altman@rochester.ARPA (05/03/87)
From: Art Altman <altman>
I have an IBM AT at home, with all the spreadsheet and word processing that
I really need, strictly speaking. It's a loan from a client that I do some
occasional consulting for, so it's free and I'm going to have it around
anyway.
Somehow I don't end up doing much letter writing or playing with it; I
find using 123, msdos etc reasonable but awkward; just not fun enough to
have me using it after a day at school or work.
I am extremely computer literate (been programming since '72, just
completing now an MS in CS.)
Should I get a MAC? We have consortium prices here.
Purpose would be home use - letter writing, budget, and fun.
Plus the transportability.
My question is addressed to all of you, but especially those of
you that have lots of experience with IBM pcs and then switched to the
MAC - are the differences real or superficial?
Does the friendlier interface and graphics really make a difference to
you or does it, after the initial "wow" period, really become all the
same as using an ibm pc?
And if you already had an AT, would you pour money into a MAC?
Thanks very much,
Art Altman (obviously new to this newsgroup - hope I'm not stepping
on anyones toes....)
ps: just looking over some Mac magazines, I detect kind of a Macintocsh
culture, which looks intriguing; do people develop emotional
ties to Mac? (certainly does not occur with ibm pcs)
pps: if I get the mac, is the imagewriter II the way to go? Is there a way
for me to adapt my TI-55 printer, in a way that takes *full*
advantage of the mac?
======================================================================
Art M. Altman
Department of Computer Science {allegra|seismo}!rochester!altman
University of Rochester or
Rochester, NY 14627 altman@rochester.cs.edu
======================================================================kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) (05/04/87)
Although you may end up with a flood of reactions, I'll add my 2 cents worth... I've been working with computers since 1981 or so. First there were only hobbyistic reasons, now it's part of my living (poor soul). Here in my room I have about 5 computers, an IBM PC (clone) and an Atari ST among them. And since a short while, Macintosh SE as well. What I need my computer for is wordprocessing and accounting. Tasks that could very well be accomplished by the software available for the IBM-PC. Nevertheless, this computer is put away in cupboard (really!) running a BBS-program. Thus it serves both Atari ST and Macintosh users, as the BBS is meant for these categories :) I always disliked the PC for several reasons, but it being a huge, unfriendly machine, uneasy to handle, awkward to operate were the most important ones. I never could do any serious work on it. And although I grew up with the Apple ][, I just love mouse-control. Try moving (_moving_) a couple of files on a PC-harddisk from one subdirectory to another and then use a mouse-oriented operating system... Ahh. The delight. Furthermore, all (99 percent) Mac software is written more or less in accordance with the operating system and is therefore very easy to use. And more importantly: not in the least less powerfull than PC-stuff. The lack of decent heavy-duty software and a soaky keyboard were the reasons for me to set the ST aside, although the (Gem) control of the machine worked more or less like the Mac's Finder (and in some aspects, even better). And yes, I too feel there's some sort of Mac-Cult. Althoug it may diminish as the Mac moves into offices more and more, there still is this sense of 'pioneer-spirit' among the people that use it. But then again, most usergroups of any computerbrand are mostly friendly people that are always willing to help. But to conclude this sermon: the Mac is the computer I turn on the moment I come home (I'm a bachelor :) and still like to play around with. The PC is a BBS-machine and will stay in the cupboard for as long as it lives.
graifer@net1.ucsd.edu (Dan Graifer) (05/04/87)
I have a Mac at home, and use PC clones at my current work. I'll take the
Mac for the usual user friendly operating systems reasons, and one more.
I've just done a little programming in non-interpreted languages on both. Even
with my limited experience, the segment register crap on the Intel 80(2)86
PCs drove me nuts. This was working in C. I understand other languages get
around this by limiting the size of continguous memory blocks on the PCs to
64K. Whom are they kidding!
An AT for free is better than a Mac even at consortium prices. But just
barely. Besides, any machine for free lets you wait until the price/
performance ratio improves another order of magnitude or two :-)
Dan Graifer
graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU
Disclaimer: Nobody ever listens to me anyways; Why should they start now?lincoln@randvax.UUCP (Tom Lincoln) (05/05/87)
In article <995@ark.cs.vu.nl> kleef@cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes: >Although you may end up with a flood of reactions, I'll add my 2 cents >worth... > >I've been working with computers since 1981 or so. First there were only >hobbyistic reasons, now it's part of my living (poor soul). I've worked with the MAC technology since its grandfather was developed at RAND in the late 1960s as GRAIL. For this reason I bought a LIZA right out of the shoot... first day. The MAC has redeamed all of LIZA's shortcomings. Once one gets used to formatted capabilities, it is hard to back up and think differently. I have felt deprived every t I have had to go back to a simpler technology. Working back and forth between UNIX systems and the MAC has freed up the text mode so that it almost lives. There is a good review of SUPERPAINT in today's (MAY 5) N.Y. Times. This gives some flavor of the rapidly expanding capabilities at low cost... The next step after desk top publishing is desk top aggitation! ._______________________________________________________________________. | | | ` .. . ' . | | VIVA EAST LA! .`. ^./ ,. ` .. . ' / . | | .`.\|/. ; . ` .`. ^./ ,. \ | | ` .. . ' .~-_*_->. . ' .`.\|/. ; . | | .`. ^./ ,. ^ . /.\. .` .~-_*_->. . ` .. . ' | | .`.\|/. ; . ' . , . ` .. . /.\. .` .`. ^./ ,. . ' | | .~-_*_->. . .`. ^. ' . , . .`.\|/. ; . / ,. | | . /.\. .` .`.\|/. ; . \ , .~-_*_->. . | | ' . , . . .~-_*_->. . / ,. ` .. . ' . /.\. .` | | . /.\. .` .`. ^./ ,. ' . , . | | ' . , . . . , . .`.\|/. ; . | | ` CINCO DE MAYO . .~-_*_->. . - | | \ . . /.\. .` \ | | , . | ' . , . , | |_______________________________________________________________________| This was generated in dialog between the RAND editor on a SUN and my MAC... using cut and paste, among other things.. p q \|/ /|\ TOM LINCOLN lincoln@rand-unix.ARPA \|/ "Life is short, art is long, opportunity fugitive, /|\ experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult."