MS Courier

[petermillard]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Without AJAX there would be no Google Main, no FaceBook, no Twitter, etc.

You make that sound like a bad thing...

Personally, though I never liked the two-screen approach of the Courier, I think a number of people did and i would have liked to have seen it go into production. Maybe it was something that seemed like a good idea when Apple were rumoured to be pricing a tablet at $999, but would never price down enough to be competitive when the true prices were announced. Or maybe it was never much more than a concept video.

Shame we'll never find out.

Cheers, Pete.

[ghostyjack]

I quite liked the two-screen idea, would make it a bit more natural for reading books and would not have to worry about screen protectors or a separate case for it.

Oh well, I'll just have to wait for that MSI dual screener they showed earlier this year, as long as they don't can it as well.

[Worldwalker]

Pilotbob, I did not say "The only creativity MS has shown in the last 15 years or so has been to "creatively" wait for Apple to innovate something and then poorly copy it into Windows." That was cmdahler. Please respond to the right person.

Second, the Xbox itself certainly wasn't innovative. It was and is a game console, an evolutionary step in a process going back to the Magnavox Odyssey. The closest to innovation we've seen in the console area has been the Wii, and even that, not much.

Even it probably isn't the first, but Blizzard's battle.net launched 5 years before Xbox Live. It certainly had the social aspect and the gamertags. I'd have to dig further to find the prior art on achievements, but I don't doubt that it's out there somewhere. I can think of an example from a MMO of the late 90's that had an early and primitive kind of achievements. The Xbox example is, in fact, a perfect case in point: Microsoft didn't create the concepts behind Xbox Live; they just promoted it as though they had, and people believed them. It's "innovation" that other companies did five years earlier.

As for Ajax ... Microsoft created an ActiveX control that allowed asynchronous data loading. While that may have contributed to the formulation of Ajax, it wasn't Ajax, and in fact Microsoft was for a long time hostile to Ajax because it worked cross-platform, whereas Microsoft primarily supports technology limited to platforms under its control, in this case IE. Only when other companies (Google in particular) created Ajax itself and took off running with it did Microsoft reluctantly clamber onto the bandwagon. Nor was the whole idea (even of Ajax itself) very creative. People were already doing the same thing with Java; Ajax is just an easier and more widely-supported way of doing the job than building Java applets.

Sorry, but neither of the technologies you cited is an example of Microsoft creativity. Neither is creative; they're just incremental improvements on an existing model. Nor was either created by Microsoft.

[WillAdams]

dmaul1114 wrote:
>Yeah, what I'm really wanting is basically an iPad with a screen
>an inch or so bigger and an open file system, stylus mark up etc.

Axiotron Modbook:

http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook

For those who (mistakenly) believe Microsoft did any early innovation in graphical user interfaces:

http://www.thocp.net/companies/micro...ft_company.htm

Especially supplement the note about the initial (and execrable) BASIC for Macintosh w/ this note on MacBASIC:

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py...y=MacBasic.txt

It's unfortunate that it looks as if the market for Tablets may be collapsing somewhat to the iPad, Android-based tablets, some oddities like a Palm-based tablet from HP and a some convertibles or converted machines.

William

[dmikov]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Pilotbob, I did not say "The only creativity MS has shown in the last 15 years or so has been to "creatively" wait for Apple to innovate something and then poorly copy it into Windows." That was cmdahler. Please respond to the right person.

Second, the Xbox itself certainly wasn't innovative. It was and is a game console, an evolutionary step in a process going back to the Magnavox Odyssey. The closest to innovation we've seen in the console area has been the Wii, and even that, not much.

Even it probably isn't the first, but Blizzard's battle.net launched 5 years before Xbox Live. It certainly had the social aspect and the gamertags. I'd have to dig further to find the prior art on achievements, but I don't doubt that it's out there somewhere. I can think of an example from a MMO of the late 90's that had an early and primitive kind of achievements. The Xbox example is, in fact, a perfect case in point: Microsoft didn't create the concepts behind Xbox Live; they just promoted it as though they had, and people believed them. It's "innovation" that other companies did five years earlier.

As for Ajax ... Microsoft created an ActiveX control that allowed asynchronous data loading. While that may have contributed to the formulation of Ajax, it wasn't Ajax, and in fact Microsoft was for a long time hostile to Ajax because it worked cross-platform, whereas Microsoft primarily supports technology limited to platforms under its control, in this case IE. Only when other companies (Google in particular) created Ajax itself and took off running with it did Microsoft reluctantly clamber onto the bandwagon. Nor was the whole idea (even of Ajax itself) very creative. People were already doing the same thing with Java; Ajax is just an easier and more widely-supported way of doing the job than building Java applets.

Sorry, but neither of the technologies you cited is an example of Microsoft creativity. Neither is creative; they're just incremental improvements on an existing model. Nor was either created by Microsoft.

