Re: Just venting (totally OT) (caution - rant)

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Evil_Nigel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

x-no-archive: yes

Mandy <mandy...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I don't think I could afford to do that :o(

When personal computers first became affordable, it was pretty
standard practice to buy a computer and the seller would throw in a
bundle of software for free, including one or two operating systems.


Oh right!

That is not in fact true. When personal computers first became
affordable, the computer came on its own with an operating system built
into the actual hardware on chips. Some very basic computers - designed
mostly for engineers to fiddle with to get the hang of using computers -
didn't even have an operating system at all. If you did get one, it was
not normally upgradable, and unless the vendor was offering a special
deal (which they usually did not), there was little software included
beyond perhaps a simple game or a few demonstration programs and even
that wasn't the norm. There was, for example, nothing that came with
the ZX80 and ZX81, the classic early `affordable' computers - £50 for
ZX81 kit back in '81. Nor did software come with the ZX Spectrum, until
long after it had become obsolete and needed to be sold with a pack of
starter software before anyone would be interested.

The BBC Micro was unusual in that it came with a `Welcome' package of
software on a cassette tape, containing some interesting programs that
demonstrated what you could do. But that was because it was part of the
BBC's computer literacy project.

What you almost always got with these early machines was a complete
manual, including full details of how to program the machine: there was
usually a tutorial on the built-in programming language, which was
usually Basic (almost completely unrelated to modern Visual Basic).

Commodore (a US firm) was notable for providing very scanty
documentation, and a lot of early manuals were badly written even if
they did cover everything. But the BBC Micro came with an excellent
manual, which was supplemented by an `Advanced User Guide' at extra
cost, which included full details of the guts of the operating system
and even a circuit diagram (I have a copy myself).

Now, all the early PCs that I know about had operating systems built
into chips firmly attached to the main circuit board. These were not
normally upgradable at all, and you did not normally have any choice of
operating system. No choice was offered or asked for in general. The
BBC Micro was unusual in that it had space for extra software chips to
be plugged in. Usually, these provided extras like a new programming
language or a WP or similar software.

But now we come to the exceptions: some computers were `bare' in that
they had no built-in operating system, the user always having to load
that from tape or (less commonly) disc. These usually ran either the
computer maker's fully customized specially written for that machine
only operating system, or a standard one called CP/M. Again, choice was
rare. CP/M was the forerunner of MS-DOS; back in the early days of the
IBM PC, MS bought the rights to a faintly legally dubious copy of CP/M,
written for the new 16 bit CPUs that had just reached the market (it had
had to be modified to avoid being sued for infringement on some CP/M
thing). The BBC Micro was exceptional in that it was an `operating
system on a chip' PC that did allow the operating system to be changed -
and I used some at 6th form that ran CP/M! (which wouldn't have been
possible without the special second processor interface, 'cos the
standard BBC Micro has the wrong CPU to run CP/M at all).

But keeping to the early days: disc drives - floppy ones only - were
rarely seen luxuries. Software was normally kept on cassette tape and
loaded at slug speed. Hard disc drives were purely mythical devices,
known to be huge and expensive, that someone might have seen at work but
never made it to the home environment unless they'd been scabbed from
said place of work. Back in those days, some eccentrics even used
punched paper tape, but only the complete weirdos who made their own
hardware.

The modern kind of compact, fast hard disc drive had not appeared in the
early days of affordable PCs: the only ones that existed were the stone
age beasts you see in old films, often with removable stacks of discs.
The big operations that used things like that also had special fast tape
drives for backup - although by the mid 1970s at least, they didn't look
anything like the antique `back and forth' jobs you might see in 1960s
films starring Michael Cane.

The vultures at Microsoft vowed that one day their operating system
would cost more than the hardware, and because of Microsoft's secret
anti-competitive illegal strategy, that's come to pass.

Bummer!

It wasn't very secret. They offered MS-DOS as an operating system to
anyone would wanted to bundle it with their PCs, but you got a big
discount if you promised that you wouldn't sell computers with any other
operating system at all.

If you buy a PC at eg PC World, the hardware will typically cost
slightly more than Windows. That's because you're only getting half of
Windows.

Ah!

Not actually entirely true; MS is being maligned here. The home
editions of Windoze is indeed sawn off, but you're not missing a huge
amount if you're a normal home user.

Theoretically it's possible to host your own web site from home. You
need a web server etc and a fixed IP Address so you can tell people
where to find you. The web server stuff used to be in the standard
Microsoft offering, but over time it, and lots more important
functionality, have been split off into the 'Professional' edition of
their operating system, which typically costs more than the
hardware

Blimey!

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate OEM/OEI DSP - 32-bit Edition (PC DVD)
costs £104.98. That's the version for `pre-installing on a PC for
sale'.

There is a very expensive version:

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition (PC) (2007) (Windows Vista)
Buy new: £369.99 £342.98

But you'd be hard pushed to build a decent PC for that price, and MS
can't seriously expect many people to buy it.

Last time I looked, Sun didn't support their java development kit on
'Home' editions of Windows because so much of the operating system is
missing.

Oh right!

I'd guess that's because the `Home' edition of Windoze is lacking the
programmer's tools included in the full edition - at a guess - which
would hardly affect a normal user. It rankles to defend MS like that,
but the home edition of Vista really isn't that badly sawn off at all,
not from the point of view of the normal home user.

A couple of years back, a major PC supplier (they stick bumf through
my door a couple of times a week) made a play for the linux market,
advertising that they would sell linux-only PCs to their customers.

I'll name the firm: Dell.

It
turned out that on a like-for-like basis, they actually charged more
for a linux PC than a Windows PC.

Yup.

Microsoft's secret anti-competitive
illegal strategy is that if a PC supplier tries to offer linux PCs on
the same sort of margin as Windows PCs, Microsoft will stop them from
supplying valid copies of Windows. So this company were forced to sell
their linux PCs effectively priced as though they also had a copy of
Windows installed, even though they didn't.

Blimey!

MS has been banned from doing that by court order and they can't do it
in any overt way at all any more.

Did I say I loathe Microsoft?

You have now! :o)

MS is an evil toad of a company, but it's not /quite/ as bad as he makes
out.

Rowland.

--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk
UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
.

Relevant Pages

  • Virtual Private Networking in Windows XP Pro. and in Windows 98 SE
    ... I wanted to add this post because when the APS network was hacked in 2007 ... Windows 98 Second Edition got hit with an error but apparently ... and the NT source codes lack of a maintenance operating system like DOS ... You can all laugh if you like but I have used computers since about 1984 ...
    (microsoft.public.security)
  • Images not displaying in Word
    ... I have had this problem on three different computers - one with the Windows ... 2000 operating system, one with Windows NT 4.0 operating system, and one with ... systems with different graphics cards that it is a Word problem and nothing ...
    (microsoft.public.word.drawing.graphics)
  • Re: Vista exceeds Apples installed base in first five weeks of shipment!
    ... will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are ... computers and that will bump the numbers around *a little*. ... PCs (because some of the billion internet users access via mobile ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • RE: Internet Connection Sharing and 2 PCs
    ... - Windows Firewall ot Norton Internet ... Security 2006 which is what I am running on both PCs. ... How would I go about configuring the firewall for ICS? ... 131.107.2.xxx for both computers. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web)
  • Re: OU Administrator setup/Admin Shares
    ... Windows 2000 Pro PCs. ... Create the gpo in the ou where the Computers reside, ... this group name should be - administrators) and key in the group ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)