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Although I enjoy a local reputation for knowing
something about computers,
I have been trying to shed
it for several years. My knowledge of computers is about
as antiquated as my knowledge of cars -- I can rebuild a
carburetor and a set of breaker points, but I know nothing
about fuel injection and electronic ignition.
Windows98? I haven't even installed Windows95 on any
machine in the home-office. Mostly we use plain old MS-DOS
version 6.2, and when necessary, Windows 3.11. The
computers communicate just fine with generic $20 Ethernet
cards and $75 networking software called Little Big
LAN.
This antiquity is a blessing. The obsolete software runs well on our obsolete non-multi-media machinery, and I have a fair idea of what's going on, so that generally I can keep it running without calling a $150-an-hour technician.
Further, when people call with some question about using Office97 with Access96, or the like, I explain that we're using Cheapskate92 hereabouts, and so I can't help them. This saves several hours each week, and represents another example of how computers improve productivity.
But as I follow the arguments about Microsoft integrating its Explorer browser in the Windows98, and whether this constitutes an anti-trust violation because of what it could do to Netscape, it dawns on me that this represents a major shift in corporate philosophy for Microsoft.
In 1986 I started using MS-DOS (which stands for
Microsoft Disk Operating System, so phrases like the DOS
operating system
make about as much sense as Table
Mesa,
Rio Grande River
or the Committee to
Eliminate Redundancy Committee.
)
Among my first discoveries was that MS-DOS was pretty lame, but there were all manner of third-party enhancements which were almost necessities.
For instance, MS-DOS came with an absolutely wretched program for backing up a hard disk. Not only was it relatively inflexible and tedious, but the storage format changed between versions.
On several occasions I got anguished telephone calls.
I backed up my hard disk, upgraded to the new version of
MS-DOS, and now I can't restore my files. What am I going
to do?
Most computer users quickly learned to despise Microsoft's backup, and turned to a more trustworthy product -- Norton Utilities, PC-Tools, etc.
Similarly, the text editor that came with MS-DOS, EDLIN, was slightly less advanced than what you'd have if your terminal was a Model 33 Teletype. Other parties came to the rescue, including the excellent shareware text editor, VDE.
The MS-DOS command processor was pretty stupid, and when you tried to do anything with serial ports at reasonable speeds, MS-DOS was flaky and unreliable. Again, there was shareware like 4DOS for command processing, and third-party serial-port controllers.
So if we go back eight or ten years, MS-DOS was like the stock Ford Model T of yore. It was just barely capable of doing the job, and it inspired a huge collateral industry. In the 1920s, you could buy an electric starter or a gasoline gauge for the Model T from that collateral industry; in the late 1980s, you could find dozens of improvements for MS-DOS, many of them necessities for any productive computer user.
We used to joke at user-group meetings that if Microsoft ever put together a competent version of MS-DOS that came with everything an operating system should come with, thousands of cottage programmers would have to get regular jobs, rather than sit at home collecting shareware donations.
Further, we'd get more space in our own homes, since our walls were jammed with the documentation for all these third-party programs which described the operation of programs which should have been part of MS-DOS and in the MS-DOS manuals.
This may be the source of so much of the current anger
at Microsoft. Its corporate philosophy used to be put
out inadequate and quirky products, and this will provide
the opportunity for thousands of people to earn good
incomes compensating for Microsoft inadequacies.
Now the corporate philosophy appears to be make sure
everything on the computer comes from Microsoft, so that
there are no opportunities for outside
entrepreneurs.
Perhaps the current Microsoft course makes more sense in this era of appliance computers and Plug 'n Play when, in theory anyway, anyone can install a SCSI controller without knowledge of base port assignments and IRQ settings.
But this also threatens the livelihoods of many smart people, and you can't really expect them to stay quiet about that.
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