Question on protocol

Alternatively, many Windows applications will run on Intel Mac and Linux under Crossover, without needing to install a Windows OS at all.

I just started asking for money or favors in return. (one reason I don't carry a spare tire in town) :-) They quickly learn to fix it themselves, pay somebody else more money to do it, or take me up on my offer.

Not if you wrote software for Microsoft. ;-)

I think that is true in general about life most of the time.

I don't think that anybody could have predicted the tremendous advances in home computer technology in such a short period of time.

I have read a huge amount of science fiction and no book I have read has ever had computers go from the cumbersome things that we had in 1988 to what we have now in a 20 year time span. To think that it is all speeding up ever faster is somewhat frightening.

By the way, I hate Microsoft too, but more on general principle than anything else.

Pat

I'll have to check in to that...

Like I said, by random chance, not by accident. One operating system had to end up on everybody's desktop, regardless of the intelligence or capability of the buyers of the one that did. And MicroSoftbrain was one of the least intelligent and capable of the contenders.

No argument. And the money to attract and hold them.

Yes, but MicroSoftbrain won the *lottery* due to a mistake by IBM. Not because of clever tactics, as you seem to think. After that, it requires very little brain to exploit a position of absolute power. (Though I am sure you can find some people, brain damaged ones, or with other special circumstances, like scruples, who could not even take advantage of such a situation.)

No, but your interpretation is likely to. They won, but the reason you think why is is just your interpretation. You may want to think about it again

Leon

Speak for yourself. If it is not TeX or LaTeX, I would not touch it with a five-foot pole.

I even wrote a program to bounce all MS-Word documents send to me by the college back to the sender unread. That is *commercial* software, not a public language.

So do I. I cannot let a monopoly chain me down, however much I dislike it.

Leon

I'm one of those who couldn't tell you what ASCII stands for. Sorry but true!

I will keep updating the list for now but I hate to keep people waiting too long.

Chris

I don't think that we are quite as far off the same page as you think. I see a lot of your points. I guess I am seeing the muscling in as a smart move for large businesses. It is ruthless, but it is also how they came out on top once they achieved the market advantage. No business wants to lose, especially after being handed the golden goose.

Pat

No argument from me.

Leon

Well, consider robots. Most sci-fi books that feature robots have them as considerably *more* advanced than we've been able to do. And Dick Tracy only missed by having his communicator on his wrist instead of on his ear like we do. ;)

miker

Now now, he's in his last year, let him finish his term in peace.

miker

At MicroSoftbrain, he would probably declare war on Intel on suspicion of weapons of mass monopoly, unaware of the existence of AMD and other, then discover that it is really hard to run a cutting edge hardware business for a company that has always needed many years to produce passable knock-offs of simple software that others developed first.

Leon

The stars and planets have once again aligned as Pat and Leon come to an agreement on something..... ;-)

Pat

True, but robotics could see the same sort of takeoff. I am really curious about what we will have in 20 years. I am sure that it will make Honda's Asimo look like a kid's toy. Honda's robot already does a slow, but true run. How long before we have one that can outrun us? Power supply is one of the main issues right now.

Artificial intelligence is also progressing rapidly, so even more scary is how long before they can out-think us?

One of my favorites when reading old sci-fi novels is when they are loading up the tape drives on their starships. :-)

pat

Man, does this guy have even one supporter left? I almost feel sorry for him. Nah..... ;-)

Pat

I'm sure it would be tough for them now, but (showing my age :) they did well with their plug-in Z80 card that let Apple II's run CP/M. It was a popular seller back in the time of Wordstar, dBase II, and SuperCalc.

Oops, inadvertantly triggered a memory of CalcStar... Run away! Run away!!!

miker

Before there were PCs, I used to boot a Xerox 860 word processor into CP/M to run SuperCalc (or maybe it was VisiCalc, I don't remember).

IIRC, VisiCalc was the original Apple killer app, and SuperCalc was a CP/M-based sorta-clone. I'm *still* using a SuperCalc from 1983 as my main spreadsheet - does everything I need.

miker

You guys sure are old farts, I'm glad I'm much too young to remember those days or.... could it be just bad memory? ;-)