CompuServe Messages

[ continuation ] I'll probably be running my 68060 at 250 mhz and laughing my way to the keyboard. Regarding Purdue being highly regarded, and running Unix, and the former providing credence to the latter… I don't buy it. Credit for good work in any particular area should be awarded only on the basis of that work. If people credit me with being a quality martial artist because the company's name implies that and we do other good work (the implication being that Purdue produces quality graduates, the only measure of a good school that means anything), then they're reaching. To say that Unix is good, because Purdue is good *and* they use Unix doesn't follow. Hey – Unix works. It's an OS, and it's been successfully used to teach many people many phases of computing. Fine. But it's old, the number of new coats of paint it's got hasn't made it into a realtime OS, and it's unlikely to change in the future (again, nodding at Modcomp, who, if you're not aware, have a realtime Unix). The premise I'm disagreeing with here is that Unix is significant enough that the world will want to change to it. I think not. Some big machines, doing some big things, are running Unix or a close variant. You have to remember how many machines aren't running Unix – most of them. And my solid conviction on this point is based upon an inner certainty that the average user does not, under any circumstances, want to learn anything new. They dig in their heels and they will not budge. And the threat to a company when something as major as the OS changes is huge. For that reason, I think that where Unix is, Unix will stay. Where MSDROSS is, it will stay. New systems will be run under groups of small machines, netted under some variant of MSDOS. That's what I think. –Ben