On May 1, 2010, at 5:35 AM, John Coyle wrote: > I started with computers in 1982, when the hot PC's were Commodore 64's and > Amiga's, with the TRS-80 the hobbyist machine.
You must have been half asleep, if you missed Apple //e. I was working in NY as a journalist, and anyone who could afford to spend more than a pittance worked with a //e and 128k of ram. As far back as 1978, the Apple // was a hot seller for serious users, as it was the machine that ran Visicalc. Apple actually had a substantial business market at the time but didn't pursuit it down the line. > The first business PC's I > used were the HP86A and then the HP desktop, complete with 128k of RAM (64k > built-in plus 64k plug-in module), and a 5.25in floppy for storage. Teamed > with a daisy-wheel printer and Lotus 1-2-3 v1a, I did project costs and > revenue forecasts which took 45 minutes to print out one page on A3 paper! > Next came an IBM PC, which was better specified and by then HDD's were > standard, but usually only 5-10MB in size. 1984, the Lisa came out and I > loved it - but: it cost, IIRC, $9000 when a PC from IBM with MS-DOS cost > only $5-6000, and by then I had supervised the installation of over 100 PC's > in the company I worked for. Given the then lack of commercial software > compared with MS-DOS machines, it was a no-brainer to stay with MS, and by > then too MS users had access to very capable programs for WP, spreadsheet > and database creation. Had Apple, when they moved on from the Lisa to the > Macintosh, not lost to the MS model in the commercial world, they might now > be dominating that market, but they would have had to be as open to > third-party developers as MS is (although that openness can be problematic, > as we all know). > > I stayed away from the early versions of Windows, not using it until 3.11, > which was relatively stable and usable: I'd concede it took a while to get > used to, not in using the mouse, but in working out how to do things I had > been used to doing from the command line. I will still use the command line > for some tasks, such as a multi-file selective move or copy, and for a fast > and efficient search using parameters with output to a file or printer, > which are near impossible to do in Windows (unless perhaps you write a > script, which probably takes more time than using the command line). > It's, I think, a matter of fact that commercial users went the PC way > because of IBM: for a long time it was said in IT that "you can't get fired > for buying IBM": the MS-DOS-based software suites such as Lotus and Symphony > were comprehensive and relatively easy to use, worked well, and could be > sourced from multiple retailers at competitive prices if they didn't come > pre-installed. Mac's made it in the print and graphics world mainly I think > because they undoubtedly had a good interface for that type of work, and > they were much faster in rendering graphics for a very long time. > > Nowadays, all of my clients use Windows in various versions, and Office in > versions from 97 onwards: backwards compatibility is much better than it > used to be, MS has learnt the lesson from Excel 3 to 4, when every macro had > to be re-written, an absolute nightmare which kept me away from Excel for > years (macros I wrote in 1982 for Lotus 1-2-3 still run in the latest > version I use, which is quite remarkable). > > I think it just has to be accepted that unless Microsoft and Windows will > dominate the commercial and home use markets for many years to come because > it's now much too hard for companies and people to make the change: the > costs in re-training and replacing hardware and legacy software would be > unacceptable. > > > John in Brisbane > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of > Brian Walters > Sent: Saturday, 1 May 2010 8:29 AM > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > Subject: Re: K-7 replacement? > > On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:49 -0500, "CheekyGeek" <cheekyg...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: >> >>> Apple is very good at making it easy to do the things that they think > you >>> should do. It can be very challenging however if you think differently. >> >> While this is a fairly obvious troll line, I must respectfully disagree. >> Anyone who lived through (and with) the popularization of computers >> among the masses must remember what it was like to learn DOS and to be >> fumbling through a manual to learn the cryptic command that one must >> type (without syntax errors) to accomplish ANYTHING before the >> Macintosh. In contrast, upon seeing the first Macintosh running in an >> Office supply store without knowing anything at all about it, one >> could walk up... grab the single button mouse (which I had never seen >> before) and it was immediately OBVIOUS what one would do with it. >> Click, select, drag. One could easily learn to use both applications >> MacWrite and MacPaint without ever cracking a book. It was a paradigm >> changer: a computer which worked virtually as you thought it should. >> >> Apple's Macintosh Interface Guidelines brought a certain sanity to the >> user. You didn't need to learn a different location for the menu >> command to open a file, or quit a program, or print. Or to close a >> window, etc. This made learning a new program so much easier as there >> were commonalities to the basic functions, for those programs that >> stuck to the Guidelines. By any objective standard Apple has made it's >> reputation on the opposite of what Larry says they have done: Making >> things that just work pretty much the way you think they should work. >> The fact that others have followed along and attempted to do some of >> the same things (i.e. Windows) and that such things are taken more for >> granted today, can still be seen in their more recent products such as >> the iPod. >> > > > All of that may well be true. In fact I'm happy to concede that it is > even though I've never used an Apple computer. > > What I do know is that way back when I was looking into getting a > computer (I'm talking pre Windows 3 here), the only thing I could afford > was one of the IBM 'clones'. Anything made by Apple was at least twice > the price. > > If Apple's pricing had been reasonable, maybe I'd be using the latest > and greatest Mac now. But it wasn't and I'm not. And, as far as I can > tell, nothing much has changed. > > > > Cheers > > Brian > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Brian Walters > Western Sydney Australia > http://members.westnet.com.au/brianwal/SL/ > -- > > > -- > http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and > love email again > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
