On Mon, 2002-11-04 at 00:06, cr wrote: > On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:15, Ron Johnson wrote: > > On Sun, 2002-11-03 at 01:14, cr wrote: > > > On Sun, 02 Nov 2003 23:37, Paul Johnson wrote: > > > > On Sat, Nov 01, 2003 at 05:13:01PM +0000, Pigeon wrote: > > > > > Nah, that was EDIT.COM - before that appeared I used to use the Turbo > > > > > C editor to edit text files; I think the guys who wrote EDIT.COM did > > > > > too. > > > > > > > > I remember c:\dos\edit.com fondly as well, probably the best text > > > > editor to ever come out of MS. Still doesn't hold a flame to emacs, > > > > but hey, it's Microsoft we're talking about here, so what do you > > > > expect? > > > > > > Well, I discovered Edit when our department got a IBM PC with a > > > dot-matrix printer. At that time we engineers had to write > > > specifications on a mainframe terminal in some 'scripting' language, send > > > them off to some queue, phone up Accounts (who owned the mainframe) and > > > beg them nicely to run some compiler on it and send it to the Print > > > queue, then phone up Printing and tell them it was ours. If we were > > > lucky, next day, we'd get the result and (if we'd made no mistakes in our > > > scripting!) it would be readable. If not... > > > > > > Nobody told me about Edit, I found it by accident. But as soon as I saw > > > it I recognised The Future. Or, Freedom. I printed off one page to > > > prove to myself that it would work, went to the mainframe terminal, > > > logged in, typed "Change Password", shut my eyes and typed in random > > > letters, locking myself out of the detested mainframe forever. :) > > > > > > Does anyone wonder why I hate Thin Clients...? ;) > > > > I hate to use such strong words, but to compare the centralized > > control of resources that existed on *old* mainframes with the > > centralized control of resources on a thin-client/fat-server and > > find any but the most basic similarities is verging on delusion. > > > > After all, it's no more difficult to have a printer sitting on your > > desk, or down the hall with a TC/FS network-based system as it is > > when you have stand-alone or fat-client/thin-server system. And > > you're still running all the same apps, no matter what. > > The *major* similarity between mainframes and Thin Clients is, that as a user > on a Thin Client, I am stuck with the software and the settings that are > installed on the Fat Server (or whatever it's called). Those are *not* the > same apps as I choose to run on my old W95 box, I can't install anything of > my own on the server. (I already asked that one, and I knew what the answer > would be. Mainframe Mentality is creeping back).
Yes, that's true, and, being An Old Mainframe Guy, who still works on host-based systems (OpenVMS), I like the idea of being able to tell the user, "No, you can *not* mangle your machine, then bitch at me for taking all day to try to fix what you broke, or all day and all night recovering the office from a virus/worm/trojan that you introduced onto the LAN". Also, standardization: with TC/FS, there's no possibility of 5 different versions of Windows (plus Service Packs), or a half dozen versions of kernels and distros floating around the org, causing weird incompatibilities. > On 'my' (actually the company's) old W95 box, I have Opera, graphics viewers, <TOPIC=OFF> Blech. Win95? That's so ancient, that, if kernel.org is to be believed (www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v1.2/), it's release coincides with linux-1.2.13.tar.bz2. </TOPIC> > Xbasic, a pretty cool screensaver, heaps of other W95 freeware..... They're > the only things that make using a Windoze box tolerable, for me. It's about > freedom of choice, you know? Fortunately for me, I also have a considerable > number of little engineering programs installed which justifies me keeping my > old box. You run engineering apps in 2003, on a 5-8 year old box? You'd be *much* happier with Win2k. Or do your apps not work in Win2k? When you work for someone else, you have a lot less freedom of choice than at home, or at your own business. > Thin Clients might be suitable for copy typists, data entry clerks and Dumb > Users. Certainly not for engineers or anybody who's likely to be reading > this list. If we thought Microcrap was the greatest we wouldn't be on this > list, right? Guess what? Thin-clients work *great* on Linux! http://www.ltsp.org TC obviously isn't suitable for your tasks, but to say "Does anyone wonder why I hate Thin Clients...?" is a very "big" sentence. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ron Johnson, Jr. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jefferson, LA USA "My advice to you is to get married: If you find a good wife, you will be happy; if not, you will become a philosopher." Socrates -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
