Rest in Peace, Mr. Ritchie

On Oct 18, 11:52=A0am, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:


> >> >> gouge the public with >30% profit margins. Jobs rips his customers =
off
> >> >> with a 40% profit margin. XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.
>
> >> >30? =A040? =A0Man, oh man! =A0Do I have a bridge to sell you!
> >> >Try 500% for starters...
>
> >> 500% profit margin? =A0What universe do you live in?
>
> >The one of reality.
>
> Obviously not. =A0Give me *ONE* example of a company with a 500% profit m=
argin.
>
> ...gotta hear this one!

Actually if you are hearing anything, then you got a big problem.
I am writing, not talking. There is a difference...

Still: try the companies mentioned in the OP, that is the context I
made my statement in.
Familiar with the "context" word?

On Oct 18, 4:06=A0pm, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> ><[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> >> >> gouge the public with >30% profit margins. Jobs rips his custome=
rs off
> >> >> >> with a 40% profit margin. XOM rips us off with a 10% profit marg=
in.
>
> >> >> >30? =A040? =A0Man, oh man! =A0Do I have a bridge to sell you!
> >> >> >Try 500% for starters...
>
> >> >> 500% profit margin? =A0What universe do you live in?
>
> >> >The one of reality.
>
> >> Obviously not. =A0Give me *ONE* example of a company with a 500% profi=
t margin.
>
> >> ...gotta hear this one!
>
> >Actually if you are hearing anything, then you got a big problem.
> >I am writing, not talking. There is a difference...
>
> Clueless.

Idiot.

>
> >Still: =A0try the companies mentioned in the OP, that is the context I
> >made my statement in.
> >Familiar with the "context" word?
>
> Are you familiar with *any* of the terms you throw around? =A0I didn't th=
ink so.

A lot more than you, by clear demonstration above.

FrozenNorth wrote:
> On 10/20/11 10:55 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> FrozenNorth wrote:
>>> On 10/20/11 9:40 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>>>> m II wrote:
>>>>> Bullshit!
>>>>>
>>>>> Looking for a last friend?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ***** FOR SALE *****
>>>>
>>>> One badly used usenet stalker.
>>>> Not in very good condition - but I couldn't afford the good model
>>>> Still some limited use left in it - just do not expect much from it
>>>> Willing to part with it cheap
>>>> Make your best offer - no offer too low
>>>> Great way to get started, until you can afford a good model
>>>>
>>>> Call now - operators are standing by...
>>>>
>>> There is a strict no returns policy on usenet stalkers/assholes.
>>> You got him, he is yours. :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> ***** REVISED ADD *****
>>
>> FREE!!!! Get it now - while the offer still lasts.
>> Due to insufficient demand, and a clear lack of interest in the
>> market, this product has been reduced to give-away status.
>> Manufacturer is discontinuing the product for lack of demand.
>>
>> No cost - no risk.
>> Would look great on your fireplace mantle (especially upside down...)
>> Will ship for free.
>> Can also be used as a play toy for pets (probably all it's really
>> good for...)
>>
>>
>> ACT NOW - this is a limited time offer. Product will go in the burn
>> pile on Friday.
>>
> Please pack in an air-tight shipping container, prepaid shipping to
> Antarctica, via a leaky canoe. Send $1000.00 Canadian to FrozenNorth
> Enterprises for our valuable assistance in this matter, note the terms
> are Net 10 Days, 2% cash discount if paid by yesterday. We are hoping
> you have enjoyed this business dealing, and will continue to provide
> further services on an as-needed basis.

SORRY BIDDERS - this sale has concluded, with the above referenced bidder as
the winner.

Congratulations to FrozenNorth for his/her successful bid.

Your shipment will be packaged and sent within the next 30 days. Please
allow for a particularly stinky package, upon its arrival. SHIPPING
NOTICE - Due to the unusual stinky nature of this shipment, it may be
difficult to find a carrier willing to accept this offering for shipment.
Shipper accepts no responsibility for said difficulties. Canadian
customers: Please note that we are unable to pay or refund in Canadian
funds, and all sales or refunds or payments will be made in depreciated NY
state budget funds. Current depreciation rates are 130%. Please remit the
amount of your referenced fee/offer, plus 30%. Limited time offer - provide
your mother-in-law's mailing address and receive this offer, shipped
directly to her for no fee, no shipping. Offer expires on 10/19/2011.

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:34:11 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:

>On 10/17/2011 10:45 PM, Jack wrote:
>> On 10/17/2011 4:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>> Jack wrote:
>>
>>>> True, they were found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust act, in
>>>> court. My guess is that had them on pins and needles when they opened
>>>> the PC/DT market.
>>>
>>> They were on "pins and needles" in every market. It wasn't because of the
>>> CDC, and like, suits, though. The '56 consent decree really
>>> handicapped them.
>>> It wasn't removed until '00, or there abouts.
>>>
>>>>>> The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by definition,
>>>>>> competition is excluded via control of the market. When competition is
>>>>>> stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality stagnates and people
>>>>>> are
>>>>>> forced to pay what the monopoly says they will pay. MS is a perfect
>>>>>> example of this, providing crap at a 30% mark up to over 90% of the
>>>>>> market.
>>>>
>>>>> ...and just what 90% of the market wants.
>>>>
>>>> And you know this how?
>>
>>> People voting with their wallets, AKA market penetration.You couldn't
>>> give
>>> OS/2 away (sadly) and still can't give Linux away.
>>
>> It was next to impossible to buy a copy of OS/2. Most every PC was sold
>> with DOS/WIN installed.
>
>
>You could NOT get anything else installed unless
>> you bought from some geek down the street. Retailers did not install
>> OS/2 or anything else, and if they tried, MS would pull their license or
>> remove the fake discount MS gave them. Worse, the retailers rarely had
>> copies of OS/2 to sell, either because IBM didn't provide them copies,
>> or, because again, fear of MS punishing anyone that sold something other
>> than MS OS.
>
>
>You might want to think further back. Initial PC's had no OS installed.

Define "OS". ROM BASIC was installed on all IBM PCs. If "OS" == Disk, then
you're obviously right.

> Back in the mid 80's PC/DOS not to be confused with MS/DOS was a very
>common OS that came with many if not most, if they were not IBM PC's.
>My ATT 6300 came with that software. Also, many comnputers back then
>only had floppy drives, a 10 meg HD was a $500 option,

Early PC/DOS *was* MS/DOS. There was a split, later, but up until at least
V3, they were identical. The best version was IBM's DOS7.

>IIRC MS/DOS was only coming on IBM and Windows did not start showing up
>on PC's until hard drives were common and version 3.0 came out.

IBM sold PC/DOS. Some dealers may have sold MS/DOS instead. There were
Windows versions before 1.0, but didn't sell well.

>I do recall buying a different OS back then that was about $25 IIRC.

Which OS? IIRC, PC/DOS was about $50.

On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:45:30 -0400, Jack wrote:

> Steve Jobs was nothing, Bill Gates is nothing, Dennis Richie was a god.
> I, at one time, thought God came to Richie (and his partner Mr.
> Kernighan) after becoming frustrated with all the screwed up code being
> written at the time, and wrote C and Unix for these two. Nothing much
> has occurred to change those thoughts.
>
> Gates and Job's were marketers that ripped off the public. Gates
> eliminated competition as much as possible and uses his monopoly to
> gouge the public with >30% profit margins. Jobs rips his customers off
> with a 40% profit margin. XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.

At what level would profit be acceptable to you, 5%, 2%, 0% ?

Personally, I don't like to work cheap.

basilisk
>
> Almost no one knows who Richie and Kernighan are, quite normal for a
> screwed up society. God must have loved this guy to write his code for
> him, so I'm sure he is resting in peace. Gates and Jobs on the other hand...
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3ztwfrr
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/technology/dennis-ritchie-programming-trailblazer-dies-at-70.html

m II, I believe that United Technologies, which counts among its subsidiaries Pratt & Whitney and Sikorski, counts as a "decent sized business" and they had company-provide Apple IIs before IBM shipped their first PC.

On Monday, October 17, 2011 11:45:59 PM UTC-4, Jack wrote:

> It was next to impossible to buy a copy of OS/2.

I bought several copies at the Electronics Boutique store in the local mall. It was not at all difficult to obtain.

> Most every PC was sold
> with DOS/WIN installed.

So what? Anybody who wanted something else just had to buy it and install it, same as today.

> Worse, the retailers rarely had
> copies of OS/2 to sell, either because IBM didn't provide them copies,
> or, because again, fear of MS punishing anyone that sold something other
> than MS OS.

Electronics Boutique was a retailer. And they were not the only one that had OS/2 on the shelf.

> IBM wanted MS to develop a system that they could use for their ATM
> machines, and DOS/WIN was crap (still is) MS either was too dumb (my
> guess) or had some other lame reason to not be able to deliver. (I
> recall it said that MS told IBM it was not possible) IBM then did it
> themselves in about a year, and it was awesome. IBM killed it's
> development when it was selling a million copies a month despite their
> lack of support. My opinion is they never wanted that part of the
> market because of the "pins and needles" mentioned above. At the time,
> there was an obvious, and uncomfortable disconnect between IBM OS/2 team
> and the rest of the company. It became clear IBM had no intention of
> moving in on MS, why is open for speculation.

If you think that IBM needed Microsoft to develop an OS for them you're clueless. IBM was shipping 32-bit preemptively multitasking protected virtual operating systems when Bill Gates was still in high school.

Microsoft bailed on OS/2 because Windows was making much more money for them, pure and simple.

And if IBM was selling a million copies a month then it must have been more available than you claim.

On Oct 17, 12:23=A0pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:41:16 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
>
> > Wait a minute--I didn't see the original post. =A0Dennis Ritchie died?
> > Steve Jobs is all over the news, but there doesn't seem to be a peep
> > about Ritchie, without whom Apple would still be in the OS dark ages an=
d
> > as dead as Imsai.

Google Richie - maybe that'll help. :)~

> The public sees the mass marketers - they don't see the guys in the back
> room who generated the product being marketed.

I wonder if it could be any other way. It's a rare person that
combines creativity, financial skills and technical and marketing know-
how. Artists are an example. Most of them hate the marketing end of
things and many serious artists are willing to give up their monopoly
on their own artwork to become minority partners with a dealer.

R

You seemed knowledgeable until you attempted ad hominem BS and
overstepped your knowledge.

No decent code writer would use self-modifying code! This indicates you
have absolutely **NO** experience in this field.
Self-modifying code would violate all the protection traps in any
modern O/S and would error out as a violation.

Sorry Chris...exposed again in the wrong game.

-------------------
"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
And another amateur heard from. Self modifying code is hardly the
mark of a beginner. It is necessary in certain cases and requires
a pretty rigorous understanding of the underlying machine architecture.
Gates and Co. were many things, but "incompetent" was not among them.

P.S. All success is partly driven by good fortune. But chance favors
the
prepared mind. That's why Gates is a multi-billionaire, and you're
not.

On Oct 20, 10:19=A0am, FrozenNorth <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On 10/20/11 9:40 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > m II wrote:
> >> Bullshit!
>
> >> Looking for a last friend?
>
> > ***** =A0FOR SALE *****
>
> > One badly used usenet stalker.
> > Not in very good condition - but I couldn't afford the good model
> > Still some limited use left in it - just do not expect much from it
> > Willing to part with it cheap
> > Make your best offer - no offer too low
> > Great way to get started, until you can afford a good model
>
> > Call now - operators are standing by...
>
> There is a strict no returns policy on usenet stalkers/assholes.
> You got him, he is yours. :-)
>
> --
> Froz...
>
> The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance.

LOL

On Oct 15, 9:22=A0pm, "Mike Marlow" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
>
> > That is the conservative** way. Destroy what's in your way. There are
> > many many examples of the way(say Perry) a conservative** politician
> > will show that he/she is better by shoving the opponent down, not by
> > showing any personal merit.
>
> Gotta call you on this one brother. =A0I'm pretty conservative in certain
> respects, but that's not why I'm calling you. =A0Your diatribe is just
> uncalled for. =A0You had to take this to a political point - huh? =A0Jack=
's
> comments had nothing to do with political bend and could have been dealt
> with head-long. =A0Sorry - bad call on your part.
>
Jack's political bend is well known and my comments and the comparison
to Perry were based on that knowledge.
Move along, nothing to see here.
>
> > Ritchie, Gates, and Jobs are all gifted, but now that Jack has
> > 'judged' for us whose gift was acceptable to him, we can now go on
> > hating the other two.
>
> Might have been a good point had it not been for the political bullshit t=
hat
> prevailed above it.
>
Alright. Do poo-poo everything I said because I also said something
that didn't quite suit you.
That's the chances I take when I comment on things.
>
> > I really don't recall anybody in here with that much hate. A special
> > hate. A christian hate. The worst kind of hate, fuelled by hypocrisy.
>
> Now you had to go throw that "christian" thing in there. =A0Nowhere in Ja=
ck's
> reply did he speak to politics or religion, but you fucked up big time wi=
th
> your comment above. =A0The worst kind of hate is indeed fueled by hypocis=
y -
> your type of hypocisy. =A0Sorry to see this from you.
>

I wasn't talking about Jack's reply. Mine was more along the lines of:
"How typical"
The christian reference was about that whole self righteous
'conservative' group, like Perry that seeks to tear down anything and
anybody that gets in the way. Like Jack. Comparison made and I stick
by it. If that bothers you, Mike, I am sorry, but I am not
apologizing. After all, WHO TF is Jack Stein to instruct us who to
hate? And for me to point out that behaviour is a non-christian one
is something you'll have to agree with. Are politicians really
incapable of believing in situational christianity?

You've got your view and I have mine
Jack Stein is a hypocrite plain and simple.
> --
>
> -Mike-
> [email protected]

On Tuesday, October 18, 2011 12:33:32 PM UTC-4, Leon wrote:

<snip>=20

> Really, I thought that IBM was only coming with the MS version.

You could buy PC-DOS or MS-DOS. PC-DOS came in a gray binder that said "IB=
M" on the cover, MS-DOS came in a green binder that said "Microsoft" on the=
cover. The only functional difference was that the one that said "Microso=
ft" on the cover included a BASIC interpreter that would run on a machine w=
ithout ROM-BASIC while the one in the IBM version required ROM-BASIC.

IBM never bundled the green binders with their own machines, but you could =
buy the grey binder version without a machine.

> >> I do recall buying a different OS back then that was about $25 IIRC.
> >
> > Which OS? IIRC, PC/DOS was about $50.
>=20
> I really cannot remember for sure but .... DR DOS may be??? I guessing=
=20
> here. I did not use it past trying it out.
>=20
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS

Jack wrote:

> Disk and memory access was in the
> terabytes, disk fragmentation was non-existent and on and on and on.

Oh please! In theory only. You just destroyed your credibility with two
simple statements there Jack.


--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Hey Caputo...fuck off back to your failed Usenet business.

and stop bottom posting. Get with the modern times

------------
"Dave" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:06:17 -0400, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
>closed on all competing DT/PC OS's. Gates and IBM made certain of
>that,
>and the home PC market has been paying the price ever since.

Poor put upon Jack. He's realized that Gates and IBM have been out to
get him personally all these years. It must really suck to be Jack.

On Oct 17, 3:03=A0pm, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 10/17/2011 11:13 AM, Leon wrote:
>
> > =A0Robatoy wrote:
> >> =A0"m II" wrote:
> >>> Bullshit!
> >> Fuck off, you little weasel.
> > DIRECT HIT!
>
> > Battle ship sunk!
>
> Robocop couldn't sink a dinky boat let alone a battle ship!
>
> --
> Jack
> Add Life to your Days not Days to your Life.http://jbstein.com

I can sink any size vessel if I fill it with your bullshit, Jack.

On Oct 18, 4:15=A0pm, FrozenNorth <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On 10/18/11 2:42 PM, Leon wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 10/18/2011 11:03 AM, Jack wrote:
> > =A0> On 10/18/2011 8:34 AM, Leon wrote:
> > =A0>> On 10/17/2011 10:45 PM, Jack wrote:
> > =A0>>> On 10/17/2011 4:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> > =A0>>>> Jack wrote:
>
> > =A0> I think the first (significant) version of windows that (didn't) w=
ork
> > =A0> was 3.1.
>
> > I had win 3.0 and for me the free 3.1 upgrade was a significant
> > improvement. I never had any thing earlier than 3.0.
>
> > I don't think that changed even a little until XP came out,
> > =A0> which works marginally if you don't mind occasional meltdowns and
> > =A0> periodic registry explosions.
>
> > GoBack saved my butt on many occasions.
>
> > XP still is not a patch on the ass of OS/2
> > =A0> WARP. I never used Win Vista ver 7 so can't comment other than ret=
ailers
> > =A0> were offering XP and free future upgrades because Vista sucked. Ha=
rd to
> > =A0> imagine it sucked worse than previous versions of Win, but that wa=
s the
> > =A0> word I got.
>
> > Every one complains about something. ;) I had the most luck with XP and
> > because it was such a vast improvement over 95 and 98 in being stable
> > many did found it not necessary to change or upgrade. IIRC ME, 2000, an=
d
> > Vista did not have enough persuasion to change many XP users minds. Had
> > Microsoft continued to support XP it might still be very popular. I am
> > using 7 now and it seems as stable as XP but has a lot of short cuts
> > that make using it a bit simpler to use. I don't care for Vista my self
> > but every one that uses it likes it, but...I think every one that I kno=
w
> > that uses it did had not used XP extensively. I think since XP it all
> > depends on what you are used to using.
>
> I used and supported everything from various flavours of DOS and Windows
> in a corporate environment. =A0XP was by far the best and easiest, over
> its predecessors. =A0Vista was fine, given the right hardware, MS
> seriously messed up on its minimum hardware requirements, given the
> right hardware Vista ws fine, but Win7 is a joy to use.
>
> Win8 looks like it is going to be another bucket load of crap though, at
> least according to the latest developers release. =A0Had it running in a
> virtual machine, couldn't get rid of it fast enough.
>
That's like me and MacOS10 LION. A genuine WTF is THIS escaped from my
mouth....loud.
Loaded Snow Leopard and restored from my back up drive. Took over an
hour with a big sigh of relief.
Why can't these people leave well enough alone?

Robatoy wrote:

>
> I wasn't talking about Jack's reply. Mine was more along the lines of:
> "How typical"
> The christian reference was about that whole self righteous
> 'conservative' group, like Perry that seeks to tear down anything and
> anybody that gets in the way. Like Jack. Comparison made and I stick
> by it. If that bothers you, Mike, I am sorry, but I am not
> apologizing. After all, WHO TF is Jack Stein to instruct us who to
> hate? And for me to point out that behaviour is a non-christian one
> is something you'll have to agree with. Are politicians really
> incapable of believing in situational christianity?
>

I'm not sure just where in the hell your rant comes from. There was nothing
in Jack's post that legitimized your obvious issues with whatever, and I do
happen to take personal affront to your bullshit about Christians. On that
single point - you can sit on your opions and I'm not feeling bad about
telling you that. You're entitled to your feelings but you may just need to
figure out just when to keep them to yourself. I like you a lot and I'm not
going to let this come between a pretty good internet relationship, but
you're too full of yourself on this particular point. In your own words...
WYF are you to tell... Pot, kettle, black.


> You've got your view and I have mine
> Jack Stein is a hypocrite plain and simple.

I don't care about Jack. I asked about your comments that had nothing to do
with a posted usenet comment.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On 10/14/2011 12:01 PM, RicodJour wrote:
> On Oct 14, 12:45 pm, Jack<[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Steve Jobs was nothing, Bill Gates is nothing, Dennis Richie was a god.


Uh Jack ...

I got to spend a bit of time with Richie at a conference once. He was
a brilliant and interesting guy, but I suspect he'd reject status as
deity.

The economic value, the taxes, and the employment that Gates and
Jobs respectively are responsible for is every bit the equal of
Richie's contribution ... it's just a different kind of contribution.



>> Gates and Job's were marketers that ripped off the public. Gates

Gates and Jobs were marketers that understood what the public needed,
that the public would live with "good enough" technology, and the
price point that the public would tolerate. That is a kind of genius
too.


Then this bit of very sane response follows:

>
> And Gates is leaving $50 billion to charity. Yep, he sure was a
> schmuck that did nothing for nobody not ever. Sheesh.
>
> If you're looking for saints, go dig up a few.
>
> I am surprised that you don't know the correct spelling of the name of
> the guy you idolized/worshipped. I figured that having it spelled out
> for you in the URL you provided would have helped get it right.
>
> Ritchie made a huge contribution - don't see why you feel the need to
> tear other people down to point that out. But, whatever.
>
> Why is it that the "free market" has decided that Apple's and MS'
> pricing is acceptable, but you have a problem with it? Talk about
> arguing out both sides of your mouth...
>
> R

+1000

And Microsoft was no predatory monopoly. Their prices have either
stayed the same or gone down (in real terms) while adding more and
more features to their products. See:

http://www.cato.org//pubs/pas/pa352.pdf
http://reason.com/archives/2001/11/01/antitrusts-greatest-hits
http://www.cato.org//pubs/pas/pa-405es.html

None of this will stop the Whiners (tm), of course. They complain
about businesses making "too much" profit, and then complain again
when unemployment is high, all the never connecting the dots between
those two ideas.

I'm an engineer. I am not particularly thrilled with Microsoft products.
I much prefer Unix and all that goes with it. But Microsoft responds
to a need with a "good enough" product that serves 100s of millions
of people just fine. On a smaller scale so does Apple, even though they
are one of the most closed off environments around (far worse than
Microsoft). Value is in the eye of the beholder not the pontificants
on the net ...

On Oct 20, 9:18=A0am, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'll be in Sarnia this week-end!
>
> Where will you be?
>

Good, I'll keep an eye out for an asshole.

Robatoy wrote:

>
> That is the conservative** way. Destroy what's in your way. There are
> many many examples of the way(say Perry) a conservative** politician
> will show that he/she is better by shoving the opponent down, not by
> showing any personal merit.

Gotta call you on this one brother. I'm pretty conservative in certain
respects, but that's not why I'm calling you. Your diatribe is just
uncalled for. You had to take this to a political point - huh? Jack's
comments had nothing to do with political bend and could have been dealt
with head-long. Sorry - bad call on your part.

>
> Ritchie, Gates, and Jobs are all gifted, but now that Jack has
> 'judged' for us whose gift was acceptable to him, we can now go on
> hating the other two.

Might have been a good point had it not been for the political bullshit that
prevailed above it.

>
> I really don't recall anybody in here with that much hate. A special
> hate. A christian hate. The worst kind of hate, fuelled by hypocrisy.

Now you had to go throw that "christian" thing in there. Nowhere in Jack's
reply did he speak to politics or religion, but you fucked up big time with
your comment above. The worst kind of hate is indeed fueled by hypocisy -
your type of hypocisy. Sorry to see this from you.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Robatoy wrote:

>
> LOL

Oh... Ha-ha your ass. Have I ever told you how much you look like my wife?

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On 10/16/2011 8:57 PM, m II wrote:
> MSDos for $29.95 includes a 538 page printed manual when it came out.
>
> Gates was a victim of lots of luck, being at the right place in the right time, and marketing genius.
>His code stunk and I know that by disassembling some of it. He used self modifying code and
> other techniques that marked him as incompetent as a code writer.
>
And another amateur heard from. Self modifying code is hardly the
mark of a beginner. It is necessary in certain cases and requires
a pretty rigorous understanding of the underlying machine architecture.
Gates and Co. were many things, but "incompetent" was not among them.

P.S. All success is partly driven by good fortune. But chance favors the
prepared mind. That's why Gates is a multi-billionaire, and you're not.



> ---------------
> "Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>
>> On 10/16/2011 11:12 AM, Jack wrote:
>
>
>> No, it doesn't serve millions of users "just fine". It's a crap
>> system that should have been improved and replaced years ago. His
>> system does have millions pulling their hair out daily, most of them
>> too computer illiterate to understand it's not them, it's the OS.
>
>
> You clearly haven't kept up. One of the places I spend a lot of time
> these days is a several-thousand server environment. They have Z/OS
> (MVS), Z/Linux, Solaris, AIX, SLES, RHEL, AND, yes, Windows Servers.
> (My task, in part, it to build new *nix servers to add to the almost
> 1000 already in place, BTW.) Guess what? They all have problems from
> time-to-time. Guess what? These systems are only as good as the people
> that keep them running. Guess what? Scale is hard, no matter what
> technology you use.
>
> Microsoft materially improved their OSs starting with Windows 2000.
> The underlying kernel - that is, the non-GUI part - is as modern a
> design as you'll ever see. The core architecture was designed by Dave
> Cutler - he father of VMS. And I have news for you, as much as I
> prefer Unix structurally, for some classes of problems, Windows server
> scales WAY better than *nix. This is because Cutler designed the
> kernel around a lightweight threading model instead of heavy weight
> process forking model. This turns out to be huge advantage in certain
> kinds of problems.
>
> The constant braying about Microsoft ripping people off or being
> predatory, or otherwise being evil can only be contemplated by people
> that have never run a real business. Most people drive Honda/Chevy
> class vehicles, not Rollers. While Rolls makes a lovely car that
> literally lasts generations, the average person simply cannot afford
> them. So Honda, Chevy, Hyundai, et al produce a "good enough" car that
> does have to be replaced much more often than the Rolls. You're
> effectively arguing that this exact same response to the needs of the
> masses by Microsoft constitutes fraud. It's absurd.
>
> As to the (lack of merits) of the DOJ case - the cites I previous
> provided eviscerate this ridiculous lawsuit. More particularly,
> you have your facts completely WRONG. Microsoft had virtually no
> lobbying presence in D.C. at the time of the lawsuit. But Sun,
> Netscape, et al that went and whined to the DOJ had already begun
> the play the lobbying game. The ONLY reason the suit was ever
> contemplated was because these whiners could not compete on their
> own merits in the PC space. Like all moochers, they wanted success
> without actually having to EARN it. So, they resorted to
> government-funded extortion to try and attack through force what
> they could not do via competition. The reason that the original
> finding was undone wasn't lobbying - Microsoft was still just
> learning to play that game at the time. It was due to the simple
> and clear fact that *the suit had no merit*.
>
> "Predation" in any monopoly is unsustainable without force. The best
> example of a predatory monopoly system was the old airline and
> public utilities, *all of which had government regulators deciding
> who could enter the business, how much they could charge, and how
> much they could profit.* Microsoft doesn't remotely fit that model.
> They have never used violence or the force of government to sell more
> product. They've made clear the conditions under which *they would
> provide preferential pricing* to their OEM customers - nothing more.
> "If you want to sell Windows on your machine a 1/10 retail cost, you
> have to agree to sell ONLY Windows on your machine." Hardly "predatory".
> Dell, HP, Compaq, Acer, and so on were perfectly free to walk away from
> that deal.
>
> Quite to the contrary, as you would expect in any market, Microsoft
> is susceptible to all manner of competitive pressures. They
> nearly missed the Internet/browser boat. They are still trying
> to figure out how to compete effectively in an open source world.
> They are mostly underwater in the mobile space. Their cloud
> offering remains to be seen. People are legally cloning some
> of their biggest cash cows including Windows itself and the
> Office suite.
>
> Microsoft also demonstrably not predatory because their prices have -
> in real terms - been *falling* since the beginning of the company.
> The first product I bought from them was a Z-80 assembler for the
> TRS-80. I think it cost something like $30 in the late 70s. Today,
> a much, much better assembler/C compiler system for the latest
> machines and architectures is FREE from Microsoft - or was last time
> I needed it. Their products increase in features while remaining the
> same nominal price or actually going down.
>
> As as said, I am not fond of their products on technical grounds,
> but the constant carping about how bad/evil their is absurd, it is
> dishonest, and it is every bit as unmannerly as the class warfare
> you see in the larger culture. In fact, it's the same mentality
> exactly: "I cannot get what the other guy has on my own merits, so
> I'll pretend he got his dishonestly. This will give me moral
> permission to steal it."

On 10/17/2011 7:00 AM, m II said this:
> You seemed knowledgeable until you attempted ad hominem BS and overstepped your knowledge.
>
> No decent code writer would use self-modifying code! This indicates you have absolutely **NO** experience in this field.
> Self-modifying code would violate all the protection traps in any modern O/S and would error out as a violation.
>
> Sorry Chris...exposed again in the wrong game.
>

Go have a look at how real time and embedded systems work and get
back to us ..

(And a "modern OS" can be something other than Unix, Windows, or
MacOS...)


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
[email protected]

On 10/17/2011 9:27 AM, Dave said this:
> On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:40:02 -0500, Tim Daneliuk >Go have a look at
> how real time and embedded systems work and get
>> back to us ..
>>
>> (And a "modern OS" can be something other than Unix, Windows, or
>> MacOS...)
>
> Tim, why are you talking to this twit? He has absolutely nothing to
> contribute to this newsgroup.

He seemed mildly knowledgeable on the topic...

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
[email protected]

On 10/17/2011 1:23 PM, Jack said this:
> On 10/16/2011 5:45 PM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>> On 10/16/2011 1:45 PM, Jack wrote:
>>> On 10/16/2011 1:38 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>
>>>> Most monopolies are temporary.
>>>
>>> Perhaps, depending on your definition of temporary. Microsoft has been
>>> at it of a quarter century. Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T had to be broken
>>> up by the courts. The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by
>>> definition, competition is excluded via control of the market. When
>>> competition is stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality
>>> stagnates and people are forced to pay what the monopoly says they
>>> will pay. MS is a perfect example of this, providing crap at a 30%
>>> mark up to over 90% of the market.
>>>
>>> Just when do you think this "temporary" control will end?
>
>> Now let us inspect Reality to demonstrate why this is complete nonsense.
>
> Well, you certainly haven't demonstrated with this half baked reply. Lets "inspect" to see why you are off base.
>
>> At the beginning of the desktop/PC revolution, there were two significant
>> OS players: Apple and Radio Shack (there were something like a half dozen
>> TRS-DOS variants, the best of which was LDOS).
>
> These were meaningless. When IBM decided to enter the PC/DT market, who they picked to provide the OS determined who would ride the DC/PC revolution. The only thing stopping them from doing it themselves was fear of another anti-trust suit. They picked Gates, not because he had an OS to sell, but because the CEO or President of IBM, I don't recall which, was friends with Gates mother. Gates had to go out and find a workable OS, and he bought DOS from Patterson, for $100 grand. Gates eventually hired Patterson, because Gates and friends couldn't figure out how DOS even worked, and seems they never did, from the garbage they put out. Hard to imagine a company like IBM signing a contract with someone that had nothing to sell, but that's exactly what they did.

> Then IBM entered the market
>> and Microsoft came with them, for the first time producing an OS.
>
> Until IBM entered the market, the market was bare.

You might want to mention that to the several millionaires that
were made producing OSs long before MS/IBM entered the party.
I personally know at least one.

>
>> Now let's fast forward.
>
> Lets not. From the beginning, there was little competition, since IBM, for whatever reason, chose MS. That meant that if you wanted to write software, sell software, or have anything to do with PC's, you had to go with MS because that was the platform IBM used. Those that attempted to get a foot in the door of any retail outlet was quickly stomped on by MS threatening the retailer to either withdraw their license to sell MS or with super high price for the product. Since IBM had set the stage for MS, if a retailer ignored MS threats, they were doomed, so they didn't, and no "feet" got in the door. All other products were like farts in the wind, had no chance, mattered not if they were good, bad or indifferent. They eventually all went away, which is exactly what monopolies do to the competition. Even if you think you know more than judge Sporkin, who listened to years of testimony laying out how MS violated anti-trust laws, and found them super guilty of violating a
nti
> trust laws, you cannot deny that controlling over 90% of the DT market is a monopoly. Well you can, but then you would be spouting nonsense.


And this "lack of competition" is why we have more choices than ever
today? Your narrative is falling apart in the face of observable
reality.


> There are dozens of OS variants. Besides MacOS
>> (a FreeBSD/MACH derivative) and Windows, there are a bunch of different
>> Linux distros, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeDOS, at least one Windows
>> clone OS (whose name I cannot recall). In the mobile device space,
>> Microsoft's presence is too small to matter with Apple IOS and Android
>> (another Linux derivative) splitting the market between them. Microsoft
>> has no presence to speak of in the realtime/embedded space. They
>> are not a force in supercomputer or high-availability clustering. They
>> do not have a place in the multi-petabyte database space.
>
> No DT product could get a foot in the door "in the early days" of the DT PC. MS made sure of it, and it was proven in court after the fact in 1995.
>
>> But you think they're a "monopoly". You are seriously disconnected from
>> the current state of this business. It is a simple, demonstrable, and
>> completely rational observation that Microsoft dominates only the desktop,
>
> No shit Dick Tracy. I never said they dominated the mainframe market, or the cell phone market, or the meat market. They dominate over 90% of the DT market, they have a lousy product that is only "good enough" because the average consumer has little choice when shopping the DT market.

Most of the systems I mentioned are available in desktop variants. Some, like
Ubuntu, are very, very good. You know why they don't get selected? Because
MOST people don't want to tinker with a computer, they just want to USE it.
Microsoft gets them there at a very low cost and, these days, with a very
robust product.


>> and then only so long as they provide a good value. More and more people
>> are turning to portable devices like high function phones and tablets -
>> a space where Microsoft has almost NO presence.
>
> Microsoft has a monopoly on the PC DT market. We'll see how the cell phone market pans out.
>
>> This, sir, is not a monopoly.
>
> Microsoft has over a 90% market share in the DT PC market. You can say that's not a monopoly all day long, you will be wrong.

When there are a dozen *free* alternatives, it's not a monopoly.


>
> This is a market with more product, more players, and more
>> competition than has ever existed since the dawn of commercial
>> computing. The fact that Microsoft knows how to prosper and maintain
>> high margins in this environment is to their credit.
>
> Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T also knew how to prosper but they didn't make 30% profit. They were broken up because they had monopolies and either were not as corrupt as MS or Government was not as corrupt in their day, or some combination of both.

The oil companies' cost to produce it dominated by drilling costs.
Software marginal cost for additional units is very low. This is
not evil, it is Econ 101.

>> P.S. Microsoft isn't as bulletproof as you seem to think. Go look at their
>> stock performance over the last decade.
>
> Get real. Their profit margin has always been super high, what one would expect from a monopoly. They have been "bulletproof" for around 25 years, what happens in the future is a guess, the past is undeniable.
> They were able to maintain this control by stopping retailers from selling competing products and by changing the environment so software, often even their own, would not work between upgrades. This was deliberate to control the market, and it worked.
>
>> P.P.S. The only "predatory monopoly" that exists in our nation is the
>> government and that's because they get to use force to keep themselves in power.
>> Fortunately - for the most part - that use of force is narrowly bounded
>> by rule of law.
>
> Unfortunately, the "rule of law" went out the window when MS got busted for anti-trust violations and all they got was a slap on the hands, and a dire need to contribute vast donations to those in charge of the "rule of law". The current regime is even worse, and thinks the "rule of law" is for you, not them.
>


You desperately need to read a good book on economics. I'd
suggest "Economics In Lesson" by Hazlitt. You're not even
close to calling what's going at Microsoft accurately ....



--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
[email protected]

On Oct 15, 9:51=A0pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Bullshit!
>
Fuck off, you little weasel.

On 10/18/2011 11:24 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:57:21 -0400, m II wrote:
>>
>>> Yup, Motorola kept reducing the instruction sets down to 27? on the
>>> 68000 while Intel kept bragging about the millions of instructions on
>>> it's messy internal architecture. People writing code for Intel hated
>>> it!
>>>
>>> Then came along the Z-80 with it's block memory move in one
>>> instruction. Trouble was, that a 6809 with code for a memory move
>>> loop could move the block faster and with less setup instructions
>>> and time.
>>>
>>> We all learned the long and hard way.
>>
>> I always thought the Nat'l Semi 16032 and its relatives had the best
>> instruction set of the micro chips, but my real favorite was a
>> mainframe from the '60s, the GE4xx series. Not a lot about it on the
>> web but a little at:
>>
>
> Mixed thoughts there Larry 0 GE4x was not a microprocessor based machine.
>

Actually, the first microprocessor on a single chip was the Four-Phase
Systems AL1 chip. It was developed by the Four-Phase founder, Lee
Boysel in 1969. It took a law suit against TI to get it recognized as such.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-Phase_Systems

There were other microprocessor designs around that time, but the AL1
was the first actually produced.




--
"A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to
blame somebody else." -John Burroughs

On Oct 19, 3:38=A0am, "Mike Marlow" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
>
> > IKWUABWAI?
>
> Pure stupidity. =A0You are either a 20-something text adict or you are si=
mply
> too lazy to type a comprehensive sentence - expecting everyone else to
> either understand or to look up your "acronyms".
>

Bingo.

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:06:17 -0400, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
>closed on all competing DT/PC OS's. Gates and IBM made certain of that,
>and the home PC market has been paying the price ever since.

Poor put upon Jack. He's realized that Gates and IBM have been out to
get him personally all these years. It must really suck to be Jack.

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:42:28 -0700 (PDT), Noons <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Oct 15, 3:45 am, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> gouge the public with >30% profit margins.  Jobs rips his customers off
>> with a 40% profit margin.  XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.
>
>30? 40? Man, oh man! Do I have a bridge to sell you!
>Try 500% for starters...

500% profit margin? What universe do you live in?

>Withness the crap that has been the world economy since the GFC - is
>anyone seriously complaining?
>Hey, if they can find the suckers - and obviously they can - then all
>the power to them.

On Oct 18, 8:12=A0am, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
>
> Valve stems for you vehicle tires. =A0When I was in the tire business the
> stems cost me 10 cents each, sold them for $1 each.

That's because you just didn't like to make change. ;)

"How much for the tire?"
"$25.
"Here ya go."
"Oh, three tens...I meant $30."

R

On Oct 18, 10:36=A0am, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:

> >> gouge the public with >30% profit margins. Jobs rips his customers off
> >> with a 40% profit margin. XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.
>
> >30? =A040? =A0Man, oh man! =A0Do I have a bridge to sell you!
> >Try 500% for starters...
>
> 500% profit margin? =A0What universe do you live in?

The one of reality.

Bullshit!

--------------

"-MIKE-" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

On 10/19/11 6:42 PM, m II wrote:
> May as well blurted your usual "Bullshit!"
>

You are the absolute stupidest idiot I've ever seen on the internet.

Pay attention, moron... just because two people have the same first
name, doesn't mean they are the same person.


--

-MIKE-

"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com
[email protected]
---remove "DOT" ^^^^ to reply

On Oct 14, 1:01=A0pm, RicodJour <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Oct 14, 12:45=A0pm, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Steve Jobs was nothing, Bill Gates is nothing, Dennis Richie was a god.
> > =A0 I, at one time, thought God came to Richie (and his partner Mr.
> > Kernighan) after becoming frustrated with all the screwed up code being
> > written at the time, and wrote C and Unix for these two. =A0Nothing muc=
h
> > has occurred to change those thoughts.
>
> > Gates and Job's were marketers that ripped off the public. =A0Gates
> > eliminated competition as much as possible and uses his monopoly to
> > gouge the public with >30% profit margins. =A0Jobs rips his customers o=
ff
> > with a 40% profit margin. =A0XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.
>
> > Almost no one knows who Richie and Kernighan are, quite normal for a
> > screwed up society. =A0God must have loved this guy to write his code f=
or
> > him, so I'm sure he is resting in peace. Gates and Jobs on the other ha=
nd...
>
> >http://tinyurl.com/3ztwfrr
>
> >http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/technology/dennis-ritchie-programmi...
>
> And Gates is leaving $50 billion to charity. =A0Yep, he sure was a
> schmuck that did nothing for nobody not ever. =A0Sheesh.
>
> If you're looking for saints, go dig up a few.
>
> I am surprised that you don't know the correct spelling of the name of
> the guy you idolized/worshipped. =A0I figured that having it spelled out
> for you in the URL you provided would have helped get it right.
>
> Ritchie made a huge contribution - don't see why you feel the need to
> tear other people down to point that out. =A0But, whatever.
>

That is the conservative** way. Destroy what's in your way. There are
many many examples of the way(say Perry) a conservative** politician
will show that he/she is better by shoving the opponent down, not by
showing any personal merit.

**=3DJack's type of conservatism that is. It doesn't have to be that
way, but in Jack's world anything he either disagrees with on doesn't
understand, needs to be either threatened or destroyed.
Sad, really.

Ritchie, Gates, and Jobs are all gifted, but now that Jack has
'judged' for us whose gift was acceptable to him, we can now go on
hating the other two.

