Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?

[Bob Masta]

What I find most interesting is that November 8 is still over a week
in the future.

Dang! THAT'S why the air was all swirly and sparkly when I
opened the cover... stuck in the TIme Warp!

Seriously, in case you haven't been paying attention for
the last several decades, magazines do this so that the
ones sold off the newsstand appear to be current, and
thus easier to sell, well past the actual printing date.
Not too interesting any more!


Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Home of DaqGen, the FREEWARE signal generator

 

[Jeff]

This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on which company you
hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to be stating facts and then
coloring them to suit your own arguements. I personally dont care who
screwed who in the origins of the OS world, I only wish that there was some
form of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause some
real inovation, choice and fair pricing.

 

[Mxsmanic]

... I only wish that there was some
form of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause some
real inovation, choice and fair pricing.

Well, write some applications for operating systems other than
Microsoft, and help the cause.

Remember, Microsoft is really only dominant for operating systems and
its Office suite of products. In other domains, someone else is
dominant. Office and operating systems won't keep Microsoft is
business forever.

 

[clifto]

In fact, the 'Windows' GUI was originally developed as a means to run
Microsoft's 'Apple' business software, like Word, on PC clones and that is
not a trivial distinction. While IBM was trying to sell an 'O.S.', because
you 'have to' in order to sell hardware, Microsoft was selling Word (and
the rest), which happened to run on Windows.

Microsoft Word existed and was sold long before Windows 1.0 was on the
market.

 

[[email protected]]

You mean hardly useful!

Imagine life without an ATM, or online access to banking? Without OS/2,
those things would only now be coming of age. Better yet, imagine an
ATM running Win95? they are crashing all over the place now that banks
are upgrading to M$. That never happened before, and it will only get
worse. The kiosks for printing digital pics in K-Mart, etc are littered
with blue screens, and even some sit stupidly with the start menu
desktop Its pathetic, but that is what American wants, so that is
what America gets.

And IBM dropped support a few months before they
were saying they would never drop OS/2 support. IBM has never done
anything except lie to me over and over again.

Hmmmm. IBM still has not fully dropped support for OS/2. After all, it
is ten years old, soon to be obsolete, yes, but go and ask M$ for
support on Win2000, and then ask yourself why you get upset when IBM
turns off OS/2.

I did a search through OS/2 files for the Microsoft copyright in Warp a
few years ago. And Warp was littered everywhere with Microsoft's code
throughout OS/2.

Again, the lack of knowledge by the newbie generation that thinks M$
invented computers....... M$ BOUGHT the rights to those portions of the
code, or took them with them when they left IBM, just as they have
BOUGHT everything else that makes up their products. Someone name one
decent piece of software that M$ CREATED from scratch. How about Bob?
Michael Jackson owns almost all the Beatles music, but you don't go
around saying he wrote them all, do you?

For those who were not even alive at the time, a lot happened between
IBM and billy bob that explains all these things.

The war is over, but M$ didn't win with superior technology. The fact
that there are more Fords on the American roads, than BMWs, is not a
statement that Ford is a superior product. Its a commentary on cheap,
and public relations, which is okay, so don't get torqued about it.
People want Fords, so they get Fords, but that doesn't make them
technically superior to a BMW or other high end, quality car.

People wanted M$ windows, so they got it. Its okay, there are no hard
feelings, but the number of sales does not equate the quality of the
product in any area of business. Ask Walmart about that.

www.ecomstation.com

Those who couldn't figure out how to use OS/2 because is was "too hard"
simply turned to an OS that does their thinking for them, and they got
what they deserved. That's fine. Nothing to get one's panties in a
bunch over. Most things worth using or having require the owner to be
above average in intelligence anyway.

Its really okay. Windows sucks. It always has. It always will. Not a
big deal, but those who do not know history ought to study it, and
learn it, rather than just rewriting it to fit their agenda.

