Mac Expert 1995 Winter/Mac Expert - Winter 95.iso/Les fichiers/Tidbits/TidBITS#283⁄26-Jun-95

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TidBITS#283/26-Jun-95
=====================

Need ammunition for the Mac versus PC debate? Macworld columnist
   Cary Lu weighs in with a solid article on computing's
   decade-old holy war. Also this week: software giant Adobe makes
   eyes at Frame, information on new versions of eWorld and
   ClarisWorks, and details on the AppleDesign Keyboard and the
   6100 DOS Compatible. Finally, we have the conclusion of
   Luciano Floridi's article, focussing on problems likely to
   result from the Internet's explosive growth.

This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <[e-mail]>
   Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
   For APS price lists, email: <[e-mail]> <----- NEW
* Northwest Nexus -- 206/455-3505 -- http://www.halcyon.com/
   Providing access to the global Internet. <[e-mail]>
* Hayden Books, an imprint of Macmillan Computer Publishing <- New
   Free shipping on orders via the Web -- http://www.mcp.com/
   Mac Tip of the Day & free books! -- http://www.mcp.com/hayden/

Copyright 1990-1995 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
   Information: <[e-mail]> Comments: <[e-mail]>
   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/26-Jun-95
    Computing's Holy War
    The Internet & the Future of Organized Knowledge: III of III
    Reviews/26-Jun-95

ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/1995/TidBITS#283_26-Jun-95.etx


MailBITS/26-Jun-95
------------------

**Adobe Hoping to Frame Unix Market** -- Another nibble in the
  computing industry's recent tendency to purchase major parts of
  itself: Adobe System announced last Thursday it was making a $500
  million bid for Frame Technology, makers of FrameMaker, a high-end
  publishing package primarily used for lengthy technical documents.
  With its recent acquisition of Aldus and PageMaker, why would
  Adobe be interested in another publishing package? The answer is
  Unix. Adobe products sell well into the Mac and Windows markets,
  but are virtually non-existent in the Unix arena. Conversely, an
  estimated 70 percent of Frame's business is in the Unix market.
  However, Wall Street didn't seem to agree with Adobe, whose stock
  fell significantly the day after the offer was announced. [GD]


**Apple Design Keyboard Conflict** -- Thanks to Jim Mueller
  <[e-mail]> for posting the details of the conflict
  between the Apple Design Keyboard and the DOS Compatible card for
  the Power Mac 6100 (Steven Lee mentioned this briefly in his
  article in TidBITS-282_). Apparently, if your Apple Design
  Keyboard has a serial number starting with the letters PK, you may
  experience the problem, which is that if you hold down the right-
  hand Shift key and type while using DOS or Windows, the first
  character won't appear. Call 800/SOS-APPL or contact your dealer
  for a replacement keyboard. [ACE]


**ClarisWorks Turns Four** -- ClarisWorks 4.0 for the Macintosh is
  now shipping, and upgrades are available for $49 (list price is
  $129). The Windows version of ClarisWorks 4.0 is slated for
  release before the end of 1995 and will have the same interface as
  the Macintosh version. ClarisWorks 4.0 requires System 7, and runs
  on any 68020-based Macintosh or newer. New features include a new
  way of doing styles, called ExpressStyle; an HTML translation
  tool; general improvements and easier report generation in the
  database module; and WorldScript support. Overall, and especially
  given the price, the feature set looks impressive. My only quibble
  is that Claris hasn't yet updated their Web site to provide
  information and a demo about for new version. Claris -- 408/987-
  7000 -- 800/544-8554 [TJE]

http://www.claris.com/


**eWorld Turns One** -- To note the one-year anniversary of its
  eWorld online service, Apple announced version 1.1 of the eWorld
  client software, which should be available online via eWorld and
  will also be pre-installed on Macintoshes in all countries where
  eWorld is available. Users of this new version will have access to
  Usenet and Internet FTP within a few weeks, and Web access is
  scheduled to become available in July. The new client software is
  also supposed to incorporate new multimedia capabilities and a
  sophisticated email agent allowing filters and automatic
  responses. Apple also announced it is moving its employees to
  eWorld from AppleLink, with all AppleLink subscribers expected to
  be moved over by the end of the calendar year. [GD]


**Microsoft Antitrust Victory** -- On 16-Jun-95, a federal appeals
  court ruled that an agreement between Microsoft and the Department
  of Justice regarding the company's software-licensing practices be
  approved. (See TidBITS-264_.) In an unusual move, U.S. District
  Judge Stanley Sporkin - who had rejected the agreement in February
  - was removed from the case and the matter was assigned to another
  district judge who was ordered to approve the settlement.
  Microsoft argued that Judge Sporkin was biased against the
  company; apparently the appeals court agreed, saying he had
  overstepped his authority. This effectively ends the antitrust
  action against Microsoft's software licensing policies, and
  Microsoft officials were pleased with the decision. However,
  Microsoft may not be entirely out of the antitrust shadow. The
  Justice Department has been requesting information from both
  Microsoft and its competitors regarding the upcoming Microsoft
  Network, and the European Commission announced last week that it's
  examining whether Microsoft Network would harm competition within
  the European Union. [GD]


Computing's Holy War
--------------------
  by Cary Lu <[e-mail]>

  [Published in the Seattle Times, June 18, 1995. Revised June 26 to
  include support numbers from Microsoft. Copyright 1995 by Cary Lu.
  This article may be freely copied and distributed in paper and
  electronic form without charge if this copyright paragraph is
  included.]

  The battle between proponents of Macintosh and IBM PC computers
  has for many years resembled a religious war, and as in all
  religious wars, much of the rhetoric has been driven more by
  ignorance than knowledge. Very few people are truly skilled with
  both Macs and PC. Since PCs outsell Macs by a wide margin - seven
  to one or more - most people with computer experience actually
  know only about DOS and Microsoft Windows on an IBM PC or clone.

  Not surprisingly then, if you ask which computer should you buy,
  the most common answer - from computer sales people, data
  processing managers, and newspaper columnists - is a PC. But
  before you take that advice, ask if your adviser actually uses
  both Macs and PCs. If he or she knows only one system well,
  consider the advice suspect. Steer clear of PC bigots and Mac
  bigots who use jargon: "Only PCs support true pre-emptive
  multitasking and multiple processors." "Only Macs have dual-
  channel SCSI for fast disk arrays." These techie issues are
  irrelevant for most users; in any event both systems will offer
  all these features in the coming months.

  Which computer do I recommend? I think you should get the same
  kind of computer that your most technically astute friend uses - a
  friend you can call at midnight on Sunday when you really get
  stuck. If you buy a Mac, you won't need an expert, since you won't
  get stuck nearly as often. And if you don't have a technical
  friend, you will be much better off with a Mac - with some
  exceptions that I will discuss later.


**Troubleshooting and Multimedia** -- Is the Mac really that much
  easier to use? Consider this: One quarter of all the questions
  that Patrick Marshall has answered in his Q&A column in the
  Seattle Times deals with PC problems that never occur on a
  Macintosh. Macintosh users never have to deal with memory
  management, interrupts, DMA channels, or a SYSTEM.INI file. Inside
  a Mac, there are no jumpers to set, either on the main board or on
  the vast majority of accessories.

  PC users have to learn these details or else they can't get
  software to run. The computer industry estimates that PC users
  have trouble running 25 to 35 percent of multimedia CD-ROMs. I'm
  accustomed to trouble. This morning, I installed a CD-ROM for my
  five-year-old on my Pentium computer and got a message: "Increase
  DMABuffer Size." I doubt if most PC users would know how to
  respond; what's more, no message explained two additional problems
  beyond the DMABuffer size. Through long experience, I have learned
  most of the hundreds of technical tricks necessary to get CD-ROMs
  running on a PC, although a few discs still have me stumped.
  Surveys show that PC users rarely buy CD-ROMs. A CD-ROM on a PC is
  too often like a book with pages glued together or illustrations
  torn out.

  CD-ROM installation problems are almost unheard of on a Mac, aside
  from a simple free update for recent system software (Apple's
  Multimedia Tuner). Three other problems are easy to understand -
  CD-ROMs that need color won't run on a black-and-white Mac, a few
  CD-ROMs need more memory than the simplest Macs have, and some Mac
  screens are too small to show a standard CD-ROM image. I've just
  answered the bulk of all Mac CD-ROM installation questions. In the
  past five years, I have not seen a single incompatible or even
  difficult-to-install CD-ROM on a Mac. Because no one has to learn
  any tricks, Mac users buy discs without trepidation. As a result,
  CD-ROM publishers find that Mac users buy CD-ROMs out of
  proportion to the Mac's market share.


**Support & the Software Question** -- David Billstorm, president
  of Media Mosaic and publisher of Mountain Biking and other outdoor
  recreation CD-ROMs, tells me that 40 percent of sales are for
  Macs. Yet PC buyers call for technical support far more often than
  Mac buyers. Although both Mac and PC versions have the same price,
  Media Mosaic makes more money from the Mac versions because the
  cost of answering a single call can wipe out any profit from the
  sale. For Microsoft's CD-ROM titles, PC users call for help at
  least three times as often as Mac users; on some titles, PC users
  need help nearly ten times as often (1994 figures, corrected for
  the relative numbers of PC and Mac users). On Christmas day, none
  of my Mac friends called with problems; several PC friends called
  (and each one started by apologizing, "The support lines aren't
  open today...")

  The Mac is not completely free of software conflicts, especially
  for enthusiasts who tend to like complexity. But the conflicts are
  usually resolved by simply moving clearly labeled icons from one
  folder to another; if you make a mistake, you just move the icon
  back. On a PC, you must use far more difficult techniques -
  editing cryptic files (WIN.INI, AUTOEXEC.BAT, etc.), setting
  environment variables, adjusting memory locations, changing
  command-line switches in drivers. If you make a mistake, the
  computer may refuse to start.

  In the past year, the hottest new category of Windows software has
  been "uninstall" utilities, programs that can remove Windows
  software. Windows and Windows software can put dozens or even
  hundreds of files on a hard disk; a person can't keep track of the
  files without help from another computer program. The Mac neither
  has nor needs an equivalent utility; removing a program is usually
  simple and besides, every file is identified by its type and the
  program that created it.

  Quite aside from utilities, more software is available for the PC
  than for the Mac. You may have a specialized need that can be met
  only by a PC, particularly for business applications. In a few
  areas, particularly graphics, the Mac leads. For the vast majority
  of users, and certainly for anyone buying a family computer, there
  is no significant difference in the applications - word processors
  and so on - available for either system.

  Microsoft's applications and many other major programs come in
  both PC and Mac versions. The PC version may come out first,
  presumably because the publisher wants to reach the larger group
  of customers first. The real reasons may not be obvious. Aldus
  (now Adobe) PageMaker, a program that was originally developed for
  the Mac, came out in a version 5.0 first for Windows. The project
  manager explained to me that the programmers disliked Windows
  intensely. Aldus management insisted on the Windows version first,
  because if the programmers were allowed to finish the Mac version
  first, they might never finish the Windows version.


**For Novices or Experts?** Although the Mac has obvious appeal to
  the computer novice, the people who really understand computers
  also tend to prefer Macs. At the recent Electronic Entertainment
  Expo in Los Angeles, most of the new, unfinished multimedia
  computer software - even software destined for PCs - was
  demonstrated on Macs rather than PCs. Famed supercomputer designer
  Seymour Cray uses a Mac. Two division heads for major PC clone
  companies called me independently last year; they were leaving
  their companies and wanted to know which Macs to buy for their new
  startups. I know of three companies in the Portland area started
  in the past year by former Intel managers. Two of the three
  companies chose Macs as their principal computers. (Intel makes
  most of the CPU chips, such as the Pentium, that drive Windows
  computers.)

  Corporate data processing (DP) managers generally prefer PCs; most
  have little experience with Macs. PCs do ensure full employment
  for the DP staff. At Intel, where many employees are true computer
  experts, the DP department figures on one support person for every
  30 Windows computers. The DP department was astonished to learn
  that one Intel division had 120 Macs and got along fine with a
  single support person. Mac users rarely have problems, and when
  they do, the answers usually come from other users rather than
  from the DP department.

  The hidden cost of support - and perhaps frustration - at least
  partially offsets the Mac's higher prices. The price gap has
  narrowed, but it will never close completely. Macs come with more
  standard features - all Macs, including laptops, have sound and
  networking built in. Apple has usually - but not always - used
  higher quality components than the average PC clone. PC
  accessories are generally cheaper, but then I've seen a lot of bad
  keyboards and fuzzy monitors on PC clones. A good monitor costs
  the same for either system. Ultimately, Apple spends more money;
  it makes major investments in research and development. For the
  typical PC clone company, R&D consists of reading spec sheets from
  Taiwan.

  Macs have a longer useful lifetime. I use a five-year-old Mac to
  play today's multimedia CD-ROMs without difficulty. In the past
  five years on my PC, I've had to change the CPU twice, the video
  card twice, the motherboard twice, and the sound board once, just
  to play ordinary discs. (I also switched to double-speed CD-ROM
  drives on both systems.)

  Apple has made many strategic errors. The first Macintosh clones
  are only now beginning to appear. Ten years ago, I called for
  Apple to license the Mac operating system at a MacWorld Expo
  keynote panel. Many in the audience hissed at my remarks. Yet by
  refusing to license the Mac system early, Apple made the enormous
  success of Microsoft Windows possible.

  Within the computer industry, the description "more like a
  Macintosh" is always high praise. The description "more like
  Windows" is rarely used as praise, except perhaps in contrast to
  "more like DOS."

  Microsoft tells everyone that its forthcoming Windows 95 is more
  like a Macintosh. The key features of Windows 95 - long file
  names, plug-and-play hardware installation, direct file display -
  have been on the Mac for eleven years. Yet despite much clever
  engineering by Microsoft, Windows 95 cannot overcome the chaos
  inherent to the PC world, both for hardware and for the need now
  to run three wildly different operating systems and application
  software (for DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95). Mac users have
  never had to cope with such jarring changes.

  Microsoft's genius lies in getting things to work - more or less -
  despite the PC chaos. Apple's genius lies in getting so many
  things right in its fundamental Macintosh design and avoiding
  chaos.


**Cary Lu** is a contributing editor to Macworld magazine and
  writes about PCs for several other magazines. He is a Windows 95
  beta tester. He wrote _The_Apple_Macintosh_Book_ (Microsoft
  Press).


The Internet & the Future of Organized Knowledge: III of III
------------------------------------------------------------
  by Luciano Floridi <[e-mail]>

  [Note: we thank Professor Floridi for kind permission to reprint
  this material, which is a shortened version of a paper he gave at
  a UNESCO Conference in Paris, March 14-17, 1995.]

Part Three: The Problems

  In the previous two parts of this article, I argued for an
  understanding of the Internet as a new stage in the growth of the
  Human Encyclopedia, and showed how it allows us to do new kinds of
  research by asking third-level (ideometric) questions about our
  data. Here, we turn to new problems that the growth of a network
  of information and communication has already caused or soon will
  give rise to.

  There are at least ten principal issues worthy of attention. I
  shall deal with them in what I take to be their approximate order
  of importance.


**(1) The Devaluation of The Book** -- We have already entered the
  stage where digital information is preferred over non-digital, not
  because of its quality, but simply because it is available online.
  However, the more resources that undergo the conversion, the less
  serious this problem will become.


**(2) The Devaluation of Information Processes** -- The Internet
  helps to satisfy an ever-growing demand for information. In this
  process, the _use_ value of information has increased steadily, in
  parallel with the complexity of the system, but its _exchange_
  value has been subject to a radical modification. Because of the
  great and rapid availability of data, Internet has caused a
  devaluation of some intellectual enterprises - such as
  compilations, collections of images, bibliographical volumes and
  so forth - whose original high value depended mainly on the
  correspondingly high degree of inaccessibility that afflicted
  information in the book era.

