The glorious inelegance of the 1990s family computer

boing
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A/UX was its own weird thing. Pretty much a Mac-ified System V UNIX with a Mac OS kernel/toolbox compatibility layer.

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42

In the Appleverse, I think Steve dropped it down the Memory Hole.

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43

I saw that and thought you were referring to Amiga/UX and got all excited for a moment.

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44

This did it for me:

"My father is an engineer’s engineer, so when he needs something, he makes it.

  • followed by -

“Two hours later and without the sales boy’s help, we left CompUSA with a gloriously huge box.”

Srsly, wtf?

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46

That’s funny; I enjoyed it more than most BB posts. It’s no surprise that different people like different things, but it surprises me that anybody would dislike this piece enough to write a comment saying so.

I thought it was a nice bit of fond reminiscence of a geek dad.

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47

While I agree that I think online discourse in general is imporoved by people reading all of what they are commenting on (or, at least, the TL;DR), I do not believe this automatically invalidates the response. Comments like:

Are almost certainly less useful, and more of a derailing force than any comment based on a partial read.y to be.

Argue the substance of a comment, don’t start a meta-conversation about how people form their opinions (or, at the very least, don’t do it in this topic. Start a new one if you must.)

Thanks.

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48

Exactly. My dad is a retired software engineer. I didn’t get the computer bug till later in life and it even made me change careers even LATER in life. Though I work on the infrastructure side of things - Window servers, VMWare, etc…
I was 100 percent PC for a long time and the ripping apart to add memory to my first PC in the 90’s was what gave me the bug to change careers, actually.

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49

Tough crowd.

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50

You mean you read the whole thing?

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51

i read the whole thing.

Jess, a lovely tribute to your dad. if he is still alive? call him and remind him you love him.

i miss my engineer dad every day. I did not miss throwing away every saved box, manual, floppy, floptical, zip disk, etc. etc - - but I miss being able to tell and show him the amazing things his grandson is doing, or asking him how to make something happen

if alive, call him, remind him how much he shaped your life…

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52

No. At this time Apple was busy porting System 7 to PowerPC. This was a big mistake on their part, in my opinion, because Macintoshs were much faster and stable on 68040 processors. But they were still profoundly more capable than Windows 95, or 98 for that matter.

Macs only truly sucked when OSX came out.

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53

I believe MPW was a premium offering and not default. I remember reading somewhere how command lines were too inelegant and how Windows is just DOS with lipstick. Until OSX came about then addition of bash was a stroke of genius.

Apple’s philosophy had always been going after pointless ascetics and ideals rather than convenience and functionality, with or without Steve Jobs. Jobs just was better at it than their other corporate leaders.

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Weren’t macs monochrome in 1995?

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The first thing Apple did after they booted Steve Jobs was make a modular, color Macintosh.

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57

And another thing…

Windows 95 era, Dell was direct to consumer with no channel partners. You couldn’t walk into a big box electronics store and walk out with a Dell.

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58

The author talks about buying without the help of a salesperson, and installing windows. I wonder if somehow management had an unconventional option for them?

59

I dont have an engineer father. But I do so appreciate the pc tower I built over 10 years ago. Every couple of years it gets new hard drives, an occasional MB upgrade, or whatever random card I need to bolt on for new tech.

Imo the plug and playability is much better in PCs these days, but after most major upgrades I ALWAYS find one annoying glitched out feature that will never work right, no matter how long I research. But it is that mystery and puzzle solving that helps build that intimate connection with it!

60

LOL this is the best thing ever. Screw you, Carmen!

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61

Hey now, cats have been experimental subjects in many different countries, not least of which is the United States!

Also, my cat’s a big fan of using MS Word to make Tristan Tzara-inspired poems.

Sorry to continue with the pedantry, but Microsoft did not exist during the early days of computing.

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