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 xerxes@clark.net  wrote:

> At  5:06 PM 5/21/95 -0500, Jeremy Allaire wrote:
> >Responses to the following utter-nonsense:


> >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.  
> 
> 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%.
>
This has been the trend for all new OS'es.  How many MBs does it take 
to run MAC OS these days?  OS/2?  Face it, this is not a Microsoft 
problem, this is an industry-wide tension between the desire for 
nifty features and the cost of RAM.  Features win in the long run...
   
> >It ships on CD-ROM only.  What decade is it folks?
> 
>         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.    
>
It ships on floppies also.  A lot of them (it's fewer than 20, I 
think, but I quickly reformatted them since I have a CD-ROM drive and 
am constantly in need of fresh floppies.  Hear that AOL?  Please send 
more free sign up disks, I have data I need to back up...).
 
> >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 ...............
>
True.  Again it can't be helped (look at other OS'es with the 
possible exception of Linux--but that's a niche market at best.  Sorry 
Rex.)  But given the sales trends of the last year (more PCs sold 
than any othertime in history) and given the composition of those 
machines--more RAM, a CD-ROM, 486-66 chips or better, etc., I think 
there's a big enough market to interest MS--and the future market 
will be almost all Pentium class because the price/performance ratio 
is amazing as Intel seeks to destroy Cyrix and AMD before they can 
get a foothold.
 
> >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.
> 
> 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.  
> 
Storage is cheap.  I just saw an ad for gigabyte drives below $300.  
Again, PCs are shipping with larger drives every day.  There's going 
to be a huge market for Win95 at any size.  There's a slimmed-down 
version for laptops that leaves out some bells and whistles 
(actually, it allows you to choose the bells and whistles you want).  
There's a nifty file transfer feature that allows you to reconcile 
your portable with your desktop by making sure you have the latest 
version of files when you trasfer back and forth.

> >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
> >supported hardware.
> 
> 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.......
> 
The only problem I've had with Win95 was with Plug & Play.  An older 
Packard Bell P&P driver went kablooie (I realize that's a technical 
term...) when I ran the lame disk compression utility in Win 95.  A 
*single* 5 minute call to tech support got me up and running again, 
even though the problem had not been reported before.

> >It was the smoothest install I'd had since my first Macintosh.  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).
> 
> Clearly, this is a major plus, .....if true.
> 
It took me about 45 minutes to install and about 1 hour to adapt to 
the new interface.  It's beautiful.  I'm never going back to Win3.1 
and I think its far superior to Mac OS, which really is starting to 
show its age.  OS/2 has always had a lousy interface
 
> >Amazing, I know virtually no regular windows user (and many Mac users) who
> >arent very excited and expecting to upgrade.
> 
> Wow.  Not among my  acquaintances.  I know NO Mac users who give a fig. 
> NONE,   ZIP
> 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.
>   
Probably smart.  I think it will take a few months for Win95 to catch 
on.  There will likely be a maintenance release a month or two after 
ship and a 95.1 in early 96.  But so far, the beta has been so much 
more stable than WFW 3.11 on my system that I think people will be 
pleasantly surprised at the quality of the code.  

> 
> >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,
> >Internet,
> >multimedia, gaming, hardware compatibility, and general OS architecture, it
> >is steps beyond any desktop OS that I've ever used.
> >
> 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.    
>
You won't use Win95 under -any- circumstances?  Ever?  Either you're 
a Mac or Unix user or you write your own applications.  The MS hype 
has been painful, I agree, but when has it not been?  The OS is great. 
Really great.  Does it have shortcomings?  Yes.  That's the software 
biz.  That software this complicated ships at all is a miracle, 
especially given the size and diversity of the PC business these 
days.   

To get a great look at why that is I highly recommend reading 
"Showstopper" about the creation of Windows NT.  It's an engrossing 
look at how operating systems are built at Microsoft and reminds me 
of "Soul of a New Machine", one of the best books about the business 
of creating technology I've ever read.  "Showstopper" is by G. Pascal 
Zachary, a WSJ technology reporter with no love for Microsoft.

Nate Zelnick
New .sig coming...
Nate Zelnick                          natez@pluto.njcc.com
Information & Interactive Services Report v. 609-397-8990
Report on Electronic Commerce             f. 609-397-8993
Multimedia Daily       URL http://pluto.njcc.com/~natez/


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