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[Bruce Barnett]

Word Perfect was THAT much? And MicroSoft wrote it?

[Robert Bonomi]

Word Perfect existed *BEFORE* the IBM PC existed. Several _years_ in fact.

I used version 1.08(!!) on Data General mini-computers in (I think) 1979. DG "Eclipse" machines was it's "native" environment. It was then "ported" to the 8088 architecture.

And we won't even mention the _many_ CP/M word-processors -- e.g. Wordstar, volkswriter, etc. Although, admittedly, most of those _were_ a PITA to use, due to having _only_ a QWERTY keyboard, and no "function keys" or similar.

[Bruce Barnett]

Well, there was CP/M and DR-DOS.

Windows was layered on top of DS, and many people wanted to replace DOS with DR-DOS because of it's advanced features.

But Microsoft illegally put hooks in their OS to detect Dr-DOS and refuse to work if found. So the company went bankrupt. And when Microsoft started making 90% profit, and abusing their monopolistic power (they WERE convicted, remember), it was hard for any competitor to catch up.

[Robert Bonomi]

You're not under the mistaken impression that Microsoft wrote the original DOS (PC-DOS, MS-DOS), are you? Hell, Gates _sold_ it to IBM, and *then* went out and bought the rights from a company that "didn't know what they had". (Yup, that's the chronology, he sold IBM something that he did _not_ own the rights to; admittedly, he did "have reason to believe" he _could_ buy those rights for a relative pittance. M$ has _always_ been 'marketing driven', not a 'technology' company. And it _shows_ in their product line.)

Several better ones exist (now, _and_ then). OS/9, and QNX, just to name a couple. Heck, MP/M 86 had features _years_ before M$ "invented" them.

The _only_ reason that MS "succeeded" was that Gates sold a product (that he didn't *at*that*time* have the rights to) to IBM. And IBM's entry into the 'personal computer' market "legitimized" it in the eyes of business purchasers. The "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" mentality at work.

Alpha-Micro had better hardware, *and* better software. So did Tandy(!!) Who's machines (like the 'Tandy 2000') were *far* superior to IBM's competing offerings (and which they got to market _before_ the IBM products) -- industry joke was that the "AT" in the "IBM PC/AT" stood for "Another Tandy". Unfortunately, while Tandy's "x86" machines were 'MS-DOS' compatible, the Tandy machines were not 'hardware compatible' "clones". Software that 'played on the bare hardware' (rather than using the O/S services, or even BIOS calls), didn't work on the Tandy machines.

Software writers did that _because_ the O/S services (provided by Microsoft), and the BIOS code (as done by IBM) were *SO*BAD* that circumventing them was

-necessary- to get decent performance from the hardware. Tandy used _better_, more capable, hardware in their 'business'-class machines, and with "better" BIOS code, got _very_acceptable_ performance through those 'portable' interfaces, w/o programmers having to play on the bare hardware.

[Swingman]

Nope, this was a few years before the IBM PC. The word processor itself was dedicated and called the "IBM DisplayWriter". It was about the only word processor, other than the Wang, available for mid-size company level word processing toward the late 70's, still very much the heyday of the IBM Selectric typewriter.

Secretaries had to go to school on it, and software updates and _mandatory_ maintenance agreements brought the initial, _upfront_ price to over $18,000 with all the bells and whistles ... I remember vividly because t'was I who wrote the check.

IBM had a stranglehold on the market that made the MSFT of today look benign by comparison. Basically, if you're too young to have spent years banging on a typewriter in college, or as part of your job, you're arguably missing a big part of the perspective necessary to make the comparison between the companies, leading to that all too familiar propensity to bash, mainly from those who got into the game after 1981, when the PC was introduced.

[WD]

Have you use Concurrent DOS, Multitasking and Multiuser DOS also by DR-DOS in the eighties?

[Bruce Barnett]

I'm not arguing that $18,000 word software packages existed. But you said that MSFT caused software to be cheap. Word Perfect was first sold in 1979, and it wasn't a Micro$oft product.

Do you still claim that MSFT was the reason for cheap software? I believe that prices would have dropped anyway. $18,000 software on a $3000 computer with millions of potential buyers? THAT's a business plan destined to die!

[Swingman]

Do you know what the word "dedicated" meant in the computer business at that place and time?

If, as it appear, you are reading what you wanted to hear (or argue about) into what was actually said, don't bother wasting your time trying to get a rise when it comes to OS bashing.

[Duane Bozarth]

...

They were not "word software packages"--see

Would have been if it had been true...at that time it was more expensive to produce the hardware than you're imagining plus there was the need to amortize development costs over a relatively small market. There were millions of potential buyers at the cost even though it was a significant drop from the dedicated hardware systems that preceded the DisplayWriter.

I can't recall precisely the trade name(s) for the earlier IBM systems that preceded the DisplayWriter, but we had two where I worked in the late 70s as we had a DOE "Q" clearance and they were the only system qualified by DOE as secure (w/o building a completely enclosed facility which was totally impractical). They rest of the company was using VAXen w/ a expensive word-processing software package. That was something like $500k for the VAX and I don't recall for the software but it made $18k look like chump-change. Those IBM systems were far more expensive than the DisplayWriter, but well worth the price considering the alternative was an IBM Selectric or equivalent. A search of the IBM archive site didn't locate one of them although I'm sure a more general search would uncover some history buff who's got all the data on them. But the cost reduction from the previous systems plus smaller form factor made them attractive. But, we couldn't use them as they didn't pass the DOE "Q" requirements for emanations.

As Swingman says, persepective (or lack thereof) is everything in evaluating what was/wasn't value...

Sidelight-- Our office was directly across the street from DOE regional headquarters and one of demonstrations they would provide outside contractor security officers was a demonstration of eavesdropping. They would bring us in to a conference room and put a display screen up on the wall and have a typist in a remote location (on occasion actually our office) type a letter. The characters would pop up on the screen as she typed w/ about a 80-90% accuracy rate, plucked out of the ether by their listening devices as the were displayed on her CRT. Various agents were picked up over the years outside the DOE facilities w/ foreign versions of similar equipment (which were not as capable, but certainly capable enough to be able to get the gist of what was being typed).

[Duane Bozarth]

There was also a PC VMS "work-alike"...multi-user/multi-tasking...

[Pat Barber]

Ahhhhh the good old days... The Displaywriter took over from the "Mag Card Composer", which was a IBM Selectric with mag storage and other fancy features... It went for well over 10K as I recall.

Sw>

[Duane Bozarth]

There were a whole series of other standalone systems between there as well that were processor-based. They went in the $20k range or thereabouts depending on printer options, etc.

[Dave Hinz]

There's this thing called "open source software" which is exactly that - better OS and programs than MS makes. It's done by people like me, who know that it _can_ be done better, and we're doing it.

So, we're not just laughing and complaining, we're doing something about it. Give firefox a try to get an idea of the sort of products it produces.

[John McCoy]

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in news:xQbQd.7535$ [e-mail]:

Well, since we neither know who the original author was, nor what your definition of "better" is, that's a hard question to answer.

For some values of "better", tho, Windows doesn't come out looking too good. Most any programmer will point to any of the Unixy OS's, especially Linux, and say they're better than Windows, for stability and freedom from security issues (but they are in general harder to learn to use, altho newish products like Knoppix are making life on that side a lot easier). Many other people will suggest the Mac OS and GUI are much easier to use, as well as being more stylish (tho the older Mac OS had most of the same stability & security issues as Windows, in part because Window's design paradigm was "make it like the Mac).

John

[Bruce Barnett]

Okay. I know about the Wang, and other systems out there. I also used >Yep ... seen that, can't disagree for the most part ... except that, thanks

1) The cost of computers were dropping thanks to IBM ($3000 instead of $20000) 2) The number of users was increasing (millions instead of thousands) 3) Word processing was becoming cheaper (Word Star came out in 1977, Word Perfect came it in 1979) 4) Visicalc came out in 1979

How can you claim that "thanks to Microsoft" you don't have to pay $18,000 for word processing?

It was happening anyway, and the technology was NOT developed by Microsoft, but by others. Microsoft didn't even develop MS-DOS. They bought it. If Microsoft never existed, we would still have cheap software.

[Doug Miller]

Probably _better_ software, too...

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

[George]

But would we have a standardized operating system to run it?

[Doug Miller]

Since when has MickeySoft ever cared about standards?

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

[George]

When you set 'em, rather than follow 'em, it makes a difference.

I suffered, as all we old farts did, through hardware and software incompatibilities for a long time. The devil you know....

[Swingman]

When is the last time you had a problem finding a hardware driver that actually worked, and who do you think drove the "standards" so that it is no longer the monumental struggle it once was to get a peripheral to work with different hardware and OS's?

How soon we forget ...