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WindoWatch (c.1994) We Do Windows!
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Design by Fernado Madruga of Cainbra, Portugal
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EDITORIAL
Editor Lois B. Laulicht
Contributing Editor-at-large Herb Chong
Contributing Writers Derek Buchler, Ambrose Campbell,Gregg
Hommel, Paul Kinnaly, Jerry Laulicht,
Angela Lillystone, Peter Neuendorffer,
Joe Rotello, Ben Schorr,Paul Williamson.
EDITORIAL BOARD Herb Chong, Gregg Hommel, Lois Laulicht,
Paul Williamson.
SUBMISSIONS Email using Internet lois.laulicht@channel1.com
or
WindoWatch@ins.infonet.net
or
To: Editor WindoWatch
Valley Head, WV 26294
Submissions remain the intellectual property of the author. Manuscripts will
NOT be returned if not used.
Electronic Access FTP>ftp.channel1.com
WindoWatch is found on Channel One in several
formats by calling 617-354-3230 (9600 and
14.400).We publish in a Windows compatible
format and soon in HTML formats. The DOS format
uses ReadRoom (*.TOC) The Readroom format runs
flawlessly under Windows for those with
limited disk space and is a very much smaller
file than the Windows format One can also
read online from the Reader Room itself -
Door 48. Non-members of Channel One can
download the latest WindoWatch issue by typing
J Free from the main board prompt
Beginning January 1, 1995, annual shareware subscriptions at $10 per year for
electronic delivery of asciee issue; sponsorship and/or contributions at
various levels.
Comments, letters, and requests can be sent to us at various locations.
Postlink to Lois Laulicht ->15 tagging the message "receiver only" and on
the Internet at Internet:lois.laulicht@channel1.com
WindoWatch (c) 1994 all rights reserved, is the property of Lois B. Laulicht
and CCC of WV
A Note about the Windows formats for the Premiere Issue
This Premiere edition of WindoWatch is being published using ACROBAT the Adobe Systems authoring tool. Because
of the many entrants into the world of on-line publishing, we decided
to give them all a good solid sampling. As we go to press the WordPerfect
Corp. is announcing at Comdex that they will make their viewer freely
available using the many electronic services for distribution. Adobe
Systems in the last month did exactly that. The choices are growing at a
very rapid rate and include even more features than those we talked about
in this same space in the Preview Issue of WindoWatch. In addition, we
should mention our late editorial decision to publish this Premiere edition
using ENVOY, too. It seemed to us that given the newness of the Acrobat
viewer we felt it necessary to release in a stand alone Windows format.
Traditional on line publications for Windows platforms have been limited to
the Windows help engine. Recently, the Windows help tool has been enhanced
by a variety of add-ons including Help Magic, RoboHelp, and Doc2Help which
are on our list for evaluation. Other authoring packages will include Common
Ground by NoHands Software, WorldView 2 byInterleaf Inc., the Quarterdeck
HTML authoring tool Normandy and still other new and emerging contenders
like Middleware by netApp Systems.
All of the product managers have heard the same words of caution about
file size either for distribution of separate articles to be read by a
viewer like the Acrobat reader...Acroread.Exe or stand alone compiled issues
like the Envoy authored Preview Issue of WindoWatch. Envoy was a v.1 which
has been replaced by their v.2 iteration. We are presently using Acrobat v.2
and have been told that it is far superior to their first. Paul Kinnaly's
evaluation and review of v.1 Envoy appears in this issue. Jim Plumb will do
the same for Acrobat v.2. At another time, several of the editorial staff
will look at all the tools and describe their strengths and weaknesses.
We hope you find these articles useful and welcome your criticisms. We
promise to forward "bug reports" to the developer in question. These tools
will become even more sophisticated as more features are added and other
venders come into this market. We must wonder aloud if conversion tools
from one format to another will become one of the "new" features! I
certainly hope so. lbl
...........................................................................
WindoWatch The Electronic Windows Magazine of the InterNet
The Premiere Issue DECEMBER 1994
WWP-1 The WindoWatch Staff
WWP-2 Where You Can Find Us and the Various Formats
WWP-2B From the Editor's Desk LOIS B. LAULICHT
WWP-3 Is Software Bloat Here to Stay? HERB CHONG
WWP-3B Is There a Santa Claus? DEREK BUCHLER
WWP-3C The Future of DOS PAUL WILLIAMSON
WWP-3D The Authoring Tools: An Envoy Review PAUL KINNALY
WWP-3E ASPECT: A Scripting Language GREGG HOMMEL
WWP-3F Alice Travels: Washington PETER NEUENDORFFER
WWP-3G Alice Travels: Mudville PETER NEUENDORFFER
WWP-3H Alice Travels: Paris PETER NEUENDORFFER
WWP-3I New Approaches to Computer Assisted Training JERRY LAULICHT
WWP-3J Polling The Web LEN BAYLES
WWP-3K An Old Friend Revisited: Quicken v.4 for Win LOIS B. LAULICHT
WWP-3L The Last Word: BEN M. SCHORR
WWP-3M NEXT ISSUE
WWP-3N The OS Wars:
It's Barefisted Mayhem! The OS Wars
Stephen Manes in his recent New York Times review of the newest IBM
OS/2 offering was not very charitable in his assessment of WARP. One
got the sense that the man was really offended by a piece of software
sent out for evaluation and review that crippled his config.sys and
rejected standard "off the shelf" hardware. All of the earlier OS/2
ills Manes replayed like a flashback from a very bad film. As a
matter of record, the planned release date of Warp was pushed back
to early November to recall and repair the damage. Almost no comment
from Big Blue. A number of weeks later OS/2 users were still standing
on one foot...waiting for the final.
I asked around to get a sense of early WARP experiences and was quite
astounded by what I learned. The non-OS/2 users said they had fits
with slow installs, groaning hardware and system failures while the
regular OS/2 users said they had few problems installing and then
using WARP. Is it possible that non-OS/2 users were missing crucial
operating system requirements which caused this havoc while
experienced OS/2 users understood the nuances and therefore had
success? Or perhaps we are discussing operating system partisanship
of an extreme where everyone is lying.
The contrasts between public success and failure cannot be ignored
amid this rotten egg tossing. One assumes that all the diddling with
IBM's Windows specific OS/2 add-on, coupled with corporate
statements of easy use, speaks to the economic reality of attracting
Windows users prior to the competing 32 bit WINDOW95 release sometime
next year. Charges of lies, libel and other low life behavior, while
very funny and at times outrageous, are really an incredible phenomena.
We had to share some of the debate resulting from the WARP offering
while lurking in the darker corners of the net. We requested permission
to reprint expecting silence...which is what we got. It's too good to
bury on a Sysop's hard drive which is why we throw caution and prudence
to the Gods!
As an aside there are two issues this donnybrook has put to rest. The
first is that the silent horde of users will take it all in and
ultimately draw their own conclusions using other criteria. The second
is that off-line readers do not necessarily help temper the words of
users determined to continue the operating system wars. The various
last entry on the TOC should really give you a case of the giggles! LBL
ESSAYS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Software Bloat - Is it Here to Stay? (c) 1994 by Herb Chong
Have you ever wondered how all that space on your hard disk is used? Doesn't
it seem like yesterday that a 10M hard disk, or any hard disk at all, was an
incredible amount of storage that would take a long time to use up? I went
through my old Byte magazines to research this article and tallied up the
hard disk sizes in some of the systems reviewed and previewed. Combining
that with some data published in PC Week and a little black magic, I ended
up with this chart. It purports to show the average hard disk size shipped
with the "average" system today. The 1994 figure is PC Week's estimate for
the end of 1994. Extraordinary -- isn't it?
If you take the numbers and do a little arithmetic, as I did, you will find
that the average disk size almost doubled each year from 1986 to about 1990,
and then more than doubling since then. I don't think it is any coincidence
that Microsoft Windows 3.0 hit the market place in May of that year. People
have more applications on their systems if they are Windows users than if
they are DOS users and those applications are bigger. Windows applications
tend to come with more features and are just generally bigger than their DOS
counterparts.
Is there an end in sight to this rapid growth? To answer this question, we
need to look at some of the reasons for the rapid software size growth these
past several years, what causes lie behind those reasons, and finally, what
assumptions they create about how people use their systems.
More - Cheaper - Faster -, and Sooner!
Take a look at the Windows applications on your computer. Have you upgraded
any of them since you got your first version? What has changed from version
to version? Each upgrade promises that you simply cannot do without the new
features that the older version doesn't do.The packages are getting skinnier,
especially if you get the CD-ROM version. They seem to come out at an ever
increasing rate on ever increasingly tight delivery schedules. It's a trend
that started in the `80s and is continuing. Let's look at these and other
factors and how they influence software size.
Staying Even with the Competition
It seems that the only real justification for an upgrade is to get new
features that you want. Marketing's job is to convince you that you really
need these features. Otherwise, they are not going to make any more money
from you. A software vendor in the PC world doesn't sell you a subscription
yet....they make a one-time transaction. To stay in business, a software
vendor must continue to sell to new customers. What better way to get new
customers than to convert all your old customers to new ones by obsoleting
everything they own? If they're going to make people pay for their software,
they have to convince people that they need something they don't already
have.
Just in case you have any doubt, the marketing department spends a lot of
time and money convincing you why the latest features are ones you really
need to have and what new things you are going to be able to do with their
new version that you can't do with the old. There is no doubt in my mind
that all new features are useful. The real questions are how useful they are
and to how many people? As the software market and consumer sophistication
mature, it's harder and harder to find genuinely useful features for a large
portion of the users.
Nonetheless, if you decide that one or two features are sufficiently useful
to you to upgrade, you'll upgrade to get them. When you do, you get all the
features you don't need as well. The programmers spent time writing and
debugging the code,and the code ends up on the installation disks and your
hard disk. You pay for them all. The software vendors and the programmers
will argue that the cost of adding all these features isn't a lot more than
adding some of them, and this will allow them to satisfy more people than
they would otherwise be able to. No doubt this is true, but there is a fine
line between adding a feature simply for the sake of adding a feature and
adding a feature because many users can't do without it.
Let's use Word for Windows as an example. I use Word for Windows the most
of all the applications on my desktop. One of the handiest features to come
along in Version 6 is the AutoCorrect feature. If I forget to hold down the
shift key when I begin a sentence, it capitalizes it for me when I press the
space bar. If I forget to hold down the shift key in the middle of the
sentence when I press the "i" key, and then space, it upper cases it for me.
If I hold down the shift key too long and the first two letters of a word
are capitalized, it lower cases the second letter. It remembers that I type
"don;t" frequently when I really mean "don't" and fixes the mistake.
Autocorrect is a really useful feature because I'm a self-taught touch
typist and I have picked up some bad habits.
Again using Word as an example, I have yet to find someone who prefers to
move text by using drag-and-drop instead of cut and paste, either via the
keyboard, toolbar or menus. It's harder to position the cursor for an exact
paste and so people frequently drop the text in the wrong place. I know that
it took someone a some nontrivial amount of time to get it working...and it
does what it is supposed to do. How many people really benefit from it? Not
nearly as many as Microsoft hoped when they introduced Word for Windows
Version 2.0 and highlighted this as one of the most significant new features.
There's the competition too. After Lotus introduced SmartIcons into its Ami
Pro word processor and received favorable press, Microsoft and WordPerfect
had to follow suit, whether or not it fit into their style of working. As
soon as one of the big three word processors introduces a new feature into
their program, it becomes a point of comparison between the programs. Adding
features becomes a game of marketing and programming one-upmanship to come
up with new features for these programs. The features themselves makes the
competition play catch-up and allows the program to reach out to yet more of
the users who might otherwise choose something different. Every extra line
on the features comparison chart cost you more money and disk space, whether
you use it or not.
RTFM (Read The Fine Manual)
Have you noticed that manuals are getting thinner and thinner? I have. As I
upgrade my one hundred or so Windows applications on my main computer, I
manage to find more and more shelf space to put the third party books I have
to keep on buying to understand something that isn't in the manual anymore.
That shelf space comes from the new version's manuals occupying less space
than the ones the old version occupied. I somehow manage to net out at about
the same amount of space as I used to.
The information that used to be in the manual has to go somewhere. If you
are willing to live with slow access times and keeping the right CD-ROM in
your drive at all times (I'll ignore those of you with jukeboxes), you need
any extra disk space for the on-line versions of the manual. If you don't
want to do this or don't have a CD-ROM drive, you have to put the manuals
onto the hard disk. Yes, it's nice to be able to look up things from wherever
you are, but how many of you actually prefer the on-line manuals to the
paper ones? There are too many things that just aren't easily suited to
on-line use. This includes tutorials and detailed reference information.
