It's too bad we lose people like Steve Jobs when trash like Dick Cheney
is still alive.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...,7292186.story
--
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.

"X ` Man" wrote in message
m...

It's too bad we lose people like Steve Jobs when trash like Dick Cheney
is still alive.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...,7292186.story


A shame. He brought much to this world that many of us often take for
granted. Smart guy.

Eisboch

On 10/5/11 7:57 PM, Eisboch wrote:


"X ` Man" wrote in message
m...

It's too bad we lose people like Steve Jobs when trash like Dick Cheney
is still alive.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...,7292186.story



A shame. He brought much to this world that many of us often take for
granted. Smart guy.

Eisboch


Decent guy, too, and a real showman.

--
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.

On Wed, 5 Oct 2011 19:57:20 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:



"X ` Man" wrote in message
om...

It's too bad we lose people like Steve Jobs when trash like Dick Cheney
is still alive.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...,7292186.story


A shame. He brought much to this world that many of us often take for
granted. Smart guy.

Eisboch

================

Very smart guy, a genius at product design and user interface. He
picked up good ideas that others had overlooked and turned them into
revolutionary products like the Apple Macintosh and the Ipod.

The first time I saw a Macintosh back in the '80s I was blown away by
the mouse, windowing concepts and great graphics capabilities.
Everything else looked like stone age computing by comparison.

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:42:15 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I, for one, am glad Jobs visited PARC and borrowed their design. I'd
certainly be in a different business and probably have a different
life.

"jps" wrote in message news
On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:42:15 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards

I, for one, am glad Jobs visited PARC and borrowed their design. I'd
certainly be in a different business and probably have a different
life.


--------------------------------------
The good part was he recognized brilliance, which Xerox never did. But he
stole the design, he did not borrow it. Xerox should have owned about 1/2
of Apple for that breach of etiquette. He even tried to sue Microsoft for
stealing "his" idea.

On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:19:00 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 6 Oct 2011 21:15:53 -0700, "Califbill"
wrote:

The good part was he recognized brilliance, which Xerox never did. But he
stole the design, he did not borrow it. Xerox should have owned about 1/2
of Apple for that breach of etiquette. He even tried to sue Microsoft for
stealing "his" idea.


There was a lot of "idea stealing" going on in the early PC business.
If you saw a neat idea, you stole it.
Gates perfected the art of simply buying out any serious competition
he had once he was rich enough to sue.
Jobs was successful because he was too small to be sued for anti-trust
when Apple was young and too big to screw with when it became
successful He is probably the most successful "closed architecture"
company since Ma Bell.
He got away with it because his reach was spread across so many
different platforms that he did not have a monopolistic market share
of any of them.
Of course there is no such thing as anti trust legislation these days
anyway.

Personally I think Apple is a little too "culty" for me. I prefer open
architecture and I will live with the quirks.
Dell is too "closed" for my taste.

And so the game continues with the iPhone and iPad, neither allowing
flash (and thereby opening the platform) to run.

But, unlike the closed architcture of the Mac, iPads (for now) and
iPods dominate the market. Apple will never dominate the computer
business. They may sell more laptops than any other laptop
manufacturer but there are 10 laptop manufacturers, mostly producing
product for the Windows environment. Even with the iPad's popularity,
competitors running Android (Galaxy Tab) are quickly gaining momentum.

The iPod and iPhone will continue to have a large market share but the
computing market, including the iPad, is another thing.

On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards


I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board. Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.

--
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.

In article ,
says...

On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards


I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board. Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.

8088 ran at a dizzying speed of 4.77 Mhz, and had 16k of memory!

On 10/6/2011 6:30 AM, X ` Man wrote:
On 10/6/11 1:42 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:43:24 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

Few people realize it today but the mouse and windowing concepts
originated in a Xerox Corporate R&D operation called the Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC). It was a classic case of not knowing what
they had invented and not knowing what to do with it.

I was a computer guy watching all of those missteps in the early days
of the desk top computer. I never understood why Wang had all of that
computer horsepower under the desk and only used it to type letters.
I was frustrated that my Atari 2600 didn't have a keyboard and a user
accessible program language. It was clear that this thing had as much
power as a late 60s mainframe.

I did have a first day ship PC tho.

I was not as impressed with the cartoon interface as I was supposed to
be. I stuck with DOS until it was pried out of my dead cold hands and
I still have DOS applications I run almost every day now.
I suppose the difference is I was raised in a text based computer
world. Command line does not scare me,
In fact the first computers I worked with did not even have a console
or a keyboard. You either inputted with cards or you manually entered
things with switches and buttons.
Of course a whole payroll system might fit in 4K of core. Programs
were a lot smaller.
My basic school "penny a day" program for a 1401 fit on three 80
column cards


I bought one of the first IBM PCs available at a retail store in McLean,
Virginia, in either 1983 or 1984. It was an 8088 machine, with one
floppy drive. I bought a second floppy drive...it was very expensive.
Looked at a Macintosh about then, too, at a store in Bethesday. I was
not that impressed with it. Much much later, after I had written a few
articles for PC Week, PC Mag and Byte, I started corresponding with
Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, at Byte, and he arranged for me to
receive an S-100 bus computer similar to what he was using. I messed
with it for about six months and told him I didn't think the S-100 bus
had much of a future in the face of what IBM and Apple and the IBM
imitators were doing. Later I sold the IBM and got an Eagle, with an
8086 CPU and an AST graphics board.

*Hard to believe that was close to 30
years ago.*


Hard to believe, period.