I really don't recall anybody in here with that much hate. A special
hate. A christian hate. The worst kind of hate, fuelled by hypocrisy.

On Oct 18, 4:27=A0pm, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> That's like me and MacOS10 LION. A genuine WTF is THIS escaped from my
> mouth....loud.
> Loaded Snow Leopard and restored from my back up drive. Took over an
> hour with a big sigh of relief.
> Why can't these people leave well enough alone?

Where's the money in that...err...sense. I meant where's the sense in
that? ;)

They need the money. Do you have any idea what a billionaire
Buddhist's burial goes for these days?

R

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:29:34 +0000 (UTC), Larry Blanchard
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:53:10 -0400, m II wrote:
>
>> or some idiot didn't know that a multitasking system had to be called
>> from your own code every few milliseconds or your printer would stop.
>
>That's cooperative multitasking. You mean they didn't use preemptive
>multitasking? That's a serious question - I know very little about
>Windows internals. I used to know a fair amount about the innards of
>Unix, but since retirement I've even gotten obsolete on that.

Yes, early Win's multitasking was cooperative. OS/2's was preemptive and
therefore much more responsive when doing certain tasks.

On Oct 20, 6:48=A0am, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:

> Yeah, like if DOS or Windows applications crashed, OS/2 protected its
> environment and all you had to do was close the session that was running
> the dos or dos/win app and reload the app. =A0Also, you could run DOS
> apps, win apps, OS/2 apps and print from any of them at the same time
> w/o any noticeable slowdowns, as well as cut an paste between all of
> them on a 486 yet. =A0Disk and memory access was in the terabytes, disk
> fragmentation was non-existent and on and on and on. =A0All over 15 years
> ago. WIN ain't near what OS/2 was then, but everyone is happy as hell
> with win... yuck!


When OS2 2.0 came out, before even Win4 saw the light of day, I
started using it and never stopped until nearly 2001 - when I finally
had to give up on it due to Gerstner's lack of any commitment. Still
got OS2 Warp cds, kept it just in case I ever need a reliable desktop
OS again.
The workplace shell was the best desktop I've ever seen, and I include
Linux and OsX in that weighting.
Well... "consumer" OS history is a long litany of major technical
errors aided by "marketing".

On Oct 17, 4:09=A0pm, "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] says...
> > On Oct 17, 12:23=A0pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:41:16 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
>
> > > > Wait a minute--I didn't see the original post. =A0Dennis Ritchie di=
ed?
> > > > Steve Jobs is all over the news, but there doesn't seem to be a pee=
p
> > > > about Ritchie, without whom Apple would still be in the OS dark age=
s and
> > > > as dead as Imsai.
>
> > Google Richie - maybe that'll help. =A0:)~
>
> > > The public sees the mass marketers - they don't see the guys in the b=
ack
> > > room who generated the product being marketed.
>
> > I wonder if it could be any other way. =A0It's a rare person that
> > combines creativity, financial skills and technical and marketing know-
> > how. =A0Artists are an example. =A0Most of them hate the marketing end =
of
> > things and many serious artists are willing to give up their monopoly
> > on their own artwork to become minority partners with a dealer.
>
> You people don't have a clue who Dennis Ritchie was, do you?

Lionel's dad?

R

On 10/16/2011 5:08 PM, Robatoy wrote:
> On Oct 15, 9:51 pm, "m II"<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Bullshit!
>>
> Fuck off, you little weasel.
>



DIRECT HIT!

Battle ship sunk!

[email protected] wrote:

> I know the name - and have one of their earliest books.
>
> C on the PDP 11/70, anyone?
>
> John

I'll top that. I have an autograped copy of the "bible" by Ritchie,
addressed to me as someone he actually knew. I had the good fortunre of
installing two computers in his office and spending the time actually
talking with him about all this stuff - including what he did not like about
our roll out of his operating system...

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

FrozenNorth wrote:
> On 10/20/11 9:40 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> m II wrote:
>>> Bullshit!
>>>
>>> Looking for a last friend?
>>
>>
>>
>> ***** FOR SALE *****
>>
>> One badly used usenet stalker.
>> Not in very good condition - but I couldn't afford the good model
>> Still some limited use left in it - just do not expect much from it
>> Willing to part with it cheap
>> Make your best offer - no offer too low
>> Great way to get started, until you can afford a good model
>>
>> Call now - operators are standing by...
>>
> There is a strict no returns policy on usenet stalkers/assholes.
> You got him, he is yours. :-)



***** REVISED ADD *****

FREE!!!! Get it now - while the offer still lasts.
Due to insufficient demand, and a clear lack of interest in the market, this
product has been reduced to give-away status.
Manufacturer is discontinuing the product for lack of demand.

No cost - no risk.
Would look great on your fireplace mantle (especially upside down...)
Will ship for free.
Can also be used as a play toy for pets (probably all it's really good
for...)


ACT NOW - this is a limited time offer. Product will go in the burn pile on
Friday.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

Bullshit!

---------

"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Funny hearing that from you - Since that is your characteristic
comment.
Asshole...

>
> Try more ad hominem attacks to prove your case. Ohhhh...what case?

Do a goodle search on the definition of ad hominem before you use big
words
like that in your posts - which you clearly do not understand.

FrozenNorth wrote:
> On 10/20/11 9:40 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
>> m II wrote:
>>> Bullshit!
>>>
>>> Looking for a last friend?
>>
>>
>>
>> ***** FOR SALE *****
>>
>> One badly used usenet stalker.
>> Not in very good condition - but I couldn't afford the good model
>> Still some limited use left in it - just do not expect much from it
>> Willing to part with it cheap
>> Make your best offer - no offer too low
>> Great way to get started, until you can afford a good model
>>
>> Call now - operators are standing by...
>>
> There is a strict no returns policy on usenet stalkers/assholes.
> You got him, he is yours. :-)

G'damnit! I hate that small print stuff...

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:14:15 -0700 (PDT), Noons <[email protected]> wrote:

>On Oct 18, 4:06 pm, "[email protected]"
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> ><[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> >> >> >> gouge the public with >30% profit margins. Jobs rips his customers off
>> >> >> >> with a 40% profit margin. XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.
>>
>> >> >> >30?  40?  Man, oh man!  Do I have a bridge to sell you!
>> >> >> >Try 500% for starters...
>>
>> >> >> 500% profit margin?  What universe do you live in?
>>
>> >> >The one of reality.
>>
>> >> Obviously not.  Give me *ONE* example of a company with a 500% profit margin.
>>
>> >> ...gotta hear this one!
>>
>> >Actually if you are hearing anything, then you got a big problem.
>> >I am writing, not talking. There is a difference...
>>
>> Clueless.
>
>Idiot.

Says the clueless loon.

>> >Still:  try the companies mentioned in the OP, that is the context I
>> >made my statement in.
>> >Familiar with the "context" word?
>>
>> Are you familiar with *any* of the terms you throw around?  I didn't think so.
>
>A lot more than you, by clear demonstration above.

IKWUABWAI? I guess that is your best argument yet. You clearly don't know
what you're talking about.

Clueless loons never know that they're clueless loons. However, they do try
to hijack threads. Didn't work, loon.

m II wrote:
> May as well blurted your usual "Bullshit!"


Funny hearing that from you - Since that is your characteristic comment.
Asshole...

>
> Try more ad hominem attacks to prove your case. Ohhhh...what case?

Do a goodle search on the definition of ad hominem before you use big words
like that in your posts - which you clearly do not understand.


--

-Mike-
[email protected]

m II wrote:
> Bullshit!
>
> Looking for a last friend?



***** FOR SALE *****

One badly used usenet stalker.
Not in very good condition - but I couldn't afford the good model
Still some limited use left in it - just do not expect much from it
Willing to part with it cheap
Make your best offer - no offer too low
Great way to get started, until you can afford a good model

Call now - operators are standing by...

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:13:49 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>
wrote:

>On 10/16/2011 5:08 PM, Robatoy wrote:
>> On Oct 15, 9:51 pm, "m II"<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Bullshit!
>>>
>> Fuck off, you little weasel.
>
>DIRECT HIT!
>
>Battle ship sunk!

Not even close. m II's ship is still logging miles on this traffic.

--
Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why
good ideas are always initially resisted. Good ideas come with a
heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people
can handle it.
-- Hugh Macleod

On Oct 18, 4:55=A0pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hey Caputo...fuck off back to your failed Usenet business.
>
> and stop bottom posting. Get with the modern times
>
> ------------"Dave" =A0wrote in message
>
[snipped for brevity]

Don't worry about TwatNoodle over there, Dave... (Caputo is his
imaginary friend...ssshhhhhh)

On Oct 18, 12:25=A0pm, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
> On 10/18/2011 10:06 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:12:57 -0500, Leon<lcb11211@swbelldotnet> =A0wrot=
e:
>
> >> On 10/17/2011 7:52 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> >>> On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:12:36 -0700 (PDT), Noons<[email protected]> =
=A0 wrote:
>
> >>>> On Oct 18, 10:36 am, "[email protected]"
> >>>> <[email protected]> =A0 wrote:
>
> >>>>>>> gouge the public with>30% profit margins. Jobs rips his customers=
off
> >>>>>>> with a 40% profit margin. XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margi=
n.
>
> >>>>>> 30? =A040? =A0Man, oh man! =A0Do I have a bridge to sell you!
> >>>>>> Try 500% for starters...
>
> >>>>> 500% profit margin? =A0What universe do you live in?
>
> >>>> The one of reality.
>
> >>> Obviously not. =A0Give me *ONE* example of a company with a 500% prof=
it margin.
>
> >>> ...gotta hear this one!
>
> >> Well while I agree that 500% is pretty darn high, it is not unheard of
> >> of providing we are talking about GP vs net. Although profit margins a=
re
> >> generally focused on GP and not net.
>
> > Impossibly high. =A0Profit margin is defined as NetIncome/Revenue. =A0I=
t's pretty
> > hard to get that ratio above unity (100%).
>
> >http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/profitmargin.asp#axzz1b960uVoR
>
> Understood from an investors point of view. =A0Having always worked with
> GP and net profit with in a company and net profit margins not being a
> consideration for the employees the GP margin was always the one that
> came to mind.
>
>
>
> >> Clothing is one that comes to mind. =A0For example a Columbia Sportswe=
ar
> >> Outlet store near me sell shirts for $11.99. =A0I have seen the exact =
same
> >> brand and style shirt on their web site and at sporting goods stores f=
or
> >> $65.00. =A0While the $11.99 is a marked down price the store is making=
a
> >> profit. =A0Guess where I buy these shirts from?
>
> > Could be an overrun, sold at a loss. =A0But it doesn't change the arith=
metic.
>
> Very well could be but a majority of the items in that store are at
> greatly reduced prices. =A0And since we actually talking about net I am
> sure that this is not the norm for the company as a whole.
>
>
>
> >> Valve stems for you vehicle tires. =A0When I was in the tire business =
the
> >> stems cost me 10 cents each, sold them for $1 each.
>
> > So, what's $.90/$1?
>
> 90%.. Sorry!!! =A0 Misread everything. =A0I was thinking mark up percenta=
ge.
>
> As long as there is a cost involved a GP margin above 99.9% is all but
> impossible.

Many people don't understand the difference between % margin and %
markup.
Margin of profit on selling price vs profit mark up from cost price.
Margin (ofter called points) : I buy for $3.00 and sell for $ 6.00,
make 50% margin.
Mark-up : I buy for $ 3.00 and sell for $ 6.00, make 100% markup.
( sell for 9 bucks, I make 200% mark up... and so on.)

On Oct 15, 3:45=A0am, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:

> gouge the public with >30% profit margins. =A0Jobs rips his customers off
> with a 40% profit margin. =A0XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.

30? 40? Man, oh man! Do I have a bridge to sell you!
Try 500% for starters...
Withness the crap that has been the world economy since the GFC - is
anyone seriously complaining?
Hey, if they can find the suckers - and obviously they can - then all
the power to them.

in 1511254 20111017 212244 Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:

>> Then IBM entered the market
>>> and Microsoft came with them, for the first time producing an OS.
>>
>> Until IBM entered the market, the market was bare.
>
>You might want to mention that to the several millionaires that
>were made producing OSs long before MS/IBM entered the party.
>I personally know at least one.

There were operating systems LONG before the PC came along.

in 1511307 20111018 150617 Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
>On 10/18/2011 2:56 AM, Bob Martin wrote:
>> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>>
>>>> Then IBM entered the market
>>>>> and Microsoft came with them, for the first time producing an OS.
>
>>>> Until IBM entered the market, the market was bare.
>>>
>>> You might want to mention that to the several millionaires that
>>> were made producing OSs long before MS/IBM entered the party.
>>> I personally know at least one.
>>
>> There were operating systems LONG before the PC came along.
>
>Yeah, and little market for DT/OS's until Gates bought his for the IBM
>PC from Patterson for 100g's. Once that happened, the door was soon
>closed on all competing DT/PC OS's. Gates and IBM made certain of that,
>and the home PC market has been paying the price ever since.
>
>UNIX was developed by Kernighan and Ritchie around 1975, long before
>Gates bought his OS for the PC. Before that, things were rough, caveman
>like. So rough, they decided to develop a low level programing
>language, C, just to help code the OS. Pure genius, unlike Gates, who
>is more of a dunce compared to these two. Windows still hasn't caught
>up to UNIX after quarter century of work by the competent jerks at MS.

I was thinking of main-frames ...

Then there was the 1802 RCA COSMAC CPU. A fellow CPUist, back then,
had one of those and we used to compete writing code (hand assembly) to
see who could do job X with less bytes of code. Man! That was a
primitive CPU with 16 16bit registers and not much else. No predefined
programme execution pointer, no 16 bit operations, even though all 16
bit operations, 8 bit working register. It was like writing microcode
but after you wrote standard call and return routines (subroutine
calls) the thing really kept up with any other 8 bit CPU.

I thoroughly enjoyed bit twiddling and miss the speaker buzzes and
light flashing.

One job we did was both wrote control software for a line printer
mechanism we picked up surplus. Timing counting and interrupt handling
was all great innovation using a massive 1024 bytes to get real
UPPERCASE printouts for hardcopy. We saved at least $3-4K each for a
dot matrix printer and had a lot of fun! The RCA 1802, with it's
primitive instruction set kept right up with anything I could do on a
Mot 6800 in byte count and speed.

Hadn't heard of a Nat SemiCon CPU before. Sounds like it was a
"minicomputer" back then.

-----------------
Larry Blanchard wrote:
I always thought the Nat'l Semi 16032 and its relatives had the best
instruction set of the micro chips, but my real favorite was a
mainframe from the '60s, the GE4xx series. Not a lot about it on the
web but a little at:

-------------
On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:57:21 -0400, m II wrote:

Yup, Motorola kept reducing the instruction sets down to 27? on the
68000 while Intel kept bragging about the millions of instructions on
it's messy internal architecture. People writing code for Intel hated
it!

Then came along the Z-80 with it's block memory move in one
instruction. Trouble was, that a 6809 with code for a memory move
loop could move the block faster and with less setup instructions
and time.

We all learned the long and hard way.

Bullshit!


-------------------
"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Gotta call you on this one brother. I'm pretty conservative in certain
respects, but that's not why I'm calling you. Your diatribe is just
uncalled for. You had to take this to a political point - huh? Jack's
comments had nothing to do with political bend and could have been
dealt
with head-long. Sorry - bad call on your part.

Might have been a good point had it not been for the political bullshit
that
prevailed above it.

Now you had to go throw that "christian" thing in there. Nowhere in
Jack's
reply did he speak to politics or religion, but you fucked up big time
with
your comment above. The worst kind of hate is indeed fueled by
hypocisy -
your type of hypocisy. Sorry to see this from you.

<advertising removed>

Bullshit!

-------------
"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Pure stupidity. You are either a 20-something text adict or you are
simply
too lazy to type a comprehensive sentence - expecting everyone else to
either understand or to look up your "acronyms".


--

-Mike-
[email protected]

I only give what I get and really don't give a shit anymore. The group
is almost useless with the Sybil goons here. I have learned quite well
and my forty other IDs get information, when I want it, here.

You want to kick teeth, don't expect roses delivered.


---------------
"Robatoy" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Rather than buying me a beer, why don't you take a more mature
approach in how you're dealing with people here.

On 10/18/2011 11:03 AM, Jack wrote:
> On 10/18/2011 8:34 AM, Leon wrote:
>> On 10/17/2011 10:45 PM, Jack wrote:
>>> On 10/17/2011 4:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>>> Jack wrote:

>
> I think the first (significant) version of windows that (didn't) work
> was 3.1.

I had win 3.0 and for me the free 3.1 upgrade was a significant
improvement. I never had any thing earlier than 3.0.

I don't think that changed even a little until XP came out,
> which works marginally if you don't mind occasional meltdowns and
> periodic registry explosions.

GoBack saved my butt on many occasions.


XP still is not a patch on the ass of OS/2
> WARP. I never used Win Vista ver 7 so can't comment other than retailers
> were offering XP and free future upgrades because Vista sucked. Hard to
> imagine it sucked worse than previous versions of Win, but that was the
> word I got.

Every one complains about something. ;) I had the most luck with XP
and because it was such a vast improvement over 95 and 98 in being
stable many did found it not necessary to change or upgrade. IIRC ME,
2000, and Vista did not have enough persuasion to change many XP users
minds. Had Microsoft continued to support XP it might still be very
popular. I am using 7 now and it seems as stable as XP but has a lot of
short cuts that make using it a bit simpler to use. I don't care for
Vista my self but every one that uses it likes it, but...I think every
one that I know that uses it did had not used XP extensively. I think
since XP it all depends on what you are used to using.

Try to follow the thread.

You clearly haven't followed the posts.

--------------

"dpb" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

On 10/18/2011 12:08 AM, m II wrote:
> Sorry Gates was not writing any O/S for the 6800 or anything back
> then.
> He certainly didn't write OS-9, CP/M or MP/M.
> Execution and access traps were non-existent in microprocessors back
> then and self modifying code would not violate the traps back then. I
> believe the 80386 was the first acclaimed "real" microprocessor that
> could error out on violations of memory boundaries similar to
> mainframe
> machines. Self-modifying code would get you kicked out of any
> recognized
> University for heresy at any time in history. Real coders just don't
> do
> it and keep a job.
>
> Gate wrote very little code as he wasn't very good at it. He was a
> marketing genius in the right place at the right time. Another time
> in
> history he might have been a flop doing the same thing. His stuff was
> impressive from the outside but very dirty inside.
...

If he wasn't the code author, then hardly fair to blame him for being
the author of whatever, is it?

You're just nuts...

--

Nice but after my time. I never did any low level coding on 32 bit
anything. 32 bit was considered a minicomputer and only a dream for a
CPU but later the definitions changed and they seemed to disappear. IC
pin spacing started that .05" spacing and I dropped out of the hardware
building hobby. Without PCB design there was no way to play with the
stuff! Then I became a "user" later.

------------

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Nope - a micro. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS320xx

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>
> On 10/17/2011 7:00 AM, m II wrote:
> ...
>
> > No decent code writer would use self-modifying code! This indicates you
> > have absolutely **NO** experience in this field.
> > Self-modifying code would violate all the protection traps in any modern
> > O/S and would error out as a violation.
> ...
>
> Nonsense!
>
> Gates was _WRITING_ the OS...
>
> You're also not accounting for the time and place and state of hardware
> at the time.
>
> Self-modifying code (along w/ a lot of other "tricks") was done in years
> gone by to save either memory or execution cycles or to simulate higher
> level constructs that weren't yet supported (FORTRAN didn't include a
> CALL statement in first releases so writing code to data and executing
> it was a way to simulate it) by many. Like any other technique, it can
> be (and was on occasion) abused.
>
> But, on its own it certainly doesn't mean those who used it weren't
> competent. Granted that w/ current processors, modern OS'es and the
> rampant expansion of memory there's little reason for it any longer but
> none of those were true then as now.
>
> It's highly likely in the field of tiny embedded systems that are still
> memory and cpu-cycle limited that one can find places it has application
> even today.

Wait a minute--I didn't see the original post. Dennis Ritchie died?
Steve Jobs is all over the news, but there doesn't seem to be a peep
about Ritchie, without whom Apple would still be in the OS dark ages and
as dead as Imsai.

In article <28fa10aa-6921-4aae-8fe4-fc7d8e5af976
@u2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>, [email protected] says...
>
> On Oct 17, 12:23 pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:41:16 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
> >
> > > Wait a minute--I didn't see the original post.  Dennis Ritchie died?
> > > Steve Jobs is all over the news, but there doesn't seem to be a peep
> > > about Ritchie, without whom Apple would still be in the OS dark ages and
> > > as dead as Imsai.
>
> Google Richie - maybe that'll help. :)~
>
> > The public sees the mass marketers - they don't see the guys in the back
> > room who generated the product being marketed.
>
> I wonder if it could be any other way. It's a rare person that
> combines creativity, financial skills and technical and marketing know-
> how. Artists are an example. Most of them hate the marketing end of
> things and many serious artists are willing to give up their monopoly
> on their own artwork to become minority partners with a dealer.

You people don't have a clue who Dennis Ritchie was, do you?

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>
> On 10/18/2011 12:08 AM, m II wrote:
> > Sorry Gates was not writing any O/S for the 6800 or anything back then.
> > He certainly didn't write OS-9, CP/M or MP/M.
> > Execution and access traps were non-existent in microprocessors back
> > then and self modifying code would not violate the traps back then. I
> > believe the 80386 was the first acclaimed "real" microprocessor that
> > could error out on violations of memory boundaries similar to mainframe
> > machines. Self-modifying code would get you kicked out of any recognized
> > University for heresy at any time in history. Real coders just don't do
> > it and keep a job.
> >
> > Gate wrote very little code as he wasn't very good at it. He was a
> > marketing genius in the right place at the right time. Another time in
> > history he might have been a flop doing the same thing. His stuff was
> > impressive from the outside but very dirty inside.
> ...
>
> If he wasn't the code author, then hardly fair to blame him for being
> the author of whatever, is it?
>
> You're just nuts...

An aside, but FWIW, the '286 had a full set of protection mechanisms--
what it lacked was the ability to virtualize itself and run code written
for a machine with protections disabled in a protected virtual machine.
Unix System V ran fine on the 80286 with all the protections in place,
but there wasn't a way to run a DOS box under Unix other than by
switching the CPU to unprotected mode and back. And there was a bug in
the hardware that caused problems with that switch--Novell, AT&T, and
others managed to work around the bug, but somehow Digital Research
never did and lost a lot of momentum as a result.

Damn Canadian trolls and they should know better, too.

---------------
"Robatoy" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

On Oct 15, 9:51 pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Bullshit!
>
Fuck off, you little weasel.

You look at it and tell us what your point was.

Don't change the subject. Real time has nothing to do with
self-modifying code or it's validity as being moronic and poorly
maintainable.

Maybe the blue ones were a better pick for your argument?

----------------
"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

On 10/17/2011 7:00 AM, m II said this:
> You seemed knowledgeable until you attempted ad hominem BS and
> overstepped your knowledge.
>
> No decent code writer would use self-modifying code! This indicates
> you have absolutely **NO** experience in this field.
> Self-modifying code would violate all the protection traps in any
> modern O/S and would error out as a violation.
>
> Sorry Chris...exposed again in the wrong game.
>

Go have a look at how real time and embedded systems work and get
back to us ..

(And a "modern OS" can be something other than Unix, Windows, or
MacOS...)


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
[email protected]

MSDos for $29.95 includes a 538 page printed manual when it came out.

Gates was a victim of lots of luck, being at the right place in the
right time, and marketing genius. His code stunk and I know that by
disassembling some of it. He used self modifying code and other
techniques that marked him as incompetent as a code writer.


---------------
"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>On 10/16/2011 11:12 AM, Jack wrote:


> No, it doesn't serve millions of users "just fine". It's a crap
> system that should have been improved and replaced years ago. His
> system does have millions pulling their hair out daily, most of them
> too computer illiterate to understand it's not them, it's the OS.


You clearly haven't kept up. One of the places I spend a lot of time
these days is a several-thousand server environment. They have Z/OS
(MVS), Z/Linux, Solaris, AIX, SLES, RHEL, AND, yes, Windows Servers.
(My task, in part, it to build new *nix servers to add to the almost
1000 already in place, BTW.) Guess what? They all have problems from
time-to-time. Guess what? These systems are only as good as the people
that keep them running. Guess what? Scale is hard, no matter what
technology you use.

Microsoft materially improved their OSs starting with Windows 2000.
The underlying kernel - that is, the non-GUI part - is as modern a
design as you'll ever see. The core architecture was designed by Dave
Cutler - he father of VMS. And I have news for you, as much as I
prefer Unix structurally, for some classes of problems, Windows server
scales WAY better than *nix. This is because Cutler designed the
kernel around a lightweight threading model instead of heavy weight
process forking model. This turns out to be huge advantage in certain
kinds of problems.

The constant braying about Microsoft ripping people off or being
predatory, or otherwise being evil can only be contemplated by people
that have never run a real business. Most people drive Honda/Chevy
class vehicles, not Rollers. While Rolls makes a lovely car that
literally lasts generations, the average person simply cannot afford
them. So Honda, Chevy, Hyundai, et al produce a "good enough" car that
does have to be replaced much more often than the Rolls. You're
effectively arguing that this exact same response to the needs of the
masses by Microsoft constitutes fraud. It's absurd.

As to the (lack of merits) of the DOJ case - the cites I previous
provided eviscerate this ridiculous lawsuit. More particularly,
you have your facts completely WRONG. Microsoft had virtually no
lobbying presence in D.C. at the time of the lawsuit. But Sun,
Netscape, et al that went and whined to the DOJ had already begun
the play the lobbying game. The ONLY reason the suit was ever
contemplated was because these whiners could not compete on their
own merits in the PC space. Like all moochers, they wanted success
without actually having to EARN it. So, they resorted to
government-funded extortion to try and attack through force what
they could not do via competition. The reason that the original
finding was undone wasn't lobbying - Microsoft was still just
learning to play that game at the time. It was due to the simple
and clear fact that *the suit had no merit*.

"Predation" in any monopoly is unsustainable without force. The best
example of a predatory monopoly system was the old airline and
public utilities, *all of which had government regulators deciding
who could enter the business, how much they could charge, and how
much they could profit.* Microsoft doesn't remotely fit that model.
They have never used violence or the force of government to sell more
product. They've made clear the conditions under which *they would
provide preferential pricing* to their OEM customers - nothing more.
"If you want to sell Windows on your machine a 1/10 retail cost, you
have to agree to sell ONLY Windows on your machine." Hardly
"predatory".
Dell, HP, Compaq, Acer, and so on were perfectly free to walk away from
that deal.

Quite to the contrary, as you would expect in any market, Microsoft
is susceptible to all manner of competitive pressures. They
nearly missed the Internet/browser boat. They are still trying
to figure out how to compete effectively in an open source world.
They are mostly underwater in the mobile space. Their cloud
offering remains to be seen. People are legally cloning some
of their biggest cash cows including Windows itself and the
Office suite.

Microsoft also demonstrably not predatory because their prices have -
in real terms - been *falling* since the beginning of the company.
The first product I bought from them was a Z-80 assembler for the
TRS-80. I think it cost something like $30 in the late 70s. Today,
a much, much better assembler/C compiler system for the latest
machines and architectures is FREE from Microsoft - or was last time
I needed it. Their products increase in features while remaining the
same nominal price or actually going down.

As as said, I am not fond of their products on technical grounds,
but the constant carping about how bad/evil their is absurd, it is
dishonest, and it is every bit as unmannerly as the class warfare
you see in the larger culture. In fact, it's the same mentality
exactly: "I cannot get what the other guy has on my own merits, so
I'll pretend he got his dishonestly. This will give me moral
permission to steal it."

Bullshit!

Looking for a last friend?

--

mike
-------------
"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Ok - I'll take the hit that my statement was a tad on the strong side
Jack.
You hit a button with the "memory" comment above since at my age,
memory is
only something we... remember..

...and to further and repeat after your avoidance and macho
declarations, "where will you be?"

----------------
"Robatoy" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

On Oct 20, 9:18 am, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'll be in Sarnia this week-end!
>
> Where will you be?
>

Good, I'll keep an eye out for an asshole.

I'll be in Sarnia this week-end!


Where will you be?


-----------
"Robatoy" wrote in message
news:edc1b3ef-18c8-4fc5-8f1c-a66088fea59d@y39g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...

On Oct 19, 7:48 pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Bullshit!
>
> --------------
>
> "-MIKE-" wrote in messagenews:[email protected]...
>
> On 10/19/11 6:42 PM, m II wrote:
>
> > May as well blurted your usual "Bullshit!"
>
> You are the absolute stupidest idiot I've ever seen on the internet.
>
> Pay attention, moron... just because two people have the same first
> name, doesn't mean they are the same person.
>


If that little prick ever met me face-to-face, he'd crap his panties.

On Oct 21, 11:39=A0am, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, "m II" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > ...and to further and repeat after your avoidance and =A0macho
> > declarations, "where will you be?"
>
> > ----------------
> > "Robatoy" =A0wrote in message
> >news:[email protected]...
>
> > On Oct 20, 9:18 am, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > I'll be in Sarnia this week-end!
>
> > > Where will you be?
>
> Unlike you, I don't hang around my mother's basement all day. In fact I
> have an active social life and have many friends, some nicer than others.
> So why don't you give me an exact time and your cell number and then I
> will tell you where I'll be. You can't expect me to sit around in one
> spot all day, now can you?

Besides, what if you are a 15 year old girl? I don't want to be on
Dateline being told "to have a seat over here".

On Oct 21, 2:31=A0pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> ROFLMAO!! So true, so true!!
>
> I was going to buy you a beer (Canadian stuff) for the price of seeing
> your CNC.
>
Rather than buying me a beer, why don't you take a more mature
approach in how you're dealing with people here.

m II wrote:

Bullshit.


> That's one I have never heard of.
>
> Geeezzzz I used a Radio Scrap CoCo II, running a multitasking, multi
> user O/S with 32K for a business.
>
> -------------
> wrote in message
> news:23284940.663.1319033716417.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@prgt10...
>
> m II, I believe that United Technologies, which counts among its
> subsidiaries Pratt & Whitney and Sikorski, counts as a "decent sized
> business" and they had company-provide Apple IIs before IBM shipped
> their first PC.

On Oct 14, 12:45=A0pm, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Steve Jobs was nothing, Bill Gates is nothing, Dennis Richie was a god.
> =A0 I, at one time, thought God came to Richie (and his partner Mr.
> Kernighan) after becoming frustrated with all the screwed up code being
> written at the time, and wrote C and Unix for these two. =A0Nothing much
> has occurred to change those thoughts.
>
> Gates and Job's were marketers that ripped off the public. =A0Gates
> eliminated competition as much as possible and uses his monopoly to
> gouge the public with >30% profit margins. =A0Jobs rips his customers off
> with a 40% profit margin. =A0XOM rips us off with a 10% profit margin.
>
> Almost no one knows who Richie and Kernighan are, quite normal for a
> screwed up society. =A0God must have loved this guy to write his code for
> him, so I'm sure he is resting in peace. Gates and Jobs on the other hand=
...
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3ztwfrr
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/technology/dennis-ritchie-programmi...

And Gates is leaving $50 billion to charity. Yep, he sure was a
schmuck that did nothing for nobody not ever. Sheesh.

If you're looking for saints, go dig up a few.

I am surprised that you don't know the correct spelling of the name of
the guy you idolized/worshipped. I figured that having it spelled out
for you in the URL you provided would have helped get it right.

Ritchie made a huge contribution - don't see why you feel the need to
tear other people down to point that out. But, whatever.

Why is it that the "free market" has decided that Apple's and MS'
pricing is acceptable, but you have a problem with it? Talk about
arguing out both sides of your mouth...

R

On 10/18/2011 9:56 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:34:11 -0500, Leon<lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
>
>> On 10/17/2011 10:45 PM, Jack wrote:
>>> On 10/17/2011 4:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>>> Jack wrote:
>>>
>>>>> True, they were found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust act, in
>>>>> court. My guess is that had them on pins and needles when they opened
>>>>> the PC/DT market.
>>>>
>>>> They were on "pins and needles" in every market. It wasn't because of the
>>>> CDC, and like, suits, though. The '56 consent decree really
>>>> handicapped them.
>>>> It wasn't removed until '00, or there abouts.
>>>>
>>>>>>> The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by definition,
>>>>>>> competition is excluded via control of the market. When competition is
>>>>>>> stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality stagnates and people
>>>>>>> are
>>>>>>> forced to pay what the monopoly says they will pay. MS is a perfect
>>>>>>> example of this, providing crap at a 30% mark up to over 90% of the
>>>>>>> market.
>>>>>
>>>>>> ...and just what 90% of the market wants.
>>>>>
>>>>> And you know this how?
>>>
>>>> People voting with their wallets, AKA market penetration.You couldn't
>>>> give
>>>> OS/2 away (sadly) and still can't give Linux away.
>>>
>>> It was next to impossible to buy a copy of OS/2. Most every PC was sold
>>> with DOS/WIN installed.
>>
>>
>> You could NOT get anything else installed unless
>>> you bought from some geek down the street. Retailers did not install
>>> OS/2 or anything else, and if they tried, MS would pull their license or
>>> remove the fake discount MS gave them. Worse, the retailers rarely had
>>> copies of OS/2 to sell, either because IBM didn't provide them copies,
>>> or, because again, fear of MS punishing anyone that sold something other
>>> than MS OS.
>>
>>
>> You might want to think further back. Initial PC's had no OS installed.
>
> Define "OS". ROM BASIC was installed on all IBM PCs. If "OS" == Disk, then
> you're obviously right.

OS that which you entered commands that the computer could understand,
yes the one on a disk.

>
>> Back in the mid 80's PC/DOS not to be confused with MS/DOS was a very
>> common OS that came with many if not most, if they were not IBM PC's.
>> My ATT 6300 came with that software. Also, many comnputers back then
>> only had floppy drives, a 10 meg HD was a $500 option,
>
> Early PC/DOS *was* MS/DOS. There was a split, later, but up until at least
> V3, they were identical. The best version was IBM's DOS7.

Don't doubt that since both were nearly identical.

>
>> IIRC MS/DOS was only coming on IBM and Windows did not start showing up
>> on PC's until hard drives were common and version 3.0 came out.
>
> IBM sold PC/DOS. Some dealers may have sold MS/DOS instead. There were
> Windows versions before 1.0, but didn't sell well.

Really, I thought that IBM was only coming with the MS version.
>
>> I do recall buying a different OS back then that was about $25 IIRC.
>
> Which OS? IIRC, PC/DOS was about $50.

I really cannot remember for sure but .... DR DOS may be??? I guessing
here. I did not use it past trying it out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS

On Oct 14, 9:45=A0am, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
> Steve Jobs was nothing, Bill Gates is nothing, Dennis Richie was a god.
> =A0 I, at one time, thought God came to Richie (and his partner Mr.
> Kernighan) after becoming frustrated with all the screwed up code being
> written at the time, and wrote C and Unix for these two. =A0Nothing much
> has occurred to change those thoughts.
>

As a young computer science enthusiast I had my copy of K&R always
available whenever I was doing procedural code. At first object code
still had chunks of C and other procedural code in in but eventually
object code made K&R irrelevant.

As far as your hate on Gates and Jobs, please stop using all computer
technologies now or consider yourself a complete hypocrite. And don't
go calling me on your iPhone and ranting either or send me any mail
from your Outlook client.

Jack wrote:

>
> Too bad, I've made plenty of mistakes, well, maybe not plenty, but not
> these two statements. Besides if I make a statement from memory of
> what OS/2 was doing in 1995, and it happened to be wrong, seems pretty
> fucking disingenuous I'd lose all credibility for that? I thought you
> were better than that. I went ahead and looked up the 64 terabytes of
> memory address since it cost me all credibility. Happy to report I
> was correct. I'll stick with my memory on the disk memory and defrag
> issues.

Ok - I'll take the hit that my statement was a tad on the strong side Jack.
You hit a button with the "memory" comment above since at my age, memory is
only something we... remember..

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:45:59 -0400, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 10/17/2011 4:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>> Jack wrote:
>
>>> True, they were found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust act, in
>>> court. My guess is that had them on pins and needles when they opened
>>> the PC/DT market.
>>
>> They were on "pins and needles" in every market. It wasn't because of the
>> CDC, and like, suits, though. The '56 consent decree really handicapped them.
>> It wasn't removed until '00, or there abouts.
>>
>>>>> The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by definition,
>>>>> competition is excluded via control of the market. When competition is
>>>>> stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality stagnates and people are
>>>>> forced to pay what the monopoly says they will pay. MS is a perfect
>>>>> example of this, providing crap at a 30% mark up to over 90% of the
>>>>> market.
>>>
>>>> ...and just what 90% of the market wants.
>>>
>>> And you know this how?
>
>> People voting with their wallets, AKA market penetration.You couldn't give
>> OS/2 away (sadly) and still can't give Linux away.
>
>It was next to impossible to buy a copy of OS/2.

Wrong.

>Most every PC was sold
>with DOS/WIN installed. You could NOT get anything else installed unless
>you bought from some geek down the street.

Also wrong. There were companies that built OS/2 systems, just like there are
companies today that will build Linux systems. Few want them. It's no
surprise that Dell doesn't go for that infinitesimal market.

>Retailers did not install
>OS/2 or anything else, and if they tried, MS would pull their license or
>remove the fake discount MS gave them. Worse, the retailers rarely had
>copies of OS/2 to sell, either because IBM didn't provide them copies,
>or, because again, fear of MS punishing anyone that sold something other
>than MS OS.

*Some* retailers, true. Others specialized in OS/2. No one wanted it. Sad,
but true.

>IBM wanted MS to develop a system that they could use for their ATM
>machines, and DOS/WIN was crap (still is) MS either was too dumb (my
>guess) or had some other lame reason to not be able to deliver. (I
>recall it said that MS told IBM it was not possible) IBM then did it
>themselves in about a year, and it was awesome. IBM killed it's
>development when it was selling a million copies a month despite their
>lack of support. My opinion is they never wanted that part of the
>market because of the "pins and needles" mentioned above. At the time,
>there was an obvious, and uncomfortable disconnect between IBM OS/2 team
>and the rest of the company. It became clear IBM had no intention of
>moving in on MS, why is open for speculation.

It wasn't "pins and needles". It was *NO*MARKET*. The money just wasn't
there to justify keeping it. Soon the whole PC business (minus some servers)
was sold off. No money in it.

>>> Because the market is controlled by one company
>>> doesn't mean 90% of the market wants it, it could (and does) mean that
>>> 90% has no choice but to "like" what they get. Same as you can buy any
>>> color car you want, as long as it's black.
>>
>> Because the "market is controlled by one company" does not mean there is
>> anything wrong. There is no law against being a monopoly.
>
>Excuse me, but their is a law, and it's called the Sherman anti-trust
>act.

Rent a clue. Sherman doesn't say anything about having a monopoly. It can be
used to *restrict* the actions of a monopoly holder, but it doesn't prevent a
monopoly, at all.

>MS was found in violation of it, just as IBM, AT&T were, and
>others.

Stop lying.

>If a company dominates a market with over 90% control, makes
>excessive profits (over 30%) and does it with CRAP, you can begin to get
>suspicious of monopoly problems. If that doesn't float your boat, you
>can try to find out what Judge Sporkin said after hearing the case
>brought against MS by the DOJ.

...then what happened?

>> However, M$ is no saint, either. There were many violations of the "anti-trust" laws, but they
>> didn't "get caught". The plain fact is that people do WANT Windows(whatever).
>
>Well, MS DID get caught, that is the plain fact.

For some warped definition of "caught", perhaps.

>Saying people do want
>windows is stupid,

Saying that they don't is asinine. Most wouldn't know what to do without it.
>9 out of 10 users could not even name another product
>let alone want it.

That, alone, should tell you something.

>My doctor was bitching about their new Obama
>computer system going down. I asked her if it was windows, she said she
>didn't know.

Why would you expect a doctor to know, or care?

>I said normally only windows crashes routinely. She then
>said "come to think of it, the windows logo does come up when she
>reboots." She's a freaking doctor and doesn't even know what she is
>running, but you can bet she WANTS windows right?

Ask her if the wants Linux.

>>> Any company that had monopoly control of
>>> 90% of a market for this long is missing competition, particularly if
>>> profit margins are significantly high. This is why we are stuck with
>>> the worlds worst OS, like it or not.
>>
>> No, it means that people want to buy it. Again, you can't give the
>> "competition" away. That says something.
>>
>>>> A 40% margin isn't unusual for a high-tech business. It takes huge sums of
>>>> money to stay on the bleeding edge. That's just the way it is.
>>>
>>> Well, IBM is a high tech business and it's profit margin is high,
>>> usually below 10% or so.
>>
>> On the products I worked on, it required>40% (some wanted in excess of 60%)
>> to stay in business. The investment is huge.
>
> Why would you need 60% profit to stay in business. Most business gets
>by on less than 10%, particularly large companies like IBM and Exxon
>whose investment is huge.

Because of the expense of staying in business. It has to be worthwhile to
justify the bother.

>>> Intel averages around 17%. EXXON-Mobil has
>>> under 10% and our socialist democrats want to slap a windfall profit tax
>>> on them... MS is 30%, Apple 40% and everyone seems to get misty eyed
>>> around those two.
>>
>> There is a big difference in these markets and companies. You can't compare
>> margins directly.
>
>I can compare profits directly, why can't you?

Perhaps you haven't figured it out yet, but there is a lot more to business
than one number.

>> BTW, what do you think the maximum legal margin should be?
>
>I don't think there should be a maximum profit margin.

They why are you acting like there should be?

>I think profits
>far above average should raise suspicions of anti-competitive practices.

Why? Again, monopolies are *not* illegal.

> When profits are high, quality low, and potential competitors are
>bitching up a storm because they can't get in the door, as in MS case,
>they should be investigated just as in MS was.

...and yet everyone *still* wants the product.

>The judge found MS
>GUILTY, it's not just me. He found MS so guilty in fact, he sent it
>back to the DOJ for more than the wrist slap they were seeking. The DOJ
>appealed their VICTORY. Something victors do every day after winning in
>court, right? It would be like you suing McDonald's for a $1000, and
>the judge saying, guilty, but you need to get more redress for the
>damage done, and you appeal saying nope, only want a $1000... It was
>around then MS started with large political donations, funny how many
>ways the public can get screwed by government.

Rantings of a paranoid.

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:33:32 -0500, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:

>On 10/18/2011 9:56 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>> On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:34:11 -0500, Leon<lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/17/2011 10:45 PM, Jack wrote:
>>>> On 10/17/2011 4:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>>>> Jack wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> True, they were found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust act, in
>>>>>> court. My guess is that had them on pins and needles when they opened
>>>>>> the PC/DT market.
>>>>>
>>>>> They were on "pins and needles" in every market. It wasn't because of the
>>>>> CDC, and like, suits, though. The '56 consent decree really
>>>>> handicapped them.
>>>>> It wasn't removed until '00, or there abouts.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by definition,
>>>>>>>> competition is excluded via control of the market. When competition is
>>>>>>>> stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality stagnates and people
>>>>>>>> are
>>>>>>>> forced to pay what the monopoly says they will pay. MS is a perfect
>>>>>>>> example of this, providing crap at a 30% mark up to over 90% of the
>>>>>>>> market.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ...and just what 90% of the market wants.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And you know this how?
>>>>
>>>>> People voting with their wallets, AKA market penetration.You couldn't
>>>>> give
>>>>> OS/2 away (sadly) and still can't give Linux away.
>>>>
>>>> It was next to impossible to buy a copy of OS/2. Most every PC was sold
>>>> with DOS/WIN installed.
>>>
>>>
>>> You could NOT get anything else installed unless
>>>> you bought from some geek down the street. Retailers did not install
>>>> OS/2 or anything else, and if they tried, MS would pull their license or
>>>> remove the fake discount MS gave them. Worse, the retailers rarely had
>>>> copies of OS/2 to sell, either because IBM didn't provide them copies,
>>>> or, because again, fear of MS punishing anyone that sold something other
>>>> than MS OS.
>>>
>>>
>>> You might want to think further back. Initial PC's had no OS installed.
>>
>> Define "OS". ROM BASIC was installed on all IBM PCs. If "OS" == Disk, then
>> you're obviously right.
>
>OS that which you entered commands that the computer could understand,

ROM BASIC qualified that far.

>yes the one on a disk.

Well, ROM BASIC wasn't on a disk. ;-)

>>> Back in the mid 80's PC/DOS not to be confused with MS/DOS was a very
>>> common OS that came with many if not most, if they were not IBM PC's.
>>> My ATT 6300 came with that software. Also, many comnputers back then
>>> only had floppy drives, a 10 meg HD was a $500 option,
>>
>> Early PC/DOS *was* MS/DOS. There was a split, later, but up until at least
>> V3, they were identical. The best version was IBM's DOS7.
>
>Don't doubt that since both were nearly identical.

There were a few commands, and later shells that differed. Just enough to
differentiate the two. OTOH, there was a pretty big difference between MS/DOS
6.x and PC/DOS 7.x.

>>> IIRC MS/DOS was only coming on IBM and Windows did not start showing up
>>> on PC's until hard drives were common and version 3.0 came out.
>>
>> IBM sold PC/DOS. Some dealers may have sold MS/DOS instead. There were
>> Windows versions before 1.0, but didn't sell well.
>
>Really, I thought that IBM was only coming with the MS version.

PC/DOS was IBM's brand for DOS. After 3x (IIRC) they were rather different
things.

>>> I do recall buying a different OS back then that was about $25 IIRC.
>>
>> Which OS? IIRC, PC/DOS was about $50.
>
>I really cannot remember for sure but .... DR DOS may be??? I guessing
>here. I did not use it past trying it out.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS

Could be, later. Later on, DR-DOS was free and was often shipped with tools.

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:48:53 -0400, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 10/16/2011 7:57 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:45:06 -0400, Jack<[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/16/2011 1:38 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>
>>>> Most monopolies are temporary.
>>>
>>> Perhaps, depending on your definition of temporary. Microsoft has been
>>> at it of a quarter century. Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T had to be broken up
>>> by the courts.
>>
>> Um, IBM was not broken up by the courts.
>
>There was a consent decree in '56,
>> and they lost a suit to CDC, and a few others, in the '70s, but there was no
>> breakup by the government.
>
>True, they were found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust act, in
>court. My guess is that had them on pins and needles when they opened
>the PC/DT market.

They were on "pins and needles" in every market. It wasn't because of the
CDC, and like, suits, though. The '56 consent decree really handicapped them.
It wasn't removed until '00, or there abouts.

>>> The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by definition,
>>> competition is excluded via control of the market. When competition is
>>> stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality stagnates and people are
>>> forced to pay what the monopoly says they will pay. MS is a perfect
>>> example of this, providing crap at a 30% mark up to over 90% of the
>>> market.
>
>> ...and just what 90% of the market wants.
>
>And you know this how?

People voting with their wallets, AKA market penetration. You couldn't give
OS/2 away (sadly) and still can't give Linux away.

>Because the market is controlled by one company
>doesn't mean 90% of the market wants it, it could (and does) mean that
>90% has no choice but to "like" what they get. Same as you can buy any
>color car you want, as long as it's black.

Because the "market is controlled by one company" does not mean there is
anything wrong. There is no law against being a monopoly. However, M$ is no
saint, either. There were many violations of the "anti-trust" laws, but they
didn't "get caught". The plain fact is that people do WANT Windows(whatever).

>>> Just when do you think this "temporary" control will end?
>>
>> If I knew, I'd be as rich as WGates. ;-)
>
>Funny, but they have already controlled 90% of the DT market for about
>25 years. In the computer age that changes minute by minute, that is a
>hell of a long "temporary".

Wrong. We're still using the same microprocessor architecture, too. That
won't change until the PC is obsolete, and neither with the junk riding on top
of the hardware.

>Any company that had monopoly control of
>90% of a market for this long is missing competition, particularly if
>profit margins are significantly high. This is why we are stuck with
>the worlds worst OS, like it or not.

No, it means that people want to buy it. Again, you can't give the
"competition" away. That says something.

>> A 40% margin isn't unusual for a high-tech business. It takes huge sums of
>> money to stay on the bleeding edge. That's just the way it is.
>
>Well, IBM is a high tech business and it's profit margin is high,
>usually below 10% or so.

On the products I worked on, it required >40% (some wanted in excess of 60%)
to stay in business. The investment is huge.

>Intel averages around 17%. EXXON-Mobil has
>under 10% and our socialist democrats want to slap a windfall profit tax
>on them... MS is 30%, Apple 40% and everyone seems to get misty eyed
>around those two.

There is a big difference in these markets and companies. You can't compare
margins directly.

BTW, what do you think the maximum legal margin should be?

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:24:30 -0400, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 10/19/2011 10:29 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>> On Monday, October 17, 2011 11:45:59 PM UTC-4, Jack wrote:
>>
>>> It was next to impossible to buy a copy of OS/2.
>>
>> I bought several copies at the Electronics Boutique store in the local mall. It was not at all difficult to obtain.
>>
>>> Most every PC was sold
>>> with DOS/WIN installed.
>>
>> So what? Anybody who wanted something else just had to buy it and install it, same as today.
>>
>>> Worse, the retailers rarely had
>>> copies of OS/2 to sell, either because IBM didn't provide them copies,
>>> or, because again, fear of MS punishing anyone that sold something other
>>> than MS OS.
>>
>> Electronics Boutique was a retailer. And they were not the only one that had OS/2 on the shelf.
>
>Egghead also said they sold OS/2 but they never had it on the shelf. I
>never heard of Electronics Boutique, but I believe you.

EB was a chain similar to GameStop (a store in every mall). So similar that
GameStop bought the competition.

>>> IBM wanted MS to develop a system that they could use for their ATM
>>> machines, and DOS/WIN was crap (still is) MS either was too dumb (my
>>> guess) or had some other lame reason to not be able to deliver. (I
>>> recall it said that MS told IBM it was not possible) IBM then did it
>>> themselves in about a year, and it was awesome. IBM killed it's
>>> development when it was selling a million copies a month despite their
>>> lack of support. My opinion is they never wanted that part of the
>>> market because of the "pins and needles" mentioned above. At the time,
>>> there was an obvious, and uncomfortable disconnect between IBM OS/2 team
>>> and the rest of the company. It became clear IBM had no intention of
>>> moving in on MS, why is open for speculation.
>
>> If you think that IBM needed Microsoft to develop an OS for them you're clueless.
>
>Nothing I said should give you that idea. IBM contracted with Gates for
>the DT/PC OS. They could have written it themselves with no problem.

Actually, the couldn't. It would have cost *far* too much.

> Why they contracted with Gates is pure speculation, but NEVER did I
>say it was because IBM couldn't do it themselves. My GUESS is IBM
>didn't think the PC market would do anything, and if it did, they didn't
>want another anti-trust suit, so they contracted with a dipshit they
>thought they could control.

For the anticipated 25K units? No, the reason they didn't write it themselves
is that it would have cost 100x too much. The PC was a "skunkworks" project,
flying under the RADAR of the monster. The whole design team was only a few
people.

>IBM wanted Gates to develop OS/2 so they could use it as the OS for ATM
>machines, which had to be stable, unlike DOS/WIN. When Gates couldn't
>deliver after years of trying, IBM did it themselves in less than a
>year, after Gates said it was impossible to do what IBM wanted.

ATMs were *one* application for OS/2. There were *many* others.

>Now, I think between MS, IBM and INTEL, they have a cartel and it will
>take an act of god to get them to do more than rip everyone off.

They "have" a cartel? IBM isn't even in that business anymore. BTW, Intel
and MS hate each other.

>> IBM was shipping 32-bit preemptively multitasking protected virtual operating systems when
> > Bill Gates was still in high school.
>
>Doesn't change the fact they contracted with Gates to provide an OS for
>their PC. Gates didn't even HAVE one at the time. IBM could have gone
>to Patterson themselves and bought the OS instead of Gates. I don't
>know why they didn't, but the most likely story I heard was Gates mother
>was in with some IBM big cheese.

I've never heard that story and I worked for the beast. Any citations?

>> Microsoft bailed on OS/2 because Windows was making much more money for them, pure and simple.
>
>MS never could get OS/2 to work. IBM took the project off of MS when
>they failed to deliver. IBM dropped OS/2 when it started to threaten MS
>corner on the DT/PC OS market. Why they did this is speculative, my
>feeling is the anti-trust thing, combined with the cozy cartel
>IBM/MS/INTEL has going for them.

Baloney. IBM withdrew it when it was clear there was no money to be had.
There was no money to be had because they didn't want to spend the $200M
needed to market it. IBM was in tough shape in the early '90s, borrowing
money to pay dividends.

>> And if IBM was selling a million copies a month then it must have been more available
>> than you claim.
>
>All I know is you could not buy a PC at any retail outlet (other than
>possibly IBM, not sure about that) with OS/2 installed.

There were retail outlets, both storefront and Internet, that sold PCs with
OS/2 installed. Dell, HP, and Gateway didn't, if that's what you mean.

>None of the
>retail stores around here sold OS/2, I know that because I had to get my
>copies directly from IBM. The sales numbers were being reported by OS/2
>user groups, I don't know where they got their numbers but I was
>following them closely because I was keenly interested. IBM did little
>to no retail marketing of OS/2, and most of the noise about it came from
>delighted users, and the OS/2 user group. The user group got some, but
>very little support from IBM. It was obvious to me that IBM was not
>interested in competing with the company to which they bestowed the
>DT/PC OS market. IMO, had they wanted to, they could have crushed Gates
>and MS like a grape.

Wrong.

-MIKE- wrote:
> On 10/19/11 6:42 PM, m II wrote:
>> May as well blurted your usual "Bullshit!"
>>
>
> You are the absolute stupidest idiot I've ever seen on the internet.
>
> Pay attention, moron... just because two people have the same first
> name, doesn't mean they are the same person.

