From: smoon@strfleet.gsfc.nasa.gov (Sang J. Moon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: RE-MACS COST TOO MUCH (NOT!)
Date: 28 Aug 92 13:41:44 GMT
Organization: NASA GSFC Code 534.3

In article <28046@sophia.inria.fr>, jmale@melpo.inria.fr (Jean-Michel Male) writes:
> 
> --
> 
> 	  It seems to me (perhaps I am wrong) that, for my personal 
> 	  experience, the major problems existing with PCs are their
> 	  (notorious ?) unreliability. When the PC-people speak about
> 	  prices, they do not mention that what I would call a reliable
> 	  PC (Compaq for instance) is expensive; they tell you the
> 	  advantages of PCs and the prices of the cheap clones which ARE
> 	  not reliable. If you want to compare Macs and PCs, you'll
> 	  have to take into acount this.
> 
> 	  If you want to flame me, please do not Email, and think twice
> 	  before doing it; I am french and I will probably not understand
> 	  insults or even deep humor ;-)
> 
> -- 
> 
>   
> 	Jean-Michel MALE'		\\\\\
> 					 - - 
> 	INRIA, Projet SINUS,		  <  )
> 	Centre de Sophia-Antipolis	  \/
> 	06565 Valbonne (FRANCE)
> 
> 	Email: jmale@mirsa.inria.fr
> 
> 
> 
> (Mort aux vaches !)

I've have a IIsi 5/80 with an extended keyboard and a 13" Apple color
monitor.  These are the problems I've had on it in the single year
I've used it:

1. Sound goes out randomly.  I won't detail this because it's been
   detailed in these newsgroups before.
2. Monitor goes out randomly.  I've been told that it is a capacitor
   problem common in certain serial number ranges.
3. Incompatibility when upgrading to system 7.  I finally had to
   reinstall most of the software or get system 7 versions of software.
   It was not just a simple installation like I see some people here
   boast about.  If you use system 7, get Behierarhic or some similar
   hierarchical menu extension.  It greatly increases the useability
   of system 7.
4. Computer randomly hangs when accessing the ethernet card.  I still
   haven't fully tracked down this problem.  It seems to have mostly
   gone away when I reinstalled system 7 for the third time.
5. Microsoft Word 5.0.  Enough said.

And dealer support for the Mac really is no better and sometimes worse
than for PCs.  I also use a 386-40 Mhz 4/211 running DOS 5.0 and Windows
3.1  (Get Backmenu.  It's to Windows like Behierarchic is to system 7),
and I was surprised at how far PCs have come.  I still like Macs better
mainly because of the ability to share printers without extra hardware,
to read MS-DOS disks, and to share files in system 7.  However, the PCs
are no slouch now, and I still haven't found an easy way to do wildcard
operations on the Mac (i.e. "dir *.blk" or "del file*.*").  WYSIWYG word
processing was also another major factor which originally drew me to the
Macs (along with the longer file names), and the PCs are catching up.
Windows comes with a decent word processor that I would compare with
MacWrite, a decent paint program that I would compare with MacPaint, and a
decent terminal program that I would compare with MockTerminal.  If I had
to choose between getting a 386-40 4/211 SVGA (non-interlaced) system for
$1400 and a IIsi 5/80 system for $2800, I would choose the 386 system (in
fact I did but I still use both).  Apple makes very good computers, but
their prices are unrealistic when compared to the competition.

Sang J. Moon