From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5f8432149982f35e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Steffen Huber Subject: Re: Ada and QNX Date: 2000/10/17 Message-ID: <8si13i$tr7$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 682524181 References: <8r1i82$ri3$1@kujawiak.man.lodz.pl> <8r5pe5$h70$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8FCDFD7EEnopenopena@63.209.170.206> <39EA6305.CD5CFE1F@ix.netcom.com> <39EA9161.6469DDE2@home.com> <39EB1BA2.B5F2BFDF@acm.org> <39EB283A.9F7B4F76@motorola.com> <39EB662D.F2C8B55B@acm.org> <8sg6g2$eur$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 ICON041, 1.0 x66.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 62.154.176.138 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Tue Oct 17 17:09:14 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDhubersn Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt; QXW03314) Date: 2000-10-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: [comp.os.qnx deleted from Newsgroup list] In article <8sg6g2$eur$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar wrote: > In article <39EB662D.F2C8B55B@acm.org>, > Marin David Condic wrote: > > > To use an analogy that's been used before: Which is better? > > Sony's Beta format or VHS? From most technical standpoints, > > Beta was a better format. Why didn't it catch on? A thousand > > reasons can be given, but few will be based on some sort of > > "Technical Superiority" of VHS. > > I know this is off topic, I know, too, but it is just interesting that so many people cite the "Beta vs. VHS" example - look at the comp.sys.acorn.* hierarchy to find even more arguments ;-) > but in fact I think the above is > an example of myth, and exposes an interesting failure of > many technical folks, which is that they do not understand > what are and are not important technical characteristics. I don't think the race between the different home video formats was influenced by technical characteristics, at least not in a major way. > Yes, Beta had better picture quality, but that was NOT the > important technical feature, the dominating technical feature > was the maximum recording time, and VHS got ahead there so > significantly that Beta could not catch up. Actually, this is a weak point. In Europe, we had another home video format: Video 2000. It had a better picture quality than VHS and Beta, LongPlay was always in the specification, there were cassettes available which allowed 8 hours non-stop recording (with LongPlay in a superior quiality than VHS), and you could turn over the cassette to record the same amount of material again (just like audio cassettes). Video 2000 had hifi stereo sound much earlier than VHS. It had a clever tracking system to reduce still flickering. The machines were as cheap (or expensive, compared to today's prices ;-)) as their VHS counterparts. The only disadvantage of V2000 was that the video offices (sp? Those strange places where you can rent tapes) had more material on VHS than on V2000. Many people bought VHS and then never visited a video office - it is sometimes good enough to score at a point the customer doesn't even need! Everybody who has a still working V2000 machine is keen to keep it. Only lately the advent of very cheap S-VHS recorders which are able to record on standard VHS cassettes has made the V2000 system largely redundant. It all boils down to one simple fact: technical merits do not help. And, to come back to Ada, this is also relevant in the language context. It helps to be technically better, but you need a certain amount of marketing and "drive". So long, Steffen -- Steffen Huber LambdaComm System - Welcome to Trollinger Country Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.