Why do Mac's exist?

[elfangor801]

I thought I'd run this by y'all. I have a PC. But some people I know have Macs. Can anyone explain why for Christs' Sake??? They hardly have any games, and half the time stuff isn't compatible from Mac to PC. I think Gates should just buy out Apple and get rid of it so I don't have to either work on a project entirely at home or entirely at school because the school has one and I have the other...

 

[Taliesin]

I think it has something to do with capitalism and free enterprise. That's what I'm told, anyway. People like Macs, and dislike Microsoft for abusive tactics, lousy programs, and innumerable security flaws/backdoors. In a rare case of textbook proceedings, a well-liked, not-evil product sells and makes profits, supporting a competitor for computer business.

 

[Perfection]

They're also quite adept at movie and sound editing.

 

[elfangor801]

Okay, but then why don't they just make them more compatible so I don't have to show my friends pictures instead of emailing them .

 

[rbis4rbb]

PC's are cheaper, though.

 

[Chairman Meow]

I thought I'd run this by y'all. I have a PC. But some people I know have Macs. Can anyone explain why for Christs' Sake??? They hardly have any games, and half the time stuff isn't compatible from Mac to PC. I think Gates should just buy out Apple and get rid of it so I don't have to either work on a project entirely at home or entirely at school because the school has one and I have the other...

Perhaps they exist because Apple likes existing? Besides, some people like Macs, especially OSX. And, by your logic, because most people use Windows, I shouldn't be allowed to use Linux. After all, Linux isn't completely compatible with Windows, so it shouldn't exist, right?

edit - and what are you trying to do that you're having problems with? It can probably be solved.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Moderator Action: Moved to Computers.

 

[Shadylookin]

I thought I'd run this by y'all. I have a PC. But some people I know have Macs. Can anyone explain why for Christs' Sake??? They hardly have any games, and half the time stuff isn't compatible from Mac to PC. I think Gates should just buy out Apple and get rid of it so I don't have to either work on a project entirely at home or entirely at school because the school has one and I have the other...

I have heard the new apples are really good. and if you aren't really into computer games they can do anything a microsoft product can.

 

[stormbind]

PC owes it's initial success to two things:

1. IBM. This WW2 hero could sell anything they put their name to!
2. False promise that upgrades meant more performance in the long run.

PC owes it's lasting success to one man:

1. Bill Gates (notice how nobody uses IBM Warp OS!)

In the real world, the PC was vastly inferior to Commodore, Amiga, Atari, Apple, Macintosh, Acorn, and others..

But Microsoft was there from the start. Microsoft benefited from IBM's trusted name like nobody else, and capitalised on it with simply good business sense:

When all other OS vendors (including IBM!) charged Software Developers extra to use their tools... Microsoft made those tools FREE!

Basically, all the other companies thought their superior hardware would put favourable market pressures on software developers to support their platforms. However, software developers are generally not big investors - they are hobbyists!

Hobbyists don't give a flying sh*t about market pressures; they just use whatever is available to them!

As a direct result, the Microsoft DOS (and later Windows) just had more software than any other platform.

PC architecture owes it's success to just two things... 1) IBM's WW2 hero status, and 2) Microsoft correctly targetting hobbyists and students.

The actual PC architecture was, and still is, inferior. It may be faster now, but the actual core design concepts are pretty poor.

 

[Taliesin]

IBM = WWII hero? Aren't they famous for filling massive contracts for the Third Reich? Or was that not known at the time?

 

[stormbind]

Probably not known. IBM (mechanical) computers were - I believe - used in WW2 US Navy warships. Perhaps hero status came from Pacific campaigns?

IBM were not liked as much in Europe until the 1990s.

Throughout the 1980s, Commodore/Amiga were much more sought after in Germany. Acorn remained big in the UK. IBM-PC were practically trapped in the USA. Europeans simply didn't want (1) Low Performance, (2) High Cost, (3) Poor Graphics, (4) No music.

But for some reason Americans bought them. I was told the American interest was caused by IBM being a WW2 hero - and I have accepted that, because there's no other logical reason.

 

[t92300]

<OT>
If you want to know about IBM and WW2 try reading IBM and the holocaust" can be found at http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ or at amazon http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/102-1474078-1865751
</OT>

As for why there are macs .. well.. (from http://www.apple-history.com which was found using www.google.com and searching for origin macs apple history)
well it apppears a man called Steven Wozniak decieded to make one

 

[civ2]

Why do Mac's exist?

Well because somebody needs to make his money selling some out-dated products.

Better question would be:
Why do Ethernet exist?

 

[Ankka]

Macs exist because they are user-friendly, well-designed, easy to use, stable, they are actually designed, not just a grey plastic box. They are superior in video and music and picture editing.

Macs are actually very PC-compatible. You just seem not to be able to believe it and so never tried it.

How on earth do you manage to not be able to share pictures from your PC to the macs via email? Nothing is easier.

I bought a mac some months ago and have been using it very happily. No problems so far, except that I had to buy Civ 3 again. No compatibility problems with any word-documenst I've written on My iBook and sent via email so I can print them at school PC's.

