I morphed into Intel for the pedestrian reasons - cheap hardware and it was a ripoff of CP/M and, I already knew pip B:=A:*.*/V, from Osborne and Otrona days. .BATs could be kewlish - also single-line switches in PKZIP - which could back up an entire HD! and did. Even a couple assy tricks with attribs - made powerful Find utilities..

I've remained mostly ignorant of details of the succeeding Mac OSs, though I've read recently re OS-X and occasionally noted comments on the progress of various upgrades. I also watched Next, the arrogance of floppylessness yada yada.

As a semi-knowledgeable techno type, I get asked stuff re "what should I buy?", too. Like *everyone* here. I've usually tried to keep to the topic at hand, query the obvious: WTF do ya wanna Do with this thing? - avoiding the obvious ABM rants - given the fact of monopoly and the rather limited techno interests of most wannabe 'users'.

Now however, with the prospect of Windoze 9.x being killed as quickly as the assassins can be paid, replaced with the latest locked-down, call-home when you need to replace the BIOS battery -- XP and whatever it morphs into:

Maybe I should just be pointing folks directly at Macs ? (I don't want to support more than a chosen few, in any case!)

(Yes, I know about Steve - saw a 128K-Mac before intro and immediately bought stock. Noted all along the arrogance, the missed opportunities / the greed / the over-priced hdwre and the screwing of its dealers since day ~ 10, especially re clones.. where they screwed Everyone. Etc.) I also noted.. generally much more stable performance, especially for the techno-illiterate. There seem advantages to making the cash-cow the hardware and not - the 'upgrade', new bugs for old, for this quarter.

I flee from the idea of learning as much about Mac OS as I have absorbed about Intel (let alone Big- Little- endianism and other esoterica). But in self defense too, should the DOJ be finally outflanked by Repo Big-$ forces:

I may soon have to abandon all variants of Billy n'Ballys'
Evil ongoing plots. Maybe I Could start from square One. Again. Or am I too late to this party?

So ~~ does any of the lore translate well? or would I need to lore/dev/null and start from, "what's a logical disk-drive. Now." ??

(Linux is NOT ready for newbies, any time soon that I can see - from the actual exchanges on myriad details - right chere in Iowa City. Servers. Not newbies, less'n they be kin and you see 'em a lot.) But it's likely to be my next home, even as my unused distros age..

Thanks for any angles,


Ashton Illiterate

next inquiry I get. That kind of service is quite a lot - by any comparison!

It also reminds how (many of us?) got sucked in by the creeping gradualism of accumulating lore.. more and more evidence of inherent crappiness but: you remember All that Stuff. Start over ?!?

All I know for certain is - there will be no NT, W2K, XP in my future; even on tech. grounds, let alone the association with such a scam. When 9.x is sufficiently assassinated by plan - I will have to choose! for myself too.

Thanks to Andy's Aaxnet - I can send folk to see some of the considerations before.. I tell 'em what I think about Billyware. (spread the disillusionment, I say)

Hmmm - even though I'm ept enough to have a choice of *nix and Apple - with OSX next: I'd still have a similar option of both - as with (just) Intel hdwre now.

Now as to that soft glow from the translucent logo on the notebooks.. why that's.. plumb seductive!


Who says logical decisions are best? Not I. :-\ufffd


A.