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Drifter[_2_]

On 10/6/2011 6:30 AM, X ` Man wrote:
On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board.

*Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.*

Hard to believe, period.

iBoaterer[_2_]

In article om,
says...

On 10/6/2011 6:30 AM, X ` Man wrote:
On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board.

*Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.*

Hard to believe, period.

Because of who wrote it!

X ` Man

On 10/6/11 11:29 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:30:58 -0400, X `
wrote:

On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board. Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.

If it was really 1983 you should have been able to get an XT with a 10
or 20 meg hard drive.
That was also the upgraded 5150 with hard drive BIOS if it was 1983
and it probably had a 256k floppy, 64k on the system board etc.
My PC-1 was 16k on the system board, 128k drives and no hard drive
BIOS.
I put a hard drive in mine after I got to Florida about 84-85 and that
required the upgrade system board. Fortunately I was in a place where
that stuff was around ;-)
I did get a drive, controller and the "6 pack" card from an outside
source, not IBM.
We used that machine in my wife's business and ended up selling it
when the business sold as an included asset. By then I was into a
PS/2..

The box had one 256K floppy. I bought another separately from a mail
order supplier. I don't recall a standard hard drive being available.
The dealer gave me a copy of WordStar to use as a word processor. I
almost returned the damned computer two days later...WordStar in those
days was a very complex, difficult program in those days. But the dealer
had a backup...he gave me a copy of Volkswriter, a word processor
suitable for the computer moron I was at that time.

A year or so after I got it, I got the Eagle...which had the 8086 chip,
a floppy drive and a hard drive.

--
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.

iBoaterer[_2_]

In article ,
says...
.WordStar in those
days was a very complex, difficult program in those days

WTF?? Professional writer my ass!!!

JustWait

On 10/6/2011 11:29 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:30:58 -0400, X `
wrote:

On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board. Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.

If it was really 1983 you should have been able to get an XT with a 10
or 20 meg hard drive.
That was also the upgraded 5150 with hard drive BIOS if it was 1983
and it probably had a 256k floppy, 64k on the system board etc.
My PC-1 was 16k on the system board, 128k drives and no hard drive
BIOS.
I put a hard drive in mine after I got to Florida about 84-85 and that
required the upgrade system board. Fortunately I was in a place where
that stuff was around ;-)
I did get a drive, controller and the "6 pack" card from an outside
source, not IBM.
We used that machine in my wife's business and ended up selling it
when the business sold as an included asset. By then I was into a
PS/2..

You know he was lying, right??

X ` Man

On 10/6/11 6:55 PM, JustWait wrote:
On 10/6/2011 11:29 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:30:58 -0400, X `
wrote:

On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board. Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.

If it was really 1983 you should have been able to get an XT with a 10
or 20 meg hard drive.
That was also the upgraded 5150 with hard drive BIOS if it was 1983
and it probably had a 256k floppy, 64k on the system board etc.
My PC-1 was 16k on the system board, 128k drives and no hard drive
BIOS.
I put a hard drive in mine after I got to Florida about 84-85 and that
required the upgrade system board. Fortunately I was in a place where
that stuff was around ;-)
I did get a drive, controller and the "6 pack" card from an outside
source, not IBM.
We used that machine in my wife's business and ended up selling it
when the business sold as an included asset. By then I was into a
PS/2..

You know he was lying, right??

Paid those real estate taxes yet?

--
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.

Califbill

"jps" wrote in message news

On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:42:15 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I, for one, am glad Jobs visited PARC and borrowed their design. I'd
certainly be in a different business and probably have a different
life.

--------------------------------------
The good part was he recognized brilliance, which Xerox never did. But he
stole the design, he did not borrow it. Xerox should have owned about 1/2
of Apple for that breach of etiquette. He even tried to sue Microsoft for
stealing "his" idea.

jps

On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:19:00 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 6 Oct 2011 21:15:53 -0700, "Califbill"
wrote:

The good part was he recognized brilliance, which Xerox never did. But he
stole the design, he did not borrow it. Xerox should have owned about 1/2
of Apple for that breach of etiquette. He even tried to sue Microsoft for
stealing "his" idea.

There was a lot of "idea stealing" going on in the early PC business.
If you saw a neat idea, you stole it.
Gates perfected the art of simply buying out any serious competition
he had once he was rich enough to sue.
Jobs was successful because he was too small to be sued for anti-trust
when Apple was young and too big to screw with when it became
successful He is probably the most successful "closed architecture"
company since Ma Bell.
He got away with it because his reach was spread across so many
different platforms that he did not have a monopolistic market share
of any of them.
Of course there is no such thing as anti trust legislation these days
anyway.

Personally I think Apple is a little too "culty" for me. I prefer open
architecture and I will live with the quirks.
Dell is too "closed" for my taste.

And so the game continues with the iPhone and iPad, neither allowing
flash (and thereby opening the platform) to run.

But, unlike the closed architcture of the Mac, iPads (for now) and
iPods dominate the market. Apple will never dominate the computer
business. They may sell more laptops than any other laptop
manufacturer but there are 10 laptop manufacturers, mostly producing
product for the Windows environment. Even with the iPad's popularity,
competitors running Android (Galaxy Tab) are quickly gaining momentum.

The iPod and iPhone will continue to have a large market share but the
computing market, including the iPad, is another thing.

X ` Man

On 10/7/11 2:58 AM, jps wrote:
On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:19:00 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 6 Oct 2011 21:15:53 -0700, "Califbill"
wrote:

The good part was he recognized brilliance, which Xerox never did. But he
stole the design, he did not borrow it. Xerox should have owned about 1/2
of Apple for that breach of etiquette. He even tried to sue Microsoft for
stealing "his" idea.

There was a lot of "idea stealing" going on in the early PC business.
If you saw a neat idea, you stole it.
Gates perfected the art of simply buying out any serious competition
he had once he was rich enough to sue.
Jobs was successful because he was too small to be sued for anti-trust
when Apple was young and too big to screw with when it became
successful He is probably the most successful "closed architecture"
company since Ma Bell.
He got away with it because his reach was spread across so many
different platforms that he did not have a monopolistic market share
of any of them.
Of course there is no such thing as anti trust legislation these days
anyway.

Personally I think Apple is a little too "culty" for me. I prefer open
architecture and I will live with the quirks.
Dell is too "closed" for my taste.

And so the game continues with the iPhone and iPad, neither allowing
flash (and thereby opening the platform) to run.

But, unlike the closed architcture of the Mac, iPads (for now) and
iPods dominate the market. Apple will never dominate the computer
business. They may sell more laptops than any other laptop
manufacturer but there are 10 laptop manufacturers, mostly producing
product for the Windows environment. Even with the iPad's popularity,
competitors running Android (Galaxy Tab) are quickly gaining momentum.

The iPod and iPhone will continue to have a large market share but the
computing market, including the iPad, is another thing.

Ahh, but there are no laptops I have seen as elegant as the MacBooks,
especially the new really light and small new laptops. Even my two or
three year old MacBook Pro has a more elegant design than almost any
laptop offered by another vendor. Plus, if I wanted to, I could run
virtually any Windoze program on it. The downside is that the Apple
computer products are significantly overpriced on the basis of hardware.

I think the iPad is pretty slick, but it's not for us. The scarcity of
ports plus the necessity of carrying around a keyboard if you really
want to use it as a laptop replacement limits its attractiveness. And,
of course, you'd have to subscribe to a second data plan if you wanted
to "connect" with it by means other than wi-fi. The Samsung Galaxy
models are slick, but again, you need to carry a keyboard to do any
serious typing. I do think it has more ports, though. On the downside,
the Android OS isn't nearly as elegant as what Apple offers.

I probably would have gotten in line for an iPhone 5, but the 4S doesn't
do it for me. My Android smartphone is coming off contract soon, but the
4S has a smaller screen than my current cell. I was hoping the iPhone 5
would have a larger screen. We'll have to wait and see on that one.

--
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.

BAR[_2_]

In article ,
says...

On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:19:00 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 6 Oct 2011 21:15:53 -0700, "Califbill"
wrote:

The good part was he recognized brilliance, which Xerox never did. But he
stole the design, he did not borrow it. Xerox should have owned about 1/2
of Apple for that breach of etiquette. He even tried to sue Microsoft for
stealing "his" idea.

There was a lot of "idea stealing" going on in the early PC business.
If you saw a neat idea, you stole it.
Gates perfected the art of simply buying out any serious competition
he had once he was rich enough to sue.
Jobs was successful because he was too small to be sued for anti-trust
when Apple was young and too big to screw with when it became
successful He is probably the most successful "closed architecture"
company since Ma Bell.
He got away with it because his reach was spread across so many
different platforms that he did not have a monopolistic market share
of any of them.
Of course there is no such thing as anti trust legislation these days
anyway.

Personally I think Apple is a little too "culty" for me. I prefer open
architecture and I will live with the quirks.
Dell is too "closed" for my taste.

And so the game continues with the iPhone and iPad, neither allowing
flash (and thereby opening the platform) to run.

Hence the iCloud. Apple has figured out how to keep their hand in your
wallet.

But, unlike the closed architcture of the Mac, iPads (for now) and
iPods dominate the market. Apple will never dominate the computer
business. They may sell more laptops than any other laptop
manufacturer but there are 10 laptop manufacturers, mostly producing
product for the Windows environment. Even with the iPad's popularity,
competitors running Android (Galaxy Tab) are quickly gaining momentum.

Apple is not the issue, Microsoft is the issue. The number of
applications that run on Windows is important.

The iPod and iPhone will continue to have a large market share but the
computing market, including the iPad, is another thing.

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