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On 3 Sep 1995, Christopher Orth wrote:

		> > If Microsoft is so great, why did they rip off CPM when they started 
> > MSDOS?
> > 

Bill Gates built his entire career out of locking himself into hotel 
rooms so that no one would know how much of a pirate he was.

Microsoft Basic as developed for the Altair 8008 was based on a
version written for the 6502 written by An Wang.  Gates ported
the basic to the PDP-11 and when Paul wrote the 8080 emulater
(the real act of programming genius) Gates ported his kludge to that 
emulator.

Gates used the money Altair paid him to do the Basic in ROM for
the TRS-80 (Knowing it would put Altair out of business).

Microsoft used the money Radio Shack paid him to fund the development
of MS-DOS (Which is based on a Knock-off of CPM called QDOS).  Buy
buying from the pirate, Microsoft insulated itself from accusations
of Software piracy.

Microsoft used the money IBM paid for "OS/2 Lite" to fund the
development of Windows 3.1.

Microsoft makes a common practice of recruiting its most talented
people from it's "alliance partners", and subsequently witholding
or delaying support (This is why Lotus and Word Perfect products
weren't ready for the Win95 release date.

> > And what about their current rip off of Apple's QuickTime?
> Rip off of Quick Time??!!!!!!!!!!
> What about their rip off of system 7 ??!!!!  When I put win95 to the
> test, all I saw was a clunky yet shiny version of system 7.5 !! The
> "Wizard"--can you say "Chooser"..... startup menu's?? (APPLE MENU)..and
> how about those neat "original looking" FOLDERS.!!!! etc, etc....   Yet
> its not yet even fully 32bit, whereas virtually all other OS's have
> native powerPC versions which are Already begining to evolve.!! 

Intellectual property rights are strange things.  Trade the rights for a 
cute multitasker for the rights to a folder icon or two, suddenly it
becomes hard to tell the difference between Microsoft Windows,
OS/2 PM, Motif, and Finder.  The main difference between GNU and
the MAC/IBM/MSFT software base is that only 5 people from each company
knows what is being shared and why.  It's interesting that GPL software
is "unsupported by 5000 OEM's and VARs" while only 5 people have ever
seen the internals of the NT Scheduler (Anyonne else who had 
dissassembled it couldn't admit it without forfeiting their career)

The main difference between MFC and OLIT is that I have to wait until the 
MFC guru gets back from his sabbatical if I need to know internals 
questions.

> I commend B.Gates and MS for all their success, and MS does have some
> fine products.  However, he will always make LOTS of money mopping up
> the masses
The masses ask two things:
	Ease of Use
	Minimal Cost

For 15 years, Microsoft has successfully delivered both.  The average 
Microsoft box cost 1/5th the price of a Unix box, and about 1/3 the price 
of a Mac.  The user interface, Hourglass and All it the glitches was
sufficient to meet the needs of most "Generic" users.  Had Apple
aggressively promoted third party development and 3rd party support
they could have given the same market dominance they had in the hayday of 
the Apple ][.  Apple chose to keep 95% of a small pie.  Microsoft settled 
for 20% of the civilized world.  Of course, Bill Gates has publicly 
stated that his true ambition is world domination through control of
information.  The CIA and the KGB are both in envy of Mr. Gates.  Mr
Gates isn't bound by all the constitutional constraints that restrict
the activities of government agencies.

Microsoft is planning to open it's own "News Center".  It's primary source
of information, the disk drives of MSN users connected via Windows95.
The "Service Wizard" that lets Microsoft check your machine for 
hostile peripherals and programs also gives them (and only them)
unrestricted access to anything elso on your disk drive.

The "Publications" could be interesting, like sending your Mormon boss
a list of your postings to alt.sex.bondage (you thought it was O.K. 
because you wrote it from home didn't you :-)

> while the POWER computing is done somewhere else.. and to
> all you who are upset about this so called "monopoly".. you DO have a
> choice.. dont buy from them... I dont have a single MS product on my
> mac, make lots of money and music with it, and dont NEED or HAVE TO use
> MS at all..!!!

Personally, I am a Unix/Linux proponant.  I got by first copy for $20 and
my quarterly upgrades for about $15/upgrade.

> Keep those grins......
> 
> Christopher
> x
> 

	Rex Ballard
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management.





From rballard@cnj.digex.net Sun Oct 15 23:55:51 1995
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