INFO-VAX Sun, 11 May 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 262 Contents: RE: Ip address blocking by country Re: Ip address blocking by country Re: Ip address blocking by country Re: Ip address blocking by country Re: Ip address blocking by country Re: Ip address blocking by country Re: Ip address blocking by country Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: OT: Desktop wars Re: VAX 6310 Free to a good home Re: What systems can use USB? Re: What systems can use USB? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 18:41:50 +0000 From: "Main, Kerry" Subject: RE: Ip address blocking by country Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Michael Moroney [mailto:moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com] > Sent: May 10, 2008 11:34 AM > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Re: Ip address blocking by country > > "Tom Linden" writes: > > >On Sat, 10 May 2008 06:19:07 -0700, Bill Gunshannon > > >wrote: > > >> In article , > >> "Tom Linden" writes: > >>> I usually just block class B IPs > > >> Your not interested in business from American Universities? > >> What possible mapping between Class B addresses and SPAM could there > be? > > >You took it out of context, chinese class B > > Class A/B/C addresses are just relics of the old way of allocating IP > addresses. Nowadays they'll allocate IP addresses to organizations and > countries on just about any netmask, not just /8 (Class A), /16 (Class > B) > and /24 (Class C). The old way was just wasteful, if a smallish > company > grew too big for a Class C, the next step (Class B) was excessively > large. > And if you look at who got Class A's under the old scheme, you kind of > have to wonder what were they thinking. > > Allocations by country are widely scattered. You'll find China or some > such have a /11 here, a /12 there, a /14 elsewhere etc. I discovered > this > when some Russian spammer starting forging the name of my VMS hobbyist > system as the From: in his spam, and sent it out almost exclusively to > Russian emails. I started getting swamped in backscatter from Russian > systems and I wanted to block Russia as a country. There were at least > 100 netblocks assigned to Russia at the time. And lets not forget that NA is falling behind continents like Asia and to a somewhat lesser degree, Europe in terms of IPV6 deployments. Apparently, China Olympics this year is based on IPV6. http://www.conference.cn/ipv6/2005/image/Wangyanqing.pdf http://tinyurl.com/5ntol2 (CNN.com) Internet Strategy: China's Next Generation Internet http://tinyurl.com/555wm3 (CIO Magazine) http://tinyurl.com/6cxccu (News.com -2004) DoD is apparently mandating (or in the process of) a IPV6 deployment ASAP. Hence, all this discussion about blocking IPV4 addresses may not be as effective as one might think. :-) Regards Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-254-8911 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT) OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 16:11:31 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Ip address blocking by country Message-ID: <4826027d$0$20536$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Michael Moroney wrote: > Allocations by country are widely scattered. It gets worse. At least one ISP in Australia is owned by a large telecom firm in the USA, and they are handing out USA IP addresses to their australian customers. (ozemail if I remember right). ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 2008 20:37:10 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Ip address blocking by country Message-ID: <68mfbmF2tg3mtU1@mid.individual.net> In article <4826027d$0$20536$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei writes: > Michael Moroney wrote: > >> Allocations by country are widely scattered. > > > It gets worse. At least one ISP in Australia is owned by a large telecom > firm in the USA, and they are handing out USA IP addresses to their > australian customers. (ozemail if I remember right). There is no such thing as a "USA IP address". IP is not now and never has been geographic. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 2008 13:39:59 -0700 From: Chris Jewell Subject: Re: Ip address blocking by country Message-ID: <7rbq3dx59c.fsf@sjtufted.puffin.com> "Main, Kerry" writes: > > And lets not forget that NA is falling behind continents like Asia and > to a somewhat lesser degree, Europe in terms of IPV6 deployments. > > Apparently, China Olympics this year is based on IPV6. [URLs snipped] > > DoD is apparently mandating (or in the process of) a IPV6 deployment ASAP. > > Hence, all this discussion about blocking IPV4 addresses may not be as > effective as one might think. > > :-) As long as I am running IPv4 only, none of those IPv6 users are going to be able to spam me, because they have no way to get their packets to me, (unless through an email forwarder whose IPv4 address I can still block). I'm sure we'll all have IPv6 connectivity some decade or other, but I'm not holding my breath. :-P -- Chris Jewell chrisj@puffin.com PO Box 1396 Gualala CA USA 95445 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 22:00:04 +0100 From: Mark McIntyre Subject: Re: Ip address blocking by country Message-ID: Bill Gunshannon wrote: > In article <4826027d$0$20536$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, > JF Mezei writes: >> Michael Moroney wrote: >> >>> Allocations by country are widely scattered. >> >> It gets worse. At least one ISP in Australia is owned by a large telecom >> firm in the USA, and they are handing out USA IP addresses to their >> australian customers. (ozemail if I remember right). > > > There is no such thing as a "USA IP address". IP is not now and never > has been geographic. True. However stupid or lazy system admins still persist in believing that because "BigISP.com llc" is a US company, all its subsidiaries, wherever they may be registered and irrespective of where they are operating, must also be domestic US operations. Thus, for a fair while, the BBC thought that all virginmedia.com customers were in the US and refused to let them watch video clips. D'oh. ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 2008 00:01:01 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: Ip address blocking by country Message-ID: <68mr9tF2tp7eiU1@mid.individual.net> In article <7rbq3dx59c.fsf@sjtufted.puffin.com>, Chris Jewell writes: > "Main, Kerry" writes: >> >> And lets not forget that NA is falling behind continents like Asia and >> to a somewhat lesser degree, Europe in terms of IPV6 deployments. >> >> Apparently, China Olympics this year is based on IPV6. > [URLs snipped] >> >> DoD is apparently mandating (or in the process of) a IPV6 deployment ASAP. Current DOD mandate is that new devices must support IPv6. This is resulting in non-Cisco networking devices finding their way into more and more systems and this will result in Cisco moving quicker to IPv6 which will, of course, result in the world moving there faster as at this point in time Cisco is to networking what MS is to the desktop. >> >> Hence, all this discussion about blocking IPV4 addresses may not be as >> effective as one might think. >> >> :-) > > As long as I am running IPv4 only, none of those IPv6 users are going > to be able to spam me, because they have no way to get their packets > to me, (unless through an email forwarder whose IPv4 address I can > still block). IPv4 vs. IPv6 is not an email (SMTP) issue. There are and have been IPv4 <-> IPv6 gateways running for quite some time. We (my civilian job) have had an IPv6 allocation for several years now. We ran it for a while to test it out but stopped as it bought us nothing at this point in time. But I can see INTERNET-II going to it before the rest of the world. > I'm sure we'll all have IPv6 connectivity some decade > or other, but I'm not holding my breath. :-P It will be here sooner than t you think and probably before your ready!! These things have a bad habit of sneaking up on you. (Anybody else here remmeber when the default TTL was 64 and the morning that number was exceeeded in practice!! :-) bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 20:03:49 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Ip address blocking by country Message-ID: <4826389c$0$7236$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > There is no such thing as a "USA IP address". IP is not now and never > has been geographic. A WHOIS on an IP reveaks the head-offce of the owner of that IP block. If you do a WHOIS on certain IPs used in australia, they point to some address in texas. More importantly, IP blocks are geographical. an IP block is managed by one of the big management agencies such as ARIN (north america), RIPE (europe), APNIC (asia pacific) and there is one of two more if I am not mistaken. This does not mean that that all of their IPs have been assigned to companies within their geography, but it generally does work that way. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 16:09:00 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <482601ea$0$20536$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > Since when is OS-X "a totally new operating system"? That would be > like me repackaging Slackware, calling it "Bill-OS V5.0" and claiming > it was "a totally new operating system"!! OS-X has extremely little in common with its previous MacOs. Yeah, NetBSD has been around for a long time, but from a desktop point of view, OSX started with 0 native applications. So Apple was able to concuct a new OS (by assembling pieces from Netbsd, Next and a compatibility bits from its old OS) and, within a couple of years, get real traction in the marketplace and attract all the popular desktop applications. Ubuntu was similar. It was able to package a product into a desktop system and gain market traction. In fact, the big irony here is that Linux' success is using the same marketing tactics as Digital had in the 1980s: word of mouth. Had the VMS group been motivated to grow their OS, they would have gotten into some serious middleware porting to VMS, not as a one time shot, but as an ongoing concern. With GTK, KDE or wheverer else, they could have then easily ported all Linux applications to VMS and provide an "enterprise" version of Linux with clustering, serious workstation etc. The workstation market is big enough that even with less than 1% of market, you can still make tons of money and more importantly, give your OS a big boost in exposure and attract ISVs. Of course, when the long term goal is to have a slow steady peaceful decline until you can retire the product without any protests, then finding ways to make VMS popular again isn't part of the equation. Finding excuses to not develop certain parts of the OS is part of the equation. ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 2008 20:41:35 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <68mfjvF2tg3mtU2@mid.individual.net> In article , "johnhreinhardt@yahoo.com" writes: > On May 10, 9:39 am, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: >> In article <482414f8$0$31195$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>, >> JF Mezei writes: >> > Remember that Apple started with essentially nothing left, and came out >> > with a totally new operating systems (OS-X) in roughly 2001. >> >> Since when is OS-X "a totally new operating system"? That would be >> like me repackaging Slackware, calling it "Bill-OS V5.0" and claiming >> it was "a totally new operating system"!! >> > > Close, but not quite. It would be like you repackaging Slackware and > then writing the equivalent of Gnome or KDE and calling it Bill-OS > V5.0. Aqua, the Apple GUI (plus a lot of utilities) is theirs and > they wrote it themselves (maybe some came from NEXT? I'm not sure). What they actually wrote isn't a GUI. Their GUI is X-windows. All they wrote themselves was a Window Manager which is quite a bit less than either a GUI or an OS. Next ran Display PostScript which I think was Adobe's. > > But you're right. Calling it a "totally new operating system" is a > stretch. Even that is an understatement. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 2008 21:02:28 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <68mgr4F2jnh39U1@mid.individual.net> In article <482601ea$0$20536$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei writes: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: > >> Since when is OS-X "a totally new operating system"? That would be >> like me repackaging Slackware, calling it "Bill-OS V5.0" and claiming >> it was "a totally new operating system"!! > > OS-X has extremely little in common with its previous MacOs. That's true. And a good thing , too, as no other OS milked poorer performance out of the venerable 68K. :-) > Yeah, > NetBSD has been around for a long time, but from a desktop point of > view, OSX started with 0 native applications. Not true. OSX uses Xwindows and unless Apple goes to a lot of trouble breaking them, all Xwindows application should work just fine under OSX. Apple's only true contribution is a Window Manager. And to some of us, not a very good one. > > So Apple was able to concuct a new OS (by assembling pieces from Netbsd, > Next and a compatibility bits from its old OS) and, within a couple of > years, get real traction in the marketplace and attract all the popular > desktop applications. Um.... BSD already ran on Intel hardware, just what is it the that you think Apple did that was so great? Just what desktop applications can the Apple run under OSX (other than Microsoft garbage) that isn't available on Linux or other Unix platforms? Market share is more a matter of hype and name recognition and certainly has nothing to do with any true technological superiority. MAC users are fanatics who use a MAC because it is a MAC. Just like all the PS/2 users who paid extra for rebadged Kingston memory because they wanted all the parts in their IBM PC to come in boxes labeled IBM. (I always got a kick out of people who bought IBM dot matrix printers cause the box said "Made in America". They were EPSON printers and