Seriously, research your statements. The Web Outlook always used AJAX technology (jscript based) and not ActiveX. Java is a platform on which Java applet runs, AJAX is run by browser, selective updates to the page is not the same as application running inside your browser. It's like saying they both not innovative, but stolen from unix terminal. Same functionality doesn't mean no technological innovation.
Also, Apple an innovative company? Except for Newton, which was killed and original Macs, I beg to differ. They (unlike Microsoft) don't even have their own os now, they had to buy OsX when their original was so behind the times.

[WillAdams]

dmikov, while technically true that Apple bought the operating system which became Mac OS X, it's important to note the NeXT was founded by Steve Jobs when he left Apple, that Apple was initially quite upset about some of the talent which he was taking w/ him, and that the result of the buy-out has often been described as an internal takeover of Apple by NeXT.

Also, as much as I wish it were, Mac OS X is not purely NeXTstep (in particular, I miss Display PostScript; top level Print, Hide, Quit and Services menus; the vertical menubar; repositionable tear off menus; the pop-up main menu, &c.) and for various reasons, (most notably Adobe's reneging on providing a free license for Display PostScript) required a great deal of coding on Apple's part (much of which was done by ex-NeXT employees which Apple gained in the buyout).

There're also a number of innovative Apple technologies:

- TrueType (Apple's Royal font format was traded w/ Microsoft to get TrueImage, MS's PostScript clone)
- Apple Advanced Typography / QuickDraw/GX
- QuickTime
- HyperCard
- AppleScript

They were rated the most innovative technology company in 2008 by Businessweek after all:

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08.../index_01.htme

William

[pilotbob]

And now it looks like the HP Slate was killed... or perhaps put off until they can get WebOS running on it.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/30/h...%28Engadget%29


I guess the iPad is the only game in town. Where is that Adam thing? Will it be nixed next?

BOb

[Crowl]

Given that the adam is built upon android it should still show up, but the question is when for that one, I guess the likes of msi and asus bringing out slates in june/july will be the first to show up now.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

dmaul1114 wrote:
>Yeah, what I'm really wanting is basically an iPad with a screen
>an inch or so bigger and an open file system, stylus mark up etc.

Axiotron Modbook:

http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook

Hardly fits my iPad with a slightly bigger screen etc. desire since it's a good bit bigger, bulkier, probably has fans and emits heat, only gets 3-5 hours battery life etc.

What I mean is I want something that matches the form factor, battery life etc. of the iPad, but has an open file system etc. I could take a 10" screen if I had to. Mainly the lack of an open file system (and other aspects of Apple's walled garden) are the only reason I'm not buying an iPad.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

You also have to realize they operate in totally different markets. You can still run pretty much any app still on Windows 7 (32-bit). Where as Apple has twice (I think it was) abandoned older software by creating a whole new OS...

One of the biggest fundamental philosophical differences between Microsoft and Apple, since the days of the IBM PC and the Apple ][ Plus has been the concept of backwards compatibility. Microsoft went to great lengths to preserve it and Apple never even acknowledge that it was important or necessary.

Microsoft has since had to make concession because of advances in both hardware and software architecture, but they still maintain “DOS compatibility mode” now called the CMD prompt, and XP compatibility mode which is an instance of XP running on a virtual machine.

I, for one like to have some assurance that my very expensive software is going to survive an OS upgrade.

[Worldwalker]

Am I the only one who connects "computer" and "Adam" with a shudder? Are y'all too young to remember the Adam Bomb?

Also, dmikov, I"m not arguing that Apple is or isn't innovative; I'm not an Apple user, and I don't pay a lot of attention to most of what they do, so I can't say yes or no there. As far as Ajax, however, the innovation is the asynchronous updating of a page, not the specific software it's done with.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Am I the only one who connects "computer" and "Adam" with a shudder? Are y'all too young to remember the Adam Bomb?

I well remember the Adam computer by Coleco if that is what you are referring to. But, I also know that product names have been reused.

BOb

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I well remember the Adam computer by Coleco if that is what you are referring to. But, I also know that product names have been reused.

It's what I'm referring to. Yes, product names have been reused, but for those of us who were there, it's going to be a loooooooong time before we can think of "computer" and "Adam" in the same sentence without shuddering. It's like calling a new car the "Edsel" (except at least Edsels worked).

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Am I the only one who connects "computer" and "Adam" with a shudder? Are y'all too young to remember the Adam Bomb?

Naw! I had an Atari 400 that I hardware hacked to a whopping 32 kilobytes of RAM!

[WillAdams]

Pilotbob wrote:
>Where as Apple has twice (I think it was) abandoned older software by creating a whole new OS

Not abandoned, since there was always some effort at backwards compatibility (one could even move files from an Apple II disk to a Mac by way of its ProDOS support using a 3.5" floppy attached to an Apple IIGS).

Programs written for the 128K Mac continue to run on Apple's operating Systems all the way through Mac OS X 10.5 ``Leopard'' running Classic Environment on a PowerPC:

http://mrob.com/pub/comp/missile20.html

Mac OS X 10.6 on Intel will allow one to run PowerPC programs written for Mac OS X 10.0 (released about a decade ago) using Rosetta.

Hardly ``abandoned''.

William