Re: Harper CANNOT be trusted with a majority Gov't.

On Monday, May 16, 2011 12:44:02 PM UTC-4, Jack Stein wrote:
> On 5/15/2011 4:50 PM, George Watson wrote:
> > Jack Stein<[email protected]> wrote:
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> >> Wrong, I'm grumbling because most all retail outlets sold ONLY MS
> >> operating systems. They did this because of illegal marketing practice=
s
> >> of MS.
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> > I have taken the liberty of snipping out
> > the early 'argument' as the attribution is all fukd up
> > and confusion thus reigns.
> > Attrib being screwed over - I would point out - by
> > clueless users using Usenet dumb software and
> > being totally ignorant themselves of how to present
> > their two bits so it can be read as a digest.
> > For me that says plenty about *their* credibility
> > as to "topic".
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> Excellent point!
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> > And I say on that, you (Jack) are blowing good
> > time in showing anyone in RW the true light on
> > the story. Me too, I guess:-/
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> Thanks for that, but I only waste my time when I have time to waste.=20
> Someone said I have a burr up my ass over MS, and they are right. I was=
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> in the game early on and because I was intimately familiar with dos,=20
> UNIX and OS/2, and computing and programing was my passion all through=20
> the beginning of home computing, I do not speak out of ignorance. I was=
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> deeply involved in the OS wars during the BBS years and I've heard all=20
> the bullshit many, many times. During those days the only support MS=20
> had from the gear heads were those either ignorant of UNIX and OS/2 or=20
> earning a living from MS garbage products.
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> > If you do not know - comp.os.os2.advocacy -
> > is a forum where some sense remains amongst
> > all the trolling.
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> I gave up on all that crap long ago, all that's left for me is a "burr=20
> up my ass".
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> > I agree totally with your comments on early IBM policy,
> > having been caught myself with PCDOS and two very
> > expensive (at the time) machines and software installs
> > to run a network.
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> My ideas over IBM, MS and INTEL being in cahoots as an illegal cartel=20
> are mine only, and is just a suspicion. IBM was burnt badly by the=20
> anti-trust people in the past and they easily could have owned=20
> EVERYTHING and in no way needed Gates to develop their PC OS, other than=
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> to prevent more monopoly problems. Proof of this is when MS was unable=
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> to develop windows to work correctly, and IBM needed an OS that worked,=
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> they developed OS/2 in just one year, and it came out near perfect, I=20
> think totally perfect.

HUH? OS/2 was a joint product of IBM and Microsoft, the contract was signe=
d in August, 1985, and a product didn't ship until December, 1987. That's =
more than two years.

Further, it didn't have anything to do with being "unable to develop Window=
s to work correctly". The contract was signed before Windows shipped. In =
addition, OS/2 didn't even have a GUI until release 1.1 almost a year later=
and it didn't actually run Windows applications until 2.0 shipped in April=
, 1992.

> Gates and is dimwit programmers still haven't=20
> figured it out.
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> Gates bought his operating system from Patterson for $100,000 AFTER IBM=
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> bestowed the contract on Gates, instead of DEC and cpm. Why would IBM=20
> do something so dumb? Do you think you could get such a contract with=20
> any company to sell a non-existent product?

Why would IBM "bestow a contract" on DEC? That's like Ford "bestowing a co=
ntract" on Chevy. And what did DEC have to do with anything anyway? You s=
eem to be confusing Digital Research and Digital Equipment Corporation. Th=
e two were unrelated. CP/M was a product of Digital Research, not DEC. An=
d there were several problems with Digital Research--the first is that they=
didn't actually have a product--the PC shipped in August, 1981, while CP/M=
-86 didn't ship until January, 1982. The second was that Gary Kildall want=
ed to charge more than IBM was willing to pay. The third was that he faile=
d to show up at a critical meeting and offended IBM. There were, doubtless=
, other problems. He thought he had the world by the tail and blew one of =
the biggest opportunities anybody has ever had. If he had met IBM's price =
point and done what he had to do to have a product out the door when IBM wa=
nted it, he'd be the one we all hate and Bill Gates would be a side note. =
Bill Gates gave IBM everything they asked for, did what he had to do to del=
iver a product, and the rest is history.
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> I think they did it because they could control Gates, but not DEC.

DEC wasn't involved at all.

> I=20
> think the reason IBM did not market OS/2, and why they pulled the plug=20
> on OS/2 when it reached critical mass was OS/2 did not fit in with their=
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> plans for the cartel. OS/2 of 1995 would work perfectly fine, far=20
> better than XP right now today on today's machines. Instead, the cartel=
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> uses garbage that needs upgraded constantly, needs tons of attention to=
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> keep working and so on. IBM, INTEL and MS all win over, and over while=
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> the public has been screwed, over and over.

OS/2 works fine, however IBM couldn't get anybody to buy it. It did run mo=
st DOS code well. My 32-bit APL interpreter broke it though.
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> > Prior to that experience I did sit in front of a MAC
> > for a short while in 1991 as a "mature age cadet"
> > draftsman. Coming from the DOS machine I myself had
> > worked through a lot of command line structure to get
> > a spreadsheet printed on our dot matrix printer, MAC
> > was akin to sunshine after a drenching cloudburst.
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> Well, after using DOS for several years, and wondering why I couldn't do=
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> what I wanted, I ran into UNIX, and wow, that was exactly like sunshine=
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> after a tropical storm of DOS. Later, OS/2 was more like what WINDOWS=20
> should have been all along, not as robust as UNIX, but simple to use,=20
> and everything worked dependably.

Well, if you didn't like DOS, you wouldn't like CP/M. Trust me on this.
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> > The job didn't work out and I started my own company
> > and thus paid for the "rip off" from those selling "Windows"
> > on IBM frames. Cost me thousands over the next
> > five years and a few good employees.
> > WordPerfect was perfect.. compatibility wasn't so hot :-/
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> There were quite a few good word processors, and MSWORD was is one of=20
> the worst. It reminds me of some of the screwed up posts people make on=
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> this (and all) newsgroups, with attributes a mess, proper quoting=20
> ignored and so on. Yes, you can do stuff with it but the interface=20
> really sucks.

If you know how it works it's not bad, if you try to fight it it's terrible=
. We went with it for one reason--it had full, configurable, well document=
ed support for the laser printer that we had. =20
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