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From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: dosread.c again
Message-ID: <6640@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 23 Oct 89 15:59:52 GMT
References: <3717@ast.cs.vu.nl> <3a18.2536ede8@ibmpcug.co.uk> <3721@ast.cs.vu.nl> <6627@ficc.uu.net> <9830@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 42

I said [wrt Mac vs. DOS]
	The system software is pretty psychotic, but it's a hell of a lot
	better than DOS.

In article <9830@attctc.Dallas.TX.US> chasm@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Charles Marslett) writes:
> I don't know what you are refering to here, but having used MANY operating
> systems, and programmed them, the Mac OS (Finder, et al.) is only marginally
> better than DOS.

From a programming standpoint, it's psychotic. From a users standpoint, it's
light years ahead.

> In fact I find DOS+MS/Windows to be not only comparable, but
> more flexible (it does have a command line interpreter), and more intuitive.

I agree. MS-Windows has avoided many of the stupidities of MacOS (which makes
Apple's lawsuit all the more ludicrous).

But only a small fraction of DOS programs are written for MS-Windows, and
all too many take over the screen because they're not well-behaved. And
writing software for Windows is just as hard as writing software for the
Mac. The programming model is the all-too-common event loop with callbacks.

> If you are referring to programming, the Mac is the only machine I have
> surrendered to (I have never successfully written a program from scratch
> for it.  They all get bogged down in trying to do some trivial little thing
> that both DOS and Unix do make easy).

Yeppers. And Windows is just the same.

[low-cost alternatives to DOS]
> If you can mention a single real alternative to DOS on an 80x86 machine
> that qualifies (even being rather liberal and ignoring the cost of application
> programs) as low cost, I'll shut up and go along with this (%censored%).

Minix is getting there. But you may be right, so dump that 80*86 and get
yourself a 68000 (no, not a Mac).
-- 
Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-'
"I feared that the committee would decide to go with their previous        'U`
 decision unless I credibly pulled a full tantrum." -- dmr@alice.UUCP