Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wshb!michaelb
From: michaelb@wshb.UUCP ( WSHB employee)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Norton utilities for UNIX (was: drawtree for Unix/Sun/curses?)
Summary: Legitimate question
Message-ID: <370@wshb.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 89 21:33:45 GMT
References: <11758@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1989Dec6.235050.26453@aqdata.uucp>
Organization: WSHB, Christian Science Mon. Synd., Cypress Creek, SC
Lines: 37

> >>    Here is a question I have been wanting to ask for a long time but
> >> always forgot to. WHY doesn't someone make a whole NORTON UTILITES
> >> for UNIX? I mean, it is SO easy to unerase files in MS-DOS. 

   I think this question deserves a lot more attention than it's getting.
One of the editorials in one of the recent trade magazines spoke about
ease of use legitimizing a technology and gave the example of the FAX
machine becoming the electronic information transfer standard. The editor
was exactly correct in his accessment. We have a $1000 FAX machine and
a $28,000 computer. My corporate headquarters has several $1000 FAX 
machines and several $100,000 computers. We send our weekly time sheets
over the FAX because both the station manager on my end and the payroll
officer on the other end understand the FAX machines.
   There are millions of MS-DOS machines on desktops all around the
country because people who couldn't care less about understanding how the
machine works can do things fairly easily. Norton's unerase program may 
not be the best example to use here because actually unerasing a file is 
so complicated in a multiuser, multitasking environment. If Unix is to capture
a significant share of the desktops in the world, it has got to become easier
for the unfamiliar to use. Granted, if you have been working with Unix
for the past 5 years ( or 2, or 10 ) you may be able to approximate all
of the features available from Norton with a little bit of thought.
My wife, who really has no idea why a magnet is dangerous to a floppy,
can move files all around the disk on her MS-DOS machine because of
PC-TOOLS and can move the working directory around because of NCD.
   These programs are not toys to make Messy-DOS OK, but are real live
productivity aids to people who don't want to remember arcane arguments
to program names they find obscure. Until one can look in the back
of any Computer Shopper and find ad's for these kinds of utilities,
Unix cannot take the Boardroom away from MS-DOS.


--
Michael Batchelor -- Systems/Operations Engineer
WSHB - An International Broadcast Station of
          The Christian Science Monitor Syndicate, Inc.
uunet!wshb!michaelb                 803/625-4880