Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

[Charlie Gibbs]

Some gutless fuckwit desperately cowering behind
SG1 wrote just the puerile shit thats all it can ever manage.

You did it, SG1. You got him looping again.

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

Even then, the hassle involved in buying the mickey-D's burger and then
returning it would be enough to make most people not want to bother.

I really like this example.

Computer retailers -- even the good ones, if such are postulated to exist
-- resemble burger chains more than they like to let on: "You know, we
can supersize that MacBook to a MacBook Pro for you for just an
additional two-fifty..."

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Rod Speed]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote

You missed the point

Yeah, looks like it.

- until NT Windows wasn't an OS,

Thats a lie.

MSDOS was the OS and Windows was an addon.

Another lie.

 

[Jim Brown]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote

It's not free if you account for your time.

The word WHEN was included for a reason.

When the only way to buy a PC is to buy it with Windows installed (and
therefore paid for)> the cost of installing Windows is zero (no money, no time).

Thats wrong too when all of them have shit that many dont bother with
that has to either be removed or at least the offer to install is refused etc.

The cost of installing another OS is the cost of
obtaining it (download time plus blank media -

Not if you have it already as part of the process of deciding what you want on the laptop.

or purchase cost of installation media at a minimum) plus the
(moderately skilled) time it takes to install it. That's not zero.

Yes, but it can still be quite literally free, most obviously
with a personal laptop where your time has no dollar value.

And even when it does cost minimally because your time isnt free,
you STILL have a real choice. The fact that what you prefer isnt
what the bulk of the market prefers is irrelevant to the FACT that
you have a real choice.

Now this all changes if you get the PC without an
OS for less than the cost of the same PC with an OS

No it doesnt as far as what is being discussed is concerned, whether you have a REAL CHOICE or not.

or if there is a choice of pre-installed OS on the hardware
of your choice. Neither is common even now.

It does exist tho. The fact that it isnt common just shows
that what you prefer isnt what the bulk of the market prefers.

Doesnt alter the fact that you have always had a real choice and do in spades now.

No one with even half a clue ever said that its only a real choice when the prices of the alternatives are identical.

You have a real choice in the car you buy even tho the prices vary widely.

 

[Joe Thompson]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote

Thats a lie.


Another lie.

Were you even around in the pre-Win95 days? The way it worked was that
DOS would boot, then you'd start Windows (or AUTOEXEC.BAT would do it)
using the WIN command. Windows 3.x and its antecedents were really just
DOS shells with fancy APIs available, kinda like GNOME is not the same
as the underlying OS but adds its own APIs.

It wasn't until WinNT/Win95 that you could boot Windows directly as a
bare-metal OS. -- Joe

 

[Joe Thompson]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote

Not if you have it already as part of the process of deciding what you
want on the laptop.

Under this definition, a new car is free if I already bought one as part
of the process of starting a new job. -- Joe

 

[Jim Brown]

Joe Thompson wrote

Not when there is a product one cannot choose not to buy.

Its still a real choice. In spades when the alternative is quite literally free.

Not unless McDonald's gave me a refund for the unwanted
burger, so that my free burger was actually free.

Still a real choice. You have a real choice of car to buy even tho they arent
all identically priced and not all of them have all the dealers cosited etc.

 

[Rod Speed]

Charlie Gibbs wrote

[email protected] (Rod Speed) writes

Look up Seattle Computer Systems and QDOS,

Dont need to look it up, I posted a link to the detail of it.

a quick-and-dirty rewrite of CP/M for the 8086.

Like hell it was a quick and dirty rewrite. It JUST used a
common api approach to make porting of apps easy and
improved on CP/M in some areas like with the drive ops.

It was nothing like a copy of CP/M.

That's just as true when one of the clowns is Bill Gates.

You're so stupid you havent even noticed basic in rom. That is a
clear innovation from MS that did get used even by IBM themselves.

 

[Rod Speed]

Charlie Gibbs wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Show us the source code.

Never said a word about the code, what ended up in the *nix GUIs was the UI look and feel, stupid.

Oh wait, you argued the opposite over MS-DOS's CP/M heritage...

Everyone can see for themselves that you are lying.

 

[Jim Brown]

Charlie Gibbs wrote

Nor is it a choice in environments where other people
are sending you files in proprietary Microsoft formats.

You can obviously use something that can handle those.

There's a lot more to choice than mere availability.

Using that utterly mindless line, there never is any real choice anywhere.

And that is quite obviously mindlessly silly.

 

[Stan Barr]

Were you even around in the pre-Win95 days? The way it worked was that
DOS would boot, then you'd start Windows (or AUTOEXEC.BAT would do it)
using the WIN command. Windows 3.x and its antecedents were really just
DOS shells with fancy APIs available, kinda like GNOME is not the same
as the underlying OS but adds its own APIs.

It wasn't until WinNT/Win95 that you could boot Windows directly as a
bare-metal OS. -- Joe

Indeed. And I remember thinking when W95 came out (late!) how much
Microsoft had "borrowed" from MacOS, AmigaOS, Next and the *nix window
managers.

 

[Jim Brown]

Joe Thompson wrote

Under this definition, a new car is free if I already
bought one as part of the process of starting a new job.

Nope, I was talking about the situation where you have
already used the OS you prefer on your desktop etc
and decide you want to have that on the new laptop too.

 

[Rod Speed]

Joe Thompson wrote

Were you even around in the pre-Win95 days?

Yep, in fact long before even the DOS days too, with DEC minis.

And was even involved in developing an OS for the PDP9 that you likely havent even heard of.

The way it worked was that DOS would boot, then you'd start Windows
(or AUTOEXEC.BAT would do it) using the WIN command.

Doesnt mean that Win was just an addon for DOS, that was just how it was started.

Windows 3.x and its antecedents were really
just DOS shells with fancy APIs available,

That is just plain wrong. Disk ops were nothing like that.

kinda like GNOME is not the same as the underlying OS but adds its own APIs.

Nothing like in fact.

It wasn't until WinNT/Win95 that you could boot Windows directly as a bare-metal OS.

That was just how Win was booted, it didnt actually use much at all of DOS once booted.

Nothing like Gnome which still uses the *nix kernal for everything that matters OS wise.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Were you even around in the pre-Win95 days? The way it worked was that
DOS would boot, then you'd start Windows (or AUTOEXEC.BAT would do it)
using the WIN command. Windows 3.x and its antecedents were really just
DOS shells with fancy APIs available, kinda like GNOME is not the same
as the underlying OS but adds its own APIs.

It wasn't until WinNT/Win95 that you could boot Windows directly as a
bare-metal OS. -- Joe

I don't think you could with W95 (nor 98 nor ME) -- those were still the
old code base. They may have done a better job of hiding DOS under it.

 

[Rod Speed]

Joe Pfeiffer wrote

I don't think you could with W95 (nor 98 nor ME) -- those were still the old code base.

No they werent. Particularly when they installed device drivers for
all the hardware and even rescanned for drives visible, and didnt
use the bios or dos functionality at all, even for the keyboard etc.

They may have done a better job of hiding DOS under it.

They didnt hide DOS, it was only used during the boot phase and in the DOS box.

 

[SG1]

You did it, SG1. You got him looping again.

No hard when he is loopie???

 

[Jim Brown]

Scott Lurndal wrote

Why should I pay microsoft for something I've no intention of ever using?

Because few bother to cater for those of you that prefer a different OS.

You might as well whine about having to pay for heated seats when
you want to use a car in a place like Hawaii that never needs them.

Or child restraint anchor points in your new car when
you dont have any kids and never have kids in your car.

 

[T.T.]

Why should I pay microsoft for something I've no intention of ever
using?

Because it's there.

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

Charlie Gibbs wrote


You can obviously use something that can handle those.


Using that utterly mindless line, there never is any real choice
anywhere.

And that is quite obviously mindlessly silly.

"The secret word is 'mindless'." Thank you, Groucho.

Wow - flamed by both of his personalities in the same day.
I've made it (whatever "it" is).

 

[Jim Brown]

Jim Brown wrote

Scott Lurndal wrote

And you dont have to anyway, you can buy one of the chinese laptops that doesnt
pay a cent to microsoft for anything if you dont want microsoft to get a cent of yours.

Because few bother to cater for those of you that prefer a different OS.