🚀 go-pugleaf

Orc (orc@pell.com) wrote:
: In article <40uj55$gub@goonsquad.spies.com>,
: Maynard Handley  <maynardh@apple.com> wrote:

: >Something the people in this thread don't seem to understand:
: >UNIX and NT are multi-user OS's. MacOS is (and will be for the 
: >foreseeable future)  a personal OS.

:   Yes, and your point?

    I totally agree with Handley. This discussion is totally absurd.

    The designers of most personal computers operating systems were
not all stupid. They didn't implement all the features of the big OSs,
not out of stupidity, but because that was the point of PCs. The idea
was that not all tasks require all the features of the big systems, so
cut down versions of them could be much cheaper and could be
good for many tasks.

    From the developers point of view, it's easier to include
everything from the start than making changes later and facing
the backward compatibility problems. It's just that if the
designers of the PCs OSs woudn't cut something, they wouldn't
get a cut down system.

    Some people are arguing not against DOS or MacOS, but against
the idea of personal computers.

    In my opinion, the MacOS was a very good idea, it was not
just a cut down version of bigger systems, it was something new.
But the MacOS is not competing with UNIX. In fact, Apple did develop
an UNIX flavor too.
    
:   From the point of view as a _user_ of these operating systems,
: Unix wins over MacOS when I want to leave the box.  Why?  Because
: I don't have to enter thirty-seven different passwords when I
: want to get at other machines, read email, look at Meeting Maker,
: etcetera, etcetera.   MacOS gives me a pretty interface, while
: Unix lets me do my work without interrupting me for passwords
: every time I turn around.

    If your system administrator is really concerned with security,
you have to enter passwords to get at other machines even from
UNIX.

: >However a personal system is a different sort of beast. When one is 
: >playing a game, or capturing video for example, one does NOT want other 
: >processes sneaking in and grabbing time.

:    Why not?  If I've only got one processor, I'm certainly not
: going to lock everything else out just because I'm doing something
: that's moderately time-critical (and, speaking of things being

    I believe that most personal computers are used mostly to run
apps that spend most of their time waiting for the user, so
usually it's not a problem to lock everything else out, if an app.
really needs the processor. If the app. can't get the needed processor
time, it may became useless by loosing data or working out of time.

    Not to say that CM is better than PM.
    
: locked out, when the local Mac decides that, yes, it REALLY wants
: to see what's happening on the ethernet, it will lock me out, never
: mind that I might be in the middle of doing a video capture or playing
: some k-k00l video game -- no, when it gets done snooping on those
: IMPORTANT QuickMail packets, it will give the processor back to me,
: but only in the fullness of time.)

   If you use UNIX frequently you probably saw it slowing down or almost
locking for a number of reasons not related with you. But I agree
that it is better for heavy networking.

    The Mac is getting better, however.

:   If you design multitasking in at the start, you don't get bodges
: like this; you might lose a little bit additional cpu, but that
: lossage will be spread out over time, not dropped on you all of a
: sudden when you're about to get rid of that pesky MIG-21 that you
: just spent 45 minutes tracking down.

    As I said, you can't get a cut down version without cutting
something.

:                  ____
:    david parsons \bi/ orc@pell.com
: 		  \/

    I like UNIX and Macs with MacOS. Each system has advantages.
I like UNIX for networking, but for other things, from word
processing to sequencers with audio, I prefer the Mac.


    Cheers,
    Jaime.