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

[jmfbahciv]

Roland Hutchinson wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:34:57 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Jim Brown wrote:
Charlie Gibbs wrote
(Joe Thompson) writes:
Jim Brown <jb45678@gmail.com> wrote
Seebs wrote

Back in the day, I once spent a day and a half trying to find a
vendor who was willing to sell me a non-Windows laptop.

But was so stupid that you couldnt even manage to work out that even
you should be able to add anything you liked to the hardware.

It doesn't count as a "real choice" unless it's on the same terms. If
I have to pay for Windows even though I intend to wipe the drive and
install another OS before Windows ever boots, I do not have a real
choice.

Nor is it a choice in environments where other people are sending you
files in proprietary Microsoft formats.

You can obviously use something that can handle those.

Sigh! Proprietary meant that the formats were not published. To
translate that sentence for you, it meant that nobody knew what the
formats were and, thus, could not write code to read those formats
unless they were ble$$ed by MS.

Even the published ones require reverse engineering to implement. Have
you looked at the scandal that is OOXML, Barb?

No. I don't think I've seen OOXML word before. Something tells me

I don't want to know after the past 6 days in that other newsgroup.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Roland Hutchinson wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:34:44 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Roland Hutchinson wrote:
On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:12:19 +0000, Joe Thompson wrote:

On 2011-01-24, Jim Brown <jb45678@gmail.com> wrote:
Seebs wrote
However, a "real choice" in economic terms suggests that, say, you
basically get to choose which products to buy.

And that is precisely what you got when the alternative is quite
literally free.

Not when there is a product one cannot choose not to buy.

If the only way to get a burger king burger were to buy a burger
from McD's, at which point you could throw the burger out but keep
the carton, then go to BK and have them put a free burger in the
carton, that would not be a "real choice"

Corse it would be.

Not unless McDonald's gave me a refund for the unwanted burger, so
that my free burger was actually free. -- Joe

I'm sorry, but your burger was licensed only for eating out of the
original carton. It has no value by itself.

But it didn't have a mouse ball.

Are you sure?

yep. I wasn't forced to point.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Morten Reistad wrote:

In article <PM00049AAC6A67C33C@ac82005f.ipt.aol.com>,
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
Jim Brown wrote:
Charlie Gibbs wrote
(Joe Thompson) writes:

Nor is it a choice in environments where other people
are sending you files in proprietary Microsoft formats.

There have been ages since I couldn't read a document. It still
happens all the time that it formats strangely. But that happens
on other MS installations as well; where the setup for the
details is different from what the original author intended.

I meet this all the time as a consultant, working with customers
and customers' customers that have all sorts of different layouts.

And I am often chosen to be the one that generates these "microsoft"
documents, because whatever is generated when the open tools save
as "windows" formats and prints well on all the windows and mac
platforms. I just use ooffice, koffice, abiword or pages and
save in "windows 97" format.

If you need more formatting than what the windows 97 format
gives you, then you need another tool, like a typesetter (TeX), or
an editor for clip-art(inkscape) or an image editor (gimp), or
a pdf (hundreds of tools).

There was a change in this tide around 2006. This was when
Microsoft got tangled in their own web of proprietariness and
incompatible formats.

The defining moment was when I plugged a MICROSOFT brand mouse
into debian, and debian asked 'new mouse "Microsoft ..model" detected.
Do you want to make this your primary pointing device? (Y/N/Defer)' [1]
but the next to latest windows model gave a "unknown hardware
detected. Insert hardware diskette" (and none was found in their
packaging). [2]

[1] And the mouse was perfectly functional, it just took second fiddle
when multiple mice were moved. [2] And the mouse did NOT work.

You can obviously use something that can handle those.

Sigh! Proprietary meant that the formats were not published.
To translate that sentence for you, it meant that nobody
knew what the formats were and, thus, could not write code
to read those formats unless they were ble$$ed by MS.

We have come a long way. Primary thanks to the EU commision
who have forced MS to publish detailed specifications into the
public domain for every bit they force on us.

Yes, that was good thing the EU did.

This should have been the US Judge, but someone padded the
coffers of some politicians.

