Why [not] X?

[Mike McDonald]

>Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 21:18:50 -0500 (CDT)
>From: David Gadbois <gadbois@cyc.com>
>To: mikemac
>Subject: Re: Why [not] X?
>
>   Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 16:24:00 -0700
>   From: Mike McDonald <mikemac@titian.engr.sgi.com>
>
>   Where's that browser running? If your machine is running a lisp
>   based OS, I doubt Netscape is going to work too well. (Assuming
>   only one machine. Having a second machine on the net just to run a
>   C based browser is cheating!)
>
>Cheating?  No way, it is just the kind of stealth marketing we need to
>use!  No non-Lisp fanatic is going to give up their Windows until we
>have compelling killer horizontal and vertical apps for them to use.
>I don't doubt that will someday happen.  But it will be a lot easier
>to build the necessary critical mass if we can hand the user some
>floppies to stick in that old, dusty 386 sitting in a closet and have
>it do some magic over the network.  We have the tools and the talent
>to move any mountain, so why not bring it to the user?

  You misunderstand me. (Don't worry, most people do.) Requiring a
second machine running a browser inorder to use a machine running a
LispOS is a bad thing, IMNSHO. Being web aware is a good thing. Let's
just not get swepped up in the net hype.

>Another windmill I'd like to tilt with is the stupid notion of "My
>Computer," which mostly seems to be an excuse for per-seat licensing.
>Why, oh why, in this day and age of cheap cycles and bandwidth do we
>need to have a big, noisy, and expensive albatross of a machine
>wrapped around our desktops?
>
>--David Gadbois

  Because cycles are cheap enough that I can have some of my very own
and network bandwidth sucks in the real world. (Have you ever done any
web browsing? Ever get less than a 100 bytes per second transfering a
page? I thought so!)

  Mike McDonald
  mikemac@engr.sgi.com