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From: info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac)
Newsgroups: ont.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Toolbox equates for peons
Message-ID: <4243@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-May-84 03:02:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.4243
Posted: Fri May 11 03:02:44 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 11-May-84 07:12:56 EDT
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Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
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Date: Thursday, 10 May 1984 06:00:35 EDT
From: uw-beaver!Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.arpa
To: info-mac@sumex-aim.arpa
Subject: Re: Toolbox equates for peons

Warning: long flame (~==========)

It's been interesting watching the discussion on the net.  From what I can
see, the people posting on this net fall into three groups:

    (a) Certified/registered developers who can afford to buy Lisas
    and expensive documentation, and who generally defend every move
    that Apple makes,

    (b) Hackers, students, etc. (like myself) who see the potential
    in the machine and will occasionally acknowledge the warts, but
    do not have money to spend on Lisas to go with our Macs, and

    (c) People who have used computers, but have not used computers
    that have mice and windows (I suspect that Jerry Pournelle fell
    into this group until his Lilith machine arrived).

As someone else noted earlier, one problem with the Macintosh is that it
tends to overload the mouse.  The computer that I work on (a Perq running
Accent) tends to use the mouse only where it actually provides an advantage.

The editor, although non-programmable, has the usual set of Emacs-like
commands, given from the keyboard.  In addition you can use the mouse to
move anywhere in the file quickly and to select blocks of text that will
be copied or deleted.  If you absolutely hate mice, there are alternate
keyboard commands that accomplish the same effect (more slowly).  I tend
to use the keyboard when entering new text and a combination of keyboard
and mouse commands when editing an existing file.

People in group (c), though, are likely to take a look at the Macintosh
and conclude that its faults are characteristic of all systems with mice
and bit-mapped displays.  Without a standard of comparison, they are not
likely to see the machine's potential (software tends towards the lowest
common denominator and the Mac hardware provides a fairly high "standard"
with the exception of memory size).

Of course, the machine's potential is not likely to be realized unless the
people in group (b) can easily write software for it.  Randy Frank is just
plain wrong when he says that the best way to get software for the machine
is to limit support to a few "proven developers."  The history of the Apple
II family should prove otherwise.  (Oh, by the way, wasn't the Apple II
designed in a garage and Visicalc written by a couple of college students?
How many Apple IIs were sold because of Visicalc?  Why is the Apple II still
selling after all this time?  No, it couldn't possibly be the thousands of
peons who have written software for it. . .  Why is the TI 99/4 dead?  Could
it possibly have something to do with TI's attempts to prevent hobbyists and
hackers from getting inside the machine, especially during the first part of
its life?)

Way to go, Jerry.  I may disagree quite violently with you on many points,
but you are absolutely right in this case.