🚀 go-pugleaf

jlp@cheeta.inesc.pt (Jaime Lares Rebelo Pinto) wrote:

> If you have 2 diferent files, A and B, and COPY A B , you get 2 equal
>files, the previous content of file B is lost (deleted).
>
>    So even you get confused with DOS.

   But you see, you didn't say it that way originally.  Your original post
didn't have anything to do with using copy A B.  You said:

" he can do something like copy ..\..\lixo\xpto c:\joao\fich , deleting it."

  Now that I see what you're saying, I can see, of course.  But your post was
incredibly vague the first time I read it.

>   Several tools exist to do things that you could do with the DOS commands
>and editors. This doesn't mean that DOS is easy to use, it means the oposite.
>If DOS would be easy to use and powerful there wouldn't be so many people
>using tools to do things that can be done with DOS alone.

    Don't you use vi or any version of X-Windows?  emacs maybe?  These
are pretty useful tools that I wouldn't boot up my Linux without.  Same
with Teachtext or whatnot.

>    Edit is an influence of Mac and Windows. It has pop down menus, works
>with the mouse, well, it tries to look like GUI apps.. But it doesn't have
>the same support from the OS, so it's not as powerful: no cut and paste
>betwen apps, no resizing of windows, etc..

     True.  But I never use the pop down menus, or the cut and paste.  Too slow.
Of course, there are exceptions (like those huge files).


>   btyllhvhrdtmfgrngtthmnngfthssntnc.
>
>   Surely it's easy to join words and take out the vowels. What can be
>dificult is guessing the original words. If you doubt, just tell me
>the meanig of the above sentence. I just wrote a regular one, then
>I joined the words and took out the vowels. I'm sure you won't find
>it more confusing than what it would be if the words were complete and
>separated!

  "bet you'll have a hard time figuring out the meaning of this sentence"

  Am I right?  Took me less than 30 seconds and two tries.  There probably
are a few mistakes in there, where you can interchange words, but the basic
gist of the sentence is there. 

   And there are no commands that long!  Think abou it - defrag, memmaker,
CHKDSK even are fairly short.  How are you going to get that sentence into
8.3?  Keeps the overly verbose out of PCs, no doubt.   

   Now, you do have a point.  I would have never guessed anything like
"cp" in Unix if I hadn't know the commands man, apropos, and ls beforehand.

>    To make things worse, other methods were used to get other commands,
>like CHCP or DIR.
 
  ???  Keyboard shortcuts and several ways to print files exist in GUIs also
(for example).

>    I dont use Wordperfect for DOS for ages, but from your description,
>it seems like it already has a GUI, or at least it looks like it. It looks
>like another GUI app. cripled by not runing on a GUI OS.
>
>    DOS apps. try to look like Mac or Windows apps. because the original
>looking was bad. Otherwise the oposite would hapen, it would be the
>Mac and Windows apps. imitating the DOS apps..

       Maybe.  But then you have to say the reverse is true - keyboard
shortcuts.  Alt-F4, OPENAPPLE-Q, etc. 


>:      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?
>
>    Please think before posting.
>
>    Lets say you already used 100 different apps. Lets say that each one
>required you to know 15 key combinations. This is a total of 1500 key
>combinations. Some are repeated, of course, but that just helps
>bringing confusion.
>
>    Obviously it is easy to remember one, or even a few key combinations,
>but it is very dificult to remember 1500.
>
>    Before it became obvious that GUIs were the way to go, each DOS app.
>had an original interface, and used key combinations in an original way.
>If you want to test 10 Mac word processors, you'll probably be able to
>to just run them and start using them, since the interfaces have many
>similarities. If you wanted to learn 10 DOS word processors you had
>to learn 10 different interfaces.
>
      But you see, you don't use 100 different apps on a regular basis.  Why
do you need to remember key combinations for fairly unused apps?  Likely, 
you use one word processor, one spreadsheet app, and several other special
applications.  
      I use at least 30 applications on a regular basis, on DOS, Windows, 
Macintosh, and Unix.  I don't find it hard to remember the key combinations
(there may be 20 - 30, especially on ones like Word Perfect) and use them
instead of the mouse.
     People are different, of course.  But think - most people do not
need to use 100 applications or are intellectually challenged enough
to not remember a bunch of key combinations.  You said yourself that you have
used Unix, DOS, and Macintosh.  There are many different things you need to
remember to run the OSes alone!  I assume that you stay to your CLI roots
and use the keyboard shortcuts.

>:      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.
>
>    I don't agree.
>
>    Many products were quickly updated for PowerMac, but I believe that most
>of them were not. Even a popular app like word only got native something
>like 8 months after the PowerMac release.
>
>    Since emulated apps run much slower in PowerMacs than native apps,
>I would say that the advantage of upgrading was higher than the advantage
>of upgrading from Win3.1 to Win95.

     Yes, of course.  But MS and Intel have been pushing for recompiling, and
I will wager that many companies are already working on 32-bit applications.
Moving from the Pentium to the P6 is much more beneficial in terms of reprogramming
than from the 486 to the Pentium.  The Pentium didn't need too much recompiling.


>:       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?
>
>    Realy?!? Ha Ha!
>
>    Whell, some years ago I tried to run Word on Win3.1, in a 386 2M RAM,
>and it would take up to a couple of minutes to draw a page on the screen,
>if the page had several fonts. With documents biger than 16 pages
>it would start complaining about lack of memory.
>
>    It would run, but it was almost unusuable.
>
    The same is true for Mac Pluses (and in my opinion, the entire Mac II line,
along with the 286s).
    Anyway, I certainly wouldn't try Word and Win on a 386.....I've seen one....
it's scary....

>:      Whenever Copland arrives....680x0 will be "dead"....
>
>    Lets wait and see. I expect the 680x0 to live for at least 4 more 
>years. I believe that what's really important are the apps.

   Yes, most of which will be developed for System 8 instead of System 7......
Maybe developed also for System 7.  But the advantages of System 8 will be
too great for the developers to waste their time on System 7.
    Copland will quickly widow the 680x0 line.

>   It seems to me that the probability of Apple and/or IBM fading
>away quickly is not higher than the probability of MS and/or Intel
>fading away quickly.
 
    Of course not...I, a dedicated x86 user, don't think that Apple
will die for at least another decade.

>   Not that this will stop some people from expecting Apple to die
>tomorow for the rest of their lives. :-)
>

>    There are good word processors for the Mac, and good games, but there
>are other interesting programs too, from sequencers with audio to
>multimedia apps like "A Brief History of Time" or "The Louvre", or
>enciclopedias, atlas...