So I'm getting a gut reaction here that DED hates Microsoft......
What a fun read!
I started with an Atari 800 and then my dad bought a Mac in 1984 and we loved that thing so much. It was so cool to have my friends come over after they put out shoddy looking crap with their endlessly fussy PCs.
I never understood why people defended PCs as compared to Macs. The cost difference was there but I always thought people should see above the $ and value time and creativity.
The computer I absolutely fell in love with was my NeXT. TopDraw and the writing program and the GUI..... their software was miles and miles ahead of anything else. If Apple was a little bolder, they would have adopted more of the GUI such as detachable menus.
I recently had to use a Windows 7 PC at work. Some organizations upgrade slowly. Part of life using that thing included several calls to the tech support center. Restarts. Waiting several minutes for the OS to launch. Launching apps and staring at low-res screens and jaggy fonts was an experience. I do have to say, however, that my typing speed skyrocketed with that spongy PC keyboard. Apple.... please engineer some key travel back into your keyboards.
I understand DED's intense hatred of MS. They put out some truly mediocre shit and really held the industry back. Thank god that Steve had patience and passion and vision to counter the nerds.
Wow, this is a full DED broadside attack on a floundering and apologizing Gates. I can’t disagree with it.
I still have a lot of respect for Bill G as a developer in his day, for some his humanitarian causes, and for the respect he finally showed to Steve Jobs during Steve’s final days. But Bill G, like many Microsofties, is seriously infected with a highly contagious strain of self-respect-eating hubris and blind faith belief in Microsoft Exceptionalism (ME), like it’s a real thing. Sure, history has shown us that there was a real ME, but it was a steaming turd pile OS spawned from a burning dumpster fire and it was not even remotely exceptional, much like Microsoft in general.
Never seen software he developed (MS-DOS was created by someone else), I think the scale of philanthropy is reversely proportional to the rightfulness of the money obtained and I think Mr. Jobs was the one who could stand above the conflict with Mr. Gates.
I will always hate Microsoft for all the time I spent trying to troubleshoot my Windows PCs in the 1990s. The funny thing is, I was an investor and big advocate at the time
You and I had the same past. I used to think computers were supposed to be defragmented and cleaned up weekly. I used to think my Windows machine was better than a Mac because I built it with superior specs. I had never used a Mac. I switched to a Mac and was blown away. I'll always remember that feeling. I felt like I had stepped into a time machine 10 years later. Now I hate Windows for all the hours(days)I spent maintaining their garbage.
Now nothing pisses me off more than some idiot who thinks the same as I did and has never used a Mac.
And I still hate the fact that where I am working now, still forces its employees to use only Windows 10 and not allowing macOS despite almost all its services/applications are web-based and has no issue (whatever that runs on Chrome or FireFox instead of proprietary Internet Explorer) to run on macOS. I would be more than happy if they offer a fixed amount of what they are paying for a standard-issued Windows laptop and upgrade to a MBP (out of my own pocket) anytime. At least I don't have to waste precious time waiting for patching and updates (sometimes as long as 4 hours) only to eat into my personal time to get backlogged work done. I haven't even get started on those hours where excel hung, outlook hung, intermittent issues which requires a reboot to fix, and more...
Life is too short, just bring your own macbook to work and connect it to the network (WiFi, utp). Refuse to work otherwise.
“As the PC business grew into an increasingly valuable segment, IBM attempted to develop its own, more sophisticated OS and hardware platforms with PS/2OS/2. It continued work with Microsoft to do this, but as soon as Microsoft felt it could do better on its own, Gates' Microsoft dumped IBM and launched its own plans for Windows.”
You’re right that OS/2 was the sw platform, but PS/2 was the name of IBM’s hw platform intended to replace the easy to clone IBM PC with a proprietary new architecture.
MSFT worked with IBM on OS/2 and then backed out to focus on Windows instead. But IBM launched PS/2 on its own, only to get undercut by the rest of the industry that kept shipping faster old PC clones.
PS/2 introduced the standard for mini-DIN keyboard and mouse connectors, which is why they were still called that up until USB.
In the fall of 1998 I was meeting some of the other residents of the dorm I was assigned to at R.I.T. I was pretty pleased with my PowerMac 8500 that I had already done a few upgrades to, but one IT major was unimpressed and said something along the lines of “why are you gonna use a computer no one makes software for?” Then we went to his room and he was running OS/2 Warp. I had, and continue to have, a good chuckle at that one.
interesting read. rather different from my take - (1) After Gate won the browser war, although lost in court, but still put Jim Clark out of the game, I guess he experience the same pain now just like Jim did years ago. Yes, Microsoft should have a chance to win - especially after they used same tactic to won the browser war. For what ever the reason, possibly afraid of going to court again, Gate handed over to Google. (2) Apple was in the widgets game long before the iOS, but MSFT had advantage of corp user integration (email, game, crop user suite, etc.). If focus correctly, a draw at best. (personally, I think they brought handsets HW business at wrong company, if they brought BB and add on Nortel assets (fire sale at time), MSFT would be hard to catch.
As for goot old days IBM PS2/OS2 vs MS DOS, rumor said it got a lot to do with high frequency Gate voice. Suits just couldn't bare his voice and OS for consumer was such a mickey mouse $ compare to mainframe, VP got two wrong perceptions = consumer market was not attractive enough, and cheap HW was easy to design (cheap definitely was never easy as history be the witness). Gate won the OS war from IBM, he really should kick himself hard to lost mobile OS to Google.
Free OS, need other hidden money making scheme to sustain. Amazon tablet is intend to sell you stuff more than just reader, Google droid want you search everything and click ads, Chinese OS want your data to direct traffic and more, iOS want your soul to live in i-world. Window, could be home control system if do it properly at the time. However, all are not lost, Gate could still got his last laugh if he play his 5G card correctly - oh, he is no longer involved in MSFT... what a pity! He just have to live with his "nature" anguish., well, you can't win all the time, but some of the time, Bill, it was not bad IMHO.
blastdoor said: If you want to argue over what is or is not "natural," I think there's a case to be made that things like monopolists, dictators, oppression, and violence are more "natural" than free markets, democracy, cooperation, and peace. In nature, it's a brutish battle to the death for survival. It has only been through human civilization that these other ideas (free markets, democracy, etc) have come into being. I certainly prefer the artificial human construct of peace than the natural state of conflict.
I, too, believe we live in a largely Hobbesian world and rely upon the imposed, but beneficial, constructs of modern society and instruments of social welfare to curb those brutish, animalistic tendencies. Patel’s and The Verge’s (and Gates’) licensing advocacy run counter to these modern structures and, instead, bolster the “brutish” natural law of domination and monopolization.
Please don't say Gates has "no moral compass". The Gates foundation has probably saved many, many millions of lives with their world-wide initiatives. He and his wife are modern day "saints".
Reminds me of one of the comedy routine Bill Cosby did in ..... "Himself".
>>My mother and father come over to the house quite often. They're grandparents now.
My mother kisses every child. "Well just come here and kiss your grandmummy. Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm! Grandmummy just love her to death!" And my children think that my mother's the most wonderful person on the face of this earth, and I keep telling my children, "That's *not* the same woman I grew up with! You are looking at an old person, who's trying to get into Heaven now."<<
Then Bill Cosby continue with a comedy routine on what his parents were like, when he was a child growing up.
The natural nemesis for Apple devices is cheap copycat products. Microsoft and Google's both develope an OS that relies on 3rd parties to make the expensive and often razor-thin margin hardware. The difference was that Google would have always been the victor between these two since MS was still asking for fees for their OS, just like their 90s business model, while Google charged nothing, but made money from the data people create when using the software.
Microsoft was never a natural nemesis to Apple. Firstly Microsoft was not the only company making an OS in the 90s. They won because they did a lot of unscrupulous things to each and every one of their competitors. They were not in any sense a natural competitor who won based on merit, more simply they eliminated competition through a seemingly endless and creative variety of nasty schemes. IBM, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Apple, etc. the list of companies MS set out to unhinge or destroy is remarkable.
One point that I didn't see mentioned is that Android is free. When given a choice between several roughly equal OSs, one of which is free, a lot of companies will start with the free one. Windows Mobile as bad as it may have been had to be licensed for a fee. I suspect the same was true with Symbian and the others. Android was free though and all the companies had to do was agree to give user browsing data etc., to Google. Most went for it and the rest died. Windows Mobile just took longer than the rest.
Wow. A lot of hatred. Not sure how having a disagreement over privacy (especially when the government lied about it) means having no moral character. When did you commit to giving most of your wealth away BTW Daniel? As for Windows - Microsoft won on the PC. Get over it. Your hero Jobs did and with great success and Apple won on mobile. And while you join Gates in the past, the world is changing again. And his time Nadella, seems to be the one plotting a course for shareholders to where the puck will be.
The problem with Windows OS is it is written by software engineers. They write codes that they can understand. For the user, you need to know some computer. For example, you need to know what is reformatting a hard disk. Or entering a register. Windows users cannot survive without some people that have some computer knowledge.
In other news, a decrepit old fool takes one last pitiful swing at the spotlight. Unsure how WinCE, and then WiMo could possibly have ever commercially tainted any advancement for Zune/WPh, or the anti-halos of XP/Vista/8, attached to the murder of a once-loved Nordic brand, the old fart stuck to his one successful move: speaking shite.
While a certain amount of grave rolling was happening somewhere, it went unnoticed do to the huge amount of eye-rolling which has caused the planet to increase its rotational velocity, which may or may not contribute to climate change.
Another report has stated, via unconfirmed sources, that a fat, tasteless shill will present a ‘tell all’ on being cheap! More news at 11!
Wow. A lot of hatred. Not sure how having a disagreement over privacy (especially when the government lied about it) means having no moral character. When did you commit to giving most of your wealth away BTW Daniel? As for Windows - Microsoft won on the PC. Get over it. Your hero Jobs did and with great success and Apple won on mobile. And while you join Gates in the past, the world is changing again. And his time Nadella, seems to be the one plotting a course for shareholders to where the puck will be.
The PC wars are not done. And when it comes to absolute profits, it’s Apple that’s winning, across the board.
To think, I was planning to leave my wealth to The Gates Foundation. This recent re-imagining of the potential of what Windows might have been by Gates has caused me to recall his whole history, not just his recent history. I’ll find another beneficiary to write into my will.
I can't agree on the fact the Gates did not have any vision. He had at least one: "seamless computing". This was about being able to start something on one device, and continue on another, having all devices working seamlessly together. The thing is, Microsoft has not been able to make it at that time with XP and Vista, nor has it been able to make it as of yet (at least not as a turnkey solution), even though that is just what Apple created with their ecosystem around iCloud and Siri. To me, it even started back in the Me days when Apple democratized the Exchange way of sharing PIM data across devices. At that time, I could have a tablet and a phone both working together wirelessly and this was incredible for the time (it was 2010 for the record). EDIT: typo.
I will always hate Microsoft for all the time I spent trying to troubleshoot my Windows PCs in the 1990s. The funny thing is, I was an investor and big advocate at the time
Yeah likewise, I spent my youth first fiddling with AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, then constantly troubleshooting Windows and, inevitably, countless hours on the fallback: “just re-install Windows”. (I also lived on Red Oak Lane - great handle!).
In college I managed labs of both Windows and Macs. Today I make most of my money with enterprise Windows development, but as I no longer build gaming rigs I switched everything at home to Mac long ago. Re-installing the OS is not an issue
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS! That brought back some acid flashbacks! What a hell-hole Windows was/ is...
"After the book was written, but before it hit bookstores, Gates recognized that the Internet was gaining critical mass, and on December 7, 1995 — just weeks after the release of the book — he redirected Microsoft to become an Internet-focused company; in retrospect he had "vastly underestimated how important and how quickly the internet would come to prominence".[3] Then he and coauthor Rinearson spent several months revising the book, making it 20,000 words longer and focused on the Internet.[citation needed] The revised edition was published in October 1996 as a trade paperback,[6] with the subtitle "Completely revised and up-to-date.".[3]"
LOL
I will always hate Microsoft for all the time I spent trying to troubleshoot my Windows PCs in the 1990s. The funny thing is, I was an investor and big advocate at the time
Why on earth did you dump their shares? they've been a blessing since Satya took over.
The problem with Windows OS is it is written by software engineers. They write codes that they can understand. For the user, you need to know some computer. For example, you need to know what is reformatting a hard disk. Or entering a register. Windows users cannot survive without some people that have some computer knowledge.
Wow. A lot of hatred. Not sure how having a disagreement over privacy (especially when the government lied about it) means having no moral character. When did you commit to giving most of your wealth away BTW Daniel? As for Windows - Microsoft won on the PC. Get over it. Your hero Jobs did and with great success and Apple won on mobile. And while you join Gates in the past, the world is changing again. And his time Nadella, seems to be the one plotting a course for shareholders to where the puck will be.
Easy to give away when you have enormous amounts of tainted money. Its a bribe to quiet the consciousness. But Bill wouldn't be Bill if no strings were attached, like for example massive sales of Windows pcs. Also I believe Melinda Gates is his consciousness and the real reason behind the charity.
Comments
What a fun read!
I started with an Atari 800 and then my dad bought a Mac in 1984 and we loved that thing so much. It was so cool to have my friends come over after they put out shoddy looking crap with their endlessly fussy PCs.
I never understood why people defended PCs as compared to Macs. The cost difference was there but I always thought people should see above the $ and value time and creativity.
The computer I absolutely fell in love with was my NeXT. TopDraw and the writing program and the GUI..... their software was miles and miles ahead of anything else. If Apple was a little bolder, they would have adopted more of the GUI such as detachable menus.
I recently had to use a Windows 7 PC at work. Some organizations upgrade slowly. Part of life using that thing included several calls to the tech support center. Restarts. Waiting several minutes for the OS to launch. Launching apps and staring at low-res screens and jaggy fonts was an experience. I do have to say, however, that my typing speed skyrocketed with that spongy PC keyboard. Apple.... please engineer some key travel back into your keyboards.
I understand DED's intense hatred of MS. They put out some truly mediocre shit and really held the industry back. Thank god that Steve had patience and passion and vision to counter the nerds.
Refuse to work otherwise.
As for goot old days IBM PS2/OS2 vs MS DOS, rumor said it got a lot to do with high frequency Gate voice. Suits just couldn't bare his voice and OS for consumer was such a mickey mouse $ compare to mainframe, VP got two wrong perceptions = consumer market was not attractive enough, and cheap HW was easy to design (cheap definitely was never easy as history be the witness). Gate won the OS war from IBM, he really should kick himself hard to lost mobile OS to Google.
Free OS, need other hidden money making scheme to sustain. Amazon tablet is intend to sell you stuff more than just reader, Google droid want you search everything and click ads, Chinese OS want your data to direct traffic and more, iOS want your soul to live in i-world. Window, could be home control system if do it properly at the time. However, all are not lost, Gate could still got his last laugh if he play his 5G card correctly - oh, he is no longer involved in MSFT... what a pity! He just have to live with his "nature" anguish., well, you can't win all the time, but some of the time, Bill, it was not bad IMHO.
>>My mother and father come over to the house quite often. They're grandparents now.
My mother kisses every child. "Well just come here and kiss your grandmummy. Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm! Grandmummy just love her to death!" And my children think that my mother's the most wonderful person on the face of this earth, and I keep telling my children, "That's *not* the same woman I grew up with! You are looking at an old person, who's trying to get into Heaven now."<<
Then Bill Cosby continue with a comedy routine on what his parents were like, when he was a child growing up.
Microsoft was never a natural nemesis to Apple. Firstly Microsoft was not the only company making an OS in the 90s. They won because they did a lot of unscrupulous things to each and every one of their competitors. They were not in any sense a natural competitor who won based on merit, more simply they eliminated competition through a seemingly endless and creative variety of nasty schemes. IBM, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Apple, etc. the list of companies MS set out to unhinge or destroy is remarkable.
EDIT: typo.
Why on earth did you dump their shares? they've been a blessing since Satya took over.
Its a bribe to quiet the consciousness.
But Bill wouldn't be Bill if no strings were attached, like for example massive sales of Windows pcs.
Also I believe Melinda Gates is his consciousness and the real reason behind the charity.
Edit: changed Belinda to Melinda
Implying Bill Gates personally—and absolutely—has no morals is a bridge too far IMHO.