In article <199603311538.JAA05576@sierra.zyzzyva.com>,
Randy Terbush  <randy@zyzzyva.com> wrote:
> As Charles put it:
> > 
> > Just another reason that PCs suck...
> 
> That comment, coming from the "Portmaster" of the i386, is reason
> enough to find another OS.

Huh? I wouldn't trust an OS whose i386 portmaster *DIDN'T* think
PCs suck.  Any i386 portmaster who doesn't know PCs suck either doesn't
know much, has a warped perspective, or is just plain nuts.

Considering that one of the significant functions of an i386
portmaster is (I assume) to identify and work around suckiness, anyone
who thinks PCs are just super shouldn't be doing the job. Microsoft
Windows is an example of an OS written by people who "the PC way" is just
super.

BTW, I am (as of this weekend :->) finally a NetBSD/i386 user. Don't
take this as a flame of people who choose to use PCs -- there are plenty
of reasons to, like virtually unbeatable bang/buck, compatability with
legacy and unfortunately-de-facto standards (MS-DOS). But the design
*does* suck. (Fortunately they're getting less sucky nowadays... PCI
being a good example). But remember, we're talking about an architecture
designed to run BASIC from ROM, with secondary storage on audio
cassettes. Even new P6 machines still crap out to a 40-column display
with a "NO ROM BASIC" error when they can't boot properly. It would have
been a miracle if they hadn't sucked, starting from something like that.
It's like taking a wooden outhouse and adding on until you've got the
Sears tower.

(Heck, it's a miracle that it turned out as well as it did...  consider
if the C64, another ROM-BASIC-and-tape machine, had done a little better
and the PC had done a little worse.  We might mostly be running the c364
port, on machines with 65[345] CPUs, and a few with the new "65 Pro"
65602.  We could be seeing John Kohl working on improving the vm02()
support, and complaints about the difficulty of getting NetBSD and GEOS
'95 or GEOS NT to share a hard drive.  It's not that much more far
fetched than what really did happen.  If that doesn't give you
cold-sweat nightmares... Oh, and be thankful Bill Gates is the
most powerful person in the industry instead of Jack Tramiel.)