Re: The new licensing model

[Dan Strychalski <dski@ms17.hinet.net>]

I wrote --

     When a certain widely-used resource that is built into the
     hardware is suddenly disabled in every big-name program on
     the market, and then is magically re-enabled when the
     monopoly is complete, there is excess larceny somewhere.

...and Joe Barr <joe@pjprimer.com> asked --

     What is this "widely used resource"?

Well, it stopped being widely used when it was rendered partly or
completely useless in the keyboard command sets of (in approximate order
of initial release):

* The MS/PC DOS command interpreter and bundled utilities (for ten
  years, only the small subset of this resource that was of use on the
  CP/M-80 command line was of use in these programs);

* WordPerfect (only one element out of a set of 26 worked -- and it is
  worth noting that this element was used in conjunction with the
  "macro" function and entry of non-ASCII characters);

* Microsoft Word for MS/PC DOS (only one element out of a set of 26
  worked, and it was used in conjunction with the "macro" function -- in
  a program released shortly after the still little-known WordPerfect);

* Multimate (same time frame as the preceding pair, and although all the
  elements worked, they could be used only for entry of non-ASCII
  characters [sound familiar?]);

* Windows 1.x through 3.0 Paint, Write, Terminal, Cardfile, Calculator,
  Calendar, and the rest (ONE element may have worked in ONE program
  bundled with Windows 3.0, but that's IT; otherwise, ALL were dead in
  ALL programs bundled with Windows from 1985 to 1990 or '91).

There are others. The resource I'm talking about is the set of
keystrokes Ctrl-A through Ctrl-Z. One program that used them just fairly
well enjoyed huge popularity at the beginning of the microcomputer era,
and then around 1982 they seemed to be off-limits to any developer that
wanted to make it big in the x86 market. Only in 1992, when everyone
else had been laid low, did they reappear, when Microsoft start using
them, most particularly in the Ctrl-Z/X/C/V Undo/Cut/Copy/Paste suite
plagiarized from the Mac (which had used Command-Z/X/C/V since 1984).

Those keystrokes are derived directly from ASCII. You might say they're
the granddaddy of all platform-independent command mechanisms -- and
you know how certain people feel about platform-independent mechanisms
in general....

http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/99-11/msg00233.html

Dan Strychalski