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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (55104)	4/7/1999 9:53:00 PM
From: gbh	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

Well I didn't see that coming, heck I was puzzled bad enough on why the RISC prosessor which is 3 times better than any 86 never really got off the floor. Jim, 3 times better in what respect? RISC (any RISC) was only ever 3 times better (higher) in terms of price. It has been about twice as good (a little generous here) in floating point applications. And low and behold, RISC does sell much better than x86 into these areas. Perhaps if the RISC CPU guys had seen the light as AMD did, and built a RISC 86 CPU like AMD, 8 to 10 years ago like they could have, things would have turned out differently. But these guys just saw the x86 instruction set in terms of its shortfalls, instead of the overriding virtue of COMPATIBILITY with ever piece of software on the planet. How was it that Digital who was years ahead in it's design with the Alpha chip actually failed and had to sell out to CPQ. DEC failed, like all other UNIX guys have failed (except SUN) because of the proprietary nature of all the UNIX flavors. Only SUN, with an inferior hardware platform, but the most applications, and most bullet proof OS has prospered. Alpha was always just too expensive to warrant except in the most niche of applications. How AOL with a patched up make shift proxy type internet became the leader in the internet, even though the service still sucks. The service sucked badly, but has gotten better (still sucks though). But for the vast, vast majority of people, trying to configure win95 DUN for an ISP connection is hopelessly futile. Ease of use won out. I guess you blame AOL success on Microsoft for making DUN what it is. Gary

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (55104)	4/8/1999 11:33:00 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Jim, I think the move to indexing and closet indexing is just the latest fad and will fade as the guaranteed underperformance ticks off investors. I just don't think it is the American way to say, "I'm not as smart as other people so I am going to accept a lower than avg. return." In fact, the day traders, as much as I laugh at them, are much more in the tradition of US thought.