Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!csustan!polyslo!dorourke From: dorourke@polyslo.UUCP (David M. O'Rourke) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Re:IBM did it first Message-ID: <2295@polyslo.UUCP> Date: 8 May 88 19:38:54 GMT References:<5003@cup.portal.com> <23849@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <3080@pdn.UUCP> Reply-To: dorourke@polyslo.UUCP (David O'Rourke) Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo Lines: 73 In article <3080@pdn.UUCP> alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy) writes: >1. There are numerous windowing systems that are unmistakably unrelated >to Apple's. These are and will continue to be completely safe from >litigation by Apple. (e.g., Smalltalk-80, Xerox Star, SunView, >OpenLook...) Wouldn't it be more correct to say Apple's is related to Xerox, and therefore anything "related to Apple" is then also related to Xerox? >2. Even now, innovation continues: "pie-chart" menus are just one >example of a very productive new graphic interface technique. There >are others being developed but not yet announced. This sounds neat could you provide me with some information on where I might see a demonstration of this! >3. Apple's windowing system is by no means the ultimate example of >beauty, correctness, ease-of-use, user-friendliness or parsimony of >operating effort. Pop-up menus are superior to pull-down menus, and >pie-chart menus may be superior to rectangular-list menus. >Window-specific menus are better than screen-global menus. And >three-button mice are superior to one-button mice. No, but Apple's was the first to be affordiable, and available to the general public. Also I doubt anyone will respond very well to your blanket statments about this being better than that. Have you ever had to teach someone to use a three button mouse, Apple's user interface model is far superior as far as teachine machine operation. Window specific menus aren't necessarily better, witness the popularity of the Amiga OS. Apple may not be the first, or the best {I'll have this argument with you via e-mail if you wish} but they are the only company I know of that tries to deliver state of the art systems to the general public, for use by the general public. Sun workstations are wonderful, but who's going to teach my father to configure one, and who's going to loan him the money to buy it? I don't know how the rest of netland feels about your statment, but I've found that there are few things in the world that are always "superior" to other options. Things are only "superior" when they are given a context to be "superior" in. >4. If IBM could have successfully sued the clone-makers for violating >their "look-and-feel" rights, then a lot of the industry's resources >would not have been wasted on IBM-PC technology. The state of the art >today would be far in advance of where it is now. Sigh. Are you equating the IBM PC with "state of the art". Even when the PC was new it was trailing edge tech. I haven't meet a person yet who will tell me they think the PC was a wonderful state of the art machine. It was old, open, and used off the shelf chips that you could buy at radio shack. As I understand it the BIOS was less than 15K of code. My Atari 800 has more BIOS code than that! The machine was so easy to understand that it couldn't have possibly been state of the art. Most of the clone manufactures made the PC better, witness Compaq. And as far as wasting resources. I feel that the general public has a right to buy what ever it feels like. And if the clone manufactures hadn't come along IBM would be milking the public for their PC's like you wouldn't believe. The clones are what what IBM the standard, before they came along no one could afford the IBM "personal" computer. I'd rather see someone buy old technology that get's the job done at a resonable price, than not have anything at all because they can't afford it. State of the art is always far in advance of where it is now. The problem is that companies rarely make it avaliable to the general public at price, and in a package that they can use. David M. O'Rourke +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ | dorourke@polyslo | Disclaimer: All opinions in this message are mine, but | | | if you like them they can be yours too. | | | Besides I'm just a student so what do I | | | know! | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | When you have to place a disclaimer in your mail you know it's a sign | | that there are TOO many Lawyer's. | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++