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I've Moved To Mac

I know he dropped his pocket calculator last time he was in the UK:
 

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Zep said:
Note the toggle switches on the front? You loaded the addresses and the data via them. See they are in groups of THREE? So...octal, not hex? REAL machines, with a REAL MAN'S interface!
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My first computer's got that one beaten by a mile, as a man's computer - if the man is eight years old. I haven't been here long enough to post links, but do a Google search for hexapawn matchbox

The computer had totally manual operation. It also worked perfectly. The one I built did have one serious design flaw: the computer memory was edible. There proved to be an irresistible tendency for the user to eat, not only the computer's bad moves, but all of them. Tech support was easy, though: reload computer memory with new jelly beans.
 
Darat said:
Zep's Computer Studies teacher.
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She was a hottie, that Ada! Really got with the programme!

Ian Osborne said:
I have it on good authority that he keeps a set of Napier's Bones as a back-up machine.
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Abacus. PLEASE!

Darat said:
I know he dropped his pocket calculator last time he was in the UK:
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And some bastage broke it!

JeffJo said:
My first computer's got that one beaten by a mile, as a man's computer - if the man is eight years old. I haven't been here long enough to post links, but do a Google search for hexapawn matchbox

The computer had totally manual operation. It also worked perfectly. The one I built did have one serious design flaw: the computer memory was edible. There proved to be an irresistible tendency for the user to eat, not only the computer's bad moves, but all of them. Tech support was easy, though: reload computer memory with new jelly beans.
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You may laugh, but I DO remember Hexapawn as a youngster! I even had a small book about it somewhere, although not with matchboxes. It was a very primitive AI setup, IIRC. Martin Gardiner??

I also remember as a sub-teen youngster in the early 60's (shutUP!) standing for ages in front of a tic-tac-toe "computer" at a local museum trying to beat the thing. It could never be beaten, but eventually I learned to get a draw every time (i.e. I figured out the algorithm). It was an all mechanical (electrical relays logic) machine. I think that's where I got the bug...
 
MortFurd said:
Been there, done that.
http://www.imsai.net/
That's what I call an intuitive user interace. :)

One of the highschools I attended (oh, so long ago) had an IMSAI and an Altair. I actually did write a small program in assembler, translate it to binary, it enter through the panel switches, and execute it.
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My husband still has his Imsai and some 8" floppy disks that went with it.
 
CFLarsen said:
Not at all. People use Windows primarily because it is by far the most popular platform on personal computers.
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This isn't reasoning, it's just a definition of "popular".

Most people use Windows because it is the most popular platform, and it is the most popular platform because most people use it.
 
NobbyNobbs said:
This isn't reasoning, it's just a definition of "popular".

Most people use Windows because it is the most popular platform, and it is the most popular platform because most people use it.
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It is popular because there is a plethora of programs people can choose from that solve their particular problems.
 
CFLarsen said:
It is popular because there is a plethora of programs people can choose from that solve their particular problems.
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It's popular because it's pre-installed on almost all sold PCs. How that came to be has much to do with illegal practices.

Windows is also "popular" because a good many people don't know an operating system from their ... elbow. Ask 'em what OS they use and you get the name of their most commonly used program.
 
MortFurd said:
It's popular because it's pre-installed on almost all sold PCs.
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Macs also come pre-installed with Mac OS'.

MortFurd said:
How that came to be has much to do with illegal practices.
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O....K. Now you are moving onto conspiracy ground.

MortFurd said:
Windows is also "popular" because a good many people don't know an operating system from their ... elbow. Ask 'em what OS they use and you get the name of their most commonly used program.
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Probably. It strengthens the point about users not being savvy.
 
JeffJo said:
The natural question of why anybody would ever want to use Windows, when they have an alternative, is enough to make anybody inquisitive. Oh, I can see why people want to believe that they're the favorites of a higher power, or why people want to believe in an easy herbal cancer cure, and so on. The motivation is obvious. But why anybody would want to use Windows, when they have a choice?? -- it's an eternal mystery.

Oh, my Dell is fine when it's just sitting there playing a flute concerto, as it's doing now, and I can set it and forget it. But for doing something myself, like this, where I must interact (pardon the expression) with the machine, I always reach for the Mac. The reasons are manifold, and have little to do with the small red button at the upper left of this window.
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Because Windows works perfectly fine for lots of people. There's simply no easier answer than that. You'd be upset at people tossing uninformed and blanket statements about the inabilities of the Mac, yet here you are doing th same about Windows.

I'm fully aware than many in this thread are simply stirring the put for sh*ts an giggles which is fine. But honestly, most people in here are not here to learn, or to consider, or to logically evaluate the merits of any OS in any innumerable set of conditions. The idea that any OS is far and away better than any other is a clear sign of ignorance of what the major OS's can accomplish these days. And to a large extent, their all doing the same things, just with different approaches.

People are here to argue, simply because they love to argue and to barf out preconceived gotcha's about the OS they love to loathe, many of which are irrelevant, or insignificant, or just plain wrong.

And that's why in 6 months, or a year from now, and on and on and on, there'll be another thread just like this one with people arguing and pounding their chests and learning absolutely nothing.
 
voidx said:
Because Windows works perfectly fine for lots of people. There's simply no easier answer than that. You'd be upset at people tossing uninformed and blanket statements about the inabilities of the Mac, yet here you are doing th same about Windows.

I'm fully aware than many in this thread are simply stirring the put for sh*ts an giggles which is fine. But honestly, most people in here are not here to learn, or to consider, or to logically evaluate the merits of any OS in any innumerable set of conditions. The idea that any OS is far and away better than any other is a clear sign of ignorance of what the major OS's can accomplish these days. And to a large extent, their all doing the same things, just with different approaches.

People are here to argue, simply because they love to argue and to barf out preconceived gotcha's about the OS they love to loathe, many of which are irrelevant, or insignificant, or just plain wrong.

And that's why in 6 months, or a year from now, and on and on and on, there'll be another thread just like this one with people arguing and pounding their chests and learning absolutely nothing.
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Well said and thanks for the blunt wake-up call. I think I'm done participating in these threads.
 
voidx said:
People are here to argue, simply because they love to argue and to barf out preconceived gotcha's about the OS they love to loathe, many of which are irrelevant, or insignificant, or just plain wrong.

And that's why in 6 months, or a year from now, and on and on and on, there'll be another thread just like this one with people arguing and pounding their chests and learning absolutely nothing.
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You say what you want. I still say they smell a bit of wee.
 
Ian Osborne said:
But don't forget they're also the people least likely to come to your professional attention.
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True, to a large extent. However it is also not true that these people never call. Sometimes even the most techie of clients still has to call.

Ian Osborne said:
I've done tech support work too. When I rule the world, sending emails with all previous correspondence deleted and replaced with "Tried that - didn't work" will be punishable by death.
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And I will be your .EXEcutioner.
 
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