Back in the early 1990s, the vast majority of personal computers used by North Americans were either IBM PC clones, Macintoshes or old Apple II-based machines, During the same time, Germans also embraced the Atari ST and Amiga, to a much larger extent than their North American peers.
Today, Germans still seem to continue their love for oddball computer operating systems and systems. Cite, you say?
Many German government agencies use Linux for everyday use.
Up until very recently, the BeOS lived on as ZETA, distributed and maintained by Magnussoft, a German company.
Amiga clones are being made by Individual Computers, a German company. Hyperion Entertainment, a German software firm, continues to develop the OS.
The majority of developers for AROS, an open source Amiga-like alternative operating system that runs on Intel hardware, are German.
Atari ST clones are made by Milan Computer, a German hardware firm.
So, my question to the Doper community: why do Germans embrace oddball operating system to a much greater extent than others around the world?
Their reason for using Linux actually makes sense, if you think about it. It’s free (thus saving those big government dollars for [del]the coming invasion of Poland and France[/del] other things), more secure, and they’re not forced to buy software bundled with their system that they’ll never need. After all, if the PC isn’t going to be connected to the internet, why should you have a web browser, email program, etc. installed on it? With Linux, they can custom design the OS and it’s features, then install it to their heart’s content on as many machines as they want without having to worry about running afoul of EULAs and copyright laws.
I’m going to indulge a stereotype and say that it’s because they value function more highly than perhaps others do (that whole Bauhaus thing) - if the machine does everything you want it to, you have no need to upgrade. Look at the way PCs are sold - it’s not really anything about function, it’s all about whizzy ‘user experience’.
I spent a fair amount of time in Austria and Germany in the early 90’s. At that time, by my estimate, anything computer related cost around 5X American prices. Being so expensive, computers didn’t find there way into homes nearly as soon as they did on this side of the atlantic. So instead of consumers making buying decisions based on flash and marketing, you were much more likely to find buisnesses and academics making performance based decisions based on input from experts.
I will probably get slapped for stereotyping, but there is a German word “genauigheit” which literally means “exactingness”. This is considered a positive quality, while the nearest American expression is probably “anal retentive”, and considered a negative. While Americans will dive in, fumble about, and learn by trial and error, while the manuals stay on the shelf, still in thier shrink wrap. A German is more likely to RTFM and follow the procedures found there. The fact that you don’t have to read the manual is a huge OS selling point for an American, not so much for a German. BTW, the Austrians I’ve known embraced genauigheit even more strongly than the Germans. Even with a menu based GUI, they tend not to learn by messing about, but by following procedures found in the manual. My sense is that a command line based OS is actually easier to pick up than a GUI if you are adept at this approach to learning.
I can only assume the German government is a lot fussier than others about wanting to know exactly what an operating system is doing at all times, which would make any flavor of Windows an unlikely choice for them to adopt.
I wouldn’t exactly call Linux “oddball” by any stretch of the imagination. Linux is also a whole lot more transparent in its inner workings thanks to open-source development.
Something like MS Windows is closed-source and it does all sorts of things without telling you what’s going on.
Back when I was stationed in Germany (91 to 93), the guys I worked with (the German civilians in the air traffic control tower in Hanau) were übergeeks. Even in those days, it was pretty much established that the PC and Mac were the two winners. The Atari ST was on the way out, and the Amiga was on the way out. There was just the “sense” of it – the marketing numbers didn’t support them, and only geeks used them. Everyone else used PC’s or “PC compatibles,” or Macs.
Yet… the Germans were strong on their ST’s and Amigas (hell, I had an Amiga, and knew it was a dying platform). Contrary to the “slow uptake” that I read above, I always had the feeling that the Germans were faster in their uptake of computers. The difference was, though, for them, the platform wars weren’t already settled on Macs and PC-clones*. They went for what (at the time) was the low-cost wow factor. Consider that most Macs were still black and white, except for the super-expensive Mac II line (although I bought my Colour-with-a-u-Classic there), and that PC-clones still sucked as far as graphics and sound. The Amiga (and to a lesser extent) and ST were (a) cheap and (b) impressive as hell. The Germans didn’t know it was a losing cause until it was too late, except, that, it seems (according to this post) it wasn’t a losing cause? I had no idea that alternative systems were still so popular there. I thought they fell into the same Mac/PC paradigm as North America (I don’t consider Linux outside the mainstream in this).
*PC-clone: used to be what we called what is now a “PC” when you don’t consider a Mac a PC, i.e., machines that we’d probably now call Winboxen. Note the German-style plural ending. Only you non-geeks would say “Winboxes.”
Its because they are a superior race.
Still seems weird to see people using a linux here especially in an office environment.
People i know that businesses dont mind forking out bucket loads of money to have windows just because they are familiar with it. Only people i seem to refer to using linux are for servers and “geeks”. Would be kinda cool to work in a government building and see a linux machine running.
I think to a certain extent this is true of other countries in Europe too. My simple (and perhaps erroneous) reading of it is that in the 1980s video game consoles and business/pc/mac type computers ruled the roost in North America whereas in Europe Amstrad, Commadore, Sinclair, Atari (computers), and myriad other manufacturers marketed proprietary microcomputers more effectively than in the US. PCs were dull business machines but Amigas had games! music! graphics! I know all of the above had some presence in the North American market but I think that NES and Atari 2600 before it limited the uptake of the games computers. That’s my fuppence worth.
Kevbo’s point about germans reading their manuals sounds telling.
But the thing about Germans paying so much for their computers is too.
Maybe it’s their attitude to not care so much about price, and not be afraid to adapt to unfamiliar things, is the reason that the alternative systems found a foothold in Germany (which they presumably strengthed with more marketing than in the states.) Not being super-cheap and being different are such barriers to entry everywhere else.
The popularity of these machine could partly be to do with the price differential at the time, PCs costing $1000s while the others could cost less than $1000 or even less than $500. As for their continued use, never underestimate the power of nostalgia. There is a huge market for old games consoles and the like maybe it’s a similar but different manifestation of the same technostalgia. That’s my fuppence worth. As I said in the other thread, I still use my Amiga 1200 for music, I find the interface easy to use and the results satisfying and there’s also less likelihood I’ll come up with something homogenised sounding.
The clarinet is also different in Germany and Austria than elsewhere. The fingering system is quite different (basically, more difficult), as are the acoustics and tone quality.
I remember emailing the Suse Linux helpdesk, in pre-Novell times, and got a reply which not only gave me a step-by-step answer, but also various references in the printed manual from which I could have gleaned this information, had I read the whole damn thing
