Survey posted 2005-04-19 18:01 by Jon.

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it would be interesting to see something different, but i voted for 68k because it was the original processor used in the mac and the mac is near and dear to my heart

Macs have stagnated so long because Apple refuses to let anybody else manufacture them.

Apple is a lot more active than half of Microsoft's stuff. Wait, I take that back; Microsoft changes their OS (and browser) a lot to get rid of security problems.

The fact that only Apple makes Mac computers is actually a plus in their favor. Windows (and Linux) has to be made to work on millions of different computers; this bloats the system and requires thousands of different drivers be included with the operating system that never gets used. Macs are used on only a limited number of different systems, and therefore don't have to be nearly as bloated to compensate.

But this is seriously off-topic. I voted for x86 because it looks to me to be able to handle much more advanced stuff. (I could be wrong, but then why would only the advanced calculators be running on x86?) Not that the Z80 calcs are bad, but you have to admit they aren't as advanced. And I for one love the much more detailed, more advanced calculators. But that's just me.

Err, do you know what you are talking about? The x86 is that much used only for historical reasons, it truly sucks compared to the 68k line.

Whoops, my bad. I meant the 68k.

not only that, but Apple basicaly copies Windows(not completely, though)LONG LIVE WINDOWS/LINUX!

not true! the MAC OS came out before the crappy Windows GUI so it isn't copying windows but in my opinion i think that windows is just a mirrored copy of the Mac OS (not quite but almost). on the Win 98 desktop compared with the Mac Desktop, the two are almost alike... (this is where the mirroring comes in...) Mac icons are on the right of the screen (default) and Windows puts them on the left (default) then, the Start menu along the bottom of Windows is almost alike the Apple menu in Macs (except that Macs have File, Edit, and etc. up there. so they are almost alike in the GUI sense (file type and drivers, i'm not going to touch)

i know that Apple actually got the GUI idea from Xerox but, hey, who's complaing? then Windows copied Apple now, everyone says Apple copied Microsoft. life is confusing!

and Windows is crappy even though they have more software, but you have to factor in all the security updates it goes through with every single version (there's always a hole somewhere to plug, trust me, because our school's computers are easy to hack...)

If Windows is so crappy, why are all the best games written for it? And why does 90% of the world use Windows? It's a great OS, that's why! Macs are good in special cases (like high-end graphic development), but other than those cases Windows dominates!

90% of the world uses Windows because it's barely "good enough" for them. Apparently a lot of people's expectations in an operating system are very low, or they can tolerate poor design fairly well.

Most games are written for Windows because of the first point.

Windows is not very good where uptime, speed, scalability, easy maintenance (eg, remote administration), and security are necessary, such as in Web serving, file serving, and similar tasks. The best place for Windows (if it HAD to be on a computer) is on the desktop, but even there it fails to deliver ease-of-use (it's cryptic to anyone who is used to good design), speed, security, maintainability, and reliability. It's not even good for software delevopment; *nix (upon which OS X is based) still pounds the snot out of Windows on that.

Have you ever tried to open a file that is "in use" by another program in Windows (like open a file while it's downloading)? It won't let you. Have you ever tried to compile to a program that's running (which can happen in testing)? The compile will fail. Both have happened to me in Windows 2000; XP is no better. That is fundamentally broken by design. There's no good reason to prevent opening a file more than once, while there are many very good reasons NOT to. There are many other things in Windows that are fundamentally broken that are too numerous to list here.

Of course, then there are the not-so-broken by design issues, such as the silly scroll bar context menus (with the options "Scroll here", "Scroll down", "Page down", etc) that seem to have been made by a first-year programmer who thought it would be "cool" to have. If there were only a couple of silly things like that in the UI, it would be fine, but there are many things I easily find that either are (or can be) confusing to many new users or are just downright laughable.

exactly, windows is really only used because it's the cheapest barebones(slightly) that even remotely provides some semblance of usefulness. everyone stuck with it and Microsoft went and ruined it. if they spent more time in designing a solid OS with usefull features that actually do something (instead of that artsy fartsy crap that XP is) maybe, just maybe, they might have something worth buying

You're right about the GUI. The old one was good, so instead of wasting that huge amount of time giving it the "Fisher-price look" and trying to make it LOOK newer to make it appear better for the first few minutes, they should have worked on optimization, speed, stability and other stuff like that to *keep* users over a long-term period.

yeah, our school bought new computers last semester with XP and loaded AutoCADD with VizRender for our CADD class. it took two (yes count 'em,(2)) WHOLE MONTHS to work out all the kinks in the server because we can't run it without the teachers computer on the network (some licensing issue). The teacher was new but we spent 2 months doing nothing but bookwork when we could have been doing something hands-on with the computers if only XP hadn't been so picky and slow. AutoCADD took an unacceptable amount of time to load even on a 3GHz computer!

Yeah, I find it annoying how all the settings are layed out so illogically - I can use it easily since I'm used to it, but it just seems strange that you have to go through this long, complex path in IE, of all programs, to set some basic dial-up connection settings, like idle-time-to-disconnect. I also agree that there's way too much redundancy in the context menus - why have the "delete" and "open" options there for a file when you can just double-click, or press Enter, or press the freakin' DELETE KEY?!?!

But back to calcs: If TI changes the processor, there's probably a good chance they're going to come out with a completely new OS, so let's hope it doesn't have the same issues as Windows.

I probably shouldn't add fuel to the flames, but here's another example or symptom of poor design in Windows.

Printer sharing works fine some of the time, but if the driver for your printer doesn't support networking, you're out of luck. I have one such printer, an HP psc 1350xi. Its driver doesn't support printer sharing.

How messed up is Windows to depend on the printer DRIVER to support printer sharing?! That shows a lack of good design in the print spooler/manager in Windows. The driver should not care whence the data comes. In a good design, that's the responsibility of the spooler. The driver need only talk with the printer, and the spooler feeds the driver with the data it collects from all of the various places, be it from a local process or from the network. That's the logical way to do it, but of course, Windows doesn't work that way.

I don't see the situation changing any time soon (or ever), because changing something as fundamental as the way networking and printing works in Windows would not be backwards-compatible with existing drivers. MS is so bent on backwards compatibility that they won't even drop a bad design for a much better and flexible one.

Alright, I'm done venting now. Discuss, or not. I don't care.

Just because a lot of people use it doesn't mean it's good. (Look at some of the files in the archives for proof of that...no, just kidding). Windows has the most users because Microsoft has a giant monopoly on the whole software business, especially the OS. People buying computers for the first time walk into a major computer store and see PCs running Windows everywhere, the salesmen will immediately guide them to a Windows PC, all their friends and family members use Windows PCs, it's the only OS they've heard about much, and they don't really have the skills or knowledge yet to install a different OS, find alternate OSs, or even to just ask for something different.

Wow, this is really off-topic, isn't it? Amazing how just about any discussion here can turn into a Windows-vs-antiWindows flamewar...

i know, a lot of people only use Windows because that's the only OS that supports all of the "COOL" games (i'm not poking fingers here at ticalc.org, i'm more or less venting my anger at all the stupid C+ kids at my school (wow!!,HALO 2 IS SO COOL!!, MAN I GOT AN F ON MY HISTORY EXAM! Wow!))

ok, i'm done
that's my 2 cents

it's a feedback cycle: lots of poeple have Windows -> lots of programs are written for Windows -> lots of people have Windows...

Also remember all of the "new and innovative" features that Microsoft is (maybe) going to include in Longhorn, though those features either have been in MacOS X and even in GNU/Linux for a while now, or will be in Tiger, which comes out a LONG time before Longhorn is even expected to come out (which is long before it actually will).

In Microsoft-speak, they have an "advantage" as in the same later.

No, Microsoft copied Apple!!! The really old Macs with 256 KB of memory and only a floppy drive had great GUIs while PCs were still stuck with DOS.

Did you also realize that apple is a rip-off of Unix?

Nope. NeXT, the company Steve Jobs made after being booted from apple in the 1980's, licensed the right to use UNIX from Bell Laboratories. When Apple acquired NeXT in the late 90's, they gained the right to use UNIX. OSX is not _ripped off_ UNIX, it IS UNIX. And 100% legal.

at least it doesn't come from Japan (no offense to anyone...) made in the good ol' USA