curfmanm@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (Matthew Curfman) (10/04/90)
All of the Apple bashing that goes on in this news group has destroyed
it! Instead of being a clearing house of new ideas and applications, it has
become home to a great deal of crying and moaning.
I, along with many others here at OSU, have decided that the chore of
wading through all of the apple flame news is no longer worth the effort
to learn more about the machine we own. I think that this is
really sad, especially since this problem wasn't caused by apple, but by
us, the users of the net.
If you don't like what apple is doing, don't buy apple. If you want
a new product, encourage other company's like Video Technology to fill
the void, or start your own! I just have a really hard time believing that
Apple cares what this net has to say. They haven't listened yet, and I
don't think that they are going to start now.
Yet we the users, with our piles of hate mail, have all but destroyed a
once great group.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Matt Curfman Technovelty. Inc.
curfmanm@prism.cs.orst.edu Oregon State University
OSU says what it says. I say what I say. We don't say the same thing.fadden@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Andy McFadden) (10/05/90)
In article <20756@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> curfmanm@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (Matthew Curfman) writes: >Yet we the users, with our piles of hate mail, have all but destroyed a >once great group. Easy on the rhetoric. I just ate. :-) You have to understand that this group goes in cycles... Aug-Nov This is the time when Apple introduces major new products, like a new Macintosh or major GS/OS upgrade. There is initially a great deal of wild and hopeful speculation, inevitibly ending in frustration (amidst a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, etc). Dec-Jan The Christmas buying season. Lots of people wondering why Apple doesn't advertise anything but the Mac IIfx, while Amiga gets Tip O'Neil to advertise overblown pocket calculators. Feb-Mar The calm season. It's cold outside in most places, so everybody just sorta hangs out and programs. Lots of techical questions get asked. Apr-May Every BBS in North America goes wild with rumors of a new //gs. It outperforms a Cray 2 but costs less than three pounds of gummi bears. This is also the time when Apple ships such machines to non-disclosure sites, which soon busy themselves with disclosing (judging by the number of rumors). Jun-Jul Summer. Everybody's at the beach, thinking about things other than Apple IIs. People from Nebraska aren't at the beach, but they think about other things anyway. Since a large quantity of traffic here is from college students, the traffic goes down when we leave campus. As you can see, we're dead in the middle of the Apple Product cycle. Since most of our pessimistic visions have come true, the traffic should drop until people start seeing all the Macintosh ads on TV. The "piles of hate mail" haven't destroyed this group; without them, comp.sys.apple2 would be just another boring newsgroup. Besides, KILL files were invented for a reason. Please save this chart for future reference. It could save a mind. >Matt Curfman Technovelty. Inc. -- fadden@cory.berkeley.edu (Andy McFadden) ..!ucbvax!cory!fadden
alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu (SCOTT ALFTER) (10/05/90)
I've noticed the same thing since getting back on the net from summer break.
You used to be able to learn all sorts of stuff here, but now it seems that
comp.sys.apple2 has turned into a bitchfest. Local BBSes don't sound like
this. GEnie doesn't sound like this. What's going on here?
(And to think that GEnie folks want in on this...:-) )
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Scott Alfter _/_
/ v \ Apple II:
Internet: alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu ( ( the power to be your best!
GEnie: S.ALFTER \_^_/ART100@psuvm.psu.edu (Andy Tefft) (10/05/90)
Just imagine if all the effort spent on bitching recently was instead put toward stuff like putting out new software, finding out neat things to do with the //, etc... Well I'm going to put in my effort, but not in Apple bashing. You'll get out of your // just what you put into it, no matter what Apple does. The ][+ is not dead, even though it's not supported by Apple, because people hacked at it enough to keep it alive. It's the users who decide whether a product lives or dies. I will keep my //c until it physically dies, even though I'd like to get a workstation eventually. I probably won't buy another Apple because I don't need another // and I don't like anything about the Mac except for the pretty pictures. If you won't want to own an Apple after it's supported, go ahead and leave the Apple // community, and good riddance! Something tells me that the original amount of hackerness of // owners, indeed all computer owners, is WAY down. Whether or not this is a good thing I can't say. But I don't think that if Apple dropped the // instead of putting out the ][+ that there would be anywhere near the outcry (in percentage of owners) that there is now when Apple has not even announced they're dropping the // at all; it's just a bunch of paranoid people who will hear whatever they want to hear. (skip to the next to last paragraph to avoid ranting and raving) Everyone who's bitching seems to have the same basic complaint, which is there isn't anything left for them to spend tons of money on for their computers, in new software, hardware, whatever. I've owned a //e since September of 1983 (marked by my first issue of Softalk) and a //c since June of '86. I have spent VERY LITTLE money on these computers. We bought Word Juggler with the //e and that has sufficed very well as my only word processor. I wrote my own software to do just about everything I wanted my apple to do, except for games (of which I have seen many but own few), and I even wrote a few games. Sure, this wasn't elegant or fast software, but it did the job and I learned a bit while I was doing it. My uncle gave me my first modem and a second disk drive, plus a serial/parallel interface. I got a mouse for Christmas. I buy blank disks in bulk. My joystick was another Christmas present. When I got the //c and Imagewriter II I wrote my own printer driver for WJ so I could continue to use it without upgrading. I eventually bought a Unidisk 3.5 used for cheap, and with it came some more software. I got subscriptions to magazines rather than buying software. I've repaired disk drives myself rather than taking them to a dealer. I borrowed a terminal program so I could download kermit. When my serial ports on my //c died, rather than getting it fixed (I will eventually), I wrote a kermit driver for my //e's serial card. I use freeware whenever I can, and I rely on the work of other Apple enthusiasts for tips, etc. In short, my computing would hardly be affected at all if Apple and every company producing products and software for the Apple // WERE to abandon the Apple // line. And I think there are enough people out there who feel the same way that the apple // WILL NOT DIE until these hackers die. I bet hacking on the GS is more difficult than any other //, but it sure must be more interesting!
toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) (10/05/90)
alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu (SCOTT ALFTER) writes: >I've noticed the same thing since getting back on the net from summer break. >You used to be able to learn all sorts of stuff here, but now it seems that >comp.sys.apple2 has turned into a bitchfest. Local BBSes don't sound like >this. GEnie doesn't sound like this. What's going on here? I think what's going on is that not enough people came up with positive topics, a couple of really negative posts were made, and the unrest at coming back from summer and finding no awesome news (like the Zip GS shipping) sort of coagulated and things got going again. I believe things will lighten up soon as it looks like we've gotten most of the bitching out of our systems. Todd Whitesel toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu
MQUINN@UTCVM.BITNET (10/06/90)
On Fri, 5 Oct 90 04:37:05 GMT Andy Tefft said: >Just imagine if all the effort spent on bitching recently was >instead put toward stuff like putting out new software, finding out >neat things to do with the //, etc... Well I'm going to put in my >effort, but not in Apple bashing. > I'm sorry, but these kinds of posts just really IRRITATE me! Who says that we can't/aren't doing BOTH?!?!? I don't really call it 'Apple Bashing', but rather, 'COMPLANING'. I'm going to continue to voice my opinions until Apple starts supporting the // or just admits that they're not going to support it anymore and quit's promising things that they don't deliver. If we just sit back and don't say anything, then NOTHING's going to be done! If we try and DO something about it, like spread the word that we're not happy with the way things are going, just MAYBE something will be done! -Also, about the users supporting the machines with software, well that's just fine and Jim Dandy, but what do we do about hardware upgrades? If Apple stops supporting the //, you can bet that AE and other companies (are there any besides AE) will not hang around here much longer. Even if they did, What can they do besides offering a higher model // clone and effectively 'take over' the // market, which, I seriously, doubt will happen. I love my GS as much as anyone else (probably more), that's why I'm so vocal about it. If I didn't like it, I just wouldn't say anything about it, because I just wouldn't care what happened to the //. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | | This is your brain... | BITNET-- mquinn@utcvm | | This is your brain on drugs... | pro-line: | | This is your brain on whole wheat.| mquinn@pro-gsplus.cts.com | |____________________________________|_______________________________|