I ordered an upgrade from Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0 to 1.5 recently. It only
comes on CD-ROM media and doesn't come with manuals. You need to pay $100
for the manual set. This is a continuing trend in Windows software
distribution. Hardcopy manuals have been shrinking and shrinking. The
information formerly in hardcopy is being shifted to on-line documentation
because it's cheaper for the vendor. In this day and age of increasing
competition and ever diminishing profit margins, trading a $30 manual for a
few $1 diskettes is something that can't be ignored. Reducing the cost of
the software is somewhat offset by the extra disk space for the floppy
disks and the space taken up on the hard disk.
Guess who has to pay for the exchange of disk space for manuals? Marketing
has always managed to sell or at least confuse the issue by concentrating on
the great things you can do with on-line help like hypertext and searching,
that you can't do with a hardcopy manual. Frankly, the Windows Help Engine
isn't anything to brag about. I can do a few things with the on-line help
that I can't do with the manual. There are also, a lot of things I can't do,
like reading it without turning on the computer, or having to use low
resolution text and graphics instead of phototypeset output, or being able
to mark it up with notes and little drawings. On-line help is great when I
can't carry the manuals with me, but when I'm in my office surrounded by my
bookshelves, on-line help is annoying if it's all I have. I rely on the
Visual Basic On-line Help because the manual is too thin to be helpful. It
keeps referring me to the on-line help for the real answers and I get to
pay for this privilege.
I Want It Yesterday !
The average Windows program is much more complicated than the average DOS
program trying to do the same thing. The event driven model of application
interaction places a heavy burden on the application programmer to take
care of all sorts of details about making their application run. A few years
ago, object-oriented class libraries and C++ became the next great thing in
Windows programming. Some people went to a lot of trouble packaging up all
the details and providing defaults for everything so that unless you, the
programmer, wanted something different from the default, you didn't have to
write anything. The class library took care of everything. Programmer
productivity shot up. What used to take a year to design and write now took
a couple of months. Marketing folks went nuts. Now they could promise even
more to their customers and still have a good chance of delivering.
With such pressure from all sides, programmers really haven't got much
choice. They have to use development tools that let them get as much correct
function as possible with as little effort as possible. Everybody else is
using them. The tools, however, have a major drawback: they are profligate
in their use of memory and disk space. People used to complain that the
Windows equivalent of the famous "hello, world" program took up 20K of
memory, which in the DOS equivalent would occupy a measly 800 bytes. Yet a
program that takes up 10 times that much space barely rates a blink, because
that is what C++ class libraries like Microsoft Foundation Classes and
Object Windows Library impose on the programmers. Turn on debugging and then
you see disk and memory requirements grow by another factor of five.
It's all part of how the C++ language and the Intel object format are
defined. Whenever a programmer references a variable, it has to be included
as part of the program whether it is used or not. The compiler can't even
try to tell until you bring everything together at linking time whether
something might or might not be used. In the days of C programming, it
wasn't so bad because all the various variables a program could use were
split across many header files and a programmer could be selective about
which ones they used. That helped cut down on the number of referenced but
not used variables in a program. With C++, whenever you use a class library,
you have to include the entire class hierarchy every time. Doing otherwise
is extremely error prone and just plain inelegant. Declaring a variable of a
type in the leaf of the class hierarchy brings in everything above it right
up to the top, - all their member variables and all their member functions!
In the case of MFC and OWL, this can be a total of several hundred for every
variable a programmer declares in their program.
When a linker processes object files to produce an executable, it knows some
thing about which functions and external variables are used throughout. C
and C++, however, do not permit the linker to eliminate unused code. Partly
it is because of how C and C++ allow you to abuse the language and cause
references to such objects outside of the compiler's knowledge, and partly
because the Intel OBJ format doesn't store enough information for the linker
to unambiguously tell if a function is really unused or not.
There isn't much choice but to leave them in. Borland thought this was
enough of a problem to invent an extension to the OBJ format to allow the
linker to know for sure whether something was needed or not and eliminate
redundant code. So Borland Pascal for Windows programs using the same OWL
class library can come in at 2/3 to 1/2 of the size of C++ programs using
OWL. Do you see a stampede toward using Borland Pascal as the standard
Windows development tool? Most developers don't seem to care. Most can't
afford to care. Productivity is what they are measured on. Once again, you
pay extra for the programmer's productivity. Unfortunately, the programmer
doesn't benefit from what you pay.
It Works! What More Do You Want?
Imagine you are a new programmer on a project. The program you will be
working on has been around for about three years. Remember this is Windows
and C++, not COBOL. There have been four programmers before you who have
worked on the code. They are no longer working on it because they have been
promoted or moved on to other things. Your job is to take the list of
features the team leader has negotiated hard with the marketing folks about
and turned your part of that list into something that works. There's no
documentation, - one hundred thousands lines of code, - and no-one to ask!
Do you dare take out any code? After all, it works now, more or less. Much
safer to work in this bit here, work in that bit there, and generally change
something only after you are absolutely sure of how it works. During testing,
you find that sometimes garbage appears in your input. If you fiddle with
it a bit, the program doesn't crash, and things seem to keep on working. All
your predecessors except the original programmer probably did the same thing.
Any Windows program that has been around for more than a version or two is
going to become harder and harder to add features to. First of all, new the
features are more and more pervasive and more and more complex. They just
can't be hacked in an afternoon. Second, adding these features stretch the
original design more and more, frequently pushing it in directions that were
never intended or deliberately avoided. Programs more than a few versions
old quickly become frightful patchworks of elegance and ragged code right
next to each other. It becomes harder and harder to enhance.
Put another way, programmer productivity is not as high as it should be.
With today's deadlines for software delivery, especially in the Windows
software arena, delays in delivery are very unhealthy. The faster a company
can deliver new releases, the more money they make and the happier the share
holders are. It doesn't leave much room for tuning, redesign, and other such
things that refine the way a program works inside. If it's not visible to
the user, it's not a feature. Features sell. Taking that long pause to
re-architect for the future means no new releases for a while. No releases
means no income. Guess where management wants you to spend your time?
When Will It End?
Just how far can these trends continue? Remember reading about how cars were
made in the `50's? Each year, there seemed to be a different bump or lump
(some people called them fins) on a car. This year's lump was in and last
year's lump was out. It kind of came to an abrupt halt in the mid 60's.
People suddenly wised up. Cars weren't really all that different from year
to year. It was marketing of features that didn't really have much to do
with what people wanted in a car.
I think that we are in a situation with Windows software where there are so
many people new to software and using tools when they really don't know much
about computers yet. They are swayed by the advertising and press that new
versions of programs receive in review after review. When most people are
able take a serious, educated look at what they do and what they need in
software, I think that software sales are going to drop off.
Corporations are slower to adopt new version software because they spend
more time defining the real costs of software. They understand that the real
costs includes payment for upgrades they don't need, advertising to convince
them that they can't do without some feature or another, or that they will
be left behind by an implicit warning against obsolescence without some
wonderful upgrade or another. They know they will pay again because after
the upgrade, they won't have enough room for all the other software that
they need, or enough CPU to run that essential piece of software, and never
enough colors to bring those games truly to life.
When consumers get fed up with being led around by the nose by the major
software vendors, we'll see the rate of growth in computing power, RAM and
hard disk space slow. Until then, we're going to continue to make everyone
in the business richer.
HERB CHONG has been a contributing writer for Windows Sources, is a
Contributing writer for The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Windows; and is
the Contributing Editor of WindoWatch.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
And then there was Derek..........
Here is a piece that I posted on the Channel One main board last winter just
around Christmas time. It doesn't really have much to do with computers but
you might want to include it for the Holiday Season. Again, I'm not the
author ...* ho-ho-ho... but rather, I found this somewhere.......
Derek Buchler
A Christmas Carol:
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? (c) 1994 by Derek Buchler
As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help from
that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January 1990) - I am pleased
to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.
1) No known species of reindeer can fly.. but there are 300,000 species of
living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects
and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only
Santa has ever seen.
2) There are two billion children...persons under 18, in the world. BUT
since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist
children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million
according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of
3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's
at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different
time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west..
which seems logical! This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to
say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th
of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the
stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever
snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and
move on to the next house.
Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around
the earth-which, of course, we know to be false. For the purposes of our
calculations we will accept this and are now talking about .78 miles per
household or a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do
what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000
times the speed of sound! For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made
vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per
second -- a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming
that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set of 2 pounds,
the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably
described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more
than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could
pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even
nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even
counting the weight of the sleigh-to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison -
this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air
resistance -this will heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a
spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer
will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each! In short,
they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer
behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire
reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa,
meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater
than gravity. A 250-pound Santa, which seems ludicrously slim, would be
pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. In conclusion
- If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
DEREK BUCHLER is a former network adminstratorand presently functions as
part of computer management.
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The Future of DOS ( 1994 by Paul Williamson
What's in store for DOS users and developers in the coming year?
As the time approaches for the release of WINDOWS95 more and more people are
asking "What do you think is going to happen to DOS?". Some are very sure
that there will no longer be a DOS and that "DOS is dead". I just don't
believe that's the case!
It is my professional opinion that DOS will be with us for many years to come
...and not just as standalone computers shunted into the corners of major
businesses to be relegated as dumb 3270 terminals. There are a multitude of
DOS based systems running DOS based applications still in use today doing
real work reliably- all over the world.
In order to speculate on the future of DOS with any degree of ball park
accuracy, one needs to have an understanding and appreciation of the brief
history of the Microsoft's Disk Operating System or MS-DOS. Since the
introduction of version 1.0 in 1981, DOS has gone through more than 10 major
changes. Version 1.0 was originally designed for the IBM PC and only
supported single-sided diskettes. In 1983, version 2.0, the first major
revision, was released adding support for a hierarchical directory structure
and the implementation of fixed (hard) disks. 1984 brought versions 3.0,
3.1, 3.2 and the highly acclaimed version 3.3 to market, which added support
for the 1.2Mb diskettes, Microsoft networking support, 3.5 inch floppy drives
and disk partitioning.
It was at this point in time, that the business community was taking a very
serious look at the microcomputer to off-load some of the processing burden
from their mainframes. At least two major industries invested heavily in the
development of DOS based applications, betting on its future as well as their
own, the banking industry and the insurance industry. DOS 3.3 provided the
most stable platform available at the time and there are some who still
believe that. Many mainframe and minicomputer manufacturers also saw the
potential that the personal computer and DOS provided and started including
the PC as an integral part of their product.
The introduction and acceptance of DOS 3.3 became more evident as time went
by without further updates from Microsoft. Hardware manufacturers sprang up
in numerous garages and basements throughout the country. DOS 3.3 and the
Personal Computer became dominant during this period. It wasn't until late
in 1988, four years after the release of version 3.3, that Microsoft released
the next major version: MS-DOS 4.0. This was the first release to add support
for expanded memory and logical disks or partitions greater than 32 megabytes.
This was also the initial release of a graphical shell. Using this interface,
almost everything that had previously been accomplished from the command line,
could now be done by pointing and clicking with a mouse. No matter how many
good things were put into MS-DOS 4.x, there was so much bad with it, that
many users, and developers alike, were forced to retreat to DOS 3.3. But the
concept, the ideas, and the methodology brought to the market by DOS 4.x
dictated that this trend would have to be continued and it was!
Probably the most powerful version of DOS came in 1991, with the introduction
of MS-DOS 5.0. Now, users of the 80386 and 80486 processors, and even some
80286 machines, regained hundreds of kilobytes of conventional memory. The
memory management capabilities of DOS 5.0 enabled DOS itself to load in the
High Memory Area, which only exists because of a quirk in the way DOS uses
the Offset:Segment addressing scheme. DOS 5.0 also allowed TSR (Terminate
and Stay Resident) programs and device drivers to be loaded in to the Upper
Memory Area, which previously had been reserved for hardware devices and the
system BIOS shadowing. Additionally, DOS 5.0 included an upgraded shell which
allowed for task swapping, a full-screen editor replacing the archaic, but
functional, Edlin. BASIC was replaced with QBasic, which allowed for a full-
screen editor. DOS 5.0 soon became the "operating system of choice" for the
'90s.
The year before the release of MS-DOS 5.0, Microsoft introduced the most
exciting and revolutionary graphical interface environment: Windows 3.0.
Windows 3.0 took the computing public by storm. According to many, Windows
is one of the most significant software products to be developed for
microcomputers, if not the most significant. Even though developers and users
alike were entrenched in using DOS and DOS based applications, Windows
offered the end-user the control interface that had been missing since the
invention of the PC. Within a very short period of time, corporate America,
as well as most other developers, recognized the need to not only develop new
and exciting software for this environment, but also to port existing DOS
based applications into Windows. But, there already existed a large installed
base of applications that ran under DOS. Microsoft provided for this by
allowing Windows to create DOS virtual machines (VMs) so existing DOS
applications could still be used while maintaining the Windows graphical
interface, functionality and Windows applications.