Instead Justice "forced" MS to put their shit in schools.
MS lawyers must have been peeing their pants from laughing
so hard.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Rod Speed wrote:

Jasen Betts wrote
Stan Barr <plan.b@dsl.pipex.com> wrote
Joe Thompson <spam+@orion-com.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote
- until NT Windows wasn't an OS,

Thats a lie.

MSDOS was the OS and Windows was an addon.

Another lie.

Were you even around in the pre-Win95 days? The way it worked was
that DOS would boot, then you'd start Windows (or AUTOEXEC.BAT
would do it) using the WIN command. Windows 3.x and its
antecedents were really just DOS shells with fancy APIs available,
kinda like GNOME is not the same as the underlying OS but adds its
own APIs.

It wasn't until WinNT/Win95 that you could boot Windows directly as a
bare-metal OS.

Indeed. And I remember thinking when W95 came out (late!) how much
Microsoft
had "borrowed" from MacOS, AmigaOS, Next and the *nix window managers.

95 and 98 were still DOS underneath,

Only for booting, not for normal ops once booted.

Man! You need to learn the difference between a monitor and
an application.

It would be wonderful if MS did, too.

<snip>

/BAH

 

[Peter Flass]

On 1/25/2011 5:08 PM, SG1 wrote:

How odd that plenty managed to work them out anyway. It aint rocket
science, stupid.

and, thus, could not write code to read those formats unless they were
ble$$ed by MS.

I remember the "Works" and "Orifice" incompatability. Strange both were M$.

That was probably intentional. If "works" could read and write orfice
documents, how many would buy the more expensive option?

 

[Peter Flass]

On 1/25/2011 6:15 PM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

"Jim Brown"<jb45678@gmail.com> writes:

jmfbahciv wrote
Jim Brown wrote
Charlie Gibbs wrote
(Joe Thompson) writes:
Jim Brown<jb45678@gmail.com> wrote
Seebs wrote

Back in the day, I once spent a day and a half trying to find
a vendor who was willing to sell me a non-Windows laptop.

But was so stupid that you couldnt even manage to work out that
even you should be able to add anything you liked to the hardware.

It doesn't count as a "real choice" unless it's on the same terms.
If I have to pay for Windows even though I intend to wipe the drive
and install another OS before Windows ever boots, I do not have a
real choice.

Nor is it a choice in environments where other people
are sending you files in proprietary Microsoft formats.

You can obviously use something that can handle those.

Sigh!

Heavy breathing aint gunna save your bacon.

Proprietary meant that the formats were not published.

Duh. NTFS support etc is perfectly possible anyway.

To translate that sentence for you, it meant that nobody knew what the formats were

How odd that plenty managed to work them out anyway. It aint rocket science, stupid.

and, thus, could not write code to read those formats unless they were ble$$ed by MS.

How odd that so many did anyway.

Try again.

How much odder that even Microsoft software fails to correctly interpret
Word documents across versions.

Once again, not odd. It's their way of forcing everyone to upgrade.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:

In article <w9zwrls3564.fsf@zipcon.net>,
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> wrote:
Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:

How much odder that even Microsoft software fails to correctly interpret
Word documents across versions.

That's not odd at all. That's how Microsoft forces people to upgrade
and breaks open source compatibility. Being able to get away with
that kind of stunt is one way you can know they have a monopoly.

In real life, the Open Source alternatives generally read the
MS formats reasonably well, and access the data inside them better
than any divergent MS version. The issues are with formatting
and making stuff look good.

I've used openoffice for Word-like work for a long time. It used to be
that when I was doing something moderately-official I'd reboot into
Windows and use genuine Office; a couple of years ago I was at a meeting
and noticed that no two Windows laptops around the table were rendering
a document I'd generated (in Word) identically.

That was the last time I generated a document in Word. I do
occasionally get horribly-miswritten documents (people doing things like
setting a figure to have text render under it, and then using lots of
newlines to reserve the space they really want) that won't render even
vaguely reasonably in anything but Windows, but that's not even common.

I see large organisatons getting hard-earned lessons about the
storage of old documents these days.

Yeah. NMSU made an attempt to define Word as its "official" document
format, but thankfully nobody paid any attention and most everything is
archived in PDF.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

 

[Walter Bushell]

In article <1blj27y7pz.fsf@snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net>,
Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:

Yeah. NMSU made an attempt to define Word as its "official" document
format, but thankfully nobody paid any attention and most everything is
archived in PDF.

NMSU = New Mexico State University ?

--
The Chinese pretend their goods are good and we pretend our money
is good, or is it the reverse?

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:26:02 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Roland Hutchinson wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:34:57 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Jim Brown wrote:
Charlie Gibbs wrote
(Joe Thompson) writes:
Jim Brown <jb45678@gmail.com> wrote
Seebs wrote

Back in the day, I once spent a day and a half trying to find a
vendor who was willing to sell me a non-Windows laptop.

But was so stupid that you couldnt even manage to work out that
even you should be able to add anything you liked to the hardware.

It doesn't count as a "real choice" unless it's on the same terms.
If I have to pay for Windows even though I intend to wipe the drive
and install another OS before Windows ever boots, I do not have a
real choice.

Nor is it a choice in environments where other people are sending
you files in proprietary Microsoft formats.

You can obviously use something that can handle those.

Sigh! Proprietary meant that the formats were not published. To
translate that sentence for you, it meant that nobody knew what the
formats were and, thus, could not write code to read those formats
unless they were ble$$ed by MS.

Even the published ones require reverse engineering to implement. Have
you looked at the scandal that is OOXML, Barb?

No. I don't think I've seen OOXML word before. Something tells me I
don't want to know after the past 6 days in that other newsgroup.

It's Microsoft's latest success at making darkness the new standard.

As governments started to wise up and require that documents be preserved
in documented file formats, Microsoft decided that rather than embracing
the already established international standard for office documents, they
would subvert the ISO standards process by packing various committees
with new representatives from various nations whom they had coerced or
bought off and ram through a "fast-track" approval of their own newly-
devised proprietary format as a standard.

Needless to say, the proposed standard was of Byzantine complexity,
unnecessarily long (6000 pages), and yet not long enough, since it was
full of "documentation" that amounted to things like like "Do this the
way Excel 97 does" without further elaboration, all of which made it
impossible for anyone else to implement.

Even the bought-and-paid-for committees couldn't quite bring themselves
approve it as it stood over a sea of (inadequately heard) objections from
third parties, so some revisions were required. Result: a "standard"
that nobody supports, not even Microsoft, but with a "transitional"
version that (what a coincidence!) matches Microsoft's current Office
formats.

The whole episode has left the ISO itself in a very bad light indeed,
with calls for revising the procedures that let this happen.

But don't take my word for it. Here you go:

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

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:

In article <1blj27y7pz.fsf@snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net>,
Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:

Yeah. NMSU made an attempt to define Word as its "official" document
format, but thankfully nobody paid any attention and most everything is
archived in PDF.

NMSU = New Mexico State University ?

Yes.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

 

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Roland Hutchinson <my.spamtrap@verizon.net> writes:

It's Microsoft's latest success at making darkness the new standard.

As governments started to wise up and require that documents be preserved
in documented file formats, Microsoft decided that rather than embracing
the already established international standard for office documents, they
would subvert the ISO standards process by packing various committees
with new representatives from various nations whom they had coerced or
bought off and ram through a "fast-track" approval of their own newly-
devised proprietary format as a standard.

Needless to say, the proposed standard was of Byzantine complexity,
unnecessarily long (6000 pages), and yet not long enough, since it was
full of "documentation" that amounted to things like like "Do this the
way Excel 97 does" without further elaboration, all of which made it
impossible for anyone else to implement.

Even the bought-and-paid-for committees couldn't quite bring themselves
approve it as it stood over a sea of (inadequately heard) objections from
third parties, so some revisions were required. Result: a "standard"
that nobody supports, not even Microsoft, but with a "transitional"
version that (what a coincidence!) matches Microsoft's current Office
formats.

The whole episode has left the ISO itself in a very bad light indeed,
with calls for revising the procedures that let this happen.

But don't take my word for it. Here you go:

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

slightly similar but different tale about ISO requiring that work on
networking standards had to conform to OSI model. I was involved in
taking HSP (high-speed networking) protocol to x3s3.3 (US iso chartered
committee for networking standards). It was rejected because:

1) it went directly from transport/level four to LAN/MAC ... bypassing
network/leve three ... violating OSI model

2) it supporting "internetworking" ... a non-existant layer
in the OSI model (approx. between transport/networking)

3) it went directly to LAN/MAC interface ... a non-existant interface in
the OSI model (sitting approx. in the middle of layer 3 networking).

one of the other differences between ISO and IETF that has been
periodically highlighted is that IETF (aka internet standards) requires
that interoperable (different) implementations be demonstrated before
progressing in the standards process. ISO can pass standards for things
that have never been implemented (and potentially are impossible to
implement).

misc. past posts mentioning HSP, ISO, OSI, etc
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

note that fed. gov. in the late 80s was mandating that internet be
eliminated and replaced with ISO (aka GOSIP).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <PM00049ABFC2FDB9D1@ac81b42e.ipt.aol.com>, See.above@aol.com
(jmfbahciv) writes:

Morten Reistad wrote:

We have come a long way. Primary thanks to the EU commision
who have forced MS to publish detailed specifications into the
public domain for every bit they force on us.

Yes, that was good thing the EU did.

This should have been the US Judge, but someone padded the
coffers of some politicians.

Instead Justice "forced" MS to put their shit in schools.
MS lawyers must have been peeing their pants from laughing
so hard.

"Oh please, don't throw me in the briar patch!"

--
/~\ 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]

jmfbahciv wrote

Rod Speed wrote
Jasen Betts wrote
Stan Barr <plan.b@dsl.pipex.com> wrote
Joe Thompson <spam+@orion-com.com> wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote
- until NT Windows wasn't an OS,

Thats a lie.

MSDOS was the OS and Windows was an addon.

Another lie.

Were you even around in the pre-Win95 days? The way it worked was
that DOS would boot, then you'd start Windows (or AUTOEXEC.BAT
would do it) using the WIN command. Windows 3.x and its
antecedents were really just DOS shells with fancy APIs available,
kinda like GNOME is not the same as the underlying OS but adds its
own APIs.

It wasn't until WinNT/Win95 that you could boot Windows directly as a bare-metal OS.

Indeed. And I remember thinking when W95 came out (late!) how
much Microsoft had "borrowed" from MacOS, AmigaOS, Next and the
*nix window managers.

95 and 98 were still DOS underneath,

Only for booting, not for normal ops once booted.

Man! You need to learn the difference between a monitor and an application.

Cow! You couldnt bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag.

It would be wonderful if MS did, too.

Pathetic.

 

[Andrew Swallow]

On 26/01/2011 18:27, Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:

Roland Hutchinson<my.spamtrap@verizon.net> writes:
{snip}

slightly similar but different tale about ISO requiring that work on
networking standards had to conform to OSI model. I was involved in
taking HSP (high-speed networking) protocol to x3s3.3 (US iso chartered
committee for networking standards). It was rejected because:

1) it went directly from transport/level four to LAN/MAC ... bypassing
network/leve three ... violating OSI model

2) it supporting "internetworking" ... a non-existant layer
in the OSI model (approx. between transport/networking)

3) it went directly to LAN/MAC interface ... a non-existant interface in
the OSI model (sitting approx. in the middle of layer 3 networking).

one of the other differences between ISO and IETF that has been
periodically highlighted is that IETF (aka internet standards) requires
that interoperable (different) implementations be demonstrated before
progressing in the standards process. ISO can pass standards for things
that have never been implemented (and potentially are impossible to
implement).

misc. past posts mentioning HSP, ISO, OSI, etc
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

note that fed. gov. in the late 80s was mandating that internet be
eliminated and replaced with ISO (aka GOSIP).

The first 3 layers of X.25 were not too bad, possibly because people had
implemented them. Although I did find that selective rejection at level
2 did not work.

Andrew Swallow

 

[Andreas Eder]

Hi Rod,

"Rod" == Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> writes:

Rod> Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote

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

How odd that Linux has used so much of the UI seen with Win.

Well, not Linux, but maybe Gnome or KDE.

Mindless hair splitting. Neither runs on anything else.

Both run on various BSDs, Solaris and Mac OS X to my certain knowledge

Rod> All *nix. More mindless hair splitting.

What about QNX? Definitely not a *nix!

'Andreas
--
ceterum censeo redmondinem esse delendam.

 

[Rod Speed]

Andreas Eder wrote

Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
Andreas Eder wrote
Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote

How odd that Linux has used so much of the UI seen with Win.

