REWING@TRINCC.BITNET (04/29/88)
TMURPHY@WPI writes: > Maybe the message was 'childish and immature', but I've heard many similar > comments directed at PC's and other machines, mainly from Apple owners. As long as people love a specific product in a competing market, they will love to go out of their way to flame others. Chevy and Ford truck owners have been screaming at each other long before PCs ever existed. Same goes for most products that people love. Product loyalty is nothing new, and if all of you that feel pressure from Apple owners about overzealous behavior, well, the feeling's mutual buddy. How long did we go being laughed at by IBM users about being a toy? How often did Apple II users get heckled from the TRaSh-80 masses years ago (and now by the Amiga and ST forces)? I can stand legitimate complaints about a computer if you've used it long enough to form a valid criticism. But if the problem has been fixed, then don't try to drag up old crap that's been dead and buried. Take compilers. The reason why the Mac had to be programmed from Lisas was threefold: 1) To sell more Lisas. 2) To support Steve Jobs ideology that the Mac user shouldn't have to worry about these things and need to only use canned software (i.e., the word 'application' sprung). and 3) a 128K mac couldn't support the size of the pascal compiler needed to build mac applications (a design flaw). These three things were solved with the 512K mac and really buried with the Mac Plus, so harping on BS like this serves no purpose. Graphics: what other PC besides the Amiga uses a dedicated graphics chip? True, I think that the Mac needs one, but don't harp if your machine isn't running one either (and still isn't). Also, the mac's 512x342 screen, though deceptively small, had better resolution than most everything on the market in 1984, and it still satisfies the needs of most Mac users. If you really want a larger screen now, just buy one from the several competent vendors, or get a Mac II. Not to mention, these large screens will be able to work with almost every piece of software available for the Mac. Try that on the PC without custom drivers for every program. (VGA doesn't count here). I get also bitch about the myriad of graphic standards for the PC, but you get the point. Keyboard: The Mac had all the keys it needed to work, based on its philosophy in 1984, and it wasn't a bad keyboard at all. In fact, the only feature that most programs use on the modern extended keyboards are the arrow keys. Forcing software manufacturers to come up with menu options instead of stupid function keys was key to the Mac's ease of use success. Can most PC users claim to know the ins and outs a most program's function keys that they own, not to mention trying to keep them out of the way from all the TSRs that you run? I think not. Disk Speed: You try to implement a sophiticated OS that doesn't have to access the disk for system resources as much as the Mac. Windows thrashes on floppies just as badly (although both the Mac and Windows are better about this these days). The Mac OS was basically a hard disk OS before its time, and now that we have hard disks, we really fly. Also the transition between MFS and HFS was probably less painful than DOS 1.0 to 2.0 or even Apple II DOS 3.3 to ProDOS 1.0.1. And as disks sizes get bigger in the years to come, whose operating system doesn't care about volume size? Hmmmm.....32megs I see. Too bad. Also too bad for ProDOS users. I hope that there are fixes to both DOSes sooner than later. For ProDOS owners, take heart. The Apple II will support the CD-ROM player. Do you think that Apple won't expand the ProDOS voulme map to support infinite sizes? I'm sure they think we'd love to deal with 355 32meg volumes... As a said before, we've come a long way since 1984, and we still have a long way to go. A have a list a mile long of the things I'd like to see fixed or changed on the Mac and the AppleIIgs. But I still use them because they do the job for me. You might like the PCs for the same reason; so be it. But don't flame for things that are based on inaccuracy or just plain ignorance. You make few points, and lose respect that way. Eventually competetion helps us all. Where would PCs be without the Mac today? And vice-versa? See, we all benefit, eventually (lawsuits not withstanding). --Richard Ewing Apple ][/Mac Consultant Class of '88 Trinity College Hartford, CT