I count myself among the Mac-faithful,
GK, though I've never owned one. But don't take that to mean anything because I've only ever bought & owned one computer in my 30-year life: the 486/66 I currently have at home (w/ 2x CD-ROM, updated to 36MB RAM and 1.2GB HD WOW <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/eek.gif" border=0> ). Any other computers I had were borrowed for extended periods from my employers (helps to always have a computer admin-type job). I used to admin the Macs in college and I've always loved using them (still do, when I can get my hands on one).
Originally posted by BorderPatrol:
I think all Mac users are just people that want to against the grain so they will feel different from everyone else.
I haven't ever heard any reason good enough to by a Mac and have to put up with getting applications for a Mac months after they come out for windows. What a pain in the a**.
Mac may be a better system than windows, I know it was at one time, but then OS/2 was the best of all in my evaluation. Until they come out with an operating system that can take applications from other OS's and convert them to it's language I am going to stick with what works most conveniently regardless of how I feel about it. Call me a boring realist.
To BP: In my own defense (and possibly defending others), I never used Mac because I wanted to be different. The computer labs in college had PCs & Macs in roughly equal proportions. I learned both at the same time. I know both equally well, but found I used the PC for work and Mac for work AND fun! I just liked the Mac better. Here's why ...
I know what you mean, BP, about the apps & all. Point acknowledged. But for me, I always had the apps I needed (Word, Excel, etc.) plus I had better drawing programs (loved "Canvas") and better free/shareware utils & games from the Internet. Further, Macs rarely crashed (I always spent more admin time w/ the PCs), Macs had everything cool already built-in (sound, good video), and they were easy to configure and add on to: modem, memory, new video card, hard/ removable/ ext. floppy/ CD drives (all SCSI, so no slow parallel port Zips) ..
ALL of which were truly Plug'n'Play (not the pseudo PnP from Microsoft). You literally just put 'em in and they worked. It was also routine (if you could afford it) to have a SCSI hard drive you carried around with you and plugged into whatever Mac you used (could store LOTS of porn that way <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/groucho-marx.gif" border=0> ). Today, I have a 40x CD-ROM to add to my 486, but I need to buy a different card to get it to work. When adding memory, the CMOS has to be tweaked. Sound config is a pain & often difficult (ports, interrupts) ... actually that goes for ANY new device, like CD burners these days. Modem config is based on COM1/COM2. All of these things are
UNHEARD OF in the Mac world, and thus, Mac is a lot LESS of a pain in the a$$.
Even in the OS: files "know" what file format they are and which app should use them, so you don't have to make sure you name something with the right extension to get it to open properly. Plus it's tricky to change the setting and therefore harder to get a file that looks like it's in the wrong format. They also had voice-recognition down back in the early 90s. In 1992, I would speak to my Mac and have it open/close apps & windows, and have it talk back to me for fun (me:"Tea. Earl grey. Hot." Mac:"Yes, Capt. Picard."). Overall, Macs were always easier to learn, easier to use, easier to admin, easier to add-on to, and were just plain more fun.
Finally, about the cross-OS thing: even back in the day, there were packages for Mac that would act as a PC shell. You'd run the program like any other Mac app and have a PC OS in a separate window while you continued to do other Mac stuff in other windows. You could run DOS/Windows commands in it ... it read/wrote PC-based disks and ran all programs written for Intel-based systems.
Anyway, that's why I love Macs. If that sounded like a rant, please read it again. Just sharing the facts of my experience.
Spiff <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/scan.gif" border=0>
[This message has been edited by SpacemanSpiff (edited June 07, 2001).]
