[Lancaster] [Fwd: Re: Twitter]

[Richard Robinson]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:46:25AM +0000, Martyn Welch wrote:
> 
> installation base not existed. Regardless of Microsoft's stance towards 
> the internet or their business strategies and regardless of the quality 
> of the early TCP/IP implementation for their operating system, the very 
> existence of a TCP/IP implementation for that OS made it possible for 
> the internet to be use on the numerous PCs running it. Supporters of the 
> more niche platforms could see greater benefits for developing 
> compatible stacks to supply the demand and to stay relevant to the 
> segment of their market that wanted to play with this "new" medium. I 


This is quite precisely back to front. All the interesting 'net applications
were developed on what you call 'niche' platforms, it was the PC that,
finally, saw the benefit of a compatable stack, so it could join in with
what the rest of the world had been doing for ages.

The concepts, and the software, were in place already, they became visible
to micosoft/intel PCs once those machines became capable of speaking the
same language that the other OSs were converging/had converged on.

As witness, the early visual web browsers - the year (? or so ?) when you
had to find access to a Unix box to get a look at Mosaic, and this whizzy
www thing, because none of it would run on a microsoft/intel box.




-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem