They of course will have the pull down menus, windows, real multitasking and all the rest, plus video capablity. Probably as little as 500k of RAM, but then the OS uses so little RAM even this amount can be effective.
Its a bit dated now of course, but a box with a lot of effect for its cost (considering it does not require a monitor but plugs into a TV set). China also has licences though I do not know how much production has taken place. I daresay any sophisticated Western observer would dismiss such things as toys, more the pity, or perhaps not ; )
It is ironic that the West has the luxury of dependence on exspensive, ill-written and, in the case of Microsoft, infamously unreliable Operating Systems that demand the latest processors, gigantic amounts of storage and huge amount of RAM be thrown at them, just in order to run (UNIX has its place but I am no fan of it, such dinosaurs thrive only under stable conditions). There is some logic in this with mainframe centralisied computing but not a lot for the rest of us (the main market for the leftovers).
In fact, the West is so locked into the computer industry that any conception of what is actually needed and what might be achieved is largely absent as an independant thought - common expert wisdom is driven and defined by the marketing ploys of said industry, without too much practical reason being involved, and especially none from the vantage point of ordinary garden variety of user.
To GUI or not to GUI is'nt the question, whether it is more foolish to suffer the stings and sorrows of an outrageous industry, or take a broader look beyond a sea of consensus and by opposition, end it. Is not a question even mad Princes pose.
What is required assumes GUI's, and why not! They are an asset to command lines not a substitute, as any scriptor knows a GUI without a command-line interface is as crippled as a command-line which allows no-GUI generated instructions - is it not strange that given all the money and the size of the market GUI systems and command-line systems exist as two distal and hostile camps even when supported on the same OS (true of either UNIX and X-Windows as much as any Mac - Windows is such a botch-up it defies inclusion)?
For people here to argue that GUIs are better than command-lines or vice versa shows how collectively the point is missed - integration of GUI and command - full, useful integration is the vital problem though you won't get a soul within the industry to even concede it as a question.
Worse than this the solutions have been about for some time, but the industry makes sure that very few hear of them and ensures, via ridicule and affection, that even those that do do not take such solutions seriously. Perhaps an economic depression will allow things to sort themselves out, but it is a rather extreme measure when a little open discussion would do as much.
Technology is also a political question, especially the technology of communication, a technology which by deskilling tasks, enskills people - for some this statement will be an enigma, which is a pity for that will reveal not so much any ignorance but how much ground needs to be covered in order to transverse the first step.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia
--- Message Received --- From: jean-christophe helary <helary at niji.or.jp> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 10:39:32 +0900 Subject: pull-down menus
os x for mac is an unix with all the cool things you need. but then, what do people need computers to ? what if you just have and old 386 box in a village in india and you need to have computing power for basic needs ? don't you think there is a problem when the soft is getting more expensive than the box it is supposed to run (or can't run it anymore because there are too many pull-down menus wasting memory space) ?
jc helary