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Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping

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Wes Groleau wrote:

> On 11-21-2013, 21:21, Lewis wrote:
>>    Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> wrote:
>>> On 11-21-2013, 15:21, John Holt wrote:
>>> I'm not so sure that Word and Excel did that much for the Mac.
>>> My second civilian employer used Mac System 7.5: crashed many times every
>>> day--if Word or Excel were running.  No crashes on the rare day when
>>> those beasts weren't in use.  Someone who used them every day, or who
>>> wasn't very observant, would think it was Apple's fault.
>>
>> What version of Word? I ran Word 3 4 and 5 on the Mac for many years. I
>> couldn't swear it ever crashed.
>
> That's a heck of a question to ask an old man thirty years after the 
> event!  :-)
>
> It was from January 1996 until shortly after Windows NT came out.  They 
> switched to NT, which crashed even more often.  Although the admittedly 
> superior user-space architecture was in NT, the implementation was still 
> poor, and many apps were still able to crash the whole system.

I think you are probably referring to NT 4.0 there; NT 3.5 then 3.51
came out earlier, but it was with 4.0 that sales really took off.  3.51
had the WIndows 3.n style interface but 4.0 got the Windows 95 makeover.

In early 1997 I got a system specified to run NT 4.0 and put together by
a custom system builder who knew what he was doing. I only had two or
three full system crashes in the year I was using it and those were down
to bad drivers and a cable which came adrift after I'd been inside it.

The DOS subsystem responsible for running 16 bit stiff would pack in
every few weeks though.  No error messages or other diagnostics;
fortunately I had a tape drive on it so saving work done since the daily
backup and doing a full restore was only an hour away...

> I _think_ the Word version on the Mac was 5.1, and I have no idea of the 
> Excel version.  I can't remember which was worse, Word or Excel, but 
> part of the difference between your experience and mine might have been 
> file size.  So many of my colleagues in the defense business would write 
> specifications of three hundred to a thousand pages, mostly fluff.  And 
> they'd put the entire thing in a single file!
>
> I wrote a Software Requirements Specification of eighty pages that 
> people eventually admitted was complete and well-done.  But at first 
> they were so convinced that something they could pick up with only one 
> hand wasn't ready for review that they wouldn't pick it up at all.

That mentality is probably to blame for the overly thick manuals I had
to wade through in my brief venture into the Windows Server world. 
There was an awful lot of crap to wade through before getting to
anything of interest.  It definitely  contributed to my decision to
avoid WIndows in the future (OK there were other frustrations there as
well).

-- 
Paul Sture

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29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping George Kerby <ghost_topper@hotmail.com> - 2013-11-20 13:11 -0600
  Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2013-11-21 09:08 +1300
    Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-20 20:37 -0500
      Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Recliner <recliner2-news@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-11-20 19:57 -0600
        Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2013-11-21 19:08 +1300
          Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm@mendelson.com> - 2013-11-21 07:24 +0000
            Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping John Holt <me@foo.net> - 2013-11-21 15:21 -0500
              Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-21 20:34 -0500
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2013-11-22 02:21 +0000
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-21 23:24 -0500
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2013-11-21 23:38 -0500
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2013-11-22 15:29 +0000
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping "M. John Matlaw" <nouser@invalid.com> - 2013-11-22 14:55 -0500
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-23 00:56 -0500
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2013-11-24 05:43 +0100
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2013-11-22 18:36 +1300
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2013-11-22 01:06 -0500
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Bill Findlay <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-11-22 18:20 +0000
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Michelle Steiner <foo@bar.com> - 2013-11-22 11:34 -0700
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Bill Findlay <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-11-22 19:22 +0000
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Michelle Steiner <foo@bar.com> - 2013-11-22 16:12 -0700
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Bill Findlay <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-11-23 03:34 +0000
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Michelle Steiner <foo@bar.com> - 2013-11-22 21:36 -0700
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping gtr <xxx@yyy.zzz> - 2013-11-23 12:02 -0800
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Michelle Steiner <foo@bar.com> - 2013-11-23 15:58 -0700
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Bill Findlay <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2013-11-23 22:34 +0000
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Erilar <drache@chibardun.netinvalid> - 2013-11-23 20:55 +0000
          Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Recliner <recliner2-news@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-11-21 01:51 -0600
            Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2013-11-22 09:28 +1300
      Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2013-11-21 01:42 -0500
        Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-21 11:49 -0500
          Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2013-11-21 11:56 -0500
      Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Michelle Steiner <foo@bar.com> - 2013-11-21 09:07 -0700
        Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-21 11:53 -0500
          Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2013-11-21 11:56 -0500
            Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-21 12:30 -0500
              Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2013-11-21 13:00 -0500
          Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2013-11-22 09:33 +1300
            Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> - 2013-11-21 15:54 -0500
              Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Recliner <recliner2-news@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-11-21 18:47 -0600
                Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping David Taylor <david-taylor@blueyonder.co.uk.invalid> - 2013-11-22 11:07 +0000
    Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Matthew Lybanon <lybanon@earthlink.net> - 2013-11-21 12:04 -0600
      Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2013-11-22 09:31 +1300
  Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping Siri Cruz <chine.bleu@yahoo.com> - 2013-11-20 18:27 -0800
  Re: 29 Years Ago: The Flop that keeps on Flopping "Mr. Strat" <mrstrat@nospam.gmail.com> - 2013-11-21 06:42 -0800

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