From: furballs@sequent.com (Paul Penrod)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Macintosh bigots
Date: 16 Nov 92 07:37:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: sequent.1992Nov16.073734.13418
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc.

In article <a#v1=4b@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec314.its.rpi.edu.its1 writes:
>In article 11743@sequent.com, furballs@sequent.com (Paul Penrod) writes:
>[deletia- stuff about blaming tools]
>
>>I agree with you. The one thing Mr. Cohen does not take into
>>account is the fact that the Macintosh was designed to be used for
>>solving simpler problems using a closed architecture that made it
>>torture to program for. The IBM, by being so generalistic, suffers
>>from non-conformity in some corners, but solves myriads of diverse
>>problems because it can be built to do so. That is the key. Apple
>>determined long ago the class of problems the Mac would solve and
>>figured the rest of the world was unimportant to them. IBM, to
>>their credit, realized that the world is a big place with an
>>infinite amount of problems to solve, and solved problems very
>>quickly turns into cash, because time is money.
>
>Justify this statement, please. But dont do it by comparing
>your 386 box with a Mac 128k. :)
>

I don't own a 386 box. Raw horsepower lends some credence to
making a fast machine more usuable, and Apple's NuBus is a faster
bus than ISA; however, the Macintosh was designed as a closed
system. Can you extend the NuBus to 20 slots and support 64 ports
directly ? Can you attach hundreds of different types of hardware
to your system, simply by plugging in a card and loading a device
driver ? Can you rewrite your BIOS to take advantage of a new
hardware feature or buy tweaked BIOS's that do the same ? The list
goes on. I suspect you could possibly do some of these things, but
the design intent of the machine would not support it without a
great deal of pain. The Mac is a USER's machine, not a general
purpose problem solver.

>>If all a person wants to do is write a report, then choice your
>>poison.
>
>Ill take the second bottle to the left.. yes, the vile green one.. :)

:):):)

>
>> If you want to solve a problem, such as 3D rendering of
>>seismic data, while handling on the fly analysis of incoming data
>>via a satellite link, and shuffle all this around several differnt
>>kinds of networks,
>
>Why can't a Mac do this? (fundamentally, not because you cant
>find the software- that's a real problem, but it says nothing
>about the Macintosh; only about the Macs market share.)
>

See the previous response on design. I am sure the Mac can do these
things, but they won't be cost effective, and it won't be pretty.

>> while still being able to run about 99% of all
>>DOS and windows software out there,
>
>Ah, but what if you want to run Mac binaries? Or Amiga? Etc...
>
>This isn't much of a point. Why should I care if my app is
>a 680x0 binary or a 80x86 binary?
>

What I meant to say was that a DOS machine can be inhabited by many
really strange pieces of hardware and still run most of the apps
written for the environment.

>>effective choice. Granted you could shred a Mac and stuff all the
>>hardware in it to do these kinds of things, but it would no longer
>>be a Mac according to Apple's definition.
>
>Oh, so a Mac ->CAN<- do all this? Why isn't the resulting thing
>a Mac by Apple's definition? I figure Apple thinks a Mac is any
>hunk of plastic+silicon you pay them for. :)
>

Probably so :) I put the suposition out there based upon the
premise of a closed design.

>>
>>It's all perspective and the class of problems that need to get
>>solved.
>
>I think its all weird vocabulary definitions.
>

To each their own...


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Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy