On 10/10/2011 4:49 AM, BAR wrote:
In ,
says...

In ,
Alan wrote:

In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


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--

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Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC). Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.

Perhaps this genius can also explain why more and more college students
in science and engineering are switching to Macs? Of their own free
will, that is. And not to use Windoze on them, either.

What is Apple at now - 11%, third largest, up from less than 5% four
years ago?

Intel won.




Linux is surely the equal, or better, of windows -- however, it is a tad
bit more difficult to use (unbutu perhaps breaks that rule) and is just
as prone to viruses and such, if used by people without proper education
and/or a virus/malware scanner ...

Plus, when you give people a product with is dirt free, they just can
never really trust it, they have to suffer payment or they just have
"that uncomfortable feeling." ROFLOL

Regards,
JS

On 10/10/2011 2:40 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In ,
John wrote:

On 10/10/2011 12:05 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In ,
John wrote:

On 10/9/2011 11:49 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
In articlejoednXxxSuLvPQzTnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink .com,
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 11:03:20 +0900, Brenda Ann wrote:



That's not the business Apple is in; they sell a lifestyle of form
[over] substance


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
---
--

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
---
--

Besides, Apple was extant in the market before PC's (the original Apple
computer was something like $3000, a clone was about $2300, IIRC).
Apple
maintained a following and indeed an increasing market base even after
PC's got so cheap that most anyone could afford one.

If someone likes a product enough to pay what seems to be an
exhorbitant
price for it, even in the face of a much cheaper alternative, then that
is what they call "market forces" in operation. The consumer, in this
case, has actually set the price by buying the product. If nobody were
buying it, it would either become cheaper or taken off the market.

They subsidised and strongarmed their way into schools; a whole
generation equated Apple with computing. It's definitely a fashion
thing.
I was the IT guy at a TV network west coast headquarters. All the
"creative" types insisted on iMacs; they refused to work on windows
machines (this is for typing-not editing). Hollywood creative types are
insufferable boors.

Of course... ...someone insisting on a product must be a "fashion thing".

How exactly did Apple "strongarm" their way into schools.


They virtually gave them the hardware,

"Giving" is "strongarming"?

then sold them the software for
exorbitant prices ... signed them into exploitative contracts, etc.

Really? And they signed these contracts with the children? Because I was
under the impression that schools had people who were qualified to agree
to such contracts...

Contracts which stipulated only apple people maintained the college
hardware ... etc., etc. Games within games, really.

Then they were free not to sign them, weren't they? Ergo: not
strongarmed at all.


Back in the late 80's and early 90's I taught at a jr. college, I seen
first hand how apples predatory sales techniques worked.

Clearly.


Finally, at the college, a few of us wrote letters of complaint to the
"higher ups" and rectified the problem ... there was also some business
of "incentives" being passed about about by apple to those who
controlled purchasing ... lunches, wining and dining, etc. However,
digital equipment corporation also participated in such practices ...
(DEC)

However, one thing I did notice, the "apple room" was always full of
liberal arts students while the PC sections of the computer labs always
contained the math, physics, science, etc. students ... just as a casual
observation ...

Riiiiiiiight.


Regards,
JS


Your post is an excellent example of what I have found about "Apple
People", they have a religious devotion to the platform ...

Your post is an excellent example of someone who believes that anyone
who sees value where you do not must do it out of religious devotion...


Personally, the only reason I use a PC, and refuse MAC's, is that I
write much of the software I use ... plus, I private contract to develop
software on multiple platforms (even though I am retired, for the most
part) ... while most of that could be done on a MAC, it simply would not
make economic sense, for me ... I mean, I am in the business to make
money -- NOT pay money to apple ... apple has worked hard in being one
of the most proprietary corps I have ever seen, I think they can do that
without me ...

In what way is the Mac more "proprietary" than Windows from your
perspective? The fact that they've always sold computers with their own
OS? You can write software for that platform just as you can for Windows
or for Linux.


Windows doesn't hold patents on the hardware, to run their software,
just for starters ... and, they don't have an iphone, or even an idildo,
for that matter! ROFLOL

Regards,
JS

On 10/10/2011 6:17 AM, Brenda Ann wrote:


"BAR" wrote in message ...
.

DEC purchased by Compaq purchased by HP and now HP is out of the PC
business again.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


First I've heard of that. I get email from HP at least twice a month
wanting me to upgrade my laptop. Also, the PX sells almost nothing BUT
HP computers.



I bought an HP which case was made from the same material as the Glock
handgun ... tough stuff ...

However, that was the only good part of the whole laptop! I'll bet if
you went and dug up that case, in the landfill, it would still be
usable! Even after the cat/bulldozer dove over it! lol

Regards,
JS

On 10/10/2011 12:58 AM, Rocky wrote:
"John wrote in message
...
On 10/8/2011 11:19 PM, Rocky wrote:
"John wrote in message
...
On 10/5/2011 8:10 PM, J R wrote:
I just now heard on TV news he has died.
cuhulin


I guess you just can't keep charging people too much for hardware and OS
forever ... someone elses' turn now ...

Regards,
JS

FYI I owe my life to an old Apple ][+ because I learned machine language
programming on one of those and then through a series of events ended up
being a full time programmer for IBM personal computers that got to
travel
all over the place like from Boston, MA to Orlando, FL via New York City
were I went to the top of the South Tower. And I went to places like San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Amarillo, TX even up to
Vancouver
Canada and a lot of other places in the mid states.

Two of the things I did on the Apple ][e computers while I was still in
school were to rewrite the OS so it could load the first two programs on
a
disk without loading the entire OS depending on what number I pressed
while
booting and I changed my OS so I no longer had to spell out the entire
word
CATALOG. All I had to do was spell cat or catwhatever (meaning as long
at
the word "cat" was spelled in upper or lower case it didn't matter what
letters were behind it).

Yep, I owe my life to Steve Jobs even though I never bought an iPhone,
iPad
or iPod but I might buy an iPhone if Sprint will let me keep my current
plan
with unlimited phone as modem.

Rocky

Wow, learned motorola syntax to write in intel assembly syntax ... kinda
like exchanging the horses place with the cart ...

Yes they were different but the closest thing to Intel machine language was
machine language. Besides the assembler I had at the time could be used for
multiple languages and we had to learn a few of them too.

In the early days, getting documentation on the apple bios was so
difficult, it was probably the major reason most jumped to intel to write
OS, apps, etc.

I had just the opposite problem. I found it was easier to get documentation
the Apple Dos and Apple BIOS than it was for me to get it for the IBM AT.
And when I finally found and bought my IBM AT Technical Reference Manual I
ended up with a used copy instead of a brand new one.

And, so long ago I forget the specifics, but at least a lot of the apple
bios was boot blocks on a disk, as opposed to the firmware bios of the PC
...

Yep, I remember the way Apple booted very well and I never figured out how
to boot trace on an IBM the way I could with the Apple.

As a matter of fact that fast loader I wrote for the Apple DOS that could
run programs without loading the entire OS was placed into the sector that
was used to assemble the data read from the disk.

That reminds me. I also sped up how quick I could read from text files from
a disk because on a read I removed the built in time-out and just read from
the disk until I didn't get an error.

I even wrote a special OS just to handle Rayna drives that supported 80
tracks and then used that on my BBS. Oh boy, talking about my Apple BBS
now. I even rewrote the machine language part of the modem interface to be
interrupt driven and after I did that the user could no longer tell when it
was changing modules because it would change modules while it was still
sending characters out of a buffer via interrupts.

Regards,
JS

Rocky



Since my first language was actually hex and firmware programming,
assembly actually looked "high level" to me ... but, although I
resisted, my life is pledged to the C++ god and his scriptures created
in C syntax ... if you are ever tempted or forced to use assembly, for
some weird and new hardware, you can always use the inline function in
most C compilers and just drop to assembly and keep on writing ... but,
my C compiler will compile straight assembly, if directed to do so ...
the world has gotten gray ... and me too!

Regards,
JS

On 10/9/11 07:17 , BAR wrote:
In ,
says...

"John wrote in message
...
On 10/5/2011 8:10 PM, J R wrote:
I just now heard on TV news he has died.
cuhulin


I guess you just can't keep charging people too much for hardware and OS
forever ... someone elses' turn now ...

Regards,
JS

FYI I owe my life to an old Apple ][+ because I learned machine language
programming on one of those and then through a series of events ended up
being a full time programmer for IBM personal computers that got to travel
all over the place like from Boston, MA to Orlando, FL via New York City
were I went to the top of the South Tower. And I went to places like San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Amarillo, TX even up to Vancouver
Canada and a lot of other places in the mid states.

Two of the things I did on the Apple ][e computers while I was still in
school were to rewrite the OS so it could load the first two programs on a
disk without loading the entire OS depending on what number I pressed while
booting and I changed my OS so I no longer had to spell out the entire word
CATALOG. All I had to do was spell cat or catwhatever (meaning as long at
the word "cat" was spelled in upper or lower case it didn't matter what
letters were behind it).

Yep, I owe my life to Steve Jobs even though I never bought an iPhone, iPad
or iPod but I might buy an iPhone if Sprint will let me keep my current plan
with unlimited phone as modem.

Rocky

You are an idiot.


He does, however, seem to be having more fun than you.

In article ,
John Smith wrote:

then sold them the software for
exorbitant prices ... signed them into exploitative contracts, etc.

Really? And they signed these contracts with the children? Because I was
under the impression that schools had people who were qualified to agree
to such contracts...

Contracts which stipulated only apple people maintained the college
hardware ... etc., etc. Games within games, really.

Then they were free not to sign them, weren't they? Ergo: not
strongarmed at all.


Back in the late 80's and early 90's I taught at a jr. college, I seen
first hand how apples predatory sales techniques worked.

Clearly.


Finally, at the college, a few of us wrote letters of complaint to the
"higher ups" and rectified the problem ... there was also some business
of "incentives" being passed about about by apple to those who
controlled purchasing ... lunches, wining and dining, etc. However,
digital equipment corporation also participated in such practices ...
(DEC)

However, one thing I did notice, the "apple room" was always full of
liberal arts students while the PC sections of the computer labs always
contained the math, physics, science, etc. students ... just as a casual
observation ...

Riiiiiiiight.


Regards,
JS


Your post is an excellent example of what I have found about "Apple
People", they have a religious devotion to the platform ...

Your post is an excellent example of someone who believes that anyone
who sees value where you do not must do it out of religious devotion...


Personally, the only reason I use a PC, and refuse MAC's, is that I
write much of the software I use ... plus, I private contract to develop
software on multiple platforms (even though I am retired, for the most
part) ... while most of that could be done on a MAC, it simply would not
make economic sense, for me ... I mean, I am in the business to make
money -- NOT pay money to apple ... apple has worked hard in being one
of the most proprietary corps I have ever seen, I think they can do that
without me ...

In what way is the Mac more "proprietary" than Windows from your
perspective? The fact that they've always sold computers with their own
OS? You can write software for that platform just as you can for Windows
or for Linux.


Windows doesn't hold patents on the hardware, to run their software,
just for starters ... and, they don't have an iphone, or even an idildo,
for that matter! ROFLOL

So?

Apple's suddenly an evil empire because they make hardware and Microsoft
doesn't?

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg

On 10/10/2011 12:56 PM, Alan Baker wrote:
In ,
John wrote:

then sold them the software for
exorbitant prices ... signed them into exploitative contracts, etc.

Really? And they signed these contracts with the children? Because I was
under the impression that schools had people who were qualified to agree
to such contracts...

Contracts which stipulated only apple people maintained the college
hardware ... etc., etc. Games within games, really.

Then they were free not to sign them, weren't they? Ergo: not
strongarmed at all.


Back in the late 80's and early 90's I taught at a jr. college, I seen
first hand how apples predatory sales techniques worked.

Clearly.


Finally, at the college, a few of us wrote letters of complaint to the
"higher ups" and rectified the problem ... there was also some business
of "incentives" being passed about about by apple to those who
controlled purchasing ... lunches, wining and dining, etc. However,
digital equipment corporation also participated in such practices ...
(DEC)

However, one thing I did notice, the "apple room" was always full of
liberal arts students while the PC sections of the computer labs always
contained the math, physics, science, etc. students ... just as a casual
observation ...

Riiiiiiiight.


Regards,
JS


Your post is an excellent example of what I have found about "Apple
People", they have a religious devotion to the platform ...

Your post is an excellent example of someone who believes that anyone
who sees value where you do not must do it out of religious devotion...


Personally, the only reason I use a PC, and refuse MAC's, is that I
write much of the software I use ... plus, I private contract to develop
software on multiple platforms (even though I am retired, for the most
part) ... while most of that could be done on a MAC, it simply would not
make economic sense, for me ... I mean, I am in the business to make
money -- NOT pay money to apple ... apple has worked hard in being one
of the most proprietary corps I have ever seen, I think they can do that
without me ...

In what way is the Mac more "proprietary" than Windows from your
perspective? The fact that they've always sold computers with their own
OS? You can write software for that platform just as you can for Windows
or for Linux.


Windows doesn't hold patents on the hardware, to run their software,
just for starters ... and, they don't have an iphone, or even an idildo,
for that matter! ROFLOL

So?

Apple's suddenly an evil empire because they make hardware and Microsoft
doesn't?


Actually, you have missed the point, gotten off track, the conversation
I seen was focused on fools and overpaying for the same bang less buck
will do ...

It isn't that apple is evil for taking fools money, the fools always end
up giving it to some one ... nor are the fools evil ... evil just
doesn't really apply.

If fools willingly give you money, I am not aware of any crimes which
have been broken, nor evil criminals at fault ... I mean, like, DUH!

Regards,
JS

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
On 10/10/2011 12:58 AM, Rocky wrote:
"John wrote in message
...
On 10/8/2011 11:19 PM, Rocky wrote:
"John wrote in message
...
On 10/5/2011 8:10 PM, J R wrote:
I just now heard on TV news he has died.
cuhulin


I guess you just can't keep charging people too much for hardware and
OS
forever ... someone elses' turn now ...

Regards,
JS

FYI I owe my life to an old Apple ][+ because I learned machine
language
programming on one of those and then through a series of events ended
up
being a full time programmer for IBM personal computers that got to
travel
all over the place like from Boston, MA to Orlando, FL via New York
City
were I went to the top of the South Tower. And I went to places like
San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, Amarillo, TX even up to
Vancouver
Canada and a lot of other places in the mid states.

Two of the things I did on the Apple ][e computers while I was still in
school were to rewrite the OS so it could load the first two programs
on
a
disk without loading the entire OS depending on what number I pressed
while
booting and I changed my OS so I no longer had to spell out the entire
word
CATALOG. All I had to do was spell cat or catwhatever (meaning as long
at
the word "cat" was spelled in upper or lower case it didn't matter
what
letters were behind it).

Yep, I owe my life to Steve Jobs even though I never bought an iPhone,
iPad
or iPod but I might buy an iPhone if Sprint will let me keep my current
plan
with unlimited phone as modem.

Rocky

Wow, learned motorola syntax to write in intel assembly syntax ... kinda
like exchanging the horses place with the cart ...

Yes they were different but the closest thing to Intel machine language
was
machine language. Besides the assembler I had at the time could be used
for
multiple languages and we had to learn a few of them too.

In the early days, getting documentation on the apple bios was so
difficult, it was probably the major reason most jumped to intel to
write
OS, apps, etc.

I had just the opposite problem. I found it was easier to get
documentation
the Apple Dos and Apple BIOS than it was for me to get it for the IBM AT.
And when I finally found and bought my IBM AT Technical Reference Manual
I
ended up with a used copy instead of a brand new one.

And, so long ago I forget the specifics, but at least a lot of the apple
bios was boot blocks on a disk, as opposed to the firmware bios of the
PC
...

Yep, I remember the way Apple booted very well and I never figured out
how
to boot trace on an IBM the way I could with the Apple.

As a matter of fact that fast loader I wrote for the Apple DOS that could
run programs without loading the entire OS was placed into the sector
that
was used to assemble the data read from the disk.

That reminds me. I also sped up how quick I could read from text files
from
a disk because on a read I removed the built in time-out and just read
from
the disk until I didn't get an error.

I even wrote a special OS just to handle Rayna drives that supported 80
tracks and then used that on my BBS. Oh boy, talking about my Apple BBS
now. I even rewrote the machine language part of the modem interface to
be
interrupt driven and after I did that the user could no longer tell when
it
was changing modules because it would change modules while it was still
sending characters out of a buffer via interrupts.

Regards,
JS

Rocky



Since my first language was actually hex and firmware programming,
assembly actually looked "high level" to me ... but, although I resisted,
my life is pledged to the C++ god and his scriptures created in C syntax
... if you are ever tempted or forced to use assembly, for some weird and
new hardware, you can always use the inline function in most C compilers
and just drop to assembly and keep on writing ... but, my C compiler will
compile straight assembly, if directed to do so ... the world has gotten
gray ... and me too!

Regards,
JS

Been there done that meaning I used the inline function plenty of times
until windoze came along because it didn't seem to like any assembly code at
all.

I did a lot of C programming as a matter of fact I did too much of it
because when it came time to access to a database I had force myself to use
C++ because Microsoft would not let you access their database functions with
C. What I ended up doing was learning how to call a C++ module from a C
module and that sure made life easy.

I ended up in the MSDN where I got all sorts of Microsoft Compilers and
languages so that was pretty neat but I got out of that before they ever had
a decent copy of XP. Turns out I found a way to use my MSDN license keys
with XP SP3. All I had to do was change one text file before I installed
it.

To this day I am still running WINDOWS Server 2000 on a few of my computers.
I know one of them caught a virus or five so I don't turn that one on much
anymore. I had it scanned and it found 4 viruses but it still runs like it
has a virus in it so one of these days I hope I can reinstall the OS without
loosing too much.

Oh and I still use WINDOWS 2000 Server when I want a web server but now I
mostly use it under Microsoft Virtual PC 2005.

Rocky

On 10/10/11 11:59 AM, John Smith wrote:
On 10/10/2011 4:21 AM, Joe from Kokomo wrote:
On 10/10/2011 3:13 AM, Alan Baker wrote:

Or it could be what I've observed year after year: someone who switches
to the Mac almost never switches back to the PC.

Have you also considered economics? Macs ain't cheap...and once people
have all that Mac money invested, they might be reluctant to change.

I had my first Apple II back in 1981. Loved it! Then along came the Mac
-- closed architecture, NO expansion slots.

IBM PCs then came on the scene with -- whadda ya know -- open
architecture and expansion slots, an idea that Apple abandoned and IBM
adopted.

To this very day, IBM has TONS more ham radio, astronomy and science
software, expansion cards and applications than the Mac.

If you like a toaster/appliance, the Mac is just fine.

Valid point(s.)

Except that some of them are not entirely correct.

I'll agree that Apple's hardware isn't cheap in comparison to
Windows-based PCs, but you're getting a fast, stable OS that is pretty
much tailored to run on the hardware - and while the hardware uses much
the same componentry as you'll find in any x64-based PC, the hardware
has been designed to be supportive of the OS, not the other way around.
This leads to a longer useful life of the hardware even once it's been
relegated to a secondary post-replacement role.

Apple has not abandoned the open architecture idea: it lives on in the
desktop machines outside of the iMac range. Last time I opened mine up,
there were slots. Lots of them, and compatible with various flavours of
PCI, SATA, and other standard architectures, as it happens. Yes, iMacs
are sealed units (effectively, though there are still upgrades that can
be performed on them), but so are the all-in-one PCs from major
manufacturers such as Dell.

As for the Windows platform having more software available for any
purpose (not just the ones mentioned): well, yeah. It does. But how
many variations on a theme are actually useful? I can't think of a time
where it's been better to have multiple software packages installed that
all do about the same thing rather than one that just does it well.

Also note that OS X can build and run a large chunk of the software
available for *nix systems as well (see: Macports, Darwinports,
Homebrew, and other port managers), so tools and applications already in
use on other platforms can typically be installed and used on a Mac.
End result: more software choice.

Please don't take away from this that I'm a Mac zealot (I'm really a
UNIX bigot) - it's just tedious to hear the same things said about the
platform over and over that aren't factually-accurate.

- x.

On 10/10/11 12:12 PM, John Smith wrote:

and, they don't have an iphone

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphon...s/default.aspx

or even an idildo, for that matter! ROFLOL

Yes, they do. It's called the BSOD.

- x.