🚀 go-pugleaf

"dkar" <dk...@swbell.net> wrote:

> Now I'm really pissed off.   Here I've been comparing Win95 to VHS, and
> your telling me I've had it all wrong.

> OK, Win95 is like falling into an open pool of sewage.   SO THERE!

I have always thought the VHS/Beta analogy rather poor. Since they
came out about the same time as DOS there has been no great need to
improve them because the quality of TV receivers hasn't improved much
in that time. If we had high definition telly then I suspect a new
video standard would emerge. In the computer field there hasn't been a
stable standard like VHS in OSs, there have been umpteen versions of
OSs to the point where I doubt many people using Windows 95 need to be
really dependent on running DOS programs anymore. So if a complete
rethink had taken place rather like when Acorn brought the Arc out, we
would simply have stepped up several levels with a little
inconvenience while new software was developed. In fact it would have
been good for all software producers except the really big boys and M$
in particular because there would have been more scope for more
products and a wider variety of sales instead of channelling all into
1 or 2 companies. There could have been some agreed data standards
such as JPEG for bit maps, EPS for vectors and even something for DTP
and multimedia which would have meant that data was interchangeable
across platforms and OSs. The internet manages this reasonably
successfully so why not? Ok there would not be perfection but the real
questionis would it have been better? There would have at least been
true competition between software writers.

--
Ian