🚀 go-pugleaf

jlp@cheeta.inesc.pt (Jaime Lares Rebelo Pinto) wrote:
>Henrik Wetterström (henke@hv.se) wrote:

>    But DOS is much more confusing and requires much more critical learning.
>
>    Just learning paths and files and directories ends up being confusing,
>since files and directories are specified the same way. I mean, c:\joao\fich
>can be either a file or a directory. If a beginner thinks that it's a
>directory and in fact it's a file, he can do something like
>copy ..\..\lixo\xpto c:\joao\fich , deleting it. If he doesn't realize it
>at the moment, he'll probably think, later, that the computer is failing
>because some files are missing.
>
   What?  I don't quite understand. " Copy" copies and not deletes, right?  So,
what are you saying?

>    DOS users need to know about PATH. Messing with it, some DOS commands
>do not work. They have to know about internal and external commands.
>They need to know about autoexec.bat and config.sys .

   Memmaker works real well, for the learning-impaired.  Personally, I make
better autoexecs and configs than memmaker does, though.

>    It was usual to teach to edit files with edlin. I like UNIX vi, and
>in fact I still use vi both in UNIX and DOS. :-) But edlin interface is
>to awkward even for me! You are not going to tell me that edlin is easier
>to learn and use than Teach Text, because it doesn't require a mouse, are
>you? :-)
 
      You must have learned DOS way back.  Edit is the thing now.  I haven't
fooled with edlin in years.  
>
>    A user suspects the disk is not OK. The MacOS comes with the Disk Aid
>app., with an appropriate icon. An unexperient DOS user may think if
>he should use CHCP, CHDIR, CHKDSK, CLS... For the experienced user, it's
>obvious that CHKDSK (check disk :-) is the thing to use, but for beginners
>the abbreviations are very confusing.
>
     Maybe.  How hard can it be?  Checkdisk without vowels = CHKDSK.  Easy.
I have System 7.5  Where is Disk Aid?  "Find File" can't find it either.

>: Most people can use a keyboard, because of its similarity with typewriters.
>: It is known, it is big, and it is located very visible.
>: See, I even found an advantage of the hated MSDOS. Suppose I tell this to a
>: guy who never seen or heard of computers. I go on with learning him the
>: "DIR", "COPY" and the different extensions "*.EXE and *.COM to start with".
>: He could start using some MSDOS wordprocessor quite fast. 
>
>    Are you joking?!? Did you ever learn the DOS versions of Word Perfect
>or Word Star, for example? They were good if you consider the features, they
>had lots of them. But to be able to use the features, the user had to know
>considerably complex menu structures and many keys and combination of keys.

     In Wordperfect (I know this works in 5.1) for DOS, try clicking the
third (right) mouse button.  A toolbar will come up on the top of the screen,
eliminating the need to use the annoying little thing you lay on top of your
function keys.
>
>    If a DOS user would learn to use, say, Word Star, and then need to
>use Word Perfect, he would probably be unable to do it, since the interfaces
>were totally different.
>
>    I mean... If a user wouldn't use an application for a while, he could
>start the application, do some work, then realize that he doesn't remember
>the combination of keys that brings the exit and save menu, and end up
>reboting the computer to quit the application. I would call this chaotic
>interfaces... Can you really say easy to use?
>
     Hmmm....maybe.  But most of us don't have Alzheimers, so it shouldn't be
a problem to remember key combinations.  You still remember CTRL-ALT-DEL, right?
And you know OPTION-OPENAPPLE-ESCAPE for the Mac, right?



>: thing happened when DOS fanatics believed a GUI was not essential. Today would
>
>    So, now you admit that it's essential?
>
      It's not.

>: Well, for the moment does it matter less, but I guess 99.99% of the programs
>: for win95 in use will be 32-bit version and taking advantage of a multitasked
>: Win95. If this platform by most people is found as excellent would a lot
>
>    Yes, but when? I guess that many companies wont have a release just
>for that, so some updated software will be released in more than 6 months
>from now. And I guess that not all owners will immediately upgrade, so you'll
>see Win3.1 software in use for years.

     You're probably right.  But, seeing as how many companies that make both
Mac and IBM PC software quickly jumped to the PowerPC platform, I would bet 
that they would make at least an effort to get something out within a couple
weeks of Win95's release.

>    Or the PowerPC can expand faster than P*, and the Hardware Reference
>Platform can take of, and the 80x86 family end up just like the Amiga,
>but with no one wanting to bring it alive again.
>
>    Anyway, no mater what computer and other hardware you choose, it will
>die. I wouldn't be too surprised if we could find more 386 or less computers
>then 486 or more computers, in Europe. And what's the worth of 386 or less
>computers today? But I believe that you can have system 7.1 on Mac pluses,
>so I would say that Macs have been living longer.
>
      And I've seen DOS 6.22 and Win 3.1 on an 8088 (I'm not kidding!).  You
need less than 960k RAM to run both.  How about a Mac Plus?


>    Win95 will be good if it gets IBM compatibles close to Macs in several
>fields, like plug and play (which I doubt). I believe that Win is a bit
>ahead of MacOS when it comes to preemptive multitasking, but I guess that
>many people, if not most, won't really take advantage of that before
>Copland arrives.
>
     Whenever Copland arrives....680x0 will be "dead"....

>: will it be wasted money in a few years. I saw my amiga fade like this, and I
>: certainly don't wan't it to happen again with a Mac of my own.
>
>    Whatever you buy now will be obsolete in a few years.

     Probably one, two at most :).
>

>    Strangely enough, several people that know alot about computers would/did
>advise me to sell my Mac and buy something and install some free UNIX. No
>mater the fact that then I wouldn't be able to run the software that is
>important to me. This means that I would use UNIX not to do something, but
>just to run PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING. That's absurd!
>
>    A friend of mine bought a PC years ago and installed a free UNIX. He said
>I should do the same. Recently he admitted that he has DOS too. He said that at
>home he doesn't have much patience to do the same kind of work he does at work,
>so he uses his computer almost only in DOS (no preemptive multitasking, no
>multitasking at all) for games. That's absurd!
>
      Not really.  Ever seen Wing Commander 3 on anything but an SGI or an x86?
Amazing.