heath@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Todd Heatherton) (09/08/88)
It seems to me that there have been numerous complaints about system 6.0.
I realize that Apple promised 2 upgrades per year, but does anybody really
need or want them. The tone from the net is that almost every program
crashes with 6.0, or that people are having pretty serious problems. I AM
In that category of users who would like to kkep up with "the pack", but
sometimes I'm not sure why we're changing. Since I have yet to hear one
good word about 6.0 on the net, can someone give me a good reason to change from5.0 (which has worked perfectly)?. I guess part of my point is that some
of us who read this net need to hear both sides of the story.
Thanks for listening, As always,
Todd Heatherton (aka "the novice", aka "bad typist")
peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (09/08/88)
> Since I have yet to hear one > good word about 6.0 on the net, can someone give me a good reason to change > from 5.0 (which has worked perfectly)? I guess part of my point is that some > of us who read this net need to hear both sides of the story. I have used 6.0 for some time now without problems. I really like macro maker and some of the subtle changes they've made (like the Apple changing to an alarm clock when the alarm goes off). I don't know why I've been spared the problems that everyone has been complaining about, but I'm already looking forward to the next release! -- Peter Steele, Microcomputer Applications Analyst Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121 UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Peter BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
bob@eecs.nwu.edu (Bob Hablutzel) (09/09/88)
> It seems to me that there have been numerous complaints about system 6.0. > I realize that Apple promised 2 upgrades per year, but does anybody really > need or want them. The tone from the net is that almost every program > crashes with 6.0, or that people are having pretty serious problems. I AM > In that category of users who would like to kkep up with "the pack", but > sometimes I'm not sure why we're changing. Since I have yet to hear one > good word about 6.0 on the net, can someone give me a good reason to change > from5.0 (which has worked perfectly)?. I guess part of my point is that some > of us who read this net need to hear both sides of the story. Why do we get system upgrades? For the same reason we get new hardware: to be able to do more. Can I honestly tell you that you have to upgrade to system 6.0 if you have to? No. However: System 6.0 does add features to your Macintosh, especially if you have an SE or a Plus. It does have some problems, but I've been running it since it came out, and I really think it has an undeserved bad rep. No program I use has broken (of course, I don't use MicroSoft products, which do deserve a bad rep). As a developer, I want system updates like 6.0 (and the coming 7.0, and so on) as it gives me a chance to add features to my applications, standardize features, and in general produce better products. So: Do what you want with our Mac. It's _your_ Mac. However, if you allow yourself to get far enough behind the times, you will find out that those sexy new programs won't work on your machine, because they assume the existance of a sexy new system. Bob Hablutzel Bob@NUACC.ACNS.NWU.EDU Disclaimer: I can do what I want with my opinions. They're _my_ opinions.
rudolph@m.cs.uiuc.edu (09/10/88)
I've been using 6.0 for about 2 months now with no problems. I have a Plus with 1M and a hard drive. I use multifinder all the time and rarely encounter any problems. And I DO use MSoft applications, including Word and Excel. I can't compare it to 5.0 (or whatever came before 6.0) since I skipped that one, but Macromaker is very useful, and the new file copying interface is much nicer (shows you its progress). I think it's developers who are having more trouble with it. Strictly as an end-user, I'd recommend it.
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (09/11/88)
In article <1988Sep7.234716.1949@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> heath@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Todd Heatherton) writes: >It seems to me that there have been numerous complaints about system 6.0. I believe most of the news reports no problems on Mac II. I've been using it for about three weeks with no problems at work. I had to stay with System 5.0 printing resources because I'm the only one on the net using (testing) this software. I like it because of macro maker. It's much easier to record a sequence of instructions than with QuickKeys. I like double clicking another document when Word is already open and the document just opens - no hassle. I like the new Map cdev. In the control panel you can find out the time elsewhere in the world and the milage to that city from any point you choose as a reference. However, I also tried it at home on a Mac that started life as a 512 and is now upgraded to a 2MB plus level. It was OK most of the weekend until Sunday night. Map would not go into the control panel at home, but I was only working on some Word documents so I didn't care. Sunday night I started a save of a document I had spent hours on. It bombed during the save and I lost the document (0 bytes in the file when I tried to open it). The temp file was left on the desktop, not in the System folder and it only came up empty - untitled 1. I've lost documents before (seemingly) only to find them hidden behind their temp icon. I couldn't double click the icon to open it, but I could open it through the dialog box and I could see that there was something in the file using Command-I. But this time there was nothing in the file. I opened another document, thinking a previously written letter would be safe enough (no funny fonts like in the first document). After adding some more text, I saved it before going to the printer. The same thing happened. So I can't recommend System 6.0 on anything but a Mac II, but I hope the 6.01 upgrade is out soon too, so the SE's at work can have it. We've found that QuickKeys and MegaScreen are incompatible, so System 6.0's macro maker is the first time they'll be able to program extended keyboards (they've never tried Tempo). > > Todd Heatherton (aka "the novice", aka "bad typist") >
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (09/11/88)
In article <10330031@eecs.nwu.edu> bob@eecs.nwu.edu (Bob Hablutzel) writes: >> It seems to me that there have been numerous complaints about system 6.0. >> I realize that Apple promised 2 upgrades per year, but does anybody really >> need or want them. The tone from the net is that almost every program >> crashes with 6.0, or that people are having pretty serious problems. I AM >> In that category of users who would like to kkep up with "the pack", but >> sometimes I'm not sure why we're changing. Since I have yet to hear one >> good word about 6.0 on the net, can someone give me a good reason to change >> from5.0 (which has worked perfectly)?. I guess part of my point is that some >> of us who read this net need to hear both sides of the story. > >Why do we get system upgrades? For the same reason we get new hardware: to >be able to do more. Can I honestly tell you that you have to upgrade to >system 6.0 if you have to? No. > (etc.) I upgraded to 6.0 a month ago because Illustrator '88 demands it. Of course, both the new system and the new Illustrator are bigger, so that Illustrator no longer ran on my 1MB SE. Sigh... But, back to the point. I've experienced no problems running the Finder, but neither have I noticed any particular advantages. Since I recently added 2MB to my Mac, I thought I'd try Multifinder. It does have significant advantages, like background printing and having two or more applications open at the same time (great for copying between a drawing program and a page layout program). However, virtually every major program I use (Word 3.02, XPress, etc.) either exhibited strange behaviour (e.g., "program xxx exited unexpectedly" WITHOUT SAVING MY FILE) or hung the machine -- usually the latter. I've now switched back to the Finder. Therefore, my advice is not to upgrade unless you having a pressing need to do so. -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (09/11/88)
In article <4712@mnetor.UUCP> frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) writes: > ... >Therefore, my advice is not to upgrade unless you having a pressing need to >do so. (blush) make that "...unless you have..." -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (09/11/88)
> However, virtually every major > program I use (Word 3.02, XPress, etc.) either exhibited strange > behaviour (e.g., "program xxx exited unexpectedly" WITHOUT SAVING MY FILE) > or hung the machine -- usually the latter. I've now switched back to > the Finder. I've been using System 6.0 on a Mac II with 2M of memory without a single problem. I run Word, VersaTerm, SuperPaint, MacDraw, CricketGraph, and other programs. I can only say that I must be lucky... I agree though; I'm not sure that there are really any significant advantages to switching from 4.2 to 6.0... -- Peter Steele, Microcomputer Applications Analyst Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121 UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}!dalcs!aucs!Peter BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) (09/14/88)
From article <15@ur-cc.UUCP>, by akk2@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Atul Kacker): > > keystrokes or else... Needless to say, I went back to Release 5 and will stay > there until Apple cleans up all the bugs etc. > Since 6.0 has been receiving rumors again, thought I'd throw in 2 cents. It seems pretty clear that most if not all of the 'bugs' are in applications, not in System 6.0. It just is more finicky about things Apple warned about, doubtless in the line of future support of new features (which probably include full Mac support under A/UX). Personally, I've been running 6.0 since it came out, using Microsoft Word (3.01), Versaterm, Superpaint, Lightspeed C, and MPW heavily, among others, and have had not one bit of trouble. There do seem to be real improvements also. For instance, clicking on an inactive layer, while a front layer is busy doing something, is now reliable, which it didn't seem to be before -- you had to try several times. Overall operation seems smoother and _more_ reliable, in a number of minor ways. Also, you get some new features. It is nice enough to have small icons of the alarm clock, or Stuffit, appearing through the Notification Manager when these want to tell you something in the background. And I travel a lot with the box, so it's nice to have the Map manage the time zone without messing with the clock. Some people probably like the Macro Maker. It would probably be best if we would all consider a little more the feelings of those people at Apple who work hard to make things for us. Clive Steward
alexis@dasys1.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (09/14/88)
In article <15@ur-cc.UUCP> akk2@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Atul Kacker) writes: >I went to System 6.0 as soon as it was released. Unfortunately, I started >having problems with several of the applications that had worked fine before. >Amongst these were WordPerfect and 4th Dimension v1.04. 4th Dimension crashed >left and right under the new system. You had to save your work every five >keystrokes or else... Needless to say, I went back to Release 5 and will stay >there until Apple cleans up all the bugs etc. Apple can hardly be expected to clean up bugs in Fourth Dimension. If you want a copy of 4D that runs witht the new system, call Acius and ask for the upgrade form to V1.0.6. If you are a registered owner you should have gotten a letter from Acius. In general I think that a lot of the problems attributed to System 6 are actually the fault of the programmers who didn't follow the rules and are now getting burned. This doesn't help, it's true, if you are using one of the faulty programs, but Apple has taken more heat on this than it should. If you want to criticize Apple, watch for my forthcoming flame... I think it's got some good material to start with... ---- Alexis Rosen {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\ Writing from {harpo,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!alexis The Big Electric Cat {portal,well,sun}!hoptoad/ Public UNIX Best path: uunet!dasys1!alexis
sho@pur-phy (Sho Kuwamoto) (09/15/88)
In article <8675@drutx.ATT.COM> clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) writes: > >Personally, I've been running 6.0 since it came out, using Microsoft >Word (3.01), Versaterm, Superpaint, Lightspeed C, and MPW heavily, among >others, and have had not one bit of trouble. > Is it true that apple dealers aren't allowed to give people copies of this? I went in to the local Computerland (uck) when I got my Hypercard 1.2 update, and they told me I'd have to pay to get System 6.0 I understand you have to pay to get the books but... And I thought it was hard finding a good Apple dealer in Pasadena. -Sho