the only thing made in America was the box. But it shows the value and power of name recognition. Something VMS had but their last couple of owners abandoned.) > > > Ubuntu was similar. It was able to package a product into a desktop > system and gain market traction. In fact, the big irony here is that > Linux' success is using the same marketing tactics as Digital had in the > 1980s: word of mouth. But Ubuntu doesn't claim to be "a totally new operating system". > > Had the VMS group been motivated to grow their OS, they would have > gotten into some serious middleware porting to VMS, not as a one time > shot, but as an ongoing concern. With GTK, KDE or wheverer else, they > could have then easily ported all Linux applications to VMS and provide > an "enterprise" version of Linux with clustering, serious workstation etc. > > The workstation market is big enough that even with less than 1% of > market, you can still make tons of money and more importantly, give your > OS a big boost in exposure and attract ISVs. > > Of course, when the long term goal is to have a slow steady peaceful > decline until you can retire the product without any protests, then > finding ways to make VMS popular again isn't part of the equation. > Finding excuses to not develop certain parts of the OS is part of the > equation. There was a time when DEC products had the same kind of product recognition as IBM products. ("I don't care which system wins the bid as long as it says VAX on the front of the machine" - a quote from a bidding conference I once attended!) If the don't even understand the importance of a simple marketing concept like this why would you expect them to grasp the value of something as obscure as VMS's advantages over other OSes? And this, inferior products dominate the marketplace. bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 16:27:54 -0700 (PDT) From: "johnhreinhardt@yahoo.com" Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <112d9b3d-fbf6-41eb-af64-3fe09b4ab2e1@j22g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> On May 10, 4:41 pm, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: > In article , > "johnhreinha...@yahoo.com" writes: > > > On May 10, 9:39 am, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: > >> In article <482414f8$0$31195$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>, > >> JF Mezei writes: > >> > Remember that Apple started with essentially nothing left, and came out > >> > with a totally new operating systems (OS-X) in roughly 2001. > > >> Since when is OS-X "a totally new operating system"? That would be > >> like me repackaging Slackware, calling it "Bill-OS V5.0" and claiming > >> it was "a totally new operating system"!! > > > Close, but not quite. It would be like you repackaging Slackware and > > then writing the equivalent of Gnome or KDE and calling it Bill-OS > > V5.0. Aqua, the Apple GUI (plus a lot of utilities) is theirs and > > they wrote it themselves (maybe some came from NEXT? I'm not sure). > > What they actually wrote isn't a GUI. Their GUI is X-windows. All > they wrote themselves was a Window Manager which is quite a bit less > than either a GUI or an OS. Next ran Display PostScript which I think > was Adobe's. Bill, you're wrong. Aqua is the GUI. GUI stands for Graphical User Interface. That's what Aqua does. It defines the appearance of the various windows components. It defines how those component work and what they can do. Aqua is based on Apple's Cocoa framework. This framework calls Apple's Quartz graphics subsystem to draw using the graphics hardware. No where in this path does X-windows come into play. On OS X you don't even have to run a X-window server if you don't want one. If you do then there is the X11 application which is based on the X server from the XOrg Foundation. The original code from XOrg has been modified to use the Cocoa or Carbon APIs to access the graphics hardware. ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 2008 00:15:07 GMT From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <68ms4bF2ts7euU1@mid.individual.net> In article <112d9b3d-fbf6-41eb-af64-3fe09b4ab2e1@j22g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, "johnhreinhardt@yahoo.com" writes: > On May 10, 4:41 pm, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: >> In article , >> "johnhreinha...@yahoo.com" writes: >> >> > On May 10, 9:39 am, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: >> >> In article <482414f8$0$31195$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>, >> >> JF Mezei writes: >> >> > Remember that Apple started with essentially nothing left, and came out >> >> > with a totally new operating systems (OS-X) in roughly 2001. >> >> >> Since when is OS-X "a totally new operating system"? That would be >> >> like me repackaging Slackware, calling it "Bill-OS V5.0" and claiming >> >> it was "a totally new operating system"!! >> >> > Close, but not quite. It would be like you repackaging Slackware and >> > then writing the equivalent of Gnome or KDE and calling it Bill-OS >> > V5.0. Aqua, the Apple GUI (plus a lot of utilities) is theirs and >> > they wrote it themselves (maybe some came from NEXT? I'm not sure). >> >> What they actually wrote isn't a GUI. Their GUI is X-windows. All >> they wrote themselves was a Window Manager which is quite a bit less >> than either a GUI or an OS. Next ran Display PostScript which I think >> was Adobe's. > > Bill, you're wrong. Aqua is the GUI. GUI stands for Graphical User > Interface. That's what Aqua does. It defines the appearance of the > various windows components. It defines how those component work and > what they can do. Aqua is based on Apple's Cocoa framework. This > framework calls Apple's Quartz graphics subsystem to draw using the > graphics hardware. No where in this path does X-windows come into > play. On OS X you don't even have to run a X-window server if you > don't want one. If you do then there is the X11 application which is > based on the X server from the XOrg Foundation. The original code > from XOrg has been modified to use the Cocoa or Carbon APIs to access > the graphics hardware. Well, you could be right as I am not a Mac fanatic(and never will be although I do own a number of M68K Macs that I play with.) but I know the professor I have to support that is a Mac fanatic has no problem displaying X applications on his Mac which tells me there is X11 under there somewhere. And when another professor went out and grabbed all the OSX (aka Darwin) sources the only thing he didn't get was the window manager that had the MAC look and feel. What is it that they say about walks like a duck and quacks like a duck? And, regardless of all that , it still isn't "a totally new operating system" which was the original claim!! Thinking about this brought one more comment to mind just before I hit the send button. XFree86 and Xorg do not support things like the VAX 3100 seriesa because DEC modified the X11 code to support these and never released it to the world. Does that meant that because it's not in Xorg it wasn't X11? bill -- Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves billg999@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. University of Scranton | Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 21:17:43 -0400 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <482649ee$0$7262$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > Not true. OSX uses Xwindows and unless Apple goes to a lot of trouble > breaking them, all Xwindows application should work just fine under OSX. Apple included what is eseentially the Xfree86 software in OSX, but it doesn't rely on Xwindows for the "native" Mac applications which use Aqua with Carbon or Cocoa frameworks. You can run Xwindows apps on the mac, but this essentially causes the "X11.app" Apple application to start which provides support for Xwindows. Instead of using twm or mwm window managers, Apple provides quartz-wm which integrates X windows into the Apple desktop. Out of the box, X is not installed by default. No "Apple" application relies on X windows. You can install X11 and the run the many built-in apps. But there is no motif. X-window support allows Unix people to port their apps to a Mac, or just target the display to their Mac from some Unix/Vms host. > Um.... BSD already ran on Intel hardware, just what is it the that you > think Apple did that was so great? At the time OS-X came out, the move to the 8086 was not yet announced by Apple. Apple may not have written a new kernel, but it wrote a new user interface, and new supporting applications (dock, finder) as well as writing plenty of GUI front ends to manage the underlying unix system. (for instance, you can configure the DNS servers in the GUI, and the gui then updates the unix config files (I think it is resolv.conf) etc. It write its own installer, designed its own DVD artwork anbd boxes, as well as its own marketing. > Just what desktop applications > can the Apple run under OSX (other than Microsoft garbage) that isn't > available on Linux or other Unix platforms? Well, most of the Apple provided applications run on OSX only. (Itunes and Quicktime are also available on Windows). For 3rd party applications, you are correct that Apple isn't "unique" anymore. It used to be back in the old days with Photoshop and Pagemaker. However, prior to OS-X, even major ISVs are begun to scale down their MacOS involvement. And