Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <idi05f$lcp$2@news.eternal-september.org>, frizzle@tx.rr.com
(Charles Richmond) writes:

On 12/5/10 2:16 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

In article<PM0004969540AC5BEF@aca2b946.ipt.aol.com>,
See.above@aol.com (jmfbahciv) writes:

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I don't think there was a threshold so much as programmers had the
lowest priority for machine time, and the quicker I could get in
and out, the more likely I could wheedle access.

Wheedling worked?

Sometimes. At other times a more direct approach was more effective:
"Do you want this fix or not?"

Yeah... You could say: "Okay, I don't really need to put in this
software fix. Only 40% of the paychecks will come out wrong, and
we can fix all that later..."

It's sad commentary (and probably warped my mind) that I would
welcome emergencies because it was the one time when I could
demand - and get - as much machine time as I needed.

--
/~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

 

[Stan Barr]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2010 21:22:30 +0000 (UTC), Joe Thompson <spam+@orion-com.com>
wrote:

On 2010-12-05, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
Anyway, all the 13X column line printers I remember, could also do 80
column by just moving the right-hand sprocket.

I had a Seikosha 9-pin dot-matrix printer (ca. 1990) that worked this
way. If your fanfold was 8.5 inches wide, you would set it left; if it
was 11 inches wide, set it right. You could set it anywhere in between
but there would be no reason to.

My old Star (which I still use) works that way. Does 132 cols too
with a compressed font.
The problem with using A4 paper is that some progams insist on
doing a FF by outputting a number of LFs to get to the bottom of the
page instead of issuing a FF, which the Star could handle correctly
for A4. The print would soon get out of alignment with the perfs.
I gave up on A4 fanfold for that reason.

--
Cheers,
Stan Barr plan.b .at. dsl .dot. pipex .dot. com

The future was never like this!

 

[Huge]

On 2010-12-06, Stan Barr <plan.b@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

On Sun, 5 Dec 2010 21:22:30 +0000 (UTC), Joe Thompson <spam+@orion-com.com
wrote:
On 2010-12-05, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
Anyway, all the 13X column line printers I remember, could also do 80
column by just moving the right-hand sprocket.

I had a Seikosha 9-pin dot-matrix printer (ca. 1990) that worked this
way. If your fanfold was 8.5 inches wide, you would set it left; if it
was 11 inches wide, set it right. You could set it anywhere in between
but there would be no reason to.

My old Star (which I still use) works that way. Does 132 cols too
with a compressed font.

*frown*

Ah. Not one of these;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star




--
Today is Setting Orange, the 48th day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3176
I'd rather have a free press than a football tournament.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

Rod Speed wrote
jmfbahciv wrote
Rod Speed wrote
jmfbahciv wrote
Rod Speed wrote
jmfbahciv wrote
Rod Speed wrote
jmfbahciv wrote
Rod Speed wrote
jmfbahciv wrote

Never said they were, just quite expensive to maintain because they werent that reliable.

Much more expensive to maintain than what replaced them.

Keypunches were very reliable unless you abused them extremely.

Like I said, with a decent collection of punches, there was always one or two with a problem.

That's very odd. My shop had a dozen 26s and one or two 29s.

I was talking about just 029s.

It was very rare to have one with a down IBM card on it. Those
keypunches were used by students who had minimal training about
the care and feeding of keypunches. The most common mainentance
problem was when a student forgot to flip the switch which lifted
the wheels off the drumcard. But that was fixed in a couple of minutes.

And the cost of having them on maintenance contract was substantial.

How many did you have?

Rather more than you were tallking about.

Sheesh! Can't you answer a question with a fact?

Everyone can see you are lying, as always.

You seem to be having a conception problem.

You clearly need to retake Bullshitting 101.

Not me.

Everyone can see that that is another lie.

A simple, "I can't remember" answer would have sufficed.

It would not have been accurate, fool.

So you are one of those people who believe that
withholding data and information gives you more power.

Nope, everyone can see from my usenet history that that is another lie.

I gave you the information. You want it in a different form ? Your problem.

<reams of your puerile shit any 2 year old could leave for dead flushed where it belongs>

 

[Charles Richmond]

On 12/6/10 9:28 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

In article<idi05f$lcp$2@news.eternal-september.org>, frizzle@tx.rr.com
(Charles Richmond) writes:

On 12/5/10 2:16 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

In article<PM0004969540AC5BEF@aca2b946.ipt.aol.com>,
See.above@aol.com (jmfbahciv) writes:

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I don't think there was a threshold so much as programmers had the
lowest priority for machine time, and the quicker I could get in
and out, the more likely I could wheedle access.

Wheedling worked?

Sometimes. At other times a more direct approach was more effective:
"Do you want this fix or not?"

Yeah... You could say: "Okay, I don't really need to put in this
software fix. Only 40% of the paychecks will come out wrong, and
we can fix all that later..."

It's sad commentary (and probably warped my mind) that I would
welcome emergencies because it was the one time when I could
demand - and get - as much machine time as I needed.

The plain truth, Charlie, is that you the programmer get *no* respect:

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;"

--
+----------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond |
| |
| plano dot net at aquaporin4 dot com |
+----------------------------------------+

 

[Mike Spencer]

Charles Richmond <frizzle@tx.rr.com> wrote:

The plain truth, Charlie, is that you the programmer get *no* respect:

Bert Shaw was the old blacksmith -- about the age then that I am now
-- who got me hooked on beating hot iron. He'd retired, saying he was
too old to do "real blacksmithing" but was offered a position as
resident artist at an art and craft center. He took this up with glee
as he got to forge "little stuff" -- perfect reproductions of colonial
hardware -- and tell yarns and lies to the visitors.

In the course of time, one of the center honchos arranged for
U. Mass. to award Bert an honorary doctorate. Instead of framing the
document, he spiked it to a post in the shop with a 16 penny nail.

People such as I, ignorant as I was then of smithing or of art, he
treated with good humor and kindness. But occasionally, academics,
high-art types, biz dudes and the like would come in and show Bert no
respect, with "Say, Bert <this>" and "Oh, Bert, <that>". Then he
would take his horrible wrinkly cigar out of his mouth, spit on the
flood in a disgustingly drooly sort of way, then point to the now
sooty parchment and say, "That will be 'Doctor Shaw", if you don't
mind."

I'm not sure how a programmer could turn this yarn to advantage, what
with lacking a handy wooden post, smoking rules and so on. Maybe
Scott Adams could work on it.


--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

 

[jmfbahciv]

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

Rod Speed wrote:


A simple, "I can't remember" answer would have sufficed.

It would not have been accurate, fool.

So you are one of those people who believe that withholding data
and information gives you more power.


reams of your puerile shit any 2 year old could leave for dead flushed
where it belongs

Not cartons of Kleenix but railroad cars full.

Barb, really -- he just isn't worth the effort.

Yea, I know. Yesterday was my last attempt. :-(

/BAH

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote:

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

Rod Speed wrote:


A simple, "I can't remember" answer would have sufficed.

It would not have been accurate, fool.

So you are one of those people who believe that withholding data
and information gives you more power.


reams of your puerile shit any 2 year old could leave for dead
flushed where it belongs

Not cartons of Kleenix but railroad cars full.

Barb, really -- he just isn't worth the effort.

Yea, I know. Yesterday was my last attempt. :-(

Great, there is only so much of your puerile shit anyone should have to put up with.

 

[greenaum]

On Sun, 28 Nov 2010 04:50:58 +1100, "Rod Speed"
<rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> sprachen:

Yes, the approach OS/2 took to not allowing dos apps to do anything they liked with the hardware
was certainly the way to go stability wise,

Don't see why, AIUI since the 386 all IO and memory access has been
virtualisable (there's some points in Scrabble!).

You don't need to really give them access, just let them try then
interrupt away to a handling / emulating routine. Tho I suppose that
routines need writing, and cycles to run in.

Then again AGAIN, if IBM hadn't done such a crappy job with their
BIOS, nobody would have needed to write straight to hardware. What did
DOS apps need anyway? A couple of K of text-mode screen RAM and maybe
a keyboard handler? Even VGA graphics is maybe 128K of RAM to store in
a buffer somewhere, and write to the screen using the appropriate
mechanisms the OS uses.

How much business software really needed low-level stuff? I suppose
some industrial control apps might have been delay-sensitive if they
were realtime. Still...

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"hey let's educate the brutes, we know we are superior to them anyway,
just through genetics, we are gentically superior to the working
class. They are a shaved monkey. If we educate them, they will be able
to read instructions, turn up on time and man the conveyor belts,
sorted." #

 

[greenaum]

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:30:56 -0700, Joe Pfeiffer
<pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> sprachen:

Nope. The very fundamental problem was always that while ever the absolute
vast bulk of PC came with Win installed, nothing IBM did could ever change that.

Sure they could. At the time, they could have provided the same sort of
encouragement to the clone manufacturers to preload OS/2 that MS did for
Windows.

[I realise this is a bit of an old thread, but... it's not like
Usenet's been busy. Hey, the old days are returning, but in the
opposite direction!].

As far as I know, from various sources including that famous one based
on the book in the late 90s, about the rise of Microsoft. That I can't
remember the name of...

What MS basically did, was give discounts to manufacturers and
retailers. You could have Windows at a significant discount, as long
as your business sells NO PCs with any alternative OS. For most
sellers, that's a fair percentage of a big amount of money.

So they stitched up the market and "leveraged", I believe it's called,
their small market advantage into a vast one. A company offering
alternative OSes would have this disadvantage against it's rivals, and
all other things being equal, go under. Thousands of businesses and
millions of customers manipulated.

This was (AFAIK IIRC ETC) the cause of one of the legal suits against
them. I remember at the time, Gates's moaning to the press about how
he was being picked on... "If the Federal Government demands I give
away 95% of my money to charity, I'll do it". As if that was one of
the government's powers, or a likely outcome to the case. He didn't
offer to run his business in a less predatory and monopolistic way, or
to stop buying up any company that looks like it might compete with
him, and either absorb or neglect it to death.

[All that money, and he STILL dresses like he ran through a charity
shop with a strong static charge].

The free market doesn't cope well with monopolies, and in the modern
age, businesses aren't happy with expansion any more. It's more
profitable to crush your rivals to cultivate as much as one can of a
monopoly, then charge what you like (or alternatively form a cartel
and price-fix everything), than it is to make a better mousetrap, and
rely on the consumer's own innate cannyness and wisdom to choose your
product above others, and.... all that other 1950s pipe dreaming
nonsense.

We're in the age of monopolies and megalopolies (whatever they are!).
Many corporations tower over governments in terms of cash and power,
and the simple blessing that is corruption, means politicians have to
compete for bribes with their fellows. Bribery's a seller's market
now. So you don't actually need to compete with a government, just to
fix it's minions.

As far as the 21st Century goes, I think it's probably a battle over
control of Google, with "Don't be evil" on the one side, and the
entirety of modern investment capitalism on the other. I dunno how
much control Larry and Sergey have retained thus far. Although
legally, being publically traded, they've an obligation to only do
things that make more money. It's illegal to be ethical if it costs a
stockholder a penny. An under-used defense in tax-fraud cases I feel.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"hey let's educate the brutes, we know we are superior to them anyway,
just through genetics, we are gentically superior to the working
class. They are a shaved monkey. If we educate them, they will be able
to read instructions, turn up on time and man the conveyor belts,
sorted." #

 

[Scott Lurndal]

greenaum@yahoo.co.uk (greenaum) writes:

On Sun, 28 Nov 2010 04:50:58 +1100, "Rod Speed"
rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> sprachen:

Yes, the approach OS/2 took to not allowing dos apps to do anything they liked with the hardware
was certainly the way to go stability wise,

Don't see why, AIUI since the 386 all IO and memory access has been
virtualisable (there's some points in Scrabble!).

Even more points for USAans.

You don't need to really give them access, just let them try then
interrupt away to a handling / emulating routine. Tho I suppose that
routines need writing, and cycles to run in.

Intercepts aren't free, even using SVM/VT-X. Then there is the cost
for nested paging (22 memory references per TLB fill instead of 4).

How much business software really needed low-level stuff? I suppose
some industrial control apps might have been delay-sensitive if they
were realtime. Still...

Most quality EGA/HGA/VGA graphics couldn't be done with BIOS calls.

scott

 

[Rod Speed]

greenaum wrote

Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote

Yes, the approach OS/2 took to not allowing dos apps to do anything
they liked with the hardware was certainly the way to go stability wise,

Don't see why,

Basically because you cant trap illegal behaviour
if apps can do anything they like with the hardware.

AIUI since the 386 all IO and memory access has been virtualisable

The OS doing hardware access that way is an entirely separate issue.

(there's some points in Scrabble!).

Not enough to matter, its not that uncommon a word in english.

You don't need to really give them access, just let them
try then interrupt away to a handling / emulating routine.

Not all direct hardware access involves interrupts.

Tho I suppose that routines need writing, and cycles to run in.

And is a lot harder to do when interrupts arent involved.

Then again AGAIN, if IBM hadn't done such a crappy job with their
BIOS, nobody would have needed to write straight to hardware.

Win stopped using the bios LONG ago. Its basically just used in the boot phase now.

What did DOS apps need anyway? A couple of K of
text-mode screen RAM and maybe a keyboard handler?

Hell of a lot more than that with comms apps alone.

Even VGA graphics is maybe 128K of RAM to store
in a buffer somewhere, and write to the screen using
the appropriate mechanisms the OS uses.

Yes, but some hardware needs more than that.

How much business software really needed low-level stuff?

Depends on what you call business software.

I suppose some industrial control apps might
have been delay-sensitive if they were realtime.

Yep.

Still...

There is no still with computer control of fancy equipment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"hey let's educate the brutes, we know we are superior to them anyway,
just through genetics, we are gentically superior to the working
class. They are a shaved monkey. If we educate them, they will be able
to read instructions, turn up on time and man the conveyor belts, sorted." #

You should preceed that sort of thing with just -- on a line by itself,
then the better usenet clients can strip it auto when replying.

 

[Rod Speed]

greenaum wrote

Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Nope. The very fundamental problem was always that while ever the absolute
vast bulk of PC came with Win installed, nothing IBM did could ever change that.

Sure they could. At the time, they could have provided the
same sort of encouragement to the clone manufacturers
to preload OS/2 that MS did for Windows.

Not even possible. IBM never mattered a damn to
the PC industry once everyone ignored what they were
doing hardware wise with the PS/2 spectacular footshot.

[I realise this is a bit of an old thread, but...

You into necrophilia ? We'll hold our noses...

it's not like Usenet's been busy. Hey, the old
days are returning, but in the opposite direction!].

Nope, we're not into lobbing clay tablets at each other, yet.

As far as I know, from various sources including that
famous one based on the book in the late 90s, about
the rise of Microsoft. That I can't remember the name of...

What MS basically did, was give discounts to manufacturers and retailers.

There was a hell of a lot more involved than just that.

They had both the OS and the apps that most wanted to use, so
there was a real sense in which the average buyer of hardware
demanded that the hardware had what they were used to on it.

And even the stupidest PC user found Win apps a lot easier
to use than DOS apps, if only because the user interface
was a lot more orthogonal across the apps they used much.

You could have Windows at a significant discount, as long
as your business sells NO PCs with any alternative OS.

That wasnt even legal in many jurisdictions so
there much have been more involved than that.

And when their main competitor is quite literally free, and never
did see much market penetration at all, that cant fly anyway.

For most sellers, that's a fair percentage of a big amount of money.

Pity about when the OS ended up quite literally free.

So they stitched up the market and "leveraged", I believe
it's called, their small market advantage into a vast one.

There was much more involved than that, most obviously with the workplace.

A company offering alternative OSes would have this
disadvantage against it's rivals, and all other things being equal,

They never are.

go under.

IBM didnt. Not even Digital Research did either.

Thousands of businesses and millions of customers manipulated.

Its an urban myth.

This was (AFAIK IIRC ETC) the cause of one of the legal suits against them.

The US legal system has been completely off the rails for centurys now.

I remember at the time, Gates's moaning to the press about how
he was being picked on... "If the Federal Government demands
I give away 95% of my money to charity, I'll do it". As if that was one
of the government's powers, or a likely outcome to the case. He didn't
offer to run his business in a less predatory and monopolistic way,

It was never ever a monopoly. In spades when the main competitor is quite literally free.

or to stop buying up any company that looks like it might
compete with him, and either absorb or neglect it to death.

Odd that that didnt happen with IBM, or DR, or WordPervert etc etc etc.

Its just another urban myth/lie.

[All that money, and he STILL dresses like he ran
through a charity shop with a strong static charge].

Not anymore. Someone, presumably his wife, even eventually even got him to wear a suit.

The free market doesn't cope well with monopolies,

It was never ever a monopoly.

and in the modern age, businesses aren't happy with expansion any more.

Oh bullshit. Google is very happy with expansion.

It's more profitable to crush your rivals to
cultivate as much as one can of a monopoly,

Not even possible when the main competitor is quite literally free.

And Gates never had a hope in hell of crushing IBM.

then charge what you like

Not even possible when the main competitor is quite literally free.

(or alternatively form a cartel and price-fix everything),

Not even possible for centurys now in the first world.

than it is to make a better mousetrap, and rely on the consumer's
own innate cannyness and wisdom to choose your product above
others, and.... all that other 1950s pipe dreaming nonsense.

Taint a pipe dream, its what MS, google, ebay, facebook, twitter, etc etc etc keep doing.

We're in the age of monopolies and megalopolies (whatever they are!).

Pigs arse we are when the main alternative is quite literally free.

Many corporations tower over governments in terms of cash and power,

Try telling that to Gates. Dont be TOO surprised when he just laughs in your face.

and the simple blessing that is corruption, means
politicians have to compete for bribes with their
fellows. Bribery's a seller's market now.

MS never bribed even a single politician.

So you don't actually need to compete with a government, just to fix it's minions.

Not even possible when the main alternative is quite literally free.

As far as the 21st Century goes, I think it's probably a battle over control of Google,

Nope. The market just heads off to shit like twitter and facebook.

with "Don't be evil" on the one side, and the
entirety of modern investment capitalism on the other.

It never works like that.

I dunno how much control Larry and Sergey have retained thus far.

Complete, actually.

Although legally, being publically traded, they've an
obligation to only do things that make more money.

Thats just plain wrong.

It's illegal to be ethical if it costs a stockholder a penny.

Thats just plain wrong.

An under-used defense in tax-fraud cases I feel.

Thanks for that completely superfluous proof that you aint a lawyer.

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2011-01-22, Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"hey let's educate the brutes, we know we are superior to them anyway,
just through genetics, we are gentically superior to the working
class. They are a shaved monkey. If we educate them, they will be able
to read instructions, turn up on time and man the conveyor belts, sorted." #

You should preceed that sort of thing with just -- on a line by itself,
then the better usenet clients can strip it auto when replying.

should be "-- " on a line by itself, the space is important.

--
tagline flames are always a waste of bandwidth.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <4d3b0ca2.401031@nntp.aioe.org>, greenaum@yahoo.co.uk
(greenaum) writes:

This was (AFAIK IIRC ETC) the cause of one of the legal suits against
them. I remember at the time, Gates's moaning to the press about how
he was being picked on... "If the Federal Government demands I give
away 95% of my money to charity, I'll do it". As if that was one of
the government's powers, or a likely outcome to the case. He didn't
offer to run his business in a less predatory and monopolistic way, or
to stop buying up any company that looks like it might compete with
him, and either absorb or neglect it to death.

Bill Gates would repeatedly whine about how the government was
stifling Microsoft's right to innovate, while at the same time
Microsoft was stifling everyone else's right to innovate - or,
oftentimes, to exist at all.

[All that money, and he STILL dresses like he ran through a charity
shop with a strong static charge].

Well, Donald Trump has the hair thing...

As far as the 21st Century goes, I think it's probably a battle over
control of Google, with "Don't be evil" on the one side, and the
entirety of modern investment capitalism on the other. I dunno how
much control Larry and Sergey have retained thus far. Although
legally, being publically traded, they've an obligation to only do
things that make more money. It's illegal to be ethical if it costs a
stockholder a penny. An under-used defense in tax-fraud cases I feel.

Yup. Which is why a psychological analysis of a corporation classifies
it as a psychopath.

http://siivola.org/monte/papers_grouped/uncopyrighted/Misc/corporate_psychopathy
..htm

--
/~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <8put1fFd6vU1@mid.individual.net>, rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com
(Rod Speed) writes:

greenaum wrote

<snip>

We're in the age of monopolies and megalopolies (whatever they are!).

Pigs arse we are when the main alternative is quite literally free.

<snip>

So you don't actually need to compete with a government, just to fix
it's minions.

Not even possible when the main alternative is quite literally free.

It's not enough for an alternative to exist. Talk to your average
Windoze vict^H^H^H^Husers. They have been totally subjugated.
It's like people living in a dictatorship - the average joe can
do nothing about it, so he just shrugs his shoulders and gets on
with life as best he can. There is no alternative.

"In politics, perception is reality."

You really ought to read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" again.

--
/~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

 

[Rod Speed]

Charlie Gibbs wrote

greenaum@yahoo.co.uk (greenaum) writes

This was (AFAIK IIRC ETC) the cause of one of the legal suits against
them. I remember at the time, Gates's moaning to the press about how
he was being picked on... "If the Federal Government demands I give
away 95% of my money to charity, I'll do it". As if that was one of
the government's powers, or a likely outcome to the case. He didn't
offer to run his business in a less predatory and monopolistic way,
or to stop buying up any company that looks like it might compete
with him, and either absorb or neglect it to death.

Bill Gates would repeatedly whine about how the
government was stifling Microsoft's right to innovate,

And that is precisely what the govt was attempting to do when it
proclaimed that MS couldnt include a free browser with their OS.

while at the same time Microsoft was stifling everyone else's right to innovate

Thats a lie. Didnt stiffle google, twitter, facebook, ebay, etc etc etc.

- or, oftentimes, to exist at all.

Never in fact.

[All that money, and he STILL dresses like he ran
through a charity shop with a strong static charge].

Well, Donald Trump has the hair thing...

As far as the 21st Century goes, I think it's probably a battle over
control of Google, with "Don't be evil" on the one side, and the
entirety of modern investment capitalism on the other. I dunno how
much control Larry and Sergey have retained thus far. Although
legally, being publically traded, they've an obligation to only do
things that make more money. It's illegal to be ethical if it costs a
stockholder a penny. An under-used defense in tax-fraud cases I feel.

Yup.

Nope.

Which is why a psychological analysis of a corporation classifies it as a psychopath.

Mindlessly silly.

> http://siivola.org/monte/papers_grouped/uncopyrighted/Misc/corporate_psychopathy.htm

 

[Rod Speed]

Charlie Gibbs wrote

rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com (Rod Speed) writes
greenaum wrote

We're in the age of monopolies and megalopolies (whatever they are!).

Pigs arse we are when the main alternative is quite literally free.

So you don't actually need to compete with a government, just to fix it's minions.

Not even possible when the main alternative is quite literally free.

It's not enough for an alternative to exist.

The free alternative does a lot more than just exist.

Talk to your average Windoze vict^H^H^H^Husers.
They have been totally subjugated.

Nope, they choose to use it. You dont approve ? Your problem.

It's like people living in a dictatorship

Nothing like. They are free to run the free alternative if they want to.

- the average joe can do nothing about it,

Thats a lie. They can use the free alternative any time they like.

so he just shrugs his shoulders and gets on
with life as best he can. There is no alternative.

Corse there is an alternative. Some hardware even comes with it included.

"In politics, perception is reality."

We aint talking about politics.

You really ought to read "Nineteen Eighty-Four" again.

No thanks, he fucked up completely. We never did get anything like that.

 

[Peter Flass]

On 1/22/2011 1:51 PM, Rod Speed wrote:

Charlie Gibbs wrote
greenaum@yahoo.co.uk (greenaum) writes

This was (AFAIK IIRC ETC) the cause of one of the legal suits against
them. I remember at the time, Gates's moaning to the press about how
he was being picked on... "If the Federal Government demands I give
away 95% of my money to charity, I'll do it". As if that was one of
the government's powers, or a likely outcome to the case. He didn't
offer to run his business in a less predatory and monopolistic way,
or to stop buying up any company that looks like it might compete
with him, and either absorb or neglect it to death.

Bill Gates would repeatedly whine about how the
government was stifling Microsoft's right to innovate,

Not that they ever have innovated, of course, but they'd like to know
they could if they ever decided to.

And that is precisely what the govt was attempting to do when it
proclaimed that MS couldnt include a free browser with their OS.

You seem to have a rather one-sided view of the subject. It's been
proven that M$ used predatory pricing tactics to prevent anyone
preloading any other OS. By including their browser with their OS while
preventing any other browser from being preloaded they were pursuing
predatory tactics. They had the right to ship their browser on the same
terms as anyone else, but bot by illieally tying it to their OS monopoly.

while at the same time Microsoft was stifling everyone else's right to innovate

Thats a lie. Didnt stiffle google, twitter, facebook, ebay, etc etc etc.

- or, oftentimes, to exist at all.

Never in fact.

The only reason they didn't stifle these was because they didn't see
them coming. Otherwise they would have strangled these the same way
they did everyone else. I could make a long list of companies that they
forced out of business, to name a few: Lotus (though still in a zombie
state as part of IBM), WordPerfect, Digital Research, Novell, Borand,
etc. They managed to force even IBM to exit the PC OS business, even
though OS/2 was a great advancement on most of the M$ OSs that followed
it: Win 3.1, Win NT for several releases, Win 95, Win 98, etc.

 

[Scott Lurndal]

Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:

On 1/22/2011 1:51 PM, Rod Speed wrote:
Charlie Gibbs wrote
greenaum@yahoo.co.uk (greenaum) writes

This was (AFAIK IIRC ETC) the cause of one of the legal suits against
them. I remember at the time, Gates's moaning to the press about how
he was being picked on... "If the Federal Government demands I give
away 95% of my money to charity, I'll do it". As if that was one of
the government's powers, or a likely outcome to the case. He didn't
offer to run his business in a less predatory and monopolistic way,
or to stop buying up any company that looks like it might compete
with him, and either absorb or neglect it to death.

Bill Gates would repeatedly whine about how the
government was stifling Microsoft's right to innovate,

Not that they ever have innovated, of course, but they'd like to know
they could if they ever decided to.

Indeed, DOS was not an innovation, it wasn't even orignally developed by MS.
Indeed, Windows was not an innnovation, just a ripoff of Xerox and Apple.
Networking in windows (remember Winsock?) derived from BSD.
Network File Systems? First done by Novell with Netware.
Where's NetBUI today (an example of innovation gone bad)?
IE? First done by Mosiac, then Netscape.
The Zune was not an innovation, nor was the Xbox, nor is their cloud.

Microsoft only innovates in monopolization techniques.