Autor: Marcin Benke (benke_at_herbata.mimuw.edu.pl)
Data: Wed 27 Sep 1995 - 16:31:40 MET
Dla zainteresowanych tematem - oto co Douglas Adams (autor slynnej
trylogii w pieciu czesciach) napisal o Win95, ciekaw jestem co na to
fani (jednego badz drugiego :)
Beyond the Hype (Guardian, 25-Aug-95)
Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy,
argues Windows 95 does not cross any frontiers
What on Earth is going on? Have we found intelligent life on other planets?
Abolished war and famine? Found Elvis? Have we even devised a new and better
way of using computers? No. All that's happened is that Microsoft has
remodelled its operating system so that it's now more like the Macintosh.
This may well be a cause for rejoicing among Windows users but it's hardly a
giant leap for mankind and doesn't warrant this sense that we're all
supposed to celebrate early and avoid the millennium rush.
As part of this billion-dollar festival of smoke and mirrors, Bill Gates has
apparently paid the Rolling Stones 8 million pounds for the right to use
Start Me Up, the song which is better known for its catchy refrain "You make
a grown man cry".
This is a phrase you may hear a lot of over the next few days as millions of
people start trying to install Windows 95. Even the best designed systems
can be a nightmare to upgrade, but whatever things Microsoft may be famous
for - the wealth of its founder, the icy grip he exerts on what is arguably
the most important industry on this planet - good systems design is not, as
it happens, one of them.
Let's dispel a few myths. There's one which says that the original PC
operating system was a brilliant feat of programming by boy genius Bill
Gates. It wasn't brilliant and Gates didn't write it. He acquired it,
"shrewdly", from the Seattle Computer Company and then immediately licensed
it on to another, larger, outfit called IBM. When the IBM PC was launched
into a market which had hitherto been serviced by garage companies named
after bits of fruit, it carried the impimatur of a world-renowned name and
sold a zillion, making Gates' operating system a world standard. IBM had
failed to realise that any fool could make the boxes, but the hand that
owned the software ruled the world. Big Blue had given the kid Gates a free
ride into the stratosphere and then, astoundingly, found itself starting to
fall away like a discarded booster rocket.
Sadly this new world software standard was actually a piece of crap.
MS-DOS, as Gates called it, had started life as QDOS-86 or the Quick & Dirty
Operating System, which told you all you needed to know about it. A whole
generation of people doggedly learned to run their businesses on a system
that was written as a quick lash-up for hobbyists and hackers. Was there
anything better around? Of course.
In the 1970's, Xerox had funded a team of the world's top computer
scientists to research the man/machine interface. They devised a graphical
system, using windows, icons and mice. Their key insight was that a lot of
needless complications could be cut short by harnessing people's intuitive
and gestural skills. Oddly, Xerox failed to follow this up, and the research
was taken up and brought to the market by Apple Computer as the Macintosh.
After a shaky, underpowered start, this machine matured into a
well-integrated system which was not only very powerful, but a real pleasure
to use. Mac users tend to have an almost fanatical devotion to their machines.
The Microsoft line on all this was that Windows was for wimps. The truth was
that plain old MS-DOS couldn't actually do them. Graphics, mice, networking,
and a whole lot else, had to be added to the basic core of QDOS as one
afterthought after another, which is why Wintel computers are so fiendishly
complicated to set up and maintain.
Gates, however, had always known which way the future lay, and for years
Microsoft managed the awkward juggling act of rubbishing Apple's user
interface while simultaneously trying to devise something like it that would
fit on top of the bloated clutter that MS-DOS had become.
BYTE magazine said recently: "It would not be an exaggeration to describe
the history of the computer in the past decade as a massive effort to keep
up with Apple." However, the Macintosh is not the last word on interface
design, and if Microsoft had been the innovative company that it calls
itself, it would have taken the opportunity to take a radical leap beyond
the Mac, instead of producing a feeble, me-too, implementation.
An awful lot of people who try to install Windows 95 will end up having to
spend so much money buying extra RAM and upgrading their peripherals to get
features that Mac users have enjoyed for years, that they might as well give
up and buy the real thing.
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to
lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the
fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it
in the first place.
-- Pozdrawiam, Marcin Benke ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Professionals built the "Titanic", amateurs built the ark.
To archiwum zostało wygenerowane przez hypermail 2.1.7 : Tue 18 May 2004 - 12:24:56 MET DST