Re: Amelio's ouster

[gjb_remove@wavetech.net (Greg Buchner)]

In article <14JUL199720573206@vax2.concordia.ca>, spec@vax2.concordia.ca
(Mitchell Spector) wrote:


>How about this instead: Can the Mac do wavetable music synthesis?

Just because nobody makes a card for the Mac to do that isn't Apple's Fault
It shouldn't be that hard to make one.

>Can you do preemptive multitasking? 

Nope, but I find the co-operative multitasking on my Duo 230 to work better
than the pre-emptive multitasking on a higher end PC.

>Do you have multiple choices for OSes? 

At least two that I know of...Mac OS and Unix

>Can you play complex game software? (remakes of late 70 and early
>80's games with just a nicer color palette and digitized sound effects
>do not count). 

Lets see...there's lots of games that are out for the PC that are also
out for the Mac.  One of the biggest problems in getting games to the
Mac is that most Mac users won't buy games that are low-quality ports
from the PC.  Both Quake and Duke Nukem are supposed to be out for the
Mac (or at least are supposed to be coming out...I don't pay that much
attention, that type of game doesn't interest me.)

>Can you add a 3-D video hardware board? 

Yep, there's QuickDraw 3D accelerators, and there are PCI based graphics
boards (that are fully identical to the PC version except for the name)
that have 3D stuff on them.

>Can you run
>full-screen video on low-end models? (hint: processing speed). 

Well, considering that most of the current low-end models are about
as fast or faster than the fastest Pentiums, most likely...also a lot
of the low-end machines also come with MPEG decoders.

>Can you exit your windowing/icon environment when it just gets in the way? 

Well, it never gets in the way...personally, I have always found that
ms-dos gets in the way.

>Can you pop in new CPU's or motherboards when you want to upgrade?

Yep, on the 7300, 8600 & 9600, the processor is on a daughter card
(this is also true on several of the older models in the 7x00, 8x00
and 9x00 series).  Putting in a new processor is just as simple as
buying it, opening up the computer, putting in the new one, and having
the Mac self-configure to the new speed.  You can do this with cards
that have 1, 2 or 4 PPC604e's on them, and when the G3 and G4 
processors come out, you will be able to upgrade to those.

Greg B.
Apple II Fanatic, Mac user

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