🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DCywsM.2H5@inesc.pt>, jlp@cheeta.inesc.pt (Jaime Lares Rebelo Pinto) writes:
:    My brother didn't know a thing about computers, refused to learn DOS,
:but with just a few hours of help, he started using my Mac. I sold it to
:him, and since then he does his works very well on it, alone, for his
:university studies (not related with computation). Does his brilliant works
:matter? No, because he doesn't even know what sendmail is, and his Mac
:doesn't have a PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING OS yet.

Mac people often are biased against anything that doesn't have an apple figure
on the box. If you brother didn't know anything about MSDOS (or any OS or DOS)
wouldn't he know if MSDOS or Mac was worse than the other, but I guess you
helped by showing disgust for MSDOS, which was directly transported to him.
Starting with computers is always a big problem, there's lot of things to
learn, no matter what platform it is. For example, have you ever noticed how
some people find it hard to even understand how the little dot on the screen
can react to that device on the table, and even make that dot go where they want.
Most people can use a keyboard, because of its similarity with typewriters.
It is known, it is big, and it is located very visible.
See, I even found an advantage of the hated MSDOS. Suppose I tell this to a
guy who never seen or heard of computers. I go on with learning him the
"DIR", "COPY" and the different extensions "*.EXE and *.COM to start with".
He could start using some MSDOS wordprocessor quite fast. 
If I left him here, and came back a few weeks later with a Macintosh and
confronted him with a graphical user interface. I believe he wouldn't
understand a thing at first, and maybe start thinking that he can't learn,
or don't want to learn that GUI, because MSDOS is enough for him. and guess what,
his computer doesn't even have a graphical user interface.

What I mean is that many people (mostly Mac fanatics) live in an illusion where
they believe multitasking is NOT essential for future evolution. The same
thing happened when DOS fanatics believed a GUI was not essential. Today would
everybody laugh at people who refused to use (or even learn to use) a graphical
user interface. Amiga, OS/2 and Unix (and soon to come, win95) user already
smiles when they hear people say "preemtive multitasking isn't necessary".
Store the text you wrote above in your previous article in a textfile and
look at it in August 2000. I bet you will laugh at it and wonder how you
could write such silly things in aug. 1995.

:    There are lots of brilliant software for the Mac. For example,
:the Mac still has the best music software, no doubt about it. I believe that
:it is still the best platform for DTP, but that's probably debatable. There
:are many kinds of good software for it, from word processors, to games,
:to multimedia titles ("The Louvre" and "Brief History of Time" come to
:mind). But does any of this matters? No, because the MacOS doesn't have
:PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING yet.

Well, for the moment does it matter less, but I guess 99.99% of the programs
for win95 in use will be 32-bit version and taking advantage of a multitasked
Win95. If this platform by most people is found as excellent would a lot
of people move to it, developers would follow them and abandon other
platforms. In a few years would the Macintosh end up just like the amiga.
Face it, multitasking is a damn good feature to boast with, it is a trend,
just like being connected to the net. No, I wouldn't buy a Mac, because it
lacks preemtive multitasking do I think it never can match Win95, and therefor
will it be wasted money in a few years. I saw my amiga fade like this, and I
certainly don't wan't it to happen again with a Mac of my own.

:    My Mac only crashed about 4 or 5 times during the last year, all of
:them because of badly designed freeware/shareware/demos I was testing.
:I didn't lose a single document because of it, not even a bit of a
:document did I lose. And I use it almost every day. Does this matter?
:No, because it doesn't have PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING yet.

Several unix systems have been up for years (or even decades) without a crash
or lost data, and under that period been serving thousands of users and uncountable
jobs. Does this matter? No, because Mac users find it hard to learn to
master Unix...

:    Is it all clear now? You were having problems understanding their point
:of view, because you were thinking about the end user, instead of thinking
:about the programmer, the system administrator, and, most important of all,
:PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING.

When you go and buy a new car, your don't understand and want to think
about technical things like computer-controlled-ignition, pistons made of
some strange new metal with some strange new design. you leave those things
to the people who designed the care. They are the experts, they should made
every possible attempt to make the car better, faster, cheaper, lighter
and nicer. They should added all new and good technology.
Now, assume you have cooperative multitasking and preemptive multitasking,
don't think of anything else, which one is the better? I feel sorry for you
if you choosed CMT. Is it fair to fool low-end users which don't understand
these thing by not using the new technology? Would it be OK to sell a modern
car that consumed 10gallons/mile of gazoline, if he didn't understand these
thing? No, I think that would be dishonest. 
Thosed who don't know much about computers are fooled into that multitasking
is not needed, if they for some reason ask the question. Ofcourse they
believe you, because, in their eyes, you are the expert.

/Henrik