Date: Sun, 8 Aug 93 19:55:56 PDT Reply-To: Return-Path: Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain From: surfpunk@versant.com (Ynaq bs Bm) To: surfpunk@versant.com (SURFPUNK Technical Journal) Subject: [surfpunk-0094] COMP.OS: Taligent can seem like a "Land of Oz" Whaddaya get if you mix OS/2, AIX, Mac System 7, Pink, SOM, DSOM, CORBA, DOS, and Windows 3.x? This really isn't my specialty, so I don't know if any of this information or the annotations are accurate, but it's an interesting read. --strick ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Via-Surfpunk-Agent: keith@cc.gatech.edu (Keith Edwards) From: brian%easy.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.os.os2.programmer, comp.sys.next.programmer,comp.sys.next.advocacy, comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy, comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32,comp.sys.mac.advocacy Subject: IBM gives their view of Taligent. Date: 4 Aug 93 00:56:56 MDT [Followups redirected to the advocacy groups only.] [ Below is an article from IBM's OS/2 Developer (a publication roughly corresponding to Microsoft System Journal for Windows). It is about Taligent, the joint venture between Apple and IBM. Keep in mind that the OS they are talking about originally was Apple's "Pink" OS. Joe Guglielmi, CEO of Taligent, paints a much different picture of what Taligent will be, than what I knew of "Pink". Pink had it's own microkernel, was already running a Macintosh "personality", and while was not production code, was out being demoed at Apple NDA meetings. Unfortunately, I have all this third hand... if anybody knows of a good source about "Pink's" state pre-IBM I be ver interested in seeing it. Throughout reading this article I kept wonder how Mac users would feel about IBM's view of where Taligent is headed. IBM users have plenty of alternatives... but System 7 is too primitive, and Taligent (previously known as Pink) was supposed to be the next step. It looks like IBM is in the process of causing mass confusion. Anybody know of a source to read Apple's side of this story? It looks like to me that IBM is in the process of OS/2-izing (lobotomizing?) it. My comments appear between [...] like this one does. ] ------------ [OS/2 DEVELOPER; June/July, 1993; pages 6 through 20] TALIGENT: A NEW PARADIGM, A NEW APPROACH By Bob Orfali and Dan Harkey To OS/2 developers, Taligent can seem like a "Land of Oz" of operating systems, located "somewhere over the rainbow." Why worry about? Taligent when our brain cells are overloaded just trying to digest new OS/2 features like DSOM, the microkernel, DCE, LAN NetView, and motion-video multimedia? Why should OS/2 developers like us need to know about Taligent? At least that was our attitude when we began this article--but it soon became evident that there was a lot about Taligent that OS/2 developers need to know about. [ I found this paragraph a strange way to start the article... it's clear that most OS/2 developers outside IBM are very cognizant of Taligent... did they think this paragraph would fool them into believing they're the only one interested? IBM (the OS/2 portion) knows of this interest... as prior to this they have take every opportunity to downplay Taligent. ] A NEW PARADIGM? The first thing we discovered about Taligent is that its technology is multifaceted, elusive, and would not fit neatly into our current model of "the way things are." For this article we were not provided with specifications, product sheets, demos, or an architecture reference model. And this operating system is not like any other; it's all new and different. When we expressed our bewilderment to Mike Potel, Taligent's vice president of technology, he joked, "Joe Guglielmi had the same problem when he became CEO at Taligent. Every time he talked to somebody, he got a different view of this beast." This article starts by looking at Taligent from an OS/2 perspective and provides a framework for the terminology of the interview. We then turn the microphone over to Joe Guglielmi. We could never match Joe's eloquence and passion for his product. OS/2 AND WORKPLACE OS When does Taligent enter the picture? In Figure 1, we offer a "fearless forecast" of how the desktop operating systems from IBM and Taligent come into the picture over the next few years. In all cases, the future lies in operating systems that embrace object-oriented technology. OS2 2.x is optimized for Intel processors and will continue to evolve throughout the '90s. The Workplace OS is a portable environment that is designed to run on top of Intel and RISC hardware from a variety of vendors, with the portability layer provided by a common microkernel. The 32-bit OS/2 applications you create should run on all platforms. In our scenario, objects become very important. Distributed object services based on the System Object Model (SOM) become a vehicle to share objects across operating systems such as OS/2, DOS, Windows, UNIX, AS/400, and MVS. In addition, object-oriented application frameworks containing both IBM and Taligent technology will be offered for OS/2 2.x, UNIX, and Workplace OS. In Figures 2 and 3, OS/2 2.x and the Workplace OS support DSOM, object services, and the object-oriented application frameworks. OS/2 2.x and the Workplace OS support DSOM, object services, and the object-oriented application frameworks. OS/2 2.x continues to evolve, providing optimal performance on the large installed base of Intel machines. A GUIDE TO MICROKERNELS, PERSONALITIES, AND FRAMEWORKS Figure 3 helps explain all the new terminology and shows where Taligent fits in. Several pieces of the Workplace OS play together; the IBM microkernel, the operating system personalities, the distributed object layer, the object-oriented frameworks containing Taligent technology, and the Workplace user interface. We will briefly introduce these pieces, then move on to Taligent. THE IBM MICROKERNEL utilizes technology from Mach 3.0 research. Mach 3.0 is a portable microkernel developed by Carnegie Mellon University. The IBM microkernel and Mach 3.0 remove the UNIX-specific elements and provide a few well-defined services--including interprocess communications, virtual memory, ports, task dispatching, and threads--used to build all system services. The rest of the operating system functions--file I/O, user interface services, device drivers, and communications--are implemented outside the microkernel. As a result, the microkernel can be smaller, faster, and more scalable while providing a higher level of robustness, security, and integrity. Elements outside the microkernel, such as the device drivers and file systems, can be shared by the operating systems that run on top of it. IBM's multithreaded microkernel supports symmetric multiprocessing, a technique that allows programs to run concurrently on multiple processors in tightly-coupled configurations. It is intended to support Intel and a variety of RISC processors. TALIGENT AT A GLANCE Founded in March 1992, Taligent is an independent system software company owned jointly by Apple Computer Inc. and IBM Corp. and headquartered in Cupertino, Calif. The company has 310 employees, who use object-oriented technology to develop system software from the bottom up. The emphasis of the company's charter is on enabling the innovators and entrepreneurs who spawned the desktop revolution, allowing them to take full advantage of object technology's benefits and encouraging a new model for innovation centered around objects. Taligent's system software will be open for extension at all levels by software developers, hardware OEMs, and systems vendors. The company will license, market, and support its software platform worldwide. PERSONALITY MODULES provide operating system-specific API services. IBM intends to support DOS, Windows 3.x, OS/2 2.x, and UNIX personalities, with the microkernel concurrently executive multiple operating system personalities on one machine. (One personality, designated as dominant, controls the appearance of the desktop.) The personalities will preserve investments in code and application packages. The microkernel also provides the means to build spec- ialized servers and operating system replacements. THE DISTRIBUTED OBJECT LAYER, based on IBM's Distributed System Object Model (DSOM) technology, allows objects to operate across networks. This layer also includes services for storing, replicating, shadowing, creating, destroying, and specifying objects. DSOM is based on standards set by the Object Management Group (ONG), an industry consortium of over 200 member companies. For example, DSOM defines objects using the Common Object Request Broker Architec- ture (CORBA) interface definition language. DSOM uses OMG's specification of an Object Request Broker (ORB) to find and invoke objects on different machines. The object services are intended to comply with OMG's object life cycle and persistence specifications when they become available. OMG and IBM are also working on specs for shared objects and object transactions for client/server environments. All this means that OS/2 is already deeply involved in objects, adhering to current industry standards. These objects are, of course, built on top of a standard operating system. THE OBJECT-ORIENTED APPLICATION FRAMEWORKS intend to provide a portable distributed set of object services to help create user applications. A framework makes writing object-oriented applications from raw class libraries less tedious; you begin with complete working subsystems, which can be customized for individual applications. You can also create applications by writing subsystems together with visual application assembly tools. Third party software companies will be able to provide parts or entire components that can be assembled or modified by users or system integrators. THE USER INTERFACE for IBM's "Workplace" line is (you may have guessed from the name) based on OS/2's Workplace Shell. This object-oriented user interface will be adapted for DOS, UNIX, and OS/2. Users think in terms of directly manipulating objects on the desktop rather than dealing with programs and other computer- based metaphors. IBM is working on making the user interface even easier to use by adding powerful new visual metaphors. Now that we've introduced some of the terminology, we give the floor to Joe Guglielmi, the chairman and CEO of Taligent. We used the system detailed in Figure 3 as a reference point for our questions. _Developer: Let's start with one of the loftier questions. Taligent was jointly founded by IBM and Apple. What were your original goals, and how have they changed?_ Joe: When Apple and IBM got together on this project, it was because both companies had a common vision of the importance that object-oriented technology would have in the marketplace. Both had substantial interest and investments already in that technology. We first looked at a joint development using the Power PC RISC chip and then it grew into a more encompassing project that would com- mercialize objects on high-volume platforms and get the industry to make the transition from a procedural world to an object world. _Why is that so important?_ Because our goal is to provide a dramatic improvement in the application development environment. I talk about it in terms of moving the cycle from years to months and providing a brand new environment, in terms of functionality, that will encourage innovation. It also turns out that, since we're writing an operating system from scratch, we get to do some things right. We now have a rich heritage in multimedia, advanced graphics support, and other capabilities that we know should be fully integrated into an operating form. So as a kind of a Luck Strike Extra, you get to do those in an integrated fashion. By the way, in an object system all those things become simply objects that you can deal with. You don't worry about whether you're dealing with full-motion video or whether you're dealing with static date types. Everything is treated as an object structure. _Where do you see this technology going?_ We see enormous potential in this technology--not because it's object-oriented, but because it can give the industry a brand new base that will allow us to move from today's environments, which are constrained, we think by the operating system capabilities. Just as OS/2 2.0 unleashed the power of a microchip we'd been shipping for years, this will begin to unleash the power and creativity in the industry in a different way. We won't be constrained by the old paradigms of procedural operating systems. _How will you get this technology into the marketplace?_ This is where our strategy has changed dramatically. Initially, the notion was to deliver one large brand-new operating system, top to bottom, in one really significant drop. We've become more realistic about that; we've had to deal with very pragmatic issues. How do we, when providing this great step function, deal with current investments? How are we going to make sure the OS/2 invest- ments, AIX investments, System 7 investments carry forward? How do we ensure that we don't force a change in the marketplace all at once to a new technology? _So how do you do that?_ We've focused our strategy over the last year on three or four things. One is moving the project from a research project with two or three technology bases to a product development environment where we now have the focus on delivering products that respond to customers' requirements to the marketplace. Second, we've spent a lot of time staging the project...we can't do it all at once. We'll never be able, in one release, to compare to those established operating systems, so that's a bad goal. So let's focus on areas in which we think the technology substantially leverages itself. We're going to stage our technology to focus on both corporate and software developers. What do they need first, to provide value? Taligent's proposition is that the value comes from the devel- opers. We don't compete with them for word processors or spreadsheets, and we don't do databases. What we provide is an environment that lets them do a much better implementation of what they do best. Our delivery channels--Apple, IBM, and others--are also going to add value to this. _Yes, but every new operating system needs to do that kind of stuff..._ It does. But the second new notion is that we would take pieces of this technology and make it available to current operating systems like OS/2, AIX, and System 7. That's a pretty profound change. That's something that's not very natural for a team developing a new operating system to do. A development team wants to make the biggest step function change, one that differentiates between current and future environments. Well, we concluded that without some strategy to get the technology into the market early, the step function was too great. This isn't 1983 anymore. This isn't about "I have a great technology; we'll just get people to stop what they're using and move over to it." We have example after example in the marketplace today where great technology can't get commercial acceptance. So the notion was, why don't we take pieces of this technology and make them available to current operating systems? _What does that do for those operating systems?_ First of all, if we've done classy implementations of the technology, it will enhance them. OS/2 will be more competitive; System 7 will be more competitive. By the way, we're not limiting it to just those two; our strategy is to go after as many of the current operating systems as possible. Think about all the UNIX environments or--ultimately--any 32-bit system that can carry the technology. _What are the benefits to Taligent of making this technology available to others?_ The technology will make OS/2 and System 7 more competitive and they, in turn, will provide us a transition platform for the wide-scale introduction of objects to the marketplace. We benefit if IBM and Apple evangelize object technologies and provide us with a more evolutionary path. We're a small company; we can't do it all ourselves. But by putting pieces out in the marketplace, we begin to provide a transition mechanism--that is, investments made in applications that use that technology under a mature operating system can be carried forward into Taligent when the time is right. So when Taligent comes, customers can decide whether they want to move to it or not. this is not a forced march. It doesn't mean one Monday morning OS/2 goes out of business or System 7 goes out of business--that's not the strategy. _But if you've made your object technology available on other platforms, why would anybody ever want to move to Taligent?_ Taligent will be fully object-oriented with a very consistent object model. When you enter Taligent, everything in the system is an object, with no differentiation between a system object and an application object. We can implement a very consistent object structure once you're in the object space, you can leverage every element in that environment. You won't ever have to deal with the procedural elements of a system. Take NextStep, for example. Steve (Jobs) has a great user interface tool, but you still have to bounce into UNIX from within your applications. _Where are the advantages of having objects at the operating system level?"_ Envision a growing industry that would provide system frameworks, networking frameworks. Take communications. If they don't like ours, IBM or Novell could replace it with their own implementation. Device adapters can inherit characteristics of a particular device class and customize them to fit their particular needs. It's a very consistent way of taking advantage of new hardware. System software can then keep up with fast-moving hardware technology. _OK, so what's in it for application software developers?_ If we do our job right, in the mid-90's application developers will not be writing code but will instead be shopping for objects. If you think about it, there will be thousands of objects; how do I know which one I want to subclass or reuse? We're building a very consistent development environment with viewers or browsers that let you try out these objects and understand what they can do for you. You'll have a full environment that lets you think of your world in terms of objects. _Will some of that environment be made available on OS.2?_ Yes. I didn't mean to imply that the layers of components we provide for OS/2 won't be great; they'll move objects forward and condition the mass market for objects. Taligent has the added luxury of being able to put the whole thing together from the bottom to the top. _Speaking of the bottom, both Taligent and OS/2 will be running on the same Mach 3 microkernel--is that correct?_ We're on the same microkernel, but IBM is not shipping Mach. They're shipping a microkernel based on Mach technology. Mach is a big, heavyweight thing; IBM and Taligent are creating a much more lightweight version of Mach and creating personality-neutral servers and services. Taligent is adding the mechanisms to make it a first-class object environment. We're working on the performance implications of moving thousands of objects around in a system. IBM will build the microkernel that we'll use as part of our common strategy. [ By here it seems clear to me that IBM has forced a total redesign of Taligent (Pink had it's own Microkernel). ] _Mach is an open microkernel, something perceived as a benefit. Aren't you losing that by going to your own microkernel?_ I'm not commenting on the open aspect. I'm commenting on Mach's poor performance for doing objects. We have over four years of experience writing microkernels for objects, and we know how to do one. Object people don't think you can do objects on the current version of Mach--it may be OK for doing UNIX-type things. The common IBM microkernel solves those technical problems. On the openness question, it's up to IBM how they supply the microkernel back to the industry. I'm trying to answer the guy who says, "What are you, nuts? Mach can't run an object system the way it's currently designed." The answer is "It can't, but the kernel we're implementing can." It's really this notion that the core technology is optimized object technology and this new common microkernel works across OS/2, UNIX, and ultimately, hopefully, the industry. That's where the world's going. [ So much for IBM's "commitment" to Open Systems! ] _So is this microkernel one of the first pieces to be delivered?_ It's actually being developed at IBM. Our operating system development team is working with the IBM team. _Are your object frameworks built on SOM and CORBA technologies?_ I think we've come to appreciate what SOM is and what it isn't. I think there's a greater feeling that SOM's design point and the problem set that it solves are important, very important. Whether or not we can, as a team, adopt all of the goals of SOM in our design point is the discussion we're having with IBM now. The reason is, I think, pretty neat to think about. In Taligent, we are dealing with a system optimized for a very large number of small objects. That's how we get performance. We don't move a few big objects. We move a lot of very little things around, we we have a tremendous amount of tasking going on. We've got the machine burning and we've optimized for performance. We got a lot of value out of that optimization. SOM is best when the primary objective is mixing objects from a variety of vendors. The fact that the object's interface is the standard defined by the Object Management Group--the CORBA specification--is also very attractive. [ Translation? IBM forced SOM down our throats, but we're coping. Clearly SOM things written for OS/2 currently will not be easily portable to Taligent. I'm surprised there is no mention of migration facilities... i.e. how do PM and Mac ToolBox fit in? ] _Will you support DSOM then, since it's based on CORBA?_ Of course, DSOM is a very easy case. Its ORB, which is CORBA compliant, is one way we deal with objects across networks. We know there are objects on this network that are going to be moved around. _So you're depending on DSOM to bring CORBA. Is IBM representing Taligent's position in the OMG?_ IBM, like Sun or HP, has put some time into defining the CORBA compliance specs. In our implementation, we support that spec as one of the important distributed object models in the industry. Now take Microsoft; they're doing CAIRO. I don't know if CAIRO is CORBA compliant; the likelihood is not. What's going to be our position on Microsoft's model? If it's a high-volume model in the future, we're going to have to find a way to support it as much as possible. That doesn't mean we like it...or don't like it. Our position is pragmatic. We have to exist with whatever becomes a high-volume platform in the future. We're working with IBM, Apple, and others to try to make the transition as seamless as we can, but we're coming from two different worlds. What we won't do is suboptimize our world. If we end up lowering our goal of full utilization of object technology, we will lose the great differentiation that comes from it. [ Note, he does NOT say that they'll support DSOM. ] _Which IBM groups do you work with on object technology?_ I deal through the PSP division, which means that Larry Loucks, Cliff Reeves, and Lee Reiswig are my contacts in the IBM world. So when I deal with Larry and Cliff, we either agree or don't agree, and I expect them either to bring the rest of the company with them or tell me that I've got to deal with the situation differently. By the way, they're doing a great job evangelizing Taligent within IBM. _If you were speaking directly to, let's say, leading edge OS/2 application developers who want to do the right thing and position their product for the future, what kind of strategy or recommendation would you map out?_ Here's the strategy I think has to be followed. If you're an OS/2 developer, keep working with OS/2 release 2.1 and beyond. This will give you the highest affinity with Taligent. Why do I say that? Because I'm working very hard to make that happen. Can I [ So what happens to Mac developers? (see below) ] tell developers that everything they do in every release will be cared for seamlessly? No, I can't tell them that. But they should know that we are working very hard with the PSP development group to put as much of this technology as possible into OS/2 and AIX, to enhance their competitiveness wherever we can, because we believe that's good. We believe a big OS/2 base is in Taligent's interest and, therefore, we're going to work as hard as we can with IBM to make it as painless as we can. We hope it's zero pain. That's our goal. But it probably won't be. _How do you balance that with Apple's needs?_ The same way. When we talk to Apple, I have the same strategy. The decisions we make optimize on where Taligent is going, mindful; of the fact that helping make Apple successful with System 7 and IBM with OS/2, AIX, and Workplace OS is good for us, because every user in those two or three camps is going to be positioned much better to come to Taligent. [ Oh, so both will have the "highest affinity"... but there are huge differences between the two API sets... it is impossible to "integrate" them. Is he just talking air? ] _Will the Taligent user interface look like Mac, Workplace Shell, or something brand new?_ That's unclear, frankly, and let me tell you why. I believe that the opportunity to build the Taligent desktop completely from an object paradigm gives us degrees of freedom that can move the desktop beyond what is possible today. So we've focused on that; we're trying to figure out where we can exploit this technology the best. Let's take one model that could happen. In a Taligent world, since everything is an object, applications don't exist the way they exist today. You turn your system on and it comes up with a set of objects that you deal with, and you arrange them in the workflows. The notion of a workflow world centered on the user is much more realistic in a full-object world. Everything on the screen is a full object linked from the top to the bottom of the system. When we are ready to deliver a full-object model to the screen, we're going to go back and work with IBM and others on where they are today. We'll try to make it as evolutionary as we can...we'll find ways to see if we can't evolve multiple releases of the Workplace Shell or the Mac look to where Taligent is heading. _What's your planning horizon?_ We're the only ones in town who are worried about 1996. I don't mean that in a negative way. Everybody else is worried about 1993, '94, and '95. I have to stay worried about 1996, or '97; how can this technology, when it's fully exploited, change the playing field in the industry? If we miss the goal of providing dramatic new technology, the industry won't change. If the industry doesn't change, none of the interim operating systems are going to be successful by themselves. They will not have the kind of critical mass that you require. So the design point is to fully exploit the technology and then look backwards to see how we move the current base from here to there, and there are several bases. But the thing people ought to feel good about is that we're thinking about it. It's not like we're over here doing our best thing and hope that someday it all works. This is the first time there is a group that is allowed to really focus on where we want to be. At IBM, you know that there can be terrible constraints on getting there when you must suboptimize to support the core installed base. But we don't want to look like we never talk to each other, either, so we have a new development model here. It's different than we've ever tried before, and that's why Taligent is a separate company. _Will Taligent technology bring together the System 7 and OS/2 worlds?_ As a separate company, I can talk with a lot of authority about what we've doing, and I can tell you only a little bit about how we're working with these two companies. If you want their view of the world, you've got to go ask IBM and Apple, I will tell you this: both Apple and IBM feel strongly about keeping their current systems viable, and we support that. There's no model here, under any circumstance, where all of a sudden on Monday morning OS/2 or System 7 goes away. That isn't in the cards, because there's no viable scenario where this whole thing can make the transition in one day to a new environment. So there is going to be, as you expect, a continuation of a substantial investment in those current operating systems, and we're going to find a way to make the path to Taligent very attractive. _Are you going to sell a shrink-wrapped Taligent through software stores?_ Yes, but that isn't our model. The whole distribution model is changing today. The store distribution model is going away; I mean, who distributes operating systems today? The hardware manufacturers. So our strategy is to get the distributors to accept the technology, to provide the critical mass, the target volumes, so that developers can see it. Shrink-wrap and user sales will come after that. So the whole model is different. It isn't about running big ads in magazines, hoping that users will ask developers to create a great application. It's about going to developers and saying, "Look, you're building a great application. You can keep doing it. We're going to give you the tools to do it in a third of the time and to maintain it more easily by an order of magnitude. You know, by the way, that when you upgrade it, your cycle will go from two years to six months. That's worth a lot by itself. Oh, there's another opportunity coming. Have you thought about spreadsheet engines, word processor engines, graphics engines? Have you thought about work flow as an application? You can really do it now. Have you thought about it?" So we're creating a different world of applications and when we start this model, all of these characteristics will allow hardware manufacturers to differentiate their products. We want to sell through the high-volume channels. If we don't do that, our adoption curve is going to be seven years. It takes seven years to get an operating system to the market, if you're good. I want to be a success faster than that. So all of these strategies are working toward substantially reducing the adoption curve for the new technology. _How do you see the operating system pie divided in 1996?_ I'd be presumptuous to give you a target; I will tell you that existing systems will continue to have a large market share. Between now and 1996, there's just not enough time to substantially change the rate flow. I don't know what the division between NT, DOS, OS/2, and Windows will be; who knows? That's completely up to them. We haven't see NT yet, but they'll have a large share. I believe OS/2 will gain critical mass and have a substantial share. I think Apple will continue to have a big share. UNIX will probably still own eight or nine percent of a growing market. By 1995 there'll be 35 million micros shipped per year, so even 10% of that is still a big volume. And then Taligent will begin to show up. Now I can't tell you exactly how big our wedge will be, but it will not be zero, because we intend to get to market by the mid 90s; hopefully earlier. And I think that, as Taligent becomes an important environment and we demonstrate its utility, that wedge will grow more rapidly than historical growth rates in new operating systems. --------- Brian -- C. Brian Sturgill Want good, low cost, POSIX (Unix-like) tools and University of Utah shell for Windows NT? E-mail hippix-info@hippo.com. Center for Software Science brian@cs.utah.edu Windows family OS info -- ftp to easy.cs.utah.edu. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ The SURFPUNK Technical Journal is a dangerous multinational hacker zine originating near BARRNET in the fashionable western arm of the northern California matrix. Quantum Californians appear in one of two states, spin surf or spin punk. Undetected, we are both, or might be neither. ________________________________________________________________________ Send postings to , subscription requests to . WWW Archive at ``http://www.acns.nwu.edu/surfpunk/''. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ "I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy." -- Thomas Jefferson (* from signature of nsb@thumper.bellcore.com *)