If you want to hear the facts about my 24-year-old comment about why the Mac could fail and about the mouse in particular, then listen to this special "viewer mail" podcast.

Also, get this, AMD is on Twitter!!

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  1. Billabong says:

    The file opens for me pedro.John I like it when you answer your critics but the real way to deal with this is to update your entry on wiki.You can be like Wal Mart and “fix” the critical information.

  2. moss says:

    #2 – Trying to keep the Dvorak wikipedia entry truthful, up-to-date and accurate – is like trying to explain to Americans [who voted for Bush twice] about WMD’s in Iraq.

  3. GregA says:

    I just want to take this opportunity to point out a prediction that the MS hating blog’o’sphere got wrong. Flip3d. I use it all the time, and find it annoying when I am at a computer that doesn’t have it. I also run an expose clone (that actually works better than expose) but I never use it. It is somehow amazing to me how far Apple is behind in simple things like… application switching because of their reliance on the mouse.

  4. veggiedude says:

    “macfans need to grab onto something, and that it. Besides, they keep thinking mac was the inventor of the mice. ”

    No we don’t. A San Francisco Professor invented it back in 1966. We just remember when PC people used to laugh and say a real computer will never have a mouse or a Windows interface. Only toy pc’s would have that they would say.

    Well, thank god Apple won the war of ideas, or you’d be doing DOS commands to this day.

  5. ex2bot says:

    Yeah, those macfan’s. If MAC came out with a giant slab of metal and put a $6000 price tag on it, the macfan’s would buy it.

    Besides, Apple is beleaguered. They only have 1% of the market and it’s dropping fast. Who can take a company seriously that only has a one button mouse!!!

    And the Ipod. I cant believe people even buy the thing. It does’nt even have wifi. And I hate the copy protection. Apple CLAIMS to have like 70% of the market but they lie. They only have something like 25% of the market , and thats droping fast . and most of that is because people believe all the lies about the Zune.

    Bot

    Oh, and at this point MAC has only 0.98 % of the market. I told you it was dropping fast. Oh, and there are litterally tens of thousands of MAC viruses. MAC just threatens to sue anyone who tries to talk about them. Oh, no.! I just got an email from them.

  6. Micromike says:

    So I’m not sure you were wrong, John. It is my understanding that the Mac has about 3% of the market and that hasn’t varied much over the years. In any other business 3% of the market would be considered a failure. It certainly isn’t a whopping success at 3%. If Pepsi only had 3% of the cola market they probably wouldn’t be able to stay in business. I would like to see the math behind any claim that the Mac has been a huge success. Maybe it could be argued the Mac lead to the iPod which does dominate it’s market and is a huge success but I don’t buy the Mac as a success story now or ever. I can’t help thinking your critics are confusing barely surviving with success (and don’t forget Microsoft’s gift of $150 million a few years back to keep some competition in the business and avoid the monopoly lawsuit). Maybe it’s part of the Politically Correct plan to make the world safe for the least competent among us.

    Mac use is a religion not a technology decision and in my opinion all religions are nothing but ignorant superstition.

  7. TIHZ_HO says:

    #7 “Well, thank god Apple won the war of ideas, or you’d be doing DOS commands to this day.”

    Really?

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1923151,00.asp

    Cheers

  8. MV says:

    I know it is wholly against the point of having a podcast but a lot of people would be happy if you also provided a transcript.

  9. Mark Derail says:

    #10, thanks for the link.
    John C. Dvorak I really really liked that article. Speechless.

    Okay, now that I’ve that – could John, or one of his co-writers, make a CrankyGeeks Folding@Home team?.

    Pretty please with multi-core chips on top?

  10. Mike Voice says:

    #7 We just remember when PC people used to laugh and say a real computer will never have a mouse or a Windows interface. Only toy pc’s would have that they would say.

    Yes, we do remember.

    We remember all the aspersions cast upon us – regarding how the lack of a command-line to execute batch commands, with a “wild-card” ( * ) modifier, was a deal-breaker to the real men who used DOS-based computers.

    We laughed as they tried all kinds of ways to adapt mice to their computers: serial ports, the joystick-ports of add-on boards – while still claiming superiority because they didn’t have to use a mouse.

    We laughed as they flocked to Norton Commander as a way to free themselves from command-line Hell – while still allowing them to brag that a command-line was still there “when they needed it” – they just didn’t seem to need it that often, anymore…

    We laughed at all the “unique” interfaces that were developed for programs like Lotus 1-2-3, QuattroPro, Word Perfect, etc… and how exciting it made working in one program, and then trying to work in any of the others…

    And finally, in 1995, we laughed as they were all either assimilated as mouse-using girly men, or jumped-ship to Unix/Linux – where real men can still use a command line… to this day.

    And now we’ve come full-circle, with Macs having a command-line capability via the Terminal app: “when we need it”. We just don’t seem to need it, that often… 🙂

  11. TIHZ_HO says:

    I find this funny.

    Apple adopts the one button mouse with keyboard interaction.

    PC keyboard users scorn it then embrace it and develops a multi button scrolling device for ease of use and minimum keyboard interaction with apps.

    Apple copies PC mouse with the Mighty Mouse “Use it any way you work: Stick with single-button simplicity or click with multibutton efficiency.” From Apple.com

    Cheers


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