[Info-vax] OT: Rob Short: Operating System Evolution

[Neil Rieck]

On Dec 28, 11:31 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> > What is your definition of "the community ??
> > If I'm not wrong, 95% of the "community" run Microsoft OS and
> > tools so disabling those tools cuts you of from a large part
> > of todays world (at least the online world).
> > It's up to you I guess but it seems a bit silly.
>
> I've just watched a documentary about a famous american archeologist
> who, in the 1930s,   helped a small indian village regain a stolen
> sacred rock. In doing so, he ended up in some hidden indian palace below
> wich were secret caverns where an ancient cult was being practiced. Non
> believers were forced to drink some blood after which, they blindly
> followed the religion without questioning it.
>
> 95% had become loyal to that cult and did not question its act, and at
> one point even the archeologist had succombed to the blood's powers.
> But the archeologist's younger helper found a way to bring people out of
> this trance with a flame and they managed to free the thousands that had
> become trapped in that complex.
>
> Perhaps the same should be done with the people who have fallen into the
> blind devotion of the Microsoft cult and willl blindly accept everything
> Microsoft orders them to do. It is time to throw a flame at those people
> to wake them up of this false god.
>
> Signed: JF,
> who has gone to the Apple place opf worship (apple store)  more often
> than to church in 2009, but who also verified that there is no temple of
> doom under those places of worship...
>
> :-)

You are correct about people looking upon technology as a religion. I
was once a huge fan of the Apple religion until I watched Apple make a
series of product changes which proved to me that Apple management was
less involved in the Apple religion than their customers (but to be
fair, every company needs to remain profitable). I have also
encountered people in the Windows religion, Macintosh religion, Sun-
Solaris religion, HP-UX religion, VAX religion, VMS religion, an so
forth.

It is easy to see why people might get involved in the VAX or VMS
religion since these platforms were so damned reliable. Both DEC and
Compaq knew it so kept the prices high.

It is east to see why people like Macs. Just like OpenVMS on VAX,
Alpha or Itanium, Apple is able to control the hardware base so that
the whole product line is a whole lot more stable. But like VMS based
products, Macs are more expensive that their Windows counter parts
(and here I am talking about Intel based Macs with Core i7 processors)

It is easy to see why people hate Microsoft and Windows. Microsoft was
doing both questionable and illegal things (re: Netscape as just one
example) while they got filthy rich. Meanwhile, Windows 3.1 and 3.11
were both a joke compared to the MacOS and Solaris at that time. And
don't even get me started about the Blue Screen of Death. But to be
fair to Microsoft, I new lots of people attempting to install Windows
it on really cheap third party hardware. Forget about trying to
overclock that stuff, the hardware barely worked at the rated speed.
When those things crashed everyone scoffed at Windows. But around 1992
I found myself in a Toronto office for a month where everyone (~30
people) were running Windows on Compaq hardware and never heard or saw
a Windows lockup or crash (and we were running engineering software
from SynOptics).

Today, lots of people (including some in this newsgroup) still have a
hate on for Microsoft products but I think it is time to point out the
obvious:

1) DEC screwed up big-time by chasing some of their Seattle employees
into the waiting arms of Bill gates

2) ex-DEC employees at Microsoft did, to the PC industry, what DEC did
to the minicomputer industry (made it respectable).

3) there were two Windows code bases as Microsoft (vanilla Windows
which was promoted by Microsoft employees, and NT which was created
then promoted by mostly ex-DEC employees). Since Windows-XP, the
efforts of the ex-DEC employees has completely eliminated the vanilla
Windows code base. Since then, I personally have never experienced a
Windows lockup or the blue screen of death.

4) the changes forced upon Intel by the ex-DEC employees at Microsoft
probably helped to make Intel the juggernaut it is today.

5) like the story of "the tortoise and the hare", Windows is getting
incrementally better each release while the hares (us) still scoff at
it. The Vista fiasco was supposedly caused by a combination of lax
management (no more Bill Gates) along with the retirement of ex-DEC
employees (they actually had to bring Dave Cutler back from retirement
to move a few things along). Although MS was able to repair Vista then
re-release it as Windows-7, this means that Microsoft is not immune to
mismanagement.

Will I ever trade in an OpenVMS system for a Windows system? Not
anytime soon, if ever. I still consider Windows machines to be PCs but
it would be wrong for me to think that this will always be the case.
After all, we once saw large VAX clusters take a big bite out of the
IBM mainframe business.

NSR