🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <42d9lt$1ns@steel.interlog.com>, daveacg@interlog.com (Dave
Glue) wrote:

> Summers@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.gov (David P. Summers) wrote:
> 
> >I'm saying is that, unlike Microsoft, older Macintoshes haven't been
> >prematurely pushed into obsolesence.  Even today, with a whole new
> >processor, a plus can still run current software.  Meanwhile, MS
> >made you get new software when windows came out and now expects
> >you to get new software to use windows 95.
> 
> MS's newest OS will at least run on old 386 machines.  As of right
> now, Copland's plans for 680X0 have not been determined- and
> considering how far we are into Coplands design, this seems unlikely.

Apple's newest OS (system 7) can run, not to badly either, on 68000
machines.  Try running Windows 95 on a 8088.  It will barely run on a
386.  System 7 runs quite nicely on 030s.

> And to say older Macs haven't been prematurely pressured into
> obsolence with Apples "A Mac a week" introduction policy is
> ridiculous.  386's can run Pentium software, just more slowly.  68040
> Macs can not run Power Mac software.  Copland as of now will not run
> on any 680X0 machine.

Power Mac only software is very rare.  Most software packages ship either
in two versions that the installer picks from as appropriate, or as a fat
binary which runs on either machine.

> But what an argument.  You can run Mac software on an incredibly slow
> Mac+- is this what advocacy has come to?  We're defending grandmothers
> using computers to write 2-paragraph letters to their grandkids with
> MacWrite.  Jesus.  Might as well start advocating the IBM XT's- still
> used quite a few of them, and quite well for simply database and
> letter work where I last worked.

You'd be singing a different tune if you had to buy machines for a limited
school budget.  The Macs at my school are Classics and Classic IIs (68000
and 030 respectively) and run current software and OS pretty good and
quite well respectively.

> Or your expecations are lower.  I find that often to be the case.

Or maybe your expectations are higher than necessary.  Sure PMT is
supposed to be so much better than CMT but CMT is good.  It gets the job
done.  Sure, having a supercomputer in every school with terminals on
every desk would be nice but having a computer lab in every high school is
good enough.

> It's the same thread that platform advocacy always follows.  Just as
> when the Mac users get pre-emptive multitasking and proper
> multithreading, they'll be shouting the advantages from the rooftops,
> and Coplands "superior" crash protection, even though many claim it's
> "good enough" now.

It *IS* good enough now, it can however get better.  Anything can be
better than Windows, even better than Windows 95.

> What your machine has over mine is irrelevant.
> 
> What my machine has over yours is fundamental to computing.

--
Hotel California
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