when OS-X came out with great marketing and growth potential, many came back. The point is that Apple was able to go from a "nearly dead" status to a "the most hip OS around" in a couple of years. Linux was able to go from a "server os for geeks" OS to one for the desktop used by many european governments, as well as used for the "one laptop per child" projects in a slightly longer time period but still very quickly. So the arguments that VMS couldn't come back to the desktop are not credible. If both Linux and Apple were able to succeed in recent yeras, so could VMS have succeeded. The fact that VMS is stuck on a proprietary low volume single-sourced chip doesn't help, especially since in 2004, Carly and intel agreed to relegate IA64 to a niche market (high end only), a huge change from the june 25 2001 promises of IA64 being a commodity industry standard high volume low cost chip serving laptop to data centre. But where there is a will, there is a way. > Market share is more a > matter of hype and name recognition and certainly has nothing to do with > any true technological superiority. MAC users are fanatics who use a > MAC because it is a MAC. Actually, since OS-X came out, statistics have shown that most sales come from new users. Apple didn't just sell to its fanboys, it attracted more new customers than it had installed base fo fanboys. The big difference: If "someone" comes up with a new idea for a new app that would give OS-X an edge, Apple would embrace it and find the budgets to get it done. And Jobs would present it with a big splash at his keynote speeches. For VMS, if "someone" comes up with a great idea that would give VMS great edge against the industry, the idea is dismissed by one or more of the following: -if it isn't a customer demanding the feature, we don't do it -VMS is not designed for the type of app this suggestion isabout -VMS engineers have other more important priorities such as ensuring VMS runs on some new piece of hardware produced by HP. -Unless you can prove on paper with money backing the suggestion, VMS management aren't about to take a risk to spend money on a feature that many not generate enough revenus to justify the epxenses. > But Ubuntu doesn't claim to be "a totally new operating system". In many ways, it is. It is a new packaging. It is the one that marketed itself as a linux OS for the desktop with pre-packaged installation to make it easy etc etc. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 22:31:46 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <48265a8e$0$90275$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> JF Mezei wrote: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: >> Since when is OS-X "a totally new operating system"? That would be >> like me repackaging Slackware, calling it "Bill-OS V5.0" and claiming >> it was "a totally new operating system"!! > > OS-X has extremely little in common with its previous MacOs. Yeah, > NetBSD has been around for a long time, but from a desktop point of > view, OSX started with 0 native applications. > > So Apple was able to concuct a new OS (by assembling pieces from Netbsd, > Next and a compatibility bits from its old OS) and, within a couple of > years, get real traction in the marketplace and attract all the popular > desktop applications. Even though NetBSD and FreeBSD are very closely related and they probably have gotten pieces from all 3 newer BSD's, then traditionally FreeBSD get the honor not NetBSD of supplying the BSD stuff to MacOS X. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 22:36:15 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: <48265b9d$0$90268$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Bill Gunshannon wrote: > In article <482601ea$0$20536$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, > JF Mezei writes: >> Yeah, >> NetBSD has been around for a long time, but from a desktop point of >> view, OSX started with 0 native applications. > > Not true. OSX uses Xwindows and unless Apple goes to a lot of trouble > breaking them, all Xwindows application should work just fine under OSX. > Apple's only true contribution is a Window Manager. And to some of us, > not a very good one. X is an option on MacOS X. Wikipedia has a nice picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Diagram_of_Mac_OS_X_architecture.svg >> So Apple was able to concuct a new OS (by assembling pieces from Netbsd, >> Next and a compatibility bits from its old OS) and, within a couple of >> years, get real traction in the marketplace and attract all the popular >> desktop applications. > > Um.... BSD already ran on Intel hardware, just what is it the that you > think Apple did that was so great? You mean that BSD already run on PPC, which was the CPU MacOS X was developed for. The x86 support came later (version 10.4.4). > Just what desktop applications > can the Apple run under OSX (other than Microsoft garbage) that isn't > available on Linux or other Unix platforms? Apples own I would assume. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 20:31:30 -0700 (PDT) From: "johnhreinhardt@yahoo.com" Subject: Re: OT: Desktop wars Message-ID: On May 10, 8:15 pm, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: > In article <112d9b3d-fbf6-41eb-af64-3fe09b4ab...@j22g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, > "johnhreinha...@yahoo.com" writes: > > > > > On May 10, 4:41 pm, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: > >> In article , > >> "johnhreinha...@yahoo.com" writes: > > >> > On May 10, 9:39 am, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote: > >> >> In article <482414f8$0$31195$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>, > >> >> JF Mezei writes: > >> >> > Remember that Apple started with essentially nothing left, and came out > >> >> > with a totally new operating systems (OS-X) in roughly 2001. > > >> >> Since when is OS-X "a totally new operating system"? That would be > >> >> like me repackaging Slackware, calling it "Bill-OS V5.0" and claiming > >> >> it was "a totally new operating system"!! > > >> > Close, but not quite. It would be like you repackaging Slackware and > >> > then writing the equivalent of Gnome or KDE and calling it Bill-OS > >> > V5.0. Aqua, the Apple GUI (plus a lot of utilities) is theirs and > >> > they wrote it themselves (maybe some came from NEXT? I'm not sure). > > >> What they actually wrote isn't a GUI. Their GUI is X-windows. All > >> they wrote themselves was a Window Manager which is quite a bit less > >> than either a GUI or an OS. Next ran Display PostScript which I think > >> was Adobe's. > > > Bill, you're wrong. Aqua is the GUI. GUI stands for Graphical User > > Interface. That's what Aqua does. It defines the appearance of the > > various windows components. It defines how those component work and > > what they can do. Aqua is based on Apple's Cocoa framework. This > > framework calls Apple's Quartz graphics subsystem to draw using the > > graphics hardware. No where in this path does X-windows come into > > play. On OS X you don't even have to run a X-window server if you > > don't want one. If you do then there is the X11 application which is > > based on the X server from the XOrg Foundation. The original code > > from XOrg has been modified to use the Cocoa or Carbon APIs to access > > the graphics hardware. > > Well, you could be right as I am not a Mac fanatic(and never will be > although I do own a number of M68K Macs that I play with.) I know that you are not a Mac fan. Not only is that obvious, but it's been well noted in the past. And the M68K Macs have nothing to do with OS X. but I know > the professor I have to support that is a Mac fanatic has no problem > displaying X applications on his Mac which tells me there is X11 under > there somewhere. No. As I explained before, X11 is an application layered on top of OS X and Aqua. X11 is "under" nothing. It need not even be installed. If you don't, then you CAN'T run X-window apps. And when another professor went out and grabbed all > the OSX (aka Darwin) sources the only thing he didn't get was the > window manager that had the MAC look and feel. Actually grabbing the Darwin sources IS NOT grabbing OS X. Because Darwin is the kernel for the OS X, not the GUI. Darwin is the open source portion that Apple got from FreeBSD. Aqua and all the other layers on top of Darwin is the proprietary portion that Apple wrote which has the "Mac look and feel". Arne Vajhoj found a pretty good link that shows the makeup of OS X. It should help clear up your misconceptions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Diagram_of_Mac_OS_X_architecture.svg >What is it that they > say about walks like a duck and quacks like a duck? > > And, regardless of all that , it still isn't "a totally new operating > system" which was the original claim!! Yeah, well that was JF. What do you expect? But it also wasn't as easy of a job as you are trying to claim. > > Thinking about this brought one more comment to mind just before I hit > the send button. XFree86 and Xorg do not support things like the VAX > 3100 seriesa because DEC modified the X11 code to support these and > never released it to the world. Does that meant that because it's not > in Xorg it wasn't X11? > > bill > > -- > Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves > billg...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. > University of Scranton | > Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 12:04:19 -0700 (PDT) From: kiwi Subject: Re: VAX 6310 Free to a good home Message-ID: <269f236e-3eeb-435c-a27a-328e0c3724a2@z16g2000prn.googlegroups.com> On May 3, 8:35=A0am, "Lee K. Gleason" wrote: > "John Santos" wrote in message > > news:qNMSj.1512$qW.1362@trnddc06... > > > > > Baxt...@tessco.com wrote: > > > On May 2, 8:39 am, "Richard B. Gilbert" > > > wrote: > > > >>Michael Austin wrote: > > > >>>kiwi wrote: > > > >>>>San Jose. Pick it up and its yours. VMS 5.5-2. Working order. > > > >>>Boy, talking about a heater... and just try and move it into your > > >>>basement... :) > > > >>Just try picking it up without a forklift! > > > > Would make a nice closet/Changing Rm for a small apartment > > > > Dave > > > Or a nice mini-bar... > > =A0 I took a set of cast offVAX6000 racks and "chopped" (ala hot rod > chopping a car - take a mid section out to shorten) them down into a very > sturdy welding table. > -- > Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR > Control-G Consultants Ya. Off the chop-shop it goes.... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 22:40:13 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: What systems can use USB? Message-ID: <48265c89$0$90268$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> DaveG wrote: > On May 9, 1:22 pm, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob > Koehler) wrote: >> In article , "John Wallace" writes: >> >>> In particular the much-delayed arrival of Vista (and the associated Office >>> "upgrades") changes things. Vista's "success" in the market (no one sensible >>> buys it unless they have to) shows that even Microsoft's monopoly isn't >>> necessarily forever. >> The only people I know of who have Vista and/or the new Office are >> kids at my daughter's college who were clueless when the bought new >> PCs for their frosh year. > > My daughter works for a big accounting firm. Used to be one of the > big 8, but after fall of Arthur Anderson, its <8 now. They're > starting to migratre all their users to Vista. My understanding is that Windows XP goes from mainstream to extended support April 2009. A lot of companies will plan switching before that. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 22:48:38 -0400 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: What systems can use USB? Message-ID: <48265e83$0$90268$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> John Wallace wrote: > "FredK" wrote in message > news:fvqmtf$6ao$1@usenet01.boi.hp.com... >> The "desktop" wars ended years ago. Windows won. The UNIX workstation >> market collapsed. As a consolation prize, Linux PC's are available for >> those who crave a UNIX desktop. > > Two years ago, few people would have disagreed with you that Windows won. > Times can change though. > > In particular the much-delayed arrival of Vista (and the associated Office > "upgrades") changes things. Vista's "success" in the market (no one sensible > buys it unless they have to) shows that even Microsoft's monopoly isn't > necessarily forever. No sensible and informed person chooses to buy it > retail. Many folks are force-fed Vista on new PCs, but some major PC vendors > are still offering routes to Windows XP either discreetly or blatantly, > depending on how Microsoft-dependent they are, and in the corporate world, > any pre-loaded Vista is often immediately overwritten with the local > standard image of XP or in some cases Win2K, and there's no corporate plan > to upgrade the installed base to Vista. > > Even MS's Ballmer has said that they'd be crazy not to extend the life of XP > if customers preferred it to Vista. The MS spin machine went into full > denial mode immediately afterwards, but the damage had been done. E.g. > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/24/xp_ballmer_customer_demand/ > > There's going to be a lot of Windows out there for the foreseeable future, > but probably less in % terms than they're used to. That is mostly wishful thinking from people that does not like MS. It is true that a lot of people and companies are discussing when to go to Vista or whether they should skip Vista and go directly to Windows 7. The number switching to Linux and MacOS X is still relative small. Vista is not selling as good as it should. But the ambition level is rather high. Vista is still selling more licenses in one week than VMS done ever and in a few months more than the combined number of Linux and MacOS X. Vista got a lot of criticism. But if you look into it, then a big portion of it comes from non-Windows users. And that does not really tell much. Arne ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.262 ************************