From: furballs@sequent.com (Paul Penrod)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Macintosh bigots
Date: 16 Nov 92 07:59:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: sequent.1992Nov16.075934.14251
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc.

In article <1992Nov16.071837.6948@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> jess@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Jess M Holle) writes:
>>If all a person wants to do is write a report, then choice your
>>poison. If you want to solve a problem, such as 3D rendering of
>>seismic data, while handling on the fly analysis of incoming data
>>via a satellite link, and shuffle all this around several differnt
>>kinds of networks, while still being able to run about 99% of all
>>DOS and windows software out there, then the IBM is the most cost
>>effective choice. Granted you could shred a Mac and stuff all the
>>hardware in it to do these kinds of things, but it would no longer
>>be a Mac according to Apple's definition.
>
>I have rendered 3D seismic data on my Mac (depending on your definition
>of render, this was a Matlab demo with 3D surface plots; I've also

Running things such as brute stacks, filter panels, and migrations.
Any computer with sufficient video can render a 3D image; just how
long does it take is the question. The rendering I am refering too
required some custom hardware attached to portable Raytheon system
and some serious math horsepower (WEITEK chip set).

>_rendered_ stuff on my Mac).  I know people who analyze incoming data
>on the fly with their Mac (though it is stock data via phone line, not
>satalite, but what's the difference computer-wise).  I've done more

I have written a communications package to do this in real time.
After reviewing the pluses and minuses of doing the same thing on
the Mac for up to a dozen different satellite feeds, the cost
factor was way to high and amount of effort required to get it to
happen was too much to recover the cost of doing the work. On the
PC I could carry the original work over to each of the varients and
just plug in the hardware, boot the drivers and off we go. Device
drivers are wonderful things; granted they are DOS's poor man
equivalent to UNIX daemons, but that is what gives this environment
it's flexability. I still prefer UNIX's way of doing it though.
Something about multi-tasking makes these things so much easier,
especially when you can hook up threads in modular fashion.

>than my share of shuffling data/files/programs over networks of various 
>sorts.  I couldn't POSSIBLY care less about running Windows or DOS
>software, but Soft AT is good enough if I am FORCED to run an occasional
>DOS program.  Now what was it about the PC that made it an more effective
>choice for all of these things.  Oh, yeah, I know, enough bone-heads
>bought them for long enough that they have a huge market inertia.
>

Maybe, but it was the friendly development environment and the
backing of IBM, Microsoft and Borland that got delvelopers to stay
and turn out apps people use more than any other.

>Nothing on the PC compares to the Mac GUI, however.  There comes a time 
True...

>when you have to drop the dead weight.  The PC has an awful lot of this.  
>It has a huge variety of programs written for it, yes, but these will be 
>written for other platforms as DOS (all too slowly) dies.  The ONLY
>special things about the PC are: number of units operating and unit
>price.  As other platforms (UNIX and Mac) drop in price, these advantages
>will SLOWLY fade away.
>

I hope they do. But, it is the PC environment that is causing
changes in other platforms such as UNIX. UNIX people want the DOS
apps, minus the DOS. Apple may have popularized the XEROX GUI way
of doing things, but it was the PC that made personal computing
acceptable to business and the masses and drives much of the market
and development today.


>Jess Holle


-- 
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            Bureaucracy: noun, plural - Bureaucracies.
         The process of turning energy into solid waste.
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Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy