Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: For all you Mac users...
From: feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke)
Date: 21 Nov 92 13:47:53 -0700
Reply-To: sean@digaudio.byu.edu

In article <k#21x9q@rpi.edu>  writes:

>I wish you'd come out with WHAT you can do on a Mac but _not_ do on
>a PC. If I could come up with something like that Id do better
>in these .advocacy flamewars.

>>  And quite a few things that can be done on Macs  
>>but require high-end-PCs because of the PC's antiquated I/O subsystem.
>
>Ditto for this (Although it strikes me as more believable)



I don't want to start a flame war, so I'll give some general categories of  
stuff rather than direct instances (where people will immediately say,  
"Oh, but you can buy product X to do that."  :)

Let's compare a typical Mac against a typical PC, and start from there.   
Please don't go into a point-by-point response, just a general one.  These  
are just opinions, and I think they're reasonably fair.

1)  The Mac's graphics I/O is significantly faster, IMHO.  This allows for  
nifty stuff like Quicktime without any special boards or accelerators.

2)  The Mac's graphics I/O is better-designed and much more flexible.   
Whereas two-headed PCs are few and far between, the Mac can accomodate  
large numbers of monitors as a virtual screen.  By the same token, the Mac  
can accomodate unusual-sized monitors, interesting stuff like Radius'  
tiltable monitor, or multiple monitors of *different* bit-depths.  It is  
my understanding that PCs' standard "Monitor Types" do not accomodate such  
things.

3)  The Mac's OS was designed to be easy to manage.  Hence, there are a  
wide range of things that can be done on the Mac, at least quickly, that  
would take a lot more work on the PC to do.  This isn't a good example of  
the question above, though.

4)  Macs come with SCSI, and treat it as their standard method of  
high-speed throughput.  Even monitors can be hooked up to Macs using SCSI.   
On the other hand, SCSI does not come on typical PC machines, leastwise  
not a fast implementation.  And what SCSI comes with the PC must be a  
device-specific version, which has definite disadvantages.

5)  Macs use NuBus, which has better throughput (I believe) than ISA or  
EISA.  As a result, a Macs can do data acquisition rapidly and flexibly.   
My personal experience with this is in sound production and direct-to-disk  
recording, where the Mac shines.

6)  The Mac's sound system...the PC needs a 16-bit card to be equivalent.

7)  The SuperDrive can easily read PC disks.  Not the other way around.   
In fact, we distribute PC software with Macs here at BYU's Computer  
Consultation Center because we've found the SuperDrive can format PC disks  
more cleanly and faster than a PC drive!  The SuperDrive is an expensive  
piece of hardware, and it shows.

8)  The Mac does peer-to-peer networking for free, and its operating  
system had networking built in from the start.  As a result, Macs handle  
peer-to-peer, IMHO, better than PCs running DOS or Windows.  Now UNIX (and  
NFS) is another matter, but we're comparing typical PCs here.

Etc.

There are others, of course.  The point of this is that the Mac has some  
advantages over the PC, mostly based on the Mac being a newer  
architecture, that lend credence to the Mac being able to do stuff that  
the PC cannot do, or cannot do without some significant add-ons.

This is the nature of technology:  newer designs have advantages over  
older ones.  The Amiga's graphics system, for example, while not as  
flexible as the Macs, certainly is far faster.  And the NeXT, a newer  
machine, has so many advantages over the Mac that I'd prefer not to get  
into it in this post.

It's also a market issue.  Apple *must* be better than the PC, or Apple  
will die.  Why buy a Mac when you can get something better for cheaper?   
No one would consider purchasing Apple products.

The original poster suggested that the Mac is somehow behind the PC.   
Everyone recognizes this is not true.  The PC is catching up, and rapidly  
(localbus is a nice step), but it is not ahead yet.  Give it a few years  
and we'll see.

--

Sean Luke
Brigham Young University                   MILK:  It Comes From Cows
sean@digaudio.byu.edu  
NeXTmail and nifty Mac stuff welcome
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy