if you are referring to windows xp i dont like it that much just because when you are used to a set format like windows 95 or 98 it is different and you have to reajust everything so that is even remotelly simmilar and i guess the only good thing about it is that everyone in my family can have there own settings but other than that i dont like it at all

OS/2 was renowned for running windows applications better then windows did. However, Microsoft had the right marketing and got windows installed on all new computers and OS/2 could not compete after that.

I run linux on my laptop, been in windows once in the last 3 weeks. If I was buying another laptop, it would probably be a new ibook.

PC!
 

I've never had much experience with MACs, so I'm voting for PC. I'm a gamer, and alot of games are only on PC. You have to specially order and seek out the Mac version of the game, and that's a hassle. Windows does mess up quite often, unless you have XP, that's cool, but I don't like the way Macs run. But, can Jeff Goldbloom be wrong?? I mean, he did escape Jurrasic Park twice.

Ha ha, I totaly forgot about those old commercials. He also Survived ID4!

Ever thought why PC became more popular even though in some of the aspects Macs where far superior? It is the fact that everything on PC is standardized which allowed people to develop software and hardware for it easily while Apple decided to use proprietary standards to shelter its creation. So in order to compare a Mac to a PC you need to define both, with Macs it is not like you have too many choices, but with hundreds innovations introduced each day on the PC it is not as easy. An “average” (which is vague term) PC which consists of parts primarily chosen on the basis of pricing is inferior to the Mac’s tightly controlled hardware. So if you are buying your grandma a computer, get her a Mac. But if you “really” know what you are doing and have a deep pocket you can create a machine that will blow any Mac away in every aspect, including design. I have seen quite a few awesome PC cases with glass windows and the interiors lit by backlights, and LCD displays mounted in the front, which will make any Mac look like a cardboard box. Combined with top of the crop hardware innovations you can have a machine that will outperform any Mac ever built. On the software end of the spectrum I do not think I even have to argue, don’t like Windows? There are dozens of operations systems running on x86 platform. On Macs it is not like you have got a choice.

Macs are excellent machines for those who have no time for tweaking. PC can be a great bargain, but then do not try to compare a $500 PC to $3000 G4. But for those who really know what they are doing (NOT NERD WANNA BEs), with enough money and time you can have the Ultimate Machine, doing stuff Steve Jobs is only dreaming of.

Eugene

P.S. My knowledge in this area is quite outdated, and I would appreciate any corrections.

P.P.S. Just my 2 cents.

A few qustions about OS/2:

So, can OS/2 run most Windows programs without difficulty? (That's what I gathered, at least)

Also, how long have you been running OS/2? How do you get it? Does IBM still give tech support?

i'm guessing that OS/2 does not run current windows programs (something developed for say XP) as well as it does the older stuff. but, then again, XP is based on NT, and NT is based on the same exact code as OS/2 (or that's what my dad told me).

i was just thinking of something else rather interesting. my dad used to work for IBM, so he has many friends that work(ed) for IBM. about 8 or 9 years ago, i moved to LI, and everyone else moved (from the Kingston, NY area, where IBM shut down a building). so, when we have old friends over, they all talk about how they were quite literally outside the door when the executives at IBM decided not to buy out Gates, cause it would be bad business practices. it's quite interesting to think what would have happened if someone who was smart ran through the door yelling "BUY OUT GATES!!" :p. i'd love to know how things would have turned out without microsoft coming and super marketing his horribly unstable version of OS/2 :D.

Well Sortof, Os/2 can run windows 3.1 programs better than NT or XP can and a lot of simple windows 32 bits like AIM will run if you try them under Odin (which converts them, its a partner project to WINE for you linux guys)
I've been using it for about 4 to 5 years mostly because my dad had been using it since it came out. But you can still order it from IBM or better yet the new company that is taking the base product and adding new features to it kind of like a Linux distro at www.ecomstation.com. ecomstation=Os/2 with more features

As for technical support IBM is commited to providing bug fixes until the year 2007. Which is better than any Microsoft product. How long did it take them to drop ME?

So anyway I think Os/2 is better and thats what i use and enjoy. It doesn't run all the latest games so I do need to boot windows occasionally, but when its one o'clock in the morning and I need to type a report i know when i boot up my PC it won't crash half way through and make me lose everything.

Mac, PC (without Windows)
 

As a professional programmer and system administrator for the past 20 years, I've always been a Unix fan.

I've been using Linux for over 5 years now and I wouldn't change, though I am tempted by the new Macs running OS X (FreeBSD variant).

I used to have one of the original Macs and a Mac II. Those were good machines back then, but Apple failed to stay ahead of Windows with the OS. Now they've caught up and surpassed Windows with OS X.

I will eventually be retiring my wife's PII Windows PC and replacing it with a Mac. My son will get a new Windows PC just because of the games we have.

The wife's old PII PC will be relegated to the basement lab as a robotics development machine.

Windows, I've found, just was never reliable enough without having to be reloaded now and then. Of all the Windows versions, I find Windows 2000 to be the most stable of them all.

As far as number crunching power goes, I like the 64 bit Alphas, but the PowerPCs are pretty fast too. I'm waiting on the 64 bit AMD Hammer chip.

Macs found to be 36% cheaper to operate than PC's
 

Apple last year hired a market research group to conduct a survey at Melbourne University - which operates a mixed network with thousands of computers- to see how the costs of operating Mac's versus PC's worked out.

The Macs were found to be 36 percent less costly to operate.

Here is one link I found that gives the whole story:

http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...e15309,00.html

So if Macs are cheaper to operate, why are there more Windows machines in use.

Years ago (in the beginning...), Apple had the majority of the PC market with the Apple II, but then IBM stepped into the market with the original IBM PC, and took over the market. (The Apple III was a big failure. Besides, people knew that "no one ever got fired for buying IBM".)
Bill Gates made a deal with Apple to support the Mac (with Microsoft Word and Excel) in exchange for the rights to use aspects of the Mac OS, and he created Windows. (I recall reading somewhere, that Bill Gates originally wanted to help Apple to spread it's Mac OS to other platforms, but Apple didn't go for it. Too greedy I guess.)

So while Apple was still being very proprietory, new companies were starting up and whipping out PC clones left, right and center. IBM lost control of their own market. They tried to come out with a more proprietory version (with a patented Micro Channel Bus for plugging in perpherals) but it was too late. The PC world didn't need IBM any more. So here we are with a gazillion PC clones and only one Mac (although Apple did allow cloning agreements for a while.)

However now that all the new Macs use a version of Unix, it seems that Microsoft may become the odd man out. Of course only time will tell, but it appears that the Linux/Solaris crowd has much more in common with Mac OS X now than with Windows, and I suspect that we will see a lot of software being ported from the Unix world to the Mac. It's going to be interesting.

but once again, to the casual teenage computer user, windows will be the OS of choice. why? simple, something close to all the games that most people want run only in windows. the ones that do run on mac are only converted way after the original came out for windows. so, as long as we're playing games, and games are created for windows, windows will be the OS of choice.

After the painful times of Windows 3.1, I finally upgraded to my first PC with Windows 95. With my Pentium 1 and 8 mb of memory I was flying in the world of computers.:p Well, then the computer evolution came blowing everything out of porportion into large numbers, and I had to get a new computer. Well this new state of the art machine I got had 128 mb, 10Gb, Celeron 500, and Windows 98. This was perfect for me in the computer world. Well, I decided to get new memory in June, and after wanting to get my computer in top shape, I found out my hard drive had died. So after many $$$$ later, I now have an almost new machine with 256 mb, 60 Gb ATA 133 7200 RPM Hard Drive, and Windows XP!

I can't say anything bad against XP yet except for one thing: it may be something as simple as security settings, but I am unable to access many pages on the internet. Including both the FIRST page, my team page, and the Pennsylvania website. Any suggestions?

If I had the patience to try it out, and my mom would feel like learning about a new OS, I would really like to give Linux a fair chance. However, I have always shunned away from Macs, and will never own one.

Gates bought (read: stole) QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) way back in the day.

I need to research this more, and I'm working from seeing Pirates of Silicon Valley, but I know for a fact that Bill Gates did not write DOS...