Ah pity the foo’ who doesn’t use CP/M!
Ah pity you, cause nothin works better than an ENIAC system.
Well, hell, I’m probably one of Microsoft’s strongest supporters on these boards, and I’ve never done any kind of platform hijack. Personally, I feel that people who feel they MUST make platform hijacks tarnish their side’s own position when it comes to legitimate debates about different systems, and their own ability to think logically and reasonably quickly vanishes.
Is it really jerkish behavior that needs to be prohibited? Probably, yes. Is it ignorant behavior that we should be striving to fight? Most definitely.
Here’s Umberto Eco’s take on platforms (hilarious, I think)-- Hope this isn’t copyright trouble; Mods, if this citation isn’t enough for this quotation feel free to axe this:
[From “La Bustina di Minerva,” a column by Umberto Eco, in the 30 September 1994 issue of the Italian journal L’Espresso. Eco’s column was anonymously translated into English and posted on the Internet in October.]
"Insufficient consideration has been given to the underground religious war that is transforming the modern world: the division between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS-compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counterreformist and has been influenced by the methodical path of the Jesuits. It tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach – if not the Kingdom of Heaven – the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous
icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.
DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret it yourself: the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.
You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counterreformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It’s true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism – big ceremonies in the cathedral but with the possibility of returning to DOS to fiddle with things. With Windows, you can still decide to allow women and gays to be priests if you want to.
And what about the machine language that lies beneath both operating systems? Ah, that is the stuff of the Old Testament, Talmudic and cabalistic."
**I ** know it’s not a mainframe, Tom, but try explaining the difference between a mainframe and a mid-range computer (which the AS/400 is) to a PC person. From their point of view it’s all ‘big iron’. I just nod my head and agree any more. It’s easier that way for everybody. 
If anybody is interested, I write programs in various flavors of RPG that run on an AS/400, which is a black box about the size of a small chest freezer. PC types think of my box as ‘obsolete’, even though the AS/400 has only been around about, IIRC, 15 years. I haven’t seen a System 3 in over 20 years.
However, on my desk at work is a PC running Windows NT, and at home I have a PC running Windows 98, one running NT, one w/ Win95, and one w/ Dos 6.22, plus a laptop w/ Win 95, so I’m not exactly a stranger to Microsquash. But if I needed to do something that Apple had better software for, like graphics, I’d use an Apple. They’re all just tools, guys, and not worth getting excited about.
P.S. I’ve got all these old machines 'cause I wanted to install Linux onto something to play with, and haven’t had too much success as yet.
Tell that to Tim Taylor… 
(Yes, I know he’s fictional!)
Which is why I noted the users’ perceptions.
As to obsolete: Microsoft does its accounting for the U.S. on a DEC platform and its Overseas accounting on an AS/400 platform. (The area is off-limits to all visitors, so that when they drag some other company’s CEO through the building, he only sees the NT servers stacked up on each other, but those things are only producing the “expert management” reports–the real numbers are crunched by the mid-frames in back.)
I kinda got the impression that you thought I was taking a shot at you there, Tom. I really didn’t mean it that way, sorry.
Well, I rarely post on the subject of platforms as I can’t stand the way the thread always degenerates into a “my OS is great and your’s sucks”. Personally, I’ve used every version of MS products since V1.0 of dos and still use WIN98. Then again, I also use an iMac, although I think it kinda sucks. I also use both a Mac IIe and an old-ass 8086 system with DRDos just for shits and giggles when I feel like being masochistic.
Xploder, who has absolutely no life whatsoever…
One button mice: You hit control as you click or you get a 2 button mouse.
–John
Hm. Check that front panel again; there’s a Macintosh IIc, and there’s an Apple IIe, but there never was a Mac IIe…
Well jeez…
It’s a Macintosh IIe. Is that better? I tend to call all Apples that begin with the letters MAC a Mac…
Xploder
WHOOOOOOSH!
heh. Not what I meant. There were eight models in the Mac II series, and none of them contained the letter “e”.
Ha, none of you pathetic losers have anything on my Analytical Engine! It can do If-Then statements, loop indefinately, and can figure out the solution of almost any algebraic function, and it only takes the power of a steam engine to do it! Ha!
Okay. So. I’m an idiot. As I look at this damn thing yet again, I notice that it’s a Macintosh IIsi. Guess it’s time to get the eyes examined again…
Xploder
Interesting. Do you have a cite for that?
I heard an (unsubstantiated) rumour that Microsoft documentation is written using Adobe FrameMaker because Word keeps crashing and/or corrupting the files. I’d love to get confirmation one way or t’other on that.
Having worked for a year doing technical documentation at The SABRE Group, I can tell you that the department had an unofficial rule of using Word for documents under 500 pages and Framemaker for docs over 500. Word did crash, act squirrelly and sputter pitifully once the page count got high. I don’t know about corrupting files, though.
Regarding Microsoft business processing:
My brother was an operations supervisor at MS until he took his ill-gotten stock options and retired a couple of years ago. I suppose they might have converted the whole system in the last couple of years, but when he left, they had no serious plans to do so.