macintosh vs. microsoft ?

[Evangelion]

Seebs -

Macs aren't much more proprietary than, e.g., Sony VAIO systems.

*snip*

Perhaps, perhaps not. But the VAIO is a laptop, and we're discussing desktops here.

BTW, evangelion, the "limitation" of the iMac just means there's a kind of mac which, by your claims, there is no corresponding PC for.

*snip*

Well, exactly! Because if you brought out a PC version of the iMac, you'd be openly mocked in the street for the entire 2 months that your company existed.

My point was that PCs just don't have the kind of built-in obsolescence for which iMacs are renowned. That's the beauty of 'em.

 

[juiblex]

neither mac or win, Linux is the way to go.

In fact, im putting Mandrake 9 on my box today, ive just finished installing better video and sound cards so it seemed like an appropriate step.

 

[Evangelion]

Blah. You smart Linux nerds really get up my nose.

 

[Evangelion]

BTW, what kind of hardware are you running?

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Evangelion
Seebs -



*snip*

Perhaps, perhaps not. But the VAIO is a laptop, and we're discussing desktops here.

The VAIO series includes desktops, or did for quite a while; they're the purple ones.

The point is, PC vendors also use weird and proprietary hardware.

*snip*

Well, exactly! Because if you brought out a PC version of the iMac, you'd be openly mocked in the street for the entire 2 months that your company existed.

No, it would be fairly successful until you got sued.

It's funny to me that, after years of ribbing the Mac for not having choice or variety, PC users are making fun of the Mac for offering a choice they don't get.

My point was that PCs just don't have the kind of built-in obsolescence for which iMacs are renowned. That's the beauty of 'em.

In the real world, most computers are never upgraded, and are retired as soon as they're done depreciating. People like us are the exception.

For $200 off the price of a computer, most people will happily take built-in obsolescence; they'll get a new computer $200 sooner, and upgrades are generally a poor price/performance deal.

 

[SeanM]

Hi Evangelion,

Now that finals are over, I can resume this little discussion. First I'd like to apologize in regards to your name. I'm pretty sure that I accidentally clicked correct on my spell-checker when you're name was selected because the first correction that comes up for Evangelion is Evangeline.

"ROTFL! You can count the number of "PC all-in-one computers" on the fingers of one hand, matey! These days, the term "all-in-one" is pretty much limited to PC laptops!

Indeed, there are very few, but they are still being made. (Gateway's Profile 4, Sony's desktop Vaio W series)

You know exactly what I'm getting at. Why not just admit that this is a shocking limitation of the iMac? (Snipped praise) But what the heck are you going to do with it after it's outlived its usefulness? You can't upgrade.

Don't forget that Macs tend to maintain their resale value longer than PCs, so there is always the option to sell it. If you're referring to the death of it's LCD, then there isn't much you can do. (Aside from trying to get a new LCD installed) I agree that it is a limitation, but that is what I expect from an all-in-one computer.

That's called "built-in obsolescence", and it's one of the greatest weaknesses of the Mac range. PC user (OTOH), can escape this by constantly upgrading.

And a mac user can escape this by opting for the powermac instead of the imac. The same could be said for a PC user purchasing another desktop over Gateway's Power 4.

As far as the upgrading processor and memory is concerned, that is relatively easy. Granted, we can't upgrade to 2.4 ghz (we simply have yet to reach that speed) one could go to any mac catalog an order an upgrade card from one of many vendors. To upgrade the speed of the Powermac, one simply pulls the latch on the side of the case and all the guts come down with the door. Very cool. (Apple's Powermac web page has a good picture of this) There is no difficulty in upgrading the memory as well. I popped off the keyboard on my powerbook, slid my ram in and put the keyboard back on. Now I'm cruising with one gig of ram.

With a Mac... well, you can sit tight and wait for Apple to sell you some over-priced piece of equiment that won't work in anything but a Mac, or you can scrounge about for a PC part that's compatible with Macs.

As I have said previously, one does not need to order parts specifically from Apple. Many 3rd party parts work perfectly fine in Macs.

 

[SeanM]

By the way, a few PC companies did try to clone the original iMac appearance and they were sued. (eMachines, Futuer Power, Daewoo Telecom)

 

[aaron]

I use windows. I would like to change to Linux because Microsoft likes to have to much control. I dont know how to use Linux. It is pretty complicated to start out.

 

[seebs]

Linux and *BSD are worth learning, if you do much with computers... But of course, I think everyone should learn to program, 'cuz it's useful.

 

[juiblex]

BTW, what kind of hardware are you running?

yes, i am a nerd. you know its bad when you toss up the pros and cons between a Star Trek TNG marathon and a night out on the town with your friends, and then decide to stay home.

but yes, 1 gigahertz processor, about 7 Gig of disk space, OpenGL Matrox <i think, at least thats what my old one was> video, new Vibra 128 Creative Sound, 384 Mb RAM <i really should get around to putting some more in>, 1 CD/RW and 1 CD, 17" monitor.

and running now Mandrake 9.0 and Win 98 <gaah...>.

anything else youre interested in? im very proud of my creation.

i intend on putting in another processor soon though.

i think thats pretty good considering i retrieved most of it from business scrap heaps and computer markets.

oh, plus ive coerced my father in to setting up a LAN, so i can fileshare with my sisters computer.

originally posted by aaron:

I use windows. I would like to change to Linux because Microsoft likes to have to much control. I dont know how to use Linux. It is pretty complicated to start out.

Linux is getting more and more user friendly, and i would recommend you install it as soon as they get the new kernel out in a couple of months. And remember, you can have both Win and Linux on the same computer, so its all good.

 

[Evangelion]

Juiblex -

yes, i am a nerd. you know its bad when you toss up the pros and cons between a Star Trek TNG marathon and a night out on the town with your friends, and then decide to stay home.

LOL! These days, I don't even bother to toss it up!

but yes, 1 gigahertz processor, about 7 Gig of disk space, OpenGL Matrox <i think, at least thats what my old one was> video, new Vibra 128 Creative Sound, 384 Mb RAM <i really should get around to putting some more in>, 1 CD/RW and 1 CD, 17" monitor.

and running now Mandrake 9.0 and Win 98 <gaah...>.

Phat. I used to have 300+ Mb of SD RAM, but recently upgraded to 256Mb DDR RAM, which is more powerful than the larger amount of SD RAM! I've only got a Duron 1 Mhz (slightly overclocked to 1150), but I'll probably get around to replacing it with a 2 Mhz chip at some stage.

I'm running a NVidia 32Mb graphics card, an AC97 sound card, an internal Lucent Win modem, a 20 Gb HDD (which will remain, even after I've upgraded to an 80 Mb Seagate), and a 19-inch Hyundai monitor @ 1600 x 1200. Speakers are Altec Lanseng (3.1; 25W RMS), complimented by two Laser speakers (320W.)

anything else youre interested in?

Nope, don't think so.

im very proud of my creation.

As well you should be! I ph34r your 1337 skillz!

i intend on putting in another processor soon though.

How fast?

i think thats pretty good considering i retrieved most of it from business scrap heaps and computer markets.

Absolutely! Mine is a mixture of old and new. One of the guys who boards with me, runs a little computer hardare business from home, so I'm able to purchase the new stuff at cost price (sans retail markup), and any second-hand gear that's left over from his upgrade jobs for clients.

oh, plus ive coerced my father in to setting up a LAN, so i can fileshare with my sisters computer.

W00t!


* Edited to add my CDROM. (No burner yet - but give it time!)

 

[juiblex]

Phat. I used to have 300+ Mb of SD RAM, but recently upgraded to 256Mb DDR RAM, which is more powerful than the larger amount of SD RAM! I've only got a Duron 1 Mhz (slightly overclocked to 1150), but I'll probably get around to replacing it with a 2 Mhz chip at some stage.

I'm running a NVidia 32Mb graphics card, an AC97 sound card, an internal Lucent Win modem, a 20 Gb HDD (which will remain, even after I've upgraded to an 80 Mb Seagate), and a 19-inch Hyundai monitor @ 1600 x 1200. Speakers are Altec Lanseng (3.1; 25W RMS), complimented by two Laser speakers (320W.)

oooh, nice. definately a machine youre going to want to play Quake 2 on. unfortunately i dont have a modem in mine yet, i dont even have my own internet account. but that will all be fixed when i get broadband in about a month.

but if youre in a giving mood, feel free to send those speakers my way. i just have to make do with the ones in my Phillips monitor, which arent exactly 'atmospheric'.

How fast?

depends on what i can afford. i just blew all my money on a Sony Digital Camera <DSCP-51>, and a limited edition boxed Tomb Raider set. darn, Lara Croft knows a sucker when shes sees one, or at least the salesman did.

and i dont have a job as of yet, so cash isnt exactly flowing... not even trickling.

One of the guys who boards with me, runs a little computer hardare business from home, so I'm able to purchase the new stuff at cost price (sans retail markup), and any second-hand gear that's left over from his upgrade jobs for clients.

i just suffice with whats been scraped from my fathers workplace. its amazing what people throw out. would you believe thats where i found my monitor? actually, two of them, i gave the other to my sister. in fact, i would estimate 85% of my machine is from the trashcan.

i love the computer illiterate, when something goes wrong with one piece of the hardware, they throw out the whole computer.

 

[Evangelion]

Uh... I'm not in a giving mood.

So there.

 

[lithium.]

yes, i am a nerd

Heh I like to think of my self as a geek, not a nerd. I use Freebsd, and unix on every computer I have. I even have linux in my xbox.

here is my computers

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=363246#post363246

I have windows on my gaming machine, but that is the only one.

 

[seebs]

Pretty much the same here. NetBSD on most stuff, a couple of macs, some BSD/OS... and then my laptop dual-boots Windows for gaming, and I have a Windows desktop from work that I use to run the windows crud I have to write documentation for sometimes.

 

[Çhàïn$]

Macintosh: Low level beaners who care less about comp ****.
PC: For a little bit more up on the learning scale.
*nix: Brains on millions of toothpicks.

I am a *nixer but I started out with this O.S. when I was 4... so....

Macs are great and all for the vis quality because of that rendering program i forgot that Squaresoft used for Final Fantasy movie... but nothing that could not be done on a windows based 3D Studio Max R4, or even on a *nix based SGI (SGI being the sole reason why graphics are where they are today. Developers of the OpenGL code, which btw Brian Hook (ex Id Software, now works for the Everquest team) was one of the original developers. *gasp!* )

Okay, this is my final post for the night. *phew* first nights worth of posting quite a bit lol.

 

[filosofer]

Of course, now with OS X the Mac is *nix based, so...

 

[evangeline2020]

I'm a bit of a late commer to this conversation, but here's my two pence worth anyway. I had the pleasure to use a Mac at work for 6 months before they "upgraded" to pc. well I have to say I'm hooked, I think Macs are brilliant. The only trouble was that in wanting to buy one for home, all the schools here use pc and so I had to get a pc for the kids. a real shame, especially as macs come in such cool colours now. the only drawback I found was that most gaming shops don't carry much in the way of computer games for mac.
oh well, when the kids leave home maybe I'll upgrade to a mac again.

 

[mac_philo]

My box has OpenLinux and Windows95 (with the Litestep shell), though the only reason I still have Windows is that I don't have any need to free up harddrive space. I never, ever use it. Litestep is cool, though, and I recommend it to all Windows users.

All of my equipment came from the trash.

With the exception of setting up a printer, I'd say Linux is just as user friendly as Windows. My OpenLinux distro is already three years old so maybe newer versions make printer installation easier. I suppose some other things are unintuitive ('ppp,' not 'internet' or whatever) but with a decent manual it's trivial.

 

[BaggaDonuts]

Macintosh is OWNED by Microsoft