Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 09:24:29 -0500 
From: Faisal Nameer Jawdat <fj05+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Mac vs. PC (hardware comparison)

Ooh, neat argument.
assumptions:  a -> c
prooof: b, a->c, :. c

merrifie@cidmac.ecn.purdue.edu (Michael C Merrifield) writes:
> In response to some comments about the "inferior hardware" of the Macintosh:
> Anyone seen the Motorola adds about an Ingram Laboratory performance study?
> Look on page 22 & 23 of the July 92 issue of Byte, for example.

Hardware?  Okay. (looks at study...)

> 68040."  The add goes on to say that Ingram Labs (an independent PC testing
> firm) compared the newest 040 Macs (Quadra 950 and 700) to several of the
> quickest 486 Windows PCs running the most popular applications for both
> Macintosh and Windows 3.0 (such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Wingz, PageMaker,
> Persuasion and Illustrator) and measured the performance of "real world
> functions" (such as opening a file, scrolling, running a macro, performing
> calculations, etc.).

This is not a test of a '040 versus a 486.  This is a test of MacOS
vs.  Windows.  Windows *is* *a* *dog*.  You can't say that the pc
hardware sucks because when you run windows on it and then run MacOS
on a comperable Mac, the mac is much faster, because MacOS is much
more efficient on the same hardware.

> "No surprise, really.  Macintosh and its graphical user interface
> were designed from the start around the 68000's true 32-bit
> architecture.  Naturally, it outperforms computers powered by an
> extended 8-bit architecture running a character-based operating
> system with a tacked-on GUI."

Get a 486/50 EISA with an ATI graphics ultra.  Find me a mac that can
match speed for anywhere near double the price...

> This is not another "closed minded" Mac user's attempt to save the
> world from the wages of PC use.  Certainly IBM/clones have a niche
> in the world of personal computing. My intent is to point out that
> if you want a high performance graphical computer, I think the
> Macintosh is the way to go. 

If you want a high performace graphical computer, you buy and SGI.  If
you want a low to medium performance version of an 8 year old
computer based on a outdated and dying 10 year old graphical operating
model with enough high quality stable software to justify the purchace
for at least another 3 years, the Macintosh is probably the way to go.

If you want a medium performance computer that will run everything
from a 13 year old 8 bit character mode os to an extremely modern 32
bit graphical, protected mode, multithreaded, multitasking, virtual
memory, microkernel based multiuser operating system (and no, i don't
mean NT, though that might be able to fit that description above if
you stretched it with Microsoft Marketting Toolkit :-) ) that is
likely to be around into the next century, then a PC might not be a
bad idea.

If you want a modern graphical os that runs on modern hardware and is
constantly being developped in that direction, buy a NeXT.


-- faisal jawdat                  | "Certainly the game is rigged.
email: fj05+@andrew.cmu.edu       | Don't let that stop you;
if mail handler barfs             | if you don't bet, you can't win." 
fj05@andrew.cmu.edu               |        -Lazarus Long
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware