[WinMac] FUD [WAS: please read A.S.A.P (easy but important)]
Dan Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Tue, 02 Feb 1999 17:48:28 -0500
I'll answer inline
At 05:35 PM 2/1/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Jacques wrote:
>
>> So your mission if you choose to accept it, would be to provide me with
>> as many reasons you can think of to go mac instead of pc.
>>
>>
>I use both platforms daily, but I have been lucky enough to slowly move 95
>per cent of my work from my Windows machine to my Mac.
>
>For me, the advantages are:
>
>Less downtime -- both machines crash from time to time, but you will spend
>far less time fixing things with a Mac. A good example: a clean install of
>the OS (including time to get everything working again) takes a little more
>than an hour on a Mac, and a day on a Windows PC.
Not true: As long as you have an ERD (Emergency Repair Disk), an NT
reinstallation takes about 15 minutes. And you don't NEED to do a clean
installation.
>
>Better tools: AppleScript for automating tasks (the combination of BBEdit
>and AppleScript for web page authoring is unbeatable), QuickTime for
>multimedia, ColorSync for handling scanned images. There are no comparable
>tools for Windows. Also, I find many of my most useful tools are shareware
>programs that do one thing extremely well. I find that professionals seem
>to rely on shareware more on the Mac than on the PC, saving money.
>
Funny: I use QuickTime for Windows all the time.
>A stable OS: Mac OS 8.5.1 is the best OS Apple has had in years. There's a
>reason why Windows 98 has been dubbed "Monica 98" -- it goes down on you so
>often.
Here, I agree: Windoze 98 sucks. But not NT...
>
>Plug-and-Play: If stability is an issue with Win98, they might want you to
>use WinNT, which lacks both Plug and Play and driver support for many
>peripherals. Besides, Win98 Plug and Play is not as reliable as the Mac's
>(we make a networking product that is (unfortunately) easier to set up on
>WinNT than Win98).
Well, I'll respond in two parts:
A) "Plug and Pray" is indeed an issue with NT *with legacy ISA devices;*
but a non-issue as long as you stick with either PCI peripherals or the
AlphaNT platform;
B) Driver support? You gotta be kidding! Just look at the array of PCI 2.1
cards that have NetWare, NT, 95/98, 3.1, and even OS/2 & Linux drivers; yet
don't have MacOS drivers.
In addition, you can always punch up MS' Hardware Compatibility List at:
<http://www.microsoft.com/hwtest/hcl/> to see if the peripheral you want
is on the list or not. And *UNLIKE APPLE* Microsoft actually TESTS two of
each device in their labs for 30 days trying to "break" the device and
driver. With "MacOS compatibility, it's a crapshot. After all, can you say
"Adaptec?!"
>
>Robust support for new standards: USB and FireWire are the standard Mac I/O
>interfaces. These will save you money in the long run, as inexpensive
>peripherals become available.
Agreed... But "FireWire" is actually an IEEE standard... IEEE 1394 to be
exact.
>
>A better UI: The elegant Mac interface will speed your work.
But no right mouse button nor scrolling wheel...
>
>Fast machines: The G3 is a remarkably fast chip, faster than the Pentium II
>at the same clock rate, under most circumstances.
But what about the DEC Alpha running NT? And what about support for
multiple CPU's? I sure haven't seen any dual G3 modules, even from Sonnet
nor (gag!) NewerTech...
On the other hand, NT/Workstation 4.0 supports dual CPU's; and NT/Server
4.0 supports up to 4 CPU's *directly out of the box* for true
multitasking... [BTW, NT/S supports up to 32 CPU's with custom Hardware
Abstraction Layers (HAL's).]
>
>Affordable: Compare prices on a similarly-outfitted Compaq or Dell.
...And drop in the second CPU & watch the numbers change!
>
>I hope all this helps.
>
>
>Jim Royal
>Technical Publications
>"Understanding is a three-edged sword"
>
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