Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!waikato.ac.nz!canterbury!otago.ac.nz!stanger
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Open Letter to an MS-DOS User
Message-ID: <1991Mar28.112602.217@otago.ac.nz>
From: stanger@otago.ac.nz (Nigel Stanger)
Date: 28 Mar 91 11:26:02 NZDT
References: <6078@crystal9.UUCP> <1991Mar27.030224.20622@news.iastate.edu>   <1991Mar27.171045.9721@amd.com>
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Lines: 48

In article <1991Mar27.171045.9721@amd.com>, phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) writes:
> mcgredo@prism.cs.orst.edu (Don McGregor) writes:
>>  The Mac come bundled with the System software, a mouse, and
> 
> And what a shitty mouse it is, too!

I agree, the old ones with the heavier ball were much better.
It's interesting to see that Apple have started making mice with
the heavy ball again (well, at least, *we* got one with our
IIsi). Unfortunately, this one has the quirk that if you use it
on a softish mouse pad, it grinds to a halt on the mouse pad.
Something to do with the ridge around the ball on the bottom. You
get used to it after a while though, and the problem goes away...

>>  For all their "Windows-is-just-as-good-as-Mac" rhetoric, the 
>>  PC folks are still being dragged kicking and screaming into
>>  the GUI world. They grump about using it, call into doubt
>>  the manhood/womanhood of anyone who does, and generally long

You'll probably find (IMHO) that it's mostly the power MS-DOS
users who do the kicking and screaming :-)

> Actually, I think the Mac has some really neat features to it.
> Some of it is magic to me. How does the system know where to
> get the application to run when you select a data file? It
> seems you can move applications around and the data files
> can still be launched!

By a neat little feature called a *signature*. Every application
has a unique (in theory) signature. Apple keeps a register of
application signatures to prevent conflicts. The signature of the
application is appended to every document it creates (i.e. each
document knows who created it). When you open the file, the
Finder grabs the application signature, looks it up in the
Desktop file (which keeps a track of all the apps on the disk),
goes and finds it ("Finder" get it? :-), and launches it. It's
quite simple really... :-)
-- 
See ya
                                Nigel.

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