Microsoft bashing...

[AKDejaVu]

Sometimes I wonder if people remember what PCs were like in the 80's.

Mircosoft is not without its flaws, but I think people don't really realize what it brings to the table.

AKDejaVu

[Innominate]

Microsofts MO early on was simple.

Find someone who has something that works.
Buy it.
Sell it.


Bill gates is a marketer.  A damn good one, but hardly any kind of great creator.

[Skuzzy]

I remeber the early days Deja,..miss them too.  I liked the entreprenurial aspects of those days.  Innovations came at a rampant pace and nothing was confined due to having to meet standards.

Good and bad.


Just imagine what the CPU's would look like today had the engineers been able to just move on without having to worry about backward compatibilty.  In this regard, it has severely limited the progression.
It has also virtually insured near monopolies in segments of the industry.

Good and bad.


I remember when Motorola released the 68040 CPU.  I happen to be standing behind 2 Intel guys at the release.  One of them said, "If they get a toehold in the market, we are dead."  The other guy responded, "You gonna tell the CEO that?".
Of course, Motorola didn't get a toehold and the rest is history.

Good and bad.


Over the years of my career, I have been very fortunate to be in many important junctures of change.  I have seen many outstanding ideas killed because they did not fit into Microsoft's box.  Not really Microsoft's fault, as much as it is the market in which we all play and compete.  The ignorance of many demand that all computers behave the same.
I don't mean that to be derogatory.  People know what they know about computers, and most are pretty limited in that knowledge.
Just hate seeing engineers stifled by marketing people that dictate, "It must run everything created since 1990".

Good and bad.

[AKDejaVu]

Companies are still free to write programs for any OS.  Is there a specific reason they'd want to write it for Microsoft's OS?

Standardization is a good thing when you consider what we had before it.

With the rapid change in virtually every aspect of computers over the last 5 years, I fail to see how inovation has been "stiffled".

AKDejaVu

[Skuzzy]

Standardization is fine, as long as you can leave the baggage behind Deja.

Ever looked at how much of MS code is still 16 bit?  It's rather sickening.

Baggage holds back design.  I know, I have been at the design end with a good idea but was told, "No, we cannot do that as it conflicts with the standard, even though it would be 300% faster".

I call that stifling and the reason I gave up on hardware/chip design.

[AKDejaVu]

That's total bias skuzzy.

Who is impacted when the backward compatability "bagage" is removed?

AKDejaVu

[Skuzzy]

Deja,..just saying there is good and bad in either approach.  For me, it ended a design career in the electronics industry as I could not stomach marketing types telling me how to design and that innovation had to be kept within the confines of the standards of the day.
Not tryin to pull yer chain here.  Bias?  Not sure about that.  I was personally effected in a negative manner by "standardization" and miss the days when designers were free to do new concepts that did not have to fit into the box.

Did some pretty nice things during that era.  Cramming 6 processors into a box and watching it all work well was really fun.  That was the late 70's though.

There are downsides without standards and have I never advocated they should not be in place.  Just pointing out that both sides have positives and negatives.

For me, I like the free wheeling designs.  Some were pretty sweet, and I cannot help but wonder what Intel or Motorola might have done if they were not hampered by "backwards compatibility".

Through networking we have found ways to exhange data, regardless of the source machines heritage.  Those are excellent standards.

When standards serve to create or propogate monopolies, we the consumer are the ones that lose.  No competition forces us to accept the mediocre.  That may be my only real complaint.

[Vulcan]

Yes Deja, I remember my first 32bit multithreaded multitasking GUI based O/S with hi res graphics, amazing sound.

Sigh I do miss my Amiga.

[bloom25]

I'll give out some clues, and you guys guess who I'm describing:

1.  His parents were rich Seattle lawyers.
2.  He is a Harvard dropout after his sophomore year.  (I wonder how he made it in???)
3.  His parents set up a company for him to give him something to do.
4.  His parents were friends with members of IBM's executive board.
5.  Paid $50,000 dollars for a contractor to write an operating system, which his parents managed to land him a deal to sell it before its completion to IBM for millions.
6.  He is credited with the Basic programming language, but he actually got most of it from a friend at Harvard.
7.  IBM contracted his company to develop OS/2, while at the same time his company contracted DEC (Digital Equipment Corp) to write a Unix like OS, which forms the core of the most popular OS out there today.
8.  There's a computing center named for him at a major university in California.  What's interesting is that it runs Linux based computers.  (I wonder if he knows that...)

This should be an easy one!

Skuzzy, I think you're spot on from a hardware standpoint.  Dropping backward compatibility would certainly produce superior hardware IMO.  The problem is that nobody would write software for it because their product whould have a very limited market window.

You also bring up an interesting point with Motorola.  The 68040 (and in general - the whole 68000 series) were ahead of their time.  The problem is (and always has been) that the best marketed product, and not the best product from a technical standpoint, will generally win out.  In 1999 Intel spent $1,119,300,000 on advertising, making them number 16 in the US.  I'm sure the numbers are even higher than that now.

[AKDejaVu]

Maybe its a good thing that it ended your hardware design career skuzzy.  Seriously.  That's coming from someone that is working in the design field.

I remember the day when the bogus restrictions weren't there skuzzy.  And I know you remeber those days to.

AKDejaVu

[AKDejaVu]

PS... some of the processors that never really made much of themselves were a direct result of this belief:

There is no need for a computer in your home.

Neither Intel nor Microsoft killed those chips.  Their own CEOs did.

AKDejaVu

[Skuzzy]

Your quite correct Deja.  It was a good thing for me.  It was always said of me I was too entreprenurial to work for anyone.  I will admit, I am never satisfied with the status quo.

At least I got to make a difference in the industry though.  Very few get to make that claim.  But the only reason that occurred was I also acted as the marketing person for the design.  It was Adaptec's AHA-1540.
The marketing people of the day told me there was no way the product would sell as it was not compatible.  Glad I didn't listen to them.
The ideas I had had in the late 70's are just now finding thier way into products today.  So from my personal perspective, something really held up the advancements in technology.  I pin it on maintaining compatibility, but I could be wrong.

Motorola became a non-factor in the CPU industry when everyone decided they had to be IBM compatible.  Intel benefited.  

It is also correct that independent, non-compatible designs could not be sustained due to the massive amount of software work required.

I will maintain that the lack of competition has forced consumers to accept the mediocre.

[Eagler]

Originally posted by bloom25
In 1999 Intel spent $1,119,300,000 on advertising...

they must of had a good agent

[AKDejaVu]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Your quite correct Deja.  It was a good thing for me.  It was always said of me I was too entreprenurial to work for anyone.  I will admit, I am never satisfied with the status quo.

Status quo.. interesting term.

I believe a bigger issue would be understanding framework.  If you were designing a complete system, that would be one thing.  But when several other components rely on each other then that's another.  One small change can lead to majorly adverse affects.  Its difficult for people working in specialized fields to realize that.  Its even more difficult for them to accept it.

At least I got to make a difference in the industry though.  Very few get to make that claim.  But the only reason that occurred was I also acted as the marketing person for the design.  It was Adaptec's AHA-1540.
The marketing people of the day told me there was no way the product would sell as it was not compatible.  Glad I didn't listen to them.

Good for you.  Hope you made a penny or two off of it.

Here's the odd thing.... I work on ideas that have been around for some time.  Its just that few if any have a real good idea of how to impliment them.  There is a common term that is used: "Integration".  Basically... you have to make new ideas work with existing ones.  Until the means are there to do that, no matter how good the idea, it is worthless.

The ideas I had had in the late 70's are just now finding thier way into products today.  So from my personal perspective, something really held up the advancements in technology.  I pin it on maintaining compatibility, but I could be wrong.

I think you are wrong.  If the techonology is not there to make new ideas work with old ideas, you don't arbitrarily drop the old ideas in favor of the new ones.  There has to be a means to transition.  If that means is not there... there is simply too much to loose.

Motorola became a non-factor in the CPU industry when everyone decided they had to be IBM compatible.  Intel benefited.

Motorola became a non factor because they partnered with a company that in essence put more restrictions on growth than anything Microsoft or Intel could have done.

Virtually every other microprossesor company aimed at the server market because they saw that as big buisness.  Only a few survived there... and Intel had little to do with any of that.

It is also correct that independent, non-compatible designs could not be sustained due to the massive amount of software work required.

Software work?  No.

Try hardware conflicts.  The limitations for most development revolve around many different technologies sharing the same platform.  Why would anyone want one device if it rendered others useless?  Come now Skuzzy... this is not that hard to understand

I will maintain that the lack of competition has forced consumers to accept the mediocre.

No Skuzzy, not the mediocre.  I see very little mediocracy in today's hardware.  I also see unparralled levels of compatability.

The world was not done an injustice due to the delay of one technology if it means that others are rendered useless.

AKDejaVu

[Pepe]

IMHO, the beauty of standardization fades and leads to a blurry area of "defending users" arguments when it comes in the hand of a private company. At the end it evolves in a sort of monopoly that is bad to the industry as a whole. Of course it does not favour the end user as well.

Cheers,