Re: Amelio's ouster

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article Toby Reiter <treiter@cs.oberlin.edu> writes...

>For what most people need, a Mac handles sound as well as a PC or better.

    As well or better? Explain to me how the Mac handles sound better,
it appears your blindly praising anything with the rainbow Apple logo
on it and assuming everything touched by Apple is better in some degree.

>Those who really _need_ wavetable sound are either a) people who compose
>electronic music or b) those searching for one more reason to convince
>others why they should by a PC (even though siad user will NEVER need it).

    This kind of logic your stating implies to me: if Apple didn't include
it or make it available, then it is a worthless feature. I get the feeling
if Apple stopped supporting keyboards on the Mac, I would be hearing the
argument that keyboards are silly and not necessary.

    Music synthesis is not just for professional musicians and composers,
it adds such flavor and feeling to a game, even excitement. There is such
a day/night difference if I disable the background music in a game like
Duke 3D, Blood, Arena (rather old, but neat music :), or countless other
titles. Even thinking back, I doubt I would have taken such notice of
games like Zany Golf or The Immortal on my IIGS had they been dead silent
throughout the game. It's not just games either, multimedia applications
and other software greatly benefit from music synthesis.

    I suppose if your a person who absolutely detests all forms of music,
then your above statement might be true. Or I suppose if you wanted to
use your computer as a cold, hard calculating tool, to do nothing more with
than enter spreadsheet data, type documents and crunch numbers. I like to
see computers used as tools for creativity, and music fits in there, right
along side graphics and yes, even games and demos (games are usually pretty
imaginative, and demos are like using the computer as an artist easel; I
think people are pretty short-sighted when they says games and demos are
wastes of time). So as a creative outlet tool, I not only want people to
treat my eyes with images, but my ears as well.

>>     Have you ever heard a Roland Sound Canvas, Yamaha XG, AWE-32,
>> Gravis or several other wavetable boards with chorus and reverb
>> effects?
>
>No, and I'm not surprised that I haven't--seeing as how it's simply a
>luxury for most users and just doesn't get used (except during show-off
>mode).

    It is not a luxury, a sound card is a _standard_ part of a PC (expect
to those who strictly use them as "business" machines, such as in a office
setting). And not only that, but even the earliest sound card for the PC
offered some kind of synthesis, and today all you can find are wavetable
cards mostly.

    Again, this is a perfect example of how you blindly believe in Apple.
If Apple does not include music-synthesis in their computers, then it is
obviously a luxury item "said user will NEVER need" (to quote you from
above). Apple does not know best, they haven't for years now.

>Since when are Macs stuck in one OS? We can run a Mac form of Linux (don't
>know the name) as well as a somewhat old port of Unix, AU/X (although I
>don't know if it works on PPC processor),

    That Unix port has to run inside a GUI window, and that is running
on top of MacOS.

>PPC's can run Windows NT (without emulation or extra hardware)
>and MS-DOS, MS-Windows, and MS-Windows 95 with proper hardware or
>emulation software. Guess that means Macs can run as many OS's as a PC and
>then some (granted some of them quicker than others).

    Emulating a PC and running Windows 95, NT or DOS doesn't quite count,
no more than I consider my PC has ProDOS, GS/OS, Amiga Workbench, MacOS,
Atari GEM or countless other emulated systems as alternative operating
systems. Can you run Windows 95/NT exclusively for handling the files on
your hardrive, doing day to day work and never have to see, touch or run
Mac System 7.5.6 again?

>The fact is, most users never get past the child phase of computer use
>(according to your definition) anyway.

    No, my definiation of an adult-phase would fall into catagories of
preemptive multitasking or being able to fine tune the machine. Or
not being hand-held through every task, YOU being in control and not
the machine basically telling you, "No no, you can't do that". Take
something even as basic as ejecting a floppy disk, Apple has decided
people are not responsible enough to know not to eject a diskette
while the computer is reading/writing, so they took away the button!
(that reminds me of a parent taking away things from a child so they
won't get hurt). Everything on the Mac in hardware and software, from
my experience with it, is made to hand-hold you through every process.

>Even those who have had years of experience on whatever OS/platform
>they use will still identify files as the icons they are moving around
>on their desktop rather than the bits stored somewhere on their hard
>drive (I know I do).  And this isn't a bad thing!

