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Mozilla Issues

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While many will not admit it, the true opening of the net, beyond the geeks, was good ole AOL.

Dryden

While I will not disagree with you totally, if MS did not have the operating system and office suite many would not have used a computer until much later on. For many of us word and excel were the driving force in using a PC. It was inevitable, the net. The speed and widespread adoption was certainly helped by MS and host of others.

As you know borrowing of technology and what becomes a standard in the industry are market driven. The guys with the market share usually get to make the rules. It is not always right or the best way to do things but that is the way it ends up. Makes you wonder what would have happened if the wonks at Xerox had some marketing skills or Apple would open up their software to more third parties.
 
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bucknola said:
For many of us word and excel were the driving force in using a PC.
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Obviously, I won't disagree with you regarding your personal experiences, but I think your statement about Word and Excel doesn't jive, in particular because Office isn't a traditional 'bundled app' included with new PCs. The freebie experience had traditionally been Microsoft Works (which never included a spreadsheet) with the Microsoft Money add-on.

Regardless, neither Word nor Excel were revolutionary. Most businesses had adopted PCs for Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect long before the release of Office 4.0, which was the first "great" release that began the deaths of WP 6 and Lotus 1-2-3. I would bet my 750 vCash I could sit 75% of Buckeye Planet in front of a DOS 6/Norton Commander computer with 15 year old editions of WP and Lotus and they wouldn't notice any features they use daily absent from the interface, aside from (as 27 hinted) the Office Assistant pointing out grammar and spelling mistakes.
 
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I will agree that probably 90% of the people do not come near touching the programs capability today and use functionality that has been there for years.

As a salesman the ability to easily, my word, integrate excel spreadsheets into word made me much more productive. WordPerfect just never made anything easy for me. I did like 1-2-3 though, probably because it was one of the first shrink wrapped proucts I used. Again MS did the bundling and the consumers spoke with their dollars. Usually the industry pioneers end up with arrows in their back. The copiers and enhancers are the ones that make the money, sometimes.

I see this type of thing when I discuss technology all the time. There may be better technical products but their ease of use, and consumer market share make some winners and some losers. I do not have the numbers but I would venture to guess that 1-2-3 and wordperfect would not have impact that MS did.
 
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because somebody else would've stepped in to fill the void.
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True, and we'd have probably hated them too :)

I still think you're missing my point though, judging from your reply. I didnt say that Microsoft invented the Internet, or had a huge part in getting it off the ground. I am saying that, without them, you'd have about 1/4 of the Internet users that you have today. I really dont see anybody filling that void, especially Apple. MAYBE IBM I guess. I loved win 3.1 and the Old DOS........I also used OS2 Warp, which was still crap compared to Win 3.1. I guess you could argue this point forever because it's basically a question of "what if".
 
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Handspring/Palm? :wink:

No I see your point, and programs like Excel are incredible (I really need to learn to master that title, the one deficiency in my college degree)...

There is no excuse for the paper clip tho. Absolutely none :mad2:
 
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Okay, my quick thing:

Microsoft
I was part of a group beta testing 95 ("Chicago" (IIRC)). It was destroyed by IBM OS2 Warp. In fact, most of the key factors making OS2 better weren't addressed by Microsoft until XP, or at least 2000 (that's another story). Microsoft was a horrible user of memory, as the windows programs were really just DOS overlays (liked dos though - :)). So we were stuck with 640 core memory and fake 32 bit programs, etc., long after IBM was past that. NTFS drives, etc., were all huge johnny-come-latelys with Windows - but Microsoft had good marketing.

On the 2000-other-story thing. Does anyone recall why 95 was called 95? Because Microsoft products were notorious for sucking through version 3. Did anyone here use Word or Windows before 3.1 or 6 or whatever? As 95 was a new program, a version 1, they just gave it a date to avoid the stigma. . . Also, I believe NT started at 4. LOL. Finally, Windows 95 went to 98, then ME, while NT went to 2000. What the hell? Makes no sense. . . (btw - I like XP fine)

Microsoft had marketing. If they didn't, everybody would be surfing on IBM OS4 or something, and it would have looked like XP (though likely with less gimmicks) YEARS ago. There were plenty of users on the net before 95, anyway. . .

AOL
Does anybody remember when AOL was the biggest ANTAGONIST of the WWW. They weren't connecting their users to the "real" internet, instead giving them a shielded proprietary community where their users couldn't get out (AOL chat rooms, no IRC / AOL web, no WWW), and others couldn't get in. They scored deals with Pepsi (?? I think) and many others which stated that the company could only be on AOL. Companies had to choose between websites for only AOL peeps or websites for non-AOL people. AOL certainly didn't help the internet. . .

End of my rantish thing. . .
 
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kinch said:
Also, I believe NT started at 4. LOL.
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NT actually started with version 3.51. The reason for the version number was that prior to NT, Microsoft was a joint developer with IBM on OS/2. When IBM committed to porting OS/2 to the PowerPC, Microsoft bailed and took their "half" of the code, the user interface, and dumped that on top of DOS to create Windows 95. The direct competitor to Windows 95 was IBM's OS/2 Warp (or OS/2 Version 3), then the upgrade to OS/2 v2.11.

Essentially, Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp were both two halves of what should have been OS/2 3.0. Since the true 32-bit code was no longer in MS's branch, as JFS was IBM's property, the UI continued to develop in the Win 95 release while the 32-bit backbone was rewritten under the name Windows 3.5. Our first developer copy was 3.51, and the final product, NT 4.0, was released a little over a year later.
 
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Let's simplify the discussion.

The reason most of us hate MS is b/c of Windows 95, 98, ME. Those had a truckload of problems and once it became clear the competition was minimal they improved very little.

I refuse to swear off MS b/c I think they have a few very good titles, like Excel, their programming tools, and the Xbox has been and continues to look promising with 360.

But there are definitely things to dislike about MS if you are a youngster and not concerned with deploying to office PCs. That was my description back when all of this was happening.

BTW, when was the last time Thunderbird was used in a sentence? :) I helped get this convo off track, just pointing it out.
 
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jwinslow said:
But there are definitely things to dislike about MS if you are a youngster and not concerned with deploying to office PCs.
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... unless you're actually deploying MS product to office PCs, in which case it sucks even worse than casually using it at home.

Ever have to rename a Windows NT Domain, and therefore 150 clients within the domain too? And migrate all the user profiles?

If I met Bill Gates I'd personally shoot him in the head, like in the episode of South Park.

Oh yeah. Thunderbird Rocks. I do have issues with it though, since it apparently isn't compatible with all the latest, hip viruses that are out there. :)
 
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Dryden speaks from a network admin point of view. In that point of view, one would hate all Microsoft products, or at least most.......and I agree. Guess being that I deal with the casual computer user moreso, I am speaking from that point of view.

Thunderbird seems pretty cool, actually reminds me alot of OE, just without the viruses, etc. I am playing around with the junk mail stuff now, wanna see how well that goes before I make up my mind.
 
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Dryden said:
NT actually started with version 3.51. The reason for the version number was that prior to NT, Microsoft was a joint developer with IBM on OS/2. When IBM committed to porting OS/2 to the PowerPC, Microsoft bailed and took their "half" of the code, the user interface, and dumped that on top of DOS to create Windows 95. The direct competitor to Windows 95 was IBM's OS/2 Warp (or OS/2 Version 3), then the upgrade to OS/2 v2.11.

Essentially, Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp were both two halves of what should have been OS/2 3.0. Since the true 32-bit code was no longer in MS's branch, as JFS was IBM's property, the UI continued to develop in the Win 95 release while the 32-bit backbone was rewritten under the name Windows 3.5. Our first developer copy was 3.51, and the final product, NT 4.0, was released a little over a year later.
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Wow, I never knew any of that background before - it explains a lot. . .

Great info-- thanks.
 
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