Anthony Fremont writes:

That's what they say, but.......

But it's true.

Right, you don't really have much choice but to use the machine as an
admin.

That's not the fault of the OS. There are some applications that will
run without special privileges.

You'd have to go to pretty good lengths to write code that would hang
Linux just because you ran it as root.

No more so than for XP.

Hanging the kernel is primarily
accomplished by device drivers, which are running in kernel space, so
all bets are really off there.

The same is true for XP.

My point is that hanging windows is allot easier.

Except that it's not.

On Linux it's fairly tricky just getting into position to
be able to start slapping the kernel around unless you're a device
driver of course.

If you're running a GUI, it's easy.

I'm not sure I really agree with that. It's probably a point of view
kinda thing. My background is in the mainframe world originally doing
online TP, so my definition of stability tends to be different from many
people.

I have the same background. XP is stable.

The same goes for security. Even Linux upsets me greatly at
times, especially MythTV and the ivtv driver. But that tends to be the
fault of the third party programmers and not the Linux kernel.

Linux and UNIX are quite insecure, compared to NT.

I can't fault the OS if hardware dies but, depending upon the particular
hardware, the driver might be graceful about it.

The driver is usually written by the hardware vendor. Many drivers
are very poorly written.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

BillW50 wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...
Date: 28 Oct 2005 13:35:00 -0700


Hardly dead,


You mean hardly useful! And IBM dropped support a few months before they
were saying they would never drop OS/2 support. IBM has never done
anything except lie to me over and over again.


and oh by the way, NT was built on early OS/2 code. NT and 2000 had
plenty of OS/2 code in their kernel, and can even run text mode
OS/2 apps. If you had seen the code...... you would know that.


I did a search through OS/2 files for the Microsoft copyright in Warp a
few years ago. And Warp was littered everywhere with Microsoft's code
throughout OS/2.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000



excuse me, if memory serves IBM had MS write the first OS which i think
was for the 286 and thought that it would be alive for a long time.
then when 386 hit they tried to get MS to rewrite it for them and thus
ms quoted such a high price just to get them to go away thus leading
the way for MS to where they are now. mean while IBM then took over
the development to carry it on with their own programmers.
that is the way i remember it.

--
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

Anthony Fremont writes:

That's why there is 4 ring levels supported in hardware. Too bad M$
doesn't utilize it properly, Linux wins hands down here and only uses 2
of the 4 levels.

NT-based versions of Windows are much more secure than Linux or UNIX.
You only need hardware support for two levels or privilege.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

BillW50 wrote:

wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:29:38 -0600



The difference will prove to be in your definition. The original
definition has been absconded with by microsoft in order to make it
appear that their inferior implementation actually meets the
requirements, so if it is really important that you 'win' that's okay
with me.

Mark


You have never mentioned cooperative tasking in anything you have
posted. Me thinks you really don't know about the different methods of
multitasking and the pros and cons of each.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000


Ha., i would be careful making statements like that.
i cut out most of the original poster since you
were trying very hard to out smart him (publicly).
there are a couple of things you made an error on
which i won't get into.


--
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

BillW50 wrote:

"DBLEXPOSURE" wrote in message
...
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:58:06 -0500

... look for a program called D4. It is a free download and will
keep your clock synced to universal time. Also, Widows XP can sync
to the same time servers that D4 uses. Both work great!


Nobody I've seen yet thanked you for recommending this fine program.
Well I for one am very grateful! Although I usually set my computers
clocks about 5 to 10 times per year because they were off about a
minute. But now this is one task I don't have to worry about anymore.
grin

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000


Hmm, D4 is an acronym for the once famous
"Delphi 4", now since never versions exist they
are in the order of D5,D6,D7 and now in the
D2005 and soon D2006.
maybe changing the name of the utility mite
help.


--
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:45:02 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:41:44 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in design
to the old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for
many of us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the
others was soundless. And a good number of Windows applications
would routinely crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under
Windows 3.1. Then the OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a
couple of years and crashed the whole system. Then the FixPaks
often caused more problems than they fixed. IBM programmers are
morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then?

Nope!

IBM contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987.

It might have been in '86 actually. And MS had been working on
Windows since about '84. Although MS couldn't give the development
time it deserved because those MS programmers were mostly working on
OS/2. MS lost 3 years in Windows development because of OS/2.

I suppose that's one way to look at the time that M$ spent sucking
money from IBM and using it for their own gains.

IBM paid Microsoft by the K-line. Which means by the lines of code they
produced. IBM got the lines and MS got paid. Anytime MS didn't produce
code for OS/2, MS didn't get paid. So how could MS get paid for their
own gains by IBM? That's impossible.

M$ drug their feet on the release, while spending IBM's money, so
that they could get Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by saying that OS/2
just wasn't stable enough for release yet. Yeah, no conflict of
interest their.

IBM only paid MS for the lines of code MS produced. IBM didn't care
if MS spent more time to make the code lean, mean and faster. As
IBM would

I think IBM had visions of stability that M$ will never attain, ever.

pay you less if you did so. IBM was cutting their own throats. IBM
is full of a much of morons. Impossible to work with and to get
paid fairly for. Hell I would work slowly and drag my feet as well
for those morons.

Yeah, morons. They only own the mainframe market even though
Honeywell made better hardware. IBM's only moronic move was to
allow M$ to screw them for a second time. The first time being with
MSDOS/IBMDOS games.

Who screwed whom again? IBM only paid MS $80,000 for everything
(including DOS, Basic, etc.). And IBM paid no royalties to Microsoft no
matter how many copies IBM sold.

Finally IBM got fed up and took the project away from M$.

Yeah, IBM got fed up alright! As Microsoft didn't want to be a
slave to IBM (who always makes slaves or crushes anybody that gets
in their way

Too bad that isn't true since they would have done the world a great
favor by crushing M$.

Actually Bill Gates did the world a favor by saving all of us from IBM.
As nobody else was willing to do it. Including Gary Kildall.

up to this point in time). And IBM wanted MS to create OS/2 which
would be made to run on only true IBM PCs after they have the world
hooked on OS/2.

Yeah that is a great plan for us, NOT! Bill Gates had taken the
biggest risk in his career. As nobody ever bucked IBM and had
survived. Although he did it! And thank goodness he did! As we all
would be using real IBM machines and OS/2 by now.

Actually, if Gates wasn't so good at being greedy, we'd all be
using something that actually worked. OS/2 was crap too. Too bad
Xerox didn't have sense enough to stay in the game, they had the
best product for the office in 1980. Apple didn't have anything
that could come close for around 10 years. It took M$ almost
another 5 years on top of that to catch up.

Gates being greedy? Since IBM only paid Gates $80,000 for millions of
copies of DOS, Basic, Fortran, etc. So IBM *only* spent about a nickel
for all of the MS software per computer. So if anybody got ripped off,
it was Gates.

And since you mentioned Xerox, those foolish Xerox executives gave Steve
Jobs all of Xerox's GUI secrets for nothing! That is right, NOTHING!
Then Apple has the balls to turn around a sue Microsoft for stealing
Apple's GUI, when Apple had stolen it from Xerox in the first place.
Yup, Xerox could have had it all and they (bozos in management) didn't
even know it.

Sure IBM was ticked that Bill Gates wasn't going to play along. So
they parted ways. And IBM wouldn't sell any IBM computer with
Windows installed for a short time. Until IBM realized that they
couldn't sell IBM computers with either crappy PC-DOS or OS/2 on
them. As people wanted Windows instead, plain and simple.

The only reason being that M$ delayed OS/2 was so that Win 3.0
could get the jump on it. If OS/2 would have shipped on time, it
would have possibly eliminated windows.

Yes probably this is true. Although MS still would have gotten third
parties to write applications for Windows instead of OS/2. Which did
happen anyway. And IBM had the balls to threaten third parties to
write applications for OS/2, but wasn't willing to pay them to do so.
Well I wouldn't listen to big bully IBM either.

There are very many suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the
graphics system calls of Win 3.0 and OS/2.

The same MS programmers wrote both OS/2 and Windows 3.0. So why
should this be a surprise?

It's not a surprise to me. I think it just goes to show that M$ had
no qualms about directly lifting the code that they originally
wrote for IBM using IBM's money and, AFAICT, IBM's design goals.
I'm not saying that was illegal back then, but it certainly
wouldn't happen in today's IP obsessed world without bringing about
major court battles.

Here was a true visionary: http://www.cadigital.com/kildall.htm

Yes I know all about Gary Kildall! I was a big supporter of his until he
killed off CP/M without any warning! Then Gary had become a big creep to
me and other developers. Later I learned he often screwed his other
customers left and right as well. SCP was one company that he burned
badly. Luckily it burned him in his ass, now didn't it?

And talk about being greedy, Gary almost invented the word. As you had
to pay him big bucks to make him do anything. And it wouldn't be to your
liking, but his. And while Gary Kildall and Bill Gates were playing
around with DEC computers. I was working on the VTAS computer which got
the US to the moon. So as far as I was concern, both were playing around
with kids' stuff at the time.

Now having said the above, I do admit that Gary was nothing less than
one great programmer without a doubt. Although everything had to be done
his way, or forget it. And that is why Gary did well without any
competitors, but failed once someone else was in the OS game.

Funny IBM also does well without competition, but also fails once
competition arrives. And oddly enough, Microsoft only gets better when
there are competitors. Otherwise they basically just sit on their butt
doing nothing.

You obviously really like M$ so there probably isn't much point in
continuing this until it becomes a real ****ing contest. I run windos
on some machines because I basically have to. When I need something
that really works, I use Linux. :-)

I actually use Windows because it does work. Linux has way too many
lacks and wants to keep me happy. And did you know that Linus Torvalds
also uses Windows? Yup he said so right in his own book.

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

"Jamie" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:23:18 -0800

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:38:05 GMT

You have never mentioned cooperative tasking in anything you have
posted. Me thinks you really don't know about the different methods
of multitasking and the pros and cons of each.

Ha., i would be careful making statements like that.
i cut out most of the original poster since you
were trying very hard to out smart him (publicly).
there are a couple of things you made an error on
which i won't get into.

I reread what I had posted and I see no errors I've made. So feel free
to disprove me if you wish. And yes, I am indeed human and I do make
mistakes. Most of them are do from moody, irrational female types.
Otherwise I do fairly well most of the time. grin

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

"Jamie" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:12:37 -0800

BillW50 wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...
Date: 28 Oct 2005 13:35:00 -0700


Hardly dead,


You mean hardly useful! And IBM dropped support a few months before
they were saying they would never drop OS/2 support. IBM has never
done anything except lie to me over and over again.


and oh by the way, NT was built on early OS/2 code. NT and 2000 had
plenty of OS/2 code in their kernel, and can even run text mode
OS/2 apps. If you had seen the code...... you would know that.


