Xref: utzoo comp.sys.apple:5607 comp.sys.ibm.pc:14738 comp.windows.misc:488 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!killer!chasm From: chasm@killer.UUCP (Charles Marslett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.windows.misc Subject: Re: Apple Lawsuit (was BOYCOTT APPLE, etc.) Message-ID: <3899@killer.UUCP> Date: 22 Apr 88 01:23:38 GMT References: <292@unicom.UUCP> <663@csm9a.UUCP> <4283@dandelion.CI.COM> <10500@steinmetz.ge.com> Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas Lines: 91 Keywords: Microsoft, HP New Wave, Xerox, Lawsuit Summary: AW SHUT UP -- APPLE IS AS MUCH A COPYCAT AS ANYONE!!! In article <10500@steinmetz.ge.com>, vita@macbeth.steinmetz (Mark F. Vita) writes: > >>You mention that the Apple suit is bugging a lot of people. Well, > >>first of all, let me point out that the people being "bugged" are, for > >>the most part, owners of MS-DOS machines. The reason they are annoyed > > (I've heard mucho complaints from Mac owners.) > >>is that Apple is not letting them use Apple-invented technology on > >>their non-Apple equipment. Well, the answer to this, however asinine > >>it may sound, is that if you want to benefit from this Apple-invented > >>technology, you should buy Apple equipment. > >> > >What Apple invented technology? You mean XEROX invented technology, don't > >you? > > *Sigh*, again. No, I do mean "Apple-invented technology". I say > again: Xerox did not invent the Macintosh interface. (Though it is [And apple did not invent the windows 1.04 or 2.03 or ... interface] > true that the Mac interface is based on many of the concepts developed > by Xerox at PARC during the 70s.) Saying that Xerox invented the Mac > interface is somewhat akin to saying that Henry Ford invented the > Mustang. And saying Apple invented what Microsoft is using is just more of the same. . . > >Even though Apple may have enhanced the concept (possibly with > >Microsoft's programmers, no less), I feel that Windows 2.0 is > >an improvement over Finder. It allows multitasking, particularly > >Windows/386, and it's process based instead of file based. > > I don't think that these are user interface issues. They have more to > do with the underlying operating system, which is invisible to the > average user, and which has nothing to do with the "look and feel" > issue brought forth in Apple's lawsuit. The whole issue is one of what does the user imply as features and the appearance of the software -- its look-and-feel. Only an idiot would be unable to notice that the clock stops when he loads another program: multitasing is not invisible to even the most naieve user. There was another rediculous discussion about this topic some time ago (to the effect that a significant number of people would not notice multitasking or would actively dislike it). And the ability to refer unambiguously to two instances on the screen seems to me to be quite obvious to the viewer of the screen too (unless he is looking at two carefully matched images in a court document!). It seems to me we have a group of people who don't like IBM upset because their Mac interface has not been improved on in several years, and the competition across the hall has now caught up (or passed them up). Legal barriers to someone producing an improvement to an existing product have existed for many years -- they are an evil of having an established, stable society -- and we periodically have to get rid of them if we don't want to stagnate. Revolutions (such as Apple seems to imply are the only legal way to advance) have generally had a bad name -- George Washington did pretty well, but the French and Russian ones went down in history as sort of painful events. From what I have seen of the Mac user interface, it is about as much like Windows as Visicalc was a windowed calculator I once saw (several years before Visicalc made the scene) -- and certainly more different than the differences between Visicalc and 1-2-3 (or even Multiplan)! In the technical world, organic semiconductors may yet displace silicon, and graphics interfaces may displace command lines, but today the work of the world is done mostly by IBM or Unix style command streams (batch files to the PC addicts) and with silicon or germanium (or diamond, SOS, gallium arsenide or whatever) devices. The most useful things and the ones that make our society thrive are the minor improvements that in sum change the world, not the ones that come full blown and complete (read Twain's book about the Yankee in King Arthur's court or Jean Gimpel's -- one gives you a gut feel of what happens, the other debunks the whole idea of revolutionary change). > >It's also > >a little nicer to people who don't care for mice. So I feel that Microsoft > >HAS come up with a better interface than Apple and that it is not simply > >a Finder rip-off. > > Well, I guess we simply disagree here. I maintain that Microsoft > intentionally copied the Macintosh interface. > > >bcnu j fruetel > Mark Vita ARPA: vita@ge-crd.ARPA I take it from your comment that we should then stop teaching people to program (or write books, or sing, or . . .). Since almost any new development built on education and previous work is done so deliberately (or the creator should NOT get a return on his investment if it were just a lucky stroke), this would apply to most achievements of the human race since, possibly, the wheel and fire. Charles Marslett chasm@killer.UUCP [a flagrant look-and-feel anarchist]