> ... Any complex software is going to be very difficult to port from a PC to a > MAC. ...
The first work I did as a software development engineer in the private sector (after NASA/JPL) was to design and implement a multi-platform development system which ran on Mac OS, Windows, OSF/Motif, HP/UX and OS/2 platforms. This was necessary because the products (chemical information management systems for research scientists) was too complex to do well with a 'port' and required the rare quality of both a PhD research chemist combined with a commercial grade software engineer to develop. Building a platform that ran on all platforms the same way, from the app development perspective, was the solution to delivering to a broad spectrum of OS users efficiently (and profitably). On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 6:39 AM, P. J. Alling <[email protected]> wrote: > Any complex software is going to be very difficult to port from a PC to a > MAC. Changes in PC software architecture make it difficult enough to > move from one platform to the next if Microsoft didn't maintain support for > older methods. Apple drops support and things stop working. often requiring > a total re-write, sometimes a re-design of core functionality. This is not > trivial, and you know for 10% of the market it's just not often worth it. > > > > On 8/27/2012 5:26 AM, Joseph McAllister wrote: >> >> On Aug 25, 2012, at 15:27 , Brian Walters wrote: >> >>> Quoting Bob Sullivan <[email protected]>: >>> >>>> Darren, >>>> Some of us still hold a grudge on Apple. >>>> We remember our first Apple PC's >>>> and how everything Apple cost 2X what the IBM machines cost, >>>> how nothing - printer, disc drives, monitors, memory had to be Apple >>>> or it wouldn't work! >>> >>> >>> >>> Thanks, Bob. I've also got a long memory. I was trying to frame a reply >>> along those lines and you've saved me the trouble :-)> >> >> Those of us who have used Pentax all our lives, for whatever reason, lens >> compatibility, rugged and innovative products, should know better. Apple >> would not be where they are today if they didn't provide compatibility with >> the hardware tools their customers wanted or needed to do their work. Even >> today though, with a pant-load of software capable of easily porting "PC" >> programs to "Macs", a large percentage of companies don't bother. They are >> running the same hardware, idiots. Port! I think it's because so many liked >> to fiddle as kids, so they went to the dark side and got PCs. So they could. >> Now that they are older, these kids are scared they can't learn anything >> new, so they shy away from Apple. While they were sneering at us, Apple >> stock sold for $13 a share. Whose sneering now? >> >> The first use I got out of my first Apple Product, a ][+, was writing CP/M >> code to make my Epson Printer listen to the Apple. Pretty simple really. >> About two lines of hex to tell the computer that is was attached to >> something other than a line printer. I learned Wozniac's method of writing >> data to floppy disks, and would repair friends disk with errors by printing >> out all the code on the disk, finding where the error was by following the >> sectors sequentially as they jumped around all over the directory, mapping >> it (tedious!) until I discovered what was missing, or garbled, and repairing >> it. When Apple computers (Mac) went to 48, then 64 bit processes, I gave up >> on that endeavor. >> >> When the Mac came out in 1984, it was shortly followed, thanks to Adobe >> selling Jobs the font technology used by Apple Laser Printers, which put >> tens of thousands of printers and font designers working at home. "Desktop >> Printing" became a buzzword in those years. That was the only time I can >> think of that for a year or two you had to buy an Apple printer to do the >> job. Soon HP and Brother came out with similar printers, which ALL cost too >> much because of the very high per unit prices Adobe charged Apple and the >> others to use ROMs running their patented font drawing software whose name I >> cannot think of now. >> >> That lasted for a while, then Apple addressed the costs by coming out with >> their own (or purchased) fonts design called TrueType that gave damn near >> the quality of Adobe's system. Apple gave those away, followed by most all >> fonts being converted into TrueType. This took the wind out of Adobe's >> profit column. They had saved enough money to buy Aldus and it's PageMaker >> layout program, which put me out of a job in the Aldus division that was >> troubleshooting PageMaker 4.0 against Microsoft Windows version 3.0, (which >> was really vers. 1.1 which indicated how far behind in the GUI movement they >> were, so they renamed it 3.0) that was taking forever to get out of Alpha. >> Alpha, Beta, back to Alpha kept a paycheck in my pocket. My team was kept >> busy by designing a little text editor for PageMaker while we waited on >> Gate's boys and girls to get their shit together. We called it Ted. We gave >> it rudimentary graphical capabilities which gave me a few more weeks as we >> built a series of graphics showing what it could do to be used in promotion. >> >> But I digress. Apple's concept practically from the start, especially when >> Jobs was at the helm, was to sell products that, even though complex and >> innovative in their design, made few demands on their users. "They just >> worked" "Plug and Play" etc. One paid a price for this, of course. In >> return, Apple Mac users never had to open their equipment or learn how it >> went together. Some did of course. I made many friends and grew a decent >> client list as an Apple Consultant after starting one of the first Apple >> clubs in Fredericksburg, VA in 1980, called the "Rappahanock Apple Group". >> Our newsletter, a dot matrix gem, was mastheaded "the RAG". I still have the >> plaque they gave me when I moved away to come to Seattle in 1988. >> >> When I was let go at Aldus/Adobe, I went into business as a consultant. >> Never got rich. Made a few bucks selling and installing telecommunications >> systems, hawking "First Class BBS" s/w out of Toronto for a few years in >> Seattle, turning the Downtown Business Users Groups (dBUG)'s single line BBS >> in 1989 into a 22 line BBS by 1994. Big thick cable of 2-pair dropped into >> my house, with room inside of it for 48 lines. Sadly the local switch could >> not handle any more connections. I was voted off the board of directors in >> 1995 because they did not believe the club needed to transition to a >> something called the Internet websight to serve the members. The politics >> and treachery of one of the board members did me in, as being a threat to >> the group by trying to run them into the ground financially. Funny butt. >> They went ahead and did exactly what I had proposed within six months. >> Pulled all those expensive 56k baud modems out of my house too. >> >> > > > -- > Don't lose heart, they might want to cut it out, and they'll want to avoid a > lengthly search. > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
