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From: hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: TT (Who has one?)
Keywords: long
Message-ID: <1990Jul27.024942.29839@math.lsa.umich.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 90 02:49:42 GMT
References: <1990Jul20.141733.5567@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1990Jul20.233102.24577@math.lsa.umich.edu> <13415@cbmvax.commodore.com>
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Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor
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In article <13415@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) writes:
>>Usenet has always been better software support than any program I've ever
>>seen from any vendor.
>
>Just where did they post that public domain schematic capture program?  Maybe
>comp.source.when.hell.freezes.over?  Yeah, that's the ticket.  The same place
>they posted the PD clone of PageStream....

My wording was a bit ambiguous, I guess. I meant "program" in the sense of
"technical support program", hot-line, software support, etc. I'd also
require one thing in particular - source code for everything. I don't think
this is a problem, to me, personally. I thought I conveyed that in my first
posting, as well, that I was speaking only for myself. I hack on Unix kernels,
and have a lot of fun doing so. I don't need technical support from my
system vendors, I just need a source tape.

Sort of going back to Dave Beckemeyer's comment as well. Yeah, I'm a hobbyist,
I like to mess with computers. I'm pretty fortunate because I've got a good
paying job to do pretty much the same thing. So, yeah, my computers are just
toys for me. I was only speaking for myself anyway, y'know?

As for "real programs" ... You can get Macsyma free from the Department of
Energy. The Free Software Foundation puts out stuff that's way ahead of the
"equivalent" commercial offerings. TeX is free for most systems, including
Unix. There are, of course, "value added" commercial versions of TeX and
Macsyma, but in my opinion (again, I'm just speaking for myself, OK?) they
don't offer much extra. I'm not into publishing or design, so none of those
issues bother me.

As a techno-geek I don't feel that the question is valid. If you want a
program but you don't want to pay $$ for it, then write it. It's kind of
nice to have a system that a lot of other people are developing for, but
it's no big deal to me. I don't have time to even glance at more than a
few percent of the results anyway. If Atari were to close up shop tonight
I would still tool along on my ST, same as I've been so far.
--
  -- Howard Chu @ University of Michigan
  one million data bits stored on a chip, one million bits per chip
	if one of those data bits happens to flip,
		one million data bits stored on the chip...