News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
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Mail Starting 7/11/97 | |
Thanks for the useful page of Crashes and Caches tips... I switched to the RAM disk-for-cache approach a few weeks ago and it's a real winner: not only in terms of system speed, less hard drive churning etc. but also for stability.
From: scottr@sirius.com (Scott Rosenberg);
Sent at 7/11/97; 2:21:22 PM;
crashes and cachesFar as I can tell, the number one source of directory corruption on my Mac is the Netscape cache, which seems to get gnarlier and gnarlier over time. The beauty of the RAM disk is that you start from scratch each session; the corruption never has much chance to pile up. I know it's still happening because the Norton disk checker keeps reporting "master directory block" errors on the RAM disk in mid-session. But it doesn't seem to cause any real trouble.
Have you heard of JDirect? (Not Microsoft's J/Direct...MS named their product that after hearing a leak that Apple's product was named 'JDirect'. MS just wanted to instill confusion in Mac users and the marketplace by naming their product similarly to Apple's.)
From: xtian@Eng.Sun.COM (xtian);
Sent at 7/11/97; 2:20:51 PM;
Re:A Microsoft/Apple Partnership?Anyway, JDirect is a way for Java programmers to access the Mac Toolbox from their Java applications. Of course, this makes your Java apps platform-specific (just like ActiveX and Microsoft's J/Direct) so it is not very popular with me, but that is EXACTLY what MS has always done with their Embrace & Extend policy.
You can extrapolate from there yourself.
Here at JavaSoft we have JavaOS...an OS written in Java. People license the JavaOS source code from us and port it to other hardware platforms. They then make the licensing fee back by selling their OS to their customers.
Maybe it would be a good idea for Apple to license the AppleNT software from MS, and do exactly what the gentleman above says. Imagine two development efforts within Apple...one on the MacOS and one on AppleNT, that were destined (and DESIGNED) to converge at some point in the future. Say, 3-5 years from now.
Apple could maintain their current machines and customers with regular releases of the MacOS, and they could bring in new customers who are switching to Windows, but have a large investment in Mac hardware. Eventually ALL of these customers would be migrated to the new MacNT operating system while still maintaining their original hardware investment.
What an interesting time to be in the computer industry, huh? How coooool....!!
The code *was* reverse engineered from a Motorola ROM by Rich Page for the Lisa, I'm told. Before me, Bud Tribble had taken Rich's code and tried to add comments and such (obviously reverse engineered code has its drawbacks, such as labels of the form: label100, label101, etc.). The code still was horrendous -- a lot of really bad mucking, but since it was probably written by a hardware engineer at Moto what do you expect?I hated it when I joined in 83 so I took the code and added all of the mac "classic" calls AT, AB, HS, etc. Over 83-84, I rewrote 99% of it -- not from scratch, but it might as well have been. My favorite hack was the character drawing -- it's all bit sets in the original 512x384 version! (my least favorite was the order n**2 heap scramble that was not good at all)
From: scapps@microsoft.com (Steve Capps);
Sent at 7/11/97; 2:16:18 PM;
Re:A Microsoft/Apple Partnership?After that, Michael Tibbott really rewrote it from scratch. Not that I do much mac debugging these days, I never bothered with new debuggers (or even newer version of macsbug) because I could run the thing in my sleep (and often did).
As for the web comments. Berners-Lee cites Hypercard all over the place. Bill was short sighted in a few aspects though -- I'm not sure he ever articulated the server part of it -- that was done in later versions after he dropped out. I actually think the hypercard influence is still too pervasive and led to a lot of the stupidity of the design (lousy object model, UI, etc.). Also, what transpired at GM showed the ideas were still right, but they were so far off from a business aspect. I often mention a time I ran into Andy Hertzfeld in Menlo Park in late 1994 and I asked if he had been mucking on the web and he hadn't ever seen it yet -- shows you what product myopia will do for you. (He obviously gets it now)
They are a hoax. Since I knew that it was relatively easy to forge such things, I sent an e-mail to the MSN Hostmaster. I got a prompt reply, reprinted below:
From: dbw11@cornell.edu (David Weingart);
Sent at 7/11/97; 5:10:00 PM;
Microsoft domain registrationsThey were forged. Please feel free to pass the fact that these were forged and are not Microsoft domains back to the folks who told you about it.
Since I've noticed that you seem to follow Microsoft rather closely, I thought that you might want to check out this little tidbit if you haven't seen it already:
From: ender@is.rice.edu (Colin Wood);
Sent at 7/11/97; 3:53:09 PM;
MS domainshttp://www.macintouch.com/msdomains.html
Can you say Anti-trust lawsuit? If these two teamed up it would be the death of Microsoft, now that OS/2 is dead and the BeOS has no real applications yet.
From: schampeo@hesketh.com (Steven Champeon);
Sent at 7/11/97; 4:56:19 PM;
Apple and MicrosoftDave: where did you get the expansion of MacsBug from? When I was writing MacsBug at Apple in 1985-1987 I tried to determine what it really meant, but I was told told that "Macs" basically had something to do with "macros". I never got a satisfactory answer to this question.
From: danallen@microsoft.com (Daniel K. Allen);
Sent at 7/11/97; 1:27:24 PM;
Re:A Microsoft/Apple Partnership?Steve: do you remember what the "Macs" part of MacsBug stood for?
We did in fact get the starting source code to MacsBug from Motorola in 1981. But unless someone actually did that work and was around Motorola in 1981, I would be suspicious of their acronym expansions...
Point 2: I still insist that Bill Atkinson basically understood the Web when he did HyperCard. He wanted it to be everywhere. Stacks inside Apple went to other stacks on other servers. The WWW is just a big LAN from this point of view. This was 1987. (Ten year anniversary of HyperCard coming up in a few weeks!)
The Macintosh will survive and the Apple logo will continue to grace new computers for years to come -- *if* the company stays on target. At WWDC in May, Apple presented a clear and coherent strategy: dual-OS, cross-platform, Java. It's an aggressive plan to put Apple back on the leading edge, to serve its core customers and to offer a superior platform for innovative developers.
From: ssl@prefab.com (Scott S. Lawton);
Sent at 7/11/97; 4:14:25 PM;
Strategy for Apple? Stay on targetThe biggest challenge that Apple's next CEO will face is personal: to resist the temptation to tinker. The CEO must lead, but in a direction that is already established. Must inspire confidence -- in a plan that was created by others. I suspect that nearly all top executives want to leave their mark on a company by making a unique contribution. Apple's next CEO must do so not by charging off in a new direction but by devoting their complete time, energy & expertise to working with the current team to implement the strategy that is already in place. The CEO's job is clear: stay on target.
Thought you might be interested in knowing that BILL-IS-LORD.COM, RESISTANCE-IS-FUTILE.COM and WESHALLPREVAIL.COM are all registered to Microsoft Corporation!
From: brian@maxweb.com (Brian Landers);
Sent at 7/11/97; 3:17:51 PM;
Interesting domain names owned by Microsoft
%/cgi-bin whois resistance-is-futile.comMicrosoft Corporation (RESISTANCE-IS-FUTILE-DOM) 3635 157th Avenue Redmond, WA 98052 US
Domain Name: RESISTANCE-IS-FUTILE.COM
Administrative Contact: MSN Hostmaster (MH37-ORG) msnhst@MICROSOFT.COM tel.: 206 882 8080 fax.: 206 703 2641
Technical Contact, Zone Contact: MSN NOC (MN5-ORG) msnnoc@MICROSOFT.COM 206 882 8080 Billing Contact: MSN Domain Billing (MDB-ORG) msnbill@MICROSOFT.COM 206 882 8080
Record last updated on 24-Jun-97. Record created on 24-Jun-97. Database last updated on 11-Jul-97 04:20:56 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
ATBD.MICROSOFT.COM 131.107.1.7 DNS1.MICROSOFT.COM 131.107.1.240 DNS3.NWNET.NET 192.220.250.7 DNS4.NWNET.NET 192.220.251.7
Funny
With Mac OS 8 you don't need MacsBug. Apple finally realized that most of the time you could 'es' a crashed app, so they do it automatically and put up a dialog telling you that the app unexpectedly quit. Mac OS 8 is the first version that I can tell has any difference from 7.1; it's about time.
