Re: CFA: Microsoft overcharges consumers $10 billion in 3 years

[Dan Strychalski <dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw>]

Joe Moore <joemoore@cs.uky.edu> wrote --

> I don't know, do you think we'd be using 400MHz processors with 12 GB
> disks if we didn't have to install Windows 98 or NT?

Absolutely. We didn't need a monopoly to get people to buy Detroit's
gas-guzzling metal monsters before the first oil crisis. Enough people
think bigger-faster-flashier=better to, er, fuel almost any industry.

>                                                       Linux runs fine on
> my 486.  Maybe M$ is driving the hardware improvements.  Not that I would
> consider their approach good...

Let's take a program that's well known for its speed and that can easily
be pared down to run from a single floppy: WordPerfect 5.1 for MS/PC DOS.
I ran it on a 286 at work until 1994. At first the machine had only 640K
of RAM, and for relatively simple jobs that was fine, even if the files
were very large. As soon as I started doing fancy formatting and putting
in graphics, though, even with WordPerfect I needed lots of additional
memory. And graphics are gonna eat up disk space no matter what you do.
Many people (by no means all) want their fancy fonts and pretty pictures
(some [by no means all] even really need them). Microsoft has certainly
sent hardware requirements into overdrive -- but a good, strong market
for bigger-faster-flashier would have existed no matter what.

Dan Strychalski
dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw