Re: Amelio's ouster

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

In article Geoff Kaiser <SuperKais@MacConnect.com> writes...

>If you want more reasons why I chose to use Macs, here they are (its
>more than just because of the keyboard and monitor items I mentioned):

[heavy snipping above and below, don't want to turn it into a debate,
just want to comment on sound mostly]

>Macs ALWAYS have built-in 16-bit digital stereo audio in and out

    Right, a 16-bit DAC/ADC and no more (in otherwords, the equivalent
of an old SoundBlaster 16 card without the FM-synthesis or other). No
Macintosh has synthesis capabilities and there are no add-on wavetable
boards available either (someone pointed out there are "sound cards"
you can purchase for the Mac created several years back, but they all
seem to consist of nothing more than a higher quality DAC).

    All current PC sound boards use a 16-bit DAC, as well as wavetable
synthesis capabilities. The majority of Macintosh users (except those
who perhaps once owned Apple IIgs's with Ensoniq chip) have no idea
what music synthesis is, they just hear a digitized music recording
(from a TV, compact disc, stereo) and think what wonderful "music"
their machine can do. Gee, my Apple II Plus can do this, albeit at a
lower sound resolution.

>Macs know when a disk or volume is on the drive and when it's ejected
>(try looking at the contents of a floppy on Win95 and then eject the
>disk; the contents are still showing, even though the disk is gone.
>Won't happen on a Mac)

    Yep, nice that there is no manual eject button, can't tell you how
often the computer gets confused and thinks there is no disk present so
it cannot eject what's not there (better have a paperclip handy). Some
Mac models have no eject buttons with CD-ROM drives either, which also
frequently "forgets" discs are in there (screwdriver anyone?).

>ability to play MIDI files directly without a hardware music synthesizer
>(QuickTime 2.5)

    QuickTime MIDI uses the DAC to emulate wavetable synthesis (through
mixing channels) but this requires an extremely fast and raw CPU speed
to do it properly. If your machine is too slow, your going to get very
distorted sounding instruments and playback. PC's have this capability
too if you only have a DAC/FM card, there are plug-ins for the Yahama XG
and Roland Sound Canvas. Unfortunately, doing this mixing takes up so
much CPU time, you cannot do anything but play back MIDI sequences, which
is the reason people instead buy hardware synthesizers.

    I have a Roland Sound Canvas inside my PC, and besides being able to
just enjoy listening to MIDI sequences, I have music synthesis in games
and applications. In contrast, you'll notice when it comes to music Mac
software is either: A) Dead silent, B) Playing a looped digitized sound
recording or C) Playing music off a compact disc from a CD-ROM drive.

    You know, this reminds of the time people called the Atari ST _the_
music machine because it had a MIDI interface built-in. Of course the
system was terrible for music/sound because the only sound chip it had
was the General Instruments AY-8910 (same chip used by the Intellivision
and Mockingboard in the Apple II). Any computer at this time could add
a MIDI interface at that time, it was just an optional thing. I find it
equally as silly to boast the Macintosh as having an edge in music/sound
merely because it has a 16-bit DAC built-in. And I still can't understand
why Apple used an Ensoniq DOC synthesizer in the Apple IIgs back in 1986,
and more than 10 years later, still haven't added one to the Macintosh.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca