Thomas Mondoshawan Tate wrote:
> Amigas are incredibly versitile, and the manuals that come with them even list
> information for building add-ons for them (expansion port pinouts, etc). Also,
> if you're looking for power in a computer, Amigas have the ability to use
> the PCI bus (= use PC components) and G3/G4 CPUs in tandem with the native
> 68020/30/40 for SMP crazyness.

Yeah. Everyone used to do that. Using a computer used to mean more
than it does now. There was a time when every home PC vendor worth a
damn gave plenty of info on the hardware, including instructions on
how to actually program the thing to do something useful. 

These days, the typical vendors provide information on how to hold and
use a mouse... 

Hell, the Apple 2's manual came with the source code listed in the
back. But then came the Apple 2+ in the very late 70s, which was
essentially the same machine with a few tweaks, and AppleSoft BASIC.
It was developed by Micro$oft, and Apple has been in bed with
Micro$oft in some form or another ever since... although they
continued to release their own source code in technical reference
manuals as well as allow magazines and anyone else permission to
reprint portions of it (fair use).

Bill Gates wrote a letter to Dr Dobbs Journal in the mid 70s telling
the entire homebrew PC community what horrible people they were for
copying an incomplete papertape version of a BASIC that had been
liberatated during a tradeshow. Forget that most of these people had
paid already, and they simple had not received anything because the
company Gates was working for was selling a product that didnt exist
via mail order (yes, in violation of federal law, but since when has
Gates cared about that either?). 

If someone had had the sense to shoot him in the head back then, think
of how different the world could be! :-)   At least Steve Jobs or
Larry Ellison have a style about them - to be blunt, if you've ever
watched gates, you probably realize that the guy is basically a
retard. Sure, he's an idiot-savant with a damn keen gift for business,
but thats about where it seems to end. He'd have sunk himself long ago
with some of his other stupidity were it not for that business sense -
he somehow manages to hire the appropriate subordinates to stop him
from screwing up too bad too.

--

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines
and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
                          
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free
of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

--

It makes me sad. The meadow has been paved over with row after row of
strip mall, flashing bright banner ads polluting the net sky. You'd
never know this place used to special as little as twenty years ago.
But so it goes.




jkenner @ mindspring . com__
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