[Ti] Does not compute!

[Mike Stanley]

On Wednesday, December 11, 2002, at 09:38 AM, Christoph Pistor wrote:

> First of all, I was not talking about the average user. As you might
> have noticed the person complaining seems to be a music professional 
> who
> just wants a computer that can do all kind of new things (with OS X) 
> but
> at the same time still be able to do the things he used to do with his
> old computer. The same goes for my statement about DOS.
>
> Also I never stated I wanted to watch DVD's under DOS. I just wanted to
> run old DOS stuff that always ran under DOS run under DOS but slightly
> faster, and I am fine with only accessing the disk space I used to. Its
> not about making DOS or System 9 better.

By your own words, which I'll quote now:

"correct me if I am wrong, but why did Jobs turn into Gates? If I get an
IBM compatible computer today I should be able to instal and run DOS,
and only DOS, on it if I want. Again, correct me if I am wrong, because
I have not done so and I don't know for sure."

I'm guessing you're not a Wintel Power User - in fact just by the way 
you wrote this I would be willing to guess you aren't even what *I* 
would consider an average Wintel user.

So you haven't done something you say you should be able to do and you 
admit you don't know for sure if you can do it.

Well, as much as I may still be a Mac novice (learning more every day) 
I *am* a Wintel geek - have built and administered PC systems for about 
10 years now and have used them for longer than that.

In an attempt to draw an analogy between OS 9 and DOS you've made 
claims that are at a minimum overstated and most likely just plain 
wrong.

People do not buy new Wintel systems and "install DOS" on them.  They 
haven't for years - many years in my experience working with thousands 
of machines and thousands of users.  Do some people still run OLDER 
machines with DOS?  Sure - we have a bunch of them doing it on campus - 
especially to control and run all kinds of scientific stuff in some of 
our colleges.

What the average or even above average user does now if he has old DOS 
software to run is to run it in the equivalent of Classic on the Wintel 
side.  Some of it works great - some even better than it did under DOS 
itself, especially since it can run in its own protected environment 
without bothering other things on the machine.  Some of it runs slower 
(maybe - you have to take into consideration that machines are so much 
faster now that a DOS app that is running at even 50% efficiency in a 
command prompt is running on a machine that is probably several times 
faster than the machines it was intended to run on).  Some of it may 
not work at all.

But this is a transition the Wintel world went through years ago.  No 
version of Windows after 98SE supported in and of itself booting back 
into DOS, although it certainly was possible to use something like 
System Commander to keep multiple OS's on a machine.  NT/Win2k/XP users 
have never been able to boot into a real DOS.


But yes, it bugs you that you won't (eventually) be able to buy a new 
machine and boot an OS that is several years old on it.  Maybe you will 
be able to but Apple will in no way support it - oddly enough that 
would give you the exact same situation you'd be in if you tried what 
you suggested you should be able to do with a new Dell machine.  You 
*might* be able to get it to work, albeit with almost no functionality 
compared to what you'd get out of WIndows XP, but Dell would laugh at 
you if you called up wanting help with it.  Apple's just making a move 
that is necessary (in its opinion) to move forward.

Who knows - maybe Classic will get better over time.  I personally have 
no need for it although I am glad it is there since some things I 
install launch it to install even if a patch makes them run in OS X 
itself.  But while the Mac user population may still be having fits 
over being forced away from booting into 9 and may still not be 
thrilled with Classic the Wintel world made that transition a *long* 
time ago - even if some random geek may take a new machine and make it 
boot to DOS - presumably because he really likes being able to get 
almost nothing done with his new machine.