wincable 2003??!!!

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  [Down to the Wire]
 
        June 23, 1997
 
        Petreley memoirs cite the blessings of WinTV's victory over
        the NC
 
        I admit I was opposed to Microsoft's acquisition of WebTV
        Networks back in 1997. I predicted in 1998 that Microsoft
        would use the resulting product, the WinTV, to provide
        television content over an Internet connection. I was right.
        By 1999, the popularity of the WinTV gave Microsoft the
        control it needed to establish a proprietary Internet
        protocol for high-quality multimedia. The Internet
        appliance, aka the network computer, suddenly became the
        incompatible device, and its short-lived threat to the PC
        ended.
 
        I don't mind. Cairo made a Microsoft fan out of me when the
        product finally shipped in 2000. Having gotten religion, I
        was glad to see Microsoft get into the telecommunications
        business and give TCI and Comcast a run for their money. The
        greedy cable giants adopted ActiveTV as their primary
        television protocol in 2001 and fell into a continual state
        of catch-up behind Microsoft. Microsoft WinCable 2001 easily
        became the market leader in television operating systems
        (TOS). The rest, as they say, is history.
 
        If Microsoft's purchase of the weakened TCI and Comcast
        meets with Securities and Exchange Commission approval early
        next year (about the second quarter of 2004), Microsoft will
        become the sole provider of television content and we'll
        finally be rid of all the compatibility problems inherent in
        having three sources of cable content.
 
        I'm living testimony to the sorry state the industry is in
        right now due to this so-called benefit of competition. Take
        yesterday, for example. I went out and bought a copy of
        WinCable 2003 so I could start getting some of those new
        64-bit channels. Naturally, WinCable 2003 would not install
        on my General Instruments WinTV-compatible.
 
        So I figured I'd better subscribe to Microsoft technical
        support. The support program is a bit pricey, but because
        I've got a WinPhone, I could use that new arrangement
        Microsoft has with the Federal Reserve Board to get
        qualified for a second mortgage with the touch of a button.
 
        Unfortunately, Microsoft technical support couldn't help me
        because the folks there haven't been trained on WinCable
        2003 yet. So I had to figure out for myself that I needed a
        flash update to the BIOS on the cable card in my WinTV. Of
        course, because the WinCable 2003 installation hosed the
        contents of my WinTV hard drive, I couldn't get on the
        Internet to download the update. So I had to use my
        neighbor's WinTV to download the file.
 
        After the BIOS upgrade, I got the WinCable 2003 installation
        to finish. The system worked like a champ, except for the
        fact that the programs ran so darned slow everything looked
        like a rerun of The Six Million Dollar Man. I called tech
        support again, and the representative told me 128MB of RAM
        isn't enough for WinCable 2003. I plunked down a cool grand
        at my local Microsoft Electronics store for a 64MB DIMM.
 
        Well, Microsoft was right, as usual. All the channels seem
        to run at a normal speed now. Well, actually, hour programs
        run about an hour and 7 minutes, but that's good enough for
        now.
 
        I was settling down to watch the MSNickelodeon production of
        Jurassic Park 8: Raptor in New York on Microsoft Box Office
        when the television crashed. After tweaking and reinstalling
        WinCable several times, I figured this old WinTV hardware
        simply wasn't going to work with WinCable 2003. So I broke
        down and bought one of the latest WinTVs with the new Intel
        Octium II chips. Unfortunately, I had to buy all new RAM
        because the new boxes take Triple In-line Memory Modules
        (TIMMS) instead of the older DIMMs. Bummer.
 
        In a few hours, I got everything running beautifully. Then I
        blew it. I downloaded a rerun of Gilligan's Island, and it
        overwrote the system DLLs of WinCable 2003 with older
        versions. Now I can't get any other programs to work. So I'm
        stuck watching Gilligan's Island until I can find the time
        to reinstall the OS.
 
        Well, that will be a hassle, but I'm still glad history
        turned out the way it did. If the home version of the
        network computer had bested Microsoft's WinTV back in the
        '90s, televisions might still work like appliances, but some
        megalomaniac television network administrator would probably
        be telling us what we could and could not watch.
 
                       ------------------------------
 
                                  [Image]
 
            Nicholas Petreley is the editor in chief at NC World
                 (http://www.ncworldmag.com). Reach him at
                      avpubynf_crgeryrl@vasbjbeyq.pbz.
 
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                       ------------------------------
 
              Copyright =A9 1997 by InfoWorld Publishing Company
 
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Bob Antia                                           nagvn@yrsgonax.pbz
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