Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!van-bc!mdavcr!ewm
From: ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: New Macintosh Strategy
Keywords: Macintosh
Message-ID: <1054@mdavcr.UUCP>
Date: 30 Oct 90 02:09:30 GMT
References: <306@cti1.UUCP> <1990Oct29.195413.7784@phri.nyu.edu>
Distribution: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Organization: MacDonald Dettwiler, 13800 Commerce Parkway, Richmond, BC, Canada  V6V 2J3
Lines: 41

In article <1990Oct29.195413.7784@phri.nyu.edu> roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
>greg@cti1.UUCP (Greg Fabian) writes:
>> Take the Mac II lc.  This looks like a potentially crippled machine.
>> There is no memory/paging chip in it, so when the new System 7.0 comes
>> out, this machine won't be able to use virtual memory management.
>
>	Can somebody explain to me why the average Mac user, say a typical
>office secretary, or a scientist who just wants to do word processing, data
>graphing, and figure preparation, or a (non-CS) student typing papers (or
>just about anybody not doing programming or major number crunching) needs
>VM?  OK, so you can't run Unix on it, but so what?


I am amazed by how many times I've heard the cry "well, who really needs
it anyway" over the last ten years.  The fact is, if a feature is
available on a computer system, software vendors will write programs 
to take advantage of it, and users will grow to use it and expect it.

Actually, I think saying that the only people who need VM are 
programmers and "major" number crunchers is 180% out of line.  I would
say the ones who need it most are *precisely* the secretaries,
scientists, etc, who want to do wordprocessing, data graphing, and
figure preparation.

These are the people who want to have 3-4 programs running so they can
have a spreadsheet active, copy data from it into a graphing
program, which they then copy to a drawing program to fine tune, and
finally transfer the result to a wordprocessor to reinforce the text.

Personally, this is how I work when I have a VM, multi-tasking system.
I doubt I am the only person who likes to be able to do this.

Something like virtual memory is so darned convenient that I sure as
heck want it.  If you have used a system that can run multiple
applications at the same time, I would think you would understand this.

Eric


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disclaimer:  I claim `dis'.