 

[BillW50]

Hmm, i hope that last female remark wasn't intended to
be directed this way? because the last time i looked i
wasn't missing anything from my manly hood!
and to pic a little at OS/2, the only thing it did well
was operate the floppy drives while writing data to them
with out generating random sectors now and then that has
blank data in the stream.
for what ever reason, i still see this taking place in
windows. still need to use the CMD line version with a
write /V to make sure it goes there.
even linux doesn't have this problem on top of it
writing a floppy disc many times faster.

Hi Jamie... no that female remark was directed to my current and
past female relationships. None of them named Jamie, btw. <grin>

And yes, OS/2 as well as the non-GUI side of it was quite good.
Although I guess Microsoft had written that part of it.


__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

 

[BillW50]

This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on
which company you hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to
be stating facts and then coloring them to suit your own
arguements. I personally dont care who screwed who in the
origins of the OS world, I only wish that there was some form
of real competition for MS and their huge market share to cause
some real inovation, choice and fair pricing.

What do you mean Jeff? There are tons of choices out there. Like
Mac, BeOS, UNIX, Linux, XWindows, FreeDOS, GEOS, GEM, OS/2, DEC,
etc. How many more choices would you like?

__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

 

[David Maynard]

Microsoft Word existed and was sold long before Windows 1.0 was on the
market.

Yes, but as a DOS application, which limited it's functionality, and it
didn't sell well. Wordperfect was the most common DOS word processor at
that time.

On the MAC, however, Word was selling like hot cakes because of the WYSIWYG
editor (plus cut/paste, data transport, et al) made possible by Apple's GUI
and to get the same functionality on a 'PC' one needed similar GUI
capabilities, I.E. 'Windows'.

WordPerfect was doomed by their failure to make a windowing version and, as
a result, MS Word became the defacto standard on both the MAC and 'PC'.

But the point remains that 'Windows' was developed to sell their business
apps. And it (eventually) succeeded in doing so.

 

[David Maynard]

This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on which company you
hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to be stating facts and then
coloring them to suit your own arguements.

My point is precisely the opposite. That it isn't a matter of 'who you hate
more' but rather a matter of different visions of the market and different
business strategies, not to mention different 'businesses'. Microsoft
wasn't in the 'hardware' business and IBM was into software primarily to
sell hardware, or 'systems'.

Not really surprising since it was the same thing IBM had done for decades
with what they might have called, by comparison, 'a real computer' and
selling (proprietary) 'hardware' was big business prior to the PC. You'd
buy "an IBM <insert model>" or "a Burroughs <insert model>" or a DEC
PDP<insert number>" and they each had their own proprietary operating
systems, which they'd really rather not have to mess with but you need one
to sell 'the computer'. So who gives a tinker's dam if you let an O.S.
developer 'sell to others'? It runs on 'an IBM', and a specific model at
that, so they have to buy 'an IBM', which is what they wanted to sell anyway.

Microsoft had the vision of running the same software on anyone's 'PC
clone' and while it may seem obvious today it was anything but obvious in
1980 as the 'home computer' world was a hodge podge of individual hardware
types each running their own O.S. (of a sorts) just like the mainframe
world was. Commodore stuff didn't run on an Apple and Apple stuff didn't
run on an Atari, and Atari stuff didn't run on a CPM machine (CPM being the
closest to a 'multiple hardware supplier' O.S.). Point being that
'retaining the rights' to sell Atari DOS on non-Atari computers would have
gotten you exactly nothing as it didn't run on anything else and nobody but
Atari made Atari computers.

IBM was right in that their 'PC', by virtue of the IBM name and reputation
(who knows about Atari but IBM is here to stay), put just about every other
'home computer' type out of business but, somehow, they missed the fact
that their 'PC', the design for which they had purchased anyway, wasn't
proprietary. It was freely copyable, and copied it was, so you didn't 'have
to' buy 'an IBM' to get a 'PC'. IBM later tried to 'fix' that mistake with
the proprietary PS/2 MCA bus but it was too late. They were hoisted on
their own petard of an 'IBM (clone) Standard' and roasted alive for trying
to close it.

Nobody held a gun to either Microsoft or IBM's head nor was Microsoft
anything 'special' at the time. They weren't an 'industry leader' in
anything nor did they have some 'special' wonder DOS, or even a proven one,
to hold over IBM's head in order to 'force' a deal. IBM simply figured they
had a steal at only $80,000 for a DOS to sell 'PCs' with, just like buying
the hardware design had been a cheap, quick and dirty, way to get into the
questionable 'home computer' market.

Microsoft made very little on the deal gambling, instead, on future sales
of software to a then nonexistent clone market where they could have ended
up with the equivalent of a 'right to sell to others' an Atari DOS that
only runs on Ataris made by Atari.

It's simply a matter that Microsoft had the vision to see it (what's to
loose when you have nothing?) and IBM didn't.

 

[David Maynard]

David Maynard writes:




A wise decision. Build an essential component, then encourage the
market to do the rest. If Apple had adopted the same philosophy,
there might be 50% Macs and 50% PCs today, instead of 4% Macs and 96%
PCs.

Never could have happened. Apple is too obsessed with everything being
'their way' to live with someone else's perceived design flaws.

Yes. A simple difference but one that earns billions.

What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a handful of
boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation', no history of
development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else in the field, somehow
'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old IBM.

What in the world do these folks think MS used to 'force' IBM into the deal?

 

[Mxsmanic]

Never could have happened. Apple is too obsessed with everything being
'their way' to live with someone else's perceived design flaws.

That is my impression, also. Worse yet, the "Apple way" isn't
necessarily the best way from a technical standpoint--it's just
Apple's way. If everything they did was unquestionably superior to
everyone else's way of doing things, they might have something, but
that's not the case. And even if it were, most people don't care much
about computers, and given a choice between a $500 machine that gets
the job done and a $1500 machine that is "technically superior,"
they'll buy the $500 machine.

What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a handful of
boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation', no history of
development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else in the field, somehow
'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old IBM.

Most of the peole saying this can't remember anything earlier than
about 1992 or so. At the time that Microsoft was dealing with IBM, of
course, _Microsoft_ was the underdog, and IBM was the Great Satan. In
those days, it was fashionable for angry young men to hate IBM and
root for Microsoft.

What in the world do these folks think MS used to 'force' IBM
into the deal?

The dominant market player is always seen as the bad guy, even with
respect to history; people forget that dominant market players change
regularly.

 

[Mxsmanic]

Imagine life without an ATM, or online access to banking? Without OS/2,
those things would only now be coming of age.

There are a lot of operating systems that could be used for ATMs, not
just OS/2. Windows NT Workstation was/is popular for ATMs. I don't
know what they favor today.

Better yet, imagine an ATM running Win95? they are crashing
all over the place now that banks are upgrading to M$.

ATMs don't run Windows 95. They started switching from OS/2 to
Windows NT Workstation ages ago, and I don't know what they are
running most often today, but it's not Windows 95.

Besides, in a dedicated system, crashes are rare. You only need to
run one application, all day long, and it's not that hard to get it to
run without ever crashing.

That never happened before, and it will only get worse.

I've never seen an ATM crash. Nor have I ever heard of ATMs running
Windows 95. And there is certainly no one migrating to Windows 95
_now_--it's a dead operating system.

Again, the lack of knowledge by the newbie generation that thinks M$
invented computers....... M$ BOUGHT the rights to those portions of the
code, or took them with them when they left IBM, just as they have
BOUGHT everything else that makes up their products. Someone name one
decent piece of software that M$ CREATED from scratch. How about Bob?

How about Windows NT?

For those who were not even alive at the time, a lot happened between
IBM and billy bob that explains all these things.

For those who were not even alive at the time, Microsoft was a couple
of guys practically working out of a garage in those days, and people
like you were saying exactly the same things about IBM that you are
saying today about Microsoft.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

The war is over, but M$ didn't win with superior technology.

