[opendtv] Re: I'm starting to feel sorry for, and worry about

  • From: Kon Wilms <konfoo@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 11:40:24 -0700

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:39 AM,  <dan.grimes@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> "Everything Apple produced before OSX was a total pile, no better than it's
> Windows counterpart in terms of stability or quality. What else could one
> expect from a cooperative multitasking OS, however?"
>
> I disagree.  In my experience, up to Mac 9.6, the Mac was always more stable
> and more productive (faster performance and consistent GUI across multiple
> applications, etc).  I saw a T-shirt in the mid-'90s that stated "Windows 95
> = Macintosh '86".  So I must not be the only person that holds this opinion.

Maybe I should clarify then - my background is *nix operating systems.
Back in those days I was running Linux and HPUX. Both Win95 and OS9
were toys in comparison. Not that there's anything wrong with a toy
OS, just, it is what it is. OS9 was a cooperative multitasking OS with
shoddy memory management and process memory protection. I rest my
case.

> "Hardware was and still is more expensive than a PC clone counterpart."
>
> Absolutely, because the components that made up the Mac hardware were more
> expensive...and superior by the opinion of some.  But I tend to agree with
> Craig when he says that pricing was much closer when comparing performance,
> specifications and features.

We're talking about current hardware. You can't compare pricing based
on two completely different system architectures that had different
manufacturer pricing right down to the CPU.

Apple's excuse for higher pricing in non-Intel days was that the
components were superior. When they moved to Intel they could no
longer use this excuse, and instead shifted it to a nebulous of an
excuse along the lines of 'it's just better.. we use these connectors
other people don't, blah blah'. Nevermind the actual systems are Intel
an manufactured by the same plants that churn out cheap clones. I
guess fooling the sheeple is easy.

> When I developed code for each processor in a few of my college courses in
> the mid to late '80s, I always thought the Motorola processors were superior
> and usually a step ahead of Intel.  To me, they had a better (more
> sophisticated) instruction set and more efficient architecture.  The only
> way Intel could compete at some levels was to develop the RISC (not that
> that is why the RISC was developed).  Was this not a commonly held belief of
> that era?  I'm sure there was some leap-frogging in future development.

It was. But the Amiga wiped the floor with the old Macs due to their
dedicated coprocessors.

>  During my work with them, Motorola's processors not only cost more but
> Motorola did not give away any development kits or documentation like Intel

Specifications were not that hard to obtain. If I could obtain specs
for an Amiga system architecture including Motorola 680x0 CPU and
coprocessor registers and opcodes, in South Africa... well, then you
have no excuse ;-).

> But in my opinion, one of the great things about Macintosh up to 9.6 was the
> fact that every program had consistent GUIs and commands.  One could almost
> operated a new program without instruction because one would know exactly
> where the commands resided.  And with consistent shortcut keys across all
> applications, efficiency was guaranteed.

Right - and if you remember back then, no-one was reskinning Windows
applications either. Only with the advent of WinXP did 3rd parties
start reskinning and replacing common controls. Windows had the same
set of shortcut mechanisms as MacOS had.

> Amusingly, we attempted to go all Mac in our new facility (2009) but not all
> our applications and services would work on this OS so we went back to
> Windows.  Particularly of interest, the HPs specified and purchased to work
> with our applications (i.e., Adobe and Avid) were well over $6K each while
> the Mac equivalent originally specified was actually less.

But less for what reason. What kind of vendor agreements were in play,
how many units, what service parameters, and who was bidding the job.
And that's only the tip of the iceberg, right. So one can't really
compare price based on that.

What one can do, is compare price on components to build a 'clone',
and warranties for said components. The hackintosh is always cheaper.

> I guess my underlying point here is that one cannot discount the features
> and performance of the Apple Macintosh just because the PC enjoys more
> sales.  Throughout history, Apple has constantly made decisions that have
> hurt their sales, but that doesn't mean that their appliance could not get
> the job done or was inferior (with the exception of a generation or two of
> Macs).  And I would argue that neither operating system, processor or
> machine would have developed as fast if they didn't compete with each other
> at certain levels.

I think that part we agree on. The problem I have in this particular
discussion is the 'woe is me' excuse for Apple not besting Microsoft
due to some cherry-picked excuses, followed up by the ironic 'but
Apple is and was always better and is not more expensive' claptrap.

Cheers
Kon
 
 
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