[net.micro.mac] Buying: PC vs. the Mac

jimb@ism780 (04/29/86)

I just finished reading a string of postings debating the merits of IBM PC
vs. Mac and why anyone would *buy* a PC.

We're a two-computer household -- I have an XT and my wife as a 512K Mac.
Neither one of us are hacker-folk, though in the dark days of IBM 1620 and
IBM 7090 I did some programming as an engineering aide.

One thing the debate in the postings seemed to overlook was applications.
Ten-second pause for all macho hackers to barf.
***********

At the time I bought my XT (one year ago) and even now, it was absolutely the
correct choice for someone with my profile of usage.  Writing.  LOTS of
writing.  The need for letter quality printing, REAL letter quality, not all
this "near" letter quality crap that's insufficient for the standards of many
editors; a printer with a cut-sheet feeder to handle letterhead and
envelopes -- the issue of envelopes skewering laserprinters; and a
professional, heavy-duty word-processing program.

By my standards, the WP program needs to be something like Word Perfect or
Multimate.  Microsoft Word is an abomination that's not much better than
Wordstar; MacWrite is fine for writing Aunt Hepzibah or tooling out a term
paper, but that's about it.

Finally, Word Perfect is supposed to be coming out on the Mac at the end of
the year.  There are some kludges that now allow the Mac to use a NEC
printer, though I don't know about nuances such as cut-sheet feeder codes.
(Anyone out there have any experience?)

Only with the good WP program and access to a quality printer will the Mac
become a reasonable option for users like me, and the market for users far
outnumbers the market for hackers.

I think the old automobile metaphor is in order.  More power to those of you
who enjoy tinkering with your machines to get every last % of performance.
There's simply a much larger body of people who simply want to get from A to
B to C, who are more concerned with accomplishing task than concerned with
process.  I mean, I don't care that my car has automatic transmission and
doesn't have fuel-injection or overhead cams; it gets me where I want to go,
does 70 m.p.h. easily, and is comfortable and has decent repair and service
support.  Just about everything else is irrelevant.  (Please, no nits.  This
is a metaphor, not photocomparison.)

			-- from the musings of Jim Brunet

			   ihnp4/ima/ism780/jimb
			   hplabs/hao/ico/ism780/jimb
			   sdcsvax/sdcrdcf/ism780C/ism780

chuq@sun (04/30/86)

> At the time I bought my XT (one year ago) and even now, it was absolutely the
> correct choice for someone with my profile of usage.  Writing.  LOTS of
> writing.  The need for letter quality printing, REAL letter quality, not all
> this "near" letter quality crap that's insufficient for the standards of many
> editors; a printer with a cut-sheet feeder to handle letterhead and
> envelopes -- the issue of envelopes skewering laserprinters; and a
> professional, heavy-duty word-processing program.
> 
> By my standards, the WP program needs to be something like Word Perfect or
> Multimate.  Microsoft Word is an abomination that's not much better than
> Wordstar; MacWrite is fine for writing Aunt Hepzibah or tooling out a term
> paper, but that's about it.
> 
> Finally, Word Perfect is supposed to be coming out on the Mac at the end of
> the year.  There are some kludges that now allow the Mac to use a NEC
> printer, though I don't know about nuances such as cut-sheet feeder codes.

I'm going to take the devil's advocate position on this.  I use my Mac for
writing.  LOTS of writing. While I agree in principle that real letter
quality printing is advisable, in reality the imagewriter can generate 
stuff that is close enough that you have to look hard to tell the
difference. You need to use a good font (the ones shipped with the Mac
are NOT good enough -- I use the Boston font) and you need to keep your
ribbon fresh.  The latter is a problem with any printer, but moreso here.

I don't use printed letterhead.  I have a set of Macpaint created
letterheads I can paste into a letter as I need them.  This means I
don't have to have things reprinted when I move, or when I find out
that I was given the wrong zip code when I moved (as just happened to
me... sigh!).  This gives me the option of multiple letterhears without
driving my printer, my storage space and my pocketbook crazy (I use
three -- a personal letterhead, a Plaidworks letterhead for my computer
stuff, and a special letterhead for OtherRealms).  Use a good quality
(20 pound or better) pinfeed paper, and you don't NEED sheet feeders.

I found early on that using envelopes in a printer, ANY printer, is more
trouble than it is worth.  For most work I now use #10 window envelopes.
This means that the address you type on your letter shows through.
Otherwise, I either scribble or type the envelope manually (finding that
using a real typewriter for envelopes saves me about 80% of the time of
doing it on a computer).  Return addresses and SASE (#9 plaid white, no
window, so it fits inside a #10) I use mailing labels, which I print out
a couple hundred at a time and keep handy.

If you take a little care, your 'bad' NLQ imagewriter still beats that pants
off of most typewriters.  It isn't a laserwriter, and it isn't a daisywheel,
but you pretty much need a microscope to tell.

