#I'm outta here!
24 messages in this thread
This isn't much of a soapbox issue, but it's definitely NOT Hot news! 🙂 The
only reason that I've been on CompuServe instead of AOL or the Web was because
of CS's excellent Amiga support. I really like this forum and the Amiga
community has been extremely prolific in delivering interesting PD software.
On the other hand, CS is a little pricey, has one of the all time worst
interfaces (at least WinCim :-)), and is fairly pricey. Now that I don't have
an Amiga anymore, I only dip in occassionally to see what's up.
And unfortunately, nothing is. I thought the "Who's going to buy the Amiga"
fight would have been long over by now (remember all those claims of "Amiga's
shipping by Christmas?) and I've been waiting mainly to see it to the end. I'm
starting to think now that it's never going to end, because both sides have
missed important time frames (time to recover personal, time to market, keeping
up with development, etc.) and that it's just going to drag itself out so long
that, in the end, it's not going to matter anymore. It probably is already too
late to have any chance of being a mainline machine (well, it probably was too
late two years ago) but it could still be a really interesting niche machine.
Watching QuickTime movies on PCs and Macs gives you a keen appreciation of what
real multimedia is.
Anyway, this all amounts to the fact that I'm abandoning my CS account and
going off to play with the Web. Just for yucks, I'm keeping my account till
the end of this week on the off-chance of a miracle announcement. One can
always hope.
-R
Miracle announcement.
CIS reduces rates for high-speed access (9600/14,400) this February to
$4.80/HR!
Cheap enough for ya?!
<squeak, squeak> 🙂
Christopher
Hi, Rusty,
Just got back from out of tyhe country and as usual either nothing has
happened (Amiga) or things have gone to hell (work). I want to thank you
profusely for scaring CIS into drastically reducing their high speed rates
– the CIS community is indebted to you B-)
If you still go, know that you will be missed. Leave a forwarding address
in case anything tremendously interesting happens (ha!).
BTW, can't you talk Bill into subsidizing your CIS account? There's all
sorts of neat Windows stuff in CIS …
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where the ice cream truck plays Helter Skelter …
Well, nothing's more frightening to a major corporation like loosing my
inimitable wit and wisdom. 4.80 a month is a heck of a lot closer to a
reasonable rate, although AOL is at 2.95. Of course, it doesn't have much of
an Amiga presence!
For all sorts of juicy gossip and MS blather, I can always be reached at
rustyw@microsoft.com. And Bill does subsidize my CIS account, as well as my
apartment, food, etc…:_) CIS is ok, AOL is ok, the Internet is ok, I just
wish there was something that was great. The facilities of CIS, the UI of AOL,
and the breadth of the Internet. Once again, all for that low price of 2.95 an
hour!
Hey, here's a random question: who out there uses PDAs, and if so, what kind?
My Amiga replacement for the "no respect" category is an Apple Newton. The
video tape I got with it said that "people just think it's cool when you pull
out a Newton." I pulled out my Newton at a meeting at work, and everybody
laughed at me!! I guess they hadn't seen the tape. 🙂
-R
2.95 per hour is way too high. Should be a flat rate per month, less than your
cable bill.
As to the PDA question, I keep looking for something that'll work for me, but I
can't find it. Unless it is the Newton, which I'd have to use long enough to
get my handwriting recognized before I could figure out if it'd work for me.
I think what I really want is something with a chord keyboard so that I can
enter long blocks of text. Of course, then I'd want a chord keyboard on my
desktops, too.
Are you looking for recommendations of other PDAs, or for how not to get
laughed at when you whip it out?
I'd buy a PDA in a hot second if it had wireless e-mail/comm (for one low
monthly fee), and if it was really cheap (like $300).
It'd be kinda cool to have NFS access to all my machines at home too, but I
think that'll take a while. 🙂
I think everyone would buy a product like that, but we're only now even getting
mail for one low monthly fee, much less a wireless PDA. Is 300 your price
point? For that you can get a Newton 100 (they're dumping them right now at
200) or a really good Wizard. Are either of those interesting?
People keep talking about how cool PDAs would be if only they had wireless
mail, but they seem really cool to me regardless. I guess I got into the PDA
market early on (1989 was my first B.O.S.S.) and the functionality of a PDA is
just overwhelmingly compelling for someone as scatteredbrained as myself.
-R
But there are (or will be shortly) wireless PDAs available. I used to work
with someone that's heading up a team that's producing one. I'm not sure if
it's out yet or not, so I can't go into details at this point. It's still
going to be at too high a price point (for me at least)… I think it's going
to sell for $1500.
The wireless aspect has me interested in getting one… I expect that sooner
or later all PDAs will have this to some extent. I'd be happy to wait for now.
Yep, there's actually wireless PDAs now, but as you suggested, the price is a
little steep. There's a new Newton that's a kickin' cool wireless modem,
backlit screen, assorted other features that I've forgotten, but it's 3 grand.
Yikes!
-R
I wonder when the color version will be out? 🙂
Rusty,
I bought a BOSS several years ago, but couldn't get into it. It's been
getting, well, rusty, ever since … I like the stylus approach better.
DJ
On AP and on the road to recovery from the Road to Mandalay,
From Queens, where the ice cream truck plays Helter Skelter …
My first PDA was a BOSS, but I took it back and got a Sharp when they came out
with the first Wizard that opened up, not right to left. The Wizards have IMHO
much better software, both in functionality and ease of learning/use.
Sharp finally came out with what I think of as the ultimate Wizard. It's like
the perfect follow through on a lot of the different Wizard features, finally
hitting the perfect balance between price and performance. PRODUCT ENDORSEMENT
FOLLOWS!!
It's model number YO-600. It's got a decent size screen (good length) it's got
64k, the keys have a good feel to them (although I've never been able to touch
type on a Wizard, not even with my monster 9600), it's unbelievably small for
that size screen (about 1" by 5", although I'm not good at measuring by sight)
and its got a really good arrangement for the buttons. After playing with it
for about twenty minutes, I went out and bought one for my girlfriend for
Christmas (last year). She loves it. If I weren't determined to have the
latest and greatest, even with the drawbacks of bleeding edge technology, I'd
probably have the YO-600. If you don't care about pen input, and you want an
electronic organizer, look no further.
-R
Funny you should mention the Newt, I'm in the market for a PDA, although I'm
leaning towards the Magic area, with a bigger screen, for taking notes and
designing neat stuff, write poetry, etc. on the go. I was leaning towards a
Psion earlier, but the Magic Link looks kinda neat, especially with an
attachable keyboard.
Don't worry, as soon as Windows for PDAs comes out, you'll be the forward
thinker <g>.
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where the ice cream truck plays Helter Skelter …
Boo Magic!! Boo, boo!! My personal bias is that I want a PDA that's always
with me. Period. For this to be the case, the PDA has to fit into my pocket.
The Magiclink (at least the Sony implementation) is only slightly smaller than
a subnotebook, and 1/4 as useful. If I wanted to carry something around with
me, I'd carry my Thinkpad and use all my normal apps. Magic is in a really
uncomfortable middle ground for me. Of course, if you carry a small backpack
with you normally, this may not be a big issue for me. However, I have to
admit that my old Wizard with pen input, and now my Newton, have pushed my
entire warddrobe towards Dockers, so that I have pockets big enough to hold my
PDA. 🙂
You should take another look at the Newton or the Zoomer, if your problem with
them was handwriting recognition. There's a new recognizer called Graffitti
that gives me 30 words a minute at 100% recognition. It's amazing. You have
to learn a slightly stylized alphabet to get it to work. When I originally
heard this, I was completely uninterested in the product. I didn't want to
learn shorthand to write to my Newton. I downloaded the tutorial for fun,
however, and played around with it for about 15 minutes, and was suddenly
writing relatively effortlessly with 100% recognition. My jaw dropped, I
picked up the phone, and immediately ordered my copy.
"Don't worry, as soon as Windows for PDAs comes out, you'll be the forward
thinker <g>." If you were on the Chicago beta, you would have seen our first
Windows PDA app, called Winpad. Of course, if you had seen it, you'll notice
that it won't be in the next beta release. PC Week reports that we couldn't
make it work for under a 1000 dollars and have acceptable performance, so we
yanked it back to stew on it for a while. It looks like the Newton doesn't
have to worry about us showing up for a while!
-R
Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft employee, and the views expressed here are my own.
The information presented on Winpad is public knowledge that was written about
in PC Week, although it must be pointed out that they have no special source of
information either, and if I knew extra or contradictory information, I would
still quote the public knowledge anyway.
I'm going to miss your disclaimers 🙁
You're right about Magic Link and the middle ground. I have not yet done my
"exhaustive research", and I hear there are some impending products to be
released soon. It seemed to me that the ML was noticeably lighter than the
subnotebooks, again not confirmed. I've just started thinking about it while I
was out in Myanmar and wanted some piece of technology to note ideas down. As
soon as I recover somewhat from the jet lag I'll be looking into it more
seriously. Also, I may be switching to a travel-heavy consulting job, and the
comm abilities seemed attractive. We'll see. Thanks for the feedback.
DJ
On AP and on the road to recovery from the Road to Mandalay,
From Queens, where the ice cream truck plays Helter Skelter …
I have a Newton 100 Message Pad. It's sorta cool. More people I show
aren't impressed with it. I think it should come with more built in software.
I wish it were faster!! Check out the Newton area and get the scoop on
Graffitti. I'm totally amazed at how good it is.
-R
What type of program is Graffitti?
Graffitti is about to be released for Magic Link, too. I forgot to mention in
my previous message, doesn't the ML have a bigger screen with more resolution
than the Newts? I would like that.
DJ
On AP and on the road to recovery from the Road to Mandalay,
From Queens, where the ice cream truck plays Helter Skelter …
Rusty,
>Watching QuickTime movies on PCs and Macs gives you a keen appreciation of
what real multimedia is.
Geez Rusty, if you think QuickTime movies IS multimedia, you've been viewing it
with blinders on and eating out of a feed bag! ;-} QuickTime or for that
matter, any digital video clip is only one small part of multimedia
communication. Our InfoChannel product is proof that multimedia communication
can be more effective than one person and an MPC compliant PC. Indeed, there
is so much more to learn!
Well, sorry to see you go. Do come back and see us from time to time. I'll
still be here regardless of what happens.
Regards,
John Chang
Yikes!! I'll be sure to make sure my tone drips with sarcasm more heavily next
time. I *HATE* both MS Video and Quicktime. Tiny jerky animations is not my
idea of big fun. The "real multimedia" I was referring to was the Amiga.
Generating full screen animations from my toaster at 18 bit color and 30 frames
a second kind of spoils a guy.
-R
Rusty,
OK, its my turn… DUH! Guru… Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga. Validating… ;-}
Regards,
John Chang
Yeah, everyone else caught Rusty's sarcasim except you John. We just
didn't want to say anything to make you feel bad <GDR>.
// John (Warp 4040 & Emplant Quadra 840)
\X/ Mercury@ins.infonet.net
No apology necessary, I just live in this dread fear of someday being referred
to as "the guy who really liked Quicktime!"
-R