6. And finally...here's the kicker he said today. He said about 10 years ago, the University would have to buy a copy of MS Office for each computer, which cost a lot. (ie: $300 per workstation on all campus computers)
I found this comment interesting.
FWIW, in the early 90's, the government would purchase individual software packages. When your organization was inspected, you would have to produce original boxes with the discs (floppy mostly, but some CD) and the user manuals for each installation.
In our case, at that time we had:
- WordPerfect
- Lotus 1-2-3
- Harvard Graphics
- dBase III+
- DOS 6.22/DOS V, then Windows 3.11, then Windows 95
Some computers were set up with Japanese versions and others with English versions of the software.
Around Windows 98, we moved over to Licensing the OS and applications. But prior to that, we had to purchase individual copies of the OS and applications for each computer and we were audited once per year.
Also, if memory serves, when Adobe Acrobat 4 was introduced, we wanted to use it for our office. So we had to go through the formal requisition process for each copy we wanted to install. Now, many years later, we have an Adobe Acrobat license.
I don't know about the education market at that time, but I would assume (yes, I know that is dangerous) that the government and education markets were handled the same way.
So maybe your professor is correct but his timing is wrong. Maybe about 15 years ago they had to purchase individual copies of the OS and applications.
I am sure glad that we have gone to the licensing model. So much nicer, easy to implement and cheaper.
As for the rest the garbage he spouted, you will find that at the college level. Some instructors want you to challenge them. Others do not. Tread carefully until you know for sure. Otherwise it might affect your grade. One way to do this is in private after class. Just ask for a clarification of something such as the C2D running at 2MHz. He might have simply misspoke meaning to say C2D at 2GHz. Then again he might not know.
A friend of mine that has since retired, was one of the most knowledgeable computer types I knew. He started out when you had to hand wire the instructions and data on boards that you then loaded into the computer. We used to have fun discussions about many things. He even played games. But his favorite topic was the OS and like to dissect it and try weird things. Real hacker type stuff.
When he retired about 4 years ago, he was in great physical shape. He had been an airborne ranger and was here in occupational Japan. He was 77 years old.
Now why do I tell you this story. Well, he had one quirk that use to frustrate me. He used the term bits for both bits and bytes. The numbers were always correct, but the terms were off. It would go something like this. The xyz processor has a 32 bit data path, so it can transfer 4 bits per memory fetch. I would say 4 bytes correct? And he would reply. Yes, 4 bits. After a while I got used to his quirk. He was such a wealth of information and fun to talk with.
