[PLUG] RE: Steve Duin's column of 5/21/02

Ed Sawicki ed at alcpress.com
Thu May 30 17:14:30 UTC 2002


On Thu, 2002-05-30 at 07:22, Michael H.Collins wrote:
> On Thu, 30 May 2002 00:48:46 -0700
> "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm at toybox.placo.com> spewed into the bitstream:
> 
> ~One upon a time Microsoft software WAS right.  The PC revolution would
> ~never have gotten off the ground if it wern't for it.

Pulleeze. What a load of crap. This might work on the BSD list but
it takes courage to try to peddle it here. Some of here were already
grownups in the early 80s and we lived it first hand. The revolution
was well under way. If it wasn't Microsoft it would have been
someone else. We had IBM, Digital Research, the UCSD folks, and on
and on. 

> I cannot get over how many people have bought this BS.  Microsoft/Intel
> has stifled computing for almost 20 years.
> 
> In 83 I had a complete computer in a keyboard.  Vic-20  The form factors
> would have gotten so small by now if not for Wintel computing would be
> totally pervasive.  We would not even be talking about this.  We would
> be way beyond it.

Absolutely. The Microsoft and Intel monopolies have killed off
technologies that would have put us so much further ahead.
Microsoft and Intel didn't lead the revolution. They shackled it.

Remember 100VG AnyLAN? Better in every important way than Fast Ethernet.
Intel killed it. Of course, HP's lackluster marketing didn't help.

The Motorola processors were _so much_ better in the 1980s than the
Intel CPU with its silly segmented memory architecture. It took
Intel about 10 years to catch up. I recall a line from that era: "There
are two kinds of programmers: those that hate segmented memory
architecture and liars."

PC architecture is >20 years old and it shows. Anyone who has to
deal with the limitations of the Master Boot Record knows this.
This antique architecture is only kept alive by marketplace
enthusiasm created by the current monopoly.

We could have been George Jetson by now by Microsoft keeps us closer
to Fred Flintstone.

Ed






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