folta@tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) (05/11/89)
""publicized features of OS/2 and Unix. For example, OS/2 .. allows different ""programs, such as a spreadsheet, database and communication program, to ""update one another with fresh information automatically [a very "interesting" ""way of defining multitasking]. System 7.0 will also allow that". "" ""Interesting. I have been using a system with such features, an Amiga, since ""1985. I believe they are talking not about multitaksing, but about "hot" or "smart" links. They literally mean what they said, you update a spreadsheet, and it is updated in the page-layout document you placed it into last week; you modify, say in MS Word, a status report document, and its changes are automatically reflected on your boss's machine, in his/her department status document. Amiga has no such thing, nor will it likely have it soon (an angry, former-Amiga-now-Mac owner's FLAME). Wayne Folta (folta@tove.umd.edu 128.8.128.42)
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (05/11/89)
In article <17425@mimsy.UUCP> folta@tove.umd.edu.UUCP (Wayne Folta) writes: >I believe they are talking not about multitaksing, but about "hot" or "smart" >links. They literally mean what they said, you update a spreadsheet, and >it is updated in the page-layout document you placed it into last week; >you modify, say in MS Word, a status report document, and its changes are >automatically reflected on your boss's machine, in his/her department status >document. Amiga has no such thing, nor will it likely have it soon (an angry, >former-Amiga-now-Mac owner's FLAME). Neither you will have the "smart links" any time soon (and multitasking). Apple seems to have adopted the well known IBM policy of announcing that they will "announce the availability of software at some future date". That's what I call vaporware. We'll have to wait for 1991 to see who has what. I am enjoying multitasking TODAY. I don't have to wait for two years to get it. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) (05/11/89)
in article <17425@mimsy.UUCP>, folta@tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) says: > document. Amiga has no such thing, nor will it likely have it soon What a joke! Apple doesn't even have it. We can sit here all day and argue about things they're *going* to put in, but until you can go out and buy it, it's vapor. Period. Heck, we could rattle off a list of things too, but it'd be totally pointless. >(an angry, former-Amiga-now-Mac owner's FLAME). > Wayne Folta (folta@tove.umd.edu 128.8.128.42) AH, that explains it. -- Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313
rap@rap.ardent.com (Rob Peck) (05/12/89)
In article <17425@mimsy.UUCP> folta@tove.umd.edu.UUCP (Wayne Folta) writes: >""update one another with fresh information automatically [a very "interesting" >""way of defining multitasking]. System 7.0 will also allow that". >"" >I believe they are talking not about multitaksing, but about "hot" or "smart" >links. They literally mean what they said, you update a spreadsheet, and >it is updated in the page-layout document you placed it into last week; >you modify, say in MS Word, a status report document, and its changes are >automatically reflected on your boss's machine, in his/her department status >document. Amiga has no such thing, nor will it likely have it soon (an angry, >former-Amiga-now-Mac owner's FLAME). As a side note regarding the MS windows/ HP New Wave / A**le Hot Links situation... I was a consultant to HP almost 3 years ago when they were developing the New Wave system (writing the Programmer's Guide To New Wave). Considering all of the publicity that HP has received about New Wave, it would appear that the information about their own implementation of hot links must have made it into A**le's hands... I only hope that HP had protected its own intelectual creation via appropriate patent applications because it would then appear that if A**le wins out in the look/feel business against Windows and New Wave's LOOK that HP would, in turn, have recourse against A**le for utilizing the hot links idea that HP originated over 4 years ago. (As I have not seen the document I wrote since I left the company, I am assuming that it has progressed a great deal -- I thought it was just the neatest idea that New Wave had applications that could communicate current data between themselves as well as it they did...) My original suspicion was that A**le saw the specs for New Wave and may have thought "well, if we tie 'em up in court for a couple of years, maybe we can have time enough to beat 'em to market with hot links between applications." Perhaps thats what has happened. Till now the biggest drawback to including a drawing or spreadsheet in a WP document has been "where the heck did I get those figures from" and "but thats NOT the latest available info". Now, with hot links, clicking in the document's display frame brings up the originating application, WITH the original data item for modification. Any other application that USES that data automatically becomes up to date the next time it is printed or viewed. A good idea, certainly, but I'm pretty sure A**le did NOT think of it first. Just as in Amy's case, they did not think of multitasking first. I guess good marketeers can make the public believe just about anything. Rob Peck P.S. ... Wayne is right about the mal/mis/un-use of the Clipboard feature for our machine, tho., also in his original posting (sigh)
acs@pccuts.pcc.amdahl.com (Tony Sumrall) (05/12/89)
I'm not all that sure that I'd *like* hot-links unless I receive notice that a file that I'm playing with has a hot-link into or from it. Consider: you've just done a back-up (i.e. you *know* that you've got a good copy of the current data) so you decide to go in and play with your spreadsheet to see if your latest and greatest idea will save some money. You make your changes and, because you've just been called to a mtg, save your work and leave. A day or so later you print a document which has a hot-link to the spreadsheet...you get the *wrong* data! I like the concept, just not sure that I'd heartily endorse a particular implementation. -- Tony Sumrall acs@pccuts.pcc.amdahl.com <=> amdahl!pccuts!acs [ Opinions expressed herein are the author's and should not be construed to reflect the views of Amdahl Corp. ]