Newell: Win8 is a catastrophe; Pardo: I don't disagree.

[Mize]

Yes windows 3.1 was better than the macOS of the day. All the Windows OS's have been better.

That is the most sig-worthy post I've seen in years.
So, can you please tell me how each windows has been better than the corresponding MacOS?
While you're at it, why don't you help out Grall with his question since, in the 1984-1986 MacOS was competing with DOS...how was DOS better?

Hang on though! Don't start yet...I needs to make mees some popcorn to watch this one...

 

[Mize]

ooh, wait, I remember...DOS and windows must have been better at inter-app copy-paste...? Oh, no, it wasn't until IBM OS/2 that any other consumer OS could do this and when MS finally implemented it they even adopted the MacOS keyboard shortcuts...hmmm...give me more time, I'll think of something...

 

[eastmen]

Rofl, Apple bigger than MS in the 80s, since when? MS having the better platform? That would mean you seriously believe DOS (a bootstrap loader and nothing more) being better than Mac system x, a full-featured graphical, windowing OS? Get the F outta here with your history revisionism...

Dos for me just worked and worked with the majority of hardware out there. Of course my experiance with the original mac software happened in the late 80s in my school computer rooms and with windows 1.0 /2.0 on some of the other pcs .

At home my sister had a tandy then in 88' when I was 7 my uncle taught me to build pcs and the first one i built had 2.1 on it .

 

[Grall]

Holy crap, any person seriously arguing that any windows pre-3.x is better than mac system x is so wrong as to seriously warrant a mental examination for signs of dementia. Windows at that time was just a graphical shell dropped on top of that god-awful piece of shit DOS. Like one of those early file managers such as norton commander (possibly the only Norton-branded software that wasn't horrendously bloated ), but somewhat more feature-laden. Everyone else in the known universe have agreed that windows 1 and 2 were terrible. They also bombed in sales - which isn't strange since they fucking sucked both of them.

Btw Mize, AmigaOS had full clipboard functionality since launch in 1985. Pre-emptive multitasking also I might add, something Macs didn't get until OSX in the new millennium... Rofffffllll...! Windows was only about a decade late to that party compared to AmigaOS btw.

Btw, saying that hardware "just worked" with DOS is... Ahem. Well I don't really have any words for it really. I tried to think of a car analogy and failed! Yes, hardware "just worked", after you'd manually tinkered with your config.sys and your autoexec.bat, fiddled with your TSRs and your EMM/EMS high memory manager (possibly requiring setting up multiboot menu options, since not all DOS software was compatible with either memory manager) and so on. In short, I think you're looking back at old history through some seriously rose-colored glasses there Easty, coz DOS was hell, and it sucked harder than a vacuum. Everybody knows this.

 

[Mize]

LMAO again. You were 7 and think you have an accurate view of early windows? I built, configured and installed XT clones for a living in those days (remember when the 286 came out and you could render an AutoCAD drawing in LESS time than it took to shower and have a cup of coffee - that was BLAZING fast). I was an Authorized MS reseller and or primo line was AST. I got my MS software for free from MS, including the first Mac version of Word because, even though I made a living building and installing DOS boxes, my main computer at home was a 512k Mac (I also had 2x TRS-80s and an Epson MS-DOS box).

Yeah, eastmen, you're definitely an authority on 1985 computer operating systems.

Grall - I never said MacOS was the best. NeXTStep is sill my all-time favorite with Amiga a few steps behind as the HMI wasn't as slick.

 

[Rodéric]

Are we at OS bashing or promoting ?

I like BeOS Release 5 best. Makes every other OS feel sluggish and user unfriendly/ill designed.


Not sure there's much to add in that topic honestly, I might close it soon.

 

[Grall]

Mize, I didn't say you said macos was the best ever. I just expressed my incredulousness at Apple's lethargy in getting proper multitasking support into their OS.

Btw, I don't think Eastmen remembers the joys of configuring all the hardware add-in boards in old PCs - you know, those that "just works" under DOS - by manually setting IRQs, address range and possibly DMA channels using jumpers (or DIP switches if you were spoiled for luck by the manufacturer...)

People are so spoiled these days. Motherboards are the entire PC essentially, you don't even need cardslots these days as a regular joe if you don't need high-level graphics, while back in the day the motherboard was just that. You plugged CPU and RAM into it and everything else were daughter cards. (Don't get me started on the analogy of physically mating them together and whatnot, I didn't come up with this terminology! )

You want something as basic as disk I/O? There's an add-in board for that! Graphics, also add-in, of course... I/O ports for your dot-matrix printer and high-speed 2400 BITS per second modem? Add-in board. And so on.

Oh, the joys of ancient PC hardware...

 

[MfA]

I fail to see how Windows8 "closes off" the platform in any way. You can buy software from any source and install it as you always would.

Normal users will not jump the hoop to install non Microsoft signed Metro applications, and thus they won't be sold by other sources. Hell the requirements for a developer license can change at any time, if selling software meant to run under it isn't illegal under the license agreement in the first place it would still be a very bad business decision since Microsoft can screw you at any time.

Sideloading is nice for freeware, but completely irrelevant in the big picture.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It still seems that people are regularly confusing WinRT and Win8 x86. Or deliberately using one to advance their own viewpoint while ignoring the other.

Win 8 x86 will be no different. I'm in the camp with many that don't see WinRT selling in nearly the same volumes as Win 8 x86. Hence virtually no change for the majority of people. There's a new start screen instead of menu and a new app store for casual/light apps. Big whoop.

A consumer will only get a limited Windows experience if they choose to buy a limited WinRT device. Sure some people will fall through the cracks and not know which version they are choosing (cheaper is better right? ), but it can be argued that those people wouldn't necessarily have been interested in the open nature of Win8 x86 anyway. And for anyone knowing what they are choosing, then they obviously chose the more limited device and OS and shouldn't be complaining.

Hence, the "normal" Windows users now will still be able to install and use any application they want when they are "normal" Win8 x86 users.

Any user buying a WinRT slate will be right at home as it'll be similar to the experience they've had on iOS or Android. With the exception that whatever apps they buy in Metro for their WinRT device will likely work on their Win8 x86 device at home as well.

[and oh hell some off topic crap]
Yes, Apple was larger than Microsoft in the 80's. Although perhaps by the end of the 80's they were getting on par with Apple.
Yes, Windows 1.0 and 2.0 were basically experimental in nature. Windows 3.0 brought a lot to the table finally, and Windows 3.1 and 3.11 is where they were finally good. I'm not sure they were better than MacOS, but I had reasons to ditch MacOS anyway. Win95, IMO, was far better than MacOS at the time. I'd stopped using Macs back in 1992 due to stagnation, bloat, and instability in MacOS. Prior to that I only touched x86 computers if I was forced to. And it wasn't until 1996 or 1997 that I finally gave up on Apple Macs. By the time they finally had a real OS again (OSX), it was too late. And even if it wasn't, it's idiotic of Apple to attempt to avoid something for as long as possible just because Windows does it. Mice with more than one button or Windows resizeable at any corner, for instance. I still can't believe that last only finally made it into OSX recently.

BTW - now that my SO has a Mac, I've had to use OSX whenever I'm at her place. Ugh. Can anyone tell me if there's an option for Fast User Switching in OSX like there is in Windows? It's annoying as hell to have to logout just to login as someone else. And anyone know if there's an option in Safari to make it behave like Firefox, Chrome, and IE where clicking in the URL box highlights the URL automatically?

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

And anyone know if there's an option in Safari to make it behave like Firefox, Chrome, and IE where clicking in the URL box highlights the URL automatically?

I dont use safari, but if u click on the icon in the address box (to left of adress) it seems to hilight. instead of that minor issue (if it is one) I'ld prefer them to
A/ fix xcode (just biff it in the rubbish, its so broken) (*)
B/ fix finder

(*) heres some hobby free GPL IDE's that are superior
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code::Blocks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dev-C++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WxDev-C++
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonoDevelop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeLite
etc

Maxim #1 in programming, when a few dudes working in their sparetime produce a better product than 10s of fulltime professionals, its time to abandon ship

 

[Mize]

Ugh. Can anyone tell me if there's an option for Fast User Switching in OSX like there is in Windows? It's annoying as hell to have to logout just to login as someone else. And anyone know if there's an option in Safari to make it behave like Firefox, Chrome, and IE where clicking in the URL box highlights the URL automatically?

Regards,
SB

Fast user switching is upper right corner.
Why use Safari? Just install Chrome/FF.

Yes, MacOS went to hell and never recovered until it got NeXTStep's underpinnings. I was anti Mac from '90 until OSX.
w95, however was utter garbage. Thankfully those years were NeXTstep, Unix and Linux for me. XP was a great gaming OS. W7 is quite nice.

 

[Mize]

Have to say that I really don't understand the concept of "this is the one true/bestest OS!" thing...seems to me like claiming one food or music genre is the only one worth listening to. I use OSX, W7 and three flavors of linux daily and I enjoy each. Why would I want to only have one? Why would I want to only know how to use one? Can't drop to a shell and ssh to your media server update your TV listings subscription? Don't have VNC and PuTTY to admin your linux boxes and macs from your W7 main rig? Can't use vi from a keyboard without arrow keys?

Shame on you...calling yourself a computer nerd when you're really just a geek with an overpriced gaming rig and no true skillz!

 

[Arwin]

Yes, MacOS went to hell and never recovered until it got NeXTStep's underpinnings. I was anti Mac from '90 until OSX.

