market that Sharp USA does. If Sharp Japan was in charge of the marketing and design of the device in the USA then I think we *would* see something very cool. However, all Sharp USA does is take something that is very cool, and castrate it of all of it's best technological and ergonomic features before selling it to the masses in this country. A perfect example *is* the Zaurus. In Japan the Zaurus looks like a PADD out of Star Trek. It's color, it has excellent HWR (handwriting recognition) and it has a development kit available and dozens (if not hundreds) of software titles available for it. The US marketing group gets their hands on the name Zaurus and what do they do: They design an anemic little semi-Wizard POS with NO HWR, NO SDK, NO color... and the list of NO's goes on and on. I will *never* recommend a Sharp product to anyone *ever*.
I agree! The NewtonOS was years ahead of it's time. Perhaps that's why it had such a hard time succeeding...:-/
This can open some *serious* doors for the DC.
on
Dreamcast Runs Linux
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· Score: 2
First, let me say, as an anti-Sega person for the last 10 years that the more I use the DC the more I LOVE the DC. It's a great game system. It's got a solid, well understood CPU, great graphics and sound. All in all, it's a very cool system.
This applies to any of the consoles out there, but the only problem I see with any of these game systems is that the tools to write games for them are so expensive that it's prohibitive to try. Indrema has the right idea: use Linux for the development hardware. Hopefully this will lead to freeware/cheapware linux-based game development on the DC and extend the overall life and interest in the product.
You're making a dangerous assumption, if you ask me.. and that is that you'll have X available, you'll have Perl available, etc... For all you know this kernel is stripped down to the nubs for only *exactly* what they want to support...
Hey.. that sounds a *lot* like the PalmOS now...;)
I haven't seen *any* problems on my Palm Vx with OS 3.5.2, but remember that 3.5.2 is just a patch. It resides in RAM and you *can* delete it. Here's how: Power on the device, hold down the UP button. While holding down the UP button press the reset button on the back of the IIIc. Wait for several seconds and then release the UP button. From there you should be able to go into the Application Launch, choose Delete mode (Command 'D') and then select the entry for Update 3.5.2.
After you delete it you'll need to again press the reset button on the back your IIIc, but this time leave the UP button alone.
Now that I think about it, see if the Graffiti problem goes away after the reboot I mentioned above. If it goes away, you may either have a problem with 3.5.2 *or* an interaction with another extention or a Hackmaster hack... You might want to try disabling hackmaster if you run it.
But you can get all of this today from Handspring with the PalmOS, via their Springboard technology. They have a Visor Cellphone, they have a vendor making a Bluetooth system for it. And then there's voice recorders, digital cameras, GPS devices.. tons o' stuff! And the PalmOS has 78 percent of the current PDA marketplace, so you *know* you're going to find lots of good software for it.
Linux is a fine OS, guys.. But isn't using Linux for a cellular phone a bit like using a cannon to kill a flea? I mean, it's not like I can port Quake III for Linux to my PalmPalm cellphone.
And oh yes.. You can BET there's a lawsuit coming from THAT company name name.
Word Perfect was originally the best word processing app on the planet, but Microsoft pretty much stole its basic UI and prceeded to crush any company that owned Word Perfect (Word Perfect, Novell, Corel) by undercutting its prices and bundling Office with Windows for free.
Nonsense. I was a Wordperfect user/fanatic for years, and that's just not true at all. Take your anti-MS colored lenses off for a moment.
Wordperfect has only one company to blame for Wordperfect's demise. And that's Wordperfect Corp. Wordperfect had something like 80%-90% of the marketplace. In the early 90's, customers were *demanding* the release of Wordperfect (WP) 5.1 for Windows. Up to this point, Wordperfect Corp had barely *looked* at MS Windows development. When Wordperfect *finally* released WPWin, it was (a) a about year overdue and (b) a piece of complete crap! It crashed constantly, it used those huge-ass Borland-OWL Button objects that took up enormous amounts of screen real estate, and it behaved very little like it's DOS-based predecessor. WP 6 was an improvement and WP 7 really was a fine product, but that's *more* than enough to get people to switch. And switch they did.
Corel got bloodied by buying Wordperfect Corp from Novell thinking they could make a buck with it. They got further bloodied when they didn't get the clue that it was too late to win back marketshare and that Microsoft had already won a long-dead product war.
True, but you can run ANY Intel-based OS and ANY software package for that OS (with the exception of games, as was stated) in VMWare. Wine is for one thing only.. Windows. Not that it's a bad thing at all. I'll be watching Wine very closely.
And for those who mentioned the price on VMWare, Windows OS etc, thanks loads for being reduntant to what I had already said. Much appreciated. Not!
I think Wine is very cool, and I like what I saw of the screenshots, but why not use a tried a true virtual machine system like VMWare. There you can run *any* Windows app (or OS/2 app or BEOS app or DOS app or any i86-enabled OS's app) that you want. With Wine you can run *one* type of software only - Windows. The only advantage I see to Wine seems to be the price. With VMWare you need to license VMWare and own full versions of the Operating Systems you want to run. I use VMWare for both Linux and Win2K/NT and it's great. Let's not forget this option...!
I'll re-iterate... Anders had the *idea* for the component library, but his *team* at Borland made it a reality. And you're absolutely right, the VCL (and more importantly the concept of the PME - Properties Methods and Events - model) is what influenced JavaBeans. In fact I went to a lecture with the developers of JBuilder and they said that the VCL is exactly where Sun got the idea for the JavaBeans design, based on Borland's input.
And I did use Delphi.. every day! For Windows it's the ultimate development environment, IMNHO. Then Java came out, and I moved to JBuilder.
And as far as the WFC goes.. how great was that, exactly? It's in the "Where is it now?" bin where BP was an inch away from ending up just 6 years ago..! That's not Anders' fault, more like MS being myopic, but still....
And I'll say it again.. I hope C# does well.. It'd be nice to have another language out there with the power and ease of use and acceptance of Java. What it really boils down to is, what makes you productive? If it's VB, great! More power to ya! For me, the language that I'm productive in is Java (tho augustz apparently thnks this is impossible).
My point is.. I *do* use Java... every day. I make my living at it. and any with 'incompatibilities' would be roughly like writing for Windows... If I want to write code that works in Win3.1 I can't be writing for the Win95 API.. So what's your point?
But you're right... we're not proving anything, because your rhetoric is growing tiresome. The Linux example that you're using now is my favorite of open standards... Linux isn't a 'standard'. There's no ISO, no ANSI, no nothing, except *one* man - Linus. Linux is an open-source OS that took TEN YEARS and REDHAT to finally catch on. Note again - a *commercial steward* made it a platform for the masses.
Hone up on C#? Sure...! When I see ORB's, TP Monitors, and networking environments available for it, I'll be looking forward to it... See you in 5 years.
Ah the idealism of the college student. I wish I still lived in that Ivory tower..
And please, no more of this "If you disagree with me you must be wrong" type of argument... I'm not interested
Oh gimme a break. This isn't a matter of disagreement, this is matter of you being ill-informed about the Java language and it's underlying technologies. If you're going to be ignorant to it, at least own your igorance instead of hiding behind the excuse of calling me a bully. I'm all for open standards, but who are you trying to kid in saying that Microsoft is? I don't see Open Windows 2000 shipping anytime soon... Open standards are fine, but like I said, open standards are slow. Just look at OMG and CORBA. I think CORBA is great, but it took them 10 years from idea of the initial spec to release of a spec to provide a componentized model (CCM). How long did DCOM take... what... three? And what's the difference: DCOM is not a true 'open' standard (only parts of it are in the Open Group - not the whole spec). And CORBA is part of the OMG, an open standards organization.
Want another example? OK, you're in academia and you'll be familiar with these: How about FORTRAN and COBOL? How about SQL? 11 years between major versions from ANSI. In order to make them reasonably useful Microsoft, Borland, Interbase and others created extensions to the languages on their own because the default implementations quickly fell behind the times. Again: the speed of updates from the standards groups was like that of continental drift; unstoppable but INCREDIBLY slow.
Free innovation is fine as long as it doesn't hold up progress.
Java is totally cross-platform. You don't think so? Then you don't use it.. nuff said. I do Java development on NT, and deploy to solairis, Linux, HPUX.. etc. No problem. The fact that C# is going to ECMA is all well and good, but standard groups aren't all they're cracked up to be: They're like Continental Drift: Tons of inertia.. but low momentum.
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What about using a CD dubbing deck? They don't make bit-for-bit copies. They make SCMS-protected digital audio duplicates of the original. Seems to me if you want to break the protection, just copy the disc in a CD-dubbing deck and your problem is solved: You'll wind up with a perfect digital version of your CD that's now UN-copy protected and can be ripped with ease. Granted, this is not for the casual pirate, but for someone (like me) who refuses to let the RIAA dictate how I use a CD that I've paid for it will solve the problem quite nicely.
Oh and Mr. RIAA - I have over 700 CDs and buy copies of all of the music I listen to, so if you have a problem with what I've said, bite me. I could care less.
Actually the reason cats survive falls has been studied separately has has to do with the overall physiology and the shape of the cat. It *also* has to do with how far they are falling. When cats fall they go into a 'trance' like state and actually change the way their body is positioned into more of a 'parachute' type of shape. Ever notice during a fall that cats legs tend to 'spread out' as if they're trying to catch the wind? Well, they are. However they need a few seconds to figure out rate of decent vs. distance to know how to absorb the impact. A fall of less than 9 feet is usually no problem. However a fall of 9 to 12 feet usually proves harmful (I don't *even* want to know *how* the people who did this study figured that out - or how many cats that took). Here's the interesting part: a fall of *more* than 12 feet is as survivable for them as the fall of *less* than 9 feet. This gives them time to make their 'parachute' and determine the best landing posture.
;-)
They also found that falling into the mouth of a waiting dog proved harmful from *any* height. The results of this part of the study remained inconclusive but they think it might have had something to do with fear of -or some sort of allergy to - dog breath...
So we're going to have the UNISYS/GIF patent issue all over again? Look how popular UNISYS was for doing that. I would think that NCR has better things to do than go after people on a patent infringement lawsuit that has no merit.
Oh, wait.. I remember their last attempt at making computers... maybe they don't...!
Especially when you consider that Borland Delphi has sold more than 3 million copies and MS Visual Basic has sold more than 5 million copies. I'd say that 50,000 active Microsoft platform developers is just a *bit* off... :-P
:-)
However, I *am* a Java advocate and would welcome *any true* JDK 1.3 compatible implementation of Java on a PDA...
The CNET article states:
At home, Sharp has been selling its own Zaurus devices since 1993. Though it introduced a model in the U.S. in 1997 running Microsoft's Windows CE operating system, the product failed to gain popularity amid stiff competition.
That is so much bullshit. First of all, Sharp introduced an anemic PDA with the brand name Zaurus before 1997. It was no more than a Sharp Wizard with a few extra features and a different CPU. If you want to read about the american Zaurus you can at my archives at http://www.davenet.net/archives/. Now as for their attempt at a PDA in 1997 - that was the Mobilon. And it was easily the biggest piece of junk that SharpUSA has ever done. I wrote an article about it here: http://www.davenet.net/archives/mobilon.htm. To sum up.. my Mobilon had a battery compartment meltdown and I had to exchange it. The problem with anything from SharpUSA is simple.. They think the american consumer is a retard and needs to have their products made accordingly. Sharp-Japan-made Zaurus products look like PADD's from Star Trek, have great HWR and are very fast and *very* cool. Don't get me wrong.. Sharp does a good job making a Linux-based PDA I'll be the first to buy it - I just have no faith in them.. All I have to say about Sharp's attempt at PDAs can be summed up as this:
From dull minds come Sharp Products.
Isn't this what SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) was invented for? So that you could copy your stuff, but no one else could make a copy *from* that? WTF is up with the recording industry? They make *more* money each and every year than the previous year and they *still* cry poor.
Hopefully the RIAA et al will realize that using this will do more harm than good....
Act now and we'll throw in a free bottle of Zap-It! for all your cleaning needs... Just look at that plastic.. Zap-It!(sm) made it look like new after that Ginsu 2000 knife ripped it to shreds...
Does this mean I could get a nip and tuck for free or at least a discount if I donate the fat to new cartilage development? That would rule! ;-)
Nonsense. 3D Accellerators for professional use used to cost in the 5-10k range. And some still do (tho why I have no idea). The GeForce3 is no where *near* that price range. And as for SGI, the 'profesional' Indigo graphics workstations went from 5k to 50k depending on the configuration you purchased. Again, the GeForce3 isn't anywhere near that.
Yes, when a card is new it will always cost a considerable chunk of change. But what happens 6 months after any of these new cards ships? They drop in price by half. If you don't want to pay 600 then wait a few months and pay 350. And that 350 will probably include a free game or two....
And maybe gianted winged monkies will fly out my butt.
The Newton is dead (as much as I loved it). We need to move on.
It doesn't matter *how* cool it is. Once it gets to Sharp USA, it'll be another hunk of junk like the Zaurus-5800, the Mobilon, and every *other* attempt in the PDA market that Sharp USA does. If Sharp Japan was in charge of the marketing and design of the device in the USA then I think we *would* see something very cool. However, all Sharp USA does is take something that is very cool, and castrate it of all of it's best technological and ergonomic features before selling it to the masses in this country. A perfect example *is* the Zaurus. In Japan the Zaurus looks like a PADD out of Star Trek. It's color, it has excellent HWR (handwriting recognition) and it has a development kit available and dozens (if not hundreds) of software titles available for it. The US marketing group gets their hands on the name Zaurus and what do they do: They design an anemic little semi-Wizard POS with NO HWR, NO SDK, NO color... and the list of NO's goes on and on. I will *never* recommend a Sharp product to anyone *ever*.
Remember: From dull minds come Sharp products
I know what I'd program him to say:
;-)
"Hey, bite me, pal! I ain't singin SQUAT for you!"
And then leaving hanging in my hallway for some poor guest of mine to come over and try to make it sing.
Or even better...
"Redrum! RED-RUM!"
And have it hanging on my front door to scare of Jehovah's Witnesses...
I agree! The NewtonOS was years ahead of it's time. Perhaps that's why it had such a hard time succeeding... :-/
First, let me say, as an anti-Sega person for the last 10 years that the more I use the DC the more I LOVE the DC. It's a great game system. It's got a solid, well understood CPU, great graphics and sound. All in all, it's a very cool system.
This applies to any of the consoles out there, but the only problem I see with any of these game systems is that the tools to write games for them are so expensive that it's prohibitive to try. Indrema has the right idea: use Linux for the development hardware. Hopefully this will lead to freeware/cheapware linux-based game development on the DC and extend the overall life and interest in the product.
You're making a dangerous assumption, if you ask me.. and that is that you'll have X available, you'll have Perl available, etc... For all you know this kernel is stripped down to the nubs for only *exactly* what they want to support...
;)
Hey.. that sounds a *lot* like the PalmOS now...
I haven't seen *any* problems on my Palm Vx with OS 3.5.2, but remember that 3.5.2 is just a patch. It resides in RAM and you *can* delete it. Here's how: Power on the device, hold down the UP button. While holding down the UP button press the reset button on the back of the IIIc. Wait for several seconds and then release the UP button. From there you should be able to go into the Application Launch, choose Delete mode (Command 'D') and then select the entry for Update 3.5.2.
After you delete it you'll need to again press the reset button on the back your IIIc, but this time leave the UP button alone.
Now that I think about it, see if the Graffiti problem goes away after the reboot I mentioned above. If it goes away, you may either have a problem with 3.5.2 *or* an interaction with another extention or a Hackmaster hack... You might want to try disabling hackmaster if you run it.
Linux is a fine OS, guys.. But isn't using Linux for a cellular phone a bit like using a cannon to kill a flea? I mean, it's not like I can port Quake III for Linux to my PalmPalm cellphone.
And oh yes.. You can BET there's a lawsuit coming from THAT company name name.
Word Perfect was originally the best word processing app on the planet, but Microsoft pretty much stole its basic UI and prceeded to crush any company that owned Word Perfect (Word Perfect, Novell, Corel) by undercutting its prices and bundling Office with Windows for free.
Nonsense. I was a Wordperfect user/fanatic for years, and that's just not true at all. Take your anti-MS colored lenses off for a moment.
Wordperfect has only one company to blame for Wordperfect's demise. And that's Wordperfect Corp. Wordperfect had something like 80%-90% of the marketplace. In the early 90's, customers were *demanding* the release of Wordperfect (WP) 5.1 for Windows. Up to this point, Wordperfect Corp had barely *looked* at MS Windows development. When Wordperfect *finally* released WPWin, it was (a) a about year overdue and (b) a piece of complete crap! It crashed constantly, it used those huge-ass Borland-OWL Button objects that took up enormous amounts of screen real estate, and it behaved very little like it's DOS-based predecessor. WP 6 was an improvement and WP 7 really was a fine product, but that's *more* than enough to get people to switch. And switch they did.
Corel got bloodied by buying Wordperfect Corp from Novell thinking they could make a buck with it. They got further bloodied when they didn't get the clue that it was too late to win back marketshare and that Microsoft had already won a long-dead product war.
True, but you can run ANY Intel-based OS and ANY software package for that OS (with the exception of games, as was stated) in VMWare. Wine is for one thing only.. Windows. Not that it's a bad thing at all. I'll be watching Wine very closely.
And for those who mentioned the price on VMWare, Windows OS etc, thanks loads for being reduntant to what I had already said. Much appreciated. Not!
I think Wine is very cool, and I like what I saw of the screenshots, but why not use a tried a true virtual machine system like VMWare. There you can run *any* Windows app (or OS/2 app or BEOS app or DOS app or any i86-enabled OS's app) that you want. With Wine you can run *one* type of software only - Windows. The only advantage I see to Wine seems to be the price. With VMWare you need to license VMWare and own full versions of the Operating Systems you want to run. I use VMWare for both Linux and Win2K/NT and it's great. Let's not forget this option...!
I'll re-iterate... Anders had the *idea* for the component library, but his *team* at Borland made it a reality. And you're absolutely right, the VCL (and more importantly the concept of the PME - Properties Methods and Events - model) is what influenced JavaBeans. In fact I went to a lecture with the developers of JBuilder and they said that the VCL is exactly where Sun got the idea for the JavaBeans design, based on Borland's input.
And I did use Delphi.. every day! For Windows it's the ultimate development environment, IMNHO. Then Java came out, and I moved to JBuilder.
And as far as the WFC goes.. how great was that, exactly? It's in the "Where is it now?" bin where BP was an inch away from ending up just 6 years ago..! That's not Anders' fault, more like MS being myopic, but still....
And I'll say it again.. I hope C# does well.. It'd be nice to have another language out there with the power and ease of use and acceptance of Java. What it really boils down to is, what makes you productive? If it's VB, great! More power to ya! For me, the language that I'm productive in is Java (tho augustz apparently thnks this is impossible).
;-)
My point is.. I *do* use Java... every day. I make my living at it. and any with 'incompatibilities' would be roughly like writing for Windows... If I want to write code that works in Win3.1 I can't be writing for the Win95 API.. So what's your point?
But you're right... we're not proving anything, because your rhetoric is growing tiresome. The Linux example that you're using now is my favorite of open standards... Linux isn't a 'standard'. There's no ISO, no ANSI, no nothing, except *one* man - Linus. Linux is an open-source OS that took TEN YEARS and REDHAT to finally catch on. Note again - a *commercial steward* made it a platform for the masses.
Hone up on C#? Sure...! When I see ORB's, TP Monitors, and networking environments available for it, I'll be looking forward to it... See you in 5 years.
Ah the idealism of the college student. I wish I still lived in that Ivory tower.. And please, no more of this "If you disagree with me you must be wrong" type of argument... I'm not interested Oh gimme a break. This isn't a matter of disagreement, this is matter of you being ill-informed about the Java language and it's underlying technologies. If you're going to be ignorant to it, at least own your igorance instead of hiding behind the excuse of calling me a bully. I'm all for open standards, but who are you trying to kid in saying that Microsoft is? I don't see Open Windows 2000 shipping anytime soon... Open standards are fine, but like I said, open standards are slow. Just look at OMG and CORBA. I think CORBA is great, but it took them 10 years from idea of the initial spec to release of a spec to provide a componentized model (CCM). How long did DCOM take... what... three? And what's the difference: DCOM is not a true 'open' standard (only parts of it are in the Open Group - not the whole spec). And CORBA is part of the OMG, an open standards organization. Want another example? OK, you're in academia and you'll be familiar with these: How about FORTRAN and COBOL? How about SQL? 11 years between major versions from ANSI. In order to make them reasonably useful Microsoft, Borland, Interbase and others created extensions to the languages on their own because the default implementations quickly fell behind the times. Again: the speed of updates from the standards groups was like that of continental drift; unstoppable but INCREDIBLY slow. Free innovation is fine as long as it doesn't hold up progress.
Your post is flamebait, but I'll bite.
Java is totally cross-platform. You don't think so? Then you don't use it.. nuff said. I do Java development on NT, and deploy to solairis, Linux, HPUX.. etc. No problem. The fact that C# is going to ECMA is all well and good, but standard groups aren't all they're cracked up to be: They're like Continental Drift: Tons of inertia.. but low momentum.