I did a search through OS/2 files for the Microsoft copyright in
Warp a few years ago. And Warp was littered everywhere with
Microsoft's code throughout OS/2.

excuse me, if memory serves IBM had MS write the first OS which i
think was for the 286 and thought that it would be alive for a long
time. then when 386 hit they tried to get MS to rewrite it for them
and thus ms quoted such a high price just to get them to go away
thus leading the way for MS to where they are now. mean while IBM
then took over the development to carry it on with their own
programmers. that is the way i remember it.

Yes. Did you feel I would disagree with your memory?

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:45:02 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:41:44 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in
design
to the old versions of Windows, it was not superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for
many of us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the
others was soundless. And a good number of Windows
applications
would routinely crashed under OS/2, but stable as a rock under
Windows 3.1. Then the OS/2 GUI was unstable for at least a
couple of years and crashed the whole system. Then the FixPaks
often caused more problems than they fixed. IBM programmers
are
morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then?

Nope!

IBM contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987.

It might have been in '86 actually. And MS had been working on
Windows since about '84. Although MS couldn't give the development
time it deserved because those MS programmers were mostly working
on
OS/2. MS lost 3 years in Windows development because of OS/2.

I suppose that's one way to look at the time that M$ spent sucking
money from IBM and using it for their own gains.

IBM paid Microsoft by the K-line. Which means by the lines of code
they
produced. IBM got the lines and MS got paid. Anytime MS didn't produce
code for OS/2, MS didn't get paid. So how could MS get paid for their
own gains by IBM? That's impossible.

No, it's not impossible. M$ got paid by IBM to write code for IBM.
They also were able to use much of the same exact code in Windows.

M$ drug their feet on the release, while spending IBM's money,
so
that they could get Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by saying that OS/2
just wasn't stable enough for release yet. Yeah, no conflict of
interest their.

IBM only paid MS for the lines of code MS produced. IBM didn't
care
if MS spent more time to make the code lean, mean and faster. As
IBM would

I think IBM had visions of stability that M$ will never attain,
ever.

pay you less if you did so. IBM was cutting their own throats. IBM
is full of a much of morons. Impossible to work with and to get
paid fairly for. Hell I would work slowly and drag my feet as well
for those morons.

Yeah, morons. They only own the mainframe market even though
Honeywell made better hardware. IBM's only moronic move was to
allow M$ to screw them for a second time. The first time being with
MSDOS/IBMDOS games.

Who screwed whom again? IBM only paid MS $80,000 for everything
(including DOS, Basic, etc.). And IBM paid no royalties to Microsoft
no
matter how many copies IBM sold.

As far as I can remember, I've never heard that before so I need to see
a link to back that statement up. M$ had to pay $50,000 to Seattle
Computers just to buy the thing that they turned into DOS 1.0. How
could they have possibly done the whole job for $80,000 with no royalty
income? I'm sorry, I just can't buy that without some kind of proof.

Finally IBM got fed up and took the project away from M$.

Yeah, IBM got fed up alright! As Microsoft didn't want to be a
slave to IBM (who always makes slaves or crushes anybody that gets
in their way

Too bad that isn't true since they would have done the world a great
favor by crushing M$.

Actually Bill Gates did the world a favor by saving all of us from
IBM.
As nobody else was willing to do it. Including Gary Kildall.

IMO Kildall was 100 times the human being that B.G. could ever hope to
be. That's taking into consideration B.G.'s charity work.

up to this point in time). And IBM wanted MS to create OS/2 which
would be made to run on only true IBM PCs after they have the
world
hooked on OS/2.

Yeah that is a great plan for us, NOT! Bill Gates had taken the
biggest risk in his career. As nobody ever bucked IBM and had
survived. Although he did it! And thank goodness he did! As we all
would be using real IBM machines and OS/2 by now.

Actually, if Gates wasn't so good at being greedy, we'd all be
using something that actually worked. OS/2 was crap too. Too bad
Xerox didn't have sense enough to stay in the game, they had the
best product for the office in 1980. Apple didn't have anything
that could come close for around 10 years. It took M$ almost
another 5 years on top of that to catch up.

Gates being greedy? Since IBM only paid Gates $80,000 for millions of
copies of DOS, Basic, Fortran, etc. So IBM *only* spent about a nickel
for all of the MS software per computer. So if anybody got ripped off,
it was Gates.

Like I said, I'll have to see something backing that up. M$ got plenty
for each and every copy of MS-DOS they FORCED onto OEMs.

And since you mentioned Xerox, those foolish Xerox executives gave
Steve
Jobs all of Xerox's GUI secrets for nothing! That is right, NOTHING!
Then Apple has the balls to turn around a sue Microsoft for stealing
Apple's GUI, when Apple had stolen it from Xerox in the first place.
Yup, Xerox could have had it all and they (bozos in management) didn't
even know it.

They certainly had the right to intervene on the Apple vs. M$ battle for
"look and feel".

Sure IBM was ticked that Bill Gates wasn't going to play along. So
they parted ways. And IBM wouldn't sell any IBM computer with
Windows installed for a short time. Until IBM realized that they
couldn't sell IBM computers with either crappy PC-DOS or OS/2 on
them. As people wanted Windows instead, plain and simple.

The only reason being that M$ delayed OS/2 was so that Win 3.0
could get the jump on it. If OS/2 would have shipped on time, it
would have possibly eliminated windows.

Yes probably this is true. Although MS still would have gotten third
parties to write applications for Windows instead of OS/2. Which did

Right, nothing like ludicrous binding legal agreements to crush free
trade and capitalism.

happen anyway. And IBM had the balls to threaten third parties to
write applications for OS/2, but wasn't willing to pay them to do so.
Well I wouldn't listen to big bully IBM either.

Who's the greedy bully now?

There are very many suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the
graphics system calls of Win 3.0 and OS/2.

The same MS programmers wrote both OS/2 and Windows 3.0. So why
should this be a surprise?

It's not a surprise to me. I think it just goes to show that M$ had
no qualms about directly lifting the code that they originally
wrote for IBM using IBM's money and, AFAICT, IBM's design goals.
I'm not saying that was illegal back then, but it certainly
wouldn't happen in today's IP obsessed world without bringing about
major court battles.

Here was a true visionary: http://www.cadigital.com/kildall.htm

Yes I know all about Gary Kildall! I was a big supporter of his until
he
killed off CP/M without any warning! Then Gary had become a big creep
to

And I thought DOS killed it with the "here have DOS free with your PC,
or send us money and we will send you CPM". Well that, 8" diskette
drive issue and the fact that CPM was limited to using 64K of RAM. I
could be wrong though.

me and other developers. Later I learned he often screwed his other
customers left and right as well. SCP was one company that he burned
badly. Luckily it burned him in his ass, now didn't it?

Given that you feel that way about the insignificant "damage" that
Kildall did, how can you be so bubbly when talking about M$ and their
"success"?

And talk about being greedy, Gary almost invented the word. As you had
to pay him big bucks to make him do anything. And it wouldn't be to
your

So what? He was good and he knew it. Are you saying that his efforts
weren't worth big bucks?

liking, but his. And while Gary Kildall and Bill Gates were playing
around with DEC computers. I was working on the VTAS computer which
got
the US to the moon. So as far as I was concern, both were playing
around
with kids' stuff at the time.

I didn't start getting paid for tinkering with computers until 1980.
Before then it was me and my COSMAC ELF and whatever else I could get my
hands on. When the PC came along, I was already into mainframes so I
really didn't pay the PC any mind until pretty much the end of the 80's.
Once I had a mainframe to control, I could hardly treat any micro
seriously.

BTW, I searched Google for VTAS computer and it seems that you are the
only person in the USENET archive that ever mentioned it. I also can't
find any links on the web either.

Now having said the above, I do admit that Gary was nothing less than
one great programmer without a doubt. Although everything had to be
done
his way, or forget it. And that is why Gary did well without any
competitors, but failed once someone else was in the OS game.

That's the problem with genius, it usually doesn't come with greed and
"good business sense" attached.

Funny IBM also does well without competition, but also fails once
competition arrives. And oddly enough, Microsoft only gets better when

They seemed to do ok against Burroughs, Honeywell and the rest.

there are competitors. Otherwise they basically just sit on their butt
doing nothing.

You obviously really like M$ so there probably isn't much point in
continuing this until it becomes a real ****ing contest. I run
windos
on some machines because I basically have to. When I need something
that really works, I use Linux. :-)

I actually use Windows because it does work. Linux has way too many
lacks and wants to keep me happy. And did you know that Linus Torvalds
also uses Windows? Yup he said so right in his own book.

In message Mxsmanic
wrote:

BillW50 writes:

Actually it was the other way around. As IBM black mailed into writing
OS/2. And IBM's master plan was to get everyone off of MS-DOS and on to
OS/2. Then IBM would have OS/2 changed to run on only true IBM PCs. Thus
killing off the clone market and MS as well. This was all documented and
shown on PBS.

IBM sounds a lot like Apple.

Of course we've all seen how this has worked for Apple... "Think
different (as long as it's how we tell you)"

--
Sorry, she meant to say "stripped naked and thrown out an airlock",
I'm sorry for any confusion this may have caused.
-- John Sheridan, B5

In message "Anthony
Fremont" wrote:

Like I said, I'll have to see something backing that up. M$ got plenty
for each and every copy of MS-DOS they FORCED onto OEMs.

For each copy of MS-DOS, yes. They didn't get royalties for each copy
of IBM-DOS that IBM distributed.

Notice the different letters, "MS-DOS" and "IBM-DOS", that indicates
they're separate products, with separate licensing terms.

--
Sorry, she meant to say "stripped naked and thrown out an airlock",
I'm sorry for any confusion this may have caused.
-- John Sheridan, B5

"DevilsPGD" wrote in message
news
In message "Anthony
Fremont" wrote:

Like I said, I'll have to see something backing that up. M$ got
plenty
for each and every copy of MS-DOS they FORCED onto OEMs.

For each copy of MS-DOS, yes. They didn't get royalties for each copy
of IBM-DOS that IBM distributed.

Notice the different letters, "MS-DOS" and "IBM-DOS", that indicates
they're separate products, with separate licensing terms.

