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

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <h6idnWpVydP1A6PWnZ2dnUVZ_uCdnZ2d at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
>VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>> In article <NN2dnTzv5dZFCKPWnZ2dnUVZ_jednZ2d at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
>>> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>>> In article <THs%m.3839$Gf3.3352 at newsfe22.iad>, "John Vottero" <JVottero at mvpsi.com> writes:
>>>>> <VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote in message 
>>>>> news:00A96DAF.7B635EAD at SendSpamHere.ORG...
>>>>>> In article <CR6%m.10040$0U1.5380 at newsfe16.iad>, "John Vottero" 
>>>>>> <JVottero at mvpsi.com> writes:
>>>>>>> "Michael Kraemer" <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> wrote in message
>>>>>>> news:hhcfhb$6hu$00$1 at news.t-online.com...
>>>>>>>> Arne Vajhøj schrieb:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> MS is just another company trying to make as much money as possible.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There are ethical and unethical ways to make money.
>>>>>>>> It is (almost) always M$ that forces proprietary
>>>>>>>> formats.
>>>>>>> Are you suggesting that is is unethical to create proprietary systems?
>>>>>>> Doesn't that make OpenVMS unethical?
>>>>>> If that's its definition, then WEENDOZE is very much unethical.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I still fail to understand how people mistake ubiquity with openness.
>>>>> I agree!  Windows and OpenVMS are both proprietary operating systems which 
>>>>> is one of the attributes that makes them GOOD!
>>>> You mean, it's the attribute that makes one of them good.  WEENDOZE can
>>>> never be considered good; not even poor!  Crap is the proper adjective
>>>> to describe WEENDOZE.
>>>>
>>> You are living in the past Brian!  W/XP is quite usable and I have been 
>>> using it for several years now.  W/2K wasn't all that bad either.  I ran 
>>> Windows 2.x so I know what "bad" *IS*!!
>> 
>> Even the newest version -- WEENDOZE 7 Deadly Sins -- looks cheese on the
>> few I've checked out at the Staples, Best Buys, etc.  You'd think that a
>> company with all that money could and would hire at least one decent art-
>> ist to make its product not look pale next to Super Mario Brothers.
>> 
>
>Picky, picky, picky!  I don't use Windows for it's looks.  I use it to 
>read my mail and newsgroups.  Sometimes I even send mail.  Once a month 
>I print checks to pay my bills.

Mail => VMS; if it has attachments, I move that email to a special folder
so that I can then read that email on either my Linux laptop or on my Mac.

Newsgroups => VMS; I don't frequent the alt.binaries.sex.pervsion-of-the-
month-club newsgroups so I have no need whatsoever for a graphical reader.

The lovely Mrs. VAXman pays bills via the bank's on-line billing system on
a Mac compliments of its wonderful Apple Universal Access features; ergo, 
no checks and no need to even print checks; oh, and certainly no need for
WEENDOZE.

Audio, music, graphics, video, composition, etc.  Mac has it hands-down to
WEENDOZE.  Resistance is futile. ;)  I sat in the Apple store at the mall
during the holidays as the rest of the family was shopped.  (I hate shop-
ping and the gout was acting up.)  Macs, MacBooks and MacBookPros were on
the way out the door faster than I could count them.


>What, for example, is Windows going to do with e-mail that has a 
>photograph as an attachment?  That's right! It will display the text and 
>the photograph!  What will VMS do with the same message?  It *might* 
>succeed in rendering the text.  The photograph?  Forget it!

I've extracted attached photos from VMS mail and decoded them for viewing
on VMS.  Most of the time, such attachments are just stupid things that a
friend or relative has decided I too must view.  I simply move these to a
special folder and view them on my Linux laptop or on my Mac.  For *REAL*
phtography, I use my Mac and Aperture and, of course, my *REAL* cameras;
not point-and-click toys like you find at WalMart, Target and Best Buys. 
I often move these (and other) images to the Linux Laptop where I will do
some additional manipulation with GIMP before putting the images on a web
site.  No WEENDOZE.  Reading the email on VMS, I can quickly see if said
attachment is any proprietary M$ format to wit the message is forwarded to
the wastebasket folder.


>If I want to do some programming I crank up Reflection 4 
>(VT-100/200/300/400/etc. emulation) and connect to my VAX or Alpha 
>systems.  I have a real VT-510 terminal but I seldom use it for 
>anything; the PC and Reflection is a lot more convenient.

If I want to do some programming, I open a term on my Linux laptop or on
my Mac.  With the aid of a handful of key mappings in .Xmodmap, I can do
everything on these two platforms that I can on true VT... and I can even
use the alternate keypads on these and have EDT functions of delete-char
and delete-word in the SAME PHYSICAL LOCATIONS that they would above the
[enter] key on the VT's LK keyboard.  I'm waiting to hear how WEENDOZErz
do that on their PeeCees.

I have also installed 'latd' and 'mopd' so I can access terminal servers 
and other DEC devices on the network.  Can you do that on WEENDOZE?  With-
out paying Billzebub? 

FWIW, my father-in-law bought my kid a Nintendo-Wii for Christmas.  It's
Linux.  I've downloaded a number of apps, stored them on a SD flash card
and run them.  The browser on the Wii is Opera.  The interface (the wand
used to point) is a bit more cumbersome than a mouse but it does work.  I
was able to get it to recognize all of my LK-463 keys, but I kept the HP
PeeCee keyboard shipped with an Itanium connected to the Wii for the kid
to use.  NO WEENDOZE again...  When not in use, the Wii makes a very nice
digital picture frame for displaying my concert photos (taken without the
use of toy cameras OR toy OSs) as well as some of the astro-porn I've col-
lected over the years.  I still need to work out getting streaming radio
to play via the Wii so I can monitor Aural Moon when I'm upstairs, but I
did need to let the kid play some of the  mindless games that the device
was intended for since it *IS* his toy; not mine.

BTW, my kid also received an ASUS EeePC from Santa.  Apparently, he too
loathes WEENDOZE as much as I.  Santa painstakingly removed the M$ virus
that was infecting the hard drive of this Netbook and installed Ubuntu on
it.  He even removed the WEENDOZE inside warning stickers and covered the
WEENDOZE swastika key on the keyboard using some free stickers available
for the asking from:  http://system76.com/article_info.php?articles_id=9
Apparenlty, the M$ monopolistic arm twisting didn't work on Santa's and
his elves.

My kids hate WEENDOZE as much as I.  They are also, after raising quite
a commotion at a school board meeting, not permitted to be indoctrinated
by the school system into using WEENDOZE.  Too much indoctrination in the
schools today.

Remember, this is comp.os.VMS; not comp.os.M$.

(Typed from Ubuntu)

-- 
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

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  "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"