Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 23:48:13 08/13/01
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On August 14, 2001 at 00:05:14, Slater Wold wrote: >Why would you need to implement support for more than 1 CPU, on an edition of a >"home use" operating system? That make 100% no sense to me. Of the >upteenbillion people in the world, who use Windows 95, 98, or ME, how many of >those people do you think have more than 1 CPU? Second question: Are we >writing operating systems, and calling them "home" versions because we expect >supercomputers to be running on them, or are we expecting the average computer >user to be using it. Give that some thought. One of the places I used to work for (not Microsoft), we sold a product that cost a huge amount of money. You could buy the simple version, or you could buy extra "modules", which also cost a lot of extra money. If you bought a module, you got a disk with a module on it. You'd go through an install process that would put the module in with the rest of the system stuff, and everything would run properly. What we didn't tell anyone was that the module file didn't actually contain anything important. You could have taken a blank file an copied it in there, as long as it had the right name. When you bought the simple version, all of the complicated features were turned off, unless the system sensed that a few files simply *existed*. This is how money is made in the software business. The stuff is all there, but you have to pay extra to turn it on. I don't know if this is the case with these operating systems, but I would not be even a little surprised if it were the case. I think multiple CPU's will get to be more common. I have no idea why it should cost more to be able to run two CPU's, any more than it should cost more to be able to install a bigger disk drive. Probably the reason is that people will pay it, and like it or not, people aren't going to buy Windows from some other company if they don't like Microsoft's. >Also, anyone with good business sense, that could get away with running their >servers on a "home" and therefore cheaper OS, WOULD. And that's what MS is >stopping too. If you're going to run a business, and make money off a buisness, >and conduct your business using my software, I am going to make DAMN sure you're >buying the more expensive version. Because like any business, MS is out to make >money. Not save the cheap asses a few dollars. This is of course true. My mother uses Excel to keep track of golf scores for her golf group. A large business will install it on thousands of computers and use it for a huge number of extremely crucial tasks. Excel is much more valuable to the large business than it is to my mother. The business will play thousands or millions of dollars to run Excel. My mother will buy it once and there's no way she's paying five hundred bucks. No way. So it doesn't cost that much. Any software company that's selling software wants to make sure that the large company doesn't meet all of their needs for under five hundred bucks, so they have these creative pricing schemes. > >MS states (and from my own knowledge) DualView _IS_ a feature of XP. >Contradicting websites? No. One makes the software, and the other listens to >rumors about the software. Use your good judgement about who you should >believe. > >So let's review: > >No SMP in 95, 98, ME >No SMP in XP. (THE HOME VERSION) > >Why? Home versions, and home users, don't need more than 1 CPU. If you can >afford that extra CPU, you can afford to get the more expensive OS. I think that duals will get cheaper, and it's possible that they will become more common in the home market. I don't know why people get them now, since not a lot of stuff will use the second CPU, and not many people would hit two CPU's hard at once, but they don't cost a huge amount of money. A nice dual costs as much now as a nice single did five years ago, and you get ten times as much RAM and a hundred times as much hard disk. bruce >Multi-Monitors in 98, ME >Multi-Monitors in XP. > >Who says? Microsoft, the one actually creating and releasing the software. Not >some internet guy who was probably talking to "pete stein" on the phone, when he >wrote the article. > >I don't know if I would call this a step back. If you'd like to take a step >back, install Xenix on your home or office computer. > > >Slate
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