"Ken" <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
news:3A2FADC4.DAF1E011@pacbell.net...
>
>
Sometimes I really
> miss not being able to use some of the added bennefits of posting
> in html. It would be really nice to color highlight or underline a
> phrase to add emphasis to a statement or hightlight a problem in
> scene code. Plain text is boring and restrictive.
>

    Oddly enough, I was thinking, just last night, how useful HTML would be
in my .sig - I could make the 'E-Mail', 'PGP Key' and 'Pandora's Box' bits
into links and the actual addresses would get hidden away - plus text only
browsers would just show the whole thing address and all. But then I
realised just how many 'don't post HTML' flames I'd get.

--
Scott Hill.
Software Engineer.
E-Mail        : sco### [at] innocentcom
PGP Key       : http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371
Pandora's Box : http://www.pandora-software.com

*Everything in this message/post is purely IMHO and no-one-else's*

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"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.

> 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.

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Bill DeWitt wrote:
> 
> "Xplo Eristotle" <inq### [at] unforgettablecom> wrote :
> >
> > Most software is not written "for Windows".
> ><snip>
> > The truth is, most software is written for the most profitable
> > platform..
> 
>     Well, considering the comments in some of my programming classes many
> people want to learn C++ so that "I can write programs for Windows",

"I can write programs for the largest platform." Or, "I can write
programs for my own computer." I doubt that they choose Windows for any
reason which is inherent to the platform, and my point stands.

> looking
> at the programming shelves of book stores, while there are more books for
> using linux than there used to be, most of the programming books are
> programming for Windows.

Don't even get me started on shelf space.

> Most of the programs I have are for Windows only,
> written for windows and some of them are ported to other OS's only after
> months of popular use in Windows.

Reread what you quoted above until you grasp its simple meaning.

> > Other platforms do *NOT* "scramble to make their system play Windows
> > programs".
> 
>     Yes, they do. Perhaps most of the scrambling was done before you started
> using computers, but I remember how many people came into my store asking
> for a way to make Mac play Windows programs. There was a -huge- scramble
> when it became possible.

And how many people scrambled for a Mac-like GUI in 1995? If you want to
talk about the past, you can, but I don't see how it's relevant.

>     I did say that other OS's have some of the same benefits, just because
> Mac is easy to use doesn't mean Winows is not.

No. But compared to a Mac, it isn't.

> > Powerful use of new technology? This
> > could mean anything; consequently, it means nothing.
> 
> As to what it means, Linux can't see my CDRW and

Well, Linux is funny that way. Someone's probably working on a driver; I
wouldn't know, or particularly care.

> all the voice tech stuff is written for windows.

Somehow, I don't think so. Of course, I would have to know what you mean
by "voice tech stuff".

The Mac has voice synthesis, the ability to be controlled partly through
spoken commands, dictation software, and (with OS 9) voice security.
Obviously, you must not mean any of those, since they were not written
for Windows (although Windows does have native versions of at least some
of those kinds of software).

How much of this "written for Windows" voice tech is actually part of
Windows, and how much of it is third-party? You could hardly claim that
Windows makes powerful use of third-party technology; on the contrary,
it would be the other way around.

> Perhaps
> you are using too narrow a definition of the word "Standard".

Perhaps.. so let me be specific.

There is no platform standard such that a person or company should feel
justified in creating software/hardware/whatever only for that platform
on the basis that non-compliant platforms are "broken" or "wrong".

-Xplo

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"Scott Hill" <sco### [at] innocentcom> wrote in message
news:3a30fbe5@news.povray.org...
> "Ken" <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
> news:3A2FADC4.DAF1E011@pacbell.net...
> >
> Sometimes I really
> > miss not being able to use some of the added bennefits of posting
> > in html. It would be really nice to color highlight or underline a
> > phrase to add emphasis to a statement or hightlight a problem in
> > scene code. Plain text is boring and restrictive.
> >
>
>     Oddly enough, I was thinking, just last night, how useful HTML would be
> in my .sig - I could make the 'E-Mail', 'PGP Key' and 'Pandora's Box' bits
> into links and the actual addresses would get hidden away - plus text only
> browsers would just show the whole thing address and all. But then I
> realised just how many 'don't post HTML' flames I'd get.
>

I've seen many things done, including the use of Java and Flash, in other
message boards.  I can get restrictive because of the additional download time
and snarl up the cursor too.
However, web page-like text could be useful under certain circumstances I
believe.  So I would have to agree somewhat about that with Ken T.
Talking two different things here I think is the problem.  Message boards such
as this aren't meant to be web pages :-)  My contention has always been that if
every newsreader were more configurable to what the intention is by the user
then there probably would never be this sort of argument.

Bob H.

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Francois Labreque wrote:
> 
> Bill DeWitt wrote:
> >
> > but comon sense tells us that it is a standard, one that other people strive
> > to meet or exceed.
> 
> 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.

	And the rest of the world says it was Visicalc for the Apple II and
Lotus ate their lunch when "windows" were no more than an embedded
feature of the 8086 chip that was used for TSR (Terminate and Stay
Resident) programs. They were only ascii subsets of a full screen but
they were called windows and activated by hot keys. 

	Atari commissioned the adaptation of Visicalc for its 400/800 line and
it was sold for $US199 plus tax. That is where I first encountered it. I
can assure you the 6502 did not know from even the ascii window of the
8086 and that was all before IBM adopted the stupid chip and the equally
stupid CP/M knockoff OS. 