The sarcasm is unnecessary as I think I can tell the difference. IIRC
it was called PC-DOS and not IBM-DOS. At any rate, I don't care whether
they got royalties or not, I just want to see some proof that IBM only
paid them $80,000 for the whole shebang.

Anthony Fremont wrote:
...
Actually, if Gates wasn't so good at being greedy, we'd all be using
something that actually worked. OS/2 was crap too. Too bad Xerox
didn't have sense enough to stay in the game, they had the best product
for the office in 1980. ...

Xerox had superb computer products in the 1970s. Yes -
they even had the precursor to Apple's MAC workings and
marketable in the 1970s. I worked with some 1970s products
that were even multiple workstations connected to a small box
- the disk server. When did you start using PCs with
servers? The problem, again, must be broken down to citing
top management. Hack Crowley, a Xerox vice president noted
the problem:
Xerox was spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on
research, development, and engineering. Yet there was no one,
literally, in top management who had ever run a product
development program, who could say to the engineers that such
and such should cost less or should be doable faster, and who
would know from their personal experience, that they were right.
If Xerox had one single management weakness, it was that none of
the power players from Peter [the president] on down, and that
includes me, had a technical background or the technical support
to permit them to challenge hard the judgements of the
engineering group.

Why was Microsoft constantly riding the bull? IBM
management were so business school trained - to
anti-innovative - at to even have only IBM XTs with CGA
monitors - 1984 technology - on early 1990 desks. How, pray
tell, how could MS ever promote innovation when IBM was that
anti-innovative. By definition, IBM was that anti-American.
This is why IBM kept pushing OS/2 - and even wrote it in
assembly language. How to made an OS and simply complex as
OS/2 unreliable? Do it all in assembly language. But then
IBM had no way of knowing how anti-innovative its top
management was. These people did not even come from where the
work gets done. They got promoted using business school
concepts - which routinely result in disasters even as serious
as 3 Mile Island, the Challenger, and just recently the
NorthEast blackout.

This is what Ballmer (of Microsoft) meant when he talks
about riding the bull. If it was innovative, then late 1980s
and early 1990s IBM would fight it all the way until it was
dead. OS/2 is a trophy of business school management in IBM.
Xerox also lost the computer and copier business for same
business school reasons. "A good manager can manage any
business". Only in myths and communism.

"Jamie" wrote in message
news Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:27:01 -0800

BillW50 wrote:

"DBLEXPOSURE" wrote in message
...
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:58:06 -0500

... look for a program called D4. It is a free download and will
keep your clock synced to universal time. Also, Widows XP can sync
to the same time servers that D4 uses. Both work great!


Nobody I've seen yet thanked you for recommending this fine program.
Well I for one am very grateful! Although I usually set my computers
clocks about 5 to 10 times per year because they were off about a
minute. But now this is one task I don't have to worry about
anymore. grin

Hmm, D4 is an acronym for the once famous
"Delphi 4", now since never versions exist they
are in the order of D5,D6,D7 and now in the
D2005 and soon D2006.
maybe changing the name of the utility mite
help.

Hmm... you mean Delphi as in visual programming? Gee I thought
DBLEXPOSURE was referring to D4 as in Dimension 4 by Rob Chambers
(www.thinkingman.com). Was I mistaken?

______________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD & Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within Word 2000

Appreciate why the IBM PC had a successful marketing plan
AND why IBM corporate philosphy repeatedly attacked and
undermined that game plan. The Estridge plan was superb. For
example, Estridge would have sold IBM PCs with a solution to
the kludge "Real / Protected mode" problem found in Intel's
80286s. It would have kept the clones in a game of catchup.
He adocated innovation to stay ahead of any competition. But
when the corporate MBAs discovered a kludge solution around
that "Real / Protected mode" problem using the keyboard's
single chip computer (yes, the keyboard was a complete and
separate computer), then IBM again lost oppurtunity to
dominate the PC market. Those with basic computer hardware
knowledge understand this completely.

Estridge's game plan also included clones. A successful and
dominant player in any industry wants clone competitors.
Clones are essential to a productive #1 in any industry. But
bean counters in IBM corporate management promoted Cannavino
to run the PC Entry Division. Cannavino did everything to
stifle clones - and therefore also stifled all innovation in
IBM's personal computer division.

As BillW50 accurately notes, IBM created the obsolete
technology OS/2 using Cannavino's MBA school philosophy of
"what is good for IBM is good for all computer users". This
is not even debateable because it is so obvious and so well
documented in history - including a PBS report.

What so many never learned is why IBM's personal computer
business model changed. Someone with dirt under his finger
nails was replaced by someone who ran business as taught in
the business schools. A devil is named Cannavino - who was as
satanic as his boss John Akers.

The Estridge business model became a precursor to how free
market, innovative, and therefore patriotic American
industries operate today. But when top management does not
even know how to use a comptuer and is trained in business
school philosophies, then we have a classic example of the man
most responsible for IBM's loss in the personal computer
industry. Jim Cannavino - a man who routinely stifled
innovation promoted a mythical belief that profits were more
important.

Let's not lose sight of why this discussion has gotten
here. Someone without sufficient knowledge declared that
application software and a weak OS structure could cause a
CMOS date time clock to lose time. Obviously not. Someone
has represented 1990 IBM as a decent, respectable, and
innnovative company. Obviously not. OS/2 is a symptom of how
bad IBM had become.

BillW50 wrote:
"w_tom" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 19:25:47 -0400
Microsoft did not blackmail IBM into killing off OS/2...

Actually it was the other way around. As IBM black mailed into writing
OS/2. And IBM's master plan was to get everyone off of MS-DOS and on to
OS/2. Then IBM would have OS/2 changed to run on only true IBM PCs. Thus
killing off the clone market and MS as well. This was all documented and
shown on PBS.

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message ...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:10:17 GMT


"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:45:02 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:41:44 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in
design to the old versions of Windows, it was not
superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life for
many of us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while the
others was soundless. And a good number of Windows
applications would routinely crashed under OS/2, but stable
as a rock under Windows 3.1. Then the OS/2 GUI was unstable
for at least a couple of years and crashed the whole system.
Then the FixPaks often caused more problems than they fixed.
IBM programmers are morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then?

Nope!

IBM contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987.

It might have been in '86 actually. And MS had been working on
Windows since about '84. Although MS couldn't give the development
time it deserved because those MS programmers were mostly working
on OS/2. MS lost 3 years in Windows development because of OS/2.

I suppose that's one way to look at the time that M$ spent sucking
money from IBM and using it for their own gains.

IBM paid Microsoft by the K-line. Which means by the lines of code
they produced. IBM got the lines and MS got paid. Anytime MS didn't
produce code for OS/2, MS didn't get paid. So how could MS get paid
for their own gains by IBM? That's impossible.

No, it's not impossible. M$ got paid by IBM to write code for IBM.
They also were able to use much of the same exact code in Windows.

Well okay, you have me there.

M$ drug their feet on the release, while spending IBM's
money, so that they could get Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by
saying that OS/2 just wasn't stable enough for release
yet. Yeah, no conflict of interest their.

IBM only paid MS for the lines of code MS produced. IBM
didn't care if MS spent more time to make the code lean,
mean and faster. As IBM would

I think IBM had visions of stability that M$ will never attain,
ever.

pay you less if you did so. IBM was cutting their own throats. IBM
is full of a much of morons. Impossible to work with and to get
paid fairly for. Hell I would work slowly and drag my feet as well
for those morons.

Yeah, morons. They only own the mainframe market even though
Honeywell made better hardware. IBM's only moronic move was to
allow M$ to screw them for a second time. The first time being with
MSDOS/IBMDOS games.

Who screwed whom again? IBM only paid MS $80,000 for everything
(including DOS, Basic, etc.). And IBM paid no royalties to Microsoft
no matter how many copies IBM sold.

As far as I can remember, I've never heard that before so I need to see
a link to back that statement up. M$ had to pay $50,000 to Seattle
Computers just to buy the thing that they turned into DOS 1.0. How
could they have possibly done the whole job for $80,000 with no royalty
income? I'm sorry, I just can't buy that without some kind of proof.

Bob Cringely produced "Triumph of the Nerds" for PBS back in '96. It
was truly a great documentary. Cast of characters included we

Robert X. Cringely...Himself (host/interviewer)
Douglas Adams...Himself (author)
Sam Albert...Himself (former IBM executive)
Paul Allen...Himself (co-founder, Microsoft)
Bill Atkinson...Himself (designer, Macintosh Development Team)
Steve Ballmer...Himself (vice-president, Microsoft)
Dan Bricklin...Himself (VisiCalc inventor)
David Bunnell...Himself (founder, PC World and Macworld magazines)
Rod Canion...Himself (co-founder, Compaq)
Jim Cannavino...Himself (former head, PC division, IBM)
Christine Comaford...Herself (CEO, Corporate Computing International)
Eddy Curry...Himself
Esther Dyson...Herself (computer industry analyst)
Larry Ellison...Himself (founder and president, Oracle)
Chris Espinosa...Himself (manager, Media Tools, Apple)
Gordon Eubanks...Himself (former head of language research, Digital Research)
Lee Felsenstein...Himself
Bob Frankston...Himself (VisiCalc programmer)
Bill Gates...Himself (co-founder, Microsoft)
Adele Goldberg...Herself (former Xerox PARC researcher; founder, PARC Place Systems)
Marv Goldschmitt...Himself
Andy Hertzfeld...Himself (designer, Macintosh Development Team)
Steve Jobs...Himself (co-founder, Apple Computer)
Gary Kildall...Himself (founder, Digital Research)
Joe Krause...Himself (president, Architext Software)
Bill Lowe...Himself (Head, IBM PC Development Team 1980)
Roger Melen...Himself
Bob Metcalfe...Himself (former Xerox PARC researcher; founder, 3Com)
Gordon Moore...Himself (co-founder, Intel)
Dana Muise...Himself (founder, Hypnovista)
Doug Muise...Himself (software designer)
Bill Murto...Himself (co-founder, Compaq)
Tim Patterson...Himself (programmer)
Vern Raburn...Himself (former vice-president, Microsoft; president, The Paul Allen Group)
Jeff Raikes...Himself (vice-president, Microsoft)
Jean Richardson...Herself (former VP, corporate communications, Microsoft)
Ed Roberts...Himself (founder, MITS)
Arthur Rock...Himself (venture capitalist)
Jack Sams...Himself (former IBM executive)
John Sculley...Himself (president, Apple Computer, 1983-1993)
Rich Seidner...Himself (former IBM programmer)
Charles Simonyi...Himself (chief programmer, Microsoft)
Sparky Sparks...Himself (former IBM executive)
Claude Stern...Himself (Silicon Valley attorney)
Bob Taylor...Himself (former head of computer science lab, Xerox PARC)
Larry Tesler...Himself (former Xerox PARC researcher; chief
scientist, Apple Computer)
Mark Van Haren...Himself (programmer, Architext Software)
John Warnock...Himself
Jim Warren...Himself (founder, West Coast Computer Faire 1978)
Steve Wozniak...Himself (co-founder, Apple Computer)

You can find the transcript at: http://www.pbs.org/nerds/

The quote of $80,000 is in Part 2:

Bill Gates: "The key to our...the structure of our deal was
that IBM had no control over...over our licensing to other
people. In a lesson on the computer industry in mainframes was
that er, over time, people built compatible machines or clones,
whatever term you want to use, and so really, the primary
upside on the deal we had with IBM, because they had a fixed
fee er, we got about $80,000 - we got some other money for some
special work we did er, but no royalty from them. And that's
the DOS and Basic as well. And so we were hoping a lot of other
people would come along and do compatible machines. We were
expecting that that would happen because we knew Intel wanted
to vend the chip to a lot more than just than just IBM and so
it was great when people did start showing up and ehm having an
interest in the licence."

http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html

Finally IBM got fed up and took the project away from M$.

