Comment Huge piles of crap (Score 1) 272
Ohh.. this'll be a bit longish. I may be ranting.
What I think most people don't realize is that PCs have transformed into a home appliance from the custom made tool built for a few. Yeah, now they're just like your common toaster, and people are not keen on buying 3000-slices-of-bread-simultaneously type industrial toasters. Not even the household toasters that survive, say, 40 hours of continued toasting, not even the ones that have extra controls aside the standard dial-and-lever.
_And that's just fine._ Only a toastery (if any such word exists) would reasonably want the industrial toaster. But what with the others?
Well, similarly, not everyone wants toasters to have toast hue control dials and auto humidity adjustment circuits built in. They don't want it because they don't need it, or they don't _know_ they need it. They may very well be unaware of their existence.
Now, to substitute 'computer' for 'toaster':
This is the reason, why piles of crap like ATA{33|66|100|133}, IDE, PCI, AGP, USB(2.0), x86, DDR, BurnFREE, you name the next one, exist. The majority of the market has no need for decent, let alone industrial quality.
Where I live, in Hungary, as of December 13 2k2, I know of _2_ hardware vendors, who have SCSI CD-RWs in stock. That's still fine, few people can afford and few people need them. But I'd hate to see them totally phased out, because I believe in them being a better solution.
But that's still just the industrial vs. home toaster question. Let's change 'dials' to 'software':
Personally, I don't blame major OSes. They have their market share, many people worked on them, putting in a lot of effort. All their design decisions, however, are geared towards greater profit and all their marketing strategies convey is that you don't need control, you need integration with _their_ control. How true: if you don't want the things they can't offer, you're satisfied. Hint: "Please wait while the *nstallSh*eld W*zard initializes to _guide you through the rest of the setup process_" or anything similar...
As I see it, as long as alternatives exist, there is not much to worry about. BeOS, MorphOS, AmigaOS, Linux and the likes show that there are still people who think they want more of a computer, even if countless others - who fail to recognize the window close button in any environment other than Windows - live happily with their box.
My personal view is that there are no 'minority' OSes, just 'segment' OSes, with each taking its rightful place. Oh, I do have my preference, but that is quite irrelevant here.
I believe in computers being a healthy 50/50 mix of hardware and software. I have yet to see the computer which satisfies my needs, or at least which allows me to satisfy my needs, and I want to try anything that comes by, so I am overly happy when I see anything new to me. The real 'nerd/geek factor' is, IMHO, the drive for something better without a tradeoff or pitfall.
If you realise something's amiss or are just plain unsatisfied, you're halfway to understanding this.
I'm not pessimistic neither optimistic about Pegasos/MorphOS. I will try it and make a decision when I have the chance and I recommend everyone to do so. It will do good to me and to the project, too. Be open!
--
An extremely funny signature is left an exercise to the reader.
What I think most people don't realize is that PCs have transformed into a home appliance from the custom made tool built for a few. Yeah, now they're just like your common toaster, and people are not keen on buying 3000-slices-of-bread-simultaneously type industrial toasters. Not even the household toasters that survive, say, 40 hours of continued toasting, not even the ones that have extra controls aside the standard dial-and-lever.
_And that's just fine._ Only a toastery (if any such word exists) would reasonably want the industrial toaster. But what with the others?
Well, similarly, not everyone wants toasters to have toast hue control dials and auto humidity adjustment circuits built in. They don't want it because they don't need it, or they don't _know_ they need it. They may very well be unaware of their existence.
Now, to substitute 'computer' for 'toaster':
This is the reason, why piles of crap like ATA{33|66|100|133}, IDE, PCI, AGP, USB(2.0), x86, DDR, BurnFREE, you name the next one, exist. The majority of the market has no need for decent, let alone industrial quality.
Where I live, in Hungary, as of December 13 2k2, I know of _2_ hardware vendors, who have SCSI CD-RWs in stock. That's still fine, few people can afford and few people need them. But I'd hate to see them totally phased out, because I believe in them being a better solution.
But that's still just the industrial vs. home toaster question. Let's change 'dials' to 'software':
Personally, I don't blame major OSes. They have their market share, many people worked on them, putting in a lot of effort. All their design decisions, however, are geared towards greater profit and all their marketing strategies convey is that you don't need control, you need integration with _their_ control. How true: if you don't want the things they can't offer, you're satisfied. Hint: "Please wait while the *nstallSh*eld W*zard initializes to _guide you through the rest of the setup process_" or anything similar...
As I see it, as long as alternatives exist, there is not much to worry about. BeOS, MorphOS, AmigaOS, Linux and the likes show that there are still people who think they want more of a computer, even if countless others - who fail to recognize the window close button in any environment other than Windows - live happily with their box.
My personal view is that there are no 'minority' OSes, just 'segment' OSes, with each taking its rightful place. Oh, I do have my preference, but that is quite irrelevant here.
I believe in computers being a healthy 50/50 mix of hardware and software. I have yet to see the computer which satisfies my needs, or at least which allows me to satisfy my needs, and I want to try anything that comes by, so I am overly happy when I see anything new to me. The real 'nerd/geek factor' is, IMHO, the drive for something better without a tradeoff or pitfall.
If you realise something's amiss or are just plain unsatisfied, you're halfway to understanding this.
I'm not pessimistic neither optimistic about Pegasos/MorphOS. I will try it and make a decision when I have the chance and I recommend everyone to do so. It will do good to me and to the project, too. Be open!
--
An extremely funny signature is left an exercise to the reader.
