Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!earthquake.Berkeley.EDU!kawakami
From: kawakami@earthquake.Berkeley.EDU (John Kawakami)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: New Apple Mac rumored...
Keywords: Mac Classic
Message-ID: <1990Oct12.193317.17943@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 12 Oct 90 19:33:17 GMT
References: <6025@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> <1990Oct11.193711.8837@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <1990Oct12.010833.15174@ecst.csuchico.edu>
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Reply-To: kawakami@earthquake.Berkeley.EDU (John Kawakami)
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In article <1990Oct12.010833.15174@ecst.csuchico.edu> ekrimen@cscihp.UUCP (Ed Krimen) writes:
>But, more than a quarter (26%) [of mac users]  DIDN'T KNOW how much
>RAM they had in their machines!!  Who doesn't know how much RAM they
>have?  
>If you bought the machine, how can't you know how
>much RAM you have?  Isn't that like buying a car and not knowing it's
>a coupe instead of a four-door?  I couldn't understand why there were
>so many out of the sample that didn't know.
>--
>==========================================================================
>Ed Krimen    - ekrimen@csuchico.edu -   |||   SysOp, Fuji BBS 916-894-1261
>Video Production Major                  |||       [ THIS SPACE AVAILABLE ]
>California State University, Chico     / | \      [     LEAVE E-MAIL     ]

It's more like buying a car and not knowing what type of engine is under
the hood.  Lots of people don't know what type of engine is in their car.
It doesn't prevent them from driving, but they probably are not getting
the best use out of the car and if they get in trouble and have to deal
with it themselves or have to exlplain the probelm to someone, they might
be in a real predicament.

I suspect that many people buy the Mac to do one or two things, and get
"consultation" on how to set it up.  Basically, they are paying through
the nose to remain ignorant.  But they are also paying to not deal with
all the "technicalities" of computers, like RAM, processor speed, screen
resolution, disk drive format, printer drivers (the ImageWriter!), soft-
ware purchasing (they buy it with the machine), etc. etc.
I know people who are still using System 5xxxx because they did not get
the info about System 6!

This is not a Mac-exclusive problem.  There are PC owners who don't know
about MORE < filename, TYPE filename, MD dirname, and other DOS functions.
Even more don't know about AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS!!!!  THIS IS TRUE!
I'm doing tech support for a program which requires the DISPLAY=ANSI.SYS
line in CONFIG.SYS (it loads up the screen driver, ANSI.SYS).  If someone
does not have this line, and they don't know what CONFIG.SYS is, it's
impossible to tell them to put the line in using EDLIN!!!
(well not impossible, but definitely risky: "ok, type EDLIN CONFIG.SYS.
now type 'i'' 'return'.  Now type capital D-I-S-P-L-A-Y-equalsign-..."
and at that point I have to remember which directory ANSI.SYS is in...)

John Kawakami                  kawakami@ocf.berkeley.edu
                               ucbvax!ocf.berkeley.edu!kawakami
Amateur crank!                 My Atari Macks!