Yeah, IBM got fed up alright! As Microsoft didn't want to be a
slave to IBM (who always makes slaves or crushes anybody that gets
in their way

Too bad that isn't true since they would have done the world a great
favor by crushing M$.

Actually Bill Gates did the world a favor by saving all of us from
IBM. As nobody else was willing to do it. Including Gary Kildall.

IMO Kildall was 100 times the human being that B.G. could ever hope to
be. That's taking into consideration B.G.'s charity work.

Well I don't know if I would say that about pot head Kildall?
Getting into bar room fights and all.

up to this point in time). And IBM wanted MS to create OS/2 which
would be made to run on only true IBM PCs after they have the
world hooked on OS/2.

Yeah that is a great plan for us, NOT! Bill Gates had taken the
biggest risk in his career. As nobody ever bucked IBM and had
survived. Although he did it! And thank goodness he did! As we all
would be using real IBM machines and OS/2 by now.

Actually, if Gates wasn't so good at being greedy, we'd all be
using something that actually worked. OS/2 was crap too. Too bad
Xerox didn't have sense enough to stay in the game, they had the
best product for the office in 1980. Apple didn't have anything
that could come close for around 10 years. It took M$ almost
another 5 years on top of that to catch up.

Gates being greedy? Since IBM only paid Gates $80,000 for millions of
copies of DOS, Basic, Fortran, etc. So IBM *only* spent about a nickel
for all of the MS software per computer. So if anybody got ripped off,
it was Gates.

Like I said, I'll have to see something backing that up. M$ got plenty
for each and every copy of MS-DOS they FORCED onto OEMs.

Yes MS did make money from the clone market. But there was no clone
market when Gates and IBM made the deal.

And since you mentioned Xerox, those foolish Xerox executives gave
Steve Jobs all of Xerox's GUI secrets for nothing! That is right, NOTHING!
Then Apple has the balls to turn around a sue Microsoft for stealing
Apple's GUI, when Apple had stolen it from Xerox in the first place.
Yup, Xerox could have had it all and they (bozos in management) didn't
even know it.

They certainly had the right to intervene on the Apple vs. M$ battle for
"look and feel".

That battle cost both Apple and MS lots of money and nobody won. And
then Apple needed money and MS bailed them out. Go figure.

Sure IBM was ticked that Bill Gates wasn't going to play along. So
they parted ways. And IBM wouldn't sell any IBM computer with
Windows installed for a short time. Until IBM realized that they
couldn't sell IBM computers with either crappy PC-DOS or OS/2 on
them. As people wanted Windows instead, plain and simple.

The only reason being that M$ delayed OS/2 was so that Win 3.0
could get the jump on it. If OS/2 would have shipped on time, it
would have possibly eliminated windows.

Yes probably this is true. Although MS still would have gotten third
parties to write applications for Windows instead of OS/2. Which did

Right, nothing like ludicrous binding legal agreements to crush free
trade and capitalism.

Yeah well nobody put a gun to their heads to sign any agreements
either. And companies do this all of the time and I don't like these
agreements either. For example Coke gets stores, restaurants, etc. to
sell only their brand. So you can't throw stones at just Microsoft.

happen anyway. And IBM had the balls to threaten third parties to
write applications for OS/2, but wasn't willing to pay them to do so.
Well I wouldn't listen to big bully IBM either.

Who's the greedy bully now?

I don't know? Redhat? grin

There are very many suspicious similarities in "bugs" within the
graphics system calls of Win 3.0 and OS/2.

The same MS programmers wrote both OS/2 and Windows 3.0. So why
should this be a surprise?

It's not a surprise to me. I think it just goes to show that M$ had
no qualms about directly lifting the code that they originally
wrote for IBM using IBM's money and, AFAICT, IBM's design goals.
I'm not saying that was illegal back then, but it certainly
wouldn't happen in today's IP obsessed world without bringing about
major court battles.

Here was a true visionary: http://www.cadigital.com/kildall.htm

Yes I know all about Gary Kildall! I was a big supporter of his until he
killed off CP/M without any warning! Then Gary had become a big creep to

And I thought DOS killed it with the "here have DOS free with your PC,
or send us money and we will send you CPM". Well that, 8" diskette
drive issue and the fact that CPM was limited to using 64K of RAM. I
could be wrong though.

No you got it close enough. But lots of folks just purchased and
supported CP/M. But one day Gary said we are not doing CP/M anymore
because we lost interest. That wasn't right! Take their money and
then refuse support. I'm sure that was totally illegal.

me and other developers. Later I learned he often screwed his other
customers left and right as well. SCP was one company that he burned
badly. Luckily it burned him in his ass, now didn't it?

Given that you feel that way about the insignificant "damage" that
Kildall did, how can you be so bubbly when talking about M$ and their
"success"?

Because when I added it all up and all the other companies who had
taken my money and then dropped support. Microsoft turned out to be
the cheapest bang for the buck. And it still is true today IMHO.

And talk about being greedy, Gary almost invented the word. As you had
to pay him big bucks to make him do anything. And it wouldn't be to
your

So what? He was good and he knew it. Are you saying that his efforts
weren't worth big bucks?

No... not really. But what I'm saying that Microsoft was cheaper. So
you can't ask for big bucks with competition.

liking, but his. And while Gary Kildall and Bill Gates were playing
around with DEC computers. I was working on the VTAS computer which
got the US to the moon. So as far as I was concern, both were
playing around with kids' stuff at the time.

I didn't start getting paid for tinkering with computers until 1980.
Before then it was me and my COSMAC ELF and whatever else I could get my
hands on. When the PC came along, I was already into mainframes so I
really didn't pay the PC any mind until pretty much the end of the 80's.
Once I had a mainframe to control, I could hardly treat any micro
seriously.

Well I was building my own PCs from scratch as a side hobby (as
being an EE). Although I never thought about selling the damn
things. But when others were mass producing them, I started buying
them instead of building my own.

BTW, I searched Google for VTAS computer and it seems that you are the
only person in the USENET archive that ever mentioned it. I also can't
find any links on the web either.

Well I know there was virtually nothing about it on the net. So I
had taken a peek and I found this (forgive the long and broken link
you will have to piece together).

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...browse_thread/
thread/c80a6dfb833506f0/7f48902fead1d2fa?lnk=st&q=VTAS+computer&rnum
=30&hl=en#7f48902fead1d2fa

Yes the VTAS computer was so great, they used it for military
purposes too like in the F4.

Now having said the above, I do admit that Gary was nothing less than
one great programmer without a doubt. Although everything had to be
done his way, or forget it. And that is why Gary did well without any
competitors, but failed once someone else was in the OS game.

That's the problem with genius, it usually doesn't come with greed and
"good business sense" attached.

You're right there.

Funny IBM also does well without competition, but also fails once
competition arrives. And oddly enough, Microsoft only gets better when

They seemed to do ok against Burroughs, Honeywell and the rest.

Isn't that like saying Apple does okay against the IBM clones?

there are competitors. Otherwise they basically just sit on their butt
doing nothing.

You obviously really like M$ so there probably isn't much point in
continuing this until it becomes a real ****ing contest. I run
windos on some machines because I basically have to. When
I need something that really works, I use Linux. :-)

I actually use Windows because it does work. Linux has way too many
lacks and wants to keep me happy. And did you know that Linus Torvalds
also uses Windows? Yup he said so right in his own book.


__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

w_tom wrote:


Let's not lose sight of why this discussion has gotten
here. Someone without sufficient knowledge declared that
application software and a weak OS structure could cause a
CMOS date time clock to lose time. Obviously not. Someone
has represented 1990 IBM as a decent, respectable, and
innnovative company. Obviously not. OS/2 is a symptom of how
bad IBM had become.



Proof that the biggest dick isn't in my pants. Read the frigging posts
and quit being a jackass. If you really knew anyting about PC operating
systems, you would know that the RTC on the motherboard is ONLY used
upon a reboot, and that the OS does its OWN timekeeping. Punks like
you, who just got a PC like two years ago, think that Windows reads the
MB clock on every time slice, which only shows that all you are is a
troll, with no knowledge of how things work.

A whole generation gave pukes like you computers and technology that
your kind could never reproduce, and you don't even take the time to
understand it.

Let's not loose track of that fact that windows, being unable to do
REAL prememptive multitasking, is also incapable of keeping accurate
time, for that very reason. Try not to listen when cornheads make dopey
statements like "write a tight running program, and if you can switch
to another one while it is running, then it is pre-emptively
multitasking" for surely, stupider words were never spoken on Usenet,
and that is saying a whole lot.

Only morons make statements about OS/2 when they can barely spell it,
have never used it, and would not know a quality piece of software if
they fell over it. It takes a real windows loving douche bag to
proclaim OS/2 as technically inferior, and ever stupider people to not
know that NT was originally OS/2.

What it takes tho, is reading, and research, instead of Public
(government) TV as the means for the information.

Here are your replies, even before you write them:

"Listen ****head, I have been involved with computers for over forty
years, and was on the internet before it was the internet. I was there
when Gates cut his own umbilical cord and started typing on a keyboard
before he was even toilet trained. I worked for IBM when they screwed
up OS/2 because everyone knows that IBM was the stupidest, lamest,
worst company in the history of the world....." and on and on with the
same stupid, lame, moronic comments about how you are the most skilled
person in usenet.

Usenet sucks, and so do the people who seem to need it in order to find
any kind of self esteem and purpose in their lives. Try going outside,
and doing something useful with life, instead of just being a ding dong
all day with a keyboard. Sex can help, but not just with yourself.

"BillW50" wrote in message
.. .

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:10:17 GMT


"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:45:02 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:41:44 GMT

"BillW50" wrote in message
. ..

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:42:43 +0200

writes:

OS/2 is dead and gone, and although it was superior in
design to the old versions of Windows, it was not
superior to NT.

Supposedly better in design, but OS/2 sucked in real life
for
many of us! As only one OS/2 Win session had sound while
the
others was soundless. And a good number of Windows
applications would routinely crashed under OS/2, but
stable
as a rock under Windows 3.1. Then the OS/2 GUI was
unstable
for at least a couple of years and crashed the whole
system.
Then the FixPaks often caused more problems than they
fixed.
IBM programmers are morons!

Am I the only guy that was working with this crap back then?

Nope!

IBM contracted with M$ to write OS/2 for them in like 1987.

It might have been in '86 actually. And MS had been working on
Windows since about '84. Although MS couldn't give the
development
time it deserved because those MS programmers were mostly
working
on OS/2. MS lost 3 years in Windows development because of
OS/2.

I suppose that's one way to look at the time that M$ spent
sucking
money from IBM and using it for their own gains.

IBM paid Microsoft by the K-line. Which means by the lines of code
they produced. IBM got the lines and MS got paid. Anytime MS
didn't
produce code for OS/2, MS didn't get paid. So how could MS get
paid
for their own gains by IBM? That's impossible.

No, it's not impossible. M$ got paid by IBM to write code for IBM.
They also were able to use much of the same exact code in Windows.

Well okay, you have me there.

M$ drug their feet on the release, while spending IBM's
money, so that they could get Win 3.0 out before OS/2, by
saying that OS/2 just wasn't stable enough for release
yet. Yeah, no conflict of interest their.

IBM only paid MS for the lines of code MS produced. IBM
didn't care if MS spent more time to make the code lean,
mean and faster. As IBM would

I think IBM had visions of stability that M$ will never attain,
ever.

pay you less if you did so. IBM was cutting their own throats.
IBM
is full of a much of morons. Impossible to work with and to
get
paid fairly for. Hell I would work slowly and drag my feet as
well
for those morons.

Yeah, morons. They only own the mainframe market even though
Honeywell made better hardware. IBM's only moronic move was to
allow M$ to screw them for a second time. The first time being
with
MSDOS/IBMDOS games.

Who screwed whom again? IBM only paid MS $80,000 for everything
(including DOS, Basic, etc.). And IBM paid no royalties to
Microsoft
no matter how many copies IBM sold.

As far as I can remember, I've never heard that before so I need to
see
a link to back that statement up. M$ had to pay $50,000 to Seattle
Computers just to buy the thing that they turned into DOS 1.0. How
could they have possibly done the whole job for $80,000 with no
royalty
income? I'm sorry, I just can't buy that without some kind of
proof.

Bob Cringely produced "Triumph of the Nerds" for PBS back in '96. It
was truly a great documentary. Cast of characters included we

I saw this once, I wish I had it recorded.

Robert X. Cringely...Himself (host/interviewer)
Douglas Adams...Himself (author)
Sam Albert...Himself (former IBM executive)
Paul Allen...Himself (co-founder, Microsoft)
Bill Atkinson...Himself (designer, Macintosh Development Team)
Steve Ballmer...Himself (vice-president, Microsoft)
Dan Bricklin...Himself (VisiCalc inventor)
David Bunnell...Himself (founder, PC World and Macworld magazines)
Rod Canion...Himself (co-founder, Compaq)
Jim Cannavino...Himself (former head, PC division, IBM)
Christine Comaford...Herself (CEO, Corporate Computing International)
Eddy Curry...Himself
Esther Dyson...Herself (computer industry analyst)
Larry Ellison...Himself (founder and president, Oracle)
Chris Espinosa...Himself (manager, Media Tools, Apple)
Gordon Eubanks...Himself (former head of language research, Digital
Research)
Lee Felsenstein...Himself
Bob Frankston...Himself (VisiCalc programmer)
Bill Gates...Himself (co-founder, Microsoft)
Adele Goldberg...Herself (former Xerox PARC researcher; founder, PARC
Place Systems)
Marv Goldschmitt...Himself
Andy Hertzfeld...Himself (designer, Macintosh Development Team)
Steve Jobs...Himself (co-founder, Apple Computer)
Gary Kildall...Himself (founder, Digital Research)
Joe Krause...Himself (president, Architext Software)
Bill Lowe...Himself (Head, IBM PC Development Team 1980)
Roger Melen...Himself
Bob Metcalfe...Himself (former Xerox PARC researcher; founder, 3Com)
Gordon Moore...Himself (co-founder, Intel)
Dana Muise...Himself (founder, Hypnovista)
Doug Muise...Himself (software designer)
Bill Murto...Himself (co-founder, Compaq)
Tim Patterson...Himself (programmer)
Vern Raburn...Himself (former vice-president, Microsoft; president,
The Paul Allen Group)
Jeff Raikes...Himself (vice-president, Microsoft)
Jean Richardson...Herself (former VP, corporate communications,
Microsoft)
Ed Roberts...Himself (founder, MITS)
Arthur Rock...Himself (venture capitalist)
Jack Sams...Himself (former IBM executive)
John Sculley...Himself (president, Apple Computer, 1983-1993)
Rich Seidner...Himself (former IBM programmer)
Charles Simonyi...Himself (chief programmer, Microsoft)
Sparky Sparks...Himself (former IBM executive)
Claude Stern...Himself (Silicon Valley attorney)
Bob Taylor...Himself (former head of computer science lab, Xerox PARC)
Larry Tesler...Himself (former Xerox PARC researcher; chief
scientist, Apple Computer)
Mark Van Haren...Himself (programmer, Architext Software)
John Warnock...Himself
Jim Warren...Himself (founder, West Coast Computer Faire 1978)
Steve Wozniak...Himself (co-founder, Apple Computer)

You can find the transcript at: http://www.pbs.org/nerds/

The quote of $80,000 is in Part 2:

Bill Gates: "The key to our...the structure of our deal was
that IBM had no control over...over our licensing to other
people. In a lesson on the computer industry in mainframes was
that er, over time, people built compatible machines or clones,
whatever term you want to use, and so really, the primary
upside on the deal we had with IBM, because they had a fixed
fee er, we got about $80,000 - we got some other money for some
special work we did er, but no royalty from them. And that's
the DOS and Basic as well. And so we were hoping a lot of other
people would come along and do compatible machines. We were
expecting that that would happen because we knew Intel wanted
to vend the chip to a lot more than just than just IBM and so
it was great when people did start showing up and ehm having an
interest in the licence."

I can't help but think of "the incredible liar" from Saturday Night Live
fame. Yeah, that's the ticket. ;-) $80,000 still seems a bit low to
me as they would have had more than that invested themselves. But I
will concede that you actually did back up your statement, even though I
don't believe Bill for a minute. ;-) I certainly will never believe
that DOS 2 and DOS 3 were included in that $80K.

http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html

Finally IBM got fed up and took the project away from M$.

Yeah, IBM got fed up alright! As Microsoft didn't want to be a
slave to IBM (who always makes slaves or crushes anybody that
gets
in their way

Too bad that isn't true since they would have done the world a
great
favor by crushing M$.

Actually Bill Gates did the world a favor by saving all of us from
IBM. As nobody else was willing to do it. Including Gary Kildall.

IMO Kildall was 100 times the human being that B.G. could ever hope
to
be. That's taking into consideration B.G.'s charity work.

Well I don't know if I would say that about pot head Kildall?

Oh come on now, are you suggesting that those geeky kids, flying a jolly
roger over their corporate headquarters weren't toking it up a bit, are
you?

Getting into bar room fights and all.

I don't recall seeing his mugshot anywhere. Sure can't say the same for
B.G. though, huh? ;-) No nasty anti-trust suits either.

up to this point in time). And IBM wanted MS to create OS/2
which
would be made to run on only true IBM PCs after they have the
world hooked on OS/2.

Yeah that is a great plan for us, NOT! Bill Gates had taken
the
biggest risk in his career. As nobody ever bucked IBM and had
survived. Although he did it! And thank goodness he did! As we
all
would be using real IBM machines and OS/2 by now.

Actually, if Gates wasn't so good at being greedy, we'd all be
using something that actually worked. OS/2 was crap too. Too bad
Xerox didn't have sense enough to stay in the game, they had the
best product for the office in 1980. Apple didn't have anything
that could come close for around 10 years. It took M$ almost
another 5 years on top of that to catch up.

Gates being greedy? Since IBM only paid Gates $80,000 for millions
of
copies of DOS, Basic, Fortran, etc. So IBM *only* spent about a
nickel
for all of the MS software per computer. So if anybody got ripped
off,
it was Gates.

Like I said, I'll have to see something backing that up. M$ got
plenty
for each and every copy of MS-DOS they FORCED onto OEMs.

Yes MS did make money from the clone market. But there was no clone
market when Gates and IBM made the deal.

M$ was so late with DOS 1.0 that the clone market was probably already
booming in Korea. Remeber those days? The Peach computer?(an
apparently perfect Apple II clone) If it hadn't been for Compaq and The
Compatible, the clone market wouldn't have done so well so quickly.

And since you mentioned Xerox, those foolish Xerox executives gave
Steve Jobs all of Xerox's GUI secrets for nothing! That is right,
NOTHING!
Then Apple has the balls to turn around a sue Microsoft for
stealing
Apple's GUI, when Apple had stolen it from Xerox in the first
place.
Yup, Xerox could have had it all and they (bozos in management)
didn't
even know it.

They certainly had the right to intervene on the Apple vs. M$ battle
for
"look and feel".

That battle cost both Apple and MS lots of money and nobody won. And

Sure we all won. Look and feel is freely copyable, it's the only piece
of sanity left in the trademark/copyright/patent/ip scandal that's
taking place these days.

then Apple needed money and MS bailed them out. Go figure.

Sure IBM was ticked that Bill Gates wasn't going to play
along. So
they parted ways. And IBM wouldn't sell any IBM computer with
Windows installed for a short time. Until IBM realized that
they
couldn't sell IBM computers with either crappy PC-DOS or OS/2
on
them. As people wanted Windows instead, plain and simple.

The only reason being that M$ delayed OS/2 was so that Win 3.0
could get the jump on it. If OS/2 would have shipped on time, it
would have possibly eliminated windows.

Yes probably this is true. Although MS still would have gotten
third
parties to write applications for Windows instead of OS/2. Which
did

Right, nothing like ludicrous binding legal agreements to crush free
trade and capitalism.

Yeah well nobody put a gun to their heads to sign any agreements
either. And companies do this all of the time and I don't like these
agreements either. For example Coke gets stores, restaurants, etc. to
sell only their brand. So you can't throw stones at just Microsoft.

Except that to survive as an OEM you need to not **** of M$, it's that
simple. Even after the courts ruled that OEMs couldn't force you to buy
an OS with hardware, many of the smaller OEMs continued to do it out of
fear of retribution.

happen anyway. And IBM had the balls to threaten third parties to
write applications for OS/2, but wasn't willing to pay them to do
so.
Well I wouldn't listen to big bully IBM either.

Who's the greedy bully now?

I don't know? Redhat? grin

I'll give you that. ;-) I do the Gentoo thing myself. I guess I've
been tinkering with Linux for a little over ten years now, wow time sure
flys when you're having fun. My favorite computer toys are
microcontrollers though.

There are very many suspicious similarities in "bugs" within
the
graphics system calls of Win 3.0 and OS/2.

The same MS programmers wrote both OS/2 and Windows 3.0. So
why
should this be a surprise?

It's not a surprise to me. I think it just goes to show that M$
had
no qualms about directly lifting the code that they originally
wrote for IBM using IBM's money and, AFAICT, IBM's design goals.
I'm not saying that was illegal back then, but it certainly
wouldn't happen in today's IP obsessed world without bringing
about
major court battles.

Here was a true visionary: http://www.cadigital.com/kildall.htm

Yes I know all about Gary Kildall! I was a big supporter of his
until he
killed off CP/M without any warning! Then Gary had become a big
creep to

And I thought DOS killed it with the "here have DOS free with your
PC,
or send us money and we will send you CPM". Well that, 8" diskette
drive issue and the fact that CPM was limited to using 64K of RAM.
I
could be wrong though.

No you got it close enough. But lots of folks just purchased and
supported CP/M. But one day Gary said we are not doing CP/M anymore
because we lost interest. That wasn't right! Take their money and
then refuse support. I'm sure that was totally illegal.

Illegal? It seems to work well for M$ and most other vendors out there
today. Read your EULA, software is never guaranteed to be fit for "any
particular purpose". ;-D

me and other developers. Later I learned he often screwed his
other
customers left and right as well. SCP was one company that he
burned
badly. Luckily it burned him in his ass, now didn't it?

Given that you feel that way about the insignificant "damage" that
Kildall did, how can you be so bubbly when talking about M$ and
their
"success"?

Because when I added it all up and all the other companies who had
taken my money and then dropped support. Microsoft turned out to be
the cheapest bang for the buck. And it still is true today IMHO.

But the extent of "support" is to provide some security fixes, but not
too many bug fixes. You have to upgrade for that. How about all those
poor people that bought 3.0 and then had to turn around and pay for 3.1?
Or the really unfortunate people that bought ME?

And talk about being greedy, Gary almost invented the word. As you
had
to pay him big bucks to make him do anything. And it wouldn't be
to
your

So what? He was good and he knew it. Are you saying that his
efforts
weren't worth big bucks?

No... not really. But what I'm saying that Microsoft was cheaper. So
you can't ask for big bucks with competition.

Well it certainly proves the old adage about getting what you pay for.

liking, but his. And while Gary Kildall and Bill Gates were
playing
around with DEC computers. I was working on the VTAS computer
which
got the US to the moon. So as far as I was concern, both were
playing around with kids' stuff at the time.

I didn't start getting paid for tinkering with computers until 1980.
Before then it was me and my COSMAC ELF and whatever else I could
get my
hands on. When the PC came along, I was already into mainframes so
I
really didn't pay the PC any mind until pretty much the end of the
80's.
Once I had a mainframe to control, I could hardly treat any micro
seriously.

Well I was building my own PCs from scratch as a side hobby (as
being an EE). Although I never thought about selling the damn
things. But when others were mass producing them, I started buying
them instead of building my own.

I was too young and poor to play with the 8080 stuff. Stuff like my ELF
was all I could afford to build back then. I could only dream about
building an Altair or an Imsai.

BTW, I searched Google for VTAS computer and it seems that you are
the
only person in the USENET archive that ever mentioned it. I also
can't
find any links on the web either.

Well I know there was virtually nothing about it on the net. So I
had taken a peek and I found this (forgive the long and broken link
you will have to piece together).

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...browse_thread/
thread/c80a6dfb833506f0/7f48902fead1d2fa?lnk=st&q=VTAS+computer&rnum
=30&hl=en#7f48902fead1d2fa

Yes the VTAS computer was so great, they used it for military
purposes too like in the F4.

Ah the infamous mud shark, proof that with a big enough engine, even a
brick can fly. ;-)

Now having said the above, I do admit that Gary was nothing less
than
one great programmer without a doubt. Although everything had to
be
done his way, or forget it. And that is why Gary did well without
any
competitors, but failed once someone else was in the OS game.

That's the problem with genius, it usually doesn't come with greed
and
"good business sense" attached.

You're right there.

Kildall needed a cut throat business man to be really successful. Gates
and Allen, Jobs and Wozniak, it's how it works. Interestingly enough,
it's not who has the best techy stuff that wins. It's he who can tell
the biggest lies, cut the most throats and stab more backs that usually
comes out on top.

Funny IBM also does well without competition, but also fails once
competition arrives. And oddly enough, Microsoft only gets better
when

They seemed to do ok against Burroughs, Honeywell and the rest.

Isn't that like saying Apple does okay against the IBM clones?

IBM completely killed of Honeywell and Burroughs with good marketing
skills, not better hardware. The competition lay in salesmanship and
brainwashing, not making better stuff or even trying to be cost
competitive.

there are competitors. Otherwise they basically just sit on their
butt
doing nothing.

You obviously really like M$ so there probably isn't much point
in
continuing this until it becomes a real ****ing contest. I run
windos on some machines because I basically have to. When
I need something that really works, I use Linux. :-)

I actually use Windows because it does work. Linux has way too
many
lacks and wants to keep me happy. And did you know that Linus
Torvalds
also uses Windows? Yup he said so right in his own book.


__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

I was using, repairing, and designing for computers when a
small HP computer weighed about 300 pounds. You did not even
respond accurately to what I had posted. Since you are
insulting, then we know you haven't facts nor confidence in
your claims. Meanwhile ?which? windows is not a preemptive
multitasking operating system? Again you post as if all
Windows were same. But then the child would not have
sufficient knowledge to know that - just as the child also
resorts to insults.

Windows NT was designed and is a preemptive multitasking
operating system. There is no way around that reality.

wrote:
Proof that the biggest dick isn't in my pants. Read the frigging posts
and quit being a jackass. If you really knew anyting about PC operating
systems, you would know that the RTC on the motherboard is ONLY used
upon a reboot, and that the OS does its OWN timekeeping. Punks like
you, who just got a PC like two years ago, think that Windows reads the
MB clock on every time slice, which only shows that all you are is a
troll, with no knowledge of how things work.

A whole generation gave pukes like you computers and technology that
your kind could never reproduce, and you don't even take the time to
understand it. ...

In message "Anthony
Fremont" wrote:

I can't help but think of "the incredible liar" from Saturday Night Live
fame. Yeah, that's the ticket. ;-) $80,000 still seems a bit low to
me as they would have had more than that invested themselves. But I
will concede that you actually did back up your statement, even though I
don't believe Bill for a minute. ;-) I certainly will never believe
that DOS 2 and DOS 3 were included in that $80K.

I think the key is that it wasn't JUST $80K... It was $80K, plus
Microsoft got unlimited distribution rights of their own.

In other words, Microsoft got somebody else to pay the development costs
of a product that Microsoft was now selling.

--
Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it.

DevilsPGD wrote:

In message "Anthony
Fremont" wrote:


I can't help but think of "the incredible liar" from Saturday Night Live
fame. Yeah, that's the ticket. ;-) $80,000 still seems a bit low to
me as they would have had more than that invested themselves. But I
will concede that you actually did back up your statement, even though I
don't believe Bill for a minute. ;-) I certainly will never believe
that DOS 2 and DOS 3 were included in that $80K.


I think the key is that it wasn't JUST $80K... It was $80K, plus
Microsoft got unlimited distribution rights of their own.

In other words, Microsoft got somebody else to pay the development costs
of a product that Microsoft was now selling.


No, "in other words" Microsoft had the insight to retain distribution
rights on non-IBM products and IBM didn't mind one whit because they didn't
take the PC market seriously to begin with. Besides, it was a 'steal' at
$80,000 and who gives a dam about 'clones'?

Microsoft has the same kind of arrangement with Apple and they didn't care
either because both Apple and IBM figured on a 'system' sales model of
hardware and software. IBM expected their 'business machines' reputation to
swamp all other considerations and Apple depended on closed hardware.

On the other hand, Microsoft decided to be simply a supplier of software
that ran on any clone.

In fact, the 'Windows' GUI was originally developed as a means to run
Microsoft's 'Apple' business software, like Word, on PC clones and that is
not a trivial distinction. While IBM was trying to sell an 'O.S.', because
you 'have to' in order to sell hardware, Microsoft was selling Word (and
the rest), which happened to run on Windows. It's the applications that
sold the O.S., not the O.S. by itself.

BillW50 wrote:
"Jamie" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:23:18 -0800


"BillW50" wrote in message
om...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:38:05 GMT



I reread what I had posted and I see no errors I've made. So feel free
to disprove me if you wish. And yes, I am indeed human and I do make
mistakes. Most of them are do from moody, irrational female types.
Otherwise I do fairly well most of the time. grin

Hmm, i hope that last female remark wasn't intended to
be directed this way? because the last time i looked i
wasn't missing anything from my manly hood!
and to pic a little at OS/2, the only thing it did well
was operate the floppy drives while writing data to them
with out generating random sectors now and then that has
blank data in the stream.
for what ever reason, i still see this taking place in
windows. still need to use the CMD line version with a
write /V to make sure it goes there.
even linux doesn't have this problem on top of it
writing a floppy disc many times faster.

--
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

DevilsPGD writes:

I think the key is that it wasn't JUST $80K... It was $80K, plus
Microsoft got unlimited distribution rights of their own.

In other words, Microsoft got somebody else to pay the development costs
of a product that Microsoft was now selling.

Just like Intel--their first microprocessor was developed for a
calculator, but the calculator company (Busicom) decided to drop it
and signed over all rights to Intel. And if these things had not
happened, we might not have microprocessors or PC operating systems or
even PCs today. So be glad.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

David Maynard writes:

On the other hand, Microsoft decided to be simply a supplier of software
that ran on any clone.

A wise decision. Build an essential component, then encourage the
market to do the rest. If Apple had adopted the same philosophy,
there might be 50% Macs and 50% PCs today, instead of 4% Macs and 96%
PCs.

In fact, the 'Windows' GUI was originally developed as a means to run
Microsoft's 'Apple' business software, like Word, on PC clones and that is
not a trivial distinction. While IBM was trying to sell an 'O.S.', because
you 'have to' in order to sell hardware, Microsoft was selling Word (and
the rest), which happened to run on Windows. It's the applications that
sold the O.S., not the O.S. by itself.

Yes. A simple difference but one that earns billions.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 15:52:20 +0100, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Bob Masta writes:

Interesting interview with Bill Gates on the whole OS/2 debacle in
PC Magazine, Nov 8, 2005 page 122-123.

What I find most interesting is that November 8 is still over a week
in the future.


Dang! THAT'S why the air was all swirly and sparkly when I
opened the cover... stuck in the TIme Warp!

Seriously, in case you haven't been paying attention for
the last several decades, magazines do this so that the
ones sold off the newsstand appear to be current, and
thus easier to sell, well past the actual printing date.
Not too interesting any more!


Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Home of DaqGen, the FREEWARE signal generator

This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on which company you
hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to be stating facts and then
coloring them to suit your own arguements. I personally dont care who
screwed who in the origins of the OS world, I only wish that there was some
form of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause some
real inovation, choice and fair pricing.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
David Maynard writes:

On the other hand, Microsoft decided to be simply a supplier of software
that ran on any clone.

A wise decision. Build an essential component, then encourage the
market to do the rest. If Apple had adopted the same philosophy,
there might be 50% Macs and 50% PCs today, instead of 4% Macs and 96%
PCs.

In fact, the 'Windows' GUI was originally developed as a means to run
Microsoft's 'Apple' business software, like Word, on PC clones and that
is
not a trivial distinction. While IBM was trying to sell an 'O.S.',
because
you 'have to' in order to sell hardware, Microsoft was selling Word
(and
the rest), which happened to run on Windows. It's the applications that
sold the O.S., not the O.S. by itself.

Yes. A simple difference but one that earns billions.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Jeff writes:

... I only wish that there was some
form of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause some
real inovation, choice and fair pricing.

Well, write some applications for operating systems other than
Microsoft, and help the cause.

Remember, Microsoft is really only dominant for operating systems and
its Office suite of products. In other domains, someone else is
dominant. Office and operating systems won't keep Microsoft is
business forever.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

David Maynard wrote:
In fact, the 'Windows' GUI was originally developed as a means to run
Microsoft's 'Apple' business software, like Word, on PC clones and that is
not a trivial distinction. While IBM was trying to sell an 'O.S.', because
you 'have to' in order to sell hardware, Microsoft was selling Word (and
the rest), which happened to run on Windows.

Microsoft Word existed and was sold long before Windows 1.0 was on the
market.

--
If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

BillW50 wrote:

Hardly dead,

You mean hardly useful!


Imagine life without an ATM, or online access to banking? Without OS/2,
those things would only now be coming of age. Better yet, imagine an
ATM running Win95? they are crashing all over the place now that banks
are upgrading to M$. That never happened before, and it will only get
worse. The kiosks for printing digital pics in K-Mart, etc are littered
with blue screens, and even some sit stupidly with the start menu
desktop :-) Its pathetic, but that is what American wants, so that is
what America gets.

And IBM dropped support a few months before they
were saying they would never drop OS/2 support. IBM has never done
anything except lie to me over and over again.

Hmmmm. IBM still has not fully dropped support for OS/2. After all, it
is ten years old, soon to be obsolete, yes, but go and ask M$ for
support on Win2000, and then ask yourself why you get upset when IBM
turns off OS/2.


I did a search through OS/2 files for the Microsoft copyright in Warp a
few years ago. And Warp was littered everywhere with Microsoft's code
throughout OS/2.


Again, the lack of knowledge by the newbie generation that thinks M$
invented computers....... M$ BOUGHT the rights to those portions of the
code, or took them with them when they left IBM, just as they have
BOUGHT everything else that makes up their products. Someone name one
decent piece of software that M$ CREATED from scratch. How about Bob?
Michael Jackson owns almost all the Beatles music, but you don't go
around saying he wrote them all, do you?

For those who were not even alive at the time, a lot happened between
IBM and billy bob that explains all these things.

The war is over, but M$ didn't win with superior technology. The fact
that there are more Fords on the American roads, than BMWs, is not a
statement that Ford is a superior product. Its a commentary on cheap,
and public relations, which is okay, so don't get torqued about it.
People want Fords, so they get Fords, but that doesn't make them
technically superior to a BMW or other high end, quality car.

People wanted M$ windows, so they got it. Its okay, there are no hard
feelings, but the number of sales does not equate the quality of the
product in any area of business. Ask Walmart about that.

www.ecomstation.com

Those who couldn't figure out how to use OS/2 because is was "too hard"
simply turned to an OS that does their thinking for them, and they got
what they deserved. That's fine. Nothing to get one's panties in a
bunch over. Most things worth using or having require the owner to be
above average in intelligence anyway.

Its really okay. Windows sucks. It always has. It always will. Not a
big deal, but those who do not know history ought to study it, and
learn it, rather than just rewriting it to fit their agenda.

"Jamie" wrote in message ...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:23:17 -0800

BillW50 wrote:
"Jamie" wrote in message
...
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 11:23:18 -0800
I reread what I had posted and I see no errors I've made. So feel free
to disprove me if you wish. And yes, I am indeed human and I do make
mistakes. Most of them are do from moody, irrational female types.
Otherwise I do fairly well most of the time. grin

Hmm, i hope that last female remark wasn't intended to
be directed this way? because the last time i looked i
wasn't missing anything from my manly hood!
and to pic a little at OS/2, the only thing it did well
was operate the floppy drives while writing data to them
with out generating random sectors now and then that has
blank data in the stream.
for what ever reason, i still see this taking place in
windows. still need to use the CMD line version with a
write /V to make sure it goes there.
even linux doesn't have this problem on top of it
writing a floppy disc many times faster.

Hi Jamie... no that female remark was directed to my current and
past female relationships. None of them named Jamie, btw. grin

And yes, OS/2 as well as the non-GUI side of it was quite good.
Although I guess Microsoft had written that part of it.


__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

"Jeff" wrote in message ...
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 13:15:35 -0500
This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on
which company you hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to
be stating facts and then coloring them to suit your own
arguements. I personally dont care who screwed who in the
origins of the OS world, I only wish that there was some form
of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause
some real inovation, choice and fair pricing.

What do you mean Jeff? There are tons of choices out there. Like
Mac, BeOS, UNIX, Linux, XWindows, FreeDOS, GEOS, GEM, OS/2, DEC,
etc. How many more choices would you like?

__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

Jeff wrote:

This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on which company you
hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to be stating facts and then
coloring them to suit your own arguements.

My point is precisely the opposite. That it isn't a matter of 'who you hate
more' but rather a matter of different visions of the market and different
business strategies, not to mention different 'businesses'. Microsoft
wasn't in the 'hardware' business and IBM was into software primarily to
sell hardware, or 'systems'.

Not really surprising since it was the same thing IBM had done for decades
with what they might have called, by comparison, 'a real computer' and
selling (proprietary) 'hardware' was big business prior to the PC. You'd
buy "an IBM insert model" or "a Burroughs insert model" or a DEC
PDPinsert number" and they each had their own proprietary operating
systems, which they'd really rather not have to mess with but you need one
to sell 'the computer'. So who gives a tinker's dam if you let an O.S.
developer 'sell to others'? It runs on 'an IBM', and a specific model at
that, so they have to buy 'an IBM', which is what they wanted to sell anyway.

Microsoft had the vision of running the same software on anyone's 'PC
clone' and while it may seem obvious today it was anything but obvious in
1980 as the 'home computer' world was a hodge podge of individual hardware
types each running their own O.S. (of a sorts) just like the mainframe
world was. Commodore stuff didn't run on an Apple and Apple stuff didn't
run on an Atari, and Atari stuff didn't run on a CPM machine (CPM being the
closest to a 'multiple hardware supplier' O.S.). Point being that
'retaining the rights' to sell Atari DOS on non-Atari computers would have
gotten you exactly nothing as it didn't run on anything else and nobody but
Atari made Atari computers.

IBM was right in that their 'PC', by virtue of the IBM name and reputation
(who knows about Atari but IBM is here to stay), put just about every other
'home computer' type out of business but, somehow, they missed the fact
that their 'PC', the design for which they had purchased anyway, wasn't
proprietary. It was freely copyable, and copied it was, so you didn't 'have
to' buy 'an IBM' to get a 'PC'. IBM later tried to 'fix' that mistake with
the proprietary PS/2 MCA bus but it was too late. They were hoisted on
their own petard of an 'IBM (clone) Standard' and roasted alive for trying
to close it.

Nobody held a gun to either Microsoft or IBM's head nor was Microsoft
anything 'special' at the time. They weren't an 'industry leader' in
anything nor did they have some 'special' wonder DOS, or even a proven one,
to hold over IBM's head in order to 'force' a deal. IBM simply figured they
had a steal at only $80,000 for a DOS to sell 'PCs' with, just like buying
the hardware design had been a cheap, quick and dirty, way to get into the
questionable 'home computer' market.

Microsoft made very little on the deal gambling, instead, on future sales
of software to a then nonexistent clone market where they could have ended
up with the equivalent of a 'right to sell to others' an Atari DOS that
only runs on Ataris made by Atari.

It's simply a matter that Microsoft had the vision to see it (what's to
loose when you have nothing?) and IBM didn't.


I personally dont care who
screwed who in the origins of the OS world, I only wish that there was some
form of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause some
real inovation, choice and fair pricing.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

David Maynard writes:


On the other hand, Microsoft decided to be simply a supplier of software
that ran on any clone.

