From: abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu (Kelvin Leung)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.hongkong
Subject: Re: COBOL, SQL was:(Electronics/videogame .....)
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:24:52 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

this article's main focus is to discuss about Mac and its presence in Hong Kong.
If you are not interested in the topic, hit 'n' now.  As it is rather boring
and quite long. (sorry, folks!) :)
 

hcha1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Heung Wing          Chat           ) writes:
>    However, I wonder whether Mac is suitable for everyone.
>    If U are looking from the user level, no doubt that Mac is a very good
>    choice. They have very good graphic interface and easy to use.

>    If U are looking from the programming level, U will find PC is more flexible.
>    A typical machine like Mac plus, OS is stored in ROM, there is no way U could
>    change your machine's OS to other OS(like UNIX or MINIX). In PC(or others),
>    U may.

That's not true.  I think there are a lot of merit for putting part of
the OS in the computer.  For instance, you don't have to load every
bit of the operating system from ROM everytime you startup your computer.
The only problem I can think of is the difficulty
to upgrade it later.  

With a MMU, you can easily mask the address of the ROM and redirect it to
the RAM.  In fact, didn't Mac have a program which allowed you to relocate
the ROM image to faster RAM?  Besides, Mac also have other operating systems,
such as AU/X.  I guess the reasons why people only see Mac runnning Mac
interface (or whatever you prefer to call it) is because Apple intended
people to do so. If Apple doesn't impose a cohesive system, Mac users
will be forced to choose among OS/2, Window NT, MS-Dos, Coherent, Linux,
BSD UNIX, etc.  This could be a mess.

>    Moreover, Mac's interrupt handler is so good that U don't know where is the
>    problem. When your program got a problem(like page fault or ???), a very
>    nice dialog box will prompt U to restart. And U will never know it is
>    because your program find a page fault and .....

Actually, if you know the Mac inside out, you could hit the "programmer's key"
on the side of the mac, enter MacsBug and trace your error.  Furthermore, 
Mac often tells you what causes the error--such as a faulty command,
invalid _A/_F trap calls, etc. before it explodes.  On the other hand,
the IBMs I have worked with will only lock up when they crash.

I think Hong Kong has begun to accept Macintosh.  If you look around, you
can actually find many Macintoshes on sale.  Last summer (or was it X'mas?)
my brother was going to get a PowerBook 140 in Hong Kong.  We actually managed
to find quite a few places which sell them.  The price was a bit higher
than Apple's Educational Discount, so my brother finally bought his Mac through
his school.  Come to think about it, Mac has been selling in Hong Kong years
ago.  I remember when my father picked up a Mac+ catalog.  The price was
insanely high at that time.  Now, the market should be better, as Apple has
dramatically reduced Macs' prices in the past couple of years.

I used to hangout in Silvercord  (I believe the Computer center has been 
moved).  The computer shops there sell a variety of computers: Wang, Apple,
IBM (of course), Commodore, etc.  The bookstore there also has a wide 
selections of Mac books and magazines.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe seeing some Macintoshes in Golden
Center also.  One of the shops was selling Mac software.  They even
have a package of ChineseTalk (?) 6.0<something> which caught my attention.

BTW, how's Apple's Chinese system?  how are the input methods, etc.?  
I believe IBM's Chinese systems are still years ahead of Apple's.   Is that   
still true today?   Also, how much does ChineseTalk 7.0 go for these days?

>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>    Ronald Chat

Sorry for boring you. :)

Yours Sincerely,
Kelvin
email: abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu