CHAOS MANOR MAIL

A SELECTION

To about 12 August

05:47 PM

____________________________________________________________

Press Release The AlphaNT Source

Computer Users Seek Choice From Microsoft

Users ask Microsoft to level the playing field to help all consumers

Huntsville - 30 July, 1998 -- Computer users and professionals from all around the world have joined together to ask Microsoft to provide consumers a choice in the computer industry.

In 1993, Microsoft released Windows NT on the Intel, MIPS, and Alpha platforms. Since then, CPU platforms have come and gone on the supported list, but two have remained consistent and true to the original precept that NT was an open and portable computing environment—the Intel x86 and Alpha families of microprocessors.

Microsoft has done an admirable job in ensuring that the components for NT Server, especially the BackOffice components, have been simultaneously released on the various computing platforms supported by Windows NT. But things have changed since NT was first introduced—the Alpha platform is now the only alternative for consumers running Windows NT. It is in the unique position of offering a competitive advantage for users with consistently higher performance, 64 bit processing capabilities today, and competitive pricing. It is finding that the original niche it occupied in a server role has expanded into the high-end workstation market, and now is moving into the commodity workstation segment.

"Commoditizing" Alpha

While Compaq, Samsung, and Alpha Processor, Inc. move Alpha into the mainstream, and many software companies have fully embraced the Alpha platform, Microsoft to date has concentrated almost exclusively on the high-end server market with their products. The members of the AlphaNT mail list, an Internet resource devoted to the technical issues regarding Windows NT running on the Alpha platform, joined together to create an Open Letter To Microsoft. In this letter, the signatories ask Microsoft to remember its long-term goal to make Windows NT a truly platform independent environment, thereby furthering consumer choice and fostering competition. The group identifies 6 particular areas where they feel that Microsoft can improve their products:

1. Develop and implement a plan to port all possible Microsoft applications (from Access to FrontPage and even Monster Truck Madness) to the Alpha platform.

2. Include Alpha binaries on the same media as x86 software distributions, just as Microsoft currently does for all BackOffice applications.

3. Release all new software and updates simultaneously on both platforms.

4. Include Alpha compatibility and system requirements on all product descriptions on the Microsoft website and other literature where hardware requirements are listed. If a product is not yet released for a specific platform, indicate an expected release date.

5. On all website downloads, provide and clearly indicate separate Alpha and x86 downloads.

6. Revise the "Made for Windows NT" logo requirements to accentuate NT’s cross-platform compatibility in order to ease the buyers’ burden when purchasing software: if an application is not available on all platforms, the vendor should be required to explicitly identify their diminished functionality. Vendors who support both platforms should be accordingly rewarded.

"This is not an adversarial role that we are taking with Microsoft," says Aaron Sakovich, founder and publisher of The AlphaNT Source (http://www.alphant.com/), an independent website devoted to the combination of Windows NT running on Alpha processors, and host site of the Open Letter To Microsoft. "We feel that we’ve found a way that Microsoft can improve their products while simultaneously offering consumers more choice than they’ve ever had before." He adds, "It also helps to foster competition in the microprocessor industry, which is good for all computer users, regardless of operating system or CPU platform." Along those lines, he points out that many users have questioned whether 350 and 400 MHz Intel chips would be available today if it wasn’t for the 667 and 767 MHz Alphas processors, even though the higher speed Alphas have traditionally been marketed into very narrow niches.

The Open Letter To Microsoft

The full contents of the letter can be found on The AlphaNT Source at http://www.alphant.com/, along with the list of signatures of those computer users and professionals who have already put their names on the letter. This letter will stay on the site, and the list of signatures collected will be made available to Microsoft.

The AlphaNT Source

The AlphaNT Source is the global, independent resource for all things relating to the combination of the open and vendor independent, high performance, 64 bit Alpha microprocessor and Microsoft’s operating system, Windows NT. On that website, you’ll find links to news, articles, FAQ’s, mail lists, file archives, and other Web sites related to this topic. The intent of the content is to ensure that users of Alpha based system, or even prospective owners, get the full capabilities out of the world’s fastest computer and the most popular operating system. The AlphaNT Source is accessible at http://www.alphant.com/.

Contact information

Information regarding the AlphaNT mail list can also be obtained on The AlphaNT Source.

From the Open Letter to Microsoft from the AlphaNT Source:

Server and workstation, actually. This is all Alpha is good for, unfortunately. Alpha has great floating-point performance, good integer performance, and extremely low manufacturing volumes. This is the classic recipe for a high-end server and workstation processor.

The efforts made by Digital, Samsung, and Mitsubishi to support a low-cost system market prove that these companies just don’t understand what counts in low-cost systems.

Cost is actually way down the list of requirements for mainstream PC buyers. We don’t see this under normal circumstances because the higher-order issues are roughly equivalent for most of the PCs on the market. I think the most critical thing is compatibility. Mere compatibility with _most_ x86 software isn’t enough; most buyers won’t tolerate anything less than perfection on this point. AMD, Cyrix, and IDT all lose sales due to end-user uncertainty, though they’ve basically achieved perfect compatibility right down to the socket level. Even Intel itself suffers when bugs crop up. Alpha NT supports the FX!32 binary translation technology that handles most x86 applications, but in my opinion, FX!32 is far short of what’s needed.

CPU-vendor and system-OEM branding are also more important than cost for most customers. Nobody thinks of Alpha as a desirable CPU brand for the mainstream. Even the people who know about Alpha processors for workstations aren’t entirely sure they want them; other workstations offer better software compatibility, application-level performance, or scalability. In the PC space, Digital hasn’t been able to convince Compaq or Dell or Packard-Bell to offer Alpha-based desktop PCs. I don’t think they ever will, even though Compaq _owns_ Digital now. We could argue about whether this demonstrates the stupidity or savvy of these vendors, but it’s a fact of life. What end user would buy a new CPU if it isn’t good enough for big-name system companies?

Performance is certainly important, but it’s #4 on the list, at best. Like cost, performance is used to help a user pick a particular system configuration once they’ve decided on the big stuff like the OEM, CPU, and basic features. The only way a user decides to get an Alpha is if they need the best possible performance on some particular application like LightWave and they simply don’t care very much about anything else. This is the key— such users are generally graphics professionals, and they almost always have the budget to pay a premium price for such a system.

In other words, the "low-cost Alpha" concept has almost no natural market. That’s my considered opinion, anyway, and I’ve got about four years of relevant experience to back it up. One of my dirty secrets is that I used to be part of the MIPS Windows NT effort back when I was with IDT. I helped MIPS NT system vendors specify, design, and debug systems based on the MIPS R4400 and R4600 processors offered by IDT. We could offer roughly 2X the integer performance and 3X the floating-point performance of comparably-priced Intel processors (at the time, we compared our 133-MHz R4600 against the 66-MHz Pentium), at least on CPU-intensive applications. Productivity applications like Word and Excel didn’t show the same advantages because they’re so dependent on the performance of main memory, hard disks, and graphics cards, and these things _have_ to be the same on x86-based and non-x86-based systems to keep the overall system cost comparable.

IDT put a fair amount of money into the MIPS NT effort, and companies like NeTpower and NEC put in a lot more. Even though I did my job to the best of my ability, I felt it was all a waste of time and money without the full support of SGI/MIPS and Microsoft, and occasionally I said so. What I mean by "full support" was at least a billion dollars over three years. I figured that’s what it would take to get every important software developer to support a second CPU architecture for Windows NT. That’s about what I think Intel will put into IA-64, and I’m quite sure Intel will be successful.

The companies pushing MIPS NT eventually pulled the plug on the whole program once they realized that there was no middle ground between spending nothing and spending a billion dollars. The Alpha backers still haven’t figured this out; they’re still looking for a middle ground around $100 million, but it just isn’t there. They’ll never achieve critical mass at that level. They clearly haven’t achieved any real success to date. Sales volumes are in the tens of thousands per year. This represents evaluation units in big MIS organizations, some sales to software vendors, and lots of free and discounted systems distributed by Digital and the others to Microsoft and other software developers in exchange for Alpha-native applications. It’s just nowhere near profitable.

I greatly appreciated Microsoft’s willingness to support alternate CPU architectures in Windows NT. Microsoft’s position was really the result of a personal campaign by Dave Cutler, the architect of NT, who knew the benefits of processor independence for end users as well as the NT development team itself. Eliminating x86-specific code has made NT easier to develop and maintain in the long run. Similar benefits obtain at application-software developers, but most of these benefits are obtained by virtue of working with the NT software interfaces; for an application developer, supporting Alpha NT is an extra expense without much payoff.

This is true for Microsoft’s own application-software units, too. We in the MIPS NT effort used to ask why Microsoft wouldn’t commit to providing certain critical desktop apps in MIPS NT form. Microsoft did Word and Excel on the client side, for example, plus SQL Server—yet Microsoft wouldn’t do Access for MIPS NT. Microsoft’s representatives explained that each of the company’s applications come from an independent business unit with its own profit-and-loss responsibilities, and they were quite frank about it—

Access and most other apps (particularly entertainment titles) just weren’t worth porting to MIPS. Too much effort for too few sales. I can’t argue with their logic, at least not until non-x86 systems _do_ start selling in high volume. I know it’s a Catch-22 situation, but the only way to fix that is for Bill Gates himself to make exceptions for these groups to let them lose money on Alpha for a while. I’d bet major bucks that Intel has already been promised exactly this for IA-64.

In short, it’s possible for a non-x86 architecture to be widely supported under Windows NT. Even though it hasn’t arrived, Intel’s IA-64 will prove this. No other CPU architecture is backed by sufficient resources to achieve comparable success, however. The Alpha NT effort is doomed, has been doomed since it began four years ago, and really ought to be ended before any more money is thrown down that particular rat-hole. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is, at least in my opinion.

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Jerry:

It’s kind of odd, but I discovered that I had become accustomed to a daily dose of your journey through and about cyberspace! - warts and all. I’ve found that I truly enjoy the daily form of your musings, with all their ‘false starts’ and unanticipated diversions, the crankiness, the insights. In fact, I enjoy this daily fare far more than the ‘more polished’ monthly versions I’ve been reading for more than 10 years, and I enjoyed that immensely!

I notice, now, when you go a day or two without adding to your musings, and I miss it! I like the immediacy of it, the transparency about your feelings as things delight and frustrate you, and the less-than-straight ahead progress you make.

This feels like real life, to me. My constant struggles with software and tools mirror yours, since I, too, only use the tools as the means to various ends rather than as ends in themselves. I write, I research (both traditionally and electronically), I use Microsoft Office 97, Paint Shop Pro, Visio, browsers, scripts, and countless Web tools (to publish results to clients.) ‘Listening’ to you journey through these minefields is helpful as to outcomes, and helpful in realizing that my stagger-walk through these subjects mirrors that of another competent person.

Please continue with your frequent musings, they help and enlighten my own journey!

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

As much ‘mucking about’ as you do with Windows based computers you might wish to get a subscription to TechNet. This will get you a two CD set from Microsoft mailed every month. The first CD is searchable texts of all the product Resource Kits and the Knowledge Base. The second CD contains drivers and software updates. (Microsoft Technical Support itself relies quite heavily on this material).

Information on the product can be found at:

http://www.microsoft.com/products/prodref/159_ov.htm It can be orderd directly from mail order houses such as PCConnection (my personal favorite).

Cordially,

T. Patrick Henebry

Jerry—

If you go to the Tools>Options>Mail Format tab in Outlook, and you’ve got WordMail selected, you’ll see under the "Stationary and Formats" tab the mail template. The default is "Email."

You can change it to several different types.

Under Start>Find Files, you can search of "email*" or "*.dot" and you" find a shortcut to the templates under something like:

c:\program files\microsoft office\wordmail\favorites

I edited the "normal" font in my email.dot to change from 10.Arial to 12.Times Roman. Much nicer! (I saved it to Kmail.dot, as well, so I could switch to it.)

Also, the Office Assistant lists a lot of this when you type "wordmail template" into the box.

I expect that these integration confusions are due to the fact that Outlook ‘98 came out a year after Office 97. (You gotta know that this’ll only get better. I really like the redline spelling when typing e-mail.) I’d suggest using Plain Text for everything, even copying text for Chaos Manor Mail. If you insert plain text (through copy/paste) and then use the "Preformatted" style (in Word), the quoting will be more direct and all that tab/blockquote nonsense will go away.

BTW, in WORD, if you deselect the "Mail as Attachment" in Tools>Options>General, then use the File>Sent to>Mail recipient, you can use regular word itself to send messages. The messages are converted to plain text when it brings up outlook’s compose menu.

At any rate, "Find files," is your pal.

The MAIN reason I wanted to write, though, was to ask when Office 2000 was supposed to come out. There’s no dates on MS’s site.... :) Are we going to know the features after August 10^th?

-K(eith)

In today’s view you wrote about WINNIE’s sound troubles that;

"Most of the problems are clearly from sound difficulties: the game will lock with a repetitive sound on."

The machine I’m using right now has an ESS 1868 AudioDrive PCI sound card built in. This card exhibited the same problems with the "Mechwarrior 2" CD that is my son’s favorite game.

I converted the machine from Win 95b to Win NT, applied the latest drivers that I could find (2.00.21), and most of the sound problems went away. (Alas, Mechwarrior won’t run on NT. So my son has to use his system with a ISA SoundBlaster Pro, poor waif!)

It seems unlikely that the WinChip is the root of your problems, seeing as my system uses a genuine Intel Pentium 166.

I’ve got a new Diamond Sonic Impact PCI sound card for my son’s machine (Also an ESS based card.) that I’m holding off using until your adventure plays to it’s end.

Good luck!

Dr. Pournelle,

You wrote:

Why not set up just *one* machine with Linux Red Hat 5.0, Applixware, and Word Perfect? It’d take some time, but obviously NT is eating entire days of your time anyway; surely you’d rather see that time go to learning a new OS that’s stable?

Or, if that strikes you as dumb, why not get on with writing Mamelukes, which at least one of your readers (me) will buy in hardcover the moment it appears?

I can understand wanting to remain in synch with what Microsoft does; they’ve treated you decently and have been a useful counterweight to the boutique marketing of Apple and the inpenetrability of old-style UNIX. But, in all honesty, I just got RH5 working on a machine that had formerly been only running Win95, and I never expect to need Win95 again. The Red Hat people have put a lot of work into making Linux easy to run and fun to use, and it shows: autoinstalling device drivers, 30 days of tech support with each CD, a desktop in 5.1 that is essentially the NeXT interface. Or you can get Caldera’s Linux which bundles the KDE desktop, which is the sleekest GUI I’ve ever seen.

Nor is it even true that you have to install it yourself on an existing machine if you don’t want to; there *are* vendors that sell pre-installed Linux (despite all the complaints by Ralph Nader); it’s just that, at present, they’re niche companies selling to a niche market. Which doesn’t mean that they’re not good. The Linux Web page (www.linux.org) lists vendors selling new systems for as little as $1400 (that instance is a 233 MHz Pentium II, 64 Mb/4 Gb machine from VA Research). That’s enough for any reasonable need.

At least please give it a thought. I wouldn’t obtrude upon you with an e-mail like this, except for one thing: you *really* don’t seem to be enjoying NT much, or Win98 much for that matter. Why not give something radically new a try?

And if that’s a pointless suggestion, honestly: I enjoy your fiction (and your non-fiction essays about "The State of Science, Year 19XX") a great deal. Quite a few people do, even if they don’t agree with your politics. Why not make some honest money for yourself and spare yourself annoyance by just *writing* more fiction or essays?

ChiggyVonR@aol.com

I looked in the registry with Norton Utilities Regedit and found the following KeyName:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ReferenceTitles\BookshelfL

the value name is DefinePath

and the original value data was m:\aamsstp\app\bs96se.exe /H /D "%s"

m: being my cd drive

I changed the value data to

d:\office97\aamsstp\app\bs96se.exe /H /D "%s" d:\office97 being the harddrive\directory I copied the office97 cd to. Now I have an online dictionary. I didn’t even have to restart my computer.

I didn’t even know there was a dictionary on the cd.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

The following is from Microsoft, and may relate to your problem. Apparently some of the removable IDE drivers that came with Win95 OSR/2 are less than adequate, and they have released a patch (attached).

Good Luck,

Claud Addicott

"CAUSE

Removable IDE disk drives are not fully supported by the IDE drivers included with Windows 95.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Windows 95. An update to address this problem is now available, but is not fully regression tested and should be applied only to computers experiencing this specific problem. Unless you are severely impacted by this specific problem, Microsoft does not recommend implementing this update at this time.

This issue is resolved by the following updated files for Windows 95:

Esdi_506.pdr version 4.00.954 (dated 2/26/96) and later

Voltrack.vxd version 4.00.954 (dated 3/6/96) and later

To install this update, follow these steps:

1.Download the Remideup.exe file from the Microsoft Software Library to an empty folder.

2.In My Computer or Windows Explorer, double-click the Remideup.exe file you downloaded in step 1.

3.Follow the instructions on the screen.