Well, not Linux, but maybe Gnome or KDE.

Mindless hair splitting. Neither runs on anything else.

Both run on various BSDs, Solaris and Mac OS X to my certain knowledge

All *nix. More mindless hair splitting.

What about QNX? Definitely not a *nix!

More mindless hair splitting.

I dont bother to write everything so no one can split hairs, makes it too unreadable.

 

[jmfbahciv]

Roland Hutchinson wrote:

On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:26:02 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Roland Hutchinson wrote:
On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:34:57 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Jim Brown wrote:
Charlie Gibbs wrote
(Joe Thompson) writes:
Jim Brown <jb45678@gmail.com> wrote
Seebs wrote

Back in the day, I once spent a day and a half trying to find a
vendor who was willing to sell me a non-Windows laptop.

But was so stupid that you couldnt even manage to work out that
even you should be able to add anything you liked to the hardware.

It doesn't count as a "real choice" unless it's on the same terms.
If I have to pay for Windows even though I intend to wipe the drive
and install another OS before Windows ever boots, I do not have a
real choice.

Nor is it a choice in environments where other people are sending
you files in proprietary Microsoft formats.

You can obviously use something that can handle those.

Sigh! Proprietary meant that the formats were not published. To
translate that sentence for you, it meant that nobody knew what the
formats were and, thus, could not write code to read those formats
unless they were ble$$ed by MS.

Even the published ones require reverse engineering to implement. Have
you looked at the scandal that is OOXML, Barb?

No. I don't think I've seen OOXML word before. Something tells me I
don't want to know after the past 6 days in that other newsgroup.

It's Microsoft's latest success at making darkness the new standard.

As governments started to wise up and require that documents be preserved
in documented file formats, Microsoft decided that rather than embracing
the already established international standard for office documents, they
would subvert the ISO standards process by packing various committees
with new representatives from various nations whom they had coerced or
bought off and ram through a "fast-track" approval of their own newly-
devised proprietary format as a standard.

Needless to say, the proposed standard was of Byzantine complexity,
unnecessarily long (6000 pages), and yet not long enough, since it was
full of "documentation" that amounted to things like like "Do this the
way Excel 97 does" without further elaboration, all of which made it
impossible for anyone else to implement.

Even the bought-and-paid-for committees couldn't quite bring themselves
approve it as it stood over a sea of (inadequately heard) objections from
third parties, so some revisions were required. Result: a "standard"
that nobody supports, not even Microsoft, but with a "transitional"
version that (what a coincidence!) matches Microsoft's current Office
formats.

The whole episode has left the ISO itself in a very bad light indeed,
with calls for revising the procedures that let this happen.

Yea, well, they have had a history.

But don't take my word for it. Here you go:

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

Fuckers. another example of very, very short-term thinking.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Charlie Gibbs wrote:

In article <PM00049ABFC2FDB9D1@ac81b42e.ipt.aol.com>, See.above@aol.com
(jmfbahciv) writes:

Morten Reistad wrote:

We have come a long way. Primary thanks to the EU commision
who have forced MS to publish detailed specifications into the
public domain for every bit they force on us.

Yes, that was good thing the EU did.

This should have been the US Judge, but someone padded the
coffers of some politicians.

Instead Justice "forced" MS to put their shit in schools.
MS lawyers must have been peeing their pants from laughing
so hard.

"Oh please, don't throw me in the briar patch!"

You betcha. I always wondered if those MS lawyers were wearing

Depends in the latest meetings.

/BAH

 

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <87d3niunhq.fsf@eder.homelinux.net>, andreas_eder@gmx.net
(Andreas Eder) writes:

What about QNX? Definitely not a *nix!

Maybe not, but it would qualify as *n*x.

--
/~\ 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!

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

On Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:34:04 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Roland Hutchinson wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:26:02 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

Roland Hutchinson wrote:

Have you looked at the scandal that is OOXML, Barb?

No. I don't think I've seen OOXML word before. Something tells me I
don't want to know after the past 6 days in that other newsgroup.

It's Microsoft's latest success at making darkness the new standard.

[...]

But don't take my word for it. Here you go:

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


Fuckers. another example of very, very short-term thinking.

Yes, I thought you'd be pleased to know about it.

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )