Going Mac...maybe.

[SnowRidge]

Quote:Windows bloat is primarily due to its ability to maintain backward compatibility. Software that ran in DOS and early Windows can still, in many cases, be run on current platforms. That is not true with the MAC or most other platforms. This is why it is popular in most workplaces - you can run proprietary software that is 10 years old on an XP machine. Not true if it was coded for an Apple IIc.

I don't see that at the application level at all. I can open documents made on a 1984 Mac on my 2007 iMac. You might be right about proprietary software, but try to convince a MS Word user of this. I can open more Word documents on my new Mac than I can at work on my PC running Word!!

Word documents are not software. They are data.

What was being said in the above quote is the fact that you can, within certain limitations, take very old MSDOS or Win95/98 applications(software) and run them on the latest hardware running current versions of Winders, but you cannot say the same sort of thing for Apple products.

I partially agree with the assertion that Winders bloat is due to backwards compatibility. In my opinion, it is also due to poor software engineering in the first place, and Micro$oft's desire to dominate the software market at any cost. Micro$oft should have thrown out their horribly buggy OS and written a new one, as did Apple, instead of just putting Vista colored lipstick on the pig. But that would have given their formerly captive market an opportunity to switch to Mac or Linux, something the Gatesian crowd in Redmond refused to do. In the long run, I think it will cost them.

Oh well, in the meantime, it all makes for great Mac ads on TV.

 

[N80]

Word documents are not software. They are data.

Okay. I see what you're saying. But in a practical sense that's nitpicking. When an application creates data that the very next version of the same application can't interpret and vice versa, to the user that's a backwards compatibility issue. And just because their machine can run the old and new version is of little consolation.

What was being said in the above quote is the fact that you can, within certain limitations, take very old MSDOS or Win95/98 applications(software) and run them on the latest hardware running current versions of Winders, but you cannot say the same sort of thing for Apple products.

What on earth makes you think this? I can run programs not only designed for a totally (ground up) different OS on my Mac and, in fact, even designed for a totally different processor (Motorola PowerPC vs Intel). So I'm not sure where this idea originated. Granted, Apple has gone through several ground up changes in OS and chips in the last 15 years but from the standpoint of a home/semi-pro user (Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, Aperture) they have done a stellar job of backwards compatibility that is nearly seamless to the average user...in addition to opening legacy Windows created data like Word, Excel documents, etc.

In terms of legacy proprietary software, I'm sure you're right. But again, Apple has never sought that market and that sort of thing is not relevant to home users anyway.

I think we are in general agreement, I just hear some generalizations like "Macs will only Apple software" and Macs aren't backwards compatible these are often misleading if not entirely untrue. For a large or niche type business, probably all true enough. For the home and small business user, usually not a significant issue.

Oh well, in the meantime, it all makes for great Mac ads on TV.

Apple can market and generate hype, no doubt about it. And the ads are funny. But my serious Windows-Geek IT/web-guy B-I-L doesn't think they are funny at all. He looks and acts just like the PC guy!

 

[Ken_CT]

What would happen if American car companies made cars of the same quality as Microsoft products? ......... What's that you say?... $17.4 BILLION?

And Microsoft is too big to fail.

On a more serious note. I have been using & owning computers since the mid 80's, and most people would consider me an advanced hobbyist. Not on the level of you IT guys by far, but pretty knowledgeable. I still have a book on upgrading to compaq dos 3.3. I can't tell you how many time I have installed something on a PC, either software or hardware, and had to fiddle around with settings to get it to work right. Sometimes only for a few minutes, sometimes pulling my hair out for hours. I've often said, if I have this much trouble getting things to work, how does the average user get anything to work. I'm surprised there haven't been more reports of people taking a shotgun to their computer.
I stay with windows because I like to play games like Crysis, or Halo and the like. I don't think (I may be wrong) that they are mac compatible.
I kinda like Vista, although I may be in the minority. Remember when XP came out, everyone hated it too, saying 98 was much better. You have to jump through some hoops to do certain things with Vista, but if you're not capable of doing that, maybe you shouldn't be messing at that level.
The Mac vs. PC debate has been going on for as long as I can remember, kinda like Ford vs. Chevy. Of course, there is always Linux , but I think they are Dodge people. No matter how many facts are stated, diehard loyalists (on both sides) will never change their minds.

 

[SnowRidge]

The Mac vs. PC debate has been going on for as long as I can remember, kinda like Ford vs. Chevy. Of course, there is always Linux , but I think they are Dodge people.

Hey, I resemble that remark.

 

[N80]

I stay with windows because I like to play games like Crysis, or Halo and the like. I don't think (I may be wrong) that they are mac compatible.

I'm not a gamer, but that's another market that MS has tapped into with great success. I have no idea if those games are available on the Mac or not. There are far, far fewer games for Macs than PCs. But I have to wonder why people spend all the money on a high powered desktop and suffer through Windows in order to play games when they could just play them on an X Box or something.

 

[Ken_CT]

Playing a good game on an Xbox or similar is nowhere near playing on a high end PC. People pay a lot for a good sound system when they could listen to a radio and hear the same music.

 

[N80]

Playing a good game on an Xbox or similar is nowhere near playing on a high end PC. People pay a lot for a good sound system when they could listen to a radio and hear the same music.

I'll have to take your word for it. Know nothng about games. Except that they've turned my son's brain into oatmeal.

 

[Ken_CT]

I'll have to take your word for it. Know nothng about games. Except that they've turned my son's brain into oatmeal.

They can be addictive, that's for sure. But everything in moderation, and of course in the appropriate age category. I understand there have been studies that show there are positive things from game playing. I remember reading about hand/eye coordination and social interaction. But I think that they do have to be used as entertainment, not a life. BTW, they are not just played by young people, I've been retired for a number of years, and I asked for Far Cry 2 for Christmas. They can be almost as much fun as playing with my BX23, but not quite. I guess I'm still a kid at heart, you know, like playing in the dirt, playing games, toys, etc. Just the darn toys are a lot more expensive.

I'm in CT, and the block heater is on....so it's time to go play in the snow that is falling like crazy now.

 

[MossRoad]

As an old DEC guy, I still tout DEC VMS as the only, truly, bullet proof platform....

We are currently phasing out our last VMS system running on 400MHZ Alpha chips in a cluster. I will miss it. Rock solid. Rock solid.

However, the hardware is well past the point of being economically repairable should it fail. And finding someone with the knowledge is gettng hard, too. Those old DEC guys were snapped up by Compaq, then HP. There are not too many of them left. The maintenance contract on the hardware exceeded the cost of new windows based servers. The software that we were running on it is 10 years old, and it is just now being ported to Windows. That tells you how stable it was and no need to port over until now.

The little 486/33 laptop that I mentioned earlier is DEC, too. Great equipment.

 

[MossRoad]

I cannot count the number of times that we have had to purchase new versions of software when we purchased new Macs because the old version was incompatible with the new Mac OS. It has happened many times over the years to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would have been nice to run the old version of the software on speedier hardware, but it was just not possible. But we did it because, in those applications, the Mac was the best tool for the job. Applications like Quark Express, Aldus Freehand, Adobe Illustrator come to mind. There were also a number of proprietary software packages that had to be updated, as well.

 

[NuBota]

We are currently phasing out our last VMS system running on 400MHZ Alpha chips in a cluster. I will miss it. Rock solid. Rock solid.

However, the hardware is well past the point of being economically repairable should it fail. And finding someone with the knowledge is gettng hard, too. Those old DEC guys were snapped up by Compaq, then HP. There are not too many of them left. The maintenance contract on the hardware exceeded the cost of new windows based servers. The software that we were running on it is 10 years old, and it is just now being ported to Windows. That tells you how stable it was and no need to port over until now.

The little 486/33 laptop that I mentioned earlier is DEC, too. Great equipment.

I was one of those guys - always considered myself a "Digit", even when I became Compaq/HP. DEC made great HW and SW - but had horrible marketing. We had products that were a decade or more ahead of their time. All the "hot" stuff today, MS Exchange/Outlook, Lotus Notes, system clustering, Directory Services, etc, was being offered in 1984/88. And I, of course, considered our consulting guys they best in the business

We had a VAX/VMS system on Wall Street - had an uptime of 10 years - not many can claim that....

It's nice to hear you had positive experiences as well - there are still some left in my work circles, but they are fading. Never heard 'em bad mouthed, other than being called dinosaurs...

-Eric

 

[NuBota]

Before I went into IT - I was in retail - last gig managing a chain store that sold software and video games. PC games were one of the, if not the biggest, driver for PC sales to the home user. People would see 30 shelves of PC games and 1 for MAC. This was before the 'Net was even really accessible. Computers offered better graphics than console game systems back then and a greater variety of game types. Sony changed all that with the Playstation.

MACs originally had better graphics capabilities back in the day. The were preferred, along with Amiga, for graphics intensive applications. The PCs eventually caught up.

As far as the HW - my point was the same quality HW is available for both platforms. All the components are modular and made by different vendors - not Apple or the PC maker - with the possible exception of the motherboard - but even then the components/chipsets soldered to the board are off the shelf. For the PC - it's just a matter of what the quality of the components that are selected when the box is assembled and how well integrated they are.

As with most of these debates - there is no right and wrong. I agree that the avg home user would be very well served with a MAC. But I'm not sure I can even say that because I don't think I could characterize the home user today. Small businesses, telecommuters, gamers, students - for many it's not just Web, email and word processing anymore. The MAC would never meet my needs. Heck - I was all ready to switch to Linux as my home OS - but Quicken doesn't make a version to run on it - so I haven't. Yes, I could run emulators or VMs, but now the system is no longer "pure" and I will deal with issues similar to the PC. In my retail days I saw many users dump their MAC because their was a piece of software they wanted that was not ported for MAC. Even though the MAC today is much more versatile, it is hard to bring those folks back.

Bottom line - M$ has killed of a ton of better products through the years and become the de facto standard- For many, that point alone is enough to make the decision to deal with the headaches of PC ownership.

-Eric

 

[ihookem]

Well, since this post has drifted can I ask a few new questions? I have a pc laptop with Vista and I hate the thing. I had xp2000 pro on the last pc and liked it. Can I get rid of vista and reload 2000 xp? It would be nice. This Acer laptop from Best buy crashes and freezes worse than anything I've had. I wonder if loading xp would help? My 16 yr old daughter is nagging for a Mac and just might get one. I just serf the web and email stuff and write proposals once in a while. I don't think one person mentioned the cost of a Mac. How much? Is watching movies better on a Mac? we have Netflix and can watch movies on the pc for free but the picture is BAD! If a Mac is better then a Mac can double as a new TV. Maybe I can justify that. Prices anyone?

 

[MossRoad]

Well, since this post has drifted can I ask a few new questions? I have a pc laptop with Vista and I hate the thing. I had xp2000 pro on the last pc and liked it. Can I get rid of vista and reload 2000 xp? It would be nice. This Acer laptop from Best buy crashes and freezes worse than anything I've had. I wonder if loading xp would help? My 16 yr old daughter is nagging for a Mac and just might get one. I just serf the web and email stuff and write proposals once in a while. I don't think one person mentioned the cost of a Mac. How much? Is watching movies better on a Mac? we have Netflix and can watch movies on the pc for free but the picture is BAD! If a Mac is better then a Mac can double as a new TV. Maybe I can justify that. Prices anyone?

I've heard that most Windows OS licenses are backward compatible. That is, if you own Vista, you can unload it and load Xp or 98 and the license covers it. You can back load all the way down to W3.1 if you want. I think you have to own the media that the OS came on, but am not sure. I know there were lots of folks that bought new PCs with Vista and legally downgraded them to XP. You might want to check it out.

 

[MossRoad]

I was one of those guys - always considered myself a "Digit", even when I became Compaq/HP. DEC made great HW and SW - but had horrible marketing. We had products that were a decade or more ahead of their time. All the "hot" stuff today, MS Exchange/Outlook, Lotus Notes, system clustering, Directory Services, etc, was being offered in 1984/88. And I, of course, considered our consulting guys they best in the business

We had a VAX/VMS system on Wall Street - had an uptime of 10 years - not many can claim that....

It's nice to hear you had positive experiences as well - there are still some left in my work circles, but they are fading. Never heard 'em bad mouthed, other than being called dinosaurs...

-Eric

Well, Eric, I sincerely congratulate you on your association with DEC. They were a top notch software and hardware company. Not only that, they had a great group that would coordinate and install other people's software on other people's servers. When Compaq bought DEC, they slowly eliminated the Newspaper group. Bummer. Great guys. We still contract the services of one of the guys for our Editorial and Classified advertising systems. They were big in the Newspaper industry. They had a great support system. That is why, I heard, Compaq bought them... Compaq had a lousy customer service operation until they bought DEC. And their Storage Works systems are awesome. Compaq, then HP based all of their storage systems on that. Great stuff. I currently maintain about a dozen RAID arrays with many terabytes of storage. Probably close to a hundred disks between them. Something really cool about walking up to an operating RAID array and yanking out a running hard disk and the thing keeps running without a burp!

HP RAID arrays are really sweet (based on the DEC Storage Works). One reason we choose Compaq/HP over Dell is the one hot spare, multiple arrays on one backplane that they offer. Dells needed one hot spare for each array and that wastes slots and disks.

Also, we choose Compaq/HP desktops over Dell because of past issues where we would order a batch of PCs to a specification. The Compaq/HP machines were guaranteed to have identical components inside. We could go back a year later and get more of the same. With the Dells, we could get computers, all spec'd the same, but no guarantee of the same components inside. They might have different manufacturers of NICs, HDs, video cards, etc... For example, a batch of 20 computers had three different NICs. That required three different GHOST images, or a reinstall of the NIC drivers after a rebuild. What a pain!

 

[NuBota]

Moss - thanks again for the kind words - and yes I'm a big StorageWorks fan too. I don't want to divert the thread - so this is my last post on this subject - I could write a book....

You post hits home though - A DEC consultant was intended to be there to meet the customer mission - regardless of the HW/SW involved - and in many cases integrating heterogeneous systems from different vendors. My last customer gig as an HPer (I am independent now) was an enterprise ERP solution - Sun Solaris systems on EMA12000 based SAN storage - talk about heterogeneous - was a great integration challenge.

I have worked many jobs in my life - for some major corporations too - but I was never as proud of any like I was working for DEC. Not only great products, but they treated us great as well.

I would say the relevance in this thread - the best is not always the standard or holds the most market share - and in many cases doesn't survive. I give Apple credit for keeping to its vision, creating a quality product, and surviving......

 

[jgrreed]

Well, since this post has drifted can I ask a few new questions? I have a pc laptop with Vista and I hate the thing. I had xp2000 pro on the last pc and liked it. Can I get rid of vista and reload 2000 xp? It would be nice. This Acer laptop from Best buy crashes and freezes worse than anything I've had. I wonder if loading xp would help? My 16 yr old daughter is nagging for a Mac and just might get one. I just serf the web and email stuff and write proposals once in a while. I don't think one person mentioned the cost of a Mac. How much? Is watching movies better on a Mac? we have Netflix and can watch movies on the pc for free but the picture is BAD! If a Mac is better then a Mac can double as a new TV. Maybe I can justify that. Prices anyone?

Check apple.com. There you can customize the machine you'd like. Dunno about watching movies on the Mac. I've heard some good things about appleTV which allows you to network your TV/home theatre with your computer.

-Jer.

 

[SnowRidge]

I've heard that most Windows OS licenses are backward compatible. That is, if you own Vista, you can unload it and load Xp or 98 and the license covers it. You can back load all the way down to W3.1 if you want. I think you have to own the media that the OS came on, but am not sure. I know there were lots of folks that bought new PCs with Vista and legally downgraded them to XP. You might want to check it out.

I just bought a new ThinkPad. It came with Vista Home Premium installed and XP Pro on disk. It was my first look at Vista. It took me all of ten minutes to decide I didn't want it. XP Pro and Debian Linux now live on the machine.

 

[jgrreed]

What do the medical instruments use? What kind of box is on a those big whole-body nmr machines you guys like to charge us so much to climb into? The high-powered specialized graphics systems we used to see, like Sun and Silicon Graphics and others whose names I have forgotten, mostly seem to have been absorbed, like DEC, or simply gone away. I wonder if they have proprietary computers on those Gawd awfully expensive toys, or use one of the two remaining "standards".Chuck

Heard back from my buddy last night who's a GE tech...... Linux.

-Jer.

 

[jgrreed]

Playing a good game on an Xbox or similar is nowhere near playing on a high end PC. People pay a lot for a good sound system when they could listen to a radio and hear the same music.

After responding to every Mac Zealot accusation on this post as fast as possible with raised blood pressure, I will admit that I fully plan to build myself a PC (with the help of a friend) for flight simming. Reason being that multiple video cards and multiple monitors are easier, and cheaper, on a PC.

I've done some reading on this, and it seems that MS Flight sim can be run quite nicely on a Macbook Pro or Mac Pro (not a Macbook according to what I've read, not enough graphics power) using parellels or fusion, but not to the same extent as on a high powered PC.

I'm sure someone will ask, why not play x-plane?? Seems that it's good too, but I'm just more familiar with MS FS X.

Once it's built I'm going to keep it off the web except to update and play (ie. live weather).

-Jer.