[extropy-chat] Software exposure: was Re: Eugen Leitl, you got Klez

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 11:57:34AM +0000, BillK wrote:
 
> All mostly true, but I can't help feeling that you are trying to
> re-interpret history from a modern POV.
> Hindsight is wonderful, I'm amazingly good at it myself. ;)

My view hasn't changed since 1980s (I've used anything since 
ZX-80, Apple ][ and PET). Unix is a 1970s OS. Multics predates it.
We've had Minix. Linux is contemporary with Windows 3.1.
 
> But back then I don't remember it as being the way you describe.
> Computer enthusiasts hacked away on the DOS command line. The mass

Computer enthusiasts also hacked on *nix and CP/M command line, way before.
There was also Lisp, Apple and C= command lines, which actually came with Basic &
more.

> market would not exist until a GUI and more powerful CPUs arrived.

Xerox did WIMP in 1970s. Lisp machines later on. Then came Lisa, and the Mac,
and the Commodore Amiga. A GUI doesn't take more than a 4 MHz 68000.

> Businesses already had terminals connected to mainframes for timesharing
> and multi-tasking.
> The 'new' PCs were stand-alone office toys for a bit of word-processing,
> spread-sheets and games.

Yeah, if one didn't bother to go to the library, that was computing.

> TCP/IP? Do you remember the first 2400 bps modems and BBS systems?

Yes.

> Only enthusiasts bothered.

I didn't. My open source at the time was from Fred Fish, and came via mail
and copying sessions.
 
> By the way, when I said that MS had now added security as an objective,
> my reference to 'too late' implied that they would fail in this
> objective. MS requires yet another redesign and upgrades for everyone.
> No surprise there, then.

Redmond seems to try to move to a subscription model, because the customers
no nonger accept periodic asset abandoment due to sacrificial shedding of
current codebase. I'm not sure they'll manage to do it on time to save their
crumbling revenue model. We should really be thankful for availability of
alternatives, preventing us from being stuck with a stagnant monopoly.

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144            http://www.leitl.org
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http://moleculardevices.org         http://nanomachines.net
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