Re: [Sheflug] Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

[(Ted Harding) <ted.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 08-Feb-11 10:42:18, Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> Hi
> 
> http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/71800.html
> 
> This is just about an exact laymanâ??s version of something that an NHS
> psychologist explained to me about a disease that she had studied.  It 
> is a bit tongue in cheek but does relate to some real facts.
> -- 
> Richard

Nice article about MTBS (Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome -- though
it's not mentioned whether anyone responded to "hairyfeet"'s diatribe
["LDS" = Linux Delusion Syndrome]:

  To help their platform succeed, "LDS sufferers need to
  look at Apple for an example instead of their Unixy
  grandpa," hairyfeet added. "In iLand there is NO CLI,
  NO configuring, it is ALL GUI, it is ALL intuitive
  and simple."

that Apple's OS X is a GUI on top of FreeBSD ( = UNIX), and that
indeed you can open up a terminal on a Mac and utter command
lines just as on Linux.

Another quote rang a bell from my deep and distant (but
still clearly remembered) past:

  The cure [for MTBS], however, "is a weekend with GNU/Linux
  running like a rocket on hardware discarded as slow with
  that other OS," he pointed out. "The cure is seeing 30
  simultaneous users enjoying the experience of hardware
  that struggles with one user on that other OS."

My first exposure to UNIX wAs back in 1984, when the Pure
Maths Dept at Cambridge bought in a UNIX machine, mainly
for the purpose of writing articles, lecture note, example
sheets, etc., (because the Applied Maths Dept had already
been using a similar machine very successfully for these
purposes). I ended up "volunteering" to manage this machine.

It had a 10MB hard drive, 1MB of RAM, and on the back was
a bank of 32 serial ports.

These were cabled to some 30 offices around the Dept, and
people logged in as and when and did their stuff. You could
have 5 or 6 users simultaneously on the go without anyone
being particularly aware of anyone else's presence. Once
you got above 8, however, serious slowdown set in (but
what would you expect with only 1MB of RAM?).

Some years later, however, towards 1990, the Powers That Be
switched things over to IBM PCs running MS-DOS.

I found myself with a PC on my desk, which had (yes) 1 MB
of RAM and a 10 MB hard drive. But, compared with the UNIX
system, what did this allow me to do, efficiently easily
and correctly, even as the only user (multiple users were
impossible on MS-DOS then).

So I reasoned: I have here a machine with exactly the same
hardware resources as that UNIX machine, so it ought to be
just as powerful and capable. But it's crippled!

That got me groping around for possible versions of UNIX
for the IBM PC. There were a few, prohibitively expensive
(around £1,000 for the basic system, plus as much again
for applications like databases).

But I kept my eyes open. Some years later, now in Manchester,
I read in the "MCC Newsletter" a little article by Owen Leblanc
of the (then) Manchester Computing Centre titled "Free Unixes
for the PC". This covered FreeBSD and Linux (August 1992).

Next day I was round there with a bagful of blank floppies,
and came out with SLS Linux on 60 floppies, and very clear
instructions from Owen as to how to install it alongside DOS.

So, on my home PC with 2 MB RAM and a 40 MB hard drive,
I partitioned off 25 MB for Linux and went ahead. I have
not looked back since, and have never since used MS software
unless I had no option!

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 08-Feb-11                                       Time: 11:19:23
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