Posts by John Smith 19

Re: Awesome article

"Sure; user management on Windows isn't bad either."

I think you need to alter the grammar a little.

"User management *eventually* became as good as other platforms could deliver *years* earlier once MS had wiped out the competition and decided to add some of the things it had not bothered to install in the first place"

As someone once observed "If the Devil ever beat God he would have to take over some of Gods duties."

@Tarn Lin

"Ballmer's biggest lie was that Microsoft had written a program - always nearly finished - that would convert source code written for Windows to run on OS/2"

Hahahahahahahahaha.

What developers will believe of MS *never* gets old. The did the same with the Windows 95 /NT porting process. "It's just like the Win95 API"

" and the opportunity to help Gates become the world's richest psychopath."

Ouch.

Re: Optical computing

Sounds like the position optical computing was in the 1960's with photographic masks carrying out the FFT "instantly" compared to any computer implementation.

Possibly the furthest this work got was the Dunlop Aerospace developed "correlatron" which provided the terminal guidance for the Pershing 2 missile.

I'd suggest the 2 *big* challenges are 1) *gain* amplification of a light signal *by* a light signal and 2) eliminating interference techniques. I've seen *lots* of stuff which basically use this but it seems pretty useless if you want a device with *broad* bandwidth.

Perhaps the *next* generation will manage this.

Wouldn't they learn more if they send a couple?

Not to mention the rights to the videos would make the whole process self financing.

No that's not a mac.

Re: I still use ecomstation ...

"He did employ some great people to work on NT and copied many of the great ideas from OS/2 such as, hardware abstraction, extensible attributes and virtual filesystems."

That included Dave Cutler, the architect of DEC's VMS, another *serious* OS. I'm told NT internals matches VMS to a *surprising* degree, given the completely different architecture.

Clever idea, hardware abstraction layers.

Re: Bum Steer..

"One further point, the goodwill still on the balance sheets far exceeds HP market capitalization currently..!"

And you know what happens to companies whose assets are worth *substantially* more than their market capitalization?

I hear the folk at OpCapita are at a bit of a loose end since Comet "unfortunately" went down the pan.

There's still a few nice chunks left that they could "release the value" of.

Coat as I think sensible HP staffers should be considering putting on theirs and going out the door.

Re: Bum Steer..

"In buying EDS, Palm and Autonomy, it spent some 26bn and has written down around 19bn. "

So they've taken $19Bn dollars of *shareholder* money (either the money could have paid to shareholders as dividends or the charges on the loans they raised will be met out of money that *could* have gone to shareholders) and basically flushed it down the pan.

Sounds like some of those shareholders should lawyer up as well and administer some "Conrad Black" style discipline to the board.

Gimp mask because on *that* basis that's pretty much what's happened to the stockholders.

Re: What a farce...

Certainly f**ked up Ferranti.

Re: "Lynch must be alone in talking up the leadership of Apotheker..."

"Six billion quid buys a hell of a lot of arse-licking......"

That's about 4600 *years* of the UK average persons *lifetime* salary.

For that kind of money quite a few might be prepared to consider tucking into a few portions of M. Apotheker's stools in a full gimp suit with a couple of dozen journalists taking photgraphs.

Just saying.

Re: The one advantage that physical retail has..immediate availability

"In some respects, I would prefer to have guaranteed availability in store of a smaller range flagged on the display, with other items on display carrying expected delivery information. This makes sure that immediate availabillity can be part of the customer decision up front, rather than making it something you have to initiate a dialogue with the sales person in order to find out that they have."

This sounds *very* pragmatic to me but of course that means *senior* management (at HO level) have to do some actual *thinking* about what to stock and what to hold centrally. Such *hard* choices on the pittance they are paid (yeah right).

Re: The Comet Syndrome

I've been in a few Maplin stores. Look in the back for a sort of "trade counter" type area. That seems to be where all the small parts, cables, IC's are.

Main shelving is generic "PC stuff".

@Andus McCoatover

"If anyone's bothered to read The Book of Revelations, I don't think magic mushrooms are far off the mark."

The advisors and members of the Cabinet of *several* American presidents have read & believed it as *literal* truth.

Not really someone you'd want near any sort of nuclear release system. It could end in tears.