[ct-user] CT & Problems with IBM & Clones

[Roderick M. Fitz-Randolph]

No flames, please (I've got an FT-1000MP and have ordered 9.32)
but I cannot help but compare the problems seemingly inherent
in the modularized software and in the microprocessor architecture
of the IBM PCs and its clones (and DOS) as compared to the Macintosh
and its operating system.

It's wishful and wistful thinking, but I sure wish someone like
Kevin Krueger would come up with some software for the Macintosh
that would be comparable to CT.  It would be so simple to use, so
reliable, that contesters and DXers would desert their IBM (and clone)
computers en-masse.  If this torques anyone's jaws, I have compassion
for you.  This message is not designed to do that.  It is a reflection.

It is entirely understandable that, after spending lots of money,
time, blood, sweat, and tears on 40X86 based computers and its
software, you would be upset if someone suggested that this approach
was basically wrong..... even though it is due almost entirely to the
snow job that has been wrought by the incredible media blitz of a
well-known software company (MicroSoft) and hardware chip developer
(Intel) and IBM's sterling name that caused so many hams to choose
PCs rather than Macintoshes.  Thoughtful hams naturally chose to go
with the big name IBM computers.  That caused a veritable plethora of
ham-oriented software for PCs and a terrible dearth of it for Macs.

It is not my intention to torque anyone's jaws.  It is just that after
owning 2 PCs (and using one of them 24 hours a day in my PacketCluster
Node) and 7 Macs, the differences are more apparent to me than it is
to those of you that have never owned a Mac.  How sad it is that, in
order to use computers with our ham stations, we MUST use PCs whose
software is so inherently complex to get operating correctly because
of the unbelievably archaic Disk Operating System (DOS) software (see
all the comments about the problems with the best known contesting
software on this reflector).

This message is not a "finger-pointing" or "nose in the air" exercise.
It is only a philosophical and sad reflection on "what might have been".

I'll be right in there with the rest of you, trying to figure out how
in Hell one gets this working correctly, given my few remaining logic-
working brain cells and their limited ability to figure out problems
with DOS based software after using Macs for so many years, so happily
and successfully.  I guess using Macs has had the same stagnation
effect on my brain as sitting on a couch and watching television!!!!
It sure was nice while it lasted!!

Sympathetically,

Rod, N5HV
w5hvv@aeneas.net

Flame suit on.



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