dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (06/12/84)
>From: keller@uicsl.UUCP Wed Jun 6 15:54:00 1984 >I spent about 3 hours working with a Mac and cannot see any justification >for characterizing it as slow. >All screen operations are very fast and the inherent CPU power is far >above IBM 8088 based systems. I use a XEROX Dandelion at work and can >say that as a mouse/window based system the Mac is superb. I agree that the Mac is a supperb machine in many ways, and in fact represents an improvement over the Xerox technology (for example, in marking text to be moved, which involved holding down the button and moving the mouse on the Mac but two mouse button clicks on two different buttons on the Xerox). However, screen speed isn't everything. For reasons I cannot fathom, the Mac shares with the Lisa a serious speed problem in switching applications. If one of the ideas behind the Mac is being able to integrate applications, it seems very limiting that one cannot quickly move from one to another. The Mac will someday be a great machine, I hope. Right now I consider it an impressive prototype with limited uses (overhead transparency production is a very good application). By the way, what word processing program is your friend using? D Gary Grady Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706 (919) 684-4146 USENET: {decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary