From: philip@utstat.toronto.edu (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: Comments Anyone?
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 11:46:36 GMT

In article <lm01808@pro-scat.cts.com> jlinton@pro-scat.cts.com (Jeremy Linton) writes:

[Quotes someone who indicates next computer to be a PC/Sun...]

>        This is my attitude and quite a few other apple users feelings. I
>have over time watched previous apple owners skip over and buy ms dos
>machines instead of putting themselves on the line with a mac. And as far
>as the comparison between the machines hardware.. The dos machine has now
>far surpassed the mac. With the doubler tecnology allowing 66mhz machines
>and the 40,59 mhz non dx2 machines the 486 with it's reduced instruction
>timing and floating point instructions have blew the 68xxx series out of
>the water in comparison. Video on the pc is just as good with cheap cards
>like the diamond speedstar 24 and boca xvga that are
>"coprocessed / accelerated" supporting 16.4 million colors (24 bit) and
>resolutions up to 1280,1024 all for around $100 to $160. Sound cards for
>$100 to $200 that support every thing from 44.1 mono to 88.2 mono and 22khz
>sterio to 44.1 sterio. So to say it in fewer words it is possible to buy a
>machine for $2000 that far out preforms the top of the line macs. 

The 486 and 040 are roughly comparable, but the graphics situation in the PC
world is a mess. Few programs support 24 bit colour, and you have to keep 
restarting Windows to deal with the support for the different graphics modes.
The PC world is still largely DOS, is still a pain, no clear OS winner in
sight. I've had more interrupt, DMA and adressing conflicts to last me a 
lifetime with my 486. Try putting one on a network, add sound, cD-ROM, etc...
and then you'll see the elegance of the Gs and the Mac's.

>        The big line about the macs being so easy to use is pure BS!! error
>messages that display 16 bit error codes sure seem "friendly" compartivly
>to descriptive error messages. If you were to go cold turkey on a mac do
>you think you would be able to change your printer from a imagewriter to a
>laserwriter? How about if your hd crashes and you want to retrieve all your
>data... 2 or 3 flips of a floppy to boot and then about 40 to get norton
>up.

Printing from a Mac is every bit as easy and the computer is far more friendly.

>        A teacher who admits being just about computer iliterate said that
>he thinks the apple ][ is so much simpler to use because he selects the
>program he wishes to run from his diskbox puts it in the drive and turns
>the computer on. From there on it prompts him with english phrases like
>"press 1 to print document.. 2 to save document to disk .. 3 retrieve
>document from disk." Where is on the mac he has to know to move the mouse
>over to a little square on the screen press the button twice scroll through
>thousands of little pictures that mean nothing and then find the one he
>wants and press the button twice , and it doesn't help when it's titled
>works and has a picture of a W!

Please! Printing on the Mac is ably accomplished by my kids. Same goes with the
GS. I have no experience with II's so can't say there.
 
Philip McDunnough
philip@utstat.toronto.edu