Re: OT Problem with this uk.rec.gardening


"Rusty Hinge 2" <rusty.hinge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:313030303230303843F10DBC69@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The message <45c6d9F61r1cU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
from "michael adams" <mjadams25@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> contains these words:

IE and OE only have inherent securiy issues because they have
such a large installed user base. It's not worth a hackers
time finding a flaw in software with a tiny users base.

No software is perfect and free of all possible security
holes, and anyone who thinks it ever can be is simply
demonstrationg their cluelessness, both on a theoretical
and practical level.

Affordable personal computers were only made possible becuase
of the Microsoft Intel duopoly and Gates decision to bet the
farm on ditching IBM. If it wasn't for Gates and Intel there'd be
no cheap hardware available on which the Linuix geeks could
demontrate their superiority. Never mind parasitising the
Xerox Parc|Mac|Windows GUI look and feel.

Where do you think Gates got it from? And the rest?

Have a look at Unix.

....

Unix was a command line OS developed by Bell Labs. And?

....


And my ZX Spectrum (still got it) was way pre-Gates. He started by
buying DOS and offering it to IBM when they fell out with the writers of
CP/M - which I was using before DOS was in his grasp.

....

He and Paul Allen started by writing a 7k basic for the Altair
after seeing it on the cover of a hobbyist magazine, and offering
it to the maker of the Altair - who since went back to being a
dentist. And died last year(?) By the time he was contacted by
IBM, Gates had sold MS Basic to almost everyone and it was for his
Basic that they contacted him. Gary Kildall, or Kildalls wife wouldn't
sign the non disclosure agreement demanded by IBM for CP/M, and
it was Digital Research who suggested they see Gates for the OS.
Gates bought QDOS from Seattle computing, and sold it on
to IBM as PC Dos. Early PC's stil shipped with CPM/86 as
well. When the clones came along next year, Gates also started
selling it as MS Dos. Thus risking upsetting IBM. Kildall claimed
there was still CP/M commented code in DOS.3 going all the way back
to cde filtched bt Seattle Computing for QDos.
Kildall who pioneered the notion of interchangable BIOS's
which revolutionised OS's for small computers - along with
with contributions by students in his classes died in a flying
accident.


The geeks would still be busy with their soldering irons, while everyone
else would still be forking out £5000 for 90mhz boxes offering
one of 20 different operationg systems - none of which could
print pound signs on your £500 9 pin dot matrix printer.

You could do that with Apricots and Amstrads while Billyware was in its
infancy.


Amstrads PC's came bundled with MS DOS. If you wanted to pay extra
you could buy DR DOS. Apricots which were more expensive had a
propietory DOS for some unaccountable reason. Sugar still has
a presence on the PC scene in Viglen, while Apricot went bust IIRR.
Dell has the corpotate market sewn up.

There were other GUI's such as GEM but nobody wrote any software
for them and so they died. End of.

Unlike Windoze.

....

Also have a look at CP/M and all the other 'hobby' computers
which were around at the time, and some of which are still going and
being developed.

....

CP/M had a large installed user base of business users as well.
However unlike Kildall, Gates was happy to sign non disclosure
agreemants with the main player at the time - IBM. And so
all business developemant on CP/M came to a halt. DR DOS did
provide utilities that PC DOS and MS Dos didn't. But that
gave Norton Tools and PC Tools an opportunity to establish
a market niche for themselves. So Peter Norton had reason
for liking Bill as well.

....


And having to remeber 50 character long command line parameters.

Who does?

But just because someone loves Bill, that doesn't mean they won't
buy OEM Microsoft products on eBay for peanuts if given the chance.

Bill is best. You know it makes sense.


He's contributed a lot, not least because of resistance to his
megalomania.

....

Its not meglomanaical at all. Just sound business sense.

The computer business, because it grew so quickly is very efficeient
at weeding out bad business models. That's why Netscape Navigator
was always going to fail whether they had full access to the
Windows API or not. Regardless of trust suits they had no real
business model as to how the browser was going to generate
steady income. Maybe one would have come along as with Google -
but at that time they weren't making sufficient profits to
fight off the Microsoft challenge.

....


I use some of his products, but get a bit miffed when the latest
security rollup for Win 2000 won't work unless I install IE6, and
similar anti-trust violations.

....

I've never installed a single security measure on any computer
I've ever used. Nor had to*. I Ghost** the C partition after the
first clean install and tweaking of the OS and apps on each machine,
and do an automatic incremental backup of OE directories, docs,
favourites, all the other C partition stuff every week.
If I want to add an app, I reinstall the Ghosted C: partition ,
install the app, and re-ghost the lot. 10 minutes, Then copy
over the latest docs, favourites, etc. The ghost image files are
kept on the F: partition plus on CDR's.

* Never open attachments from strangers, disable HTML scripting
in email, be wary of tinyurls, and stay clear of obviously dodgy
websites. What could be easier?

** Norton Ghost - not written by Norton but by Symentec a small
NZ developer - the best application ever.(That is, after the first
(and only) time you have to re-install Win 95 (as was) and from
floppies, plus apps etc.


michael adams

....










--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig


.

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