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

[Richard B. Gilbert]

John Wallace wrote:
> On Jan 2, 1:16 am, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net>
> wrote:
>> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>> In article <NN2dnTzv5dZFCKPWnZ2dnUVZ_jedn... at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net> writes:
>>>> VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>>>> In article <THs%m.3839$Gf3.3... at newsfe22.iad>, "John Vottero" <JVott... at mvpsi.com> writes:
>>>>>> <VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:00A96DAF.7B635EAD at SendSpamHere.ORG...
>>>>>>> In article <CR6%m.10040$0U1.5... at newsfe16.iad>, "John Vottero"
>>>>>>> <JVott... at mvpsi.com> writes:
>>>>>>>> "Michael Kraemer" <M.Krae... 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.
>>
>> 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!
>>
>> 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.
> 
> "What is VMS going to do with email that has a picture in it?"
> 
> How soon we forget.
> 
> My recollection is that DEC invented Compound Document Architecture in
> the mid 1990s. CDA applications supported embedded pictures (and other
> embedded documents, even including multimedia). When properly
> implemented, the documents could be displayed (and edited) as
> graphical documents on a workstation (VMS or DEC UNIX), or in the
> absence of a workstation there would be some fall-back format suitable
> for display (or processing) as simple character-oriented stuff.
> 
But it didn't ship with the O/S.  It was an add on at substantial extra 
cost.  Windows has the capability natively!