Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-beaver Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!info-mac From: info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) Newsgroups: fa.info-mac Subject: Re: New perspectives on Macintosh [from INFO-MCIRO] Message-ID: <1143@uw-beaver> Date: Sat, 7-Jul-84 23:57:34 EDT Article-I.D.: uw-beaver>.1143 Posted: Sat Jul 7 23:57:34 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 9-Jul-84 00:45:56 EDT Sender: daemon@uw-beave Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 79 From: Werner Uhrig Jerry, I just read the first issue of MACWORLD and, I think, I understand a little better, what causes you to flaming outbursts: The hype is simply suffocating; one would think they are published by Apple themselves. Well, I would not be surprised if the cooperation needed to get out the magazine as early (too early ??) as the MAC created a lot of "nest-warmth" resulting in pink eye-shades. As a result, I believe they are, actually, hurting the image of the MAC by antagonizing every and any knowledgable reader - us academics are really more at home at applying criticism rather than nodding our head in agreement - and these articles have the effect of a red flag ! In a way, your style of tearing at the MAC has the same fault, in that it loses effectiveness by making the reader WANT to disagree with you because you seem so one-sided and unneccessarily harsh in your criticism. Of course, you may not be concerned about or desire any particular reader-response, and my reaction may be completely atypical, but in the interest of improving the chances for a viable competition for IBM, I wished I'd see you write for "effect", critical of the obvious shortcomings of the MAC (and believe me, I sit here fuming at it the same way you do), but playing the role of a "benevolent godfather", who'd rather not see any harm come to the MAC. Some friends believe that you are only "baiting" Apple, but I don't read that attitude between your lines - of course, I KNOW that you want to see ever better machines and are not completely unsympathetic with the MAC, but .... As an aside, maybe us "knowledgable" users are simply going to be a small enough percentage of all buyers that our wishes and needs do not carry much weight anymore when designing / marketing the next generation of computers - makes me feel like somewhat like a ..... (substitute your favorite endangered species) In answer to specific topics in your note: RE: "Programmer Switch" - I imagine you have the same little plastic gizmo which came in the white box, and can be stuck into the cooling slits on the left rear? Lovely to get no instructions on how to make use of it, right again !!! And a manual that does not contain the error codes, which the MAC uses to tell me what's wrong when it stops !!! RE: "Second Drive" - there are several annoying aspects: 1) it seems that it is impossible to copy without formatting first 2) unless you "introduce" the "new" disk and the disk to be copied to the system on different drives, the system will attempt to perform the copy on the same drive, making you swap the disks around. 3) should you, accidentally or on purpose, insert another new disk, when prompted for the system disk again, all of a sudden the system will request that "other" disk again later. Why? MacHeaven may (or may not) know ... 4) the DiskCopy utility which comes with on the more recent versions of the System or Write/Paint disk, does NOT know about 2 disk drives - so much for friendly system programs. I bet, if the MAC-OS was an open-system, I'd have hacked up something better already. Like my one year-old Charisma, the MAC is a lovely baby; making it sure must have been as much fun; the parents are certainly intelligent and educated people. But do the MacParents have all their marbles together when they expect me to wait the same "couple of years" of continuous investment in hardware and software before HE becomes an adult? At least, Charisma never made such claims, nor did anyone else on her behalf !!! My solution is to call the MAC an "infant" and warn everyone to be on the lookout for childish behavior, and to disbelief the "stary-eyed" claims of all his parents and eucators. -- But .... I still think I' m in love with him (-: -------