🚀 go-pugleaf

Minutes of the meeting of 
  ACS Remote
  held on undernet channel #acsremote 
  on Sunday 25 August, 1996 at 7:30pm

        "Mine is better than yours" - the platform wars

Attendance: 
     Frank Heys <frankheys@acslink.net.au> 
     Peter Bowditch <peterb@acslink.net.au> 
     Andrew Freeman <afreeman@acslink.net.au> 
     Marjorie Wisby <wisby@acslink.net.au> 
     John Campbell <jcampbell@acslink.net.au> 

Visitors: 
     No visitors and no bouncees. It was a very quiet night. 

Apologies: 
     Ian Marlow <imarlow@acslink.net.au> who was going to the
      Share/Guide Conference, and must therefore be considered a Big
      Iron enthusiast. He mentioned that his personal favourites
      are MVS and OS/2. 
     Keith Pitty <kpitty@acslink.net.au> (At least, I think it was
      Keith who apologised. If it wasn't, I apologise to both Keith
      and the real apologiser. Changing computers and mail clients
      can cause things to become somewhat forgotten. Whoever it was
      liked MVS.) 
     It is significant that both people who apologised mentioned
      that they liked MVS. The minuter is strongly resisting the urges
      to either draw inferences from this or to type the word
     "apologists". 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The best OS?

The topic for the night was the war of the platforms. The objective was
to decide which computer and operating system is the best. Most of us
know that there is no right answer, but there are some who claim that
such an answer not only exists but is plainly obvious to anyone who
cares to look. We could confidently expect a good fight from the
religious fundamentalists. 

What a pack of wimps! Here is the most important topic in IT today, more
important than ATM versus frame relay, bigger than NetWare versus NT,
infinitely more interesting than Netscape against Internet Explorer,
more fun than COBOL v PL/1 back when all those fin de siecle date
calculations were being written. Here is a subject which can bring more
hate email than a newsgroup posting linking Scientology with pyramid
selling. Try mentioning this anywhere in North Sydney and you will be
pelted with caffe latte, earrings and mobile phones. Yet when we try to
decide which is the best operating system or platform, NOT A SINGLE
MACOPHILE SHOWS UP to defend the indefensible. HA! I drag them to my
trashcan! (Actually my Norton Protected Recycle Bin, but you have to
speak their language.) 

Keep watching the ACS Remote web page for the announcement of a
competition which will exact revenge on the unibuttoned fruit flies. 

Meanwhile, the rest of us got on with the real business of computing. A
lot like life, really. 

So, here's the results: 
     2 people using Windows 95, 2 using Windows 3.11 
     2 (perhaps 3) using OS/2, 2 votes for MVS 
     PB didn't bother to mention Pick, because every time he does he
      has to go into a long explanation 
     Unix and Linux are well thought of 
     Everyone misses MS-DOS 
     The word "Windoze" was used 4 times, "Mickeysoft" only twice
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Minutes were parsed from the IRC log by Peter Bowditch, who uses an
operating system where you press the Start button to stop the machine
and is therefore in no position to criticise anyone except Mac owners.
Any comments will be welcome but a reasonable attempt at a GUI-based,
almost 32-bit, multitasking operating system will get you a $50 million
house on the edge of Lake Washington. 
-- 
........................................................
Peter Bowditch                Tel: +61-2-96871247
Gebesse Computer Consultants  Fax: +61-2-96871248
Parramatta NSW Australia      Mobile: +61-419219659
peterb@gebesse.com.au         http://www.gebesse.com.au/
........................................................