RE: Microsoft thwarted again

["James H H Lampert" <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Now, if you want to say that the fact that 5250 CAN NOT HANDLE the more
> modern requirements of users and the public, and that because of that
> you can tell your users that they "can't have" some new feature, that's
> a different story. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either
> your users don't need more that 5250 can deliver, in which case DOS is
> still an option, or they do and 5250 isn't.

Bullpuckies.

1. In terms of desktop computing, and specifically excluding web browsing,
most users don't "need" anything that a simple 8086 DOS machine, with
(say) WordPerfect 5.1+, Xerox Ventura Publisher (DOS/GEM edition), a few
other GEM apps, Quattro, and dBase, can't deliver. Moreover, if that
platform were still actively supported, there would almost certainly be
plenty of good browsers for it, as well as USB and FireWire support. What
users "need," however, is not the same thing as what they "want," much
less what they're being TOLD to want.

2. The 5250 data stream has come a long way from even (say) the 3180.
Unfortunately, 5250 data stream development tools and documentation have
not, and there are a great many capabilities (some of which, e.g., the WP
mode, go back to the 5251) that only IBM knows how to use. Had they opened
up those capabilities to developers, and documented them properly, then
people other than emulator developers and terminal geeks (and I freely
admit to being both) would still WANT terminals.

--
JHHL