[Computers] Farewell, Microsoft!

[cicatrix]

I have to disagree with some of this. Basic economics tells you that you must produce to keep the economy going ... you cannot all just consume.

That means: Industry... and not outsourced industry either. If you have no industry, you produce nothing... there will be no gain, just slow eventual loss. Services and Beyonce' as a part of your GDP are not a substitute for industry, try as you might. Industry is the cornerstone of a successful economic system.

Production for keeping the economy up - it was 20th century's rule. Demand called for supply. Now, when we overproducing, supply calles for demand. In 21th century you need consumption, not production to keep the economy afloat.

Basically, you go to work (do business) to produce stuff (goods or services) which are sold to others. From the revenue from this you get your share (salary or profit). If no one consumes your stuff, you get no money and cannot consume yourself which in turn leads to someone else's loss, thus, he consumes less too, and it snowballs. Now, imagine you make smartphones. You make tens of millions of them every year. So, you have to force your customers into buying a new model every year or you would go bankrupt and your workers would lose their jobs. They stop consuming making more manufacturers go bankrupt and this is called economic recession. The problem of the modern civilization is overproduction. Overproduction forces manufacturing companies to go out of their ways to 'add value' - do fancy designs, hire marketologists, ram advertisements everywhere to make you buy and consume the excess production. To help that there is inflation which reduces the value of money to force you spend more. And we cannot quit - it would mean the total collapse of the world economy.

And, people ARE interested in reliability and prolonged operation ...

No, actually we don't, we just don't understand it. If your computer works you wouldn't buy a new one. This would mean someone in the computer manufacturing company would lose his/her job which will backfire at you (see above)

I find the privacy issue interesting. I discuss it with a lot of people I know, from all walks of life. My general impression is that people live with a jaded view, that they're only bothered with such when it affects them personally. Well, I believe that time will come soon, and it will come as a rude awakening.

No, there would be no awakening. Privacy is no more. New generations will live their lives exposed online and they don't know how it is to be otherwise. If you ever looked at the internet posts of young people you would agree that one stupid post follows by an even more stupid one. They do not care about it, but this stuff will be there forever. In 20+ years they would probably want something never had been published but it would be too late. But then again, nobody would care by that time.

Edited February 14, 2015 by cicatrix

[basic.syntax]

My main beef with Microsoft, among others, is that it's part of the buisiness model to keep consumers from understanding the gadgets they buy, or modifying them to work as they actually want them to work. If you could fix the bugs yourself, why would you fork-out for the upgrade?

Here you get at a fundamental philosophy difference between software approaches. Microsoft succeeded in putting a computer on every desk and every home (judging by OS market share at its height, and various court cases under the heading of "monopoly") partly due to business practices and partly because they focused on making things easy for end-users, hiding complexity. ("like Apple," some might say.) They looked at how other office appliances "just work" and tried (varying degrees of success) to take out controls and features that clutter or confuse the experience for a majority of users, and focused on the most common use cases. Part of their business model with built-in apps is to provide a basic set of features, that leaves room for third party apps to beat.

Windows Movie Maker, for example, *could* have done so much more than it does/did - intentionally. For the longest time, antivirus was left to third parties. But complaints about attacks always refer to "Microsoft" having the problem. Eventually they bought another company, and incorporated its tech into Windows Defender, so they could knock out the most common attack vectors that plague computers that had - nothing at all. Antivirus vendors, probably looking at the ruins of Novell and Netscape - were petrified that M$FT would put them out of business with that move, but MSFT left plenty of room for the competition. Windows Defender doesn't score high in reviews in roundups of antivirus packages, but it is easy, unobtrusive, and much better than nothing - just what they set out to do.

Around Windows, they built a support system of many different layers, that you have to go through to figure out a problem or get a bug fixed. Online help systems with a press of F1, on up to Technet and MSDN. But the system actually works for a majority of people, or they would not have achieved the level of success that they did. The courts have held their feet to the fire for missteps, and so I don't worry about *intentional* secret backdoors. They would and do get called out for "shenanigans," by a legion of white-hat IT pro's and security experts.

All that said, Linux derivatives have grown into good, functional, incredibly configurable and scalable (especially on the small side) platforms where you can get your hands dirty, and if you're knowledgeable enough to begin with, feel more confident that you know what is going on behind the scenes.

Free sharing of designs and code fosters innovation

I don't argue that it has not fostered innovation, but, wanting to make money, and leveraging an existing platform such as Windows, has also fostered a lot of innovation

[technicalfool]

Microsoft succeeded in putting a computer on every desk and every home

IBM, as inventors of the IBM/PC, had nothing to do with this of course. And Compaq, who first reverse-engineered the IBM/PC BIOS to create the first IBM/PC Compatible and paving the way for numerous other PC manufacturers also had nothing to do with this.

Tandy had nothing to do with it. Sinclair had nothing to do with it. Acorn had nothing to do with it (and you might want to look up the original acronym for ARM). Commodore had nothing whatsoever to do with the home computer market at all. The 1980s companies too numerous to mention, they did nothing to drive prices down and the number of machines in homes and offices up.

Microsoft totally didn't ride the coat tails of an industry that was going to boom no matter what they did. Nope. Not at all.

[LordFerret]

...

I have to say, I find most of that a very dismal view, and I disagree with your logic on production (having worked 'on the inside' of numerous major corporations, I've seen otherwise). So far, the 'services based' economics you described have been failing miserably... in a number of nations (keeping it non-political). May I ask you: Do you work for someone, or do you own your own business (and if so, is it production or service based?)? Just curious.

[basic.syntax]

IBM, as inventors of the IBM/PC, had nothing to do with this of course. And Compaq, who first reverse-engineered the IBM/PC BIOS to create the first IBM/PC Compatible and paving the way for numerous other PC manufacturers also had nothing to do with this.

Mercy! :) You're right of course. An industrial revolution was taking place. People were excited by the new-fangled television-typewriters, in so many shapes and sizes. Microsoft didn't make and put hardware on people's desks. Their tagline occasionally ended with '....running Microsoft software.' Personal computers were going to get huge with or without MSFT, but there are winners and losers in every revolution.

Following the IBM PC OS deal, (which could have gone to IBM's first choice, Digital Research,) their presence had a significant effect, in the industry transition from a massive variety of business, niche, hobby devices and kits, toward wider mainstream PC adoption around fewer devices, as buyers sought lower prices, compatibility, and hardware companies consolidated.

[cicatrix]

I have to say, I find most of that a very dismal view, and I disagree with your logic on production (having worked 'on the inside' of numerous major corporations, I've seen otherwise). So far, the 'services based' economics you described have been failing miserably... in a number of nations (keeping it non-political). May I ask you: Do you work for someone, or do you own your own business (and if so, is it production or service based?)? Just curious.

I do both, I have a small business and at the same time work work for a large corporation. I think you misunderstood me. Really, I can't get any deeper without bringing politics in, but this:

So far, the 'services based' economics you described have been failing miserably...

... is exactly what I was trying to say. Nevertheless, the world's economy is still on these 'rails' and there are people (and nations) who try very hard to keep it this way. I would also say that 'service based economies' are, though failed miserably, still have power.

My point was that we produce more than we can consume. It's highy inefficient way of doing things, but that's how the things are presently.

[LordFerret]

Mercy! :) You're right of course. An industrial revolution was taking place. People were excited by the new-fangled television-typewriters, in so many shapes and sizes. Microsoft didn't make and put hardware on people's desks. Their tagline occasionally ended with '....running Microsoft software.' Personal computers were going to get huge with or without MSFT, but there are winners and losers in every revolution.

Following the IBM PC OS deal, (which could have gone to IBM's first choice, Digital Research,) their presence had a significant effect, in the industry transition from a massive variety of business, niche, hobby devices and kits, toward wider mainstream PC adoption around fewer devices, as buyers sought lower prices, compatibility, and hardware companies consolidated.

Oh how I wish it had. VMS is awesome!

[Red Iron Crown]

Oh how I wish it had. VMS is awesome!

The Windows NT memory system that persists today into Win8 is largely based on it (both involved Dave Cutler in design). You might notice that WNT is VMS advanced by one letter.

[LordFerret]

I do both, I have a small business and at the same time work work for a large corporation. I think you misunderstood me. Really, I can't get any deeper without bringing politics in, but this:

... is exactly what I was trying to say. Nevertheless, the world's economy is still on these 'rails' and there are people (and nations) who try very hard to keep it this way. I would also say that 'service based economies' are, though failed miserably, still have power.

My point was that we produce more than we can consume. It's highy inefficient way of doing things, but that's how the things are presently.

You're a busy man! Kudos!

- - - Updated - - -

The Windows NT memory system that persists today into Win8 is largely based on it (both involved Dave Cutler in design). You might notice that WNT is VMS advanced by one letter.

There's a lot one could discuss about that. My days with VMS began years before Windows existed, and ended around 1993.

1998 article (the comments are worth reading too lol) - http://windowsitpro.com/windows-client/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story

Edited February 14, 2015 by LordFerret

[dryer_lint]

Does it really matter?

As long as there's no guy in a cubicle literally sorting through my information, I honestly don't care that much.

[cicatrix]

Does it really matter?

As long as there's no guy in a cubicle literally sorting through my information, I honestly don't care that much.

That again, everything is recorded so IF you ever present any interest such a guy would literally sort through all your info.

[LordFerret]

Just wait and see what happens when you stop filing and paying your taxes lol!

[Red Iron Crown]

Interestingly, there is a story circulating of a young woman who, for reasons that shouldn't be discussed here, is completely off the grid. No birth certificate, no school records, no medical records, nothing. This near-absolute privacy has made her life very difficult in that she cannot apply to a college or other educational institution, cannot obtain a driver's license or passport, cannot get a job, etc. At some point you have to share some information about yourself if you want to participate in society.

[cicatrix]

Think of the possibilities!!!

You can create a completely new identity

[sal_vager]

Or just use someone else's there's plenty of identities to choose from...

[Newt]

Or just use someone else's there's plenty of identities to choose from...

Hah!

I will have to do that. Anyone interested in trading?

[LordFerret]

Interestingly, there is a story circulating of a young woman who, for reasons that shouldn't be discussed here, is completely off the grid. No birth certificate, no school records, no medical records, nothing. This near-absolute privacy has made her life very difficult in that she cannot apply to a college or other educational institution, cannot obtain a driver's license or passport, cannot get a job, etc. At some point you have to share some information about yourself if you want to participate in society.

Some young woman? Oh!... you mean our Presiden.......

.....never mind. I didn't say that. You misheard me. You misunderstood me. I was actually discussing Gingerbread.

[Beowolf]

Oh how I wish it had. VMS is awesome!

Nobody's called you on this, so I guess it was a memory glitch instead of a joke. Too bad, because I thought it was funny! Anyway, here's the history if anyone cares...

Digital Research made CP/M, the dominant OS for Intel-based microcomputers in the late 70s. IBM made an appointment with DR's owner, Gary Kildall, to discuss licensing CP/M for the upcoming IBM PC. There are a bunch of apocryphal stories about what happened that day, ranging from "it was a beautiful day, so Gary blew off the meeting to fly his Cessna", to "Gary had never seen a non-disclosure agreement before, and refused to sign the one IBM gave him until he could talk to his lawyer". But whatever happened, IBM went away unhappy. Soon after, they met with Bill Gates to discuss licensing Microsoft Basic. At some point, IBM said, "Oh, and Bill? We're also looking around for an OS. You don't happen to have an 8086 operating system lying around, do you?" Bill replied, "We sure do! It isn't quite ready to demo yet, but will be in a month or so. Can you come back?" After they left, Bill went to a little local company, Seattle Computer Systems, who recently showed off their 8086 OS, a CP/M lookalike called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), at a Seattle Computer Club meeting Bill had attended. He paid them $50,000 to buy it outright. That became MS-DOS v1.0. Really.

Digital Equipment Corporation, aka DEC, made minis and superminis, and had an excellent OS called VMS. But it wasn't just the OS; DEC made beautiful and elegant machines right down to the instruction sets. I've done assembler programming on maybe a dozen different types of computer. Nothing compares with a DEC, except perhaps a Motorola 68000...because Motorola stole about 2/3rds of the instruction set from a DEC PDP-11. Instruction sets aren't patentable or copyrightable. VMS wasn't their only great OS, either. CP/M itself was pretty much a simplified port of DEC's earlier TOPS-10 OS. Story of the 1970s: Everybody rips off IBM and DEC; cheap and unreliable clones abound. Then personal computers came along and turned the whole industry inside out. While IBM was busy taking over the market, DEC thought PCs were just a fad, and ended up bankrupt. Compaq (now HP) ended up with their manufacturing assets and Microsoft got the software, some of which ended up in the Windows/NT kernel.

TOPS-10 -----> CP/M -----> QDOS -----> MS-DOS -----> PC-DOS

\

-----> VMS -----> Windows/NT multitasking

Thanks, mostly-anonymous DEC engineers! That's quite a legacy.

[Kinglet]

Meh, I've basically stopped trying to limit the data that Google, MS or social networks are able to collect about me. It really doesn't matter to me. I suspect in a generation the expectation of any sort of digital privacy will be long gone.

It's because people don't care anymore. They don't care why, how, and because.

[temporalExile]

Interestingly, there is a story circulating of a young woman who, for reasons that shouldn't be discussed here, is completely off the grid. No birth certificate, no school records, no medical records, nothing. This near-absolute privacy has made her life very difficult in that she cannot apply to a college or other educational institution, cannot obtain a driver's license or passport, cannot get a job, etc. At some point you have to share some information about yourself if you want to participate in society.

Wait, Sara Connor is real?

In all seriousness, I don't usually care about the fact that these people have my data. They are massive corporations that give little to no craps about me. Now if smaller groups or an individual got a hold of some info about me, I would be concerned, as small groups/individuals would be much more likely to abuse that data.

[LordFerret]

Nobody's called you on this, so I guess it was a memory glitch instead of a joke. Too bad, because I thought it was funny! Anyway, here's the history if anyone cares...

Digital Research made CP/M, the dominant OS for Intel-based microcomputers in the late 70s. IBM made an appointment with DR's owner, Gary Kildall, to discuss licensing CP/M for the upcoming IBM PC. There are a bunch of apocryphal stories about what happened that day, ranging from "it was a beautiful day, so Gary blew off the meeting to fly his Cessna", to "Gary had never seen a non-disclosure agreement before, and refused to sign the one IBM gave him until he could talk to his lawyer". But whatever happened, IBM went away unhappy. Soon after, they met with Bill Gates to discuss licensing Microsoft Basic. At some point, IBM said, "Oh, and Bill? We're also looking around for an OS. You don't happen to have an 8086 operating system lying around, do you?" Bill replied, "We sure do! It isn't quite ready to demo yet, but will be in a month or so. Can you come back?" After they left, Bill went to a little local company, Seattle Computer Systems, who recently showed off their 8086 OS, a CP/M lookalike called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), at a Seattle Computer Club meeting Bill had attended. He paid them $50,000 to buy it outright. That became MS-DOS v1.0. Really.

Digital Equipment Corporation, aka DEC, made minis and superminis, and had an excellent OS called VMS. But it wasn't just the OS; DEC made beautiful and elegant machines right down to the instruction sets. I've done assembler programming on maybe a dozen different types of computer. Nothing compares with a DEC, except perhaps a Motorola 68000...because Motorola stole about 2/3rds of the instruction set from a DEC PDP-11. Instruction sets aren't patentable or copyrightable. VMS wasn't their only great OS, either. CP/M itself was pretty much a simplified port of DEC's earlier TOPS-10 OS. Story of the 1970s: Everybody rips off IBM and DEC; cheap and unreliable clones abound. Then personal computers came along and turned the whole industry inside out. While IBM was busy taking over the market, DEC thought PCs were just a fad, and ended up bankrupt. Compaq (now HP) ended up with their manufacturing assets and Microsoft got the software, some of which ended up in the Windows/NT kernel.

TOPS-10 -----> CP/M -----> QDOS -----> MS-DOS -----> PC-DOS

\

-----> VMS -----> Windows/NT multitasking

Thanks, mostly-anonymous DEC engineers! That's quite a legacy.

Did you catch the link I posted in a reply to Red Iron Crown? Go one page back. Interesting read. The comments are funny too. Note the date of the article.

While I didn't touch Tops-10, I did use CP/M and the rest afterward. I still think VAX VMS was great, I did a lot of work on Micro-Vax's in my day... VAX MACRO (assembly), Dibol. VMS in such an environment, while NT being derived from, was a very different animal.

The MC68000... remember it well. The 6809E was one hell of a chip as well.

HP was equally elegant, IMO. I began when RTE-III first came out, on up through RTE-6VM... the 1000 series was an amazing machine, a true piece of lab equipment... real-time data acquisition in a number of applications. Very cool, very fun stuff.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

erm... on topic, did anybody read the privacy statement that was linked in one of the earlier posts?

Thank you for choosing to participate in a pre-release programme for our next version of Windows! The purpose of the programme is to enable you to provide usage data and feedback to Microsoft while trying out the pre-release software and services. Your participation is important and will provide us with data that we can use to better understand and engage our customers, and to improve our products and services. This privacy statement applies to the pre-release Microsoft Windows software, services and related experiences, including programme websites and software that display or link to this notice (the "Programme").

Bold for emphasis.

In any case, I quite frankly couldn't care less about some company spying on me. I'm no James Bond, whatever info they can gather about me is pretty much irrelevant. "Oh look, user #44433443, some guy named Rosco bought a pizza on-line!" Your ISP knows more about you than anyone else anyways, and there's no way to escape that unless you are your own ISP. In which case you are one lucky rich b, erm, dude, and you don't really care.

[cicatrix]

Your ISP knows more about you than anyone else anyways, and there's no way to escape that unless you are your own ISP. In which case you are one lucky rich b, erm, dude, and you don't really care.

You can prevent ISP from knowing what you do if you use VPN. There are also TOR, Open VPN, SoftEther, etc.

[Colserra3]

There is a brilliant game on newgrounds.com related to this topic. It's called Nothing to Hide (too lazy to post link), I'm pretty sure it's for everyone, or just teens, regardless I'm pretty sure everyone here matches that criteria.

On the subject of privacy I do appreciate it, but I'm not a fanatic. I just don't want to be blackmailed with possible embarrassing, or controversial information someone may dig-up and seeing the way governments and private industries are going, that is a very real possibility. I'm not growing up in a third-world, or oppressive country, but I have seen the steps that governments take to become oppressive and I hate to tell y'all, but the steps are being taken across the world. Because I'm a loner and possible revolutionary, privacy is one of the things I value most, I don't even have a mobile phone, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain privacy in the modern world, and eventually I'll be forced to either conform, or do something drastic and I don't like either one of those decisions.

[LordFerret]

There is a brilliant game on newgrounds.com related to this topic. It's called Nothing to Hide (too lazy to post link), I'm pretty sure it's for everyone, or just teens, regardless I'm pretty sure everyone here matches that criteria.

On the subject of privacy I do appreciate it, but I'm not a fanatic. I just don't want to be blackmailed with possible embarrassing, or controversial information someone may dig-up and seeing the way governments and private industries are going, that is a very real possibility. I'm not growing up in a third-world, or oppressive country, but I have seen the steps that governments take to become oppressive and I hate to tell y'all, but the steps are being taken across the world. Because I'm a loner and possible revolutionary, privacy is one of the things I value most, I don't even have a mobile phone, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain privacy in the modern world, and eventually I'll be forced to either conform, or do something drastic and I don't like either one of those decisions.

Here in the US, in 8 days, the FCC will vote on proposed new regulations which will directly affect Net Neutrality. If this goes through and they get their way, you're going to see things like limitations on bandwidth you're allowed to have/use, how much storage you're allowed, and how much time/access you'll be permitted ... among other things. Ultimately, everything you do from surfing to gaming to email will be subject to taxation ... which is what this is all about - more revenue ... and to control You - what you see, what you do, and what you say.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/20/us-usa-internet-neutrality-idUSKBN0LO2AH20150220

Sorry mods, this is politics, straight up and in your face, and it affects all of us here. :/