At 12:09 PM 17/10/95 -0400, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>Your Latin is not bad, for a Canadian.  But see, I did 5 years of Latin also:
>
>"Quousque tandem abutere patientia nostra, Jim?"  :-)
Sounds very much like Cicero in one of his raves /In Catilinam/?  But do you
really find my words so outrageous?
 
>1- Your device problems.  It might behoove you to poke around on the WWW and
[...]
Checked directly with Hitachi - nothing yet.  Performance tab shows of
course show I'm running compatibility mode for the CDROM device.
 
>2- My main PC has a 16 meg card in it, has had it for about a year.  I had
>3.11 with 32 disc and file access and it was fast.  I upgraded to Win95 and
 
It still makes little sense to me that while Intel chips come on the market
at a high price then drop, memory chips remain almost static (!) in price.
I suspect most PCs over a year old use 32/36 pin RAM in two banks of four.
So if they had 8 x 1MB before, they must discard that to get 4 x 4.
Replacing the motherboard for 72 simms will also require discarding the old
simm.  Were talking a lot of money here.
 
>4- Duplexer problems?, not me.  I don't have a 4M.  I have a 4L and a 660C.
> BTW HP is finally releasing the Win95 drivers for their printers this week!
> I have been on CPO's case about this for a while.  They are supposedly
>bringing them to the show in Atlanta this week.  I will post more about that
>next week, or during the show perhaps.
 
Good, I need some for our 660C, but the 4M Plus and 4Plus were written by HP
anyway - very nifty for LAN connections - just a few bugs.
 
>
>5- Talk about picking nits and splitting rabbits.  So you don't like the
>shortcut icons?  Change them.
 
Not a pick.  You can't get rid of the short-cut arrows, as they are added at
a later stage of configuring the desktop.  Change your icon, and it looks
fine on the property sheet, but back to the desktop the arrow has been added
again.  Hence the problem of the pallettes.
>
>6- Networking issues.  I now make use of the built-in TCP/IP stack of Win95.
[...]
As do I, of course.  WRQ are apparently having problems developing
installation scripts that are compatible with Win95.  I would gladly prefer
a 32bit RNS product than the MS TCP.  I know the tales about you get what
you pay for, but while I don't pay for MS's, I'm left with little choice either.
[...]
 
>
>7- Competing programs dying.  Well, that is news to me.  You probably believe
>in conspiracies, don't you?
 
Not so much conspiracies, but I hold a strong belief that Microsoft doesn't
like to devote a lot of resources to solving problems plauging a
competitors' products.  Given the inside track MS apps developers have over
external competing developers, and proven instances where MS have
deliberately put code into products to prevent competing products operating
(MS vs Novell) -- "But its only Beta code, your Honor!" -- it is not
surprising that it takes longer for competitors to get their bugs ironed
out.  Could this be a competitive advantage to Microsoft?
 
>As for Microsoft knocking more and more companies out, don't believe it for a
>moment.  There are always new opportunities and the good products continue.
> It almost sounds like you believe in protectionism.  I favor more the open
>market approach.
 
Hence the point of my rhetoric.
 
>As for demanding more and more hardware, I both agree and disagree.  We
>demand more and more from our computers and the software providers are using
>more and more resources within those PCs.  Win95 threw away a lot of
>limitations inherent in the design of the original box, in return you have to
>feed it more hardware.
 
You attribute more to Win95 than I do -- Win3.11 for Workgroups is generally
considered to hold more innovation than Win95 (but a smaller marketing
budget).  The desktop, 32bit operating, long filenames, abandoning Real
Mode, and more were all to be found before Win95, perhaps just not
integrated into a single product from one supplier.
 
But this matters little.  My fear is that Microsoft becomes too fat from its
success, stifling the competition, and closing the 'open systems' to create
a new market opportunity FOR THEMSELVES.  As General Motors did to Los
Angeles in the 40s & 50s eliminating public transport, the results of such
lack of public consideration may plague us all in the future.
 
Cheers.
 
----
Jim "seMPEr" Wowchuk           Internet:    [log in to unmask]
Vanguard Computer Services     Compu$erve:  100036,106
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