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From: cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system,comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Apple Computer wins ruling against 'Windows'
Message-ID: <1468@vtserf.cc.vt.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 91 14:03:01 GMT
References: <46873@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991Mar15.101202.1@csc.anu.edu.au>
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.system
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Lines: 51

In article <1991Mar15.101202.1@csc.anu.edu.au> pfr654@csc.anu.edu.au writes:
>> Apple Computer wins ruling against 'Windows'
>
>GO APPLE!!!
>
>I always was suspicious of Windows. I am hoping for a final ruling something 
>like that of the Polaroid vs Kodak suit, where the poor suckers who have 
>bought Windows to try to turn their miserable PCs into Macs are left out in 
>the cold :-)

I dunno.  We just got a couple copies of Windows here, because there are
many more DOS users on campus than Mac users, and Windows is a joke.
The 3.0 seems to have been deliberately designed not to look and work
like the Mac interface, and everything seems awkward and clumsy.  The
windowing model is just plain stupid and confusing--some windows will
only open inside of other windows, while other kinds of windows, with
exactly the same appearance, can be moved anywhere on the screen.  Lots
of other dumb junk abounds....

I am sure Windows seems great to people who have had trouble with the
simplisticly complicated DOS interface, but compared to any other
windowing system (Mac, Motif, NeXT....) it is still just a toy.

So why is it "successful"?  I think it has to do more with the
applications that are just now becoming available, that do offer some of
the functionality of Mac apps, but we had all that stuff six years ago.
Windows is a kluge.  The Mac is not.  One hell of a difference, in my
opinion, and I still wonder why Apple should even care.  As long as they
keep pushing the Mac, Microsoft will never catch up.

In one of the trade rags (back page of InfoWorld, I think), the point
was made that Windows apps will never achieve the same level of
functionality that Mac apps have because a Windows developer cannot
count on a consistent set of hardware features--any Mac developer knows
that every Mac user has high-res graphics, built-in networking, great
sound output( and now sound input), and the same kind of processor
(functionally, the 68000 differs little from the '030, unlike the '286
and the '386).  Pity the poor DOS developer who actually has to worry if
his or her Window app will run properly on a dinky '286 machine with
an old mono display, no network, and no sound; *and* also work properly
on a high end 386 with XGA color running Novell and a bunch of wierd
high end hardware kluges to speed the software up.

Windows and Mac--it's no contest, Apple......


-- 
|          ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never       
|              imagined, or were encouraged to avoid.   T. Pynchon          
|                    
|Andy Cohill        cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu            VPI&SU