Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!csus.edu!borland.com!sjc
From: sjc@borland.com (Steve Correll)
Subject: Re: Will NeXT survive? Grow with the times?
Message-ID: <1991May6.191804.4254@borland.com>
Organization: Borland International
References: <8283@uceng.UC.EDU> <1991May4.011456.25729@borland.com> <8323@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: Mon, 6 May 1991 19:18:04 GMT

In article <8323@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes:
>Out of curiosity, how many individual users can set up and
>maintain *their own* computer running X?

I watched five users here install Windows 3.0 with a particular variety of
1024x768 super-VGA card and handler. Only three succeeded, and one of those
by using a text editor to put a magic character into the system.ini file (he
didn't know exactly why that worked). Symptoms differed (setup.exe locked the
machine, or prompted for a diskette which it then rejected, or prompted for a
diskette whose name it couldn't display) and the magic character worked only
in one case. Nobody seemed particularly surprised.

>The only incompatibilities that matter are those which the *application
>programmer* can't hide from. That's where the productivity evaporates,
>when the application coders have to get sidetracked by all this garbage.

I think the 80x86 environment is difficult and productivity-sapping for both
application programmers (who certainly do have to deal with "all this garbage",
lest users complain "Your application doesn't work when my input file is on the
network" or "Your application doesn't work when I run it from a DOS shell if
the DOS shell is running inside Windows" or "Your application dies mysteriously
when I install the handler for the new mouse I bought over the weekend" or
"Your application claims I'm out of memory even though Quarterdeck says I have
lots left") and for users, who must memorize a complicated matrix of allowed
combinations. Fortunately we amortize this tremendous cost over many units,
and fortunately users share arcane knowledge by word of mouth.

If the following fairly summarizes your viewpoint, it seems true to me:

  The 80x86 was there first; lots of software is available for it; and lots of
  customers already own both the software and hardware: therefore, they are
  loathe to migrate to a different computing environment unless it is X times
  as fast and offers a set of Y applications.

Anyone who knows for sure the values of X and Y will have a lucrative career
in market forecasting.