bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch) (04/22/88)
The following is from my old buddy Ted Holden over at HTE. The
views contained herein are not necessarily my own and in no way
represent any policy of IMS's.
...............................................................
It should be obvious to anyone who has followed recent
events that Apple has no legitimate claim to the mouse-icon
interface, and that their present atempts at intimidating
MicroSoft and Hewlett Packard are probably going to turn out
about as badly as Iran's recent attempts to intimidate the U.S.
Navy. I would like to suggest to Apple, that they could succeed
in life to a significantly greater extent ( i.e. win more
courtroom cases, since I can't really picture Apple succeeding in
the world of business) if they were to concentrate their legal
activities on defending notions and developments which are
palpably and provably their own. The following short and partial
list should get them (Apple) started on the right track:
1. Toy keyboards which look like something you'd expect
from Toys R Us or Kmart. Atari, which actually sells
at Toys R Us, uses real keyboards.
2. The 4" by 5" screen, the so-called "look and feel of a
1946 TV set".
3. The idea of using 70% of a 68000 chip's compute power
to maintain screen graphics, as a means of achieving
new levels of slowness, as well as whatever they did to
achieve the remarkable slowness of their diskette
drives.
4. Slowness generally. While it is true that Sperry and
IBM invented this concept, Apple could claim to have
refined the actual implementation of it to new levels,
and then be in a position to extract legal tribute from
several entirely new classes of victims rather than
just micro users; most notably, from all manufacturers
of Ada compilers.
5. The true "look and feel" of the original MAC and LISA
computers, i.e. <dumb and ugly>. If Apple could
establish a precedence on the concept of marketing such
products generally, they would be in a position to
extract tribute from all manner of victims, including
Swedish automotive firms, many clothing manufacturers,
most American house-building firms..... the only limit
on this one would be their own imaginations. In
particular, patenting this concept would put Apple into
an admirable position for suing the denizens of Borneo,
the Australian outback, and a number of like places
when these later begin to manufacture computers, since
those computers will undoubtedly resemble the MAC.
6. The concept of an assembler requiring two computers for
its use. This was an Apple exclusive and represented
the only way for anyone other than Apple to program the
MAC for the first two years.
7. The concept of making a mouse-icon interface the only
way of doing anything whatsoever with a computer,
rather than simply an intelligent handle on graphics
programs as per GEM, Windows, DeskView etc. all of
which make sense.
Like I said, this is a rather short and obviously incomplete
list, to which other USENET viewers with more Apple experience
than mine could probably add a great deal. I regard Apple as bad
for the American computer industry in general, and am glad that
they have finally shown their true colors to the world, so that
nobody who reads at all could possibly be under any further
illusions regarding them.
Ted Holden
HTE
dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) (04/24/88)
In article <102@imspw6.UUCP> bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch) writes: > I regard Apple as bad > for the American computer industry in general, and am glad that > they have finally shown their true colors to the world, so that > nobody who reads at all could possibly be under any further > illusions regarding them. The gentle people in the state of Montana who regulate the stock market refused to allow Apple stock to be sold there in the beginning. Perhaps they showed an insight that the rest of us didn't. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi
gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu (04/25/88)
Maybe your friend Ted Holden sees the *American* PC industry as bad
for America too. After all, if Apple didn't exist, America would
control a much smaller fraction of its own domestic PC market. IBM
has basically forfeited their market to japanese clones, by making a
product that is too easy to imitate, and has too few "new ideas".
Don Gillies {ihnp4!uiucdcs!gillies} U of Illinois
{gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu}jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey) (04/26/88)
In article <102@imspw6.UUCP> bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch) writes: > The following is from my old buddy Ted Holden over at HTE... > > 1. Toy keyboards which look like something you'd expect > from Toys R Us or Kmart. Atari, which actually sells > at Toys R Us, uses real keyboards. Just to show that everyone has an opinion, I always though the atari 520's keyboard was the hokiest thing on wheels. True mush. Genuine devil-spawn from the anti-touch-typing league. > 3. The idea of using 70% of a 68000 chip's compute power > to maintain screen graphics, as a means of achieving > new levels of slowness, as well as whatever they did to > achieve the remarkable slowness of their diskette > drives. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The video is _maintained_ almost independantly of the CPU, certainly no worse a penalty than the typical PC takes for separate DRAM refresh (which the Mac video [and Atari and Amiga as well] accomplishes as a side-effect. It does take (surprise) a full 100% of the CPU to _draw_ the thing in the first place, just the same as any other computer without a video display co-processor. Bench the original 400K Apple _drives_ against a PC's 360K drive. The Apple drive was, and is, faster. Apple's system does beat the crap out of the drive though. The floppy-based _system_ was rather sluggish. I would hate to see the equivalent software system running on a PC, and if you want to see a slow floppy system, check out the original Amiga file system. Echhh. C'mon guys, flame Apple for real issues, not rewarmed ignorata. Chew off their backsides for trying to retard progress via litigation, please! Donning asbestos undies now...hope there aren't any nit-sized holes in them! +----------------+ ! II CCCCCC ! Jim Cathey ! II SSSSCC ! @ ISC Systems Corp. (but in no way representing) ! II CC ! TAF-C8; Spokane, WA 99220 ! IISSSS CC ! UUCP: uunet!iscuva!jimc ! II CCCCCC ! (509) 927-5757 +----------------+ "With excitement like this, who is needing enemas?"
merchant@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Peter Merchant) (04/26/88)
In article <102@imspw6.UUCP> Ted Holden writes: > [...] I regard Apple as bad > for the American computer industry in general, and am glad that > they have finally shown their true colors to the world, so that > nobody who reads at all could possibly be under any further > illusions regarding them. > I regard crap like this as bad for the net in general, especially when it's posted across multiple newsgroups like this one was. C'mon, gang. Let's leave this static to lie. It's old news and every columnist in America has written about this and it's all the same. When it was new news, it was interesting. Now, who cares? Let the courts decide. --- "Where do broken hearts go?" Peter Merchant (merchant@eleazar.UUCP)