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From: spector@acf3.NYU.EDU (David HM Spector)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Macintosh II not Macintosh ][
Message-ID: <170009@acf3.NYU.EDU>
Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 03:29:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: acf3.170009
Posted: Mon Jul  6 03:29:00 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jul-87 01:32:01 EDT
References: <80@f.gp.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 98


No "revolution", eh?  A Macintosh II may be comparable in "hardware" to a
Sun3 ( I disagree, actually, a MacintoshII is a much better thought out piece
of hardware), but a Sun3 is LIGHTYEARS behind a Macintosh, of any flavour, in
terms of software engineering.  Despite all of this hype about Unix on 
Macintosh most "real"(*) computer users have no use for Unix (no flames please,
I manage a few Unix systems...), but rather the software that runs on a Mac *AS*
a Macintosh!  I don't have to enumerate the packages available on a Macintosh,
do I?

There are a few things that would have been "nice" to see in the MacintoshII
like (as a friend of mine often points out) DMA, a faster 68020 maybe, but all
in all, the MacII is a pretty heavy duty CONSUMER machine(read: Personal
Computer).  Suns, by the way, are not CONSUMER machines, I have yet to be able 
to walk into my local ComputerLand and say to the salesthing, 
"Hey, I want a Sun3 with 4.x, nnnMb of disk, ...etc".  


I don't mean this to be a flame... I hope it didn't come across that way --'kay?

(*)
  "real" being the class of person that buys, or uses a personal computer - most
middle managers and small business people that use Macintoshes and MS-DOS
machines don't use Unix machines or any machine other than their personal 
computers...they depend upon commercially available software to achieve some
goal, like running a business,..tasks that are not usually come with standard
unix systems that are for the most part, programming environments.

Dave Spector
Senior Systems Programmer
Academic Computing Center
Graduate School of Business Adminstration, New York University
Spector@NYU
...!{allegra, seismo, inhp4, harvard}!cmcl2!spector
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From: russell@acf3.NYU.EDU (Bill Russell)
Date: 5-Jul-87 19:55 EDT
Date-Received: 5-Jul-87 19:55 EDT
Subject: Re: Control Panel vs. Chooser
Message-ID: <170008@acf3.NYU.EDU>
Path: acf3!russell
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Posting-Version: version nyu B notes v1.5 12/10/84; site acf3.NYU.EDU
Organization: New York University
References: <1170@k.cs.cmu.edu>

/* acf3:comp.sys.mac / abr@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Adam B Rosen) /  3:10 pm  Jul  5, 1987 */
In article <1170@k.cs.cmu.edu> wrs@k.cs.cmu.edu (Walter Smith) writes:
>It seems to me that since the Control Panel is now fully extensible (nice
>job, by the way), the Chooser is superfluous.  Why isn't there a "Printers"
>cdev that lets you set the current printer (which darn well tells you what
>printer you're already using, unlike the Chooser) and other cdevs for
>whatever file servers, mail servers, or other weird stuff you install?
>
>It seems that the difference in functionality between the Chooser and the
>Control Panel is not at all well defined.  How does one decide where things
>like "Startup Device" go?  You're choosing a startup device, right?  The
>cdev just displays a list of startup devices, from which one is chosen,
>right?  Sounds like a Chooser task to me.  Choosing which file server to use
>seems just as valid in the Control Panel as in the Chooser.  When I first
>used AppleShare, I wandered around for about five minutes trying to figure
>out how to log in.  Never occurred to me to look in the Chooser.
>
>The Chooser is a bunch of AppleTalk stuff added to Choose Printer, retaining
>the serial port assignment task and adding near-arbitrary extension
>capability with which all sorts of strange things are being added.  It seems
>like these two extensible configuration-changing DAs are competing with each
>other for functionality.  Remember when turning AppleTalk on and off bounced
>around between the Control Panel and Choose Printer/Chooser?
>
>Having both of these things seems like unnecessary confusion and, less
>importantly, waste of the precious, arbitrarily limited DA space.
>

This is a good point.  Before I acquired my own Mac and began using it extensively
I was often confused as to where to set the various things necessary to print
something out.  The chooser always seemed to be the most undefined DA that one HAD
to use if they switched between ImageWriter and LaserWriter.  Having had a fair
amount of experience using various different kinds of computers and still being
puzzled over this at first made me wonder how many non-technical people struggled
with this too.

Putting both Control Panel and Chooser functions together seems logical, and the
Control Panel seems the best place; from here you set all the switches the 
machine requires.  Also, I think the Print option should be somewhat standardized
among applications.  There should be a line that says "CURRENT PRINTER IS: 
{ImageWriter, LaserWriter, etc} in the usual ImageWriter, LaserWriter dialog box,
and then a click-button which says "CHANGE PRINTER".  Choosing Change Printer
would automatically invoke the Control Panel DA, with Choose Printer module
selected, and, after you made your choice, you would be returned to the chosen
printer's dialog box.  The AppleTalk on/off switch could be in the printer module
also.

Something along these lines would obviate the need for Chooser, make things easier
all around and build upon the new (and improved) modular Control Panel.

Adam B. Rosen
/* ----------6'6