Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!jessica.stanford.edu!bard
From: bard@jessica.stanford.edu (David Hopper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: computer buyers
Message-ID: <1991Jun6.055911.24760@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 6 Jun 91 05:59:11 GMT
References: <55445@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991Jun4.195937.5973@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1991Jun6.043819.23323@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News)
Organization: Academic Information Resources, Stanford University
Lines: 42

In article <1991Jun6.043819.23323@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes:
>bard@jessica.stanford.edu (David Hopper) writes:
>
>>Yet I'll grant you that there are a lot of idiots out there.  Given
>>that, and I mean this honestly, do they *deserve* to own an Amiga?  It's
>>a sophisticated machine, with a sophisticated and complex OS.  
>
>  Boy.  I thought we'd got rid of the "high priest" attitude in the
>70's.  Why do you think we're not still programming in machine code?  
>Because people saw past attitude like yours (that computers should be 
>kept difficult and complex, so that the "plebs" couldn't use them), 
>and instead created easier to use software to make computers
>accessible to a wider audience.

Hey, there's a limit, Evan.  Should any whacked-out Joe Street be sold a
UNIX box with a terrific GUI and applications if he or she is
unfamiliar and unwilling to learn the complexities of UNIX?  Not a
chance, unless they're looking to get burned.  The Mac OS is good in
that the lowest-level administration tasks still boil down to clicking 
buttons and visually moving files around.  Unfortunately, this is only
because of an extremely inflexible OS.  With UNIX and AmigaDOS,
administration boils down to scripting and bit-manipulations, something
inherently more complicated than pointing and clicking, yet this is due
to an extremely flexible, open-ended OS design that allows for a higher
degree of intervention and customization.

>  It's still possible to have a sophisticated and complex OS.  The trick
>is making those features usable by as many people as possible.

I agree completely.  But there are different classes of computers, no?
Just as there are different levels of aptitude out there in consumerland.
Idiots shouldn't use Amigas not because of some invented 'high-priest'
attitude, but for their own safety.  If someone gets burned by an OS
they didn't bargain for, that looks bad for the whole show, making it
look as if it were the machine's fault.

>Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu

Dave Hopper      |MUYOM!/// Anthro Creep | NeXT Campus Consultant at Stanford
                 | __  ///    .   .      | Smackintosh/UNIX Consultant - AIR
bard@jessica.    | \\\///    Ia! Ia!     | Independent Amiga Developer
   Stanford.EDU  |  \XX/ Shub-Niggurath! | & (Mosh) Pit Fiend from Acheron