The information stored in the computer is called software. Most software stays in RAM temporarily and is erased from RAM when you no longer need it. But some software stays in the computer’s circuits permanently: it hides in the ROM and is called firmware.

To feed firmware to the computer, put extra ROM chips on the motherboard or insert a ROM cartridge. To feed other kinds of software to the computer, use the keyboard, disk, or tape: type the info on the keyboard, or insert a disk or tape containing the info.

You can feed the computer four kinds of software: an operating system, a language, application programs, and data. Let’s look at them.…

 

An operating system (OS) is a set of instructions that explains to the CPU how to handle the keyboard, the screen, printer, disk drives, and mouse.

BIOS versus DOS

In a standard IBM-compatible PC, the operating system is divided into two parts.

The operating system’s fundamental part is in the motherboard’s ROM chips and called the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS, pronounced “buy oss” or “buy us”). The operating system’s advanced part is on a disk and is called the disk operating system (or DOS, which is pronounced “doss”).

From MS-DOS to Windows

The first DOS for the IBM PC was invented by IBM and a company called MicroSoft (MS). That DOS was called IBM PC-DOS or MS-DOS. It came on a floppy disk.

Version 1 came on a floppy disk and stayed there. Version 2 came on a floppy disk but could be copied to a hard disk. (Version 1 couldn’t handle hard disks.) Versions 3, 4, 5, and 6 were even better: like version 2, they came on floppy disks and could be copied to the hard disk but could also be supplemented by a set of extra floppy disks, invented by Microsoft and called Windows, which let the computer perform tricks (such as dividing the screen into “windows of info” and letting you use a mouse instead of just a keyboard).

Windows’ first version (Windows 1) and its early improvements (Windows 2 and Windows 3) were just supplements to MS-DOS. To use them, you had to buy MS-DOS first. They were supplements (called shells) that tried to hide MS-DOS’s ugliness (just like a clamshell hides an ugly clam); they made MS-DOS look prettier. People bought the ugly operating system (MS-DOS) plus the operating-system shell (Windows) to create a new operating environment.

Modern standard Windows

In 1995, Microsoft invented a better version of Windows, called Windows 95, which performed more tricks and was a complete operating system: it did not require you to buy MS-DOS first; it was not just a shell.

Windows 95 came on a floppy disk plus a CD-ROM disk. To use Windows 95, you (or the dealer) had to copy the floppy disk and CD-ROM disk to the hard disk.

After Windows 95, Microsoft invented further improvements. Here are the years:

Windows 8 and 8.1 are called modern Windows. Earlier versions of Windows (Windows 1, 2, 3, 95, 98, 98SE, Me, XP, Vista, and 7) are called classic Windows.

Most computer programs require Windows XP or later. Such programs refuse to run if you bought just earlier Windows or MS-DOS.

Corporate versions of Windows

Big corporations running big networks used a fancy “corporate” version of Windows called Windows New Technology (Windows NT), invented in 1993. The year 2000 brought an improved version, called Windows 2000. In 2001, Windows XP replaced them and made them obsolete, but later Microsoft invented another corporate version, called
Windows Server.

Unix

AT&T’s Bell Laboratories invented an operating system called Unix. It’s pronounced “you nicks”, so it sounds like “eunuchs”, which are castrated men. (Be careful! A female computer manager who seems to be saying “get me eunuchs” probably wants an operating system, not castrated men.)

“Unix” is an abbreviation for “UNICS”, which stands for “UNified Information & Computing System”.

The original version of Unix ran just on DEC minicomputers used by just one person at a time. Newer versions of Unix can handle any manufacturer’s maxi, mini, or micro and can even handle networks of people sharing computers simultaneously.

Linux A Finnish programmer named Linus Torvalds (whose first name is pronounced “lee nuss”) invented a Unix imitation called “Linus Unix” or Linux (pronounced “lee nucks”). It’s free!

It runs on 386, 486, and Pentium computers and also on Atari and Commodore Amiga computers. The most popular way to get it is as part of a distribution (which includes Linux plus extras), published by Ubuntu (pronounced “oo-BOON-too”) or Mandrake or SuSE or Red Hat.

Most tablets and smartphones run Android, which is a souped-up version of Linux. Amazon’s Kindle is an e-reader that runs a modified version of Android.

Solaris Sun Microsystems (which was recently bought by Oracle) makes Sparc minicomputers, which are used as graphics/engineering workstations and Internet servers. Sparc minicomputers use the Solaris operating system, which is a souped-up version of Unix.

Though Solaris is intended for Sparc minicomputers, you can get a version of Solaris that runs on microcomputers containing an Intel CPU.

Unix versus Windows Though many programmers adore Unix, it won’t outsell Windows, since Unix is harder to learn and had its main features stolen by MS-DOS & Windows. But Unix networks are more reliable than Window networks and form the basis of the Internet.

Mac OS

The Mac uses its own operating system, called the Mac OS. To invent Windows, Microsoft copied many features from the Mac OS. Windows and the Mac OS are very similar to each other.

Versions 1-9 of the Mac OS were invented completely by Apple. Version 10 of the Mac OS is based on Unix instead: it’s a version of Unix modified to resemble and surpass Mac OS 9. To emphasize OS 10’s Olympic greatness, Apple writes it in Roman numerals (like this: Mac OS X), which Apple says to pronounce as “Mac oh ess ten”. Apple will forgive you if you say “Mac oh ess ex”, which sounds like “Mac — oh! — is sex!”, since Mac OS X is the sexy operating system that makes the Mac gorgeously appealing.

Apple’s tablet (the iPad), smartphone (the iPhone), and modern music player (the iPod Touch) use an operating system called iOS, which is based on the Mac OS but has this advantage: it can handle touchscreens.

Old computers

Old computers used old operating systems:

 

Languages that humans normally speak — such as English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Chinese — are called natural languages. They’re too complicated for computers to understand.

To communicate with computers, programmers use computer languages instead. The most popular computer languages are Basic, Visual Basic, Java, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Python, Perl, and PHP.

Each is a tiny part of English — a part small enough for the computer to master. To teach the computer one of those tiny languages, you feed the computer a disk (or ROM chips or copy software from the Internet) containing definitions of that tiny language’s words.

Of those computer languages, Basic is the easiest to learn and the most practical for most purposes. JavaScript is the best for creating small but thoughtful programs on the Internet. The other languages are harder to learn but can perform different tricks.

Although those languages have become the most popular, many others were invented.

This book discusses many languages, so you become a virtuoso!

 

The Internet is an international network of computers that share info. You can make your computer become part of the Internet too!

Web The most popular part of the Internet is the World Wide Web (WWW), where people publish Web pages that everybody else using the Internet can view.

If you want to view the Web pages that other people have created, and browse through them, you need a program called a Web browser.

The most popular Web browsers are Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox, and Google’s Chrome. They’re all free.

To invent and edit your own Web pages (so other people on the Internet can view them), get a Web-page editor. The fanciest is Adobe’s Dreamweaver, which costs $399, but others cost less and are easier to learn.

Some Web pages let you copy software from the Internet to your own computer’s hard disk. Copying from the Internet is called “downloading from the Internet.” Copying to the Internet is called “uploading to the Internet.”

E-mail If you attach your computer to the Internet, you can send electronic mail (e-mail) to another computer on the Internet, if you have an e-mail program.

The most famous e-mail programs are Windows Mail (which is part of Windows Vista), Outlook Express (which is part of older Windows versions), Outlook (which is part of Microsoft Office), Windows Live Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail.

The computer will do whatever you wish — if you tell it how. To tell the computer how to do what you wish, you feed it a program, which is a list of instructions, written in Basic or in some other computer language.

To feed the computer a program, type the program on the keyboard, or buy a disk containing the program and put that disk into the drive, or buy ROM chips containing the program. But before buying the disk, make sure it will work with your computer. For example, if the disk says “for Windows”, it will work with a modern IBM-compatible PC but not with the typical Apple Mac computer.

A person who invents a program is called a programmer. Becoming a programmer is easy: you can become a programmer in just a few minutes! Becoming a good programmer takes longer.

You can buy two kinds of programs. The most popular kind is called an application program (app): it handles a specific application, such as payroll or psychotherapy or chess. The other kind of program is called a system program: it teaches the computer how to handle various kinds of hardware and various computer languages. An operating system (such as Windows or Unix) is mainly a collection of system programs, bundled together to form a nice package. Application programs are usually purchased separately, though a few applications programs are included in the operating system’s price.

You’ll want several kinds of application programs. Here are the most popular.…

Word processing

A word-processing program helps you write memos, letters, reports, research papers, articles, and books. It also helps you edit what you wrote.

As you type on the keyboard, the screen shows what you typed. By pressing buttons (on the keyboard or the mouse), you can edit what’s on the screen and copy it onto paper and onto a disk.

Most operating systems include a simple word-processing program.

Those simple word-processing programs are very limited. For example, they aren’t smart enough to correct your spelling.

Most businesses use a fancier word-processing program instead, called Microsoft Word. It can correct your spelling and perform many other tricks. The newest version costs $110. It works just if you’ve already bought Windows; older versions can run on the Mac OS. Its main competitor is WordPerfect, which costs less and is published by a company called Corel.

Instead of saying “word-processing program”, it’s shorter to say just “word processor”, but beware: “word processor” can mean a program, a person, or a machine. Yes, “word processor” can mean 3 things:

Spreadsheets

To analyze a company, accountants examine the company’s financial data (each month’s expenses and revenues) and arrange all those numbers to form a huge “table of numbers”, spread across a big sheet of paper. That’s called a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet is a table of numbers, spread across a sheet of paper — or across the computer’s screen.

A spreadsheet program lets you create a table of numbers on the computer screen. You can type any numbers you wish. For example, you can type amounts of money (for accounting) or scores (from sports or student exams) or measurements (from science-lab experiments or sociology surveys) or your ratings of members of the opposite sex.

The typical spreadsheet program is powerful. It can automatically do these things:

It’s great for analyzing budgets, scientific experiments, statistics, and you!

Most businesses use a spreadsheet program called Microsoft Excel. It requires Windows or a Mac. Its main competitor is Corel’s Quattro Pro, which requires Windows.

Danger: compulsive perfectionism

The most successful business programs are the ones that make work become fun, by turning the work into a video game. That’s why word processing programs and spreadsheet programs are so successful — they let you move letters and numbers around the screen, edit the errors by “zapping” them, and let you press a button that makes the screen explode with totals, subtotals, counts, and other info.

Sometimes, word processing can be too much fun. Since it’s so much fun to edit on a word processor, people using word processors edit more thoroughly than people using typewriters or pens. Word processing fosters compulsive perfectionism.

Word-processed documents wind up better-written than non-electronic documents but take longer to finish. According to a survey by Colorado State, people using word processors take about 30% longer to generate memos than people using pens, and the word-processed memos are needlessly long.

Danger: intimidation

Word-processing and spreadsheet programs can become weapons that mesmerize people into believing everything you say — even if what you’re saying is wrong.

For example, suppose you want to submit a budget. If you scribble the budget on a scrap of paper, nobody will take you seriously; but if you put your data into a spreadsheet program that spits out beautifully aligned columns with totals, subtotals, percentages, bar charts, and pie charts, your audience will assume your budget’s carefully thought out and applaud it, even though it’s just a pretty presentation of the same crude guesses you’d have scribbled on paper.

Similarly, if you want to talk somebody into believing your idea, scribbling it on a scrap of paper won’t impress anybody. Instead, print the idea beautifully, using a word processor to create headlines, footnotes, etc. That will make the idea seem carefully thought out, even if the thought is actually the same garbage.

Try it! If you’re a kid, write a formal report on why your dessert tonight should be strawberry ice cream instead of vanilla. After submitting it to your Mom, submit it to an ice-cream company and watch yourself get praised, quoted, and hired! That’s what marketing is all about: bad ideas, nicely packaged.

Pictures

A graphics program helps you create pictures that are pretty or bizarre or whatever else you want! You’ll want to get several types of graphics programs.

One type is called a paint program. It lets you create pictures easily. These paint programs are the most famous:

Another type is called a photo editor. It lets you put a photo into the computer (by using a digital camera or scanner) and see the photo on the computer’s screen. Then it lets you edit the photo: it lets you crop out the irrelevant parts, cover scratches and embarrassing details, improve the contrast and brightness and colors, remove red-eye (caused when eyes become accidentally red from the flashbulb), and add special dramatic effects. These photo editors are the best:

Another type is called a drawing program. It resembles a paint program but specializes in drawing straight lines instead of squiggles. It’s best for drawing pictures of things that have straight lines, such as buildings, machines, and charts for technical illustrations. These drawing programs are the most famous:

Another type is called a computer-aided drafting & design program (CAD program). It resembles a draw program but does more math. For example, it can print mock blueprints, showing the lengths of all parts. It can compute the surface area (square feet) of any shape, so you can compute how much material to buy to build your structure and cover it. It lets you give fancy geometric commands, such as “draw a 37-degree angle, but make the point be round instead of sharp, so nobody gets hurt” or “draw a circle that goes through these three points” or “draw a line that grazes these two circles, so it’s tangent to them”. These CAD programs are the most famous:

Another type is called a presentation program. It lets you create a slide show, to accompany your speech. In the slide show, each slide can include photos, charts, and notes. These presentation programs are the most famous:

Movies

A video editor lets you edit the home movies your video camcorder creates. These video editors are the best:

Desktop publishing

A desktop-publishing program resembles a word-processing program but lets you more easily create newsletters, newspapers, magazines, posters, and signs, by letting you more easily include pictures, captions, multiple columns, and jumps (such as “continued on page 5”). These desktop-publishing programs are the most famous:

Databases

A database program helps you manipulate long lists of data, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and comments about your acquaintances (friends, customers, suppliers, employees, students, and teachers).

As you type the list of data, the database program automatically copies it to the hard disk. Then the program lets you edit that data. For example, you can insert extra data in the middle of the list. The program lets you view the data in any order you wish (such alphabetical order, ZIP-code order, or chronological order) and print that view onto paper.

The program can search through all that data and find, in just a few seconds, the data that’s unusual. For example, it can find everybody whose birthday is today, or everybody who’s blond and under 18, or everybody who lives out-of-state and has owed you more than $100 for over a year.

Most businesses use a database program called Microsoft Access. It requires Windows. Unfortunately, it’s hard to master. You might be happier with an easier database program instead, such as FileMaker Pro, which is published by a division of Apple and runs on Macs and Windows. Other famous database programs are Approach (for Windows and published by IBM’s Lotus division), Oracle (for large corporations), Q&A (for beginners using MS-DOS), dBase (for MS-DOS or Windows), and FoxPro (which resembles DBase but is fancier).

Office suites

Instead of buying a word-processing program, a spreadsheet program, and other programs separately, you can buy an office suite, which includes them all!

MS Office The best and most popular office suite is MicroSoft Office (MS Office). The newest version, MS Office 2013, requires Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. The list price is $400 because Microsoft wants rich people & companies to pay that, but Microsoft has invented many schemes to squeeze a few bucks out of normal folks too. Here are the schemes for you to take advantage of:

All those versions, editions, prices, and deals are for computers that use Windows. If you have a Mac instead of Windows, you must use MS Office’s Mac version. The current version is Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, which includes just Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook: Microsoft never invented a Mac version of Access, PowerPoint, or OneNote.

WordPerfect Office The main competitor to MS Office is Corel’s WordPerfect Office. The newest version is called WordPerfect Office X6; it costs $160 for the Professional edition, $100 for the Standard edition. You can get a stripped-down version, called Corel Office, for just $50.

Open Office Another competitor to MS Office is Open Office, which is put together by volunteers who let you download it free from the Internet. It imitates an old version of Microsoft Office. It used to be called Star Office and was a commercial product, but now it’s free.

Integrated programs

Instead of buying an office suite, you can pay less by getting a cute little program, called an integrated program, which does a little bit of everything!

The best integrated programs have been iWork, Microsoft Works, and Q&A.

iWork is the best integrated program for handling desktop publishing. It also handles word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, painting, and drawing. It’s published by Apple, which used to call it AppleWorks and Claris Works. You get it free if you buy a new Mac, iPad, or iPhone.

Microsoft Works has been the best integrated program for handling word processing and spreadsheets. Its Windows version was great. (Unfortunately, its DOS and Mac versions were not.) Microsoft stopped making it, but many old computers still contain copies that were included by the computer manufacturers.

Q&A was the best integrated program for handling databases. (Unfortunately, it handled word processing poorly, didn’t handle spreadsheets and all, and ran best just if you had the DOS operating system.) Symantec has stopped making it, but I still use it & love it. If you’ve been using the DOS version but need to switch to Windows, try Sesame Database Manager, which imitates the database part of Q&A, runs in Windows & Linux, and can be downloaded from Lantica Software (in Pennsylvania at 800-410-6315) for $79.

Accounting

You can get a checkbook program. It helps you balance your checkbook, track your expenses (and categorize them so you can get tax deductions), manage your credit cards, track your investments (stocks, bonds, and bank accounts), and compute your net worth.

The first program to do that well was Quicken, published by Intuit. Then Microsoft invented a competing program, called Microsoft Money, which was easier, but recently Microsoft gave up trying to sell it. Quicken and Microsoft Money are fine for personal use or to run tiny businesses.

If your business has lots of employees, you’ll want a program that’s better at “paying your employees” and “billing your customers”. The easiest powerful program is Intuit’s QuickBooks, which is a souped-up version of Quicken. Other accounting programs, which is are even more powerful (and slightly harder to learn how to use) are Peachtree Complete Accounting and Manage Your Own Business (MYOB).

Vertical software

Software that can be used by a wide variety of businesses is called horizontal software. Programs for word processing, spreadsheets, and databases are all examples of horizontal software.

Software targeted to a specific industry is called vertical software. Programs specifically for doctors, lawyers, and real-estate management are all examples of vertical software.

Vertical software is expensive because it can’t be mass-marketed to the general public and isn’t available from discount dealers. The typical vertical-market program costs about $1000, whereas the typical horizontal-market program costs about $100 from discount dealers.

Until the price of vertical software declines, use horizontal software instead. With just a few hours of effort, you can customize horizontal software to fit your own specific needs.

Viruses

Some nasty programmers have invented computer viruses, which are programs that purposely damage your other programs and can sneakily copy themselves onto every disk and e-mail message that you share with friends. To avoid catching a virus, protect yourself in 4 ways:

 

The typical program comes on a CD-ROM disk. To use the program, put its CD-ROM disk into the CD-ROM drive. Then copy the program to your hard disk.

The CD-ROM disk containing the program might also contain lots of music, video, and other data. If the data is too big to fit on the hard disk, you must keep the CD-ROM disk in the drive while running the program, so the computer can access whatever part of the CD-ROM’s data is needed at the moment.

Some programs let you create your own data, by typing the data at your keyboard. The computer stores that data on the hard disk. You should occasionally copy that data onto a floppy disk, as a backup copy, to protect yourself in case the hard disk gets damaged.

 

 

 

Will your computer be pleasant to use? The answer depends mainly on which software you buy. Software companies will influence your life more than any hardware manufacturer.

Here are some dominant software companies.

Microsoft

The most important software company is Microsoft, which takes in about 62 billion dollars of revenue per year. It makes the most popular operating system (Windows) and the most popular office suite (Microsoft Office).

The company’s main founder is
Bill Gates.

Microsoft is the most diversified software company:

It also sells hardware (such as mice, keyboards, and the Xbox game-playing system) and Internet services (such as MSN).

Microsoft continually develops new products because of pressure from competitors. For example, Microsoft was forced to improve Microsoft Word because of competition from WordPerfect and improve Microsoft C because of competition from Borland’s C. Those continual pressures to improve keep Microsoft a vibrant, dynamically changing company.

Novell & Corel

Novell invented Netware & Intranetware, which are programs that help create computer networks.

In 1994, Novell bought WordPerfect Corporation (which made the most popular word-processing program, WordPerfect). Novell’s purchase was natural, since both companies were in Utah. WordPerfect Corporation sold out to Novell because WordPerfect Corporation was having financial trouble, since many customers were switching to Microsoft Word, which has been improving dramatically.

In 1994, Novell also bought Quattro Pro (a top-rated spreadsheet program invented by a company called Borland). Borland sold Quattro Pro to Novell because Borland was having financial trouble competing against Microsoft.

Novell was founded by Ray Noorda. Novell’s next CEO, Robert Frankenberg, tried to make the company smaller and more manageable, so in 1996 he sold WordPerfect and Quattro Pro to a Canadian company, Corel, which was famous for inventing a graphics program called Corel Draw.

In 2004, Novell bought a German company called SuSE (which made the nicest version of Linux, SuSE Linux).

Novell takes in about 1 billion dollars per year. Corel takes in about ¼ of a billion dollars per year.

Microsoft owns 25% of Corel.

Lotus & IBM

Lotus made the most popular spreadsheet program (which was 1-2-3). For too many years, Lotus sat on its laurels, and customers gradually began to switch to competitors such as Microsoft Excel and Quattro Pro. We expected Lotus to die.

But during the 1990’s, Lotus displayed good taste and made wise moves: it dramatically improved 1-2-3; it bought a company called Samna, which made the nicest word-processing program (Ami Pro), so Ami Pro became a Lotus product; it began selling an easy-to-use presentation-graphics program, Freelance; and it began selling a product called Notes, which helps people send electronic mail to each other and edit each other’s documents.

In 1995, IBM bought Lotus, so now Lotus is part of IBM, which takes in 105 billion dollars per year.

Borland & Micro Focus

Borland was started by Philippe Kahn, who grew up in France.

To study math, he went to a university in Zurich, Switzerland, where he got curious about computers and decided to take a computer class.

The university offered two introductory classes: one explained how to program using a language called PL/I, the other explained how to program by using a language called Pascal instead. Since Pascal was brand new then, nobody had heard of it, so 200 students signed up for PL/I and just 5 students signed up for Pascal. Philippe signed up for Pascal because he hated big classes. His professor was Pascal’s inventor, Niklaus Wirth.

In 1983, Philippe went to California and started a computer company. Since he was an illegal alien, he tried to pretend he was thoroughly American and named his company Borland, in honor of the land that produced astronaut Frank Borman. His first product was Turbo Pascal, which he’d created back in Europe with the help of two friends.

Most other versions of Pascal were selling for hundreds of dollars. Philippe read a book saying people buy mail-order items on impulse only if priced under $50, so he charged $49.95. The book and Philippe were right: at $49.95, Turbo Pascal became a smashing success.

Later, Philippe improved Turbo Pascal and raised its price to $149.95. He also bought other software publishers and merged them into Borland, so Borland became huge.

Philippe occasionally experimented with dropping prices. For example, he dropped the price of Borland’s spreadsheet program, Quattro Pro, to just $49.95, even though Quattro Pro was in some ways better than 1-2-3, which Lotus was selling for about $300. Microsoft’s head, Bill Gates, said that the competitor worrying him the most was Borland, because he feared Philippe would pull another publicity stunt and drop prices below $50 again, forcing Microsoft to do the same.

During the 1980’s, Borland bought two companies that invented wonderful database programs: Reflex and Paradox. Borland eventually stopped selling Reflex, but Paradox lives on.

Paradox’s main competitor was dBase, published by a company called Ashton-Tate. Philippe decided to win the competition against Ashton-Tate the easy way: he bought Ashton-Tate, so now Borland publishes both Paradox and DBase. Philippe said he bought Ashton-Tate mainly to get his hands on Ashton-Tate’s mailing list, so he could sell DBase users on the idea of converting to Paradox.

But Philippe paid too much for Ashton-Tate, whose products, employees, and mailing lists were all becoming stale. Since Ashton-Tate was bigger than Borland, Philippe had to borrow lots of money to buy Ashton-Tate, and he had trouble paying it back. Buying Ashton-Tate was his biggest mistake.

By 1994, he was having trouble competing against Microsoft’s rapidly improving products and trouble repaying the money he’d borrowed to finance the takeover of Ashton-Tate. Financially strapped, he sold Novell his crown jewel, Quattro Pro, gave Novell the right to make a million copies of Paradox.

