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On Sun, 21 May 1995 xerxes@clark.net wrote:

> At  5:06 PM 5/21/95 -0500, Jeremy Allaire wrote:
> >Responses to the following utter-nonsense:
> >
> >     TOP 12 THINGS PEOPLE THINK THE '95' IN 'WINDOWS95' REALLY STANDS FOR
> >                                       
> >    _________________________________________________________________ 
> >   
> >   <<12. The required number of megabytes of RAM to run at useable speed.>>
> >
> >I've been running comfortably at 8 MB or RAM.  All new computers ship at that
> >level, and that is decent for a OS with the capabilities of Win95.  Granted,
> >it is a big lie that it will run under 4 MB.  
When I was using '95, I couldn't run Word and Excel at the same time with 
links.  It froze.  With 32 Meg, I still spent lot's of time looking at 
that "Hourglass".  With a caching SCSI, Windows 64 bit accellerator, 32 
Meg ram, 1 meg cache, and P/90 CPU, it was almost tolerable.

> Are there any estimates of the % of the installed home PC base that will
> need to upgrade memory in order to use Win95?  I'll wager it is more than
> 40%, and perhaps as high as 70%.

Unless they only want to run Microsoft Works, about 95%.

> >   <<10. The number of floppies it will ship in.>>
> >
> >It ships on CD-ROM only.  What decade is it folks?
Yes, it occupies about 250 Meg of CD-ROM space.  Unless you have 2 CD 
drives, or want to dump 100 Meg of "Doc and Help" files to your hard 
drive, you can expect to be flipping disks like a DJ on saturday night.

>         8-)   IT SHIPS ON CDROM ONLY?!        Oh, my!  Only a third, at
> most,  of home PCs have CDROM.  It sounds to me as if upgrading enough to
> actually install win95 is going to cost most consumers a bundle.    

Gee, you mean I have to be smart enough to plug in my own CD-ROM and 
install the drivers - before I can install Win95?  Maybe my friend the 
Linux guru can help :-).  The techno-geeks love Slackware, it's named 
after their generation.

> >   <<9. The percentage of people who will have to upgrade their hardware.>>
> >
> >Those with 4MB and/or low-end 486s will have to upgrade.  I assume that
> >those with lower-speed systems arent that concerned with the biggest/fastest
> >technology, so Win95 should not be a major issue for them -- stick to Win31
> >until their next computer purchase.
> You have just written off most of the market ...............
The few that don't have to upgrade - are already running WindowsNT and 
WON'T give THAT up.

> >   <<8. The number of megabytes of hard disk space required.>>
> >
> >A full installation requires somewhere in the 50MB range, again within the
> >range
> >of all new computers and most computers of the last three years -- the likely
> >market for Win95.

This does not include the help files, doc files, wizards, or examples.
Granted, some of that CD space is device drivers.
Add the standard "Microsoft Bundle" (Office or Works+++) and you might be 
able to squeeze into 95 Meg.  I had a 400 meg drive packed after 
installing everything.  Best to upgrade to the 800 meg if you want any 
multimedia features.  Unfortunately anything over 1024 meg gets "lost in 
space".  And those tiny 20 byte "bat" files, occupy 32K of real drive 
space on a large drive.

> Certainly within the range of INITIAL disk capacity, I agree, but how much
> space do most people have readily available without a time-consuming triage
> dumping many megs?  Not 50 open megs, especially not on laptops, or
> graphics machines, or most home machines.  

Notice, there is still little push to bundle Tape Drives on PCs.  If you 
lose YOUR data, thats no big deal to anyone but you.  If you lose 
Microsoft's files, you can re-install from the CD.  Anybody tried the 
"shove these 200 floppies through your drive" and then you can take a 
short nap.  It only takes 20 hours of carefully attended backup.

> >   <<7. The number of pages in the *EASY-INSTALL* version of the manual.>>
> >
> >No manual was required -- no hardware configuration, as it auto-detected nearly
> >all of my old hardware, not to mention that it will auto-config all coming
> >plug-n-play

Plug-n-Play is a trademark of Ydraggsyl corp.  Linux has had this feature 
for about 3 years now (most distributions).  It gets real entertaining 
when some board declares itself as a "stock" sound-blaster, and forgets 
to mention that the CD-ROM ports are a "little different".  Of cource 
since most of your Win95 docs are on the CD, you can't find out what went 
wrong.

> >supported hardware.

And what if you're ethernet card is not on the "A-List"?  Is anyone 
publishing who is on the A-list?  At least I can get a list of the 
supported hardware and configurations (written on the outside of the box) 
for Linux.

> The key phase here is "all coming plug and play...."   Nearly all your old
> hardware, eh?...... hmmmm....   The acceptance of this O/S won't be NEARLY
> as fast as MS spokestypes claim.......

After waiting 10 years for the "Real" MS-Windows, most hardware vendors 
are wondering whether to support WinNT or Win95.  Will the REAL operating 
system please stand up?

> >  << 5. The number of minutes to install.>>
> >
> >It was the smoothest install I'd had since my first Macintosh.
I had my first Mac in 1984, back when they had 128K and you could get a 
cup of coffee waiting for it to boot.  You could read war and peace (or 
an entire Unix Manual Set) while waiting for it to print one "MacProject" 
file.  All the while, it kept showing the little "hourglass".  Windows95 
gives you the nice little show of watching every single button in the 
form being drawn one object at a time.  If you'd rather respond to 
e-mail while you wait, too bad.

>  Certainly many
> >degrees easier than my experience with OS/2 or Linux (both of which took
> >some 1.5 odd days to setup and configure with my hardware and network).

True, my first experience of OS/2 was 2.01 alpha.  I broke it every 3 
days and sent the tracebacks to Boca.  I finally got to where I could 
install the whole system in about 3 hours.

My first Linux install was Softlanding 1.0, I asked it to give me a 
detailed description of every piece of software it put in their.  The 
last time I'd seen a Unix system that complete, I was at IBM porting the 
same software to the ES-9000.

> Clearly, this is a major plus, .....if true.

Each of these "smart bomb" install packages depends on a relatively sane 
configuration.  I knew one person who spent a month trying to recompile 
the Linux kernal, because his Mitsumi drive was attached to his ide port 
instead of to his Soundblaster card.  An $8.00 cable had him up in about 
an hour (we started the install "Everything" and went downstairs for 
coffee).

> ><<   3. The number of people who will actually PAY for the upgrade.>>
> >Amazing, I know virtually no regular windows user (and many Mac users) who
> >arent very excited and expecting to upgrade.
After waiting 9 years for a multitasking operating system (remember those 
wonderful "kill each other TSRs"? And being compared unfavorably to Sun 
and Unix/X11 systems, and being hyped for 5 years over the "really great 
windows" and being let down by WindowsNT, users are frantic for a REAL 
upgrade to ANYTHING that can actually receive a 9600baud feed without 
dropping characters on the floor, load an application without eating the 
screen, and go 5 days without receiving the "3 finger salute" 
().

> Wow.  Not among my  acquaintances.  I know NO Mac users who give a fig. 
> NONE,   ZIP

Any Mac user who wants it can get A/UX.  Finder7 comes close enough to 
real multi-tasking that only power users really need A/UX.
Of course, the PowerPC Macs come with AIX.  Looks like a Mac, serves like 
a mainframe.

> Among the Windows 3.1 types, there is a general wait and see attitude.  A
> few systems types are in a hurry to upgrade, while most users want to wait
> until the bugs are completely OUT.  Several of my clients are talking about
> upgrading next spring......or 6-8 months after the system become available.

Of course, it takes that long for the really ugly bugs (self-reformatting 
disks, irreversably corrupted desktops...) to be discovered and the tools 
for editing the proprietary binary files, to be developed.

> >In summary, it's amazing to see so much backlash against an OS that quite
> >arguably is moving the PC market forward further than it has seen in close
> >to a decade.  In nearly all fronts -- networking, messaging, telephony,
The only market it has moved forward is the Microsoft market.  And 
compared to SCO, Solaris, Interactive, Linux, or BSDI, Windows95 is still 
in the "stone age".

> >Internet,

I was running Internet servers on PCs running SCO and Interactive 2 years 
before NT was even announced.  I was using a 386/16, slow SCSI, 8 meg of 
RAM, and a 200 Meg drive.  I needed 100 Meg for the News Feed, and used 
60 meg for the swap drive.

> >multimedia, gaming, hardware compatibility, and general OS architecture, it
> >is steps beyond any desktop OS that I've ever used.

This could be either an admission of ignorance (contempt prior to 
investigation), arrogance (being right regardless of evidence to the 
contrary), extravegance (I have my toy, and that makes it better than 
yours), or flamboyance (as P.T. Barnum said, "there's one born every 
minute").

My prediction is that within 7 days of the official unveiling of 
Windows95, Bill Gates will be announcing the "Future release of a 
super-duper-better-than-unix-operating-system" that does almost 
everything Linux or UNIX does today like:
	3D Graphics - (PEX/PHIGS,GKS)
	Kernal Level Security (Unix kernal)
	A self-cleaning system (Unix cleans up it's memory leaks).
	SMP Capability (Tuxedo, SMP)
	Kerberos style authentication.
	Internet Firewall Security (A configuration option for Linux).
	Multitasking oriented Display (as opposed to "Primary Display" 
		oriented  Windows.
	A stream oriented IPC.

> I am not going to use Win95, Jeremy, under any circumstances, and I have no
> intention of being left anywhere.    The system's will be very tough for
> most people to swallow in the near term.  The transition will take
> considerable time and effort, last far into 1996, and cost much more than
> advertised, for most people.

My bet is that people aren't going to wait.  Generation-X is much more 
technically sophisticated than their "Boomer" predecessors.  It won't be 
long before enterprising technicians start billing themselves as 
Unix/Internet installers.  Within a year or two, some variant of Unix 
with X11/R6 (and future R7) and ATK will be the emerging market (it's 
already the fastest growing market segment).  By the year 2000, Microsoft 
will either be marketing it's own version of Unix, or will have thrown 
it's weight behind some version of Unix (Gates does own 25% of SCO).

> Keep the faith....

	Rex Ballard
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.




From rballard@cnj.digex.net Thu May 25 09:41:59 1995