From: coates@newton.physics.uq.oz.au (Tony Coates)
Subject: Re: Mathematica: Mac --> PC?
Organization: Physics Dept. The University of Queensland
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 01:06:24 GMT

In article <16845@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, mike@landau.ucdavis.edu (Mike Hannon) writes:
|> One of the local users has been doing research for some time using Mathematica
|> on a Macintosh II (the original).  Because of the speed, or lack of speed, on
|> the Mac, and because of peer pressure from her coworkers, she has gotten a
|> '486-based PC.  She uses Mathematica in the Windows 3.1 environment on the PC.
|> 
|> She claims first of all that the user interface on the PC is unbelievably
|> bad, compared to the interface on the Mac.  This is, no doubt, partly a
|> subjective evaluation.
|> 
|> In addition, she has had difficulty transferring Mac MMA files to the PC.
|> I.e., she can do file transfers, but the resulting file is often so
|> garbled as to be unusable.  The symptoms are that ``cells'' will disappear,
|> screen information will be printed on top of other information, etc.  And
|> the printed version of the program (printed on the PC) doesn't correspond
|> to what is displayed on the screen.
|> 
|> Some or all of this may be an artifact of the transfer process.  She first
|> did the transfer using Kermit and a modem to upload to a local workstation,
|> then download to the PC.  Lately she's been using a product called ``MacLink
|> Plus PC'', which is tailored to this sort of transfer.  She's done the
|> transfer in text (ASCII) mode and in binary mode.  Some approaches work better
|> than others, but none works reliably.
|> 
|> Is it possible to use Mac MMA files on a PC, while preserving some of the
|> notebook structure?  Is there some preferred way to do the transfer?  Thanks.
|> 
|> 					- Mike
|> -----------
|> Mike Hannon                                 mike@ucdhep     (Bitnet)
|> ucdhep::mike             (HEPnet)           42385::mike     (HEPnet)
|> mike@ucdhep.ucdavis.edu  (Internet)         916-752-4966    (Telephone)

I started out using Mathematica on a Mac, and then went to a PC.  Let me
add that, regardless of various religious assertions, "average" users
find no significant difference between using a Mac and Windows - mice,
icons, it's all much the same stuff, and you can fight all you want
about what key should do what ...
	Still, I personally prefer using the Mac front end over the
Windows one (the Windows implementation still has a way to go, doesn't
it Mr. Wolfram :-) ) (but I haven't seen the latest version yet), 
although it's nice in the Windows version to be able to go to the 
beginning and end of a line using the "Home" and "End" keys.
	I transferred my files from the Mac to the PC, and they were
fine, with the proviso that there seemed to be a problem with plots, so
I removed all of the plots, and then to be safe I removed *all* of the
output cells.  I'm not sure if this last step was necessary, but the
files then transferred perfectly, keeping the notebook structure intact.
	Hope this might help a bit,
							Tony.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Anthony.B.Coates (Tony)
Department of Physics
The University of Queensland  QLD  4072
Australia

Phone: (+617)365 3424           (Physics Departmental Office)
Fax:   (+617)365 1242           (   "         "         "   )
Email: coates@physics.uq.oz.au

"My messages mirror my feelings, but do not reflect University policy."
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