Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!torrie
From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie)
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <1991Jun25.060849.1731@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Keywords: Drag-and-drop, application start, programm changes
Sender: torrie@neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA
References: <96@ryptyde.UUCP> <1991Jun23.145847.16816@Sugar.NeoSoft.com> <111@ryptyde.UUCP> <1991Jun24.162803.5664@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1991 06:08:49 GMT
Lines: 29

rjc@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:

>  A good example of this is Apple's bubble-help system. What if Apple
>decided to somehow make bubble-help work on Apps that didn't support it
>(I have no idea how they would do this, perhaps they would review the
>manual information for every application ever written on the Mac
>and include it on the system 7 disk) Instead of this god-awful kludge,
>System 7 Apps have to upgrade to use this ability.

  Or, the local power user can add help balloons to old applications 
without having to touch the application code, since help balloons
are simply resources.  

>  Peter would rather have software updates instead of backward
>compatible baggage in the OS depending on how much code it took and
>what sacrifices were made. (I hope I represented yor view here Peter)

  Yes, it depends on what effort is needed, and how useful the
feature is.  For example, Apple no longer supports MFS 400K disks
in System 7. MFS used to require the Finder to go through a lot of
chicanery to present the illusion of real folders, when in fact, 
the disk was a flat filing system.  Apple supported it for five years
after its demise, but no longer.  

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199?       torrie@cs.stanford.edu  
"And in the death, as the last few corpses lay rotting in the slimy
 thoroughfare, the shutters lifted in inches, high on Poacher's Hill..."