hagan@ecs.umass.edu (04/20/91)
In regard to NuTek, as far as i can tell (from the infromation in Macworld, i believe) they are not planning on making a macintosh clone, but have cloned the roms, and would intend on selling the right of use of their rom in a potential cloner's machine, much like what happened with the IBM PC bios a while back. my personal feelings towards this is that even if their roms aren't 100% compatable with the 512K ones, if they are comaptable with the 256K or 128K roms, then they will have a good selling potential. I hope that Apple, instead of suing (bad, they need to put their money into R&D, not lawuits) would come out, and license their roms. This will create a similar competition, but, potential cloners would probably opt for the apple roms, as they would *know* that they are compatable. I feel that if a situation like that ensued, we, the users of technology will benefit greatly from the competition, for that is where the greatest leaps of technology come from. someone mentioned 32 bit clean roms upgrades for the SE/30, if apple doesn't provide,and NuTek roms work as well as your 256K roms, why not buy the NuTek product, it seems like a good deal to me. just my $799.95 + 5% thought tax for residents of taxachussetts. --craig hagan Hagan@picard.ecs.umass.edu
breidenb@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Oliver Breidenbach) (04/22/91)
In article <13303.280f36b0@ecs.umass.edu> hagan@ecs.umass.edu writes: >roms, as they would *know* that they are compatable. I feel that if a >situation like that ensued, we, the users of technology will benefit >greatly from the competition, for that is where the greatest leaps >of technology come from. > like in ms-dos world? naaaaah. The only ones who benefits are the computers resellers who can sell the totally underqualified user thousands of utilities improving shell and memory features and hundredth of thousands hours of service in order to install and maintain the machines. And think about what happened when the bios was available. Now there are a couple of totally different operating systems which all claim to be "compatible". Like DR-Dos, Concurrent PC-DOS, DeskView, and so on. The User gets nothing but confused. And everyone pirates Mircrosofts MS-DOS. Time will come that they copy-protect it. And anyone who thinks he is a kind of programmer "improves" and "extends" the existing operating system. A lot of applications just use the operating system to get loaded from disk to memory. (Not more than 100 lines of code needed for that). I think we can easily live without these "leaps of technology". The macintosh though now 7 years old is still "state of the art", maybe even more advanced. I don't want anybody who is not completely aware what he is doing to change or "improve" things on the mac. And that means: Keep these things with apple. > >just my $799.95 + 5% thought tax for residents of taxachussetts. > you are a computer consultant, aren't you? ;-) These are my inspirations. I donate them to the society of macintosh users at no costs at all. In case of reproduction, please include a copyright notice. Oliver. I shall not be sued for any misunderstandings that result from any incompatibilities between my english and the commonly used version.
Adam.Frix@p18.f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Adam Frix) (04/23/91)
breidenb@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Oliver Breidenbach) writes: >roms, as they would *know* that they are compatable. I feel that if a >situation like that ensued, we, the users of technology will benefit >greatly from the competition, for that is where the greatest leaps >of technology come from. > OB> like in ms-dos world? naaaaah. The only ones who benefits are OB> the computers resellers who can sell the totally underqualified OB> user thousands of utilities improving shell and memory features OB> and hundredth of thousands hours of service in order to install OB> and maintain the machines. And think about what happened when OB> the bios was available. Now there are a couple of totally different OB> operating systems which all claim to be "compatible". Like DR-Dos, OB> Concurrent PC-DOS, DeskView, and so on. The User gets nothing OB> but confused. And everyone pirates Mircrosofts MS-DOS. Time will OB> come that they copy-protect it. wonderful, except: NuTek isn't using the Apple Macintosh OS here. They've cobbled together their own, with bits from here and pieces from there, and have created some firmware that uses these bits and pieces to do its work. The NuTek chips aren't using Apple's Mac OS; rather, NuTek has gotten together an entirely different system which will allow stock-block off-the-shelf designed-for-the-Macintosh programs to run. And that's their whole goal. Be able to run your comfortable and familiar Word on a machine that costs a fraction of what a genyooeine Apple Macintosh costs. People have been _printing_ their documents on printers which cost a fraction of the Apple LaserWriters; the next obvious step is to _create_ their documents on a non-Mac, doing it the Mac way all the while. Any OS that Apple creates will continue to be useless on anything except a machine running Apple-controlled ROMs. This has been the case, and will be the case. So in fact, the Mac OS is _already_ copy-protected. --Adam-- -- Adam Frix via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!20.18!Adam.Frix INET: Adam.Frix@p18.f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG
kls30@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Kent L Shephard) (04/24/91)
In article <1991Apr22.095348.3346@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE> breidenb@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Oliver Breidenbach) writes: >In article <13303.280f36b0@ecs.umass.edu> hagan@ecs.umass.edu writes: >>roms, as they would *know* that they are compatable. I feel that if a >>situation like that ensued, we, the users of technology will benefit >>greatly from the competition, for that is where the greatest leaps >>of technology come from. >> >like in ms-dos world? naaaaah. >The only ones who benefits are the computers resellers who can sell the ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wrong, the consumer benefits from increased competition and cheaper hardware. The technology moves faster because not one company can sit on it's butt (Apple) and give performance increases only after it has milked the current pool of users for every dime. Unless Apple sells ROM upgrades for SE owners they have to buy new machines to take advantage of the real functionality of sys 7.0. >totally underqualified user thousands of utilities improving shell ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By whose standards??????? If they can get the job done how are they underqualified? >and memory features and hundredth of thousands hours of service in order >to install and maintain the machines. >And think about what happened when the bios was available. Now there are BIOS and compatible OS have noting to do with each other, except that they are both software. The compatible bios gave you options to buy other than IBM hardware, with prohibative prices in some cases. >a couple of totally different operating systems which all claim to be >"compatible". Like DR-Dos, Concurrent PC-DOS, DeskView, and so on. The User ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DeskView is an operating enviornment not an OS. It sits on top of DOS and gets its services from DOS. Jusk like Windows 3.0. >gets nothing but confused. And everyone pirates Mircrosofts MS-DOS. Time ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The user gets options. If options get you confused buy the defacto standard IBM and PC-DOS in this case, Apple in the other. >will come that they copy-protect it. And anyone who thinks he is a kind of ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yea, right and people will buy the competitors uncopy protected software. >programmer "improves" and "extends" the existing operating system. A lot >of applications just use the operating system to get loaded from disk to >memory. (Not more than 100 lines of code needed for that). This is true. But most programs don't have I/O routines built in. That is where the OS comes in. The OS provides services to executing programs. Maybe you should take a class in OS. >I think we can easily live without these "leaps of technology". The macintosh >though now 7 years old is still "state of the art", maybe even more advanced. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Get a grip, state of the art, HA! The Mac is just plain old generic 68000 hardware, nothing special. Sheesh the thing doen't even use DMA until sys 7.0. The Classic and LC are state of the art??????? You can run the Mac OS on just about any 68000 box with decent graphics. All you need is some glue logic for the ROMs, and some software to intercept and translate system calls and graphic routines. Why do you think there are Mac emulators for the Amiga and Atari. >I don't want anybody who is not completely aware what he is doing to change or >"improve" things on the mac. And that means: Keep these things with apple. I'm quite sure they know what they are doing. What that means is that YOU should keep buying Apple. Just because a clone is not for you, doesn't mean it isn't right for anybody. > >> >>just my $799.95 + 5% thought tax for residents of taxachussetts. >> >you are a computer consultant, aren't you? ;-) > >These are my inspirations. I donate them to the society of macintosh users at >no costs at all. In case of reproduction, please include a copyright notice. > >Oliver. > >I shall not be sued for any misunderstandings that result from any >incompatibilities between my english and the commonly used version. Do you own Apple stock, or what????????? I say competition breeds inovation. The best motivation to improve is when your profits slip due to competition. If you lag you lose. You must stay on the ball in a competitive market place, which Apple has NOT done. KeNT - I buy PC-Clones and own a NeXT, wouldn't buy a piece of hardware from Apple if it was the last company on earth. They are too damn busy litigating to inovate. Instead of improving to keep market share they sue over ideas they borrowed from Xerox. -- /* -The opinions expressed are my own, not my employers. */ /* For I can only express my own opinions. */ /* */ /* Kent L. Shephard : email - kls30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com */