From: wesley@binarycompass.com (Wesley Felter);
Sent at 7/11/97; 10:55:21 AM;
Re:Two Crazy DaysI've been a reader for a couple years and I don't feel let down at all about your publishing regarding Apple this week. It's too bad Mr. Tate was so up set, but I think it is more a testimony to the vitality of the SCRIPTING.COM site and community that he felt so strongly, hurt actually.
From: brucer@cnet.com (Bruce Rinehart);
Sent at 7/11/97; 9:46:47 AM;
re: Two Crazy DaysThat said, I must warn you, if you were to have knowledge of a free Phish concert at SouthPark, and didn't say anything, I would feel hurt. ...just kidding....well, kinda...
Thank you! I think you have an incredibly good idea here.
From: dwiner@well.com (Dave Winer);
Sent at ;
Re:"The Only Way To Save Apple"A version of NT that's customized to make sense to a Mac user would be very welcome. I've tried and tried to make NT look and work and act like a Mac. I put the icons down the left edge of the screen. I want my Cmd-key! I want selection to act like a Mac. There are so many braincell burners going from Mac to NT. I curse that Apple lawsuit that made Microsoft deviate from the look and feel of the Mac. Apple used their users! What a trip.
Another interesting idea would be to make it so that AppleScript and Frontier could drive DCOM-based apps over the LAN. It's really nice the way Microsoft made NT be an Appleshare-compatible file server. It would be nice if Macs could return the favor. It would help us cross-platform users better leverage the things that Macs do better than NT machines.
I've said what you've said several times in the past. I think no one is served by the faceoff. The people who flame people religiously over platform preferences have the loudest and most offensive voices. Computers are not a political statement, they are tools and instruments, like a hammer or a violin. What gets created with them is what's important. Too much attention is focused on the tool, not enough on the users and their creativity.
The Mac doesn't have the high ground now, if they ever did. Apple is a mess, and people who use Macs pay the price. Everyone is always focused on how the Apple management nightmare has effected the people who work there. No one seems to care about the peo ple who use their products.
Dave, in response to your ideas championed by Jesse Berst in his web column today, "The Only Way To Save Apple"...
From: llovhaug@mpr.org (Loren Lovhaug);
Sent at 7/11/97; 11:00:03 AM;
Re:"The Only Way To Save Apple"I think part of the problem is that Apple and indeed the Mac faithful need to re-adjust the way they view reality. Apple has very effectively used the counter-culture theme to market the Macintosh as the "alternative" platform for years, first as an alternative to IBM and then later as an alternative to Microsoft. Part of the problem with the approach however is that it pretty much casts you into "second place" status. However, I don't think you can ever be successful playing for "second place", especially when you are playing in what is effectively a two player game.
The key to Apple's survival is to steal a page from the Microsoft playbook, and to use the same "embrace and extend" tactics that Microsoft has so masterfully done with everything from GUIs, database technologies (both desktop and server), as well as the web and Java.
Microsoft does not need to be the enemy. Microsoft is only the enemy if you choose to make it the foe as either a marketing strategy or because of a religious conviction. It is fun to have "passion" about the Mac or Apple, but that passion should not blind you to the fact that 90% or more of the microcomputers in use today are running a Microsoft operating environment. Leveraging that fact rather than fighting against it is the key to Apple's survival.
I believe Apple should enter into a partnership with Microsoft to extend Windows NT for Apple's customers and Apple's needs. Specifically I would advocate Apple acquiring primary responsibility for the now discontinued PowerPC version of Windows NT. Apple then could work to put an improved Macintosh face (a finder like shell plus other extensions) on NT while maintaining compatibility with existing and future NT applications. Microsoft would benefit from additional leverage against Intel (just like Digital provides with the Alpha version of NT). Likewise such an effort could be useful for Microsoft against the Sun/Oracle net computer UNIX crowd. Apple would then focus on providing a higher degree of integration, elegance, and performance to their in-house PowerPC based hardware in concert with the Apple NT extensions so that Apple boxes can be the higher end, value-added way to run NT. This might even allow Apple to get back the margins they used to enjoy with the Mac in the late 1980s.
Such an effort would also help ISV's in that they would only have to target only the Win32 API for low level functions, but could do special things with the Apple NT Extensions.