Now that I'm a Linux/Unix user the idea of a DOS vs. Mac war strikes me as odd, but my memory belies this reaction. I was a kid in the eighties and talked my parents into buying a personal computer. My mother had taken a few CS classes in which she had used Apple II's and IIe's, which she simply thought of as a step up from punch cards. Apple II computers were the educational standard, she was getting a teaching degree, and I was a child (and hence more in need of education than other folks); therefore, we got an Apple IIgs. We spent many years reading Apple magazines, using Apple software, and reading books written for Apple users. I even programmed in Applesoft BASIC, so I can trace my programming problems to early childhood. (Unfortunately, all of my other problems seem to be my own fault :-)

Anyway, I read over and over again -- over and over and over and over . ('and over')x$ad_nauseam that IBM's (aka PCs or IBM-compatibles) were difficult to use, poorly designed, and slow, and the software available for these machines was bug-ridden, all for business, and much more difficult to use than the available software for the Apple II. If you didn't count the thousands of redundant accounting and business programs, there was supposedly a much wider array of software available for the Apple II. The biggest point, an article of faith in the Apple II community, was that PCs were Difficult to Use.

Nobody one person said all that; it was a tag team job. I never looked for any information about MS-DOS systems and software; the magazines devoted to Apple II systems and software teemed with little digs against "IBM-compatibles," framed as sober advice for the normal, plain-folks people who ought to accept a helping hand from the Apple II community instead of getting screwed by the heartless, sophisticated, and arrogant PC world. It sounded exactly like the advice Auntie Em would have given Dorothy if she had announced she was going to elope to New York City with a pimp.

Later I discovered that the biggest difference between a so-called PC and an Apple II was that instead of swapping disks and rebooting to switch programs, you were supposed to "quit" one and "run" the other from the "command line."

I always wondered what the "IBM" (i.e., MS-DOS) people said about the Apple II. I bet it sounded like a New Yorker talking about life in the Midwest. At least, that's the impression I got from a high-school pal who grew up with MS-DOS: "Oh, yeah, we knew the Apple II's existed and we knew they sucked. We didn't really care, though."

All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.
-- Bertrand Russell

In reply to RE: The Holy War by grackle
in thread The Holy War by zdog

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