Re: PC comments you wrote.....

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

In article bjbear@ibm.net (B.J. Major & Dennis J. Gorin) writes...

>In reply to:
>>     With all the PC can do (preemptive multitasking, real music synthesis,
>> complex games, more variety/expandability, etc.) which the Mac can't do or
>> offer at the moment, along with the fact PC clones are cheaper, custom
>> configurable and more available -- not to mention have a GUI more than
>> comparable to the Finder -- how does Apple expect to survive? The PowerMac
>> hasn't exactly made people stop dead in their tracks and jump back to
>> Apple, nor has System 7.5.6 made much of a splash in the computer world.
>> I may sound like I'm putting down the Mac, but there needs to be significant
>> _advantages_ to make people think twice before rushing out and buying a
>> generic PC clone. The argument about easy of use and plug'n'play doesn't
>> cut it anymore, PC's have or are quickly catching up in that area, so what's
>> left? I'm not much of a PC fan, but when it came time to choose between the
>> two, I found more pluses on the PC side.
>
>I don't want to see this forum turned into a PC vs. Mac advocacy group any
>more than anyone else here, but I just out and out disagree with everything
>you say above.

    It would seem that may be a little too late, judging but the amount
debate going on in the "Apple ///" thread. Mind you, compared with the
usual mindless drivel and fighting that comp.sys.apple2 has seen these
past couple of years, I still think "PC vs. Mac" debates are at least
one step above and and perhaps somewhat interesting to read. ;-) I can't 
say the same about the fighting. I'll try not to get too much into here,
but I just wanted to comment on a few things below.

>You obviously haven't spent much time using Wintel machines.

    I have, and they're certainly no picnic. Still, I've also spend a
great deal of time working with Macintosh and PowerMacintosh systems,
and to tell you the truth, Macs are no less of a pain either.

>Windows 95,  3.1 and all the rest are a cheap ripoff of the Mac GUI and
>the machines just don't plain deliver.

    I could say the same thing, that the Mac GUI is a rip off the Lisa
GUI, and before that the Xerox GUI. That point is completely irrelevant
however, the fact is Windows 95 now gives the PC a comparable GUI to
the Macintosh,  regardless of where it came from or what ideas were
borrowed/stolen. Better still, it's gone a great step beyond Macintosh
System 7 in that it offers true-multitasking (among other things).

    Explain to me how the machines just "don't plain deliver". It sounds
to me more like bitterness, bitterness that PC's have finally caught up
and now have one the thing that made Macintoshes unique -- a capable and
powerful GUI (Windows 3.1 was nothing of the sort, the Macintosh clearly
came out the winner during that era). Furthermore, Windows 95 is the not
only operating system available, there's NT, OS/2, Linux and many more.
You have something called _choice_, whereas on the Macintosh your stuck
with Apple's OS -- System 7.

>They don't have built-in SCSI

    Yes, but they usually have built-in EIDE on the motherboard. If you
do want SCSI, you purchase a PCI-based SCSI board and there you go; it
is not written in stone that PC's must use IDE/EIDE. Having something
built-in is not often a good thing; in fact it was just argued that it
was a good-thing SCSI was not built-into the Apple IIgs since owners
would now be stuck with the equivalent of Revision C (non-DMA) boards,
rather than RamFAST SCSI plug-in boards.

    I like the idea of being able to (again) have something called
choice, I can pick my type of video, sound and, yes, even whether I
want EIDE or SCSI. Built-in on the motherboard is nice, but what do
you do when the built-in feature is obsolite? 

>there are incompatibilities galore, Plug and Play is a myth on these
>computers, and the list goes on and on.

    There are many incompatibilities, but they can be worked out with
patience, and once that's done, everything works just fine. It is like
saying it is difficult to prepare a well-cooked gourmet meal from
scratch, so instead you just pop a frozen dinner in the microwave.
One was easier to prepare, but the two taste _very_ different in
the end.

    I rather think so much effort has been put into making the Macintosh
idiot-proof, it's been made limited as the end result. Someone once said
the Macintosh is like a bicycle with training-wheels (great to have to
get you learning) but once you mastered to ride it, they don't come off.
This is true because there are so many little things that annoy me, like
not being able to manually eject disks (I can't tell you how often disks
have gotten stuck because of low-memory or the Mac thinking there's no
disk in there), being stuck in a GUI 100% of the time, software that
controls what you do, rahter than you it, etc.

    Perhaps another reason Mac's seem so Plug and Play have to do with
the fact most everything is already built-in, there's nothing to add or
muck about with. This may sound like an advantage, but it usually means
you have to buy whatever Apple is offering, you can't pick what kind of
system _you_ want. One example, I just received a PC a few short weeks
ago, it came with a Gravis UltraSound wavetable sound card. I was not
at all pleased with it, so I replaced it with a Roland SCC-1 board.
There are no sound cards available for the Mac, you are stuck with what
the digital sound chip on the motherboard. This chip does cannot do music
synthesis, and mixing digital sound to produce MODs or QuickTime MIDI
isn't saying much. It's a shame Mac people don't know what they're 
missing, many just figure computers aren't good for much more than
playing back recorded sound I'd imagine.

    Incidentally, I will probably want to upgrade my 586 board to a
true Pentium-class board soon. It's quite simple to find another 
motherboard and install it, whereas on the Macintosh I have to go
to Apple for any such upgrade. Or I could purchase a board used,
but it would have to be able to fit in the same case (due to port
openings) so my choice is exteremly limited. In most likelyhood
I'd have to purchase an entire new CPU box.

>I know because I am forced to work on them all day long and I hate them
>with a passion.

    I've spent several hours at a time working with Macs, and I've
walked away feeling the same. :)

>If you think they ARE so great, wait until you have to edit win.ini,
>config.sys, or autoexec.bat file(s) to get a new peripheral to work
>correctly--or at all.  Good luck.

    Once you understand such things, it becomes vaulable to be able to
configure and fine-tune your system. Are you saying it's better to be
ignorant about configurations, be lazy, and let the system handle it?
It sounds better that way, but then I've noticed people brand-new to
computers, get stumped on the most trivial and simple of aspects on
operations. They become completely dependant on the machine to do
everything and take no regard of what it's actually doing, nor do they
have the slightest clue. It can be very helpful to understand what the
machine is doing and how it works. I'm _not_ saying you should need a
computer science degree in order to operate a computer, but I think it's
detrimental when the person doesn't know the first thing about the
machine and it just becomes an appliance. What do you do when you have
problems? I feel sorry for people when they become totally lost when
there's a lack of pretty icons on a screen to point at.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca