[WinMac] Re: Graphic production, which is the better platform?

Dan Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Fri, 08 Jan 1999 14:40:15 -0500

        Well, let's dissect your needs a bit closer:

        1) QuarkXPress 4.0x is an unmitigated disaster, especially on the PowerPC
Macs. When it crashes, you need to reboot a Mac; but at least in Windows
NT, you simply re-launch the program since it was flushed from protected
memory... Something the desktop MacOS lacks;

        2) Illustrator is a toss-up between NT/x86 and MacOS, and so is FreeHand;

        3) If you have a "photographer's eye" then Photoshop is OK on the NT/x86
platform when performing color corrections. In addition, the speed gain
from the 57 extra MMX instructions added to the 286 instruction set adds
tremendously to the speed of Photoshop. [Remember, Adobe was in bed with
Intel early on in the MMX development program.]

        In addition, with multiple CPU's (typically a pair of PII CPU's),
Photoshop will use both CPU's as the multiple .DLL's are running, as
determined by NT's Thread Dispatcher. When a filter is running (such as
Unsharp Mask), the particular filter is using a single thread, which is
dispatched to one of the two CPU's; but other threads handling background
tasks (such as a Web server, other networking, 3D rendering, file system
service, etc...) are dispatched to the other CPU for "nonstop" operation;

        4) MS Word is an interesting case: MS Office 98 for Mac is actually better
than MS Office 97 for Windows... Sort of. Running under windoze 95/98,
Office 97 is *definitely* inferior to Office 98 under MacOS. Under Windows
NT4/SP4, it's a toss-up;

        5) Typefaces are a non-issue: Use Macromedia (ne้ Altsys) Fontographer *on
the Mac* to convert your typeface library to PC format. Fontographer 4.1.5
on the Mac can read in both PostScript Type 1 and TrueType scaleable
typefaces in both Mac Windows formats; and can generate Mac & Windows
TrueType and Type 1 typefaces.

 ---------

        Before buying another Mac, try calling their tech support... It's more
like "Dial-A-Prayer." Compare that to IBM's 24/365 enterprise-level support
not only for their hardware but also for NT. In addition, check out the
warranties, and how well the vendor actually honors their respective
warranties
 <http://www.macintouch.com/applesupport.html>.

        Cheers!
        Dan

At 10:14 AM 1/8/99 PST, Deb replied to me:
>> Liam raised a few good points. However, what we need to find out is
>which
>>apps your creative staff is using. At this point in time, the DTP
>apps are
>>the critical "determining factor" in choosing, or switching to, a
>given
>>platform and OS.
>
> Good point. Sorry about that. If they switched they would switch to
>Windows NT machines, probably only single processors. The apps they
>use are Quark, Photoshop, MS Word, and Illustrator for the majority of
>their work. The print shop also has a machine that uses Inposition and
>Trapper as well. They have ooddles of fonts (of course). Hope this
>helps.

         

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