I agree with Jim that MacWrite is for people who think that manual
typewriters are wonderful.  Unlike Jim, I think Word is a very useful
WP program. It can do anything you want it to do, and once you figure it out
(the case with ANY program) it has more power than you'll probably ever
need.  The only thing 'missing' is the style sheet option, which you can
simulate quite nicely with glossaries, and the only thing brain-damaged is
running heads, which I try to avoid.  Jim is running into the 'this fits my
style' problem -- if he likes Word Perfect, then that is great, but you need
to be careful generalizing.  Word is complex, but it also stays out of your
way until you're ready to use the complexity.

Also, I disagree that the Letter Quality support is a kludge.  For those
that NEED a Nec (either for real or psychological reasons) Word supports
daisy wheel's as part of its standard packages, and I've seen some
impressive letters pour off of them.

One thing you need to be aware of, though, is that when you're doing SERIOUS
writing you have to be conservative.  Don't submit stuff to editors in
London Font, underlined and shadowed.  Don't use multiple fonts, don't play
games.  Don't justify, don't get fancy -- good clean crisp copy is what is
important.  Use the thing as a really fancy typewriter, and leave the fancy
stuff at home.  With a little care, though, you CAN generate good quality
printing without spending a bundle.

chuq
-- 
:From the lofty realms of Castle Plaid:          Chuq Von Rospach 
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The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your hands
and hoping when a rock or a club will do -- McCloctnik the Lucid

leeke@cascade (05/01/86)

First we had an Osborne I and I tried to get my wife to sit and learn how
to use it.  After all, it did have wordstar.  For some reason, vacuuming,
cooking, working, ANYTHING seemed more interesting.  I had plenty of time
on the Oz.

Second was a Compaq portable w/ 512k.  After I got Word Perfect 4.0 my wife
even spent a couple of hours a month typing away on letters and entering
financial update info.  Again, I had all the computer time I wanted.

Finally, with the Oz and Compaq gone (I was hoping to find something that
she would enjoy using), we bought a 128k (later upgraded to 512k) Mac.  I
don't know quite what happened, but I suddenly found myself having to go
into the office at night to use THEIR Mac, and I even found my wife up
at 7am on a Saturday typing away.  She finally realized she ought to have
breakfast sometime in the early afternoon.  Anyway, now she wants a MacPlus
with a 20meg. SCSI disk.  Thanks alot Apple, now I have to schedule computer
time!  Seriously, my wife has never looked at a manual and churns out alot
her work on it.

For me and my wife, the Mac IS the one for the rest of us.

Steve Leeke

halff@utah-cs (05/02/86)

In article <67900002@ism780>, jimb@ism780 writes:
> We're a two-computer household -- I have an XT and my wife as a 512K Mac.
> 
> ***********
> 
> At the time I bought my XT (one year ago) and even now, it was absolutely the
> correct choice for someone with my profile of usage.  Writing.  LOTS of
> writing.  The need for letter quality printing, REAL letter quality, not all
> this "near" letter quality crap that's insufficient for the standards of many
> editors; a printer with a cut-sheet feeder to handle letterhead and
> envelopes -- the issue of envelopes skewering laserprinters; and a
> professional, heavy-duty word-processing program.
> 
> By my standards, the WP program needs to be something like Word Perfect or
> Multimate.  Microsoft Word is an abomination that's not much better than
> Wordstar; MacWrite is fine for writing Aunt Hepzibah or tooling out a term
> paper, but that's about it.
> 
> Finally, Word Perfect is supposed to be coming out on the Mac at the end of
> the year.  There are some kludges that now allow the Mac to use a NEC
> printer, though I don't know about nuances such as cut-sheet feeder codes.
> (Anyone out there have any experience?)
> 
> Only with the good WP program and access to a quality printer will the Mac
> become a reasonable option for users like me, and the market for users far
> outnumbers the market for hackers.

Gee--We also have a Mac, which my wife uses, and an XT, which I use.
However, she is the heavy writer in the business.  I use WordPerfect and
find it a superb word processor, but I would find it difficult to use it
or any other word processor available for the XT to produce a 100 page
fully illustrated training manual within a week's time.  This kind of
job is almost routine on the Macintosh.

True, if you're putting out a lot of correspondence to different folk on
different letterheads, a laserwriter could be awkward, but even with
WordPerfect on my XT, I often turn to a device known as a typewriter to
produce envelopes, rather than going to the trouble of changing paper in
my printer.  An adequate, if expensive, Macintosh solution is the
purchase of an Imagewriter II dedicated to envelopes.

True, neither Write nor Word can hold a candle to WordPerfect, but if I
had to produce a lot of written material in a variety of forms (charts,
overheads, drawings, illustrated papers, flyers, etc.), I'd pick a Mac
everytime.  And, I'd pick a Mac for spreadsheets, databases,
communications, and just about any mainline application.

So why do I use an XT?  Three reasons--

1.  I got it cheap, but more importantly,
2.  My clients use IBMs, but more importantly,
3.  You can write programs for the XT far more easily than for the Mac.
-- 
Henry M. Halff                                       Halff Resources, Inc.
halff@utah-cs.ARPA                 4918 33rd Road, N., Arlington, VA 22207

gwe@cbdkc1.UUCP ( George Erhart x4021 CB 3D288 DEBR ) (05/02/86)

In article <90@cascade.ARPA> leeke@su-cascade.arpa (Steven D. Leeke) writes:
>she would enjoy using), we bought a 128k (later upgraded to 512k) Mac.  I
>don't know quite what happened, but I suddenly found myself having to go
>into the office at night to use THEIR Mac, and I even found my wife up
>at 7am on a Saturday typing away.  She finally realized she ought to have
>breakfast sometime in the early afternoon.  Anyway, now she wants a MacPlus
>with a 20meg. SCSI disk.  Thanks alot Apple, now I have to schedule computer
>time!  Seriously, my wife has never looked at a manual and churns out alot
>her work on it.
>
>For me and my wife, the Mac IS the one for the rest of us.
>
>Steve Leeke

Bravo ... I, too, am in a similar situation. My wife deplored computers, as
they took me away too often. (She thought of them as the enemy!) But lo, I
convinced her that it would be easier to write her thesis on a computer. Now,
after purchasing the Mac, I have to beg for time on the machine! And here, I 
thought she would only use the machine for her thesis ... then never look 
at it again!

My wife has also has become a "computer expert" on the Apple II[ce]'s that
she sometimes uses. It seems the Mac broke some barriers down.
-- 
George Erhart at AT&T Bell Laboratories Columbus, Ohio 
614-860-4021 {ihnp4,cbosgd}!cbdkc1!gwe

moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (05/05/86)

Absolute agreement on both the lack of a good WP program for the Mac, and
the principle that the superior computer is the one that does what you need
it to do (for me, that is the Mac).  I think, though, that Apple is looking
at marketing cheaper LaserWriters, rather than "letter-quality" (I assume
this meant daisy wheel) printers.

                         "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work.
                          I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
                                         -- Woody Allen

                                        Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>

naftoli@aecom.UUCP (Robert N. Berlinger) (05/07/86)

> 3.  You can write programs for the XT far more easily than for the Mac.

I don't totally agree with this.  If you are saying that it's easier to
write a program on the XT that looks like every other XT program than it
is to write a program on the Mac that looks like every other Mac program
(windows, menus, dialog boxes, etc.), then, yes, it's easier to
write such a program on the XT.

However, if you want to write a program on the Mac that looks like an XT
program (interactive prompting, text only, etc.), it's not any harder at all,
especially if you make use of the UNIX standard I/O environment that most of
the C compilers provide.

I wouldn't be caught dead writing such a program, but if you needed to,
the features are available.
-- 
Robert Berlinger
...{philabs,cucard,pegasus,ihnp4,rocky2}!aecom!naftoli

sutin@astrovax.UUCP (Brian M. Sutin) (05/10/86)

> The need for letter quality printing, REAL letter quality, not all this
> "near" letter quality crap that's insufficient for the standards of many
> editors ...

I didn't want to buy a micro for years because there were no affordable
letter quality printers available, but I just picked up a Smith-Corona
daisy wheel for cheap, so I but down cash on a Mac+.  I hope it's worth
it, because I didn't even consider an I(diots)B(umpkins)M(orons).  I've
hooked this thing up to the local VAX, and it prints better than most
typewriters, although one must have patience ( 12 cps ).

The reason for wanting a letter quality is that dot-matrix is not
acceptable for many editors in the humanities.  PC-type magazines, and
science journals, of course don't care -- typewriters don't do equations,
graphs, or diagrams.  I took writing courses as an undergraduate where
the professor specifically requested no computer output.  Luckily most Lit
profs can't recognize laserprinter output!

----------------

Brian Sutin
Department of Astrophysical Sciences
Princeton University

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!astrovax!sutin

stephenw@murdu.OZ (Stephen Withers) (05/12/86)

> > The need for letter quality printing, REAL letter quality, not all this
> > "near" letter quality **** that's insufficient for the standards of many
> > editors ...
> 
> This is a minor point, but the idea that "editors" don't like dot-matrix
> printed manuscripts is a myth (or perhaps a rationalization :-)).  Whereas
> it may not be a good idea to submit academic papers printed with a dot
> matrix printer, back when I wrote fairly regularly for Byte and PC Tech
> Journal...

During my (short) academic career, I actually had *more* success with papers
printed by dot-matrix devices that I did with typed or daisy-wheel-printed
material.  Seems to me that what you write is more important than how it's
printed, providing it's clear and meets the editorial requirements (margins,
reference style, etc).

Stephen Withers, 
Microcomputer Support Group, University Computing Services,
The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia.

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