Bill DeWitt wrote:

> "Francois Labreque" <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote :

> > Windows is a standard for only one reason: Lotus 1-2-3.  If the latter
> > hadn't taken the market by storm in the Eighties, everyone wouldn't be
> > using a PC, and hence everyone wouldn't be using the perating system
> > that comes with them.

>     Hmmm... I don't remember if or how much Lotus we sold before windows.
> But you are probably right, between Lotus and Word (or Word Perfect)
> probably 90% of the PC use was built on them. We were selling DOS program
> managers before Windows, but I can tell you that when Windows came out,
> people clamoured for it because of it's share-tasking. They wanted to have
> their address book andc alculator and word processor working at the same
> time.

	The earliest successful word processor was microstar. It was ported
(not a word used at the time) for Apple, Atari and Comodore. Later for
the IBM introduction to the competition. 

	PC as in Personal Computer was invented by a writer for Kilobaud around
1978 and used by IBM in the name IBM PC. 

	The WS folks were doing great but then decided to make a complete
departure from their very successful produce and released a real piece
of shit that no one liked. While that was happening the really insane
creation of two profs at Brigham Young U called Word Perfect changed
their entire ad campaign to "the word processor for the rest of us / for
the non-programmer." 

	By the time the wordstar folks had recovered keyboards were being
produced with the control key below the shift key rather than above so
that WS was nearly impossible for anyone without large hands to use. One
of the undiscovered conspiracies in the PC business is who replaced the
control key with a huge and 99.99999999% useless caps lock key and why. 

> > Other platforms are not striving to meet or exceed Windows in any aspect
> > of its product, except maybe sales.

>     Matter of opinion I guess. When I see them spend marketing money to
> convince people that they now have Windows like features, I think they are
> trying to meet or exceed a standard. Even when Linux says that their OS is
> faster than Windows and uses less resources, they are using Windows as the
> standard.

	If windows were an MS invention rather than Intel's and just
capitalized that would be something of interest. The GRAPHIC interface
and the rat are traceable back to PARC while Gates was in gradeschool.
That the real world. 

Author's note: 

	I really did learn to program on a teletype and stored by programs on
paper tape. 

-- 
The right of States to seceed from the United States
can not be contested save by force of arms. 
	-- The Iron Webmaster, 345

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