bugsnw

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.

It's exciting to imagine a world where desktops and laptops follow iPhones on the hardware upgrade cycle. Even if the upgrades for non-phones were every 2 years, consistently, that would be better than some of the huge delays that occur now. Modular designs where components could receive updates for a certain time would be helpful in extending the usefulness of our hardware. I can think of one particular instance where Intel really put the screws to Apple: my MacBook was maxed out at 16GB ram and really needed 32 for opening up browsers with dozens of tabs. From what I understand, Intel's chip limited Apple on that front.

There's always a few nuggets of truth or a germ of interest in new ideas. Some ideas, such as socialism, sound wonderful to younger people without the benefit of historical understanding. There are issues with unbridled capitalism and there have to be intelligently applied rules so everyone who wants to play the game has a chance to birth a great idea. When I hear some of the ideas from Warren, I tense up instinctually. My initial thoughts are always, "what could go wrong here?" I line up the govt. on one side, or at least Warren, and Apple on the other, and wonder if it's a good idea that Warren or the govt. should have whatever control they are seeking over a company. There should be innovation as well as consumer protections. When companies appear to be violating the rules, they should face the consequences. It's a balancing act and the pendulum swings from side to side. Companies who abuse privacy laws, practice collusive pricing practices, or abuse consumers should be held to account. I feel our filters just need to be a little tighter when it's election season and politicians are throwing out candy for re-election.

This isn't govt. stepping in to curb abuse, like when Microsoft slammed the brakes on innovation by requiring hardware companies to ONLY offer Windows or losing their licenses. I'm not comfortable with more govt. overreach, especially in the realm of innovative tech companies. I'm even less enthused when plans such as this are drawn up by govt. officials of low character.

I was in college in the late 80s and my dad was as interested in computers as I was. He purchased a NeXT Cube and I did all of my assignments on that thing. The interface and applications were amazing. The NeXT Laser Printer was a thing of beauty and produced output that left my classmates in the dust. My favorite application was TopDraw and I never passed up an opportunity to insert some kind of graphic into my papers. The only thing is that optical drive was way ahead of its time and NeXT apparently didn't do any testing on reliability. I remember hearing the drive spin down and my heart sinking. I knew it was toast. Good memories! I still think Apple should adopt tear-off menus. That was an incredibly efficient way to work.