I wonder how much more advanced computing would be if Microsoft never existed?
ctwardell
Posts: 1,716
The title is self explanatory.
C.W.
C.W.
Comments
I corrected the title.
C.W.
"Backus claimed that there exists now in computer science a vicious cycle where the long standing emphasis on von Neumann languages has continued the primacy of the von Neumann computer architecture, and dependency on it has made non-von Neumann languages uneconomical and thus limited their further development: the lack of widely available and effective non-von Neumann languages has deprived computer designers of the motivation and the intellectual foundation needed to develop new computer architectures."
It leads to too much time being spent working around bugs and too little time solving the actual business need at hand.
A serious problem is that documentation rarely addresses the bugs or in some cases unimplemented features.
I think Internet Explorer in the past at least has been a big example, the improper handling of CSS is awful.
Another recent example I have dealt with is .Net 2.0 to .Net 3.5 having documented features related to the web.config file that never actually were coded.
C.W.
Yeah, the cabbage patch people.
Coleco came out with a computer called the Adam which was extremely cheap and powerful for its day. It was available as an expansion module for the popular ColecoVision home video game console as well as stand-alone, and came with an integral daisy wheel printer. (In those days, the typical home computer printer was a 9-pin or if you were rich 24-pin dot matrix, and in a lot of professional situations the output was not acceptable. The Coleco Adam was the first setup under $1,000 which could produce output acceptable by a publisher or for a term paper anywhere.)
The Adam, with its printer and random access high speed tape drives taking the place of disks, was about a quarter the price of the next closes rival similarly functional system. It was one of the first macines to boot up to a word processing environment instead of BASIC when cold started. It sported a Z80 CPU, 64K RAM, an additional 16K video RAM on outboard TI video generator, a remote keyboard with excellent feel which could be extended to any distance with a common 6-pin telephone cable, and other very advanced features for its price point. It could run CP/M.
Coleco was a toy company with big resources and they had tooled up to make the Adam in vast quantities. They already had the home game console closest in feel to an arcade game experience, and a lot of people finally ditched their Atari 2600's when the ColecoVision came out. The Adam was a sub $200 upgrade to such a system.
But they botched it. They had quality and software issues making it come out late, after the IBM PC was introduced. The tape drives tended to scramble tapes that were left in them when they cold-started. The promised real disk drive upgrade never materialized. While it came with an extremely fine clone of Apple ][ BASIC the documentation for more advanced programming was nonexistent at the consumer level, expensive if you could find it, and cryptic. There was no way for an amateur to roll a really professional game, despite the possibility of distribution on magnetic tape, as there was on the C64, Apple ][, TI99, etc.
The Adam was a really fine machine to use especially for writing. I owned three of them before the tapes became completely unavailable and I moved to an Amstrad PCW9512 CP/M word processor for a few years. Had Coleco not misstepped so badly in their introduction, marketing, and hobbyist programmer support I think the 80's market for personal computers might have looked much different. I certainly wouldn't see the home market for the hyper-expensive IBM PC developing as it did, no matter who wrote its operating system. At that time the two killer apps for home computing were word processing and games, and the Adam ruled for both of those applications compared to all of its competitors, including the nascent PC. But it came out too late with too many asterisks, marketed poorly and half-heartedly, and it sank like a stone.
Bill
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Heres a fix for your bugs.
'
In the CMD prompt, type in "format/ u". Next when it asks you if your sure just press " y " and hit enter real fast.
'
This will fix your problems and mine too.
The problem is , it becomes a defacto standard, warts and all.
If you are building public web sites, they MUST work with IE or you lose too many potential site visitors.
I understand that bugs will happen, standards will be misinterpreted, etc., but at least fess up when it happens and document what you actually built, not what you planned to build.
C.W.
Bill, my issue isn't with the size of Microsoft, it's the rush to market with defective and improperly documented products.
Imagine the things that could be done if time were spent solving business problems instead of working around bugs and improperly implemented standards.
C.W.
This "Oh we need to ship this longhorn stuff to market " . "Well patch it later" . "no one will care " . "cause we have 74% market share" . attitude is why I am not a fan of there Buissness morals ..
Ill be frank If Parallax ran like this to US we would all be using PICS and AVRS .I know I would .
As far as Web sites
Il be blunt IE should be hanged shot and nuked to its death .
Its NOT cross platform .
most other good browsers are X platform .
I feel the IE team is a minority !
Why shoiuld I care if one cranky browser is not happy When its the end users issue to use a non X platform system .
Firefox is Better its FREE! its Open source its a no brainier .
Unless the SW I get runs or I can get a version TO run On ALL 3 major OSes I avoid it like the plage .
GIMP is on all my systems .so is ,Firefox ,audacity ,skype ,open office , the list goes on .
I can go form OOo on my Linux laptop to My OSX desktop to the PC i can use in the tech lab and they all look and work the same. NO relearning the one for mac or PC. So I Loose less time thinking and more time Doing !
The Whole "to do" with a Pee Cee is """compatibility""" RIGHT !~~~ Oh I can run OLD dos stuff and be a Guy in a suit and be all so open and compatible with SW I used in 98'..
Yea , what ever . Like I run 20 YO Software . If I do I run a virtuial machine OR a real one that I keep just for that program .
I have to 20 Min to just use the new MS office cause some programmer has a unhealthy Obsession with circle Icons and wonky Menus . then the Biz world suffers ...
Ok form 95 to XP I KNEW how to Fix this or that . it was the same old deal but with Vista and 7 I might as well Be using Solarius on a sparc .
Sorry MS but trying to Pimp your OS just was the last straw to many people . Heck you made a Die hard PC nut like my dad Buy a mac !
He said " peter If I need to relearn a system I might as well give apple a try this time .. it can't get any worse then Vista "
If MS wants to be a Big boy I have a few steps they can take .
#1 Drop IE
#2 condense the kinds of the OS you sell
( Pro ,Home and Server is ALL one needs . )
#3 make shure your stuff is Up to snuff before you ship .
#4 admit your OS has a Weight issue and Give it a free pass to the Gym .
#5 quit trying to be apple . you fail at it and look silly . Let apple be the Hiipster OS and If you want Win to shine then make it better by making it WORK ...
Look at apple in 97' they had bajillion different product lines .
Jobbs was not a idot > He was a good planner
He had the 4 corners Idea
laptops Pro | home
desktops Pro | Home
the same can apply to the OSes MS sells . Now he has expanded it to 6 corners. But the idea is the same
Its simple ...
MS is just too scattered .
/ end of vent ...
OK this is just funny
Peter
Although I am not a big Microsoft fan I have to say that they are responsible for there being standards, defacto or not. Before that everybody went their own way.
You know if you still had one of those Adams kicking around you could probably replace the tape with a prop and an SD card. Would make for an interesting project.
Bill: "You don't get it, do you, Steve? It doesn't matter."
Fortunately, there are still niche markets where quality is valued over hype. But we cannot give the hucksters short shrift for their contributions to public awareness.
-Phil
While MS has never been quite right, it has motivated others to excellence. And here in Asia, 95% or more of the computers are still running on stolen versions of XP. In fact, with the failure of Vista, the Chinese seemed to have hacked and improved a bootleg version of XP in only Chinese that many in Taiwan claim is superior to even W7. They love their hacked XP, but resist any newer MS products. It seems that the average Chinese user cannot accept Linux in spite of it being free. It is a combination of a language barrier in much of the documentation and it requiring one to get deeper into understanding computers. So it seems we have a hacked fork of XP that is driving a whole underground industry.
And of course, without MS many a male would have never bought a computer. Admittedly guys are first buyers of hardware. The fact that one could get free XXX on line has been the dark side of driving sales in both hardware and internet connections. Do not get me wrong, I am deeply disappointed that the computer revolution took such a path to achieve rapid growth. But, MS Media Player dictates the defacto standards of XXX video on line. On the other hand, it has been hard to get such material in Linux and I am not too sure about Apple.
It is a sad world where sales are everything. But just consider that MS with its 30% profit margins has likely been one of the biggest sources of income tax revenue for the USA for quite a while. While we may not like what the have done or how they have gone about it, we have all benefited in some odd ways.
I think Microsoft caused its competitors to work even harder, and to do some innovation to differentiate themselves. Apple is probably a better company because of the existence of Microsoft. Overall, I would say that computing is more advanced because Microsoft existed, but not so much because of Microsoft itself, but because of what its competitors had to do to stay in business.
Commodore made their share of mistakes with the Amiga as well.
-dan
Well said !
Ill admit that If MS was killed off In 90's we may never be where we are today . Apple and the Tux would have no reason to drive harder , .
Peter
It is difficult to claim that these have been directly dependent on MS for development.
So, I'm happy. The body of Open Source software is a wonderful and very valuable thing.
Back in the day, I think we would have seen Apple computers solidify as a second standard alongside the PC, extending CP/M and or Apple DOS to another level. Steve Jobs did everything he could to completely ignore and not invest in or upgrade the Apple ][, which was basically "the PC". Woz got it right for the time, and aside from running on a 6502, the machine was basically there as far as general computing goes.
Had Jobs not done that, the Apple ][ would have seen significant expansion. As it turned out, the Apple was hobbled, a perfectly great machine, but with no real path to the next level of applications beyond Apple Works and Visicalc. A vacuum opened up with 16 bit computers of all kinds, including the Mac, entering the market, each with strengths, but none with the basic general computing formula pioneered by Woz, intact.
IBM entered into that vacuum with a machine that was basically the Apple ][, only built to the next scale, and the game was on!
We very easily could have seen MSDOS and PRODOS competing in the market place, much like we see Linux, Windows and OS X competing today, with niches settling here and there.
Honestly, I would have enjoyed that, just because I enjoyed the kind of machine the Apple ][ is. In the end though, we were going to get complex machines, bloat, lots of devices, and all the scaling and boot-strapping we've done to get where we are today.
Computing was probably advanced by Microsoft in terms of user applications, and massive stripping of margins out of hardware, largely due to Microsoft showing how value can be demonstrated for even minor software updates, with that trend continuing today. Microsoft also leveraged "the default" to great effect, and that did impact computing as we saw a vibrant commercial software market place more or less consumed, because "the default" would win out over just about any other value proposition. There are some exceptions. Nobody messes with Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks, for example, and Microsoft tried a coupla times too.
For a time, the real innovation was happening in high end computing, UNIX set the bar, with HP, SGI, SUN making great machines on CPUs that would eventually lose out to the Intel strategy of just crank the clock, and figure out how to cool it off later. (I know that's overly simple, but relevant)
Home computing might have seen more options earlier had the PC not taken hold as early as it did, but I don't think it mattered much either, because expansions all sorted out in a fairly low amount of time.
One area where we did lose for a while was networked computing, simply because Microsoft was late to the party. Those of us running high end Unix hardware were on the net doing lots of interesting stuff that required a delicate balance of stuff to happen on the PC, and when it did happen, it happened kind of poorly.
Looking back, the biggest loss was cross platform computing, with too many apps focused on limited, single user GUI environments, with that trend continuing today. I love X, and can only imagine what things would look like had X managed to scale down to the PC, but it was not to be. That's a genuine loss, IMHO. Regression that we may never recover from.
Another area was Microsoft snuffing Netscape, who was well on the way to advancing the net, and making client server applications delivered over the wire a early reality, complete with fancy GUI. Microsoft saw that, panicked, and just buried them with OS defaults, Internet Explorer, and consistently crappy adherence to standards that cost us a lot of development time, delaying what many call "Web 2.0" today, by many years. That's a loss too.
Overall though, it's over. We've got multi-platform computing up again, competition is reasonable, and Linux, Mac OS, and Windows all are adding a lot of value, keeping each camp fairly honest, with only software patents threatening the advancement of things. As long as Europe holds out, we may see reform here, and a steady clip of networked computing and devices to enjoy and use.
The next Microsoft?
It's the cell phone, wireless carriers guys. They are doing the work right now to move things onto closed, well managed and expensive "by the bit" networks to literally replace the Internet as we know it now. Net neutrality is every bit as important as cross platform computing was during the battle days of the 90's. Count on it. We eventually worked around Microsoft with their growing acceptance of that being reflected in many great projects and products today. They still do futz with the default, and they still do make things too interdependent, but there are clear choices, meaning it's no where near as ugly as it was. No worries.
The cell carriers may well prove considerably tougher, because they are old-school, are doing the legal and the lobby efforts to get law, and are building slow, with most people unaware. We might lose that one, seeing networked computing closed down. Folks, Microsoft is tame by comparison, so there you go. Perspective.
An excellent and very valid point that applies to the telecom and cable TV market as well. The truly scary part is that our representatives do not seem to have the knowledge or foresight to see what is happening. Perhaps "1984" has only been postponed, not avoided.
It seems Microsoft's "innovation" is to sell a product, deliver half of what was sold, and deliver half of the remainder ad infinitum; until a point is reached where nothing can be delivered (but the product is still incomplete). Then sell a new version of the product, that addresses the remaining issue (and introduces others). They got people to accept this, and now it is commonplace. Now we have "hot fixes", "patches", and "free upgrades" for issues that never should have left design phase.
Maybe this is not so much Microsoft or Bill Gates fault; and instead is caused by management that puts short term profits ahead f long term prosperity. But its easier and more fun to blame Bill.
On the other hand few things would not happen if space continuum was altered that way.
There would be an overpopulation of domestic rabbits running around in fields outside Redmond thanks to Eddie Bauer animal feed research facility near by.
There would be very nice golf golf course near downtown Redmond and Redmond Mall instead of Microsoft corporate village. There would probably not be Bellevue Mall and Bellevue would be a sleepy suburb of Seattle. There would be no talks and talks and talks about widening 520 bridge, 405 Interstate etc etc.
What would not change ?
Seattelites would still keep clam and enjoy Dick's burgers. There would be people waiting for interurban in Ballard under the supervision of Lenin. It would still rain 385 days a year in the Olympic Mountains convergence zone. Henderson's would still make friends with Harry.
Emmett Watson would still write about Lesser Seattle.
To answer the question a really important substances of live in Seattle area would not change at all.
As far as software?
All computer applications would run in 640 KILOBYTES of memory!
There would be no need for CD , DVD in computing.
Chesrs Vaclav
PS We have another balmy afternoon in three digits here in Texas.