Subject: RE: Win 95 Console Stuff...
From: [email-masked] (Ernest Clayton Cordell, Jr.)

4 Nov 1997 15:10:19 -0800
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]'" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>

Mikey & al.,
	I apologize first for straying a bit from the central theme of console 
concerns.  While I understand Sergei's position and its merit as a 
technical recommendation, I tend to agree that some sort of recompense 
would seem to be in order from the producers of this "Windows operating 
system."
	I can't defend this position as passionately or as eloquently, but it does 
seem that an incomplete product has been foisted on an unsuspecting 
marketplace; it makes me wonder what the requirements are for a class 
action suit.  The product is so bad that the producers have all but 
abandoned it, lending probably only the legal minimum in support.
	While it is easy to muse over the availability of other choices, many of 
us as developers had to respond to an opinion among our clients that 
"nobody was ever fired for choosing Big Blue."  Microsoft has been making 
the "prepackaged choice" in operating systems for small computers (largely 
IBM and compatibles) since my first involvement with them, more than twenty 
years ago.
	Realistically, I find great fault with the choice of "flash" over 
"function" in the window-driven philosophy, but PC DOS 1.0 with all of its 
bugs was vastly superior to CP/M (IBM's original choice), and DOS 2.0 
included lessons learned from the building of XENIX.  Bill Gates was 
impressed by UNIX features and _until_ considerable _USER_ flurry over the 
"widgets and gadgets" of an operating system rather than emphasis upon 
reliable functions, things seemed to be headed in the UNIX direction.
	In terms of "functional evolution," we can see leaps between PC DOS and MS 
DOS 2.0 and from later versions of DOS towards Win 3.11 -- but the launch 
of Windows 95 strikes me as a bungled overcommitment from someone who had 
no appreciation for the ambitiousness of the technical undertaking.
	On the heels of the Win9x series that was produced too fast and released 
too early, it does seem a little much to accept a remedy that not only 
involves greater capital outlay for software, but for hardware acquisition 
to support increased memory requirements.  While it is easy for a casual 
user to say "Oh, stop whining -- just spring for NT and an upgrade," I just 
came from a shop that will have to get licenses and upgrades for 200 
machines just to run a package that is central to operation of the 
business; I'm sure there are worse horror stories out there.
	In short, I don't think we can blame Microsoft for responding to market 
forces, but neither should we be penalized for the obvious planning errors 
in their production schedules.
	I feel sorry for the poor kids who had to crank this stuff out while the 
rest of their lives went to pieces.
	Having put in my 37 cents, I'll shut up for another few months,
Ernie
----------
From: 	Mikey
Sent: 	Tuesday, November 04, 1997 5:18 AM
To: 	Sergey Okhapkin
Cc: 	[email-masked]
Subject: 	Re: Win 95 Console Stuff...

You want me to give MORE money to MS,
when they haven't even paid for all the
aggravation they caused me with this
95 piece of junk NO WAY!!!
(and the win3.0, win3.1, win3.11, and dos junk)

The only reason I'm working on this stuff in
the first place is to try and keep them from
getting money from my brother programmers, and I
for vc++ which SHOULD be provided with the OS.

On Tue, 4 Nov 1997 10:41:24 +0300, you wrote:

>Jason M. Felice wrote:
>> As we all know, Win95's console support *sucks* -- it is slow as hell.
>> I've been thinking about ways to fix it.  There are three ways that I 
can
>> think of:
>>
>> 1) Support for DOS (16 bit, DJGPP) isn't slow at all.  It's just the 
Win32
>>
>> 2) DirectX allows direct access to the graphics hardware, including text
>>
>> 3) We could write a VXD that would allow aware applications to write
>
>4) We can run Windows NT and forget about Nightmare'95 :-)
>
>--
>Sergey Okhapkin, http://www.lexa.ru/sos
>Moscow, Russia
>Looking for a job.
>
>
>-
>For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to
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>

([email-masked])
delete REMOVETHIS from the above to reply
         Mikey
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