Microsoft won by being smarter than IBM. They certainly didn't do it
with money or influence or power, since they had none of these back
then.

People wanted M$ windows, so they got it. Its okay, there are no hard
feelings, but the number of sales does not equate the quality of the
product in any area of business. Ask Walmart about that.

Nobody cares.

Those who couldn't figure out how to use OS/2 because is was "too hard"
simply turned to an OS that does their thinking for them, and they got
what they deserved. That's fine. Nothing to get one's panties in a
bunch over.

It seems to really upset you.

Most things worth using or having require the owner to be
above average in intelligence anyway.

That's debatable.

Its really okay. Windows sucks. It always has. It always will. Not a
big deal, but those who do not know history ought to study it, and
learn it, rather than just rewriting it to fit their agenda.

I was actually there, so I don't have to study it, and Microsoft was
not big and bad back then. IBM was the usual target of the angry
young males, followed by Apple. To some extent it depended on which
company had rejected their résumés first.

 

[James Sweet]

What do you mean Jeff? There are tons of choices out there. Like
Mac, BeOS, UNIX, Linux, XWindows, FreeDOS, GEOS, GEM, OS/2, DEC,
etc. How many more choices would you like?

In all fairness, BeOS is dead, XWindows is not an operating system but a
GUI used mostly in *nix environments, GEOS, GEM and OS/2 are
effectively dead, DEC had a flavor of Unix but I'm not sure whether that
exists anymore. In current OS's, there's Windows, MacOS (FreeBSD Unix
based) and all the various incarnations of Linux but that's about it for
the consumer desktop as far as I know.

I still use Win2K on most of my machines, though I did put a recent
version of Ubuntu Linux on one of my laptops to play with and I was
shocked at how far it's come in the last few years. It still has a few
rough edges but it's shaping up to be a very usable operating system and
definitly something I'm interested in seeing after a couple more years
of polish. If someone can come up with a solid unified configuration
panel, settle on a standard sound driver interface and get the Windows
emulator rock solid so it supports everything MS might have some real
competition. Of course I don't really see it as a fight anyway, nothing
is forcing me to use any operating system in particular, so I just use
those which are most appropriate for what I'm doing with each particular
computer I'm doing it on. Usually the choice comes down to what
applications I need to run and what specific hardware is best supported.

 

[Mxsmanic]

In all fairness, BeOS is dead, XWindows is not an operating system but a
GUI used mostly in *nix environments, GEOS, GEM and OS/2 are
effectively dead, DEC had a flavor of Unix but I'm not sure whether that
exists anymore. In current OS's, there's Windows, MacOS (FreeBSD Unix
based) and all the various incarnations of Linux but that's about it for
the consumer desktop as far as I know.

And in most cases, Windows is the only practical choice. However,
this has nothing to do with any machiavellian manipulations on the
part of Microsoft, and everything to do with the overwhelming majority
of applications that run only on Windows.

 

[David Maynard]

David Maynard writes:




That is my impression, also. Worse yet, the "Apple way" isn't
necessarily the best way from a technical standpoint--it's just
Apple's way. If everything they did was unquestionably superior to
everyone else's way of doing things, they might have something, but
that's not the case.

I doubt they would agree with you on that

And even if it were, most people don't care much
about computers, and given a choice between a $500 machine that gets
the job done and a $1500 machine that is "technically superior,"
they'll buy the $500 machine.

Bingo. And it's the difference between an engineering 'purist' and a
pragmatist.

Most of the peole saying this can't remember anything earlier than
about 1992 or so. At the time that Microsoft was dealing with IBM, of
course, _Microsoft_ was the underdog, and IBM was the Great Satan. In
those days, it was fashionable for angry young men to hate IBM and
root for Microsoft.

True. And IBM did plenty to earn the wrath.

Do you remember their MCA bus licensing plan for clone makers? You not only
had to pay a license for every machine sold using it (fair enough) but you
were required to retro pay a license fee for every clone you had already
made since the PC came out.

