MacBook for Us? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Scutarius
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2010, 01:46:23 am
content: HI, I have a bachelor in electronics, now as a first job I am a Technician in Sanmina-SCI and studying a master degree in electronic design, I'm a HP-tx2000 owner with the NVIDIA chipset problem, Well the question is a normal Engineer should buy a macbook for normal use?I use/used Matlab, multisim, proteus, eagle, latex, labview, etc.I know about bootcamp, but it is the "answer"?, Im looking for a nice laptop, and moreover a good design (I reallye like the monoblock style) also a good OS.thanks in advancethe guarantee is world wide?

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2010, 02:57:01 am
content: I've got a MacBook. There are native versions of Matlab and Eagle. LaTeX is no problem as it was originally a Unix program. Apparently Labview has a Mac OS X version.There's no need to bother with Bootcamp - you can run Windows simultaneously in a virtual machine for anything that doesn't have a native equivalent and it's generally fine (the more memory you can throw at it, the better).

author: Scutarius
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2010, 03:25:37 am
content: Thanks, I'll be buying my macbook tomorrow

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2010, 07:13:08 am
content: Okay, but it may be good to wait - there are rumours that a new version of the MacBook Pro will be released soon, and it'll probably have an i5 processor. It depends if you can wait anywhere from a week to six months to get a new computer!

author: David
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2010, 02:51:27 pm
content: If your serious about electronics then you will want a PC. I don't want this to turn into a Mac/PC war but you are not going to get any where near the software/hardware support found on a PC.Dave

author: Ferroto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2010, 04:53:19 pm
content: Quote from: David on March 27, 2010, 02:51:27 pmNot exactually a fanboi here, but if you just switched to Linux you could use a 10 year-old computer and a modern Linux distro will work fine.In fact the laptop I'm using for school is about 6 years old.

author: Scutarius
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2010, 07:14:56 pm
content: Thanks Dave, that is a good remark, anyway I just like the macstyle, maybe that would be a good videblog, the analysis of the macbook hardware, the chassis, how it is build etc. after seeing your blogs I put more attention on the details, for example I like that in the macs don't have holes everywhere (i.e. ventilation), painted plastic, . I like the buttons , keyboard, the monoblock, theI also want to be serious about electronics, and I will have my laptop fixed too, so Im going to try it with apple.thanks

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2010, 12:41:31 pm
content: Unless you're talking about old hardware that refuses to work with USB-serial converters, then you can run Windows on a Mac laptop with Bootcamp or virtual machine software and have the best of both worlds.I know that the Pickit 2 did not work with Parallels Desktop in previous versions (due to a timing issue with a self-reset procedure that caused it to re-negotiate the USB connection), but heard that it worked in VMWare Fusion, and vaguely recall that someone might have figured out how to drive it natively anyway. I've had no trouble at all using ISE WebPACK and the programmer for my FPGA in Parallels, though I had some trouble with a Cypress PSoC programmer, which was mostly fixed by using a secret menu that allowed timeouts to be adjusted.I wouldn't throw out your old computer in case you run in to any of these sorts of things, but for day to day work, you shouldn't have too much trouble with a Mac.

author: Emyr
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2010, 09:50:05 am
content: Quote from: David on March 27, 2010, 02:51:27 pmA Mac is a PC.So is the Core2Duo-equipped Antec on my desk, although that's running Ubuntu.Surely if you're serious about electronics, you want something that just works so you can carry on doing what you want rather than messing with your computer?