On Apples, Palladium and Playstations

Trusted Computing and Palladium
I will not support 'trusted' computing. I don't trust 'em. The folks who brought us monopoly computing, (Microsoft, and DARN few others) support it. These are the same folks who brought us windowsME, browser Bob, windows CE, and a series of ludicrous attempts at manipulating users into providing them with undeserved profits. Their dominant market share allows 'them' to control (hinder) technology to an excessive degree as regards efficient development and user understanding. They* have without notable exception pursued an agenda which has become onerous and noxious. Relying on gullibility, apathy, and ignorance, Microsoft has failed to provide justification for its existence, and acted criminally as an ongoing business paradigm. This attempt to further limit user options and create international monopoly is doomed to an unfortunately slow and agonizing death. 'Just say no, to Palladium'.. as Nancy Reagan might have it

At present there are projects to create open source versions of win98 and win2K(clones). In a few years = in a GREAT many nanoseconds..and as lunix (ab)users have proven to date, extreme persistence can provide alternatives to crass manipulation. My current plan is to gain maximum data storage and collating ability, remove myself from the 'required' aspect of OS migration, and evade, avoid, bypass, workaround, abjure, reject, and disdain such manipulation. Agreed *most* will not; a great many are asleep and resent awakening, stipulated. Drones will be drones and no help for it. One needn't join them because they're the majority. The main option I see as far as home users' ability to avoid the commercial 'hook' of microsoft is not yet open source software, but many small fractures exist in the monolith. Caveat emptor, carpe diem, mas cafe` and other stirring slogans! Maybe we need a theme song? Thank you for your attention.

Mitch Shrader
Email address supplied

The Burial of MacOS 9
Last May, Steve Jobs has publicly buried MacOS 9 [literally: with coffin and funeral music]. A new step in this direction is that the two new PowerBooks (17" and 12" screen) introduced this January can not boot MacOS 9, and are confined to X. Not all customers like this. In fact, an Australian reseller is selling the current Mac line on the grounds that they are the last to support MacOS 9, see here.

A biased sampling of this from the PowerBook 17" section.

"I think it is a serious error for new Macs from Jan 03 not to have the ability to boot from OS 9." [Keith Buscombe]

"I was thinking of buying a new PowerBook next month, but need OS 9 for a number of (mostly audio) applications that don't work in Classic mode. These programs are crucial to my work on the computer and won't be available for OS X for months to come."

"I'm simply asking/BEGGING to let me use my own choice of OS" [fff]

My 10 reasons to be able to boot MacOS 9:

1) Money can't buy me Xpress for X anyway, and Xpress under classic is a dog (see #2 and #3). MacOS 9 boot ability is thus a selling point in the Desktop Publishing market (I have seen adds on the tune of "upgrade now or else you won't be able to boot MacOS 9")

2) I want to run the many MacOS 9 applications that I own at acceptable speed, without Classic's dreaded screen update delays, glitches and crashes that did not occur under MacOS 9.

3) I want all my RAM to be available for said MacOS 9 applications. 4) I prefer MacOS 9's Finder to MacOS X's one, and the former is unavailable in Classic.

5) I want to use the polished MacOS 9 driver that came with my printer/scanner/gizmo, rather than the lame/beta/unavailable MacOS X one I could search on the net. I do not want to spent more money on new hardware.

6) Classic entirely brakes a few MacOS 9 apps that have unexisting and/or poor quality (not to mention expensive) OS X replacements (e.g. Cubase).

7) I love MPW; using it under Classic is a pain. My wife loves ATM; using it under X is impossible.

8) Processor intensive apps are appreciably faster under MacOS 9 (especially without VM).

9) I'm better with a single OS on the many Macs I supervise, and there are just too many MacOS 9 machines that it would be costly or impossible to switch to X.

And above all: 0) I want to choose my OS myself.

François Grieu
Email address supplied

Playstations, Xboxes and Gamecubes
Well, it looks like Sony has left the competition trailing in its dust for the second time - and even as the PS2 racks up record sales, we are already hearing about the huge step-up in power that Playstation 3 will bring, using the Cell technology developed in conjunction with IBM.

However, I think it's Nintendo that has more to worry about than XBox.

Think about it. Until Sony came along, Nintendo was the undisputed king of home consoles, despite some strong competition from Sega, particularly with its 32Bit Mega Drive. This lead has been pretty much thrown away by Nintendo's appalling approach to its customers and software developers, with the last few iterations of the hardware arriving after the competition has already gained a strong position.

On the other hand Microsoft has actually done quite well, for a company with no experience in this market. Ignoring the huge amount of money it has lost (and continues to lose) on the hardware, some severe discounting has lead to XBox gaining a pretty good amount of market share in every territory bar Japan, where it is affectionately known as the coffee table, for its ignorance of Japan's love for miniaturisation.

Also, XBox Live, Microsoft's online strategy for the XBox, has started well with all 250,000 starter kits being sold quickly. Sony's PS2 online offering will be out in a couple of months, lead by the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Everquest, which continues to attract huge numbers of paying subscribers. And what of Nintendo? Well, after saying before Christmas that it had an online strategy and would be releasing a modem add-on, it admitted last week that it had made the whole thing up, and there was no online strategy at all. Nothing like rewarding the loyalty of your customers, eh Nintendo?

According to the industry body ELSPA, in 2002 consumers spent £108m on XBox hardware, and just £53m on Nintendo GameCubes. Nintendo has the advantage of lower costs through producing its own hardware, but those figures don't look good. Nintendo reportedly has massive cash reserves, and arguably has the best software of the three formats, but what matters is what the consumers are buying.

No one knows if the future of gaming is online, and perhaps Nintendo is right not to play the game. But as long as Microsoft and Sony continue to innovate and offer consoles that can do more than just play games, I can only see Nintendo being reduced to a company loved by the hardcore gamer only.

John Ozimek
Email address supplied