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Software Library:

Jerry,

Read about your travails with the IDE Zip. I’ve installed several on machines both at home and at work and have run into a couple of issues:

NOTE: With the VIA VP2/VP3/MVP3 bus-mastering drivers, the Iomega ZipTools information for the disk and/or drive may not appear correctly. The disk space listed may read 420 MB instead of 100MB, and the interface listed may be SCSI instead of ATAPI or IDE (which actually makes sense, somewhat, when one realizes that ATAPI uses the SCSI protocols to communicate the devices - thus the reason that the ATAPI CD-ROM drive is listed under Adaptec’s SCSI Interrogator tool). Performance should not be effected, however, should you UNINSTALL the drivers, a process that is highly NOT recommended, the information will be even MORE screwed-up (for one, the drive information serial-number or revision number will be un readable!).

Actually, the best thing to do is to install all the hardware on the machine in question, format the drive, and install Windows from scratch. Have all the drivers ready on floppy, hard disk, and/or CD, and just insert them at the appropriate time. DON’T change the settings, however, if it doesn’t find your video card - just let it run in plain vanilla VGA to start with, as some video card installation routines do the kitchen sink thing and install the drivers, the control panels, the DirectX drivers, etc.

Also, do you have the patch for Win 95 to use the multi-disk changer? I’ve never owned one (a geek friend HIGHLY recommended that I save my money), but that patch is SUPPOSED to be the Holy Grail for using a changer with Win 95.

Hope this helps, Jerry.

Jerry—

I have a linksys card which came with a disk on which was a program for changing the card’s IRQ setting. The instructions tell you too see what’s availabile in the system devices, then configure the card,then install it. Might you have similar software that came with your card?

David L. Ellis [dellis@halcyon.com]

Hello Dr. Pournelle,

It sounds like you did all the right things, but missed maybe one thing. After you forced IRQ5 to ISA and then installed the network card which grabbed IRQ11, you should try restarting, and then going to Device Manager, and open Properties on the network card. Then, under Resource, take the check mark out of "Use automatic settings." Leave the IRQ at 11, but with the check out, it won't try to mess with what you've got, and you will in effect "lock" that IRQ in place. Then proceed as noted.

Hope this helps.

Just had a chance to check out your web site for an update.

I think you need to lay of the coffee for a while. Microsoft will drive you nuts (especially the registry) if you let them. And I certainly agree with your opinion of plug and pray. In theory it’s great but the actual real world implementation sucks.

I do have a suggestion on the Zip Drive. Get rid of them, all versions. I went to the new little portable drive called the Shark. I changed over last fall and can’t tell you how much of a joy it is to use. There’s not a month goes by without a frantic phone call from an associate, friend, or neighbor who has a zip data problem. In the past 10 months, I have not had a single problem on my shark or from anyone I’ve recommended.

I’m sure you’ve seen or heard of them but just in case you haven’t, here’s their web address:

One thing that might help you in your adventures of installing software and hardware is a program to track changes. There are several out there that work pretty well. And it takes a lot of the pain (not all of it - software developers are sneaky) out of experimentation. I’ve attached a shareware version from PC Magazine called Incontrol 3.

I hope you got your outlook problems solved. Let me know via your column if you discovered any new tricks.

Eric Pobirs [nbrazil@ix.netcom.com]

We talked to them last November at Comdex but they never sent any product. Can’t discuss product if it isn’t in evidence.

I’ve noticed a certain pattern of anecdotal evidence often arises whenever a popular item is troublesome. Somebody pops up and says "Try this, I’ve never had any trouble with it!" This to me means they haven’t found the problem yet. It’s there in everything just waiting for you to make one little mistake. If you’re using a device that is almost unknown in the mass market and compare that experience to something extremely common (built into a goodly percentage of all new systems), your obscure device will probably come off looking better. With so many more (and by consequence less technically oriented) people testing the popular device in all manner of configurations it isn’t surprising if the complaints are easier to find. To find a complaint about the Shark Drive you first have to find a Shark Drive user, which isn’t easy.

This isn’t to let Iomega off the hook. They made plenty of mistakes, the worst of which was not reacting fast enough to ZIP’s success. Perhaps someday someone will build an OS that really understands removable media beyond floppies. I haven’t seen one yet that does. They either get confused by suddenly missing or appearing media or require onerous mount/dismount commands. Iomega did much to smooth the way but still was not prepared for millions of novices to come calling in such a short time.

Dr. Pournelle,

Hope this helps.

--

Bryan R. Stahl

"This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,

For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;

But what comes after is measure for measure,

And not a God that afflicteth thee..." Kipling

brstahl@sprynet.com