#: 7906 S15/Hot Topics
    29-Oct-90  21:42:54
Sb: #7785-#OSK Software
Fm: Kevin Darling (UG Pres) 76703,4227
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)

These are just rambling thoughts... not really about the consortium, altho the
obvious thrust of everyone's messages is about _display_ compatability for
programs (personal input devices are a far lesser worry).

In Europe, people use the Cumana OS9/ST port, which is said to include some
windowing functions, MIDI driver, etc.  The console terminal stuff alone can
mean non-portable programs.

I don't think coco programmers have bad habits... if anything, they adhere more
than many others to device independence.  BUT true, not in escape code
independence, which is a different (and yes, important) subpart.

 (Sidenote: There's a beta OSK version of dEd which uses termcaps.)
 (Side question: is it time to assume that all terminals will be gfx capable?)

Altho it may be happening again (brought on by CD-I and new computers), I think
it's been about seven years since MW had real interest (read: time to invest)
in the personal usage of OS9.  Because their main market was in the controller
field, they had no impetus to come up with or enforce UI standards. Each OS9
system installed was by definition a custom system, with its own custom drivers
and program interfacing.

(Sidenote2: I'm beginning to have a very strong feeling against wide use of
xxStat calls... they don't work across either network or serial connections.)

Jumping topics again (there's way too much to cover): enduser views are also a
totally different subject.  Obviously, easy-to-use programs can and should be
written... but that's true of any system.   However I will note that leaving
all UI standards to programmers would be a mistake.  We learn this truth best
from the Amiga, which tried that for 5 years... yet now CBM is trying to
enforce more standardization.  Easy to see why: compare Mac programs to Amiga
programs.  The difference to the end user is super apparent.
  

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