Re: why did apple go mac?

[frankc <frankc@srv.net>]

> Sometime after becoming confused with the notion of mainboard chipsets and
> memory times (this was around the time of EDO) I gave up on the PC world and
> shifted all of my attention to the Apple II, Macintosh and Atari ST. It simply
> became impractical to understand anything beyond a salesman's claim, and so
> many salesmen will tell you want you want to hear (rather than the truth), that
> I decided to dropp the idea of building a system and bought a prepackaged PPC
> 750 (what I call my iMac, when I don't want to be harassed ;-) two or three
> years later.

First, I have not bought a complete computer system since 1995. Second, I do not ask
salesmen what they think because I know more than they ever will about a PC.  That is
why they are salesman.  Third, I have payed a total, over all the years of owning a
PC, of $1500.  Right now because of my "smart" shopping I have at least two PCs
capable of running the latest versions of Linux.  How much did you pay for your last
system?

> The fact that there are so many options in the Intel world does not make
> matters any better.

Yes it does!  It makes it so there are so many companies competing for your business
that the price is next to nothing!  Why to you think you can get the AMD Athlon 600
MHz with motherboard for less than $150?

> If you choose transition hardware, you are left with a
> comprimise.

What is transition hardware?  What compromise are you referring to?  The ability to
use two types of memory?  The ability to use either ISA or PCI cards?

> Grabbing computer parts from the thrift store doesn't help either,
> because the stuff is always behind the times.

Do not confuse obsolescence with not being able to run Windows.

> While the cases were good until
> recently, the only valuable parts today are the chip RAM from 8088's and 286's
> (to upgrade the Apple's and Atari's of this world).

I can put SIMMs in a Mac Plus and Mac SE.

> If I ever feel the need to do something serious on the hardware level, then it
> will be either on an Apple II/II+ or an XT.  I have reasonable documentation
> for either machine, thus a reasonable chance of understanding it.  It is an
> understanding of how a machine works which gives me satisfaction.

I understand where you are coming from here.  With the advent of Windows the people
that thought they knew what was going on with DOS were lost in the windowing
environment.  I myself can whip out a fully graphical DOS application, but the crap
that you have to go through to program a Windows app sucks.  I prefer Unix X
programming to that junk.

Now if you look at the low level of a 386 motherboard compared to an 8088 motherboard
they are not very different.  The main differences are bus size and the support chips
are no longer standard TTL logic chips.  The more advanced chipsets are very similar
as well.  They use bus chips that convert 5V to 3V to 1.9V etc...  But underneath
they are really the same, at least from a programmers point of view.  A good analogy
is the Apple II compared to the IIgs.  The IIgs combined all the chips that the Apple
II had spread out.