Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

[jp1@aol.com (JP1)]

"David" <iamdavid@iname.com> writes, in part:

>>"I reiterate a comment that I made in an earlier posting that a 400MHz K6
Compaq Presario running Win98 takes longer to open "My Computer" than it takes
for my 400MHz G3 to open Netscape. Also it takes longer to open a folder on the
same Compaq than it does an old 120MHz PPC Mac I have. I rest my case."<<

I recall seeing the above comment when it was originally posted, but refrained
from commenting because it was so anomalous.  However, since "David" has chosen
to make it again...

My 400 MHz P-II powered PC opens "My Computer" so fast that there's more
uncertainty in the elapsed time because of human reaction (pressing the
stopwatch button) than the elapsed time, itself.  A half-dozen trials, though,
seem to settle in on about 1/4 second.  The only folder that opens in a
noticably sluggish manner is C:\Windows\Fonts--it's got something over 400
fonts in it.

The system has 3-1/2" drive, 8 GB HD, 6 GB HD, and CD-ROM storage devices
available.  Since I really detest the "desktop/icon" HI, I don't have dozens of
icons cluttering the desktop--there are eight visible.  FWIW, I use my PC for a
great deal of DTP work, so there is a fairly stiff overhead of
background-loaded applets.

I don't assert that "David" is wrong, but I _do_ assert that (1) the
performance he reports is atypical of Win95/98 on a PC that uses a reasonably
powerful processor and (2) that it suggests that the Compaq Presario he
describes badly needs to be sorted out by someone who knows what he's doing.

Before someone fires up the flame thrower and launches into a useless "Mac vs.
PC" skirmish, please understand that I spent many years in Apple IIgs
development and tech support, supporting the faithful and fighting the good
fight until ACI made the price of that too stiff to bear.  As the Mac hardware
and OS evolved, the systems became truly elegant and powerful machines. 
However, because of the huge investment of my IIgs-related business time and
money that ACI obviated when they decided to kill the IIgs with malice, I
decided that I'd never give them another penny of profit.  I turned to the
PC/Windows world for professional use and found the incredible breadth of
hardware and software innovations and choices to be well worth the warts and
occasional glitches.

In sum, whle high-end Macs are, indeed, powerful and impressive machines, to
paint all comparable high-end PCs as having the performance that "David"
describes is ill-informed.

John P.