A few evangelists started proclaiming that the future of DOS is limited and
that it will only be a matter of time before DOS is completely eliminated and
replaced by Windows. This may be true, but not in the foreseeable future.
Microsoft's implementation of Windows 3.0 was not without problems, however,
and a lot of those problems centered around handling DOS applications in the
DOS Virtual Machine (VM). Windows 3.1 has become even more popular because
of its major improvements over version 3.0.
These improvements do have their price though, in a more complicated
environment. No longer is the system configuration maintained in just the
CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. DOS applications and those who support
them, must also survive in the Windows environment.
Early in 1993, Microsoft announced their latest Disk Operating System - -
DOS 6.0. This version of DOS is very similar to DOS 5.0 simply because the
base functionality of DOS 6.x is built on DOS 5.0, but that's where the
similarity ends. DOS 6.0 became a full blown package of utilities and
applications. DOS 6.0 introduced better memory management, a utility called
MemMaker that is designed to take the guesswork out of establishing memory
management and optimization to get the best possible use of the HMA and UMA.
Many users, including this author, feel that the combination of MemMaker and
EMM386.EXE can do as good a job as other memory managers, except in the case
of stealth . The stealth ability to move ROM shadowing to extended memory
provides more UMBs for TSRs and other drivers. Microsoft's implementation
does not offer the stealth capability, but not everybody really needs it.
Given the price, one would be very hard pressed to surpass the Microsoft
memory manager on a cost -perfrmance basis.
The addition of a hard disk compression utility included with the operating
system was a unique concept, to say the least. Notwithstanding the excellence of the concept the original
implementation left a lot to be desired. Disregarding the recent court
battles and settlements, DblSpace and DrvSpace are ideal disk compression
utilities. Again, Microsoft provides the best bang for the buck although
not necessarily the most optimal when compared to other disk compression
providers.
Other additions that Microsoft has included in the latest release of DOS,
include a system information/diagnostic report generator called MSD
(MicroSoft Diagnostics). This tool is also included with releases of the
Windows software, which Microsoft also touts as being an Operating System.
(We will save discussion on what makes an operating system for a later date.)
Multiple configuration support coupled with the different start up options,
single-step and clean booting, and the CHOICE command, round out the top of
the list of improvements made in DOS 6 since DOS 5.
It must be noted that most of the changes, at least the major changes,
weren't made to the Operating System itself, but to the utilities and
support modules for users to better use the existing operating system. Does
this mean that DOS has reached the end of the line as far as core development
goes? More than 5 years ago, Microsoft designed a new operating system - DOS.
That operating system has flourished and matured and fulfilled the design
criteria. Some statistics show that 80% of the personal computers in use
today, sport the MS-DOS operating system. What more can be done? Inducing
from the plans released by Microsoft, Novell and IBM for the software to be
released within the next 6 to 12 months, it certainly doesn't appear that
much serious development will be done on DOS as we know it.
However, DOS isn't dead, and it won't die from lack of use either. There is
still a very large installed base of DOS applications out there to take into
consideration. Latest reports show that Novell may not make any more versions
of NW-DOS, formerly DR-DOS. Speculation has it that there just isn't any
more that Novell wants to do, so there isn't a need to do it. With the IBM
PC-DOS 6.x versions, very little has been done to the operating system itself,
with most changes being to the utilities. No new PC-DOS versions are on the
immediate horizon. The next "planned" version from Microsoft will probably be
MS-DOS 7.0 and won't be available until after WINDOWS 95 is released.
According to published information from Microsoft, WINDOWS 95 will fully
support the current implementation of the DOS and the DOS memory structure.
WINDOWS 95 allows for an improved DOS VM as well as being able to create a
stand-alone "real" DOS environment, which removes Windows completely.
"Support for MS-DOS based applications, device drivers, and TSRs does not go
away in Chicago. In fact, Chicago offers better compatibility for running
MS-DOS based applications than Windows 3.1 does, including applications that
are hardware-intensive, such as games." See Microsoft« Windows' "Chicago"
Reviewer's Guide
So what are these improvements? Let's say that DOS itself hasn't changed, as
we have seen from the past, but the environment in which DOS and DOS
applications run certainly has. According to Microsoft, the improvements in
WINDOWS 95 provide the following benefits from running DOS based applications
in the Windows environment:
Zero conventional memory footprint for protected-mode components
Improved compatibility
Improved robustness
Better support for running DOS based games in a window
Support for running existing DOS based applications without exiting
WINDOWS 95 or running MS-DOS externally
Consolidated attributes for customizing properties of DOS based
applications
Toolbar access to features and functionality to manipulate the window
environment while running DOS based applications
User scaleable window by the use of TrueType fonts in the DOS window
Ability to gracefully end DOS applications without exiting the
application
Ability to specify local VM environment settings on a per-application
basis
Support for new DOS commands, providing tighter integration between the
DOS command line and the Windows environment
Zero Conventional Footprint Components
WINDOWS 95 helps to provide the maximum amount of conventional memory
available for running existing DOS based applications by providing 32-bit
protected-mode components to replace many of the current 16-bit real-mode
counterparts. The most notable sets of components include Microsoft and
Novell network client software, CD-ROM drivers and extensions, Adaptec SCSI
driver ASPI4DOS, SmartDrive disk caching software and the Microsoft Mouse
driver. This can result in quite a remarkable memory saving that can be
over 225Kb!
Improved Compatibility
The goal of WINDOWS 95, ambitious as it may seem, is to support running DOS
based applications better than is currently done in Windows 3.1. Not only to
be able to run the existing "clean" applications that run flawlessly today,
but also to support running the "bad" applications that tried to take over
the hardware or required machine resources that aren't available under
Windows 3.1.
Many things are being done to provide for better support, including better
virtualization of system resources such as timers and sound device support
which is needed for today's interactive games and multimedia processing.
The use of 32-bit protected mode drivers which in turn freed up more
conventional memory, allows a class of memory-intensive applications to run
properly under WINDOWS 95.
To provide support for the most intrusive set of applications that only work
under a unique DOS configuration that requires 100% access to the system
components and resources, WINDOWS 95 can provide "Single MS-DOS application
mode." Entering this mode is like exiting Windows 3.1, then running the
specified application under DOS, and then returning to Windows. In this mode,
WINDOWS 95 removes itself from memory except for a small stub, and provides
the application with full access to all the resources of the computer.
Improved Support for Graphic-intensive Applications
Rather than forcing graphic applications to run in full-screen mode as
in Windows 3.1, DOS based applications that use VGA graphic video modes
will be able to run in a DOS window. However, for the best level of
performance, full-screen mode will still be the mode of choice.
Improved Memory Protection
WINDOWS 95 will employ a "global memory protection" attribute in the
Program Properties that will allow the DOS system area to be protected
from errant DOS based applications. When this attribute is set, the
DOS system area sections are read-protected so that applications can't
write into this memory area and corrupt the DOS based application,
support area or DOS based device drivers. In addition to the system
area protection, enhanced parameter validation is performed for file
I/O requests issued through the DOS INT 21h function.
DOS "Defaults" Changed
DOS applications running under WINDOWS 95 default to running in a
Window with background execution set. With Windows 3.1, the Program
Information File (PIF) had to be modified to run a DOS application in a
Window or in the background. This change was incorporated to provide a
more seamless integration between running DOS based applications and
Windows-based applications.
Consolidation of Customization of DOS-based Application Properties
With Windows 3.1, the PIF Editor application was needed to create or
change any property associated with running DOS-based applications.
Numerous problems were encountered, including difficulty in accessing
the PIF editor or changing PIF settings; the disassociation of the
properties in a PIF file from the DOS-based application; the lack of a
single location for storing PIF files other than placing them all in
the Windows directory; and as previously discussed, the
less-than-intelligent defaults for running DOS-based applications.
WINDOWS 95 enhances the ability to define and change properties for
running DOS-based applications by consolidating PIF files into a single
location - the PIF directory within the directory where WINDOWS 95 is
installed. Access is accomplished swiftly by using the secondary mouse
button to simply click the icon or application window. The property
information and the simplified user interface provides better
organization of property settings through the use of property sheets.
MS-DOS Window Toolbar
Many Windows based applications provide a toolbar to implement quick
access to common features and functions of a product. WINDOWS 95
extends this simplicity and power to making it easy to access
functionality associated with an DOS application, including: cut, copy
and paste buttons easy access to switching from windowed to full-screen
mode quick access to the property sheets access to DOS VM tasking
properties such as exclusive or foreground processing attributes easier
access to font options for displaying text in a windowed DOS VM.
User-Scaleable MS-DOS Window
Since WINDOWS 95 supports the use of a TrueType font in a windows DOS VM,
the DOS window can then be scaled to any size, when the font size is set to
"Auto". With this setting, the DOS window is sized automatically to display
the entire window within the user-specified area.
Local Virtual Machine Environment Settings
Under WINDOWS 95, a batch file can be optionally specified for a given
DOS-based application allowing customization of the DOS VM on a local
basis before running the application. This is like have a separate
AUTOEXEC.BAT file for different DOS-based applications, which can set
environment variables and install TSRs for the local VM only.
Support for Universal Naming Convention(UNC) Pathnames for Network Access
The WINDOWS 95 shell allows users to browse and connect to network servers
without mapping a drive letter to the network resource. WINDOWS95 supports
the same functionality at an DOS command prompt and allows for using the
contents of shared directories on servers from both Microsoft Network servers
and Novell NetWare to: View the contents of shared directories
dir \\server\sharename[\pathname] Copy files from shared directories
copy \\server\sharename\pathname\file destination Run applications from
shared directories \\server\sharename\pathname\filename
New MS-DOS Commands
The MS-DOS command processor and utilities have been enhanced to provide
better integration between DOS functionality and the Windows environment.
Not only can DOS applications be run in a DOS window, butby using the start
command, a user can start a Windows-based application from the command prompt.
Syntax: start <application name> | <document name> Start an
application by specifying the name of a document to open, and WINDOWS 95 will
launch the application associated with the given file type. For example, a
user types "start myfile.doc" and the application associated with the file
specification will start, assuming there is a valid association. Start
another DOS-based application in a different MS-DOS VM instead of the current
VM. For example, to start a telecommunications session called TELECOM in
another DOS VM, type "start c:\comm\telecom.exe" at the command prompt. A
new DOS VM will be initiated and TELECOM.EXE will be executed. Start a
Windows-based application from an DOS command prompt by simply typing the
name of the application. For example, to start Word for Windows, simply type
WINWORD at the command prompt. This would be the same as typing "start
winword".
Commands and utilities that manipulate files have been extended to include
support for long file names (LFN). The dir command has been extended to show
long file names in the directory structure, along with the corresponding DOS
filename construct, commonly referenced as the 8.3 filename. The dir command
has a verbose /v switch to provide additional file details. The copy command
has been extended to allow copying oflong file names to/from short/long
filenames. For example, typing: copy myfile.txt "this is my file" will
create a new file with a long file name.
So what happens to DOS and DOS applications when WINDOWS 95 becomes reality?
Microsoft has pledged a commitment to continue to support DOS in the future.
However, as history has shown, it doesn't necessarily follow that there will
be any improvements or enhancements to MS-DOS itself, only to its surrounding
environment. This means, that DOS will continue to exist tomorrow as it does
today, but getting there will be different. Today, PCs boot into DOS and run
Windows. Tomorrow, PCs will boot into Windows and run DOS.
PAUL WILLIAMSON is an on-site consultant to Chase Manhattan Bank, a software
developer and the RIME host for the DOS conference. He is a member of the
editorial board of WindoWatch.
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THE AUTHORING TOOLS ...a WindoWatch series
WordPerfect's ENVOY 1.0
A Review (C) 1994 by Paul Kinnaly
If you read the October æ94 Preview Issue of WindoWatch , you have already
had a look at Envoy. Published by WordPerfect, a division of Novell,
Envoy 1.0 is a Windows authoring tool and represents one of several
operating system formats used to publish WindoWatch electronically.
As a result of a series of critical comments about the WindoWatch
Announcement issue, it was suggested that if I really had the need to
critique I should put this latent talent to work and review the Envoy
product for WindoWatch readers. I tried to demur, but soon found a
package in my mailbox containing one write-protected 1.44mb diskette and
a trifold document entitled "Envoy QuickStart Card".
Having been victimized too often by ill-behaved Windows programs, I
backed-up my system, scanned the diskette for viruses, and took the
leap...
The installation of Envoy proved to be simple and straight forward. The
near standard setup program politely informed me that installation would
take 1272kb of disk space in the program directory and a further 288kb in
the Windows directory. Setup asked for my name, company, and license
number, allowing each to remain blank, and then proceeded to install itself
on my system. There were no options or choices other than selection of
drive and directory.
The completed installation gave me the "WordPerfect Envoy" program group
containing icons for the Envoy Viewer, several sample documents, and an
on-line userÆs guide, itself an Envoy document. The sample Envoy
documents were apparently produced by such varied applications as Excel5,
CorelDraw 4, and several word processing and desktop publishing programs.
One further icon featured the ubiquitous Readme.Txt file, which I promptly
selected. This was a very pleasant surprise: a truly useful listing of
information. There were sections on topics such as System Requirements,
Troubleshooting, both during and after installation, Compatibility,
Customer Support, as well as a section detailing the uninstallation of the
program. This section contained a listing of every file installed on the
system, where it would be found, and what its purpose was - an excellent
feature I wish more developers would copy!
The on-line user's guide was somewhat sparse; while it made use of Envoy's
hypertext links to take you from a subject list to a topic, the information
provided was brief and assumed a degree of knowledge. As a supplement to a
manual it would be ample, as a substitute for one it is weak. Telephone
support is also available for the program using either a toll-free number
with a $25 per call service fee or on a no-fee basis for a toll telephone
call to Utah.
From a user's perspective the installation was simple and swift.
Technically, however, it left something to be desired as it modified -
without asking - the WIN.INI file heavily, adding lines to the [Windows],
[PrinterPorts], [Ports], [Devices], and [Extensions] sections. Not only
didn't it ask, it didn't make a backup copy of the ile before altering it.
Thus, the detailed directions for uninstalling the program became not just
a "nice touch", but a necessity.
The raison d'etre of this and other authoring tools is the ability to
create hypertext links within a document. Those who viewed the WindoWatch
Preview issue saw these in action; a mouse click on the highlighted name
of the author in the table of contents would jump the reader immediately
to the article itself. This feature allows the reader to jump through an
electronic document viewing only chosen sections without tedious scrolling
through the entire document. From an editorial and layout standpoint, it's
important that the creation of these hypertext links be easily understood
and appropriate - while still flexible.
Envoy loaded rapidly and presented me with a screen with standard Windows
menus at the top, a button bar, a large white area covering most of the
screen, and a status bar at the bottom. I found that merely placing the
mouse cursor over a given button caused a brief description of the button's
function to appear on the status line. Generally, as is true of most
Windows applications using such a button bar, functions available there are
duplicated in the Windows pull-down menus.
Creation of Envoy documents (.evy) is done in a manner similar to that used
by many PC fax programs - Envoy installs itself as a standard Windows
print driver. One merely "prints" the desired document to Envoy instead of
to a hard-copy printer. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Envoy
simplified the process even more. The File menu contained an Import
selection. A click here brought up the standard Windows file selection
menu. A double-click on the desired file name launched a whole sequence of
events: Envoy started my word processor, Word for Windows, loaded the Word
document, "printed" it to the Envoy driver, shut down Word, and presented
the resulting Envoy document on the screen. Elapsed time - less than a
minute. Simple and quick! I was impressed. Envoy's printer driver may
be customized to allow specific PostScript or TrueType fonts to be
"embedded" in the document. This feature ensures that the reader will see
the document as you created it, even if some fonts are not on his system -
but it greatly increases the size of the resulting file.
Within this Envoy document, I could utilize any of the three authoring
tools built into the program: annotations, bookmarks, or hypertext links.
What I could not do, was add to, modify, or rearrange any of the text!
This work must be done using a word processing program before importing the
file to Envoy. This struck me as a strange limitation for an "authoring
tool".
Creation of a hypertext link is simple; the program leads you step-by-step
through the process. After selecting the hypertext tool from the button
bar, the key word(s) that will form the "source" of the link are
highlighted using the mouse. A message appears on the status bar directing
the author to now highlight the destination of the link. As soon as you
begin to highlight this area, a new message appears on the status bar
telling you to click the right mouse button to select the link properties
- such as text color or underlining.
Rather than highlighting text as the source of a hypertext link, the author
may highlight a blank section of the page and have Envoy place a "button"
there. Several different icons are provided to use as buttons including
arrows and the "information" icon (an "i" within a circle). These buttons
may be dragged around the page to place them where desired.
Envoy also features another potentially useful form of annotation through
the creation of "bookmarks". The author selects the icon for bookmarks
from the Button Bar, highlights an area of text, then types a label for the
bookmark. Upon receiving the document, the viewer merely clicks on the
bookmark icon on the status bar to get a list of all the bookmarks in the
document. Clicking on any one of these takes the viewer to the appropriate
section marked by the author. Envoy's third main authoring tool is "sticky
notes". A click on the "Note" icon, followed by a click on the appropriate
section of the document places a yellow "sticky note" there, within which
you may type comments, corrections, etc.
Saving a document in a compiled and Windows ready format was as easy as
selecting File | Save As from the menu. The dialog box that appears offers
the choice of saving as an "editable" Envoy document (.evy) - which is only
usable if the full Envoy program is on the system, as a text file (.txt)
- which could be copied to the clipboard, or as a file incorporating the
Envoy run-time viewer (.exe) - which can exist as a stand-alone application.
The dialog box also contains a button for "Security" which allows setting
a password to access the document and controls the degree of access a user
will have to the document: Unrestricted - i.e., annotatable with Envoy's
authoring tools, read and print access only, or read-only access. For
those systems with electronic mail access using either the VIM or MAPI
standards, Envoy can activate your mail program to allow electronic
transmission of the newly created document. This is a particularly useful
feature in a workgroup environment.
The biggest drawback of creating a stand-alone application is the size of
the Envoy run-time viewer which gets packaged with your document. A 41kb
Word for Windows text document was a whopping 399kb Envoy run-time file.
Curiously, when I repeated this process with a large 397kb Word newsletter
- replete with graphics, the resulting Envoy run-time file was only 416kb.
Clearly the program stores the data (including graphics) in a very compact
form; only the viewer itself is large.
Some of the buttons available on the Button Bar are usable by both the
author and the reader to move around the document and customize the view,
even in restricted access documents. These include Page Forward and Page
Back, Return to the source of hypertext link , Zoom In, Zoom Out, etc. A
particularly nice touch is the File | Preferences | Main View dialog
allowing the reader to choose their own default view. Onefinds choices of
fitting the document to the width of the window, to the height of the
window, the entire page in the window, or a specific percentage zoom
setting. Envoy allows selection of nine 'standard' zoom percentages
using the Zoom In/Out buttons or from the menu. Another button lets you
return all of these to the default settings.
A concern of many these days is the amount of resources a program takes
during its operation. This can be a significant consideration in a
multi-tasking environment - particularly for an author. Envoy acquitted
itself well in these areas. NortonÆs SystemWatch showed that Envoy used
only 2% of GDI and 7% of User resources. Exiting the program freed up the
User resources, but not the GDI. Restarting the program, however, did not
further deplete GDI, so apparently whatever is left by Envoy in the GDI
heap remains available to it when it is re-run.
Overall, despite my proclivity towards criticism, I found little to
criticize here. My gripes about its actions on installation and its
inability to add or modify document text were counter-balanced by the ease
of use and the flexibility of the software. While we at WindoWatch did not
utilize its capabilities given the content and the targeted reader, the
program certainly has good potential in an authoring environment. The
combination of hypertext links and bookmarks provides the author with a
readily accessible means of leading the reader through a complex, multi-
part document with ease. I'd recommend its consideration by anyone in need
of creating such distributable - but protected - documents.
PAUL KINNALY is a Management Analyst with the Department of Veteran
Affairs. He has been involved with personal computers since buying an
Apple ][+ in 1978 and is a regular contributor to the ILink and RIME
Windows conferences. He can be reached for comment and questions at:
paul.kinnaly@channel1.com
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PROGRAMMING NOTES
WINDOWS ASPECT: A Scripting Language A Tutorial - Part One
For PROCOMM for WINDOWS v.2
GHOST BBS v.3.20 (c) 1994 by Gregg Hommel
Some time back, about six months after I first installed my copy of
Procomm Plus for Windows v.1, I took a serious look at the Host mode
supplied by Datastorm. Earlier I had written a freeware script to
manage the widely accepted QWK mail packet format on a PCBoard BBS
running a Qmail mail door. I called the script PCBMail (still in use
by a lot of people to this day), and decided to develop a shareware
version of it, to be called PCB Freedom. PCB Freedom would extend beyond
the rather restrictive limits of PCBMail into a more generic mail
management utility.
I thought that perhaps the Datastorm supplied Host mode would offer an
additional method of supporting the users of both scripts. It took
only a fairly quick look for me to realize that, although Host mode
was sufficient to handle the task at hand, it certainly was nothing
more than barely adequate, as far as I was concerned. Not to
disparage the Datastorm Host script, but I found it "ugly" in
appearance, and somewhat in need of a few other modifications in other
areas.
Thus began a saga which led to GHOST BBS that continues to this day. It
led me to discover things about the Windows Aspect (Wasp) programming
language of Procomm Plus for Windows, that I did not dream were possible
when I first read their manuals. All of this led me into writing and
posting on various BBS networks a twelve part tutorial in Wasp programming.
Although some information in that tutorial is now out of date, due to
the release of Procomm Plus for Windows 2.0 with its new version of
the Wasp language, much of it still applies. It is my intention to
update that tutorial as necessary, and to post it in this ezine as a
semi-regular column whenever the editors will let me stick one in an
issue. So far they seem agreeable to the idea, but editors have been
known to change their minds before. Red flag and charging bull mode ON!
Talk about a public challenge! YOU are publicly hired at your
current stipend for as many tutorials as you can come up with. Wise
guy! This column is the first in that (semi-?)regular series of
columns.
When I first began looking at modifying the Host script for my needs,
I admit it... I was a neophyte, with a whole truck load of naivetΘ
trailing behind me. I had already written and posted PCBMail and had a
beta version of PCB Freedom in the works, but on a comparative basis,
those scripts were not remotely close to what I had gotten myself into
with what eventually became known as GHOST BBS.
For those of you who already know what GHOST BBS is, please skip to
the next paragraph. For those that don't.... GHOST BBS is a shareware
replacement for the Datastorm provided Host mode which ships with
Procomm Plus for Windows. It features additional security levels,
multiple log-on bulletins, multiple download libraries, support for
ANSI and non-ANSI menus and displays support for multiple languages,
editable prompts and displays, and many other enhancements over Host.
Logging onto a BBS, getting a mail packet, and uploading a reply
packet is a relatively simple procedure. You let the communications
application do most of the work. All the script really has to do is to
watch what is happening on the BBS and send the appropriate responses
that will perform the desired actions. The script doesn't have to read
and then handle everything coming in the port. It only needs concern
itself with that incoming data which requires a response or action.
The rest of it can be ignored.
Not so with "host" scripts. They have to watch and interpret
everything coming in, and expect the unexpected. The hardest thing to
adjust to in writing GHOST BBS was the fact that my script was no
longer the passive object, acting only upon a limited set of selected
items from an external source. It was now the active object, responding
and initiating to all information being sent by an external source.
There is much more to it than that, of course. An example, --when
you log onto a BBS, effectively Procomm manages what appears in the
terminal window while your script looks at that information and, when
certain key words or phrases are present, responds to them. With a
host mode, the script manages what appears both in your terminal
window, and on the remote end, based upon characters, etc. sent to it
by the remote, which it must trap, interpret, and act upon. Not quite
as simple as a log-on script, even one as complicated as PCB Freedom
became.
This need to have the script do everything also caused a second problem,
at least, under Procomm Plus for Windows 1.0x. The Wasp 1.0 compiler has
certain very restrictive memory limits made upon a script at compile time.
These limits involve a combination of factors, including the total number
of global and local variables in use and the total number of "nested"
code segments in the script. PCB Freedom was fairly complex, but nothing
compared to the code required to make GHOST do what I, and my users,
wanted it to do.
Indeed, GHOST was so complex a collection of code that when I released
GHOST BBS 3.00, the first shareware version of GHOST, I thought that
it would actually be the last version of GHOST released, period !! I
was able to successfully compile the script, but only by using the PCP
for Windows v.1.01 of the Wasp compiler. It had, if memory serves,
something like 149 bytes of extra memory available for use at compile
time, versus the compiler in PCP for Windows v. 1.02. I didn't think
that it would be possible to add any additional features or enhancements,
unless or until Datastorm delivered a compiler with more available compile
time memory.
But, in the end, I did. GHOST BBS 3.10/3.20 is currently in final beta
test, and has a lot of new features. How I did this, and what it
taught me about programming in Wasp is the point of all this rambling.
Although it is quite possible that you will never write any script as
complex as GHOST BBS, the things that I learned, or was forced to
learn, in the process of writing GHOST expanded my knowledge of Wasp
and how to programme using it at a fairly rapid pace. I don't know if
that is enough to qualify me to offer a series of columns on Wasp
programming, but it will certainly help and the editors of WindoWatch
seem to think that it will work, so we'll give it a shot.
This column then, on an irregular (sheesh!) basis, over the next few
months at least, will offer tutorials, based upon my experiences as a
Wasp programmer using that script language and writing usable scripts
with it, starting with this column....
At the risk of losing some of you, we are going to start at a very basic
level, with the question "What is a script?".
In Wasp, a script is a series of commands which Procomm Plus for Windows
will read when told to, and execute as specified. These commands are
written using a particular form, following a particular syntax, to instruct
Procomm Plus for Windows to perform various tasks at specified times, and
in a specified order.
A script can be a complex thing telling Procomm Plus for Windows how to
do almost everything. It can leave very little for Procomm Plus for Windows to do
on it's own without instructions from, for example, GHOST BBS. It can
also be a simple little set of commands to automate a given procedure or
task.
One of the most common, and simplest scripts many Procomm Plus for Windows
v.1.0x users were interested in writing had to do with the barest attempt
at automating their log-on to the bulletin boards they used. What they
wanted to do was to create meta keys in Procomm Plus for Windows which
would send their user name or password out the comm port when they were
asked for the information by the BBS.
At this point, we shall "create" an imaginary, neophyte Procomm Plus for
Windows user named George. He wants to use Procomm Plus for Windows to
access several different bulletin boards, and like all good BBS'ers,
uses different passwords on each system. But, he also wants to
automate sending his name and password, because that is easier than
trying to remember the correct information for each system when he
logs on to it.
To accomplish this, George might start out by assigning scripts to be
run when each of two meta keys are selected. This is how a lot of
Procomm Plus for Windows 1.0x users get their first taste of script
writing. This process is not a concern under Procomm Plus for Windows
2.0 that it was under 1.0x. In version 2 there are icons which
perform these functions which can be added to your action bar and
don't require the attachment of a script. However a lot of Procomm
Plus for Windows 2.0 users still use these meta keys for that job.
Let's look at the two scripts that he could write to be attached to
those meta keys...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
;SENDNAME.WAS - send the UserID for this system when meta key used
proc main
transmit $USERID
transmit "^M"
endproc
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
;SENDPASS.WAS - send the password for this system when meta key used
proc main
transmit $PASSWORD
transmit "^M"
endproc
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Although not fancy scripts... in truth quite simple, they do the job,
and automate the task of having to remember the name and password
George uses on each BBS he logs onto and they introduced George to the
concept of a script and what it does, along with a couple of basic
principles of script writing.
1) ALL scripts must contain at least one procedure (proc) called MAIN.
2) ALL procedures in a script must begin with a "proc name" statement and
mark their end with the "endproc" statement.
3) Variables in Wasp which begin with a "$" are pre-defined, system
variables which contain values obtained from within Procomm Plus for
Windows and its setup.
All of that from such a simple script ! Of course, for many users,
this turned out to be just a start... once they discovered that it
was a fairly simple task to automate a portion of their log on and
they wanted more. So, we'll help George get a little further along,
by writing a simple log on script to be used.
Let's assume, for now, that every system George uses, right after
connection, asks for his name, and then his password, using the
prompts "What is your name?" and "What is your password?". George
might then write a script to automate this procedure that might look
something like...
proc main
waitfor "name?"
transmit $USERID
transmit "^M"
waitfor "password?"
transmit $PASSWORD
transmit "^M"
endproc
A script such as this would be "attached" to the dialing directory entry
for each BBS, to be run after a connection is established-the default for
Procomm Plus for Windows. In truth it is really not much more than the
two scripts George first had, but combined into one script and with
two "waitfor" commands added. The WAITFOR command in Wasp is fairly
straight forward in concept, and easy to understand, even for a
George, which is why we used it here.
We now have our imaginary, neophyte Procomm Plus for Windows user writing
his first script. But George is an incurable optimist, and knows that he
can do better, especially so, now that he is getting more sophisticated.
He has added a couple of new systems to his list...systems which do not
follow the simple log on pattern of his earlier systems. Now he wants
to automate those log-ons which is where we will leave George for now
in the hopes that the editors want me to write a second one of these....
Gregg Hommel has been a Data Storm beta tester and is presently a
consultant for Delrina. He is an active participant on many nets and
is presently Co-Host of the RIME Windows conference. Your questions
and comments to gregg.hommel@canrem.com
Editorial Note: Gregg and I tease but we both know he is always welcome
here. Do let us know what you think about these tutorials - either to
Gregg directly or to lois.laulicht@channel1.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alice Travels
WASHINGTON
Washington DC
September 25, 1994
Alice Awards Trolleys
A new arrival to our town this week was Alice, the noted computer bon
vivant, and my friend. She was reported to be here to present free
copies of WindoWatch magazine to all federal employees along with a
complimentary cardboard computer for wallet or purse.
The talk around the cocktail circuit is that old Alice has a few
tricks up her sleeve to ease the bipartisan tensions. She intends to
unveil Translator 1.01 for Windows, and Translator 1.01 for DOS 8.0.
Each is quite different, and the two together are expected to make a
splash at the upcoming Computer Press Party that is being thrown at
the Lincoln Memorial real soon now. In gratitude to us hardworking
writers, we will get chicken a la king and jelly donuts and a free
trolley ride between the Building Museum and the Botanical Garden.
Workers are hard apace laying the tracks for the trolley, which have
been appropriated from excess Education funds.
Anyhow, the buzz at the latest Garden Club Institute bubbler is that
Alice has devised a device for divining exactly what congressmen are
saying, and translating it over headphones so that the guys in the
opposite corner will understand. She calls it delicatessen translation,
and we can hardly wait to try it on for size. And just in time for that
recess period we have all been counting on.
by Peter Neuendorffer (c) 1994
and.....................................................................
MUDVILLE
Mudville USA
August 15 1994.
AliceA Wows them Again
Since the baseball game was canceled, an impromptu rock concert was set up
last weekend. It was the true epitome of sweetness and light, and featured
many of the top names in the music business who were not invited to the
"other" festival.
Among those present was AliceA., my friend, who gave a rave rave with the
help of 2000 processors that were on loan from the IRS. Reporters were on
hand from the major media, including the networks and WindoWatch Magazine.
Alice's set opened with three tons of virtual mud, that descended from the
light towers. She breezed into Sweet Adeline, accompanied by virtual
symphonies in multicolored outfits, and then baffled the crowd with a
lengthy description of exactly what Windows does when you are not looking.
She used a large ethnic dance troupe to illustrate this, and a giant
football player who impersonated a mouse.
After that, she invited the crowd to sing along with Home on the Range,
with a virtual bouncing ball provided by an unnamed operating system of
yore. She played peek and poke with security, until finally the crowd began
yelling "When will it ship?". At which point she finished up with the uncut
version of Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, all 142 verses, featuring a
virtual electric guitar, virtual drums, virtual costumes, and virtual
applause.
Since the only speakers were provided by a home multimedia system, no
one could hear a thing.
by Peter Neuendorffer (c) 1994
or.......................................................................
PARIS
Paris, France
December 1 or thereabouts
WindoWatch Is There
When we got a card in the mail from the new on-line Windows magazine
WindoWatch, we were not surprised as it disappeared into thin air.
WindoWatch had organized the luncheon at the Louvre the day that we
attended. A very dapper young man took our coat, and we sat down
gratefully to witness a staggering feat of computer wizardry that was
performed by our old friend Alice A.
"I'm so glad you came," said Ms. A., smiling profusely and wearing an
irradiated Paris gown. "You don't know how long I've worked on this
feat." As we did not know, we sat back and watched.
"Imagine," she said, turning to the gathered press, "that this picture
is actually a three dimensional illusion. Then she pushed a button,
and there was no more picture.
The crowd was amazed, as were we. "And now imagine that this wall is
computer generated." We tried to imagine this as she pushed the button
again, and now there was not a wall there at all.
"Now imagine, if you will," shouted Ms A., "that this museum, the Louvre
is entirely fake." We did, and she pushed the button. We were now
standing on the grass, with no Louvre in sight.
"Now, imagine, if you will," she slyly whispered, "that you are really
back in the real Louvre." And we were back in the Louvre. Except, much
to our surprise, a maze of wires and transistors was in view...as when a
trampoline appears at the circus.
"This is the part I like the best," as she winked at us. "Now imagine
that this picture is an illusion." We were no longer sure where we
were at all.
With apologies to The New Yorker.
by Peter Neuendorffer (c) 1994
*************************************************************************
Peter Neuendorffer is a programmer with a growing client list here and
abroad. He is the author of a transit program for the Boston
transportation system (MBTA125A.ZIP) which assists riders in finding
their train route. Most recently he has developed Ibid List Maker 2.0
for Windows which predictably creates lists or a browsing multi-linking
data base. (IBID20.ZIP)
............................................................................
NEW APPROACHES TO COMPUTER ASSISTED TRAINING
Part II of a WindoWatch Series. (c) 1994 by Jerome Laulicht
The Training Dilemma: Teaching People How To Use Computers
Our public school system does not have a monopoly on educational
problems nor are children the only students being short-changed!
Desktop computers have been a mixed blessing because of the many
difficulties in teaching people to use them at all or to begin to use
them at all well. We can't be satisfied with the notion that learning
to use computers is merely playing games, typing letters or entering
data correctly. For tasks like data entry or production typing, quick
and dirty training is possible and friendly interfaces are desirable.
The simple and rather unfriendly truth is that "user friendly" is an
advertising slogan for a vaguely defined objective, with an elusive
meaning and easily changed goals. Many companies advertise that it is
easy to navigate the Internet and while doing so accomplish great
things---if you would only be so wise as to use their product.
There are many people who have the need to use complex programs in rather
sophisticated ways but have little or no access to training experts
on site. It does little good to marvel at how quickly some people,
particularly children, can learn to play Nintendo and other computer
games. Obviously, whatever skills are learned with games, there is
limited carry-over to doing other computer tasks. Game developers have
discovered that they can deliberately give little help and make
learning a challenging part of the entertainment. No developer of a
program for real work would want to do this notwithstanding that
instructions, both the on-line help and in the manual, are too often
written as if users are being dared to decipher some sort of secret
code! The worn out Unix mantra is RTFM which provides little help if
one's Jack Armstrong secret ring decoder is on the blink.
Some people have coped with this situation fairly well probably
because others have provided alternatives. However, what there is of
computer education has been riddled with stumbles and lost chances.
Many software companies have played down these difficulties with their
insistence, vital from their perspective, that their programs are
easier to learn and come with oodles of help. Those who see the
problem as real and pervasive are partly dismissed as having a stake
in making the learning issue seem overly complex. In any case, these
arguments appear in magazines which few computer users ever see. Part
of the problem is simple. Adults with limited education about
computers have had to learn skills and concepts which have been
defined as vital for their jobs and economic well-being.
Using a computer has its full share of frustration and people do resent
the time spent and the difficulties encountered in learning how to use
a new program. The resulting pressure for better information has meant
that the simpler programs now often come with help adequate enough to
learn by doing. This improvement is due in no small measure to the Help
Engine provided with Windows, made even better with one of the many
add-on programs, and the rapidly growing use of common Windows
program interface features. The more complex programs, however,
still leave many of us floundering when we want to take advantage of
one of the more complex or less-used features. The amount of
information can be overwhelming and the on-line help files can often
be even drier and more boring than those textbooks we dearly loved.
Hypertext jumps are jazzy but they're only useful as technical aids
and to navigate through a document.
Help engines and API's do not write the words we see on the screen or
construct the tutorials which will have us flying within a few
hours. The standard and usual approach has not been enough, certainly
not for the unschooled. Important elements are missing from
the perspective of many who are critical of how we too often go about
teaching. In learning computer programs, where is the fun in both
teaching and learning which make it more gratifying and more likely to
succeed? Where are the multiple methods of communication? Where is
the needed interaction among the learners and between learner and
teacher?
The alternatives available to teach or learn how to use software are
quite limited. The StarTrek solution of just telling the darn thing
what to do and it will do it is not imminent. We can read words; look
at graphics and animations; watch and hear about the actions of a
disembodied mouse on a captured set of screens; look at more
movie-like films on the VCR or even our monitor; listen to teachers
and cassettes; or learn by doing and by trial and error. No way
offers guaranteed results for all of us even though many of us manage
somehow to discover our preferred way to learn. Relying on the normal
combo of on-line help, trial and error and, if all else fails, the
manual in the box and whoever we can find to ask questions does
work...sometimes! The cost in time and struggle is unpredictable, and
the quality of the result too often depends on keeping our criteria
for success low enough to justify our claims. For complex programs,
people often add the step of giving up on the manual and finding a
book which explains the manual. My favorites are those with titles
like "X for Dummies"--both Alice and I refuse to buy them on
principle--and those books which tell all in much less than half the
official manual's length. I am enchanted by the authors' chutzpah!
Normal people, not teachers, who appear knowing are attractive
alternatives to yet another book. They can be readily available, teach
for free, commiserate with us, and may actually show us how to do some
things. They also may not have enough time and get impatient or
emotional with us. Even worse, they may know little more than we do
and give wrong information, or not know much about how to teach....a
common but excusable failing. It can also be a failing of authors of
program manuals, programmers who provide on-line help, even authors
of those replacement books we buy with such hope and finally--even
people who conduct classes.
When knowledge is critically important, it makes sense to search for
alternative methods and ways of finding teachers. Audio cassettes,
films and lately even multimedia tutorials have been devised and sold
in the hunt for new possibilities. ItÆs no secret that one of the main
obstacles to effective and creative use of computers is not simply
teaching people how to use them well but teaching teachers the skills
to communicate the complexity of the subject using easily understood
language. It is for these reasons that this article focuses on
computer tutorial programs which are available on CD-ROM.
PERSONAL TRAINING SYSTEMS (PTS)
Personal Training Systems has a track record as a creator and seller
of tutorials on audio cassettes. They have involved Peter Norton, a
well regarded writer of books on computers, in their efforts.
Recently, they completed a CD-ROM tutorial on Microsoft's Office for
Professionals--Version 4.3. They also offer CD-ROM tutorials on
PageMaker, Excel, Word for Windows, Access and Windows 3.1. Since
Office is in fact four complex programs which are partially linked,
the effort is ambitious. It is no mean feat to teach people the use
of a full fledged word processor, spreadsheet, data base and
presentation program in one sweep--even if you restrict it only to
lessons for beginners. A number of assumptions and decisions have to
be made. Some examples: (1) what features to include or omit from
each lesson; (2) how slowly should the teacher speak (not a trivial
concern); and (3) should you assume the ready availability of a
teacher or at a minimum a mentor?
I got a clearer sense of their problems and assumptions when I saw that
(1) basic lessons on Windows were included with the Office tutorial but
(2) then it was assumed that these instructions were not learned well or
would be skipped even by many people who needed them. This is the hoary
and familiar pre-requisite headache in high schools and colleges. The
stark reality for Personal Training Systems and others--not a
criticism-- is that no-one could learn to use these complex programs
without being first being quite easy with Windows. I would not have
expected anyone to design a single set of beginning lessons intended
for both Windows beginners and sophisticates for fear they would
satisfy neither group. Perhaps I was naive.
The message to inexperienced learners is: if you learn the rudiments
of working with Windows, you can jump right into a set of powerful
programs. The message to the computer schooled is to patiently bear
with the simple and familiar stuff on Windows. This approach is
somewhat self-defeating since no-one is going to be very happy with
the inevitable compromises. I am even more convinced of this after
going through the tutorials. This mixing of audiences is typical in
the earlier grades in school but to do this with learning programs for
adults and older students goes too far. Yet this mix is also commonly
done in computer classes sponsored by public high schools and even
colleges. However, the tutorial teachers sensibly hedge their bets by
assuming ignorance rather than knowledge. They frequently give quick
basic instruction in elementary Windows 'moves' in the midst of
teaching the applications. Inevitably these instructions must be
repeated almost word for word as needed. People who know Windows need
only be told to move a specific window. It is rather surprising to
hear how many words must be said about this action to give clear
instructions certain to be understood by someone struggling to learn.
There is no apparent way of avoiding these instructions, except
perhaps by fast forwarding? Much of the tutorial is like an audio
cassette on a CD-ROM so you have controls which act like those on a
tape player.
Analogous compromises surely had to be made about many other parts of the
tutorials on the four applications. I presume that the choices again
assumed sharp limits of knowledge among many users. You would have to
expect that the beginner will have no tolerance for omissions, while
the more experienced person would tolerate repetition. The choice of
beginner topics, for example, were likely defined largely in terms of
people who have hardly used any word processor or spreadsheet before.
Don't misunderstand me--I know this can work if you do not ask
awkward questions about boredom and frustration. However, we do not
have to perpetuate the questionable education traditions of the past
nor do CD-ROM lessons have to be like frustrating classroom sessions
often seen as too fast or too slow.
Good practical reasons like costs, earnings and likely sales must be the
logic for teachers rejecting the more sensible approach of at least two
versions which rely on differences in capacities and knowledge base. As
in a computer classroom, they then make assumptions about how to make the
best of a flawed scene. Since there are alternatives to the way they
set up the tutorial, I suspect there might also be other less obvious
reasons.
The better classroom teachers do manage to partly compensate for the
one-for-all approach. Since only a handful of teachers are employed by
companies like Personal Training Systems, they can choose from among
the best, thus bypassing a major headache of more conventional
education. There is no compelling reason for these tutorials to obey
the flawed character of the classroom model unless the economics are
compelling. It is possible to allow for interactive choices which go much
beyond giving the user the option to skip sections, especially if a
CD-ROM is being used. Even if the medium is a VCR film or the cassette
Personal Training Systems has standardly used, there are options. In
fairness, though, we might be running into the higher costs of
providing options versus the sales potential for such tutorials.
I want to emphasize that this tutorial, given the choices, is not
bad or even mediocre. Much of it is quite good! It is clear as it
takes you through many of the necessary steps. The teacher clearly
knows her subject and what she is about. I even learned about useful
options in programs I know well. I got a clearer indication of the
quality of the tutorial when I moved to programs with which I was
barely familiar. Clearly, I was getting an excellent introduction
not only to PowerPoint but to similar programs which enable you to
create presentations. I quickly and clearly saw that something I
had vaguely thought to be beyond my capacities and interests could be
learned and used. I am not being critical then of beginning lessons as
such and realize that facile and creative use of PowerPoint would
clearly demand more learning time and experience.
While doing the tutorials, my biggest problems were: (1) a growing
impatience with the inability to skip the repetition of points common
to Windows programs; (2) being reminded that I had not installed all
the Office graphics files where the program assumes them to be; and
(3) finding some of those tiny toolbar icons quickly enough from the
teacher's verbal description. A small point perhaps, but I often had
to pause the tutorial--a somewhat awkward procedure when you have
minimized the audio control window, as you must do, in order to have
the screen largely available for the application itself. The real gap
is the almost complete lack of any graphics on this CD-ROM, the inability
to get visual help from either photos or animations. I know that they
intend to change this in the new version of this tutorial due in the
Spring but I do not know the directions they will take and how well
they will capitalize on the strengths of a CD-ROM. They did use
simple graphics in the Windows tutorial, screen captures of how tasks
and commands are done with the mouse, and plan to make more use of
this technique. Their approach works well within the boundaries they
established but the limits are unnecessarily narrow given the
complexity of the programs, the varied needs of their clients, and the
option of anyone to skip any lesson they do not need.
The structure of the approach is straight-forward, simple and useful. You
can have the application operational, hear the instructions at your pace,
learn mostly from being told what to do and then do it. You can
easily repeat any part of any lesson--or the whole section--as often
as you want, repeating your error until you finally catch on. You go
through the tutorial largely at your own speed; pause and restart at
any point; go back to any of the sections at any time for a refresher
or skip around at will. I have to caution that my work has
necessarily made me a quick learner in many areas in the process of
evaluating tools as decent learning devices for young adults who are
aiming for a variety of professions. This has provided me with
experiences and biases that may not be the best for determining the
value of this tool for other ækindsÆ of people. Reliable evaluations
of the pros and cons of the tutorials for any intended audience are
only possible with an actual trial with real learners. This would have
to include observations, interviews and discussions with the users. In
effect, this means doing a relevant and useful Beta test. The cost,
complexity and tricky nature of such evaluations explain why these
tutorials are seldom evaluated very thoroughly. Instead, we depend on
word-of- mouth, names, endorsements, and personalized judgments.
However, the situation is just about the same if we look at the more
conventional ways of teaching computer programs. We do not demand nor
are we accustomed to looking at these issues as carefully as is done
by so many magazines for computer software and hardware. A somewhat
curious state of affairs given our collective search for better public
education and the projections of great growth in the use of
computers.
My most serious criticism is that these tutorials rarely explain anything;
rather, they show you what to do. They take you through the steps making
sure you know about the existence of most of the commands available in the
menus and through toolbar icons by using quick assertions--so fast and
terse that they will be hard to remember or understand. It's as
though people taking beginning lessons are not supposed to be
interested in understanding as opposed to just learning how to do
things. Perhaps it is assumed that employers who provide their
employees with these tutorials want the trainers æhelpÆ not to waste
time or money helping students to get insight? The consequence
remains that to stint on training costs can create unknown and
negative prices to pay later.
Yes, I want that new version. Even better will be those CD-ROM tutorials
which I know can be created and likely will be--rather soon. The new
learning tools will aim for an audience of many skill levels so that it
will give people the latitude to individualize their learning. One disk
will meet a variety of needs and the learner can return to it after
she has become competent enough with the program to be ready for more
complexity. Such developments depend upon potential purchasers,
developers and users demanding and prepared to pay for more
comprehensive and sophisticated tools. Already we use CD-ROMS for very
elaborate multimedia encyclopedias and for convoluted games and
puzzles. We author and produce books which cover the complexities of
programming languages and of major programs. We can therefore do
analogous things to enable more people to learn and use tools which
are rapidly becoming critically important to their economic
well-being.
The alternative is to fall back on the over-optimistic fantasies of
voice commands to Hal-like computers. It is of limited value to define
beginning lessons so restrictively that it drastically limits a
tutorialÆs value. Too much of the serious tougher stuff can be
easily omitted, left for self-teaching or for others to handle. Too
often this approach does not work very well. Many people--granted,
not the majority-- are trying to learn concepts and get knowledge
about computers--more than just task skills. Even those curious
people with good learning talents or reasons for wanting to go from
the how to the why, and who want to be able to do complex tasks, will
get too limited help from tools focused only on beginners. People do
not get too many opportunities to learn and the time should not be
thrown away on rote learning of rudimentary tasks. Individual
differences are a normal fact of life and one I hope the tutorial
creators will heed. Many employers, large and small, who could make
good use of computer tutorials would prefer to use them to train
professional and semi-professional employees, not just entry level
people who largely do data entry.
The Multimedia Tutorial on CD-ROM
Why would an individual, small organization or school spend money for
computer program tutorials on CD-ROM given the extra costs. Are such
tools cost-effective only for larger organizations with considerable
turn-over? Training people quickly to use new software is a not an
insignificant cost.
There is probably only one good reason for even thinking of doing
this--a feeling, belief or evidence that the manual and help files are
simply not sufficient and that buying additional books will not
suffice. How can one sensibly cost out the original purchase and
employee training time in these terms?
Perhaps the real choice is between a classroom situation or working alone
with a tutorial program--a disembodied teacher at your side. Personal
Training Systems describes their effort as the "best way to learn to
use a program is to have an expert talk you through it..to be at your
side." The cost factor then favors computer assisted learning,
especially when more than one person will use the tutorial. There is
a catch: tutorials of presumably high quality are available for only a
handful of programs. The classroom with a live teacher is still
liable to win out in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity, primarily
because itÆs a familiar and safer choice. As a business, the whole
idea looks like a loser except for three facts: (1) some companies
have been successfully selling learning tools; (2) CD-ROMS seem to
hold promise beyond what books, audio cassettes and VCR's offer; and
(3) the major training costs are employee time rather than the
differences in price between a book and a CD-ROM.
Schools Using Tutorials
Teachers of young adults and high school students usually want them to
learn more than the basics. The better schools are painfully aware of
the huge differences in motivation, readiness, and other factors
affecting the ability to learn which make it so difficult to close
knowledge gaps. These schools are a major potential market for
companies like Personal Training Systems for both the basics and
beyond. The MS Office tutorial, for example, makes it possible for
many students--not all by any means--to get most of their instruction
without a teacher, only someone available to answer questions. This
should not be seen as a threat but as one of the better uses of a
school computer lab. All kinds of schools have difficulty finding good
teachers on the use of computers and programs. Neither Departments of
Education or Computer Science train people to do this competently nor,
in fact, does anyone else. In truth, few schools even seek to hire
such people. Yet computer literacy is becoming more vital and valued.
It must include knowledge of an operating system, how to use the
important general purpose programs, and finally, the increased ability
and skill to learn additional programs, as needed, through self-study.
This is a classic chicken-egg situation in which enterprising
companies might find rewarding opportunities. There is the corporate
market and an interesting and exciting potential in smaller commercial
and non-profit enterprises. Schools and libraries represent an almost
untapped depository for training tools on content, teaching people to
be computer trainers and for mentoring purposes.
Tutorials, be they videos, cassettes or CD-ROMS, can also be useful
to high schools, junior colleges and other colleges responsible for
adult-education programs covering a wide range of topics using the
computer as a tool for self study. The institutions offering these
courses are effectively the only ones which can meet the computer
education needs for many people, but they do have some real
dilemmas: (1) how to find local people for low paid part-time work who
have both the needed knowledge of content and teaching skills; and (2)
finding the means to purchase multiple copies of the tutorial and the
associated program. Efforts to teach people how to use software
could be much enhanced by the use of expert teachers to produce
tutorials which get wide distribution within a given system. The
local teacher could meet the vital needs of answering questions so
people do not get hung up and giving individualized brief tutoring
sessions as needed. The important need in learning to use computers
is doing and trying while moving at a comfortable speed--which is not
necessarily the group pace defined by a teacher. The important skills
for the teacher should be knowledge and ability to advise and consult,
as opposed to lecturing skills and following a prescribed curriculum.
Perhaps software companies need to strengthen their standards for site
licensing to make multiple copies of many of their programs more
available to teaching institutions and their students at special
rates. This could be an important addition to software standards more
commonly in use and would be a prudent economic and social investment.
We must also rethink distribution of the tutorials themselves so that
they are available at affordable prices for wide use in the education
process. For example, could videos and CD-ROMS be made available to
borrow from libraries and used in school computer labs equipped
properly. This would be an educationally useful extension of the
computer lab now common in many American colleges and could make
computer literacy a mainstream expectation and reality.
How can smaller companies producing these tutorials be helped to
improve their capacity to distribute their products at prices
significantly lower than those offered to business? These are not
software giants. What would it take to arrange for sensible
distribution of the applications and the tutorials, without loss to
the companies and without special government subsidies, for the
benefit of both young people in school and the many adults who need to
learn these skills for better jobs?
There are obviously many questions, a need for new practices and
procedures, and a tradition not conducive to this kind of thinking.
There are also solid opportunities for meaningful change to prepare
people to qualify for employment where computer skills are required.
Computer assisted learning with tutorials on CD-ROMS are not magic
pills nor are they the only means to enable us to deal with some real
social dilemmas. Some years ago, a new company which has since become
a major producer of both computers and software, made a serious
effort to get computers into schools at quite low cost. Perhaps it is
time for other computer companies and their experts to make the effort
to effect serious change in the educational process for the use of
computers.
Personal Training for Office by Personal Training Systems retails at
$90 for a single copy. The training cassettes retail for $37.00. The
street price for both of these items are somewhat less. They will
soon release a major upgrade for their CD-ROM THE MICROSOFT OFFICE
PROFESSIONAL including training at various skill levels. They can be
reached at 800-832-2499 for more information and orders.
JERRY LAULICHT is professor emeritus from the University of Pittsburgh.
...........................................................................
POLLING THE WEB
The WEB is a collection of Internet sites which provide both text and
graphical information. The WWW or World Wide Web is one of the fastest
growing parts of the Internet. This growth covers tools, homepages and
visitors. Len Bayles, who is the author and creator of the following
poll on suggestive demographics of the WWW has allowed us to present his
results posted to the Internet world on Oct. 13, 1994. This is his
report. lbl
On July 21, 1994 I posted a poll to comp.infosystems.www.users ( a
news group or conference) which I reposted three more times to the same
group. During the one month period I received 332 replies to the poll.
In the 332 replies I had 3 duplicate respondents. Here are the results
of that poll.
1. Software used to access W3, for example, Mosaic, Lynx, Cello, etc.
Mosaic 85.71%
Lynx 6.99%
MacWeb 3.65%
Cello 1.22%
Other 2.43%
* Users having access to multiple software packages represent 36.17% of
the sample.
2. Platform used, i.e., Unix/XWindows, MSDOS/Windows, Macintosh.
Unix 62.31%
MSDOS/Windows 19.45%
Macintosh 15.81%
Other 2.43%
Users who have access
to multiple OS's 26.14%
3. Does your software-system display graphics?
Yes 95.73%
No 4.27%
Some users commented that they disable graphics due to speed
considerations.
4. Can you utilize sound files?
Yes 67.17%
No 32.83%
5. How many hours per week do you spend accessing W3?
1 to 5 hours 51.53%
6 to 10 hours 28.53%
11 to 15 hours 6.13%
16 to 20 hours 7.98%
21 to 25 hours 1.84%
26 to 30 hours 1.23%
31 to 35 hours .31%
36 hours or more 2.45%
6. What is your primary motivation for using W3, i.e. business,
pleasure, scientific?
Business 46.34%
Pleasure 37.20%
Information gathering 16.46%
Most of the responses fell into the above three categories. I
categorized the results from the primary answer only. A large
percentage of the respondents use the Web for a combination of the
above reasons.
7. What is the bandwidth of your connection, i.e., dialup 14.400, 56Kb,
T1?
T1 or faster 33.13%
56k to less than T1 22.80%
14.4 to 28.8 20.67%
9600 1.82%
2400 1.82%
Unknown 19.76%
I suspect that most of the "Unknown" group fall into the T1 or faster
category. Many of the respondents in this category said that they were on a
network but were unsure of the speed but said it was fast.
8. Are you a W3 provider?
Yes 62.33%
No 37.67%
I think this was a confusing question. Many responded "yes" to this
that were not providers as such. It seems that many accounts today let
you have your own personal home page. While this does not make you a
"NCSA" it does allow for the average user to look like the big guys.
Although the following two questions were optional, most did respond to
them.
9. Age
16 to 20 9.15%
21 to 25 26.76%
26 to 30 22.54%
31 to 35 12.32%
36 to 40 15.49%
41 to 45 5.63%
46 to 50 4.93%
51 to 55 2.11%
56 an up 1.06%
As a side note, I did get one answer that said "as old as dirt." I
was unable to place this in the above categories, but it was worth
mentioning.
10. Sex
Male 87.19%
Female 12.81%
The general comments were very interesting. If anyone is interested
in seeing them please Email me. I will be compiling a file containing
them in the near future. Please feel free to mail me with any comments
or questions about the poll. I would like to do this again in six months.
If you have suggestions for new or re-worded questions please let me know.
Len Bayles len@yar.cusa.com
............................................................................
UPGRADING SOFTWARE
AN OLD FRIEND REVISITED: (C)1994 by Lois B. Laulicht
A product review -- Quicken v.4 for Windows
Intuit's Quicken for Windows v.4 is one of those pieces of software
that almost anyone can use at their own level of expertise and
discover that the program is essential for money management. Not
everyone has investments to track or other than payroll income to
report. However, most of us do have checks to write, budgets to
maintain, and tax items to collate. Quicken accomplishes these tasks,
and more, in a straight forward and easily understood manner. If one
were so inclined, one could manage the many details of a small
business using the Quicken tools. The newest Quick Books as a
companion to v.4 caps off this versatile suite of money management
tools and will be reviewed in the next months by WindoWatch.
It seems to me that the question of upgrading to the disk version of
Quicken v.4 is one that falls into two separate categories. There are
some of us who carefully upgrade to make sure their installed version
has the most current features. There are others who must justify the
upgrade in terms of what it will do for them. The new features on the
disk version are quite limited. There are some nice account buttons
at the bottom of the check register to insure complete records of
charges and credits and the snapshot feature is very nice. I'm also
sure that I'll really appreciate the improved links to Turbo Tax in the
months to come. However, the disk edition of v.4 might have waited a
bit. It is my understanding that the CD-ROM version is filled with all
sorts of reference data and other goodies. However---it's very hard to
improve upon excellence!
Installation of the program was hassle free! I was upgrading from an
earlier version and was impressed with how well data was protected
while the software was installed and then configured. The handy quick
tour of what the software offers for VGA monitor users can be referred
to at any time and covers all the high points of the program. The
On-line Help is very complete but not very interesting without any
graphic examples.
The guts of any money management software is the check register. As the
assorted items are entered into the register, Quicken's Quick Fill
feature will later access the name of the payee and the amount of the
check for regularly scheduled payments, or with minor editing, an
unusual amount. This saves many keystrokes and is a real time-saver.
One of the powerful features that Quicken provides is a way of
categorizing entries in the check register or any other register one
decides to establish. For new users, it might be wise to look at the
categories options carefully before one starts entering or
transferring data. Taking the extra minutes to specify tax categories
and other tax related items using the "splits" feature, particularly
for pay checks and credit cards, pays off at tax preparation time.
The "Getting Started" guide gives one a quick overview while looking
at the manual provides the necessary in-depth guidance crucial to
really utilize Quicken's fine points. To use Quicken in ways that
save one from the tedium of assembling canceled checks, receipts, and
other supporting documents at tax time, one must plan before
plunging. It should be pointed out that entries can be categorized
later using these more sophisticated features. Using the single entry
approach of the register, one can also establish cash, investment,
credit card and savings account registers, calculating and projecting
interest earned. The versatility of the register approach to money
management is inhibited only by the limits of the user's imagination.
The Electronic Payment option means that one can schedule payments
well in advance and order Checkfree to pay bills on a specified date
using their 800 telephone number and a modem. Checkfree needs five
business days to process your payments. Should you make a mistake or
choose to change an amount or stop payment on a specific item, the
handy Email feature can send a stop payment instruction. If a vendor
you do business with cannot handle electronic payments Checkfree will
instead send them a paper facsimile of your check. Quicken obviously
has the capacity to print checks with items for payment ready for
signature.
Balancing one's bank statement becomes a less tedious task with the
Quicken drop down menu that prompts for the correct information and
uses data already stored in program data files. A printed report can be
generated listing the uncleared checks by date issued, check number,
payee, category and amounts outstanding.
These tools keep you on top of your checking account chores. It
simplifies the cash flow process and keeps one abreast of how money is
spent. Like many of us, you may not have quite enough money, but you
won't ever be surprised by that short fall using Quicken. The
financial calendar coupled with billminder keeps your transactions
moving out and properly recorded in a timely fashion.
For those with investments, the familiar Quicken interface makes
somewhat complicated transactions easier to understand. The trick is
to keep transaction records current with sufficient detail to identify
profitable instruments from questionable investments. One no longer
has to wonder about the real cost of trading stocks or what the net
profit or loss is. ItÆs all there....from stock splits, dividends,
reinvestment of capital gains, and cash withdrawals of funds. The
amount of detail one chooses to enter for specific investment(s) is
left entirely to the user. It becomes clear how this information can
be used for general investment, retirement, college and tax planning.
The manual is most complete in this area and could easily become an
investor's accounting bible.
Quicken provides a very complete reporting interface and graphic
capability. For instance, if one is planning a home office addition
one can easily determine the appropriate dollar investment with
graphic display to determine the best option of either depreciation
and/or expensing items for tax purposes. One can do interim reporting
in terms of the planned dollar investment and quickly see if one is
within budgetary and/or time constraints. These can be integrated for
use with tax tools summarizing information consistent with year end
tax planning. Additionally, comma delimited data, for spread sheet
conversion, can be sent to the clipboard and then on to Excel or Lotus
1-2-3. Other data or report material can be transferred to other
Windows applications using normal cutting and pasting tools. If
Quicken has any built in limitations it is the lack of DDE or OLE.
Hopefully this will be one of the areas that Intuit will strengthen in
future versions. The recent merger of Intuit and Microsoft increases the
probability of inclusion of these features into future upgrades of
Quicken.
This is one of many money managers I have looked at over the last
twelve months and is the one I have found the easiest to learn, the
most versatile, and the most comprehensive. It is very reasonably
priced at around $35 plus s/h.
LOIS LAULICHT has been involved with computers since the early
eighties. She lives with her husband and their pair of German
Shepherds in the West Virginia mountains writing and editing
WindoWatch from their electronic cottage.
.............................................................................
.... The Last Word
Consulting in the 90's (C) 1994 by Ben M. Schorr
The times they are a changin'. That phrase is true of few enterprises
more than the fire engine paced change in the computer industry. As
this industry changes, so do its' consultants. The entire field of
computer consulting only got big when computers went mainstream in the
early 80s. Before then it was mostly major corporations and hobbyists
that had computers. We are now approaching the end of the century and
look to see a computer on almost every desk. And for all of that
computing power there is a veritable army of support personnel setting
it up and training end users on how to use it - at least in the
business sector and for specialized tasks.
As the home and home office markets heat up with a resulting flow of
computer information, even more people are gaining confidence in their
abilities to configure, repair and add computer components to new and
existing systems. This challenges consultants in at least two ways:
1. Everyone has a brother-in-law who is a "Computer Expert." You know
the type. He's the office guru because he knows how to change the
toner in the laser printer, subscribes to PC Magazine and bought a 486
at the swap meet for his house. Suddenly everybody is calling him for
free advice and he is more than happy to get wrist deep in their
WIN.INI files. Well folks, if you think working with professionals is
expensive, try working with amateurs. I get a lot of calls from people
who've either messed up their own configuration or, more often, had a
"friend" come in and "fix" it for them.
The real problem begin when these so-called "experts" get laid off or
get ambitious and decide to have some business cards printed up that
read "Computer Consultant." Now they're out in the marketplace
alongside the professionals disguised as a professional consultant....
and they may not be easy to spot at first. They'll have their Paper
Direct business cards and brochures. They'll toss out buzzwords like
"Information Super Highway" and "Scuzzy." AND they'll offer their
services at ridiculously low rates and are often pleased to get much
below prevailing local rates. But you can quickly separate
the pretenders when the work begins.
I've heard reports of "experts" who left a system unbootable because
the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files were in WordPerfect format. I've
seen "experts" who deleted key .EXE files trying to free up hard drive
space. I've also seen hard drives mounted backwards in the case, laser
printers plugged into UPSs and systems with three copies of Windows
installed.
Where and how does this hurt ? Perception. It can sometimes take a
little while for a professional to spot a pretender, especially if we
haven't had a chance to see his work. Imagine how difficult it is for
a lay-person to spot one! Let's assume as a lay- person you've just
paid a "Computer Consultant" $500 to set up your system. Nothing works
well or at all and that computer is a constant headache. The fellow
rarely returns calls and when he does, seems befuddled and has no
answers. Yet another person hands you a card that reads "Computer
Consultant" and offers to take a look at your systems...for $75/hour!
Wouldn't you be a bit wary of being taken by yet another pretender...
and this time for a lot more money?
Many prospective clients have been swindled by not one, but two, three,
four or even a longer succession of these impostors. They've paid a lot of
money for minor success and as a result are justifiably wary and more
cynical when we tell them what we can do for them and for how much. They've
heard our song before...and they can't tell if it's live or Memorex.
Making yourself visible:
How can we show and then prove to the public that we're the "real deal"?
It's not easy and it requires a lot of determination and time. First of all
you must establish yourself as a legitimate expert and viable businessperson.
Join the Chamber of Commerce and a local community organization like Kiwanis.
Get involved and establish yourself as a stable and hard working member of
the community with a telephone which is regularly answered and where phone
calls are always returned. Establish yourself with your local bank. Write
articles on your subject of expertise and actively seek speaking engagements
on your subject. Offer seminars and classes. Offer to teach part-time at a
local school or be a volunteer at a "Career Day" at the local high school.
Encourage your clients and colleagues to refer business to you and, most
importantly, be honest and straightforward in your dealings with clients,
prospects and vendors. They will remember this and you will get a reputation
as someone who can be trusted.
What They Say....
2. As "Plug-and-Play" becomes a reality, the PR spin, is that systems will
become easier to setup and maintain. The implication is that there no longer
exists a need for a consultant to setup a system if the end user can simply
twist three thumb screws, plug in a card, close the case and voila - it's
finished. Even the brother-in-law, the computer expert can't go too far
wrong with this. They are saying that as applications become more intuitive,
the need for training will be reduced. They, also say, that as hardware
prices continue to fall, having a system that is robust and new becomes more
realistic for all commercial users. Further, if a system fails...replace it.
The parts are cheap and "Plug-and-Play."
The above is the party line that Microsoft, IBM and other big vendors would
have us believe. Until just recently I feared that they were not far from
reality. However, the more I see of the new operating systems, new hardware
and new applications the more confident I am that we are not an extinct
species just yet -- or for some time to come !
Custom programming is still very much alive. What about the new "intuitive"
programs? How many times have you been called because the end user forgot to
turn on their monitor and assumed their system crashed? No matter how simple
developers try to make their programs, there will always be a need for end-
user training...primarily because it IS very foreign terrain for most users.
As for Plug-and-Play, many of the upgrades we now do could be done by end-
users. The fact is that many end-users don't want to do their own upgrades.
Just as I don't want to wash my own car, they prefer to pay somebody else to
do it for them...and if PCMCIA is any example, there will be plenty of
compatibility and configuration problems to go around.
There is lots of information but very little confidence!
The more robust systems are just great and mean there are more things the
end- users can do. I have a client who told me that he thought that buying
a computer would save him time...now he spends just as much time as before,
if not more! The difference is that he's accomplishing ten times as much.
The new systems will take end-users to a level of productivity they never
dreamed was possible ...and good, experienced, honest consultants will be
their guides.
I rest my case!
BEN M. SCHORR is the Director of Operations of Watson/Schorr Consulting, a
Canoga Park, California-based computer and business consulting firm. Ben is
the moderator of the CONSULTANT and LANTASTIC conferences on the Ilink Email
network and the SMALL-BUSINESS conference on the Intelec Email network and
has been a computer professional for over 7 years. Ben can be reached at
(818) 993-8640 or via the Internet at ben.schorr@ panasia.com
...........................................................................
N E X T I S S U E
Vol. 1 No. 2 January 1995
Jeff Marchi is a consultant who is widely known on the various BBS
nets. He will be discussing WINDOWS95 focusing upon the changes for
good and for ill in this newest Microsoft operating system.
Additionally there will be reports from Joe Rotello's bunch at
WindowGroup on Windows NT Server 3.5 and Ambrose Campbell looking at
the Windows NT client software with an applications update. Herb Chong
will look at these Windows operating systems and help the rest of us
understand what this specialized trend means for all Windows users.
Who is Dan Bricklin?
In 1979, Dan Bricklin, with his partner Bob Frankston, created
VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet. That program was
instrumental in moving personal computers into business offices, and
formed the basis for all spreadsheets since. Dan has brought to the
software market another contender -- OVERALL -- which provides a
unique way of looking at and manipulating data. Bricklin is providing
WindoWatch a demo of the software which will be included for
distribution to our readers. There will also be an evaluation and
review of the product by Jerome Laulicht planned for issue three.
As part of our AUTHORING TOOLS series, Jim Plumb who has used
Acrobat v.1 for some time will put Acrobat v.2 through its' paces.
Jim is a very versatile guy and has experience and expertise with
many operating system platforms. Mr. Plumb is also putting together
the WindoWatch presence on the Channel One homepage for WEB visitors.
Peter Neuendorffer does have a serious side! The creator of Alice is
also a very committed programmer who is making the transition to Windows
programming. He's going to share some of the problems he's encountered
along with the gains of using Windows with the WindoWatch community!
Paul Williamson has both the WexTech DOC2HELP and the Blue Sky
Software RoboHELP in his portfolio for evaluation and review and will
begin his series on WindowÆs HELP tools in this upcoming issue. Paul
is our resident DOS expert and serves on the Editorial Board of
WindoWatch.
Angela Lillystone is a personal information manager expert who can be
found with the Symantec Electronic Support people on CIS providing
Windows consulting, testing, and training. Angela will report on
askSAM for Windows v.2 developed by askSAM Systems. From what my spies
tell me this is a new approach to organizing information. askSam has
been a long time favorite for text management with researchers and
authors alike. askSam 2.0 for Windows offers several new features,
among them searches on highlighted words or phrases, true hypertext
and searches across all files. The new import filters and automatic
field recognition are purported to make askSam a viable tool for
managing email from various sources. We put askSam through its paces
for email management and as a technical support database. Did we find
what we needed when we needed it? Read our report in the upcoming
issue of WindoWatch!
Gregg Hommel continues his tutorial on WASP, Part two. Gregg very
modestly took on this task reminding us that it would be difficult for
him to be impartial as he necessarily looks critically at the
DataStorm offering. Because there are so many new comers on all the
"nets" we felt that learning to automate one's on-line sessions would
be of interest to many readers.
Derek Buchler continues to "wow" us all with his talent to amuse and
his witty way with words. I know that Derek will "find" us something
funny. Don't let his easy style deceive you into thinking that he is
a computer light weight. He is a highly experienced computernik!
There will be a few more surprises from Paul Kinnaly and Jerry Laulicht!
Who knows what bolt of genius will overcome one or even all of us!
.........................................................................
...ON WARP and WINDOWS 95
The WindoWatch quest to get solid information on WARP was, frankly,
side tracked into this thicket of opinion and discussions of "my OS is
better than your OS". The author of this piece is unknown. Curtis
Brewington picked it up off a BBS and posted it to the RIME OS/2
conference.... I think of this as a pox on both your houses.
"The workers at Microsoft are by contract required to wake up every
morning and genuflect in front of pimple-faced figurine of Bill Gates.
Tracing the sign of the dollar across their foreheads, they reverently
say,
Our Father which art in Redmond, hallowed be thy DOS. Thy Visual BASIC
3.0 come, thy sudden crashes be done in Windows as they were in
Desqview. Give us this day our daily upgrade order form, and forgive
us our prior versions as we forgive those undocumented calls. Lead us
not into DOS 9.23, but deliver us from SNA. For Thine are the
platforms, the compilers, and the law-suits forever and ever. Amen.
IBM workers are required by contract to wear blue underwear, and
paint their bedrooms baby blue. Every night before taking off for home
in their blue cars, they must stop and kneel in the direction of the
CEO's office, and sacredly whisper this holy prayer:
Our Father which art in Armonk, hallowed be thy initials. Thy XGA
come, thy OS/2 version 3 be done on RISC as it is on CISC. Give us
this day our daily press release, and forgive Northgate and Dell as
we forgive your mainframe mind set. Lead us not into PC Juniors and
Topviews, but deliver us from Unix. For Thine are the profits, the
blue skies, and the market domination forever and ever. Amen."
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
It heats up, and although there are moments of light, the discussion
poorly conceals pure vitriol!
On the PC Week Warp evaluation:
IBMer> No, please re-read the Microsoft document. The OS/2 configuration
was not "standard".
MSite> YES it was, you are making up stories because OS/2 came out so bad..
An uncommitted observer jumps in and said:
"OS/2 vs Windows 95 Performance! By now you've probably heard the
4M mantra "Performance equivalent to Windows 3.1 on a 4M machine". Here's
how we're doing vs. Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and OS/2 Warp. OS/2
performs poorly overall. Performance for Windows 95 is about equal to
Windows for Workgroups."
The IBMer fights back!
IBMer> Yes, I've seen the "benchmarks". These definitely fall into
the "lies, damned lies and statistics" category. In all cases,
"apples vs. oranges" were compared. Here's my take on how these
numbers were generated and a list of several things that are wrong
with the way this test was conducted...
1)IBM's recommended configuration for running on a 4MB machine were not
followed.
2)The High Performance File System was not used.This would improve
performance significantly on the 8MB & 16MB configurations.
3)The fast-load option for Windows applications running under OS/2 was
not used as this improves Windows load time.
4)Under OS/2, the applications were run in separate Virtual Machines.
In this configuration, performance is compromised in order to prevent
one Windows application from crashing all of the others. Chicago does
not offer this choice.
5)The applications were run in "seamless" mode rather than from a full
screen Windows session. This mode compromises video performance in
order to gain convenience.
6)No tests were conducted to determine the speed at which Windows can
execute OS/2 applications.
7)The graphics cards used and the drivers used were not disclosed. IBM
does not recommend this video mode on 4MB systems.
8)Why was the 4MB dual-applications test omitted?
9)Due to NDA agreements and non-availability of Chicago, these
benchmarks cannot be verified by neutral 3rd parties.
It goes on...........
An exchange On WINDOWS95 between an IBM supporter and a Microsoft supporter.
IBMer>All Microsoft has done (with Windows '95) is use their portion
of OS/2 to develop their own version of WARP.
MSite>Nonsense, they have come out with a MUCH better product than IBM
with much better performance. You just sound jealous. You have reason
to be from the comments you made. You are trying to fabricate anything
you can to discredit Windows95 from what I can see.
Nat Weiner « brought this to the RIME community's attention:
Just saw a "WARP" ad on TV. Not the most persuasive ever, but it did
cause me to look up the meaning of "WARP". My Random House Dictionary,
circa 1967, defines "warp" in part as:
"to bend or twist out of shape; ... to distort ... from the ... true
meaning; ... a mental twist, bias or quirk...;"
After reading reports by some of the early users of "Warp", including
a detailed factual piece by one Michael Putzel in the Nov. 11, 1994 Boston
Globe about his experience, my funnybone wonders if the name was chosen
(a) by Microsoft;
(b) by entities from another world;
(c) at IBM, a warped choice of warped minds;
(d) by IBM as a description, warning and legal defense; or
(e) by a comedian who submitted it as a joke?
The final slur from an alleged European Source!
Remember when the New York times blasted OS/2 just recently? I just
heard, via post on Internet, that a German Magazine reported that New
York Times is HIRING Bill Gates to write columns for them!
I think we have completed the circle!