A wise decision. Build an essential component, then encourage the
market to do the rest. If Apple had adopted the same philosophy,
there might be 50% Macs and 50% PCs today, instead of 4% Macs and 96%
PCs.


In fact, the 'Windows' GUI was originally developed as a means to run
Microsoft's 'Apple' business software, like Word, on PC clones and that
is
not a trivial distinction. While IBM was trying to sell an 'O.S.',
because
you 'have to' in order to sell hardware, Microsoft was selling Word
(and
the rest), which happened to run on Windows. It's the applications that
sold the O.S., not the O.S. by itself.

Yes. A simple difference but one that earns billions.

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Mxsmanic wrote:

David Maynard writes:


On the other hand, Microsoft decided to be simply a supplier of software
that ran on any clone.


A wise decision. Build an essential component, then encourage the
market to do the rest. If Apple had adopted the same philosophy,
there might be 50% Macs and 50% PCs today, instead of 4% Macs and 96%
PCs.

Never could have happened. Apple is too obsessed with everything being
'their way' to live with someone else's perceived design flaws.

In fact, the 'Windows' GUI was originally developed as a means to run
Microsoft's 'Apple' business software, like Word, on PC clones and that is
not a trivial distinction. While IBM was trying to sell an 'O.S.', because
you 'have to' in order to sell hardware, Microsoft was selling Word (and
the rest), which happened to run on Windows. It's the applications that
sold the O.S., not the O.S. by itself.


Yes. A simple difference but one that earns billions.


What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a handful of
boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation', no history of
development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else in the field, somehow
'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old IBM.

What in the world do these folks think MS used to 'force' IBM into the deal?

David Maynard writes:

Never could have happened. Apple is too obsessed with everything being
'their way' to live with someone else's perceived design flaws.

That is my impression, also. Worse yet, the "Apple way" isn't
necessarily the best way from a technical standpoint--it's just
Apple's way. If everything they did was unquestionably superior to
everyone else's way of doing things, they might have something, but
that's not the case. And even if it were, most people don't care much
about computers, and given a choice between a $500 machine that gets
the job done and a $1500 machine that is "technically superior,"
they'll buy the $500 machine.

What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a handful of
boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation', no history of
development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else in the field, somehow
'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old IBM.

Most of the peole saying this can't remember anything earlier than
about 1992 or so. At the time that Microsoft was dealing with IBM, of
course, _Microsoft_ was the underdog, and IBM was the Great Satan. In
those days, it was fashionable for angry young men to hate IBM and
root for Microsoft.

What in the world do these folks think MS used to 'force' IBM
into the deal?

The dominant market player is always seen as the bad guy, even with
respect to history; people forget that dominant market players change
regularly.

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writes:

Imagine life without an ATM, or online access to banking? Without OS/2,
those things would only now be coming of age.

There are a lot of operating systems that could be used for ATMs, not
just OS/2. Windows NT Workstation was/is popular for ATMs. I don't
know what they favor today.

Better yet, imagine an ATM running Win95? they are crashing
all over the place now that banks are upgrading to M$.

ATMs don't run Windows 95. They started switching from OS/2 to
Windows NT Workstation ages ago, and I don't know what they are
running most often today, but it's not Windows 95.

Besides, in a dedicated system, crashes are rare. You only need to
run one application, all day long, and it's not that hard to get it to
run without ever crashing.

That never happened before, and it will only get worse.

I've never seen an ATM crash. Nor have I ever heard of ATMs running
Windows 95. And there is certainly no one migrating to Windows 95
_now_--it's a dead operating system.

Again, the lack of knowledge by the newbie generation that thinks M$
invented computers....... M$ BOUGHT the rights to those portions of the
code, or took them with them when they left IBM, just as they have
BOUGHT everything else that makes up their products. Someone name one
decent piece of software that M$ CREATED from scratch. How about Bob?

How about Windows NT?

For those who were not even alive at the time, a lot happened between
IBM and billy bob that explains all these things.

For those who were not even alive at the time, Microsoft was a couple
of guys practically working out of a garage in those days, and people
like you were saying exactly the same things about IBM that you are
saying today about Microsoft.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

The war is over, but M$ didn't win with superior technology.

Microsoft won by being smarter than IBM. They certainly didn't do it
with money or influence or power, since they had none of these back
then.

People wanted M$ windows, so they got it. Its okay, there are no hard
feelings, but the number of sales does not equate the quality of the
product in any area of business. Ask Walmart about that.

Nobody cares.

Those who couldn't figure out how to use OS/2 because is was "too hard"
simply turned to an OS that does their thinking for them, and they got
what they deserved. That's fine. Nothing to get one's panties in a
bunch over.

It seems to really upset you.

Most things worth using or having require the owner to be
above average in intelligence anyway.

That's debatable.

Its really okay. Windows sucks. It always has. It always will. Not a
big deal, but those who do not know history ought to study it, and
learn it, rather than just rewriting it to fit their agenda.

I was actually there, so I don't have to study it, and Microsoft was
not big and bad back then. IBM was the usual target of the angry
young males, followed by Apple. To some extent it depended on which
company had rejected their résumés first.

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BillW50 wrote:
"Jeff" wrote in message ...
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 13:15:35 -0500

This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on
which company you hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to
be stating facts and then coloring them to suit your own
arguements. I personally dont care who screwed who in the
origins of the OS world, I only wish that there was some form
of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause
some real inovation, choice and fair pricing.


What do you mean Jeff? There are tons of choices out there. Like
Mac, BeOS, UNIX, Linux, XWindows, FreeDOS, GEOS, GEM, OS/2, DEC,
etc. How many more choices would you like?



In all fairness, BeOS is dead, XWindows is not an operating system but a
GUI used mostly in *nix environments, GEOS, GEM and OS/2 are
effectively dead, DEC had a flavor of Unix but I'm not sure whether that
exists anymore. In current OS's, there's Windows, MacOS (FreeBSD Unix
based) and all the various incarnations of Linux but that's about it for
the consumer desktop as far as I know.

I still use Win2K on most of my machines, though I did put a recent
version of Ubuntu Linux on one of my laptops to play with and I was
shocked at how far it's come in the last few years. It still has a few
rough edges but it's shaping up to be a very usable operating system and
definitly something I'm interested in seeing after a couple more years
of polish. If someone can come up with a solid unified configuration
panel, settle on a standard sound driver interface and get the Windows
emulator rock solid so it supports everything MS might have some real
competition. Of course I don't really see it as a fight anyway, nothing
is forcing me to use any operating system in particular, so I just use
those which are most appropriate for what I'm doing with each particular
computer I'm doing it on. Usually the choice comes down to what
applications I need to run and what specific hardware is best supported.

James Sweet writes:

In all fairness, BeOS is dead, XWindows is not an operating system but a
GUI used mostly in *nix environments, GEOS, GEM and OS/2 are
effectively dead, DEC had a flavor of Unix but I'm not sure whether that
exists anymore. In current OS's, there's Windows, MacOS (FreeBSD Unix
based) and all the various incarnations of Linux but that's about it for
the consumer desktop as far as I know.

And in most cases, Windows is the only practical choice. However,
this has nothing to do with any machiavellian manipulations on the
part of Microsoft, and everything to do with the overwhelming majority
of applications that run only on Windows.

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Mxsmanic wrote:
David Maynard writes:


Never could have happened. Apple is too obsessed with everything being
'their way' to live with someone else's perceived design flaws.


That is my impression, also. Worse yet, the "Apple way" isn't
necessarily the best way from a technical standpoint--it's just
Apple's way. If everything they did was unquestionably superior to
everyone else's way of doing things, they might have something, but
that's not the case.

I doubt they would agree with you on that

And even if it were, most people don't care much
about computers, and given a choice between a $500 machine that gets
the job done and a $1500 machine that is "technically superior,"
they'll buy the $500 machine.

Bingo. And it's the difference between an engineering 'purist' and a
pragmatist.


What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a handful of
boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation', no history of
development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else in the field, somehow
'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old IBM.


Most of the peole saying this can't remember anything earlier than
about 1992 or so. At the time that Microsoft was dealing with IBM, of
course, _Microsoft_ was the underdog, and IBM was the Great Satan. In
those days, it was fashionable for angry young men to hate IBM and
root for Microsoft.

True. And IBM did plenty to earn the wrath.

Do you remember their MCA bus licensing plan for clone makers? You not only
had to pay a license for every machine sold using it (fair enough) but you
were required to retro pay a license fee for every clone you had already
made since the PC came out.

They out licensed themselves because with a plan that ridiculous no one
took it so MCA was shut out instead of the other way around.


What in the world do these folks think MS used to 'force' IBM
into the deal?


The dominant market player is always seen as the bad guy, even with
respect to history; people forget that dominant market players change
regularly.

Yeah. I guess they don't know that back then Microsoft was about as
'dominant' a player as a fruit fly taking on a Tyrannosaurus Rex.


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David Maynard writes:

I doubt they would agree with you on that

That's why they still have barely 5% of the market. They had a huge
head start and they blew it.

True. And IBM did plenty to earn the wrath.

Most dominant market players eventually become partially corrupt,
mainly because people join the company who are greedier, more
ambitious, and less ethical as it grows larger. Eventually the
kind-hearted engineers are overruled by the marketroids and
salespeople, and the revolving door of upper management.

Do you remember their MCA bus licensing plan for clone makers?

All I recall of the MCA bus was that it went nowhere.

You not only
had to pay a license for every machine sold using it (fair enough) but you
were required to retro pay a license fee for every clone you had already
made since the PC came out.

They out licensed themselves because with a plan that ridiculous no one
took it so MCA was shut out instead of the other way around.

They made a mistake that is often one of the first symptoms of a
company in decline: they depended too much on their brand, and not
enough on their products. Major market players eventually get lazy
and greedy and think that just stamping their well-established brand
on garbage or overpriced goods will make them sell. It often works
for a short time, but then people wise up, and the game is over. This
often happens after the best engineers have left or have been pushed
aside by the marketroids and salesmen and MBAs. You can see it
happening right now at Hewlett-Packard. The leading edge of the
phenomenon has started to appear at Microsoft.

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David Maynard wrote:

....
What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a
handful of boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation',
no history of development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else
in the field, somehow 'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old
IBM. What in the world do these folks think MS used to 'force' IBM
into the deal?

Maybe your recollection is about the company Microsoft bought DOS
from. As far as I know, the major problem IBM had with Microsoft was
when Microsoft prohibited IBM from including IBM's own Lotus
SmartSuite on IBM's computers. Microsoft used Windows to force IBM's
compliance.