Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think!mintaka!ogicse!ucsd!hub!6600pete
From: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (GurgleKat [Pete Gontier])
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Call For Discussion: comp.sys.mac reorganization
Message-ID: <4003@hub.UUCP>
Date: 20 Feb 90 21:11:29 GMT
References: <164@brazil.cambridge.apple.com>
Sender: news@hub.UUCP
Reply-To: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
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In article <164@brazil.cambridge.apple.com>, gz@cambridge.apple.com
(Gail Zacharias) writes that it is unlikely that people will post questions
about INITs, cdevs, and the like, in a group called comp.sys.mac.os, and
I think Gail's right. Speaking not of the net, I often hear people wonder
what the Mac OS is called. They want to call it the Desktop (no, that's the
metaphor), HFS (no, that's a type of file system), the Finder (no, that's the
shell). Now, *I* call it the Mac OS, because I'm a Mac geek and I hafta be
right about these things or kill myself. But my point is that lots of people
don't KNOW the Mac has an OS. Or what an OS is. And that in some large part
is what the Mac is -- a machine usable by people who don't know what an OS is.

Some alternatives I've thought of just now for comp.sys.mac.os might be...

   comp.sys.mac.system-folder     /* my fave so far */
   comp.sys.mac.system            /* hmmm. redundant? */
   comp.sys.mac.inits-das         /* a little abitrarily specific */

This is a pretty tough thing to figure out. Nobody should panic, though,
because we still have comp.sys.mac.os to fall back on. I just want to see
something else used if someone can think of it.

randy@polecat.llnl.gov (Randy Futor), in another article in my ZTerm
scrollback buffer that has no reference number :-), says this:

> the OS stuff should be routed to comp.os.mac

Ugh. I think it will be lost there. It is my understanding that the comp.os
hierarchy is for discussion of multi-platform operating systems in a relatively
"scientific" or "academic" way. Until we have Mac clones, there will only be
one machine running the Mac OS, and that's the Mac. There are lots of Macs,
but I don't think that's a relevant distinction.
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