The Mac vs PC thread

[hokiefritz]

I started on Apple II+s in the early 80s and I have been using the different iterations of Windoze and some Unix since 1989. I just got XP and I'm very pleased. It works pretty much like a Mac, no drivers to load for digital camera, CD burner, etc. Just plug in whatever device you want to use and it works. I've used Windows for so long it is very intuitive to me, although I realize it is not for many new users. Macs just take me three times longer to do what I want, especially with only one mouse button. Software is much cheaper for the PC, although a lot of it is junk, and there are millions of freeware programs to chose from. Hardware upgrades are much, much more flexible with a PC. No need to throw the whole box out as technology improves. I have had no problems with the XP operating system whatsoever. I don't like the default Fisher-Price color scheme (emulating a Mac I suppose), but that is easily fixed.

The only way I'd be interested in a Mac is if it had a killer app that I wanted and couldn't get for the PC. It doesn't so I'm not interested. Perhaps if I was a desktop publisher or graphic artist it would be a better platform, but I can't see any other advantages. In the business world (outside of the graphics and sound disciplines) I think I've seen one Mac in the 18 or so years I have been working. This is one place where I think the easy to use Mac OS would excel, yet they have failed miserably. I don't know what Apple was thinking, but they really missed the boat.

 

[mvario]

I use Windows for a variety of reasons. Win XP is the first version I've really liked. My brother picked up a Mac about a year ago, maybe less, and I'm impressed with OS-X.

Haven't really played with Linux much. On like three occassions over the last 3 years I've tried different distros, say putting in a weekend each time and each time ran in to some driver issue or unsupported piece of hardware, got frustrated and gave up (not being Linux-geeky enough to figure it out). Lately I have been playing with one of the CD-bootable distibutions (Knoppix STD) which has a lot of built in security tools that I want to learn how to use for work. And it works well and finds most of the hardware just booting off the CD (when I tried installing it on the HD it got more flaky on me).

I think XP and OS-X are both nice mature OS's. I think Linux still neeeds more vendor support as far as drivers.

One bad thing is lately, my brother has been getting that whole Mac, religious thing going on.

 

[Saaby]

hokie,

I'm not trying to get defensive, and do agree that iMacs and eMacs are not nearly as upgradable as they should be, but PowerMacs are very upgradable. There aern't nearly as many choices on the low end of the hardware spectrum, but nearly all high end video, sound, etc. cards for the PC also work on the Mac.

 

[James S]

I continue to be fascinated by discussions such as this /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

There are some perfectally valid reasons for sticking with windows. Windows runs on cheaper hardware. You can get a fairly workable $600 PC with windows. There is no Mac to compete with this.

If you already have thousands of dollars invested in PC software, switching may be very expensive and time consuming to find Mac equivalents and purchase them for a Mac. There are even some programs that there actually isn't a Mac equivalent of! Autocad dropped their Mac version several years ago, at about the lowest eb of Mac market share. There are applications for the Mac that can read those file and convert them to other formats for use in other apps, but obviously if you need autocad because thats what you're supposed to be learning or something like that then you're not going to be happy running it under emulation on the Mac. There are not as many GPS mapping software options on the Mac either. I think there are only 3 programs to choose from that can do that. And I know that at least 2 of them cannot download new maps into the units. Silveron, you have problems with your GPS and mapping software not running under windows emulation on the Mac, however I know that others are running that under emulation. I suspect that you're running into conflicts of the Mac drivers and the emulated windows drivers for just talking to the device, but I can't be sure.

Many of the larger software companies offer cross platform upgrades. I know that photoshop used to offer this. When it comes time for you to upgrade to the next version, you can probably still cross upgrade to the Mac version for no extra money. So you may not have to pay that $600 just to get the Mac version after all. I have ever heard of companies offering the opposite version at no extra charge, but I think this is probably rare as they are all hurting for cash right now. The only way you can find out about this though it to actually call them, and keep talking to people till you find someone who knows something about it. Most of my conversations with companies about the mac start out when them telling me they don't work on the Mac, and my telling them, but I've been using that on my Mac for the last year, and them having to ask someone and then aplogize to me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

But if you're choosing to use windows because you can get a machine for cheap, or because you're already heavily invested in it, then use it for those reasons. But don't try to convince me that those reasons somehow make it better. Don't add on strange comments or vague negatives.

You get what you pay for. A cheap PC running windows may be "good enough" but that doesn't mean that some people will not want something better, and it doesn't mean that something better isn't available. It also doesn't mean that I shouldn't pop in with some comments when people ask about it.

As far as the cost, you have to add up what your time is worth. If it cost me $3000 to switch as Silveron estimates for new software, how many hours have you spent configuring mailwasher, norton, and dealing with all the virius and other windows problems. I can tell you exactly how many hours I've wasted dealing with system and software level problems in the last year and even my old jr high school shop teacher who was digitally challenged could count them on one hand.

For me it's an obvious answer /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[hokiefritz]

No problem, Saaby. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'm speaking mostly out of ignorance, as I have little exposure to the newer Macs except playing with them at the computer shops. Most of the ones I see are in the 'cute' cases with not much room in there to add anything.

How about swapping out motherboards, processors, memory? I have no clue. Pretty easy and within reasonable expense to do on a PowerMac?

I love my iPod though!

 

[James S]

nope, not a lot of room inside some of those iMac models /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Never the less there are processor upgrades available for each and every model ever made, up to the most recent ones which they haven't cracked yet, but they aren't really all that aged yet that you need to upgrade them yet /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

The iMac upgrades are even available with added firewire ports and other connection stuff.

However, just like with inexpensive PC motherboards, even if you upgrade the processor you're not going to get the faster buss speed or faster PCI performance or faster memory throughput. So they definitely do help, but it's not like getting a whole new machine.

There is no room internal on the iMacs for extra drives. People have actually done this, there are Mac case modders as crazy as some of the PC case mod folks, but it's not something we mortals care to do...

But they do all have firewire connections which is got some pretty good throughput nowadays. The latest round of Macs are finally incorporating USB2 as well as firewire 2 with an 800Mbps speed. It's quite nice actually.

Macs have an external philosophy towards disk drives and that sort of upgrades. Have had since day one when they incorporated SCSI instead of ATA. (course, now they are all ATA inside) So if you want to add extra drives to an iMac or other closed case machine you'll need an external firewire or USB2 case. The towers have plenty of extra space inside, depends on the model anything from 2 to 6 drive bays.

new video cards can be added to any and all of the towers ever built (and if you add more than one then your desktop will span them, it's always been able to do this, having 2 monitors is quite usefull!) but thats more problematic in the closed case models. Some of them actually have a PCI or AGP slot internally and you can change it, but I think the recent ones have it on the motherboard so you're stuck with what they gave you. Generally it's pretty good, but not going to satisfy a hard core gamer guy. But if you were into that in the first place you'd want the tower for the more ram and fancier cards and faster buss speed you can get in them anyway.

I have upgraded the processor in nearly every mac I've ever owned except for the powerbooks, and you can get upgrades for them too if you like.

As far as mother boards I don't really know, I have never done this. Doing a one rev or 2 upgrade on the board would be possible. But Apple doesn't use the same mounting and cabling setup for different case styles so you're going to have difficulty if you want to upgrade to a motherboard that was shipped in a different case style. If you feel like it you can do it though, just have to mod the case a little bit more /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Memory is no problem, takes the same memory as your Windows box. tower models can generally max out the same as a PC. No limitations built in. 4 or 6 or even 8 slots depending on model. The powerbooks are more limited, as far as I know they only have 2 slots and some of them are limited to SODIMM's in the lower slot so you have to pay more to upgrade both of them. The upper slot is standard sized though. The closed case models can all have their memory upgraded. Memory is generally made easy to access in these not requiring cracking the case. There is an access door for the few things they do think you can add like memory and an 802.11 PC card in all the iMacs and eMacs.

 

[Tomas]

Yes, Apple has always been of the opinion that the more it could keep the prying fingers of users out of the computer case, the better the chances of the computer continuing to work ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

They always gave good external access to various connectivity means (serial, desktop bus, SCSI, audio in, audio out, CRT, etc., and with the newer machines starting in the early '90's USB and Firewire).

As an example the little Apple iMac "FlowerPower" machine in front of me is running 640MB of RAM, has a built in CD-RW drive, 40GB ATA Hard drive, and is currently talking to nine USB perhipherals (three hubs), a wireless ethernet LAN, and two 80GB external hard drives (Firewire).

I plan on "upgrading" this system in the near future, and to do that I will simply unplug the connections, lift the old box out, and drop in a new box with larger screen, larger drive, DVD-RW capability, a bunch more memory and nearly twice the speed on a newer series CPU (from G3 to G4). None of my perhipherals will even change positions on the desk, and none of my many files will get lost in the move.

The "old" machine will move as-is to my mother's office, and her old machine will move as is to a friend's place.

(I still have some of my oldest machines and they still work fine, including a 1985 TRS UNIX engine, a 1986 Mac SE, and a 1993 Mac 631. Those three are Motorola 680X0 machines one each 68000, 68030 and 68040, as opposed to my current IBM PPC CPU's in my current Macs.)

One other thing to consider is that Macs come with a lot of the "extras" already built in (like decent audio, ethernet, Firewire, usb, built-in modem, etc.), but still leave an easy path to attach most anything externally without messing up the computer chassis.

Different philosophy for growth, really. Unplug most any unit, including the "computer box" and plug in a new one without disrupting anything else. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif One doesn't have to pry one's extra drives and cards out of the old box to use in a new one.

EDIT: Just thought of something. Someone else mentioned the alleged inability of the Mac to be a part of an engineering group. In the last several years I worked as an engineer at a fortune 100 company, I worked in an engineering center that depended an a huge Amdahl mainframe running "UTS" (the Amdahl UNIX flavor) and the engineering workstations that we used with that Amdahl, and the IBM and DEC machines we also interfaced with, were the 219 desktop Macs we had in the center.

There was one PC compatible machine to run a tired old plotter program, but everything else was Mac. The Cisco routers and Mac servers and Mac workstations, and the mainframes and mini's all worked quite nicely together. The only machine that wasn't on our internal networks in any way was, you guessed it, that tired old IBM PC.

We put out some damned fine engineering.

We also only had one Mac maintenance/guru/purchaser supporting 220 Macs (counting his), and our overall downtime was insignificant. Bill, our "computer person" was not at all overworked, and was laughed at by the PC and mainframe and mini maintenance guys 'cause he had it too easy. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif He didn't mind at all.

EDIT II: Ryan was of course right the drives should be GB not MB - corrected. Thanks!

 

[Saaby]

See, there's different strokes for different folkes even in the Mac world.

Tomas, unless I'm mistaken you mean GB not MB.

I won't upgrade my whole machine at once. First off I'll add more ram. My Mac is old enough it uses boring old PC100. Right now I've got just over 400 MB, I'll probably work my way towards 1 gig as memory prices continue to drop. Next I'll do my video card, I'll take out the Rage 128 and probably put in a Raedon 8500 Mac, it's an older card but that's fine by me, older=cheaper and I just want something that supports Quartz Extreme. Next I'll add an ATA/133 card and another 160 gig drive. Somewhere in there I'll change from a DVD rom to a Super drive. Lastly I'll throw in a Sonnet Technologies G5 upgrade CPU, or a nice dual 1 Ghz G4s anwyay.

 

[Tomas]

[ QUOTE ]
"Windows Is 'Insecure By Design,' Says Washington Post"
Between the Blaster worm and the Sobig virus, it's been a long two weeks for Windows users. But nobody with a Mac or a Linux PC has had to lose a moment of sleep over these outbreaks -- just like in earlier "malware" epidemics.

This is not a coincidence.

...

The chance of a patch wrecking Windows is dwarfed by the odds that an unpatched PC will get hit. And for those saying they don't trust Microsoft to fix their systems, I have one question: If you don't trust this company, why did you give it your money?

[/ QUOTE ]

Read the rest of the article here: Washington Post Article.

 

[Empath]

Newspaper articles, and their writers are amusing. Newspaper articles, and their writers are the ones that redifined the term "hacker". One does not have to be malicious to be a hacker, but with the media's redefinition hackers are only that. Hacker's, by definition, before the media twisted it, found everything about their machine right down to the processor and it's registers and what each did. They learned not only the high level languages, but the basic machine code; they learned the ones and the zeros and what each did in each register and how to manipulate them.

It's true, the true brains behind the maliciousness is the hacker, but that doesn't mean all hackers are malicious anymore than all cars are Buicks. Still, with a virus, and the other forms of maliciousness like worms and trojans, it starts with the hackers. You've got your hackers, and you've got your script kiddies. The script kiddies can't do anything without the skill of the hacker.

Oh, yeah.... back to the article. Our news writer throws out the little tidbit that the idea of viruses not being used on Macs has nothing to do with the lower number of Mac users, and offers as evidence that there are millions of Macs out there. If we could dump the red herrings when people want to reason it would make things much easier. The number isn't important. The percentage is. When you want to create a big splash, you don't jump into the wading pool. As long as we're talking about programmable machines, the ability to break it is there. One thing is true though; that is not the reason Macs aren't targeted. It may play a significant role in motivation, but the reason is otherwise. The writer's comments were simply a red herring.

So, why isn't the Mac targeted? Targeted? Yes, targeted. Why would one even use the term targeted? If a hacker uses a Mac, and he is of a malicious nature and wants to create a virus, he creates one for a Mac. If a hacker uses a PC, and is of a malicious nature and wants to create a virus, he creates one for a PC. It appears then that the true reason for the scarcity of Mac viruses is the scarcity of Mac hackers. Now why is that? If one is inclined toward delving into his machine enough to be a true hacker, the way the term was meant to be, it wouldn't matter if his machine was a Mac, or a PC. If he was so inclined, regardless of his machine, he would learn everything right down to the processor and the registers. These high level languages that do little more than operate the machine barely beyond a job code wouldn't mean anything to him.

What's the real reason for the virus shortage, with Mac? It's because Macs have a shortage of hackers. Oh, they've got plenty of would be script kiddies ready to do their dirty work, if they just had some hackers.

It's a curious phenomena. I suppose it's like a good AM/FM radio, built to perfection. It's a fine product, and will satisfy anyone that wants to listen to it. Even a radio communications hobbyist, if he's honest, will tell you that's a fine radio. But, the hobbyist is going to buy the communications receiver with variable gain, BFO, bandspread control, and all kinds of "unnecessary nuisance" features. He'll still admit though, your AM/FM receiver is a mighty fine radio.

I don't really see a need in the Mac vs PC controversy. Even though I have a PC, I've got to say... that Mac is a mighty fine machine.

 

[Tomas]

[ QUOTE ]
When you want to create a big splash, you don't jump into the wading pool. As long as we're talking about programmable machines, the ability to break it is there. One thing is true though; that is not the reason Macs aren't targeted. It may play a significant role in motivation, but the reason is otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

The number of machines and the percentage of machines in use that can be affected do play some part, but you are correct that it is not sufficient to explain what we see in the 'real world.'

The viruses that affect servers, for example, should show up in the *nix machines not the minority MS machines (IIS) and certainly not in the MS SQL running servers that two recent ones did. Since they did not, it indeed was not just numbers.

If it were qualified hackers then the *nix machines are the ones that certainly do not lack for qualified bit-twisters.

Thing is, even with the overabundance of hackers and the high number of machines on line 24/7 that use *nix, they are not the ones with the majority of successful attacks even though they have the larger number of serious internet machine numbers, and more than adequate hackers. Actually, real, serious, hackers - hijacking their employer's machines to play games WROTE UNIX and the "C" language. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Ken and Dennis were not employed to do what they did.

Lastly, I am not an apologist for Apple nor their Macs. I enjoy their machines, but they are certainly not for everyone. But do keep in mind, they and the UNIX and Linux, and AIX, and UTS, and Solaris, and NeXT, and IRIX, and Xenix, and HPUX, and ... and ... are all running variations of the vary same OS that has been around since 1972: UNIX.

When it comes right down to it, everything from my Thompson cable modem to the Cray III I got to play with at BTL are running UNIX flavors. That's a lot of machines. Thats a HUGE number of machines. Overall, though, they're pretty solid. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

There's nothing super wrong with MS Windows that tightening up some of the slop wouldn't help. They simply leave too many of the doors open by default, and have for years.

They need to close some of those open doors. The world, sadly, is no longer a place where you don't lock your doors by default.