Re: Question about the number of Apple users vs Mac users

["william strutts" <wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com>]

"Mike Pfaiffer" <pfaiffer@mts.net> wrote in message
3B7D7541.9000700@mts.net">news:3B7D7541.9000700@mts.net...
<snip>
> The same statement applies equally as well. Take a look at the number of
> people posting here who are diggint old Apples out of their closets.
> Just about every one of them regrets going to other platforms. Folks
> like you and I use other machines because that's where the work is. I
> have a suspicion you (like me) would switch to an Apple// updated to
> modern capabilities in an instant if it were possible.

I moved from the Mac to the PC because my employer at the time
gave me an incentive to get one.  Most of my work is based on
PC's using Visual Basic and Access.  They pay me lots of money
to program them so it didn't pay me to stay with Apple products.
The incentive was that they would reinburse me for certain upgrades
and software for the PC that would allow me to learn new skills.

<snip>
> I didn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Then again I was using a
> 486 with 8Mb of RAM quite happily. All of a sudden none of the new stuff
> would work and I was forced to get 32Mb of RAM then a new machine.

Really. I was using Win 3.1 with very large Excel spreadsheets and I
couldn't even open them with less than 16 meg or more of RAM.
This was a 486 machine with a 50mhz processor.
The spreadsheets themselves were 10-12 megs.  I didn't move to
Win 95 until mid-1996.  It really sucked.  It took me two weeks
to get it stabilized.  I eventually had to wipe my HD and install it
clean to get it to work properly.  This required me to borrow a
copy of Win 3.1 so I could use the disk set to do a clean install.
(My only copy of Win 3.1 was on the HD I had to wipe out)
Win 95 upgrade wants disk 1 of Win 95.  Then I had to track
down upgraded device drivers to get some of my hardware to
work properly.  Its plug n play really sucked.  I had a WinModem
which every few reboots Win 95 would claim to have found
new hardware it had to install.  The WinModem would also
unexpectantly drop calls too and then it would disappear. I
chucked that and got me a real hardware modem after that.

<snip>
> On my system I've had nothing but trouble with M$ products. When I switch
> to third party software the problems stop. Even to the OS. When I first
> installed Windows it wouldn't go in because I had hardware virus
> detection turned on. I turned it off and the OS behaved better.

Win 95 install modifies the boot sector of the HD which hardware
virus checkers see as a virus attack.  In the manual, it recommends
that you turn off virus checkers when you do a MS install.

<snip>
> I should have been more clear. It caused the computer to lose the
> contents of entire partitions. Occationally it would just not save some
> articles but as soon as it started to lose previously saved work I said
> "enough is enough". Files were renamed to really strange names (some
> with high ascii characters). A friend brought over some programs she
> bought and the directories were mostly recoverable but the more
> important ones weren't.

Which version of Office were you using?  I can see that this might
have been a problem using say Office 4.3 on a Windows 95 or better
system.  Office 4.3 didn't have long file names and could possibly
trash file names when it saves files.

> Like I said, this nonsense stopped as soon as I stopped using M$ Office
> and started using Star Office. It may be an overgrown, bloated,
> inefficient pig but it doesn't harm my system. It worked so well I
> installed it on the Linux side and not a problem since. In fact, things
> are working so well I've moved the magazine over to the Linux side just
> in case.

I tried Star Office in Linux but I couldn't get it to work right.  I don't
have a very good experience with it and I wouldn't jump to Linux
to use it.  I would rather stick with MS Office.  Besides it is my
expertise with Office that has paid the bills in the past.  I program
Office products using Visual Basic for Apps and MS Access
database.

> Just to be extra safe, I do some work on my GS. I made the mistake of
> installing M$ Word (an early copy) on one of my Macs and now the whole
> machine is unstable and takes from 5 - 15 minutes to start up.

Never had a problem with MS Word on the Mac.  It was one of
the nicer word processors for the Mac.  I had a Mac Plus and it
was great.  It was slower for sure than my favorite WriteNow.
It worked for complex documents that WriteNow couldn't handle.
The big difference was that WriteNow was written to run on
a Fat Mac with 512k and not the typical MS bloatware platform.
I don't recall MS Excel or Word having anything in the system
folder that would slow down booting.  It had a preferences file
but that was about all I recall it installed.

--
--
William R. Strutts - wrstrutts1@nospam.home.com - Whatever!

C'est moi!  http://www.facelink.com/wrstrutts

Just hacking away...

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