    Your right, it isn't a bad thing. I much often prefer visually
sorting my files around with icons and folders, it's much more natural
than looking at lists and typing commands. Still, there are times when
there are faster ways to get a job done without a GUI (say if I wanted
to copy all the files with *.MID extensions, or decompress hundreds of
ZIP compressed files in a folder). On a PC I could drop into a DOS prompt
and type something like 'copy *.mid' or "unzip e *.zip', whereas on the
Mac I'd have to shift click each file or manually click each open one at
a time. I'm sure there are extensions for the Mac to make such things
easier, but they're not the norm.

>Hmm...I haven't really found that to be true.  In my computer labs at
>school, we have 90 and 166 MHz Dell computers running Windows NT. Right
>across the row are ~20 MHz Macintosh IIsi's.

    Try scrolling through a long text document on the 20 MHz Mac IIsi,
then go do it on the P166. Or even if you only had an old 286 even, you
could use text mode to scroll through that document quickly (whereas on
the Mac, there is no text environment, so you'd have to crawl through
scrolling with a graphical bitmapped text font). Oh yes, I forgot, things
like a text character generator are silly and unnecessary. So is speed
apparently.

>Although applications open
>and quit faster on the PC's, while in the applications, there is very
>little difference in terms of speed of operation and ability to get work
>finished quickly. High end Macs, are _extremely_ fast.

    Yes, high end PowerMacs are quite fast. Unfortunately, the MacOS that
runs on top of them drag them down and make them quite slow.

>One of the things I have always admired about Macs is that they, in
>addition to being great work machines, are also much more esthetically
>pleasing, because they are designed for the motherboard, rather than the
>ugly metallic slot jumble on the back of a PC.

    I would agree with you on this point, though only up until about
1992 or so. After this point Apple started using very ugly looking
cases with their Macintosh systems (go compare the look of case from
a Mac IIx with one of the new Performas).

>Of course, aesthetic PC cases also exist, but I would think these would
>be difficult to upgrade as well.

    Why would an aesthetically pleasing PC case be more difficult to
upgrade? They are all made to be interchangable with motherboards,
they all have a circular DIN connector opening in back for a keyboard,
plus slot openings where you can add port connectors (unlike the Mac
board, the connectors are a set a pins which a connector on a cable
plugs in, then goes to the port. The Mac boards has the connectors
slide right through the port openings, and as you know, not all Mac
cases have the same openings). The IIgs board had the same problem,
which is why when the IIe upgrade was offered, they had to give you
a new base with different port openings (too bad you cannot do this
on a Mac).

>And I think this points out the most obvious part of this argument--people
>have platform loyalty.

    This is a blind loyalty though, not so much to the Macintosh, but to
Apple Computer. Some people just swear by Apple products. Unfortunately,
as a result, saying something negative about an Apple product is like
a personal insult to the person. I was like this about my Apple IIgs
for a number of years, in fact I still take offensive even years later
now, if someone puts down the machine or makes statements about it
which aren't true ;) (I shouldn't though, it is just is a machine
afterall :)

>Even though you've stated above that you do not truly like PC's or Macs,
>I believe I would have a helluva hard time convincing you to like Macs no
>matter what evidence I gave you, just as you would have a hard time
>convincing me that PC's were a good computer.

    Well, actually, even as recently as several months back, I strongly
hated PC's with a passion. I didn't think I would ever change my attitude,
that is until my brother showed me all the things he was able to do with
his machine and I was highly impressed. If there were things that I found
I liked on the Mac, I might just change, although I doubt it since I've
worked very closely with those machines (both 68K and PPC) and just found
them too limited for my taste. I had not really worked with PC's before,
so I held a blind dislike for them.

>And that is why all of us are in this newsgroup (albeit off-topic)--because
>we have an affection (in some instances addiction:) for a specific platform
>--the Apple II, and will not be swayed from our love no matter how much
>someone should argue with us. Essentially, this is the arguments of the ice
>creams--I say strawberry is better, you say chocolate is better, but neither
>of us will ever convince the other.

    The problem is some of us have never tasted the over flavor, or just
held their nose and took a very quick lick, but not enough to get a good
taste. ;)

>Here's to the death of an off-topic thread,

    Yep, this is starting to drag on and in circles it seems, I rather
be discussing Apple II topics anyhow. :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca