>DOS/Windows has retarded personal computing by at least 5 years in my opinion

James;

You are indeed generous! Look at the first Mac O/S in 1985. It still has features and a “user friendliness” that even Windows 2000 does not. As I recall, the first PC O/S offering from Microsoft was PC DOS, taken directly from CP/M (8 bit), and sold to IBM.

I tell people I have Windows 286 and Windows 386, as well as Windows 3.0, and 3.11. Many people do not believe me about the pre 3.0 releases. I never argue with ignorance so I do not care what the ignorant think.

I have not followed the CPU world for a few years but I do recall that Apple used the Motorola 68000 series at one time and Intel used the 8000 series. The basic difference was the 68000 was GUI (graphic) based and the 8000 series character based. When it came to graphics (include Pagemaker) the Mac blew away the PC! The PC had to first translate character based code to graphic via the DOS/Windows O/S. You might say that “something is always lost in the translation”.

My first PC was an S-100 in 1975, and when we finally got a 80X25 video card we thought we really had something. As I recall the price was $795 for the video card – and like everything for the S-100, overpriced. Not until the release of the PC AT did the PC compare in performance with the S-100.

I told people for years – if you want to run a business with a computer get a Mac. If you want to play computer get a PC. Things are improving in the PC world but Windows has a long way to go. But not to wory - Microsoft always tells us the next release or service pack, will cure all the ills of the world.

Tom