He's just a freakin' moron Mike...

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On Oct 18, 4:19=A0pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:

> A PC was never found in any decent size business until IBM's name went
> on the box.

Very much so.

>
> You are correct in saying IBM essentially created the PC market and not
> Gates.
>

Indeed. After all, IBM contracted Gates' company to produce the OS
for the PC, after they couldn't contact the guy from Digital
Research. (it also helped that Gates' Mum was on the board of IBM but
let's not go there now...)


> Now we should laugh about IBM and how they disconnected all interrupts
> in their boxes so all I/O was done by polling...LOL =A0YUK!!!!

Most of what IBM did with the PC was laughable but that is a totally
other story, I'm afraid...

On Oct 18, 5:11=A0pm, RicodJour <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Oct 18, 4:27=A0pm, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > That's like me and MacOS10 LION. A genuine WTF is THIS escaped from my
> > mouth....loud.
> > Loaded Snow Leopard and restored from my back up drive. Took over an
> > hour with a big sigh of relief.
> > Why can't these people leave well enough alone?
>
> Where's the money in that...err...sense. =A0I meant where's the sense in
> that? =A0;)
>
> They need the money. =A0Do you have any idea what a billionaire
> Buddhist's burial goes for these days?
>
> R

If you include his favourite ride (GulfstreamG650).. it get very pricy.

On Oct 15, 10:29=A0am, dpb <[email protected]> wrote:

> How fortuitous timing... :) =A0I just very recently finished reading Jack
> Ganssle's article "C Sucks" in his newsletter "The Embedded Muse 214"
>
> <http://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem214.htm>
>
> Couldn't have said it better meself... :)



Bah! I can:
http://www.jwz.org/doc/java.html
.
.
.

[email protected] wrote:

>
> IKWUABWAI?

Pure stupidity. You are either a 20-something text adict or you are simply
too lazy to type a comprehensive sentence - expecting everyone else to
either understand or to look up your "acronyms".


--

-Mike-
[email protected]

ROFLMAO!! So true, so true!!

I was going to buy you a beer (Canadian stuff) for the price of seeing
your CNC.

That's OK... Clinical Neurosis Councillors get boring after a few
minutes, anyway.

--------------
"Robatoy" wrote in message
news:a85c39ff-4d14-4e5c-874a-6cee2635c41e@g25g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
Besides, what if you are a 15 year old girl? I don't want to be on
Dateline being told "to have a seat over here".

Yup, Motorola kept reducing the instruction sets down to 27? on the
68000 while Intel kept bragging about the millions of instructions on
it's messy internal architecture. People writing code for Intel hated
it!

Then came along the Z-80 with it's block memory move in one
instruction. Trouble was, that a 6809 with code for a memory move loop
could move the block faster and with less setup instructions and time.

We all learned the long and hard way.

--------
"dpb" wrote in message news:[email protected]...
Indeed they were.

I remember the "unlimited" expansion of capability when the systems I
was working on at one time went from 1- to 2(!!!!)-MHz clock cycle time
(w/ the incredibly rich instruction set/addressing modes) of a M6809E.

W/ the indirect addressing mode it made an almost perfect silicon
implementation of a Forth interpreter engine w/ the ";" next operator
implementable in, iirc, 2 instruction cycles as compared to 5 or 7 on
6502 or some other similar at the time.

--

It (OS2) definitely should have won out but then so should have
Motorola CPU and support chips.

--------------
wrote in message news:[email protected]...
Yes, early Win's multitasking was cooperative. OS/2's was preemptive
and
therefore much more responsive when doing certain tasks.

On Oct 19, 7:48=A0pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Bullshit!
>
> --------------
>
> "-MIKE-" =A0wrote in messagenews:[email protected]...
>
> On 10/19/11 6:42 PM, m II wrote:
>
> > May as well blurted your usual "Bullshit!"
>
> You are the absolute stupidest idiot I've ever seen on the internet.
>
> Pay attention, moron... just because two people have the same first
> name, doesn't mean they are the same person.
>


If that little prick ever met me face-to-face, he'd crap his panties.

Larry Blanchard wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:57:21 -0400, m II wrote:
>
>> Yup, Motorola kept reducing the instruction sets down to 27? on the
>> 68000 while Intel kept bragging about the millions of instructions on
>> it's messy internal architecture. People writing code for Intel hated
>> it!
>>
>> Then came along the Z-80 with it's block memory move in one
>> instruction. Trouble was, that a 6809 with code for a memory move
>> loop could move the block faster and with less setup instructions
>> and time.
>>
>> We all learned the long and hard way.
>
> I always thought the Nat'l Semi 16032 and its relatives had the best
> instruction set of the micro chips, but my real favorite was a
> mainframe from the '60s, the GE4xx series. Not a lot about it on the
> web but a little at:
>

Mixed thoughts there Larry 0 GE4x was not a microprocessor based machine.

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

On 10/16/2011 1:45 PM, Jack wrote:
> On 10/16/2011 1:38 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>> Jack wrote:
>
>>> I'm OK with the 10% Exxon-Mobil makes. I get edgy at 40% that Apple
>>> makes, but that doesn't bother me too much because I don't think they
>>> have a monopoly. I'm not OK with a 30% profit that a monopoly (90+% of
>>> the DT market) makes, particularly when the product stinks.
>>>
>>> A perfect example of why monopolies are bad business.
>>
>> I don't have a problem with 40% if they can get it. We have the
>> option of saying "NO" and not using the product. After all, while it
>> is a nice product, we lived on earth for thousands of years without
>> any type of phone.
>>
>> Most monopolies are temporary.
>
> Perhaps, depending on your definition of temporary. Microsoft has been at it of a quarter century. Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T had to be broken up by the courts. The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by definition, competition is excluded via control of the market. When competition is stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality stagnates and people are forced to pay what the monopoly says they will pay. MS is a perfect example of this, providing crap at a 30% mark up to over 90% of the market.
>
> Just when do you think this "temporary" control will end?
>



Now let us inspect Reality to demonstrate why this is complete nonsense.
At the beginning of the desktop/PC revolution, there were two significant
OS players: Apple and Radio Shack (there were something like a half dozen
TRS-DOS variants, the best of which was LDOS). Then IBM entered the market
and Microsoft came with them, for the first time producing an OS.

Now let's fast forward. There are dozens of OS variants. Besides MacOS
(a FreeBSD/MACH derivative) and Windows, there are a bunch of different
Linux distros, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeDOS, at least one Windows
clone OS (whose name I cannot recall). In the mobile device space,
Microsoft's presence is too small to matter with Apple IOS and Android
(another Linux derivative) splitting the market between them. Microsoft
has no presence to speak of in the realtime/embedded space. They
are not a force in supercomputer or high-availability clustering. They
do not have a place in the multi-petabyte database space.

But you think they're a "monopoly". You are seriously disconnected from
the current state of this business. It is a simple, demonstrable, and
completely rational observation that Microsoft dominates only the desktop,
and then only so long as they provide a good value. More and more people
are turning to portable devices like high function phones and tablets -
a space where Microsoft has almost NO presence. This, sir, is not a
monopoly. This is a market with more product, more players, and more
competition than has ever existed since the dawn of commercial
computing. The fact that Microsoft knows how to prosper and maintain
high margins in this environment is to their credit.

P.S. Microsoft isn't as bulletproof as you seem to think. Go look at their
stock performance over the last decade.

P.P.S. The only "predatory monopoly" that exists in our nation is the government
and that's because they get to use force to keep themselves in power.
Fortunately - for the most part - that use of force is narrowly bounded
by rule of law.

On Sun, 16 Oct 2011 15:08:50 -0700 (PDT), Robatoy
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Oct 15, 9:51 pm, "m II" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Bullshit!
>>
>Fuck off, you little weasel.

--
...in order that a man may be happy, it is
necessary that he should not only be capable
of his work, but a good judge of his work.
-- John Ruskin

On 10/14/2011 11:45 AM, Jack wrote:
> Steve Jobs was nothing, Bill Gates is nothing, Dennis Richie was a god.
> I, at one time, thought God came to Richie (and his partner Mr.
> Kernighan) after becoming frustrated with all the screwed up code being
> written at the time, and wrote C and Unix for these two. Nothing much
> has occurred to change those thoughts.
...

How fortuitous timing... :) I just very recently finished reading Jack
Ganssle's article "C Sucks" in his newsletter "The Embedded Muse 214"

<http://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem214.htm>

Couldn't have said it better meself... :)

--

On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:26:28 -0400, news wrote:

> I know the name - and have one of their earliest books.
>
> C on the PDP 11/70, anyone?

I'll "C" that and raise you a Z80-based CP/M systen :-).

And yes, it was a pretty full implementation - Eco-C. IIRC, it generated
either 8080 or Z80 assembler source.

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On 10/14/2011 1:47 PM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

Jack wrote:
>>> Steve Jobs was nothing, Bill Gates is nothing, Dennis Richie was a god.
>
> Uh Jack ...
>
> I got to spend a bit of time with Richie at a conference once. He was
> a brilliant and interesting guy, but I suspect he'd reject status as
> deity.

I of course meant he was a "god" to computing, creating not only a great
OS but also the programing language needed to write it. Deity was only
used as a tool to get the point across.

> The economic value, the taxes, and the employment that Gates and
> Jobs respectively are responsible for is every bit the equal of
> Richie's contribution ... it's just a different kind of contribution.

I could say the same for other monopolies, like Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T.
These companies provided lots of jobs directly, and quality products
as well. Gates on the other hand provides few jobs directly, and lots
of jobs as millions are needed to keep his crap marginally working.

>>> Gates and Job's were marketers that ripped off the public. Gates

> Gates and Jobs were marketers that understood what the public needed,
> that the public would live with "good enough" technology, and the
> price point that the public would tolerate. That is a kind of genius
> too.

Gate's "good enough" technology is a perfect example of why monopolies
are bad and why anti-trust laws exist.

> Then this bit of very sane response follows:

>> And Gates is leaving $50 billion to charity.

Yeah, real sane. First, he hasn't done it yet, and second, what does
thinking about giving away money ripped off the public with an illegal
monopoly and political graft have to do with subject? Ill gotten gains
that may be given away are still ill gotten gains.

Yep, he sure was a
>> schmuck that did nothing for nobody not ever. Sheesh.

Well that's not too far off. Gate's contribution is mostly negative.
The best I can say about him is he's set computing back 25 years.

>> If you're looking for saints, go dig up a few.

That may have been "sane" but makes no sense, I'm certainly not looking
for saints.

>> I am surprised that you don't know the correct spelling of the name of
>> the guy you idolized/worshipped. I figured that having it spelled out
>> for you in the URL you provided would have helped get it right.

I don't know the man, I liked his code, I liked what he did, and I can
spell UNIX an C well enough to communicate.

I uesdnatnrd maikng a big dael out of slpeling is waht is iproamtnt...

>> Ritchie made a huge contribution - don't see why you feel the need to
>> tear other people down to point that out. But, whatever.

I don't know much about Jobs, other than his OS is based on the UNIX
kernel and his company makes 40% profit margin. I know a lot about
Gates and I know his monopoly makes 30% profit margin. I know I'm
constantly told by the media that Exxon-Mobil is ripping me off with an
under 10% profit margin. I try not to miss an opportunity to point it
out to the idiots around me.

>> Why is it that the "free market" has decided that Apple's and MS'
>> pricing is acceptable, but you have a problem with it? Talk about
>> arguing out both sides of your mouth...

The free market was stifled by Microsoft's anti-competitive marketing
strategy. That's how you get stuck with crap.

> And Microsoft was no predatory monopoly. Their prices have either
> stayed the same or gone down (in real terms) while adding more and
> more features to their products.

Microsoft was a predatory monopoly. The DOJ proved this in Judge
Sporkin's court after a 4 year investigation in 1995. After the DOJ won
their case, and the good judge said the consent decree the DOJ wanted
was not even close to the redress needed, the DOJ appealed their
VICTORY. This had to cost Gates and MS a TON and political
contributions have flowed from MS ever since.

Many of us involved in the PC scene in the early days, and familiar with
more than just DOS and Win, had no need for the DOJ and the judge to
prove this, we knew it already.

> None of this will stop the Whiners (tm), of course. They complain
> about businesses making "too much" profit, and then complain again
> when unemployment is high, all the never connecting the dots between
> those two ideas.

Get real. Microsoft has a crap OS, everyone knows this. They control
over 90% of the DT market with a crap product, and make 30% profit
margin. This combination screams monopoly even if Gates gives you a
hard on, and you are unfamiliar with all that went on to get him that
monopoly.

> I'm an engineer. I am not particularly thrilled with Microsoft products.

I'm not an engineer, and I'm not particularly thrilled at all. To be
particularly thrilled, you would have to have your head buried in the
sand, or making money off his crap OS.

> I much prefer Unix and all that goes with it.But Microsoft responds
> to a need with a "good enough" product that serves 100s of millions
> of people just fine.

No, it doesn't serve millions of users "just fine". It's a crap system
that should have been improved and replaced years ago. His system does
have millions pulling their hair out daily, most of them too computer
illiterate to understand it's not them, it's the OS.

On a smaller scale so does Apple, even though they
> are one of the most closed off environments around (far worse than
> Microsoft). Value is in the eye of the beholder not the pontificants
> on the net ...

Jobs and Gates don't mind gouging the public at 30-40% profit margins.
It always amazes me that people get jumping ugly about the oil companies
"ripping off" the public with under 10% profit, and socialists calling
for a "windfall profit" tax on them, but get a hard on over Gates
ripping them off, and with a shoddy product to boot, and re-boot, and
re-boot, and re-boot...

--
Jack
I have not failed. I've just found ten thousand ways that won't work.
http://jbstein.com