Re: floppy eject buttons [was: What's a Real Computer?]

Article View: comp.sys.powerpc

Article #311

#311

From: Dave Hwang
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 1995 09:58

42 lines
2825 bytes

>>>>> Hotel California <hotelca@cris.com> writes:
In article <hotelca-0108952347170001@192.0.2.1> hotelca@cris.com (Hotel California) writes:

    > In article <danpop.807281008@rscernix>, Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch (Dan
    > Pop) wrote:
   >> > 2. You had a very good UNIX tutorial book
   >> 
   >> This is the true one.

    > So, you did read a manual.  I knew you had to.  On a Mac you don't
    > have to read a manual/book/online help, etc.  You can if you want,
    > but I find that just playing around with the software for a little
    > bit helps me become more familiar than using a manual.  Completely
    > different story than Unix, DOS or any other CLI.

If you just want to be a "user", you don't need to read a manual for
UNIX either. UNIX is not limited to the CLI. Here at school, people get
a default X session when they log in. Most people have no problem using
these UNIX workstations, although most people don't know and more UNIX
commands than "ls", "cp", and "rm".

The default X session gives you a list of commonly used apps in a menu,
you just have to pick one to start it. The MacOS makes it easy to
launch applications. UNIX, at least with X windows configured properly, 
can make that easy as well. The "user" doesn't have to do any of the
configuring. Things could be set up to work out of the box. Even if you
have only a text shell, I've seen some accounts where you automatically
placed in an applications menu, and you get to select the app (tin,
pine, elm, emacs, shell, etc). It's all configurable in UNIX. MacOS makes it
easy for the novice, out of the box. UNIX may require a sysadmin that
can set up something more custom/relavant to his network. But in any
case, in both UNIX, and MacOS, there are "users" who only need to know
how to start apps, and "admins" who have to know a bit more. 

Once you have started the application, ease of use is the burden of the
software, not the OS it is running on. It could be true that some UNIX
apps may not be "obvious", but Netscape on a Mac or Windows or UNIX/X11
is the same, as is WordPerfect, Matlab, etc.

Dave Hwang
martus@mit.edu

Technical Details

Message-ID: <MARTUS.95Aug2055814@w20-575-33.mit.edu>

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!news!martus

References: <DCM2z5.9Ex@nntpa.cb.att.com> <danpop.807281008@rscernix> <hotelca-0108952347170001@192.0.2.1>

Show Full Headers

Complete Article Headers

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!news!martus
From: Dave Hwang <martus@mit.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.powerpc,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.intel
Subject: Re: floppy eject buttons [was: What's a Real Computer?]
Date: 02 Aug 1995 09:58:14 GMT
Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology
Message-ID: <MARTUS.95Aug2055814@w20-575-33.mit.edu>
References: <DCM2z5.9Ex@nntpa.cb.att.com> <danpop.807281008@rscernix>
 <hotelca-0108952347170001@192.0.2.1>
Reply-To: martus@mit.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: w20-575-33.mit.edu
In-reply-to: hotelca@cris.com's message of 2 Aug 1995 03:38:43 GMT

Reply to Parent Message