Why aren't computer clocks as accurate as cheap quartz watches?

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accurate as cheap quartz watches?]

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properly

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You're attributing to Microsoft what rightfully belongs to Digital Research and CP/M. Kildall had the vision of running the same software on anyone's PC, with a uniform set of utility programs and system calls. Paterson copied it and Gates bought the copy.

--
        If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
           my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

How did Microsoft prevent competition? As the end user had no problems installing Lotus SmartSuite if they wanted to. So no problems there. And MS Office is not free anyway, again no problems there.

And there has been awhile now, Sun's OpenOffice which can be had for free! Claims to open MS Office files and all. If it were any good, it would wipe out MS Office off of the map for sure. But the truth is, it ain't as good. Thus it still isn't a threat to MS.

You somehow believe MS stifles competition. While I believe just the opposite. As at anytime, anybody can come along and actually do something better than Microsoft. And often it does happen in niche areas of Windows and it has made them (not MS) rich. This has been great for competition. Because when something comes out better, MS plays catch up to try to match or exceed their competition.

I actually believe Windows is the de facto desktop today because of competition. As there were other competitors for a GUI on top of DOS like GEM and GEOS. And they were doing well until Apple sued Microsoft for the look and feel. And MS quickly improved Windows to be as good and sometimes better than the competition. In this case, in all of them (GEM, GEOS, and the Mac).

So don't tell me that Microsoft stifles competition. Because that just ain't so! Although I would agree that Microsoft has enough resources to usually come out on top. Maybe that is what you really have a problem with.

__________________________________________________ Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)

-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

I was stuck using Microsoft crap in 1980 and beyond, and I had no love for Microsoft or their products. I considered getting out of the business when I was told PC-DOS was by Microsoft, until I found out they bought it rather than wrote it.

--
        If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
           my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

Maybe it's just me, but the only thing I can find wrong with it is that it has trouble writing some Microsoft output formats. OpenOffice can do something that most versions of Office can't do, that is to open Word 6 documents.

--
        If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
           my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

The industry would be set back two years while the laughter died down enough for IT people to resume working.

--
        If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
           my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

I don't know what BP gas pumps run, but what I saw a little while back was unmistakably a BSOD.

--
        If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
           my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.

Are you visually impaired?

I'm using a Celeron 400MHZ with 192MB of RAM under Windows 2000. And it hits really hard here.

Hopefully.

Huh? Windows has text to speech built right into it.

Narrator is intended to help people with low vision to setup their own computers, or use other people's computers. Narrator may not perform well with some applications. Most users with visual impairments will need a utility with higher functionality for daily use.

For a list of Windows-based screen reader utilities, see

Screen reading is right there in at least Windows 2000/XP.

You know some people can push this disabled stuff too far. So where do you draw the line? For example, real disabled people still can't get good parking. Yet zillions of dollars were forced from people's pockets to build them. And one of the lawyers who did the forcing and made probably zillions of dollars, didn't even have handicap parking at his own office (this was on like 20/20 or something). Go figure! It always comes down to it's about the money and who is going to pay for it, now isn't it?

I'm not betting on that. As humans have a clear advantage over computers when it comes to speech recognition. And I haven't even heard of a workable theory in how computers could ever surpass humans in this area.

Huh? The current technology in this area is very frustrating.

You need a microphone and speakers for one. And I don't know how anybody can reroute the keyboard to a mic and the screen output to speakers without added drivers? So you're saying that Windows has this ability built in? Gee and here I thought you were saying it does not.

Not so. They would like to make Linux disappear and can't for starters. They probably would like IBM to fade away and can't. And I bet they wished they didn't have to improve their products when someone comes out with something better. And lastly, Microsoft has no power over the end user! As the end user can choose what they want to do with their money.

Can you elaborate?

Well Bill Gates has given millions of dollars to charity all of the time. And while the future is not a charity, the future also isn't here yet as well.

Are you aware that Microsoft does have disability features built into Windows itself right now? And offers a web page for other solutions between Windows for the disabled? How can you imply they are not doing anything about it?

__________________________________________________ Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)

-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

Traditionally most PCs have been used in business, not at home, so most PC users have even more expensive software installed than I do. It's true that those who are at home may not have as much, especially when you consider how much they've probably pirated.

Microsoft didn't destroy Netscape. Netscape was almost unbelievably poorly managed. It was self-destructing without Microsoft's help. Read the story of Netscape; it's amazing.

They are a small percentage of the applications available. I don't even have Office on my computer; it's too bloated and expensive, and I haven't found a use for it.

Programmers that are both good at programming and experts in a specific applications field and are superb systems analysts are scarce, at any price. And you need lots and lots of them to build new applications. Additionally, you need a complete chain of command that understands the business, not just programmers and analysts.

Yes. Microsoft did it, and others did not.

There _is_ competition, but it's not very good. Borland was another case of bad management, even when they were beating Microsoft.

In fact, in many cases, it's not that Microsoft made the right decisions so much as the competition consistently made the wrong decisions.

There have been resounding Microsoft failures, such as the oft-cited Microsoft Bob, but also things like Photo Draw 2000, which was a joke (Image Composer, which MS had bought earlier, was much better, but MS still abandoned it, thinking it could rewrite something superior from scratch--MS was wrong).

Microsoft still has a hard time with database servers, since it knows nothing about database production environments. The same handicap keeps it behind the curve in the server market as well.

What Microsoft does, it does well. But it really has a hard time learning new things.

From the Mac to Windows. From MS-DOS to Windows. From CP/M to MS-DOS. And so on.

Granted, the greater the inertia, the slower the change.

Well, right now, everyone is happy with Microsoft Windows, except for a handful of whining geeks who want to change things. The average business or home user, though, gets everything he needs from Windows, and has no reason whatsoever to change. In fact, a sudden change would be bad for consumers, not good, no matter how much it might please the geeks.

-- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Deliberately crippling a company that is successful is never a good idea, and historically has had either no effect or a negative effect.

As I've explained, Microsoft builds operating systems, and a suite of office-automation applications. And that's essentially it. Almost all its revenue comes from these two product areas (especially the latter).

No doubt, but that's what companies are supposed to do. However, the only applications it develops are Office applications.

Most of Microsoft's revenue comes from Office. Works is not worth buying, and indeed MS gives it away sometimes.

So what? Who is losing here? Not the programmers writing for Windows. Not the consumers using it. Not Microsoft. Not the publishers of those other 249,998 Windows applications. Where is the problem, exactly?

How much innovation do you expect when companies know that their intellectual property will be seized and placed in the public domain if they become too successful?

-- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Exactly how does Microsoft use Windows to "prevent competition with Microsoft's applications," and why does it even matter, given that Microsoft only really sells one application?

People who root for teams are in for disappointment. It's all just business.

-- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

As you pointed out to me, you may not be representative.

If it's fast enough, it should.

I'm talking about both. The slowness and lack of accuracy of speech systems holds them back. That's why people tend not to use them unless they have to. I'd much rather type than have to speak to my computer to write things. It would take forever with speech.

Why? There's almost no demand for it.

Both are extremely difficult if you want truly integrated solutions.

It's not pure guesswork. Virtually without exception, putting in features for a tiny minority of users is a net loss. Companies only do it for PR, out of corporate conscience, or when the law requires it. They certainly don't do it to make money.

Within reason, I believe they should. But I do not believe that vast resources should be spent on accommodating them when the same resources could do more good for a larger number of people if spent in a different way.

That's the easy part. Just as generating sound is the easy part of speech synthesis. The hard part is compressing information into an audio channel, and making sense of input or reformatting output to fit it.

Which technology am I unable to use?

If you want to do it right, you need hardware solutions.

No, it can't. There are a lot of clever and/or well-funded competitors out there. Not every company is as stupid as Netscape.

Microsoft builds what sells. That's business.

Speech is no more a "valid" part of the operating system than text.

Whether any company does. For extreme niche markets, small companies are usually better at turning a profit than large companies.

The future will be just like the present.

In that prior post, I was making it obvious why people _don't_ write applications for obscure operating systems.

-- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

No, my 'recollection' is about the subject at hand, namely the original IBM/Microsoft deal for DOS and the folks claiming that Microsoft screwed IBM by retaining the rights to sell it to non-IBM computers.

At least they didn't try to get a reverse royalty payment on every prior computer made like IBM did with their MCA license.

The one you brought up raising an interesting conundrum because you have IBM wanting it both ways. They had a competing O.S. and a competing office suite yet while they're trying to wipe MS off the business scene they want their competitor to give them preferred OEM status.

I'm not sure I'd be real happy about that either.

I'm attributing it to Microsoft because that was the notion they had and was the reason they were willing to sell DOS to IBM for a pittance over what they themselves paid for it, plus having to make it work.

Has it ever occurred to you that more than one person can have the same idea?

The same idea was also the biggest driving force behind developing UNIX, or does that 'rightfully belong' to DR too? You're going to have a hard time making that case as UNIX predates DR by a decade, or more.

They all had different ideas on how to accomplish it. With UNIX the notion was to make a transportable O.S. so the hardware type didn't matter. Micorosft's idea was to ride on the PC platform because they correctly guessed that 'Big Blue' would dominate the market, with the added insight there would be gaggles of competing copies to sell to (and you'll note that my previous description, still quoted up there, specifically says their vision was "the same software on anyone's" --->'PC clone'

No, you weren't. You chose it because there *were* alternatives.

The 'license' you speak of is an OEM discount agreement and, in particular, the one IBM wanted was 'like Compaq'. I.E. preferred OEM status while simultaneously competing with MS in the O.S. and business suite market.

Anyone can buy retail and IBM considered it.

As I said, I'm not sure I'd like the idea either of giving my competitor a discount on my products so they can make money on my products that they then use to bolster their own competing products they're trying to put me out of business with.

But you're repeating yourself.

I meant to say something about this since I was a big Works fan until I got Office 97. As I used MS Works v2, 3, 4, 5, and I never installed v6 (but it is sitting right here). And MS Works as far back as I can remember was dirt cheap. Like $29.95 or something. And the $100 version was called Works Suite I think and it included Word. Which was a good deal if you only wanted Word from the MS Office.

MS always in the past (I don't know about now), always kept macro ability out of Works. And if it ever did, I probably wouldn't have ever bothered with Office at all. As Works v4 and 5 were really quite good IMHO. Almost as good as other software that called themselves as Suite. Although no macro ability made it suck! And I believe this was on purpose so not to cut into the Office sales.

I'm saying this in regards as MS Works did everything and I bet many others needed for simple tasks. On the other hand, I bet virtually nobody uses over 90% of Office features. There are just too many of them. Heck, I've been using Office for about 8 years now and I still don't know everything that it can do yet.

__________________________________________________ Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)

-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

[BUZZER SOUND] Nope, not at all! Gary Kildall kept promising SCP and others that he would write CP/M-86. And we waited and waited for over a year I think. And Gary kept promising that he would get to it. So SCP finally got fed up with Gary's BS and had Tim wrote Quick & Dirty DOS so SCP could test the hardware.

In Gary's dreams! Gary only cared and then got hot & heavy after MS got the contract for PC-DOS. But even still, Gary was late and wanted something like $240 per computer. But IBM only paid MS like 5 cents per computer. You don't have to have any brains to figure out why CP/M-86 didn't make it.

__________________________________________________ Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)

-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

NT-based systems can get BSODs, too, but it's much less frequent (usually a bad driver or hardware failure).

-- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.