The only real problem is that our home printer is so old it isn't USB and so I can't print them from my Mac.

And if you say Macs are outdated, that's absolutely nonsense. Go buy a dual 2.5GHz G5 PowerMac and a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 machine and compare the speed. Compare the compatibility from PC to Mac and then the other way around. Macs are much more compatible with PC's than PC's with macs. Who is outdated? Macs have a much more advanced OS. And you can do almost anything you can do on a PC on a mac. It's just that there a fewer programs to choose from.

There is absolutely no reason to call macs outdated.

 

[FriendlyFire]

bring back the beloved AMIGA

 

[stormbind]

I haven't owned a modern Macintosh, the list would go something like this:

Apple series: Number-crunching workstations in the age of Commodore 64. Not so good on entertainment.
Macintosh 68K series: PC-like computers, 100% SCSI, high performance. One-way PC compatibility *I have owned these*
Macintosh PPC & Macintosh-compatible computers: Syncronised with PC standards (PCI, AGP, PC133, &c); spawned names such as BeBox, BeOS, ForMac, &c.
Macintosh G-series: PC-like, high performance. Some two-way compatibility.

Unlike the PC BIOS which is an open-standard, the Macintosh BIOS is licenced from Apple and is designed for use with MacOS only.

This increases ease of use, because system settings and instalation are automated, but also reduced choice. Working around this setup is possible, but requires enthusiast's knowledge and determination.

Incidentally, Microsoft has demonstrated an interest in assuming similar control over future PC BIOS

Personally, I would prefer a Commodore-like BIOS with built in console. That would be empowering, allow settings to be edited and scripts to be run before loading a larger OS, and gives much greater freedom than the PC BIOS.

It would also allow file-manipulation and networking without installing what we now consider an OS; just rock-solid stable for troubleshooting.

 

[Comraddict]

In the real world, the PC was vastly inferior to Commodore, Amiga, Atari, Apple, Macintosh, Acorn, and others..

Saying that PC is inferior to Commodore 64 makes you fool.

 

[stormbind]

Saying that PC is inferior to Commodore 64 makes you fool.

Ha! I think your response makes you look ignorant.

Compare the Commodore 64 with the IBM PC it competed with.

Commodore 64:
256-colour display
8-bit sound/midi interface
More software than you can shake a stick at
Responsive console-OS, plus optional GUI addons
£99.99 with free games

IBM PC:
mono-colour display
beep!
Bloody awful software
Slowly loads non-responsive MS-DOS
£2000+

Have you ever used a PC from the 1980s?

Any software which was available for both C64 and IBM PC, was better on the C64, and better still on the AMIGA. What made the C64 so strong was that it had a dedicated processor to every task: it could animate sprites, and play music, and make disk access, without slowing down it's number crunching. It lacked the memory to store the data of many tasks though.

The IBM PC had more number crunching potential, but because it relied on the CPU for everything (even to control addon components) the end result was much slower when running multi-media applications. Thus the concept of the IBM PC was flawed, and we are still stuck with these mistakes today: i.e. GeFORCE 6800 GT being bottle-necked by a CPU.

What made the Commodore weak was the success of the C64: Because there was so much software for the C64, very few people wanted to upgrade to incompatible newer models which lacked software support (a bit like trying to sell an Itanium to home users). As a result, Commodore were unable to sell their newer models and kept pumping out the C64 for over a decade... imagine pumping out the exact same PC model for a decade! It's gonna look pretty dated by the end

I choose to be realistic and keep comparissons to their respective eras. That makes the C64 an early 1980s computer, even if it continued to sell into 1996.

Although the hardware is old and slow, the C64 design concept can still be tested today. People have managed to get it running Linux, connect to the Internet, and display web pages. Results are fugly because it's hardware is so antiquated, but succesfully running the multi-tasking kernel is "proof of concept". I don't think an equally aged IBM PC can pull that off.

 

[DaEezT]

Personally, I would prefer a Commodore-like BIOS with built in console. That would be empowering, allow settings to be edited and scripts to be run before loading a larger OS, and gives much greater freedom than the PC BIOS.

It would also allow file-manipulation and networking without installing what we now consider an OS; just rock-solid stable for troubleshooting.

So I just have to teach my BIOS to authenticate with Kerberos so I can access my AFS partition and teach it IPsec so I can access my VPN, teach it ext3/Reiser/XFS so I can do file manipulation and teach it to work like a devicemapper so it can decrypt my partitions...
and so I end up with a BIOS as big as my Linux Kernel and just as vulnerable to faulty driver but with the small difference that when I compile a bad kernel that won't boot I just press reset and boot my last stable or my fallback kernel, but a destroyed BIOS is something else entirely.

It's ok the way it is. Let the BIOS stay basic and everyone who wants low level administration should make a small partition for it with all the scripts and drivers you need for your tasks (not some generic stuff shipped with the BIOS) and a bootime option to boot it. More flexible and configurable for your local needs.

 

[stormbind]

Not really. The C64 BIOS never had the problems you highlight