Novell’s founder, Ray Noorda, said candidly he wasn’t thrilled by Quattro Pro but wanted to buy it anyway, just as an excuse to give Philippe some money, so Philippe could stay in business and scare Microsoft, so Bill Gates would devote his energy to fighting Philippe instead of fighting Novell.

In 1995, Philippe stepped down from being the head of Borland. He spent most of his time running a start-up company called Starfish Software, which Motorola bought in 1998 then resold to Nokia, which makes cell phones using Starfish Software’s patents.

Borland changed its name to “Inprise”, then changed back to “Borland” again, then became part of Micro Focus, which takes in ½ a billion dollars per year.

Why fight?

The heads of computer companies still act like a bunch of tussling toddlers. I’m waiting for their mama to say, “Boys, will you please stop fighting, shake hands, and make up!”

Why can’t Bill Gates make peace with his competitors? Answer: they’re all greedy — and Bill is brash. (For example, during an interview with CBS’s Connie Chung, he walked out when she mispronounced “Dos” and asked a pointed question about a competitor.)

But Bill’s actually somewhat glad at his competitors’ successes, since Microsoft needs to have enough successful competitors to prevent the Justice Department from declaring that Microsoft’s too big a monopoly. By letting several competitors invent new ideas and bring them all to market, we consumers get to choose for ourselves which ideas are best — and vote on them with our dollars — rather than kowtow to a single dictator.

Symantec

My favorite database program, Q&A, is published by Symantec.

Like Lotus, Symantec shows good taste in acquisitions: it bought 2 companies making good versions of the C programming language (Lightspeed and Zortech) and also bought 2 companies making DOS utility programs that fix DOS’s weaknesses (Peter Norton Software and Central Point Software). Now Symantec takes in 7 billion dollars per year.

Symantec tries hard to improve all those acquired products, but I wish it would improve Q&A instead! I’m sad to see Q&A, the world’s best database program, be neglected and fall into obsolescence.

Specialized companies

Oracle and CA make software that runs on computers of all sizes: maxicomputers, minicomputers, and microcomputers.

Intuit makes programs that handle accounting on microcomputers. Intuit’s programs are cheap: under $100.

Adobe makes Postscript software (used in many laser printers), Photoshop (which edits photographs), and Acrobat (which does desktop publishing and lets you easily transmit the results by Internet). In 1994, Adobe bought Aldus (the company that invented the first desktop-publishing program, PageMaker). Adobe takes in 4 billion dollars per year.

Autodesk publishes AutoCAD, which is the fanciest program for handling computer-aided design (CAD). Autodesk takes in 2 billion dollars per year.

Electronic Arts (EA) makes excellent educational games and low-cost tools for budding young artists and musicians. It’s also the world’s biggest producer and distributor of video games for computers and for video-game machines (such as Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox). It takes in 4 billion dollars per year.

 

You’ll want 4 kinds of software: an operating system (which teaches the CPU how to handle the keyboard, screen, printer, and disks); a computer language (such as Basic); application programs (such as a word-processing program, a spreadsheet program, and a database program); and data.

When shopping for a computer, beware: its advertised price usually does not include all 4 kinds of software. Ask the seller which software is included and how much the other software costs.

The typical fancy program (such as a word-processing program, spreadsheet program, or database program) has a
list price of $110. That’s also called the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). If you buy the program directly from the software’s publisher, that’s the price you’ll pay. (You’ll also pay about $7 for shipping & handling. If the publisher has a sales office in your state, you’ll also be charged for sales tax, even if you’re phoning the manufacturer’s out-of-state headquarters.)

That list price is made ridiculously high as a marketing ploy, to give you the impression that the program is fancy.

But if you walk into a typical computer store, you will not pay $110 for the program. Instead, you’ll pay $99. That’s called the street price because it’s the price you see when you walk down the street and peek in the windows of computer stores. (You’ll also pay sales tax.)

Instead of charging $99, mail-order dealers charge slightly less: $89. That’s called the mail-order price. (You’ll also pay about $7 for shipping & handling, but you won’t pay tax if the mail-order company is out-of-state.) Another way to get that kind of price is to visit a discount store, such as Best Buy or Staples, when that item is on sale.

Version upgrades

If you already own an older version of the program, you can switch to the new version cheaply, by asking for the version upgrade, which costs just $69. You can order the version upgrade at your local computer store, or from mail-order dealers, or directly from the program’s publisher.

To qualify for the version upgrade, you must prove that you already own an older version of the program. You can do that in several ways:

If you bought the old version shortly before the new version came out, you can get the new version free! Just phone the publisher and ask for the free version upgrade.

Competitive upgrades

If you don’t own an older version of the program, you can’t get the version-upgrade price. Here’s the best you can do:

To prove you qualify for the competitive-upgrade price, provide the title page or Disk 1 of the competing program (or have Microsoft’s software automatically scan for such programs).

Copying software

If you buy a program, you should make backup copies of the disks. Use the backup copies in case the original disks get damaged.

You’re not allowed to give copies of the disks to your friends. That’s against the law! If your friends want to use the program, they must buy it from the software publisher or a dealer, so that the programmer receives royalties.

If you give copies to your friends and become a lawbreaker, you’re called a pirate; making the copies is called piracy; the copies are called pirated software or hot software. Don’t be a pirate! Don’t distribute hot software!

Some software publishers use tricks that make the computer refuse to copy the program. Those tricks are called copy protection; the software is copy protected. But even if the software publisher doesn’t use such tricks, it’s still against the law to make copies of the program for other people, since the program is still copyrighted.

Trial versions

Besides sitting at a friend’s computer, another way to “try before you buy” is to phone the program’s publisher and ask for a free demo disk.

Although some demo disks are just useless animated ads, the best publishers provide useful demo disks (called trial-size versions) that closely imitate the full versions. For example, the typical trial-size version of a word-processing program has nearly all the features of the full version, but it refuses to print memos that are more than a page long and refuses to copy your writing onto a disk.

Trial-size versions are nicknamed crippled software, because each trial-size version has one or two abilities cut off. Playing with crippled software is a great way to give yourself a free education!

Another type of trial version is the limited-time version, which is free for the first month or two then requires you to pay if you want to continue using it afterwards.

Freeware

Software that you’re allowed to copy and use freely is called freeware. For example, most demo disks and trial-size versions are freeware.

Most software invented by schools, government agencies, and computer clubs is freeware. Ask!

Shareware

Shareware is software that comes with a plea: although the author lets you copy the software and try it, you’re encouraged to mail the author a contribution if you like what you tried.

The suggested contribution, typically $25, is called a registration fee. It makes you a registered user and puts you on the author’s mailing list, so the author can mail you a printed manual and newer versions of the software.

Though most shareware authors merely “ask” for contributions, other shareware authors “demand” that you send a contribution if you use the software for longer than a month. Software for which a contribution is “demanded” is called guiltware — because if you don’t send the contribution, the author says you’re guilty of breaking the law.

To get shareware, copy it from a friend. If none of your friends own the shareware you want, buy the disks from a computer club or store for about $5 per disk; but remember that the $5 pays for just the disk, not the registration fee (which you’re honor-bound to mail in if you extensively use the program).

Beta versions

After inventing a program, its publisher must test it, to make sure it works on many kinds of computer equipment and in many situations. At first, the publisher’s employees test the program on their own computers: that’s called alpha testing. Next, the publishing company lets outsiders try the still-not-quite-perfected program: that’s called beta testing.

The outsiders who try it are called beta testers; the version being tested by outsiders is called a beta version. Beta versions are sometimes distributed for free or at a reduced price; but if you use a beta version, don’t rely on it, since it hasn’t been perfected yet; and it might be programmed to automatically stop working when the final version is invented.

Special deals

If your office wants many employees to use a program, ask the publisher for a site license, which permits your company to make copies for all employees in the office. Typically the employees are not allowed to take the copies home: the copies must all be used at the same site.

If you’re in a school and trying to teach kids how to use a program, ask the publisher for a trial-size version or academic version or educational site license.

If you own two computers and want to put the same program on both, you must typically buy two copies of the program. For example, if you want to put Windows on two computers, you must buy two copies of Windows (to avoid piracy), unless both computers are on the same site and you have a site license. Microsoft and some other major software publishers permit this exception, called the portable-computer rule: