Re: cause for concern... Good Weekend letter

Joshua Graham Pitcher ((no email))
Wed, 20 Dec 1995 08:44:10 +1100 (EST)

> Try this for scary: A Macintosh user at a friend's workplace
> hadn't yet worked out that you can launch applications by double-clicking
> on them. They went through the "file, open" proceedure every time. This
> person had been using a Mac for some time. Scary, isn't it?
>

I think this is an example of an EXTREMELY stupid Mac user. I run a small
network of PC's part-time at a printing shop with inhouse design on Macs. The
designers there (whilst knowing nothing about DOS) cam do things like copy
disks and launch programs under windows. And once the program is launched,
the interface is very similar to windows ( However when the PC's first
arrived I did receive a frantic call asking how to eject the disk from the
drive, but in all fairness I did the exact same thing the first time I sat in
front of a Mac).

However having said that I don't think Mac users are relevant to this
discussion. Not because I think they're unimportant, but because Mac users
live in their own world, literally. They have their own hardware, their own
filesystems, their own interfaces (appletalk and their bus architecture) and
their own online services, which is very poorly subscribed to. My experience
has been that Mac users use their computers as a tool to get work done, not
as a recreation machine. The lacking variety ov Mac games and educational
software is proof of this.

Because of these reasons, (IMHO) if Mac users ever made it onto the Net in large
quantities, their discussions would be localised to Mac issues. I can't see
Mac users interested is issues affecting the wider internet community, as they
are more proffesionals, not recreationalists.

This post is very IMHO, and I would welcome any thoughts.

Josh.