🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <us008008-3107950112340001@ppp-nyc-3-13.ios.com>,
us008008@interramp.com (Phil Nasadowski) wrote:

> In article <3vgabe$339@falcon.ns.net>, jdredd@eagle.ns.net (James
> DeBenedetti) wrote:
> 
> 
> > I can do lots of things on today's computers that I wouldn't have
> > dreamed of doing on the old Commodore PETs I used to use.
> > 
> 
> But my old Apple ][E printed from Appleworks almost instanly after it
> loaded the print stuff in - my Quadra can't do that - M$word needs a PPC
> or Pentium to run decently.
> 
> It's been 15 years.  The power of even a low powered system is at least 10
> X (more like 100X) that of a ][e or a pet.  Why does it take forever for a
> printer to print today if todays machines are so much faster/wonderful.
> 
> My StyleWriter prints in the background - when it pulls in a piece of
> paper, everything stops.
> 
> 
> My point is - with all the progress we've made - have we really gotten
anywhere?

I tend to agree here, in part. I think that there are some good advances -
Clarisworks for example - small, kinda quick, stable, flexible. It does
things that people need to do that couldn't be done 10 years ago. It's a
tool. Word on the other hand is large, slow, unstable, rigid. It does
things that Bill Gates needs to do. It does things that people don't need
to do and couldn't be done 10 years ago. It's a ball and chain. 

More effort is spent trying to outdo the other guy and not trying to build
a better mousetrap. The auto industry is the same way. 100 years later we
have cars that are less efficient, marginally more reliable, marginally
safer, but will allow you to track a wild elephant from 3000 miles away -
boy, don't we need that.

Maybe 5% of the software market has the right idea. Unfortunately, that 5%
usually doesn't stay in business long. With the 100x increase in power
that computers have seen in the last 15 years, you would expect that
people could at least get 10x as much done. Some do, but most people would
be better off with typewriter and adding machine than Word and Excel.

-- 
Bob Cassidy
UC Irvine