At least Vista doesn't BSOD unless you've major hardware/driver issues. yes, lets all cheer that it has taken Microsoft over 15 years to produce an OS which doesn't blow up on you daily. What a great success story and such a great use of computing resources too. All cheer Microsoft. not!
Funny how we keep hearing year after year... decade after decade from Microsoft users who think the NEXT version of Windows is just going to be the great one. Talk about being stuck on a treadmill.
It is highly likely that the OEMs will still have to pay for a copy of Windows Vista on every PC shipped with Windows XP and so the OEMs must pay an added price for the copy of XP a customer might request. That would be paying twice and would add to the total system cost. Not to mention still allow Microsoft to use bloated claims of number of copies of Windows Vista sold.
Think about it. the 386 and 486 were 80s era CPUs but where 32bit. Microsoft released Windows 95 in late 1995 as a crappy 16/32bit OS which still relied on DOS under it for much of it code. 1995! Firstly, Windows 95 - assuming no legacy drivers and software - relied on DOS for little more than a bootloader (much like Windows 3.1 and 3.11 before it). Secondly, Microsoft were developing and releasing 32 bit OSes well before Windows 95, including OS/2, Xenix and Windows NT. The point was that the OS Microsoft shipped as the desktop of the future was full of 16bit code and hardly used the capabilities of the CPUs at the time. Windows NT was a bloated pig and not only was it slow but required a massive increase in system resources. It was first stated to be the desktop of the future when OS/2 v2.0 was to ship but when it was finally shipped, they pulled back and claimed Chicago was the future desktop. It took almost 4 years for Chicago to ship as Windows 95 and it was pathetic compared to what IBM shipped many years earlier. Only by using false promises, bad press and other marketing tactics were they able to hold the market waiting for Windows 95. So while they had thier hands in 32bit OSs, they sucked at implementation.
Microsoft to this day differentiates between a client OS and a server OS and that is ridiculous. It is a very common distinction, made by numerous OS vendors both past and present. There are not that many and it was Microsoft who purposefully disabled OS features and modified licensing to prevent users from using the OS for anything but a stand alone desktop PC with only client networking capabilities. Once again the naive public believes Microsoft's description of a desktop OS and accepts it. Ignorance is bliss.
What year/millennium was it that the powerhouse that is Microsoft had a proper operating system for the masses? Without knowing what you mean by "proper OS" and "for the masses", a question impossible to answer. However, by any consistent definition of them, they were pretty much the first to do so. A kernel controlled multi tasking and memory managed system which didn't require 4x time the system resources of the current standard desktop PC. IIRC, Windows 2000 only require 2x the standard memory requirements and CPUs where quite capable at that time since it was a 32 bit design. But they did it almost 10 years after many others had already provided more robust 32bit OS's.
And while we are at it, by strong arming the marketing into their inferior technology, they all destroyed the software developement market for cross platform object oriented application frameworks. The 90s saw the elimination of nearly all object oriented application frameworks based on C++. They were replaced with a non compliant C++ compiler and non object oriented application framework called MFC and COM.
I find it very difficult to find any value in what Microsoft has done to the computing market over the last 20 years.
Think about it. the 386 and 486 were 80s era CPUs but where 32bit. Microsoft released Windows 95 in late 1995 as a crappy 16/32bit OS which still relied on DOS under it for much of it code. 1995! Firstly, Windows 95 - assuming no legacy drivers and software - relied on DOS for little more than a bootloader (much like Windows 3.1 and 3.11 before it).
Secondly, Microsoft were developing and releasing 32 bit OSes well before Windows 95, including OS/2, Xenix and Windows NT.
The point was that the OS Microsoft shipped as the desktop of the future was full of 16bit code and hardly used the capabilities of the CPUs at the time. Windows NT was a bloated pig and not only was it slow but required a massive increase in system resources. It was first stated to be the desktop of the future when OS/2 v2.0 was to ship but when it was finally shipped, they pulled back and claimed Chicago was the future desktop. It took almost 4 years for Chicago to ship as Windows 95 and it was pathetic compared to what IBM shipped many years earlier. Only by using false promises, bad press and other marketing tactics were they able to hold the market waiting for Windows 95. So while they had thier hands in 32bit OSs, they sucked at implementation.
Microsoft to this day differentiates between a client OS and a server OS and that is ridiculous. It is a very common distinction, made by numerous OS vendors both past and present. There are not that many and it was Microsoft who purposefully disabled OS features and modified licensing to prevent users from using the OS for anything but a stand alone desktop PC with only client networking capabilities. Once again the naive public believes Microsoft's description of a desktop OS and accepts it. Ignorance is bliss.
What year/millennium was it that the powerhouse that is Microsoft had a proper operating system for the masses? Without knowing what you mean by "proper OS" and "for the masses", a question impossible to answer. However, by any consistent definition of them, they were pretty much the first to do so. a kernel controlled multi tasking and memory managed system which didn't require 4x time the system resources of the current standard desktop PC. IIRC, Windows 2000 only require 2x the standard memory requirements and CPUs where quite capable at that time since it was a 32 bit design. But they did it almost 10 years after many others had already provided more robust 32bit OS's.
And while we are at it, by strong arming the marketing into their inferior technology, they all destroyed the software developement market for cross platform object oriented application frameworks. The 90s saw the elimination of nearly all object oriented application frameworks based on C++. They were replaced with a non compliant C++ compiler and non object oriented application framework called MFC and COM.
