BACKUP IXiconWindow Shopping
The ad men and writers have had fun with the inevitable: “Microsoft Does Windows.”
You read the headline and envision some programmers with buckets and rags, bravely scaling Manhattan skyscrapers to help executives get a clear view when they’re looking up from their computer screens.
Windows, however, actually arewithincomputer screens.
You can split your screen into parts: one window showing a chart, for instance, while the other displays the report into which you’re inserting it.
Of course you need a screen big and sharp enough to get good views of many windows.
And the software problems could be hairy. Microsoft as of late 1984 was months and months behind in releasing its windows-type product. Other companies were behind on theirs, too. Someone once coined a term for much-talked-about-but-late software—“vaporware”—and it is sure described windows.[104]
Well, now that the miracle windows are theoretically here, are they worth gazing at?
Depends.
Don‘tbuy windows if you’re just writing short letters and you needn’t blend anything else into them or regularly don’t consult other material.
But consider them if, say, you want to look at many spreadsheets quickly while writing reports.
Think what this means to executives with cluttered disks, er, desks. They can stash their material away electronically and not have to print hard copies as often in the future.
“I can imagine people having as many as twenty or thirty windows ready to call up with notes or working papers,” says John Butler, a product manager with Microsoft.
Also, windows software may let you switch noticeably faster from one program to another. And with a RAM (temporary computer memory) above 500K, you may even be able to do so instantly.
The plus of this? You won’t need to return as often to your computer’s operating system and feed the programs one by one into the RAM.
So the machine may seem to impose itself less between you and your work.
When “windows shopping,” however, you should ask these questions and more:[105]
1. Is the convenience worth the extra several hundred dollars you’ll be paying for the window software alone if it doesn’t come with your computer?
2. Up to how many windows can you see on your screen at once?
3. How do the windows look alongside each other? Do theyoverlap, just like papers atop each other? Or do theytile? That is, if you select more windows, the existing ones shrink, and you view less from them.
4. How aboutdata transfer? If you move information from one electronic file to another, will important details remain? For instance, the way rows and columns coexist with each other on a spreadsheet? Can you cut a graph out of a chart and insert it in the text of a report without it shrinking or ending up distorted? Will it reproduce in as much detail as it would without your reaching it through a window?
5. What kind of graphics—bit mappedorcharacter based? The bit mapping means sharper images. Your computer keeps track of each little dot, each pixel, on the screen. That hogs memory and may rule out color.Character-basedsystems, though, don’t let you make your lines and curves as smooth as bit mapping does. They must work with already-shaped letters, numbers, and other visual forms.
6. Will the window program work with ordinary software or just products written for it? And how many of the windows’ special features will do work when you use regular programs?
7. Will the windows at least slightly slow down some programs? A word processor may take longer for you to get from one part of your report to another.
8. Is the program picky about the computers it’ll work with? A window systemmayneed over half a million bytes of RAM and a hard-disk drive storing 5 megabytes. Also, as of this writing, windows seemed geared more to the IBM-style MS-DOS computers than to the older but cheaper CP/M ones. Besides, some companies may not sell windows programs directly to ordinary buyers. Microsoft got various micro manufacturers to bundle the program with their products.
9. Does the program require a mouse—the gadget you roll on your disk to move the cursor? How easily can you control the program without a mouse?