  Today, much of the raw data that in the past had to be collected
  at great expense of time and energy are freely available on the
  Internet. The result is that the era of the great collections on
  paper is practically over.


**(3) Failure to Acknowledge New Scholarly Enterprise** -- So far,
  Academe has been slow in recognizing that new forms of scholarly
  activity have appeared, like moderating a discussion list, keeping
  an online bibliography constantly updated, or publishing a paper
  in an electronic journal. The sooner such activities are properly
  recognized and evaluated, the easier it will become for
  individuals to dedicate more time and effort to the digital
  encyclopedia, and the more the encyclopedia will improve.


**(4) Too Much Knowledge to Access** -- A fundamental imbalance -
  between the extraordinary breadth of the system and the limited
  amount of knowledge that can be accessed by an individual mind at
  any one time - arises because the quantity of information
  potentially available on Internet has increased beyond control,
  whereas the technology whereby the network actually allows us to
  retrieve our data has improved much more slowly. The result is
  that we are once again far from being capable of taking full
  advantage of the full extent of our digital encyclopedia.

  The challenge of the next few years will consist in narrowing the
  gap between quantity of information and speed of access, even as
  the former increases. Projects like the American Information
  Superhighway, or SuperJANET in Great Britain, are of the highest
  importance in this regard. However, we should keep in mind that
  closing the gap completely is impossible because of the very
  nature of the Encyclopedia.


**(5) Too Much Accessible Knowledge to Manage** -- This is the
  problem of "infoglut," as BYTE has called it. Throughout past
  history there was always a shortage of data, which led to a
  voracious attitude towards information. Today, we face the
  opposite risk of being overwhelmed by an unrestrained, and
  sometimes superfluous, profusion of data. No longer is "the more
  the better." If knowledge is food for then mind, then for the
  individual mind to survive in an intellectual environment where
  exposure to the Human Encyclopedia is greater than ever before,
  for the first time in the history of thought we desperately need
  to learn how to balance our diet.

  Without a new culture of selection - and tools that can help us
  filter, select, and refine what we are looking for - the Internet
  will become a labyrinth which researchers will either refrain from
  entering or in which they will lose themselves. One can only hope
  that the care exercised today during the conversion of organized
  knowledge into a digital macrocosm will soon be paralleled by
  equally close attention to the development of efficient and
  economical ways to select and retrieve the information we need. In
  data-retrieval, brute force does not work any longer: we need
  intelligence. The Internet needs to be improved by the inclusion
  of expert systems.


**(6) The Threat to Paper** -- Some libraries are destroying their
  card catalogues after having replaced them with OPACs (online
  public access catalogs). This is as unacceptable as would have
  been the practice of destroying medieval manuscripts after an
  _editio_princeps_ was printed during the Renaissance. We need to
  preserve the sources of information after the digitalization in
  order to keep our memory alive. The development of a digital
  encyclopedia should not represent a parricide.


**(7) Some Knowledge Exists Only Digitally** -- Because for large
  sectors of the new encyclopedia there will be no paper epiphany,
  access to the network will have to be universally granted in order
  to avoid the rise of a new technological elite.


**(8) The New Illiteracy** -- Information Technology is the new
  language of organized knowledge. Therefore elements of that
  language must become part of the minimal literacy of any human
  being, if free access to information is to remain a universal
  right.


**(9) The Internet as Rubbish Heap** -- Because the Internet is a
  free space where anybody can post anything, organized knowledge
  could easily get corrupted, lost in a sea of junk data. In the
  book age, the relation between writer and reader was and is still
  clear and mediated by cultural and economic filters - e.g., you
  won't get published if what you say isn't somehow "true." For all
  their faults, such filters do provide some positive selection. On
  the Internet, the relation between producer and consumer of
  information is direct, so nothing protects the latter from corrupt
  information.

  Now, there is much to be said in favor of the free exchange of
  information on the network, and I believe that any producer of
  data should be free to make it available online. But I think every
  user should also be protected from corrupt knowledge by an
  intermediary service, _if_ she wishes. Unless academic and
  cultural institutions provide some form of quality control, we may
  no longer be able to distinguish between the intellectual space of
  knowledge and a polluted environment of junk.


**(10) Decentralization Means Fragmentation** -- By converting the
  encyclopedia into an electronic space, we risk transforming the
  new body of knowledge into a disjointed monster, rather than an
  efficient and flexible system. The Internet has developed in a
  chaotic (if dynamic) way, and today suffers from a regrettable
  lack of global organization, uniformity, and strategic planning.
  While we entrust ever more vast regions of the Human Encyclopedia
  to the global network, we are also leaving the Internet itself in
  a thoroughly anarchic state. Efforts at coordination are left to
  occasional initiatives by commendable individuals, or to important
  volunteer organizations, but this is insufficient to guarantee
  that in a few decades organized knowledge will not be lost in a
  labyrinth of millions of virtual repositories, while energies and
  funds have been wasted in overlapping projects.

  The Internet has been described as a library where at the moment
  there is no catalogue, books on the shelves keep moving, and an
  extra truckload of books is dumped in the entrance hall every
  hour. Unless it is properly structured and constantly monitored,
  the positive feature of radical decentralization of knowledge will
  degenerate into a medieval fragmentation of the body of knowledge,
  which in turn means a virtual _loss_ of information. Already it is
  no longer possible to rely on the speed of our networked tools to
  browse the whole space of knowledge and collect our information in
  a reasonably short time. If global plans are disregarded or
  postponed and financial commitments delayed, the risk is that
  information may well become no easier to find on the network than
  the proverbial needle in a haystack.

  Some people have compared the invention of the computer to the
  invention of printing. To some extent the comparison is
  misleading: the appearance of the printed book belongs to the
  process of consolidation and enlargement of our intellectual
  space, whereas the revolutionary character of Information
  Technology has rested on making possible a new way of navigating
  through such a space. But in one important sense they are similar:
  in the same way as the invention of printing led to the
  constitution of national copyright libraries to coordinate and
  organize the production of knowledge in each country, so Internet
  needs a coordinated info-structure.


**The Info-Structure** -- The info-structure would consist of
  centers making coordinated efforts to fulfill the following five
  tasks:

* guarantee the reliability and integrity of the digital
  encyclopedia;

* provide constant access to it without discrimination, thus
  granting a universal right to information;

* deliver a continually updated map to the digital universe of
  thought;

* expand the numbers of primary, secondary, and derivative
  resources available online, especially those that won't attract
  commercial operators;

* support and improve the methods and tools whereby the
  Encyclopedia is converted into a digital domain, and whereby
  networked information is stored, accessed, retrieved, and
  manipulated.

  I'm not advocating the creation of some international bureau for
  the management of the Internet, a sort of digital Big Brother. Nor
  have I any wish to see national organisms take control of our new
  electronic frontier. Such projects, besides being impossible to
  realize, would be contrary to fundamental rights of freedom of
  communication, of thought, and of information. Far from it, I
  believe in the complete liberty and refreshing anarchy of the
  network.

  What I'm suggesting is that Internet is like a new country, with a
  growing population of millions of well-educated citizens, and that
  as such it does not need a highway patrol. However, it will have
  to provide itself with a kind of Virtual National Library system
  (which could be as dynamic as the world of information) if it
  wants to keep track of its own cultural achievements in real time,
  and hence be able to advance into the third millennium in full
  control of its own potential. It is to be hoped that non-national
  institutions (such as UNESCO) may soon be willing to promote and
  coordinate such a global service, which is essential in order to
  make possible an efficient management of human knowledge on a
  global scale.


Reviews/26-Jun-95
-----------------

* MacWEEK -- 19-Jun-95, Vol. 9, #25
    Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600 -- pg. 1
    AppleShare 4.1 and Workgroup Server 9150 bundle -- pg. 41
    SmartSketch 1.0 -- pg. 44


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