🚀 go-pugleaf

Henrik Wetterström (henke@hv.se) wrote:
: In article <DCywsM.2H5@inesc.pt>, jlp@cheeta.inesc.pt (Jaime Lares Rebelo Pinto) writes:
: :    My brother didn't know a thing about computers, refused to learn DOS,
: :but with just a few hours of help, he started using my Mac. I sold it to
: :him, and since then he does his works very well on it, alone, for his
: :university studies (not related with computation). Does his brilliant works
: :matter? No, because he doesn't even know what sendmail is, and his Mac
: :doesn't have a PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING OS yet.

: Mac people often are biased against anything that doesn't have an apple figure
: on the box. If you brother didn't know anything about MSDOS (or any OS or DOS)


Yes we are all just stupid morons...

: wouldn't he know if MSDOS or Mac was worse than the other, but I guess you
: helped by showing disgust for MSDOS, which was directly transported to him.
: Starting with computers is always a big problem, there's lot of things to
: learn, no matter what platform it is. For example, have you ever noticed how
: some people find it hard to even understand how the little dot on the screen
: can react to that device on the table, and even make that dot go where they want.
: 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. 
: If I left him here, and came back a few weeks later with a Macintosh and
: confronted him with a graphical user interface. I believe he wouldn't
: understand a thing at first, and maybe start thinking that he can't learn,
: or don't want to learn that GUI, because MSDOS is enough for him. and guess what,
: his computer doesn't even have a graphical user interface.

: What I mean is that many people (mostly Mac fanatics) live in an illusion where
: they believe multitasking is NOT essential for future evolution. The same

Noone who knows anything about computers would poroclaim that preemptive 
multitasking is not needed in the MacOS or any other mainstream OS for 
that matter.  The problem most people cite as bad multitasking on a mac 
is not due to multitasking at all.  Disk formatting is one of the few 
places where you are held up by the OS and there isnt anything you can do 
about it but cancel.  This is due to tha fact that the Finder is not 
threaded not becasue there is no preemptive multitasking.  I admit it sucks. 

: thing happened when DOS fanatics believed a GUI was not essential. 
:Today would
: everybody laugh at people who refused to use (or even learn to use) a graphical
: user interface. Amiga, OS/2 and Unix (and soon to come, win95) user already
: smiles when they hear people say "preemtive multitasking isn't necessary".
: Store the text you wrote above in your previous article in a textfile and
: look at it in August 2000. I bet you will laugh at it and wonder how you
: could write such silly things in aug. 1995.

: :    There are lots of brilliant software for the Mac. For example,
: :the Mac still has the best music software, no doubt about it. I believe that
: :it is still the best platform for DTP, but that's probably debatable. There
: :are many kinds of good software for it, from word processors, to games,
: :to multimedia titles ("The Louvre" and "Brief History of Time" come to
: :mind). But does any of this matters? No, because the MacOS doesn't have
: :PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING yet.

For now Mac's cooperativly multitask quite well.  That dosent mean I dont 
think preemption isnt needed.

: 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
: of people move to it, developers would follow them and abandon other
: platforms. In a few years would the Macintosh end up just like the amiga.
: Face it, multitasking is a damn good feature to boast with, it is a trend,
: just like being connected to the net. No, I wouldn't buy a Mac, because it
: lacks preemtive multitasking do I think it never can match Win95, and therefor
: 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.

: :    My Mac only crashed about 4 or 5 times during the last year, all of
: :them because of badly designed freeware/shareware/demos I was testing.
: :I didn't lose a single document because of it, not even a bit of a
: :document did I lose. And I use it almost every day. Does this matter?
: :No, because it doesn't have PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING yet.

: Several unix systems have been up for years (or even decades) without a crash
: or lost data, and under that period been serving thousands of users and uncountable
: jobs. Does this matter? No, because Mac users find it hard to learn to
: master Unix...

I'm sure....let me show you my .sig...


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Scott L. Parrish        Graduate Student
Dept. Of Zoology        parrisc@mail.auburn.edu         WAR EAGLE!
			^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Sun 2000 sys V
			
Auburn University       parrisc@freenet.fsu.edu, scottp@iris.ag.auburn.edu
						^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	                                       	SGI indigo^2 xZ IRIX 5.3
*******************************************************************************

I think the talahassee freenet runs AIX but I'm not sure.  At any rate 
normal people cant get shell accounts there (including me)  I use it 
mainly for extra mail when I dont want to give out my work address.
NOTE: There arent any Mac's listed in my .sig file.  I use macs all the 
time and I own one but I dont think you could say I'm afraid of unix...


: :    Is it all clear now? You were having problems understanding their point
: :of view, because you were thinking about the end user, instead of thinking
: :about the programmer, the system administrator, and, most important of all,
: :PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING.

: When you go and buy a new car, your don't understand and want to think
: about technical things like computer-controlled-ignition, pistons made of
: some strange new metal with some strange new design. you leave those things
: to the people who designed the care. They are the experts, they should made
: every possible attempt to make the car better, faster, cheaper, lighter
: and nicer. They should added all new and good technology.
: Now, assume you have cooperative multitasking and preemptive multitasking,
: don't think of anything else, which one is the better? I feel sorry for you
: if you choosed CMT. Is it fair to fool low-end users which don't understand
: these thing by not using the new technology? Would it be OK to sell a modern
: car that consumed 10gallons/mile of gazoline, if he didn't understand these
: thing? No, I think that would be dishonest. 
: Thosed who don't know much about computers are fooled into that multitasking
: is not needed, if they for some reason ask the question. Ofcourse they
: believe you, because, in their eyes, you are the expert.


I'm quite sure all PC users could tell you what preemptive multitasking 
means.  Everyone has heard the Win95 buzzwords by now and they all know 
exactly what it means.  Right?  Every horror story I can tell about 
stupid computer users has occured when I was helping a PC user do 
something on their machine.  These were PC "powerusers" if you asked them.

 
Trust me there are plenty of clueless peopel out there using both 
platforms and it's probably higher on the PC side.  I say this because 
you can go into Kmart or Sears (in the US) and pick up a PC for about 
$1000.  And take it home that day.  Anyone can get a PC easily.  You can 
also get Mac's the same way but salesmen at those stores highly 
discourage it (they are PC "powerusers" too).  Joe Moron normally gets a 
PC when he goes to Sears or CompUSA to get a computer.  Within a month 
he's found his autoexec.bat and config.sys files and he's learned how to 
create a directory from DOS and he's now a "poweruser" too.
 

Scott
--
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Scott L. Parrish        Graduate Student
Dept. Of Zoology        parrisc@mail.auburn.edu         WAR EAGLE!
Auburn University       parrisc@freenet.fsu.edu, scottp@iris.ag.auburn.edu
*******************************************************************************