Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!toddpw From: toddpw@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: The GS Axe is Not Falling Message-ID: <1991Apr6.102920.22598@nntp-server.caltech.edu> Date: 6 Apr 91 10:29:20 GMT References: <9104051641.AA23415@apple.com> <51235@apple.Apple.COM> <1991Apr5.224048.29496@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Lines: 30 2hnemarrow@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >When I'm using a Mac I feel like I'm trapped in this sluggish box of a graphic >interface. With my GS I can go to a text based program and flip through >screens a heck of a lot faster and more easily than on the AT's at school, and >on the Macs it's a moot point since you can't flip through text screens at all. >After 10 years of computing I -finally- find a computer I LOVE to use, and it's >on the verge of extinction except in various Kindergartens around the country. This strikes a chord. It constantly bugs me that the market trend has been towards brute-force hardware and software that is way too complex for the average mortal to ever hope to comprehend. (never mind independent programmers.) What happened to elegance and truly innovative solutions? They're buried under virtual memory hardware that has a fixed 1 cycle penalty, or brain-dead bootstrap ROMs that leave the machine useless if no boot volume is available, or operating systems that have severely skewed I/O models or no concept of interactive vs. batch execution. The latest MIPS wonder is simply expected to run the same old O/S's better and faster and everybody happily throws gobs of money at the problem of technological obsolesence. Someday somebody's going to break that cycle. I hope they hire me. Todd Whitesel toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu