Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 20:31:53 -0500 (EST) From: "Paul O. Bartlett" To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: DOS v. Windooozz In-Reply-To: <3A916782.EC698C5D@earthlink.net> Message-ID: X-PGP-keyid: 0xF383C8F9 X-PGP-fingerprint: E62D2E2C7BCD08CB B742A93726A91532 Organization: SmartNet Private Account MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: opendos AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Mon, 19 Feb 2001, Thomas Webb wrote (excerpted here and there): > We have Apple and MicroSoft to > thank for the massive growth in the microcomputer industry. Without the > "consumerization" of the technology, [...] Remember back when people were writing in Byte magazine about how the day might arrive of the "appliance" computer? The day when you would buy a computer off the shelf, take it home, pull it out of the box, plug it in, and it would work? Them days is now. Probably 99% of computer users these days know nothing and care less about master boot records, IDE versus SCSI controllers, overclocking, code and disk usage bloat, or what have you. > The reason Windoze has a virtual > lock on the world is that it is ->MARKETED<- big time and is > shrinkwrapped in an attractive package. Windoze is a perfect example of > the victory of style and cosmetics over content, but it and systems like > it will live forever because most of the buying population buys style > and content, not substance. Indeed. About sixty years ago, a formal academic study was made of shorthand systems in the United States, and the conclusion was made that Dewey Script Shorthand could meaningfully be said to be superior to Gregg Shorthand by various metrics. But Gregg Shorthand became nearly synonymous with "shorthand" in the US, not because it was superior -- it wasn't -- but because John Robert Gregg simply out hustled the competition. In a sense, Gate$ has out hustled the competition, and the overwhelming majority of buyers don't know and don't care that 'doze is an inferior product. I follow some of the BeOS newsgroups, and one of the laments there is that although most BeOS users consider it to be superior to 'doze, it is still lagging far behind. However, there is sort of a vicious circle effect: a lot of developers don't write for OS's like BeOS because the user base -- and hence likelihood for profit -- is so small, and the user base is so small in part because a lot of developers don't write for it, so that the sorts of applications they can easily obtain for 'doze at the local megastore just aren't available. I am pretty much coming to the conclusion that about the only system likely to be able to stop the dreaded 'doze juggernaut is Linux. Systems like DR-DOS and BeOS may have small loyal followings, but I expect that along with Applesauce they will never (again) amount to much. Sigh. :-( -- Paul mailto:bartlett AT smart DOT net .......................................................... Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA Keyserver (0xF383C8F9) or WWW for PGP public key Home Page: http://www.smart.net/~bartlett