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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 04-01-2010 08:06, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> In article<keqdnQhK2NVppNzWnZ2dnUVZ_oednZ2d at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert"<rgilbert88 at comcast.net>  writes:
>> 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!
>
> WEENDOZE didn't have native email capability -- at least, nothing I ever
> found.

Can you get a Windows system without getting Outlook Express installed ?

Arne