	Atari's OS was doubly indirect which made it extensible to the limits
of available RAM unlike certain other OSs I could name. 

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

	Other graphics products don't even charge for it. 

-- 
Here is the rule and read it clear, only the US government can 
invoke god and no one else can. 
	-- The Iron Webmaster, 167

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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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Xplo Eristotle wrote:
> 
> Bill DeWitt wrote:
> >
> > "Xplo Eristotle" <inq### [at] unforgettablecom> wrote :
> > >
> > > Most software is not written "for Windows".
> > ><snip>
> > > The truth is, most software is written for the most profitable
> > > platform..
> >
> >     Well, considering the comments in some of my programming classes many
> > people want to learn C++ so that "I can write programs for Windows",
> 
> "I can write programs for the largest platform." Or, "I can write
> programs for my own computer." I doubt that they choose Windows for any
> reason which is inherent to the platform, and my point stands.

	There are people who love classes and descent and inheritance. There
are folks right now who are discovering extending that idea to the
Windows Registry means it is impossible to strip unnecessary code and
DLL contents. It is called many things and I am in the minority politely
calling it code bloat. There is no way to know what code is unnecessary
without being the programmer. No compiler can be smart enough. 

	I have written programs for the largest (at the time in 1967 but who
remembers the RCA Spectrum?) and for the Bally Arcade in 4k Palo Alto
Tiny Basic and several in between. There are few reasons to choose a
graphics environment unless the purpose is graphic images. (I am also
familar with the Univac 1107 and the FASTRAN drum if anyone wants to
swap war stories.) 

	One produces a product and then adds environments to it if there is an
interest. From my point of view, I write what I want for my uses and
nothing more. I will make it available but in my Gnu mindset long before
Gnu "you do it." 

	One of my programs (RPN calculator when there were only a two others
and not as today when there is a race to collect all of them) was
received with "if you would only make it TSR" meaning invoked by a hot
key "I would pay for it." Sorry, no. Not my interest in this thing. 

	Which sort of gets us back to "Why I want to learn C++." And the answer
is that there is no good reason to learn it other than understand what
is going on in the commercial, repeat commercial, software industry
these days. 

	To wit, even three wit, it is difficult to find an application that
really requires a much a 200k of compiled code save for the graphics
hooks and handles and object code that bloats it by 10 to 100 times its
real size. One of my programs (Turbo Pascal) is 44k in native compile
with no calls to anything in DOS and bloats to over 700k even in linux
(Free Pascal) as a console app because of the methods used by the
compiler. 

> > looking
> > at the programming shelves of book stores, while there are more books for
> > using linux than there used to be, most of the programming books are
> > programming for Windows.

> Don't even get me started on shelf space.

	Most of the books are books about books and inherently worthless. 

	And that is one of the inherent mysteries of programming. I have never
heard any programmer credit any book. I have only heard people who are
not really progammers but looking for "how to" crediting books. Yet the
books sell. I am too stunned to be amazed. 

-- 
Remember the Ozone/CFC scare? The Ozone Hole gets bigger
but CFCs have been declining since 1995. Will CFCs be 
legal again? Is there a Tooth Fairy? 
	-- The Iron Webmaster, 114

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On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 07:24:56 -0500, "Bill DeWitt" <bde### [at] cflrrcom>
wrote:

>    Windows is the standard, evidenced by the way Mac tried for so long to
>supplant it but then finally became Windows compatible, not to mention Linux
>windowing systems...

LOL!!!

Every time I start to wonder why Windows is so widespread, I hear or
read something like this from someone like you and I realise it...
though I still do not understand it. Good marketting and
advertismenent is one thing, but successfully fooling millions into
believing myths calls for a marketting genius (which Gates seems to
be). Or do you not know that it has always been Windows that has
replicated ideas from the Mac GUI?

As for those among you who don't know, there's no such thing as a
Linux windowing system. There's no such thing as a Unix windowing
system either, for those of you who still don't make the difference.
It's the X windowing system and it is an entity as separate from the
OS. And Windows has a long way to go before it reaches the standards
of X in stability and device independence, not to mention remote
terminal sessions.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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On Thu, 07 Dec 2000 07:44:01 -0600, "Jon S. Berndt" <jsb### [at] hal-pcorg>
wrote:

>As far as which platform supports which formats, Windows supports a wide range,
>but Linux appears to support a quite sufficient portion of these, as well. Here
>is the relevent portion of the man page for xanim (and there are plenty of other
>animation players out there for Linux - and I am sure that Mac supports a huge
>variety of players, as well):

<veeery ling list snipped>

LOL, Not bad for player for an 'inferior' OS :)


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> 
> LOL, Not bad for player for an 'inferior' OS :)
> 
> Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
> Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
> TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

First,as everyone of course realizes, this discussion is utterly useless.
So I can safely join in ;)

I think there is a misunderstanding here. Saying one OS is a standard doesn't
imply another to be inferior, does it?
The obvious comparison is video where there were a couple if systems that were
generally considered to be superior but still VHS became the standard. 

BTW, shouldn't this discussion be in OT? (where I wouldn't read it...)

Remco

http://www.xs4all.nl/~remcodek/xmasman.html - a fully POV-ed Xmas screensaver!

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