They out licensed themselves because with a plan that ridiculous no one
took it so MCA was shut out instead of the other way around.

The dominant market player is always seen as the bad guy, even with
respect to history; people forget that dominant market players change
regularly.

Yeah. I guess they don't know that back then Microsoft was about as
'dominant' a player as a fruit fly taking on a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

 

[Mxsmanic]

I doubt they would agree with you on that

That's why they still have barely 5% of the market. They had a huge
head start and they blew it.

True. And IBM did plenty to earn the wrath.

Most dominant market players eventually become partially corrupt,
mainly because people join the company who are greedier, more
ambitious, and less ethical as it grows larger. Eventually the
kind-hearted engineers are overruled by the marketroids and
salespeople, and the revolving door of upper management.

Do you remember their MCA bus licensing plan for clone makers?

All I recall of the MCA bus was that it went nowhere.

You not only
had to pay a license for every machine sold using it (fair enough) but you
were required to retro pay a license fee for every clone you had already
made since the PC came out.

They out licensed themselves because with a plan that ridiculous no one
took it so MCA was shut out instead of the other way around.

They made a mistake that is often one of the first symptoms of a
company in decline: they depended too much on their brand, and not
enough on their products. Major market players eventually get lazy
and greedy and think that just stamping their well-established brand
on garbage or overpriced goods will make them sell. It often works
for a short time, but then people wise up, and the game is over. This
often happens after the best engineers have left or have been pushed
aside by the marketroids and salesmen and MBAs. You can see it
happening right now at Hewlett-Packard. The leading edge of the
phenomenon has started to appear at Microsoft.

 

[John Doe]

....

What I find fascinating is the espoused notion that Microsoft, a
handful of boys with absolutely nothing, no 'business reputation',
no history of development, no demonstrated DOS, and nothing else
in the field, somehow 'took advantage' of and 'screwed' poor old
IBM. What in the world do these folks think MS used to 'force' IBM
into the deal?

Maybe your recollection is about the company Microsoft bought DOS
from. As far as I know, the major problem IBM had with Microsoft was
when Microsoft prohibited IBM from including IBM's own Lotus
SmartSuite on IBM's computers. Microsoft used Windows to force IBM's
compliance.

 

[John Doe]

Jeff writes:

Well, write some applications for operating systems other than
Microsoft, and help the cause.

Companies don't work that way.

Programmers are locked into Windows because it's the only operating
system that sells. Consumers buy Windows because programmers write
for it. It's called a "positive feedback loop" that keeps Windows
the desktop operating system monopoly.

Remember, Microsoft is really only dominant for operating systems
and its Office suite of products.

Which is the lion's share of desktop computer software publishing.

In other domains, someone else is dominant.

Other domains?

Office and operating systems won't keep Microsoft is
business forever.

It will keep Microsoft in the desktop computer software publishing
business forever.

 

[Jasen Betts]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.basics.]

I hadn't heard of this before. Can you explain how it worked?
I had the impression that the DOS application took over and
Windows apps didn't get any time at all. If there were time
slices for Windows apps, do you recall how they did this?

you needed a '386 (or better) and atleast 2megs of ram.

then you could run windows in "386 enhanced" mode and when you did that
you could multitask dos apps like FS4 and Telix if you selected the right
options in the Pif files.

Bye.
Jasen

 

[John Doe]

This is begining to sound like an arguement based soley on which
company you hate more, IBM or Microsoft. You each seem to be
stating facts and then coloring them to suit your own arguements.
I personally dont care who screwed who in the origins of the OS
world, I only wish that there was some form of real competition
for MS and their huge market share to cause some real inovation,
choice and fair pricing.

Prohibiting Microsoft from writing applications or favoring one
software publisher over another probably would level the software
playing field. I'm not sure that multiple operating systems would be
a good idea. Maybe forcing Microsoft to open Windows source code
could be fashioned in some way to spur innovation. How to handle the
operating system maker is a good question.