I still hated OS/X until they started supporting right-click and resizing windows from all corners. The latter only came very recently.

My last 'biggish' issue with OS/X is the font handling, although what I've read about the OS/X filesystem has been worrysome as well. And as a developer, I still don't like Objective C.

 

[Mize]

HFS+ is lame and Apple promised XFS some time ago and has still not delivered. Right-click has been there as long as I've used OSX (leopard).

I do like that OSX handled windowing in a more unix-like way - programs can't just steal the foreground and you don't have to click/foreground to scroll in a window and you can highlight-middle-click to copy paste between windows. Why W7 can't implement such basic and useful things I don't understand.

Oh and as to Objective C, I've met as many who love it as those who hate it. I'm no developer, but the ObjC zealots I know maintain it's true object-oriented while C++ is just C with some objects...

 

[Grall]

programs can't just steal the foreground

It drives me absolutely buggo when windows programs do that. Something autostarting on login steals focus, and whenever I start typing passwords etc into an online game and whatnot right away I get smacked on my fingers by that program commandeering my keypresses. I don't understand why such behavior is allowed. There used to be a checkbox in MS's own powertoys utility that supposedly disabled that "feature" (curse is more like it) but it never worked.

and you don't have to click/foreground to scroll in a window and you can highlight-middle-click to copy paste between windows.

Hm? You DO have to click a window in OSX to highlight it before it will accept any further clicks. That also bugs me out, even more so than MS windows' focus-stealing. I often want to switch tabs or reload a page etc in safari when the window has been inactive for a while and I click the relevant widget and nothing happens. I just highlight the window and that's it. Rrraaaahhhh...!

 

[Mize]

You can scroll a background window in OSX and Linux. Try it. Open a new browser window foreground it, then, without clicking move your mode over a background window and scroll.

 

[zed]

whilst youre gonna find a few zealots that prefer obj-c to c++ or c# or whatever (apple user's to a man I expect), but I doubt youre find anyone objectively say so. BTW Its quite a bit slower than c++ or C to boot.

I was just using objc n hour ago concating 2 strings

NSString *fileandtype = [file stringByAppendingString".xml"];
vs something like
string fileandtype = file + ".xml";

Hm? You DO have to click a window in OSX to highlight it before it will accept any further clicks.

he means scrolling only, yes mac/unix way is the better method

you can highlight-middle-click to copy paste between windows

what do u mean? One thing I would like is like linux, select text & then middle click to paste, is this possible in mac?

 

[Mize]

what do u mean? One thing I would like is like linux, select text & then middle click to paste, is this possible in mac?

you know...the last week or two I've been running a bunch of embedded and desktop linux VMs for a new product we're developing...then I've had the actual products running in VNC viewers. I'm nearly 100% certain I was in OSX (Lion) and did a middle click paste on accident (thinking I was in Linux) and it worked and surprised me. Right now I'm having a coffee at my kids' iMac in the kitchen (Snow Leopard) and it definitely does not work (brings up dashboard). It's possible I was in a fedora or Tiny Core VM when I did this (it was definitely in a terminal/shell), but I'll give it a go when I'm in the office in a few hours.

But just being able to open a terminal at any moment and have unix commands there at the ready (like ssh over PuTTY) saves a ton of time.

 

[Gubbi]

Normal users will not jump the hoop to install non Microsoft signed Metro applications, and thus they won't be sold by other sources. Hell the requirements for a developer license can change at any time, if selling software meant to run under it isn't illegal under the license agreement in the first place it would still be a very bad business decision since Microsoft can screw you at any time.

It is exacly the same as Apple's app store.

People here are acting as if Microsoft is going out on a limb with WinRT+App store, when in fact they are mimicking a *hugely* succesful model.

Apple's app store is not just about convenicence, it is also about trust and security. It made headlines in july when it was found that the "Find and Call" app turned out to be malign. That's one app in a million. On Windows we're up to our eyeballs in malware.

Where I work we've just made a largish iPad app which is meant for B2B. There will be a maximum of 150 installs. We could have deployed it directly to the clients but instead chose to go through three weeks of Apple scrutineering to have it sit in the App store because it adds convenience to the clients (which also minimize the chance of them fucking the install up and thus less support for us).

I don't see WinRT as an instant hit. A software platform's utility is proportional to its applications. But two to three years down the line, when 90% of all new software released is WinRT, it will be a different matter.

Platform consolidation will make the most sense for businesses where Microsoft is already dominant, so they will migrate first.

Cheers

 

[CouldntResist]

QFT.Nobody with a brain installs an unsigned driver today.Cheers

Really? In my perception it has became the norm for hardware manufacturers to print installation manuals, in which they carefully instruct user to ignore Windows warnings about unsigned drivers. I'm basing this mostly on my encounters with USB peripherials (medical equipment, usb ADSL modem, TV tuner, etc.).