Re: Spoilered for talk of religion

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Rowland McDonnell" <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Rowland McDonnell" <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Rowland McDonnell" <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Rowland McDonnell" <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[snip]

Blimey! Who do they nick (oops, sorry, I mean use) their ideas from?

Everyone and anyone.

Microsoft couldn't write an operating system, so they bought the rights
to QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) which was a straight rip-off
clone of the CP/M, but designed to run on the newer Intel 8086 16 bit
CPUs rather than the 8 bit Z-80 CPU that CP/M was written for.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS#History>

(Back in the 1970s, dinosaurs stalked the Earth and PCs were small and
silly 8 bit machines that were mostly hopelessly outclassed by later
things like the BBC Micro (also 8 bit). But you still needed an
operating system to run 'em, and what they had back in the 1970s was a
thing called CP/M, written by Digital Research (long dead computer
firm). It was a bit like MS-DOS in that it was `the standard OS such as
there was one for ordinary PCs' - although as with MS-DOS, you had to
have the right sort of PC for it to run and if you weren't running CP/M,
you probably had a more capable computer (but one that had less software
available for it). CP/M was even more like MS-DOS in that - well, if
you knew CP/M commands, you could use MS-DOS 'cos MS-DOS was a rip-off
of the CP/M, at one remove)

Anyway, Quick and Dirty OS became MS-DOS - originally written by one man
outside Microsoft, and he nicked the architecture in any case. The
first IBM PC used the sawn-off 8085 CPU varient of the already pretty
poor 8086.

Apple came out with the Mac (using a modern CPU rather than the backward
looking 8086), so Microsoft copied the look and feel of the UI to give
us Windoze 3 (Windoze 1 was comically bad; Windoze 2 was at least
minimally functional. I've used Windoze 2 - only once, years and years
ago). Macs had the first proper mouse, so Microsoft had to have one too
(the first really properly working mouse was designed for Apple - but
not *by* Apple; they contracted the job out).

After MS had messed around with MS-Windoze, which is mostly some pretty
graphical stuff and some new function calls sat on top of MS-DOS
(remember that MS-DOS is really `quick and dirty OS' so of course it
never worked right), MS found it really needed a proper operating system
and still couldn't write one, so MS hired engineers from DEC (who could)
to write Windoze NT, which is based on DEC architectural ideas and is
the basis of Windoze Vista (and Windoze 2000, Me, and XP).

Microsoft Excel was Microsoft's rather late entry into the spread***
market - which began with Visicalc on the Apple ][ back in the 1970s,
and continued with Lotus 1-2-3 in the 1980s. They even copied the Lotus
1-2-3 input conventions.

No innovation: it's all copying the ideas of other people, or buying
them in, or buying them up, and then stifling innovation and development
while adding unreliablity, reducing ease of use, and worsening security.

I have loathed Microsoft's software since I first met it, in about 1982
- for those who are paying attention, that should prove I'm no Mac
zealot 'cos Macs didn't exist back then.


Riiiight! And in English that all means...? :o)

Microsoft doesn't innovate, doesn't create anything new, just grabs
obsolete ideas, forces them down everyone's throat, kills the
competition, and the end result is that those in thrall to Bill's Evil
Empire get to use crappy software that's not fit for purpose and is in
any case two decades out of date.

Or something like that.

Look, you've heard of MS-DOS? It's the name of the old pre-Windoze
operating system for IBM-type PCs. The operating system is the `big
program that runs your computer and lets things like MS Word run and
stuff'.

Right - well, MS-DOS is little more than a re-naming of something called
`Quick and Dirty OS', which was itself a rip-off of something from the
1970s. The 1970s - don't forget that. And this `Quick and dirty'
rip-off of a 1970s operating system is what ran the world's PCs up until
1995 when Win 95 came out ('cos Windoze 3 is just a layer on top of
MS-DOS).

Look, MS-DOS: what `everyone' was using from 1981-1990. It was based
on CP/M - which was showing its age come 1980. Microsoft takes out
of date ideas and then messes them up. My loathing for Microsoft has
done nothing but increase over the years because they've held back PC
software by about twenty years if you ask me. Modern versions of MS
Word are harder to use than the version they sold two decades back -
is that progress? Most people don't use anything on modern MS Word
that wasn't in MS Word 5.1a back in the late 1980s (IIRC), for
heaven's sake!

I don't use anything on Word 2007 that I didn't use in the 90s and even
back
then I didn't use everything!

Of course not - no-one can use everything in any case. I've tried to
use MS Word's features properly, sitting down with the manual to try to
figure it out, and you know what? I couldn't. The documentation's
rotten, as is the user interface and the way it works at bottom is
rubbish too. I really detest MS Word. I couldn't create a decent
table, couldn't figure out how to use `styles' in a sane and controlled
fashion, and so on. And the grammar checker is an abomination.


I know how to create tables in it I think... hold on... yep, I know how to
make tables and they've added bits to it in the 2007 version to make them
look good too :o)

And it's still nearly impossible to create a half-decent table using MS
Word, I'm afraid. Oh, I can make a table using MS Word (or I could,
anyway, been over a decade since I last did it), but I found it
impossible to get the table to look half decent. And I've never ever
seen a table produced with MS Word that *did* look half decent.

[snip LaTeXery]

You're getting beyond me now... sorry!

Umm. That was sort of the point. It's /not/ beyond you as it happens,
but to have a clue what the above chunk of code is about would take you
about a week's worth of study and then several weeks applying what you'd
learnt on a daily basis (but not necessarily all the time). Can you be
bothered to do all that? If you say `yes', please telephone your
psychiatrist in the morning.

And before anyone starts: I loathe Microsoft not because I have Macs
in the house; it's the case that I bought a Mac because I loathe
Microsoft. Anything to avoid MS, that's what I say.

The only reason I'm sticking with Microsoft is that I don't know how to
use anything else!

But that's only because you learnt to use the Microsoft stuff you've
got, and you found it quite hard. Microsoft's got you trapped. It's
part of its ploy: make it hard to learn to use its software, so you
think that it's like that with everything, so you don't want to change
once you've got the hang of all that `standard stuff'.

This is a new machine so I won't be looking for a new one for a while, but
when I do, what is the easiest to learn for a dumbo like me?

<shrug> *I* think that there's nothing available in the mass market
with widespread support that's as easy to pick up as Macs - but there's
not a huge amount of difference these days in the `ease of picking up
how to use application software' across platforms. And current Macs can
run Windoze as well as the MacOS, so you get both worlds - there's no
downside to getting a Mac any more at all. <cough> Assuming that the
quality management in manufacturing is working properly, that is. Back
in the days when everyone complained that Macs were overpriced, for most
of the time they weren't - you paid an honest price for what you got,
which was very high quality parts that lasted nearly for ever in most
cases. These days, Macs cost the same as anything else (if not less) -
and it shows...

Note: I first met a Mac in 1990 and had been using PCs since the 1970s -
well before the IBM PC was invented. Up until then, I'd used all sorts
and was /deeply/ unhappy with the ubiquitous MS-DOS and the incoming MS
Windoze 3. What I liked about Macs is that they worked the way I did,
and also I could get 'em to do what I wanted, which I'd rarely managed
with bloody MS-DOS/Windoze machines. ARGH!!! You have no idea how awful
they used to be, no idea at all. They're still pretty rotten, but most
of the really really /really/ bad design decisions have been thrown away
by now.

The big differences these days are that you get less trouble with Macs
and it's easier to deal with if you do get it; also, it's generally
easier to do more and produce higher quality output if you're using Mac
software, when compared to MS stuff. There is, for example, no real
comparison between a PowerPoint presentation and one produced using
Apple's equivalent: the Mac app is just so much more professional in
results. Basically, MS stuff is clunky and amateurish, while Mac stuff
is pretty flash on the whole.

To give you an example about fixing the things: Sarah had some trouble
with her MacBook Pro. It was slow to boot, sluggish, and was being a
bit flaky. So what I did was applied standard Macintosh voodoo: I told
the two `fix me' applications to do their thing (completely automated;
you just have to know that the jobs are waiting to be done and have
downloaded one bit of freeware; Apple provides Disk Utility which does
what you might think, and the freeware's MainMenu). Having noticed a
bit of apparently dodgy software that Sarah had installed, I took the
trouble to remove it. That's generally very easy on a Mac - just drag
and drop the application file to the trash and that's it - but this one
was a download manager and had its fingers dug in all over the place.
But I searched for files containing the app's name (Maclife is easy that
way), and ended up diving into the `Input Managers' folder and removed
'em - which was the only bit that counted as `special knowledge' (why?
Oh, don't ask, just don't). After that, it worked perfectly.

So: most of it was utterly routine, and only one little corner (which
might not have been needed to sort it out) took a bit of `expert
experience', if you see what I mean. I've no idea what was wrong with
the thing, mind - but it took about half an hour to fix, mostly waiting
for the machine to finish fixing itself.

Linux is worse, mind. But I bet you'd be able to learn to use all sorts
of other software if you installed it and took a look. Personally, I
reckon everyone with a home PC should get rid of MS Windoze and `just
use something else'. I wouldn't want everyone to get a Mac, 'cos that
way Apple would just turn into the New Microsoft and we'd all be screwed
a different way in future.

So no to Micro$oft, Linux and Mac... what's left!?!?!?!?

Nothing, so I took the least evil path and we're all Mac here. Oh,
there are other platforms around - but they don't have a lot of
widespread support and it wouldn't make sense for anyone but an
enthusiast to use 'em.

[snip]

It's just Microsoft idiocy - their software makes life awkward
for everyone, and it's best to use something else. Anything
else, really. I can't offer any suggestions on what'd be `good
for you', 'cos I've not a clue about current software for
anything but Macs (and, to a lesser extent, other Unixes).

If I knew how to use anything else, I would :o)

[snip]

Well, as with any software, the first step is to get something
installed and then you learn how to use it. Newsreaders are
generally pretty easy to learn to use. I don't have any
suggestion on what'd be good for you on account of having a
Windoze-free household, I'm afraid.

I used to use Xnews (or however you write it) so when Steve gets home
I'll ask him to help me download and install it :o)

<chuckle> I could install the Mac version of it here in case you need
advice.

Hopefully when I see it, using it will come back to me :o)

Whiskers told you of a useful newsgroup if you have any questions. He's
probably right that it's the place to ask.

Groovy! I'll see if I remember how to use it then head to the newsgroup if
I have any problems :o)

[snip]

Don't forget that you might not like it and if not, there are others to
try. But it's also worth trying it out for a week or two even if you
don't like it at first - that can be caused by unfamiliarity, and it
might grow on you with use.

Rowland.

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