Subj : OFFLINE READER NEEDE
To   : Bill Wise
From : Scott Little
Date : Mon Aug 07 2000 01:38 pm

 [ 05 Aug 00 06:28, Bill Wise wrote to All ]

 BW> derogatory remarks refer to. Not flaming you at all, I'd just like

don't mind me - this is a debate echo, so I ruffle feathers on purpose to keep 
things moving along.. it's all very boring otherwise.

let the flames begin..

 SL>> bad about it is Apple's fault (the OS). Aesthetics are meaningless
 BW> Since this iMac is my first Macintosh, I have no idea what your
[snip]
 BW> you to explain what leads you to say what you do.  Thanks.

From a technical standpoint, MacOS is really bad. Co-operative multitasking, no 
memory protection (and for such an alleged user-friendly OS, I don't see why 
one would need to manually tweak memory allocation in certain cases), and a 
really horrid interface (I hate the GUI - the way it looks is irrelevant, I 
detest the way it behaves). These things should have died a decade ago - even 
OS/2 was doing it back then, on the butt-ugly x86 architecture.

OTOH, Windows 95/98/ME have a better technical architecture, but the 
implementation is REALLY REALLY shocking :)   NT/2000 is different yet again, 
and doesn't suck anywhere near as hard as the Win9x jobs.

if it's your first Mac, and if you were never hard core about other OS' then 
you probably won't miss anything. You'll just accept your limited OS' 
functionality as normal and get on with life. Personally, I can't stand the 
trend towards dumbing down such a powerful machine into a VCR or microwave 
appliance. Hell, some people can't even program the VCR and there's only a 
handful of buttons.. they must be on the verge of a coronary when they sight 
the power that is a computer.

As for aesthetics.. I don't really care what my machine looks like as long as 
it doesn't hurt my eyes to look at. iMac's are one of those painful objects, 
along with lava lamps and anything else that belongs back in the Flower Power 
era. Thats just personal taste though. the new Cubes look OK, though the 
transparent/translucent plastic is getting real old real fast... gimme BLACK 
damnit! No, wait... Jobs already did that: the NeXT cube. Back in the 80's if 
I'm not mistaken...

Back to MacOS...

OS X is The Next Big Thing from Apple. Based on the Mach kernel, it's pretty 
much a bastardised Unix clone (although not POSIX compliant). OS X looks 
horrid, but the underlying OS seems to be quite excellent... which is probably 
because Apple didn't write it :)

Seems there is a strange trend at Apple. The less Apple have to do with their 
products, the better they do. eg. they're using IDE, PCI, USB, and Mach - all 
non-Apple... not that it matters much, but it's funny seeing the die-hard Apple 
fans choke on that humble pie. 10 points to Jobs though for getting over the 
Not-Invented-Here syndrome that infects the entire USA.

Apple's contribution to the new OS are the API's that allow the software to get 
stuff done, as well as the drug-induced interface. (as I said, the actual OS is 
the Mach microkernel, which isn't Apple's.) Finally Apple are going to drag the 
Mac fanatics kicking and screaming (and trust me, the die hards will not like 
OS X very much, at least at first) into modern computing.

-- Scott Little, 3:712/848@fidonet | slittle@slittle.com

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 * Origin:  Cyberia: You know you want it. [02-9596-0284] (3:712/848)

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