I find it very difficult to find any value in what Microsoft has done to the computing market over the last 20 years.
regarding Sr Software Architects I was talking about IT projects, not what home users purchased as hardware and took what was preloaded for an OS. In 1995, Microsoft used its monopoly power to block OS/2 and BeOS from getting even a foothold in the US market and sealed their desktop monopoly for years to come. But in 1995, the corporate landscape was very much open with Novell, IBM OS/2, and PC UNIX along with HP/Compaq/IBM UNIX. The 90s where the end of the reliance of a Sr Engineer who evaluated hardware and software and recommended products for new IT projects. The direct marketing Microsoft did to the IT management fooled those people into thinking Windows was ready for the IT sector and all kinds of wasted time/effort/dollars and we're still seeing the results of poor choices for IT projects today. But nobody gets fired for choosing Microsoft.
When some outside company had a good idea, MS either bought it, coopted it, or made something that worked 75% as well but well enough and kept improving it until it beat its original. That is just so missing what really went/goes on. You left out the part about "talking" with any of their customers who use the competitors software and "asking" them not to use it while giving little hints as to how much it'll "cost" them if they do not stop using those products. And when they do things like they did to Netscape. You know, when they force their PC vendors to flood the channel by putting MS software( IE ) on all computers but that is not enough. And then they purchase Netscapes business contracts and pay ISPs for every copy of IE that is shipped. This is how they got where they are and this was/is only possible given their monopoly/power position in the market and one they've had since the late 80s.
there was a massive amount of momentum in the x86 business sector and it pretty much was driving the computer market. Sure Apple( 68xxx ) had a good share but nothing compared to the x86 market with clones and authentic IBM computers. So Apple really wasn't much of a threat to MS at the time. It was Gem and a few others doing GUIs on DOS. It did help MS that Apple tied up a few of the DOS GUIs in court since they were all pretty small and it took alot out of them. Microsoft still had a cash horde enough to not get pulled down for copying Apples GUI. It was lucky for MS that IBM wanted to tie their GUI to their more restricted hardware( PS/2 ) because they limited that market to just large businesses who could afford the expensive computers. So there was Microsoft with the very large clone sector and control of the OS being shipped on all of them. And anybody who even tried to put a GUI on DOS had to deal with the anti-competitive nature of Microsoft. Remember how they stalled DR by putting warning that Microsofts GUI wouldn't run on non MS DOS?
Microsoft owes its existence to the luck which brought IBM back to Microsoft for the x86 PC OS. It was because of IBM's position in the business market and the x86 coat tail which allowed Microsoft to ride the market to where it is today. They were handed a jewel and with that jewel, they soon gained enough control of the market to not have to compete on quality. There was no need to compete on quality because they had every PC vendor and IBM tied to them.
the only thing I give them credit for is using PR to keep the public so fooled that they are a technology company and one with the best product on the market. I find too many hacks who think Windows is where it is because it was/is better than the competition for technical reasons. That has NEVER been the case. Never.
it sure helps when those purchasing are clueless of what it is they need or are purchasing. Even today, 2008, the large majority of the business people picking Microsoft products are clueless of the details of their needs or the options available to them. They pick what others have picked and deal with the consequences. They know they don't get fired for failed projects if they pick Microsoft.
One of Microsoft's great inventions is the elimination of the Sr Software Architect or Sr Engineer, or whatever you want to call the position which management used to rely on for picking the right computing tools( software & hardware ) for the new projects.
That only got them DOS but it got them into the monopoly position with DOS. From there, it was anti-competitive business moves by Balmer which took them to where they are today. The fact that they had the power to destroy companies by just putting names up on computer conference display boards( see book "StartUp" ) shows how powerful they were in the DOS days.
Couple that control of the market with billions in cash and you've got a company that no only is willing to destroy any competitor they feel is a treat, but they have the power and will to do so.
There was only a sliver in time where Microsoft could have missed the position they where handed by IBM. That was after Phoenix Technologies reverse engineered the IBM BIOS and clone manufacturers were asking Microsoft for versions of MS DOS for it. Even then, who else were the cloners going to ask for and OS since IBM already had the PC market for business computers? Back to CPM-86 and Digital Research?
Microsoft was gifted a monopoly by IBM and they chose to protect and leverage that monopoly position with anti-competitive business methods and crappy software.
Because we already know that Digital Research was run by someone who was competing on technical merit, it would likely be a far far better computing landscape today had Microsoft stuck with BASIC and DR gained the market position of dominant OS vendor in the 80s. Think about it. the 386 and 486 were 80s era CPUs but where 32bit. Microsoft released Windows 95 in late 1995 as a crappy 16/32bit OS which still relied on DOS under it for much of it code. 1995! There were UNIX version for the 386 and 486 doing full 32bit computing and real multi-tasking. There was OS/2 doing pre-emptive multi-tasking on those CPUs. Microsoft to this day differentiates between a client OS and a server OS and that is ridiculous. What year/millennium was it that the powerhouse that is Microsoft had a proper operating system for the masses? When did Windows 2000 ship? It took Microsoft almost 10 years later to get a moderately capable 32bit OS into the general populations computing systems.
