Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!davewt From: davewt@NCoast.ORG (David Wright) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Amiga vs. Mac Message-ID: <1991Apr5.033707.22847@NCoast.ORG> Date: 5 Apr 91 03:37:07 GMT References: <1991Mar14.013927.26548@midway.uchicago.edu> <1991Mar19.031537.17575@NCoast.ORG> <1991Mar29.215008.9634@Think.COM> Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast) Lines: 50 In article <1991Mar29.215008.9634@Think.COM> laird@think.com (Laird Popkin) writes: >You're kidding, right? I can run the MPW shell in a window (or a couple of >windows) on my Mac, and have access to all sorts of tools. Most of the >typical unix tools have been ported to MPW, and they work just fine. But >99% of all Mac owners never use a command line because they never have to! >The greatest thing about WB2.0 is that it _finally_ makes WB usable to the >point where you don't have to drop into the CLI all the time to get things >done. 1) Is MPW shell produced by Apple and distributed as part of the OS? There have been WorkBench enhancers for the Amiga for years, I don't include them because they don't come with every machine and aren't support by C=. Is MPW Shell? >> I would be willing to bet Apple will NEVER change the OS again in the >>way they did to add the window shrink gadget, as every program would have to >>be recompiled to work with it, or at least support it. >Actually, things like that are far _more_ tweekable on the Mac than the >Amiga. I have all sorts of INITs and CDEV's installed that give me, for >example, 3-D color scroll bars and windows which then appear in all my >applications. And if I want to, I could write my own window and scroll bar These can be done more easily on the Amiga, but this is not what I was saying. None of these actually ADD a feature to all Mac applications, just change the way that the ones that are there work. That is a big difference. >handlers and plug them in. And your example of the zoom box is a bad one, >actually, since that's supported in the OS, not the applications. Note That's the point I was making! It would be virtually impossible to add more NEW features like the zoom box without breaking/being useless in most applications due to the way that the Mac does it's windowing. I don't care if you can make your window to back gadget look like a grape (that can be done on the Amiga too), I'm talking about adding a NEW gadget to the gadget types, that will be useable by ALL applications with no code changes. >that through all of this, it's the _user_ who has control over the scroll >bars, windows, and so on, as opposed to the programmer. Speaking as a user >and a programmer, that's where the control belongs. So where did I say otherwise? I don't care if you make your scroll bars look like rolling papyrus or a spreading deck of cards. I was talking about the ability to add new classes of gadgets at the OS level without any application code changes. >The difference is that Apple had a vision of how they could put _users_ in >control of the computers, and implemented everything based on that. C= had >a box with a lot of nifty features. That's why the Amiga has _always_ had >better "features" than the Mac, but the Mac has always been "better done" >from the user's point of view. Until 2.0. And I disagree that the Mac has always been "better done" from the user's point of view. *I* am a user too, you know, and I would never settle for a computer that gave me LESS power than the wimpy and disgusting MS-DOS world. Dave