[geeks] Microsoft (was: Ya-HoooooO!)

[Doug McLaren]

On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 11:25:18AM -0500, hike wrote:
...
| > | everything M$ touches ends up sucking
| >
| > I realize that it's popular to say this, perhaps especially here, but
| > you do have to be aware that it's not really true, right?
| >
| > The vast majority of Microsoft's suckage comes from a few specific
| > products, mostly Windows and Office.
...
| -- I was very happy with my Microsoft Z-80 card.  It let me use Turbo
|   Pascal on my Apple ][+!
| 
| gee, an old microsoftie!

They weren't `the devil' at the time.

Sure, CP/M sucked by today's standards (but that's not Microsoft's
fault), but it was very nice to do my homework with the `official'
Turbo Pascal used by the class on my home computer, rather than UCSD
Pascal I had before, or using Turbo Pascal in the computer lab at
school.  This was a big deal -- I kept running into little cases where
UCSD pascal and Turbo Pascal differed, and the TAs were annoyed that
they had to do *anything* to support those who did anything
differently.

The Z-80 card by itself was a good product, however.

(Never been called a Microsoftie before, however.)

| you forgot to add what a great job they do with hotmail!

Why would I?  I wasn't listing their sucky products -- I was
explicitly listing things that didn't suck.

I was disproving your assertion that `everything M$ touches ends up
sucking' -- all it takes is one counter-example to disprove, but I
provided several.

Also, I've never used Hotmail.  But I heard it sucked even before
Microsoft bought it ...
 
| you forgot the wonderfulness of $9.95 msn service that is made of mostly
| live components!

Never used it.

| you forgot "bob"!

Never used it.  I do own a copy of it, however.  $2 at Goodwill, still
in the shrinkwrap!

Perhaps some day I'll open it up and run it under WINE.

| you forgot the flying chairs!

Really has little bearing on their product quality or lack thereof.

| you forgot the M$ patented exercise program: hopping up and down like a
| monkey"

High impact aerobics work for some, but not me.  I prefer cycling.

| you forgot the stacklessness of Windows 3.x!

Actually, I believe that falls under the statement of `The vast
majority of Microsoft's suckage comes from a few specific products,
mostly Windows and Office'.  Windows 3.x is [Microsoft] Windows, is it
not?

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men
 should be happier than others."  --Oscar Wilde