Surely you give Microsoft too much credit for their position in the market. IMO
The difference being that Microsoft had their monopoly to fall back on when their other attempts failed. Their competitors did not. You ain't kidding. As a tiny example, they have declared losses on the books for the Windows CE productline at over $10 billion over more than 10 years. It's harder to tell how much it is still losing because it is now mixed in with the Xbox money pit. But the fact is, Microsoft can and does pay vendors to use products which would be shit-canned if it was required to stand on its own as a business.
Here's another idea, time after time, as a competitor grows a market/sector Microsoft comes in with a half-baked beta, ships it and starts paying others to use it. Soon the competitor runs out of customers and funds because their business model has been gutted by the ability of Microsoft to declare massive losses in that product year after year. Ok, that's pretty much the same thing as above but it's how Steve Balmer has run the company.
My guess is that Bill is pretty clueless as to how Steve has run the company compared to how Bill has run the technical side. Bill thinks they won with better products and poorly run competitors. Then there's Steve Balmer throwing chairs, declaring he's going to kill Google, and any other who gets in his way. And all those millions in Microsoft cash being paid to companies and countries who evaluated Linux and/or OSS and chose it only to then turn around a take millions from MSFT to do it with Windows instead.
I think Bill is pretty clueless as to how and why Microsoft software exists.
or show someone else, a leader, failing and constantly telling the public things are fine, etc. Show them the brief history of the Bush/Cheney Whitehouse years. If that doesn't get them to start doubting things around them I don't know what would.
in essence, show them how THEY have already been tricked and that what they may believe is not always true and can be proven when just a few true facts are added in. Not truthiness type facts but actual validatable(?) facts.
But he really didn't do it, really. He's screwed anyways because Microsoft really did do it but instead of using that in his defense, he thought he could give the juror's something they would believe. He must have been shocked to find they didn't believe his concocted story.
His only hope now is if he can produce a body, it might provide evidence to clear him of the crime. Maybe he's hoping that they won't find the X logo over her eyes, there will instead be the Windows Logo and therefore proof of who really done it.;-)
sorry parent, no mod points or ya woulda got another funny.
Didn't I hear that it was recently the 25th anniversary of the movie "war Games" and that when that was released, we had high mucky mucks talking about locking up modems and cutting phone lines?
Now, the clowns running these Nukes are trying to tell us that in the 80's and 90's there were no need to be worried about network security. What freak'n morons. Why fear terrorists when we have our own moronic citizens doing dumb shit like letting a Windows PC send data to a nukes control system. I'm still under the belief that the N.Y. power surg and black out was due to a Windows virus flooding the same ethernet network used to send display signaling information to the control room. When the Windows virus flooded the network, the ethernet messages could not get out, the queue filled and crashed the app. Look ma, no status messages telling the control personnel a surge was occurring and BAM, shutdowns start going off like falling dominoes.
it could probably lay down a mask so you can etch your own board. I see what you're saying in that the circuit boards are non-standard parts. Well, IMO, they should be using a 3 stepper motor board from Lin Systems or something like that instead of 3 stepper control boards and 3 driver boards and stop sensors. The Lin Engineering board does all that on one board along with having a bunch of digital IO.
you'll get a 100% on this and this is what the big achievement is. After all, all the other parts are easy to purchase and many can be bought from any number of vendors.
So what makes a DIY kit "Do"able is that you can get the parts cheaply and easily. RepRap just hit that milestone by getting the accuracy to the point where it can make those custom parts needed to make another RepRap. This really is a big deal. I'm sure somewhere there is a list of the cost of having those parts( all of the custom ones ) CNC'ed and my guess is that the price would probably double at the very least.
If you look at their design, it is designed to make as much use of off-the-shelf parts as possible. Now, once someone builds one, they can start making parts for another and another, etc. It would be nice if they started pumping parts out and selling them cheap so we can all start building our own. Otherwise, this requires one expensive one with CNC'ed parts before friends can make parts for other friends.
yes, the marketing droids were definitely busy with this title and it's been brought up ump-teen number of times.
The deal is that it makes the required CUSTOM parts which make making another one possible. All the other parts are pretty much off the shelf parts with assembly required. So does it really make itself? No. Does it make the really hard or impossible parts needed to make one? Yes and the other parts are so easy to get they are noise to those who have been trying to do this for years.
It is an amazing achievement even if the title is over stated. IMO
Think about it, all that money just for licensing and they are going to Vista? And it is because 7,000 computers need to run one Windows app for a kindergarten language class? I'm sure that has got to be one highly sophisticated application and one so important that hundreds of thousands of other computers will have to run Windows also just because of its sophistication. WTF?
My guess is that Balmer or Gates recently visited Vienna and talked them into making sure they were ready for the next great OS from Microsoft, Windows Vienna/Windows 7. And they probably promised it will do dishes and wipe kindergartner's asses at that same time.
Or just maybe Microsoft didn't like the fact that a large well known city with the same name as their "new" OS was switching to Linux. And really, a browser based app for children was the best reason they could come up with? They're not even good at excuses so it would be no wonder that they took bribes from Microsoft to be a Windows shop and a Windows-only shop at that. IMO.
where have you been for the last 15+ years? do you really think developers made Vista what it is today? They have been predominantly a marketing company for a very long time.
has anything he's said in the last 10+ years mattered? And it is not likely he's going to shut up and somehow become skilled at really figuring out what the next big thing is.
And if anything, the news that he's going to be spending more time making sure anyone who accepts the Bill And Melinda Gates money is locked into Microsoft Windows is the only thing he does which has my attention since it is blocking customer choice. Oh, and his "humanitarian" efforts in places like Egypt will probably lock them into becoming addicted to Windows for a very very long time.
Mark my word, Bill "the snake" Gates will still be doing Microsoft's bidding for a long time to come. He's not going to be quiet about it and it does not matter if he's wearing a Microsoft badge or not. IMO.
yup, had a 32bit UNIX running on the 386 in the 80s. As another poster pointed out, there was circuitry in the Pentiums for optimizing 16bit code via caching. Intel, probably to reduce die size, removed the 16bit cache circuit in the PPro and optimized it for 32bits. Also pointed out was that Intel had to back fit the 16bit cache circuits in the "new" Pentium II chips so systems sold with "new" CPUs actually ran faster than the old CPUs.
I could not find the article which showed how poorly Windows 95 did on the Pentium Pro but did find one IBM did on OS/2 and it states 30%-121% performance improvements:
In any regard, unless you were unaware of other systems, Windows 95 was a technical flop. There were better user interfaces, better backwards compatibility( both DOS and Windows 3.x ), and better kernel/OS but at a cost of a couple of megs of RAM.
And believe me, I knew the 386 and 486 were 32bit because it pissed me off that Microsofts desktop OS was such a poor product. NT had potential but it required over 2X the hardware of OS/2 or UNIX and provided such a poor user interface. Remember, Windows NT v3.1 shipped in 92 along with OS/2. It was almost 4 years later that Windows 95 shipped with a moderately better GUI and another year more before NT v4.0 got that "updated" GUI.
But as usual, if people don't know what they are missing, they'll think what they have is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Technically, Windows 95 was a piece of shit but a few hundred million dollars in marketing suckered the public into accepting it. Monopolistic protectionist threats also helped deny other OS's their day in the sun. IMO.
oh come on, OS/2 shipped with both internet clients and servers and a web browser. It also had 3D OpenGL too. Even Windows NT v3.1(v1.0) shipped with OpenGL until Microsoft could solidify the plan to replace it with something which only ran on Windows.
The needs of Microsft and the needs of Bill Gates is what locked the many into years and years of mediocre software and constant upgrades. Let's not forget how the internet connected Windows client OS made a great petri dish for viral infections.
Windows 95 was a dark time for the world because it marked The Slow-Slow Zone of snail paced technical innovation.
but Windows 95 was just plain BAD on the Pentium Pro which was fully optimized for 32 bit. Remember that 150MHz was the top end back in those days and IIRC, UNIX rocked on the PPro. And OS/2 ran most apps at close to 2x faster on the 150MHz PPro compared to 150MHz Pentium. Windows95 ran much SLOWER on that 150MHz PPro compared to the P150. That's right, Windows ran slower on the new 32bit CPU and Intel was pissed at Microsoft for this. It set Intel back about 2 years and helped AMD grow. They had to hack 16bit optimizations into a new chip and to make it interesting, added new DSP-like registers(SSE) so they could sell it as a new CPU. Otherwise it was just the old stuff dumbed down to run 16bit code better.
Bill Gates says that Windows 95 was a high point for him because he beat IBM in the marketing wars and solidified their monopoly once and for all. They had a huge party when word was sent throughout Microsoft that IBM signed the license deal for Windows 95. It was on the day it was released IIRC. So a technical flop but a marketing marvel is what Bill calls his high point. Yup, I remember seeing the video of a bunch of Microsoft employees in a hallway with a bowling ball and at the other end were 10 software competitor's products lined up like bowling pins. OS/2 was at pin position #1.
I guess NT was supposed to take all of the server market but reliability kept UNIX going and by the time people figured out how to make a whole bunch of Windows PCs replace UNIX, Linux came in and really messed up Bill and Steve's plan for world domination. Where's Bill's tech leadership legacy? Windows 95?
Back to the thread; So there was so much 16 bit code in the "new" 32bit Windows 95 that a new CPU optimized for 32bit code ran the software way slower than the old 16bit optimized Pentium CPU. Exactly what you'd expect from a company where marketing is job #1. IMO.
Tell us all about how it'll work and everything will be just great. Pleeeeze. I was just talking with someone who has factory installed Vista and how SP1 would not install because of a Vista driver already installed isn't "compatible" with the update. He then told a story of how he installed a new Vista driver which didn't work but allowed SP1 to install and then re-installing the original Vista driver got sound working again.
It's all marketing-speak from the same old Microsoft we've known for 20 something years. yawn.
earlier this year there were numerous reports of how Lake Mead could become so low that power generation becomes impossible. Something was said about the last 10 or so years being over 1 million acre feet of water less than normal per year. Keeping that trend for another 10 showed the Colorado River dam systems too low to sustain populations with power and drinking water.
So these people may have a huge data center but they might want either a 10 year exit strategy or start building their own solar and/or wind power generation systems to sustain their operation.
this is probably the one thing that's really driving OEMs to consider Linux and OSS. With OEMs being told what to put on their hardware when they know customers would be better off with XP, it is probably pushing some buttons. And yet another version of Windows in the next 1-2 years is even going to make it worst.
you can never trust what Balmer says in public to be even close to resembling truth as you expect it. Everyone around me knows how I feel about Microsoft and their trashware but they have found a need to tell me how poor their experiences are with Vista. Some were even told to insist on Windows XP on new computers instead of Vista but took what was provided. ie, they have no choice and must take Vista.
So Balmer says Vista is selling well. BFD, the PC is what is selling and they are forcing their crap on customers who don't want it but feel they have no choice otherwise. And I don't trust what any Microsoft employee says the the press either since they are all well versed in marketing skills. IMO
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Funny how we keep hearing year after year... decade after decade from Microsoft users who think the NEXT version of Windows is just going to be the great one. Talk about being stuck on a treadmill.
LoB
It is highly likely that the OEMs will still have to pay for a copy of Windows Vista on every PC shipped with Windows XP and so the OEMs must pay an added price for the copy of XP a customer might request. That would be paying twice and would add to the total system cost. Not to mention still allow Microsoft to use bloated claims of number of copies of Windows Vista sold.
LoB
Firstly, Windows 95 - assuming no legacy drivers and software - relied on DOS for little more than a bootloader (much like Windows 3.1 and 3.11 before it). Secondly, Microsoft were developing and releasing 32 bit OSes well before Windows 95, including OS/2, Xenix and Windows NT. The point was that the OS Microsoft shipped as the desktop of the future was full of 16bit code and hardly used the capabilities of the CPUs at the time. Windows NT was a bloated pig and not only was it slow but required a massive increase in system resources. It was first stated to be the desktop of the future when OS/2 v2.0 was to ship but when it was finally shipped, they pulled back and claimed Chicago was the future desktop. It took almost 4 years for Chicago to ship as Windows 95 and it was pathetic compared to what IBM shipped many years earlier. Only by using false promises, bad press and other marketing tactics were they able to hold the market waiting for Windows 95. So while they had thier hands in 32bit OSs, they sucked at implementation. Microsoft to this day differentiates between a client OS and a server OS and that is ridiculous. It is a very common distinction, made by numerous OS vendors both past and present. There are not that many and it was Microsoft who purposefully disabled OS features and modified licensing to prevent users from using the OS for anything but a stand alone desktop PC with only client networking capabilities. Once again the naive public believes Microsoft's description of a desktop OS and accepts it. Ignorance is bliss. What year/millennium was it that the powerhouse that is Microsoft had a proper operating system for the masses? Without knowing what you mean by "proper OS" and "for the masses", a question impossible to answer. However, by any consistent definition of them, they were pretty much the first to do so. A kernel controlled multi tasking and memory managed system which didn't require 4x time the system resources of the current standard desktop PC. IIRC, Windows 2000 only require 2x the standard memory requirements and CPUs where quite capable at that time since it was a 32 bit design. But they did it almost 10 years after many others had already provided more robust 32bit OS's.
And while we are at it, by strong arming the marketing into their inferior technology, they all destroyed the software developement market for cross platform object oriented application frameworks. The 90s saw the elimination of nearly all object oriented application frameworks based on C++. They were replaced with a non compliant C++ compiler and non object oriented application framework called MFC and COM.
I find it very difficult to find any value in what Microsoft has done to the computing market over the last 20 years.
LoB
Secondly, Microsoft were developing and releasing 32 bit OSes well before Windows 95, including OS/2, Xenix and Windows NT.
The point was that the OS Microsoft shipped as the desktop of the future was full of 16bit code and hardly used the capabilities of the CPUs at the time. Windows NT was a bloated pig and not only was it slow but required a massive increase in system resources. It was first stated to be the desktop of the future when OS/2 v2.0 was to ship but when it was finally shipped, they pulled back and claimed Chicago was the future desktop. It took almost 4 years for Chicago to ship as Windows 95 and it was pathetic compared to what IBM shipped many years earlier. Only by using false promises, bad press and other marketing tactics were they able to hold the market waiting for Windows 95. So while they had thier hands in 32bit OSs, they sucked at implementation. Microsoft to this day differentiates between a client OS and a server OS and that is ridiculous. It is a very common distinction, made by numerous OS vendors both past and present. There are not that many and it was Microsoft who purposefully disabled OS features and modified licensing to prevent users from using the OS for anything but a stand alone desktop PC with only client networking capabilities. Once again the naive public believes Microsoft's description of a desktop OS and accepts it. Ignorance is bliss. What year/millennium was it that the powerhouse that is Microsoft had a proper operating system for the masses? Without knowing what you mean by "proper OS" and "for the masses", a question impossible to answer. However, by any consistent definition of them, they were pretty much the first to do so. a kernel controlled multi tasking and memory managed system which didn't require 4x time the system resources of the current standard desktop PC. IIRC, Windows 2000 only require 2x the standard memory requirements and CPUs where quite capable at that time since it was a 32 bit design. But they did it almost 10 years after many others had already provided more robust 32bit OS's.And while we are at it, by strong arming the marketing into their inferior technology, they all destroyed the software developement market for cross platform object oriented application frameworks. The 90s saw the elimination of nearly all object oriented application frameworks based on C++. They were replaced with a non compliant C++ compiler and non object oriented application framework called MFC and COM.
I find it very difficult to find any value in what Microsoft has done to the computing market over the last 20 years.
LoB
regarding Sr Software Architects I was talking about IT projects, not what home users purchased as hardware and took what was preloaded for an OS. In 1995, Microsoft used its monopoly power to block OS/2 and BeOS from getting even a foothold in the US market and sealed their desktop monopoly for years to come. But in 1995, the corporate landscape was very much open with Novell, IBM OS/2, and PC UNIX along with HP/Compaq/IBM UNIX. The 90s where the end of the reliance of a Sr Engineer who evaluated hardware and software and recommended products for new IT projects. The direct marketing Microsoft did to the IT management fooled those people into thinking Windows was ready for the IT sector and all kinds of wasted time/effort/dollars and we're still seeing the results of poor choices for IT projects today. But nobody gets fired for choosing Microsoft.
When some outside company had a good idea, MS either bought it, coopted it, or made something that worked 75% as well but well enough and kept improving it until it beat its original. That is just so missing what really went/goes on. You left out the part about "talking" with any of their customers who use the competitors software and "asking" them not to use it while giving little hints as to how much it'll "cost" them if they do not stop using those products. And when they do things like they did to Netscape. You know, when they force their PC vendors to flood the channel by putting MS software( IE ) on all computers but that is not enough. And then they purchase Netscapes business contracts and pay ISPs for every copy of IE that is shipped. This is how they got where they are and this was/is only possible given their monopoly/power position in the market and one they've had since the late 80s.LoB
there was a massive amount of momentum in the x86 business sector and it pretty much was driving the computer market. Sure Apple( 68xxx ) had a good share but nothing compared to the x86 market with clones and authentic IBM computers. So Apple really wasn't much of a threat to MS at the time. It was Gem and a few others doing GUIs on DOS. It did help MS that Apple tied up a few of the DOS GUIs in court since they were all pretty small and it took alot out of them. Microsoft still had a cash horde enough to not get pulled down for copying Apples GUI. It was lucky for MS that IBM wanted to tie their GUI to their more restricted hardware( PS/2 ) because they limited that market to just large businesses who could afford the expensive computers. So there was Microsoft with the very large clone sector and control of the OS being shipped on all of them. And anybody who even tried to put a GUI on DOS had to deal with the anti-competitive nature of Microsoft. Remember how they stalled DR by putting warning that Microsofts GUI wouldn't run on non MS DOS?
Microsoft owes its existence to the luck which brought IBM back to Microsoft for the x86 PC OS. It was because of IBM's position in the business market and the x86 coat tail which allowed Microsoft to ride the market to where it is today. They were handed a jewel and with that jewel, they soon gained enough control of the market to not have to compete on quality. There was no need to compete on quality because they had every PC vendor and IBM tied to them.
the only thing I give them credit for is using PR to keep the public so fooled that they are a technology company and one with the best product on the market. I find too many hacks who think Windows is where it is because it was/is better than the competition for technical reasons. That has NEVER been the case. Never.
LoB
it sure helps when those purchasing are clueless of what it is they need or are purchasing. Even today, 2008, the large majority of the business people picking Microsoft products are clueless of the details of their needs or the options available to them. They pick what others have picked and deal with the consequences. They know they don't get fired for failed projects if they pick Microsoft.
One of Microsoft's great inventions is the elimination of the Sr Software Architect or Sr Engineer, or whatever you want to call the position which management used to rely on for picking the right computing tools( software & hardware ) for the new projects.
LoB
That only got them DOS but it got them into the monopoly position with DOS. From there, it was anti-competitive business moves by Balmer which took them to where they are today. The fact that they had the power to destroy companies by just putting names up on computer conference display boards( see book "StartUp" ) shows how powerful they were in the DOS days.
Couple that control of the market with billions in cash and you've got a company that no only is willing to destroy any competitor they feel is a treat, but they have the power and will to do so.
There was only a sliver in time where Microsoft could have missed the position they where handed by IBM. That was after Phoenix Technologies reverse engineered the IBM BIOS and clone manufacturers were asking Microsoft for versions of MS DOS for it. Even then, who else were the cloners going to ask for and OS since IBM already had the PC market for business computers? Back to CPM-86 and Digital Research?
Microsoft was gifted a monopoly by IBM and they chose to protect and leverage that monopoly position with anti-competitive business methods and crappy software.
Because we already know that Digital Research was run by someone who was competing on technical merit, it would likely be a far far better computing landscape today had Microsoft stuck with BASIC and DR gained the market position of dominant OS vendor in the 80s. Think about it. the 386 and 486 were 80s era CPUs but where 32bit. Microsoft released Windows 95 in late 1995 as a crappy 16/32bit OS which still relied on DOS under it for much of it code. 1995! There were UNIX version for the 386 and 486 doing full 32bit computing and real multi-tasking. There was OS/2 doing pre-emptive multi-tasking on those CPUs. Microsoft to this day differentiates between a client OS and a server OS and that is ridiculous. What year/millennium was it that the powerhouse that is Microsoft had a proper operating system for the masses? When did Windows 2000 ship? It took Microsoft almost 10 years later to get a moderately capable 32bit OS into the general populations computing systems.
Surely you give Microsoft too much credit for their position in the market. IMO
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Here's another idea, time after time, as a competitor grows a market/sector Microsoft comes in with a half-baked beta, ships it and starts paying others to use it. Soon the competitor runs out of customers and funds because their business model has been gutted by the ability of Microsoft to declare massive losses in that product year after year. Ok, that's pretty much the same thing as above but it's how Steve Balmer has run the company.
My guess is that Bill is pretty clueless as to how Steve has run the company compared to how Bill has run the technical side. Bill thinks they won with better products and poorly run competitors. Then there's Steve Balmer throwing chairs, declaring he's going to kill Google, and any other who gets in his way. And all those millions in Microsoft cash being paid to companies and countries who evaluated Linux and/or OSS and chose it only to then turn around a take millions from MSFT to do it with Windows instead.
I think Bill is pretty clueless as to how and why Microsoft software exists.
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or show someone else, a leader, failing and constantly telling the public things are fine, etc. Show them the brief history of the Bush/Cheney Whitehouse years. If that doesn't get them to start doubting things around them I don't know what would.
in essence, show them how THEY have already been tricked and that what they may believe is not always true and can be proven when just a few true facts are added in. Not truthiness type facts but actual validatable(?) facts.
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But he really didn't do it, really. He's screwed anyways because Microsoft really did do it but instead of using that in his defense, he thought he could give the juror's something they would believe. He must have been shocked to find they didn't believe his concocted story.
;-)
His only hope now is if he can produce a body, it might provide evidence to clear him of the crime. Maybe he's hoping that they won't find the X logo over her eyes, there will instead be the Windows Logo and therefore proof of who really done it.
sorry parent, no mod points or ya woulda got another funny.
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Didn't I hear that it was recently the 25th anniversary of the movie "war Games" and that when that was released, we had high mucky mucks talking about locking up modems and cutting phone lines?
Now, the clowns running these Nukes are trying to tell us that in the 80's and 90's there were no need to be worried about network security. What freak'n morons. Why fear terrorists when we have our own moronic citizens doing dumb shit like letting a Windows PC send data to a nukes control system. I'm still under the belief that the N.Y. power surg and black out was due to a Windows virus flooding the same ethernet network used to send display signaling information to the control room. When the Windows virus flooded the network, the ethernet messages could not get out, the queue filled and crashed the app. Look ma, no status messages telling the control personnel a surge was occurring and BAM, shutdowns start going off like falling dominoes.
We have nothing to fear but ourselves.....
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it could probably lay down a mask so you can etch your own board. I see what you're saying in that the circuit boards are non-standard parts. Well, IMO, they should be using a 3 stepper motor board from Lin Systems or something like that instead of 3 stepper control boards and 3 driver boards and stop sensors. The Lin Engineering board does all that on one board along with having a bunch of digital IO.
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how about:
* custom required parts
you'll get a 100% on this and this is what the big achievement is. After all, all the other parts are easy to purchase and many can be bought from any number of vendors.
So what makes a DIY kit "Do"able is that you can get the parts cheaply and easily. RepRap just hit that milestone by getting the accuracy to the point where it can make those custom parts needed to make another RepRap. This really is a big deal. I'm sure somewhere there is a list of the cost of having those parts( all of the custom ones ) CNC'ed and my guess is that the price would probably double at the very least.
If you look at their design, it is designed to make as much use of off-the-shelf parts as possible. Now, once someone builds one, they can start making parts for another and another, etc. It would be nice if they started pumping parts out and selling them cheap so we can all start building our own. Otherwise, this requires one expensive one with CNC'ed parts before friends can make parts for other friends.
So start production fellas.
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yes, the marketing droids were definitely busy with this title and it's been brought up ump-teen number of times.
The deal is that it makes the required CUSTOM parts which make making another one possible. All the other parts are pretty much off the shelf parts with assembly required. So does it really make itself? No. Does it make the really hard or impossible parts needed to make one? Yes and the other parts are so easy to get they are noise to those who have been trying to do this for years.
It is an amazing achievement even if the title is over stated. IMO
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Think about it, all that money just for licensing and they are going to Vista? And it is because 7,000 computers need to run one Windows app for a kindergarten language class? I'm sure that has got to be one highly sophisticated application and one so important that hundreds of thousands of other computers will have to run Windows also just because of its sophistication. WTF?
My guess is that Balmer or Gates recently visited Vienna and talked them into making sure they were ready for the next great OS from Microsoft, Windows Vienna/Windows 7. And they probably promised it will do dishes and wipe kindergartner's asses at that same time.
Or just maybe Microsoft didn't like the fact that a large well known city with the same name as their "new" OS was switching to Linux. And really, a browser based app for children was the best reason they could come up with? They're not even good at excuses so it would be no wonder that they took bribes from Microsoft to be a Windows shop and a Windows-only shop at that. IMO.
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where have you been for the last 15+ years? do you really think developers made Vista what it is today? They have been predominantly a marketing company for a very long time.
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has anything he's said in the last 10+ years mattered? And it is not likely he's going to shut up and somehow become skilled at really figuring out what the next big thing is.
And if anything, the news that he's going to be spending more time making sure anyone who accepts the Bill And Melinda Gates money is locked into Microsoft Windows is the only thing he does which has my attention since it is blocking customer choice. Oh, and his "humanitarian" efforts in places like Egypt will probably lock them into becoming addicted to Windows for a very very long time.
Mark my word, Bill "the snake" Gates will still be doing Microsoft's bidding for a long time to come. He's not going to be quiet about it and it does not matter if he's wearing a Microsoft badge or not. IMO.
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yup, had a 32bit UNIX running on the 386 in the 80s. As another poster pointed out, there was circuitry in the Pentiums for optimizing 16bit code via caching. Intel, probably to reduce die size, removed the 16bit cache circuit in the PPro and optimized it for 32bits. Also pointed out was that Intel had to back fit the 16bit cache circuits in the "new" Pentium II chips so systems sold with "new" CPUs actually ran faster than the old CPUs.
I could not find the article which showed how poorly Windows 95 did on the Pentium Pro but did find one IBM did on OS/2 and it states 30%-121% performance improvements:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_Nov_1/ai_17545272
In any regard, unless you were unaware of other systems, Windows 95 was a technical flop. There were better user interfaces, better backwards compatibility( both DOS and Windows 3.x ), and better kernel/OS but at a cost of a couple of megs of RAM.
And believe me, I knew the 386 and 486 were 32bit because it pissed me off that Microsofts desktop OS was such a poor product. NT had potential but it required over 2X the hardware of OS/2 or UNIX and provided such a poor user interface. Remember, Windows NT v3.1 shipped in 92 along with OS/2. It was almost 4 years later that Windows 95 shipped with a moderately better GUI and another year more before NT v4.0 got that "updated" GUI.
But as usual, if people don't know what they are missing, they'll think what they have is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Technically, Windows 95 was a piece of shit but a few hundred million dollars in marketing suckered the public into accepting it. Monopolistic protectionist threats also helped deny other OS's their day in the sun. IMO.
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oh come on, OS/2 shipped with both internet clients and servers and a web browser. It also had 3D OpenGL too. Even Windows NT v3.1(v1.0) shipped with OpenGL until Microsoft could solidify the plan to replace it with something which only ran on Windows.
The needs of Microsft and the needs of Bill Gates is what locked the many into years and years of mediocre software and constant upgrades. Let's not forget how the internet connected Windows client OS made a great petri dish for viral infections.
Windows 95 was a dark time for the world because it marked The Slow-Slow Zone of snail paced technical innovation.
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but Windows 95 was just plain BAD on the Pentium Pro which was fully optimized for 32 bit. Remember that 150MHz was the top end back in those days and IIRC, UNIX rocked on the PPro. And OS/2 ran most apps at close to 2x faster on the 150MHz PPro compared to 150MHz Pentium. Windows95 ran much SLOWER on that 150MHz PPro compared to the P150. That's right, Windows ran slower on the new 32bit CPU and Intel was pissed at Microsoft for this. It set Intel back about 2 years and helped AMD grow. They had to hack 16bit optimizations into a new chip and to make it interesting, added new DSP-like registers(SSE) so they could sell it as a new CPU. Otherwise it was just the old stuff dumbed down to run 16bit code better.
Bill Gates says that Windows 95 was a high point for him because he beat IBM in the marketing wars and solidified their monopoly once and for all. They had a huge party when word was sent throughout Microsoft that IBM signed the license deal for Windows 95. It was on the day it was released IIRC. So a technical flop but a marketing marvel is what Bill calls his high point. Yup, I remember seeing the video of a bunch of Microsoft employees in a hallway with a bowling ball and at the other end were 10 software competitor's products lined up like bowling pins. OS/2 was at pin position #1.
I guess NT was supposed to take all of the server market but reliability kept UNIX going and by the time people figured out how to make a whole bunch of Windows PCs replace UNIX, Linux came in and really messed up Bill and Steve's plan for world domination. Where's Bill's tech leadership legacy? Windows 95?
Back to the thread; So there was so much 16 bit code in the "new" 32bit Windows 95 that a new CPU optimized for 32bit code ran the software way slower than the old 16bit optimized Pentium CPU. Exactly what you'd expect from a company where marketing is job #1. IMO.
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Tell us all about how it'll work and everything will be just great. Pleeeeze. I was just talking with someone who has factory installed Vista and how SP1 would not install because of a Vista driver already installed isn't "compatible" with the update. He then told a story of how he installed a new Vista driver which didn't work but allowed SP1 to install and then re-installing the original Vista driver got sound working again.
It's all marketing-speak from the same old Microsoft we've known for 20 something years. yawn.
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earlier this year there were numerous reports of how Lake Mead could become so low that power generation becomes impossible. Something was said about the last 10 or so years being over 1 million acre feet of water less than normal per year. Keeping that trend for another 10 showed the Colorado River dam systems too low to sustain populations with power and drinking water.
So these people may have a huge data center but they might want either a 10 year exit strategy or start building their own solar and/or wind power generation systems to sustain their operation.
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this is probably the one thing that's really driving OEMs to consider Linux and OSS. With OEMs being told what to put on their hardware when they know customers would be better off with XP, it is probably pushing some buttons. And yet another version of Windows in the next 1-2 years is even going to make it worst.
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you can never trust what Balmer says in public to be even close to resembling truth as you expect it. Everyone around me knows how I feel about Microsoft and their trashware but they have found a need to tell me how poor their experiences are with Vista. Some were even told to insist on Windows XP on new computers instead of Vista but took what was provided. ie, they have no choice and must take Vista.
So Balmer says Vista is selling well. BFD, the PC is what is selling and they are forcing their crap on customers who don't want it but feel they have no choice otherwise. And I don't trust what any Microsoft employee says the the press either since they are all well versed in marketing skills. IMO
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