3 ms·

Finally, we're getting out of the quality hole that Microsoft dug for the entire tech industry.

tptacek 15y ago
Facile. The Microsoft of the '90s was famous for spending on software quality. They didn't have the design mojo of Apple or Adobe, but still produced extraordinarily well designed software that caught on because of its intrinsic value and not just marketing --- Excel and Word, for instance, were simply good pieces of software. I suspect any narrative that looks at Microsoft as the reason the '90s didn't look like Steve Job's aught's has rose-colored glasses on about the "quality" of (pick any:) Linux desktop software, Nullsoft, Netscape Navigator, NCSA HTTPD, Eudora, Forte FreeAgent. I think the reality has more to do with technology progressing to a point where it's cost effective to build products with high production values --- handheld computers with a BOM in the low hundreds of dollars can do hardware-accelerated OpenGL compositing for a vector-based GUI. That doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to carry the industry forward; they did: they noticed the coming new reality first, and did the best job of capitalizing on it by designing new kinds of products that executed a few core features better than anything could have in the '90s, and so didn't need to crud themselves up with 1,000 extra features to make up for deficits in their core.
- code_duck 15y ago
  Do you recall using non-microsoft software from the same period? I don't mean the university software like Mosaic. I had an Amiga, and there is very little that seems well designed to me about Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 compared to AmigaDOS 2.0. They may have spent large sums on well designed software, but as far as I can tell this did not have the intended effect. I owned a DOS machine in the late 80s. The interface was tragically poor, compared to just about anything else available. Stability was poor as well. 10 years later, I bought a Windows 98 machine, thinking 'oh surely Microsoft has worked this out!'. Alas, it featured a rather limited, poorly thought out interface and had all the stability of an inflatable boat on the high seas. This is to what I refer.

Facile. The Microsoft of the '90s was famous for spending on software quality. They didn't have the design mojo of Apple or Adobe, but still produced extraordinarily well designed software that caught on because of its intrinsic value and not just marketing --- Excel and Word, for instance, were simply good pieces of software. I suspect any narrative that looks at Microsoft as the reason the '90s didn't look like Steve Job's aught's has rose-colored glasses on about the "quality" of (pick any:) Linux desktop software, Nullsoft, Netscape Navigator, NCSA HTTPD, Eudora, Forte FreeAgent. I think the reality has more to do with technology progressing to a point where it's cost effective to build products with high production values --- handheld computers with a BOM in the low hundreds of dollars can do hardware-accelerated OpenGL compositing for a vector-based GUI. That doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to carry the industry forward; they did: they noticed the coming new reality first, and did the best job of capitalizing on it by designing new kinds of products that executed a few core features better than anything could have in the '90s, and so didn't need to crud themselves up with 1,000 extra features to make up for deficits in their core.

code_duck 15y ago
Do you recall using non-microsoft software from the same period? I don't mean the university software like Mosaic. I had an Amiga, and there is very little that seems well designed to me about Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 compared to AmigaDOS 2.0. They may have spent large sums on well designed software, but as far as I can tell this did not have the intended effect. I owned a DOS machine in the late 80s. The interface was tragically poor, compared to just about anything else available. Stability was poor as well. 10 years later, I bought a Windows 98 machine, thinking 'oh surely Microsoft has worked this out!'. Alas, it featured a rather limited, poorly thought out interface and had all the stability of an inflatable boat on the high seas. This is to what I refer.