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From: martin@cbmvax.commodore.com (Martin Hunt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Operating Systems
Message-ID: <21962@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 28 May 91 15:46:44 GMT
References: <1991May14.130905.9577@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991May14.145528.23369@neon.Stanford.EDU> <1991May14.165718.19646@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> <1991May14.180148.23635@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: martin@cbmvax.commodore.com (Martin Hunt)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 53

In article <1991May14.180148.23635@athena.mit.edu> reynaldo@athena.mit.edu (Rey Villarreal) writes:
>I am sort of confused about all the importance being put on 
>operating systems. Sure a nice OS is nice, I love my Amiga's ability to
>do multitasking. But when you get down to it, all an operating system
>really has to do is getting your programs to run. 

No. IMHO an operating system should enable the user to easily control his
computer, and allow the easy development of programs for that computer.

>
>More generally all that is really important is what you can do with
>your computer. If one computer has a beautiful operating system but
>no software and another has a crappy OS and tons of professional, and
>elegant software guess who sells 80 million computers and who sells 3 million.
>Just look at the macintosh for god's sake. I ask people why in the world
>would the buy a $4500, MacIIsi, over a $3000 amiga3000, guess what they say.
>They say it has cool software which the amiga cant match. Sure the amiga
>does great animation, and is elegant but who really cares except video
>people and hackers. Hell my A500 blow away a 386 machine with a dedicated
>sound card--Boy my girlfriend was really upset about this. But when 
>you get down to it who cares if all you want to do is have a safe 
>computer that will run any application in the world. 
>
>To summarize, all you techies have to understand that a computer
>needs to appeal to the common man. There a whole lot more of us
>regular users than there are programmers. That is why the ibm and
>apple will always dominate the amiga. 

OK. Let's suppose you are introducing a new computer.  You have a choice
between developing a real OS or saving a few $$ and shipping it with
only a real crude OS thrown together in a hurry.  Let's also
assume that you are a big three letter corporation and what you say
is standard is standard.  So, everyone develops for your computer with
its primitive OS.  That's OK, because you can always ignore the OS and
write your own.  Of course, this is much more work for the developer
and every program works differently from others.  This is also great 
because you can charge more for the program and the user's will have
to buy more computers because all the programs are so big and if
they try to run more than one, the computer will crash.

Now, of course, the really big $$$ can be made.  Large software
corporations can develop "solutions" to the brain dead OS the users
mistakenly purchased.  Of course, these solutions will break much
of the existing software on the market, but thats nothing more $$$
can't fix.

So, the real reason why apple and ibm will always dominate is
because they can write really bad software, then persuade users
to buy it and companies to write applications for it.

Obviously, these are just my personal opinions.

Martin