MAC vs. PC! LET'S GET IT ON!

[mtaman02]

I do agree with gniticxe you want a good monitor go with NEC you want a good PC go with dell. E-Machines however are bad computers but they are way better then the infamous Packard Bell.

If you want a computer that has less of a chance to break then Build your own. Its cheaper. And you know indefinitely what is in it. I know people who build their own machines and have lasted them 10 years.

IBM is great for Businesses
Gateway is great for Businesses and Home
NEC is great for businesses
Dell is great for businesses and home
E-Machines is great for home
Hewlett Packard is great for Home
Compaq is great for Business and Home

When you build your own PC you learn about all sorts of new things Troubleshooting and such. You save alot of money both by buying parts and Tech support since you can repair what you built.


I have an emachine it has not broken down on me it has frozen up 2 but that was only b/c it has not been fragged over a long time period. Emachine does have its bad parts but since i've purchased it there have not been any major failures. Where as my Packard Bell which i have had for 6 years has had both hardware / software problems. Packard Bell / Emchines both have bad streaks but work great when the streaks are found and are properly delt with.

Dell - PII - 266mhz - Win 98 SE - 64 RAM
Emachines - AMD Athlon XP - 1600Mhz - Win XP - 256 RAM
Packard Bell - Celeron - 366mhz - WIN 98 SE - 192 RAM

these are all machines that have been owned by me and the only machine i had problems with is Packard Bell. - Thank God they went out of business. Dell no poblems and Emachine freezups when not properly maintained.

[Judy]

*sigh* too many posts, I cant read em all...
Alright, unlike some of the chicks on my team *evil eyes Sarah* I HATE MACS! I think they're s evil.. I mean.. the imac.. what a horrible invention... all it is is an internet terminal. I find macs terribly confusing.. who has abutton on the keyboard that turns the thing on? Who does that?! What a pain, they've tormented me since I first saw them.. so pointless! ugh.. anywayz, i could go on like this for hours.. but I had a fun day and the craziness is wearing off, thus I'm falling asleep and my fingers are getting sore.
*hugz to all as alwayz*
Ann-Marie -team 783
PS. MACS ARE EVIL.. if you didn't notice... ok I'm done... promise!

[Jon Lawton]

People often tend to blur the lines between operating systems, architectures, and processors. All this talk about Macintosh VS "PC"...

Just because you own an Apple Macintosh computer doesn't mean you run MacOS on it. Guess what? Linux, BSD, and various other operating systems run on that architecture. AmigaOS (Hey! Amiga wasn't in that poll...) runs on the 68k, which all macs up until the PowerPC were based on. Of course, the Amiga is a *TOTALLY* different architecture than any home computer we have avalible today. Oh guess what? See that PalmOS device in your pocket? That runs on a DragonBall processor... a "modern" version of the 68k line.

"PC" is a very vauge term! What most people mean when they say "PC" is "IBM-Compatible". This is the predominant architecture for the x86 processor developed by Intel. This architecture runs all kinds of opeating systems... DOS, OS/2, Linux, BSD, Windows, BeOS, not to mention tons of small OSes. Did you know that there are lots of implementations of DOS? It's not just a Microsoft product... FreeDOS, OpenDOS, DrDOS, .... Speaking of BeOS... that was an operating system origanally indended to run on the BeBox, an architecture cerated by Be, Inc. that quiclky died.

No one has mentioned Sun, Next, DEC, or a million other companies.

SPARC, Alpha, MIPS, ARM, ... the list goes on and on and on.

There is really a heck of a lot more to the world of computing than the things that sit on the desks of most people.

Check out the TUNES OS Review to get somewhat of an idea of how many operating systems are out there.

Of course... there's always the systems like Squeak (SmallTalk-80) that blur the lines between operating system, programming langauge, and applications...

</rant>

[Wetzel]

Nicely put Jon.

As for me, Win2k.

When used properly, it is plenty stable. 20+ day uptime regularly.
When using Kazaa and other junky software, uptime drops dramaticly. Only other times I get instabiliy was overclocking to far and running specific software. Benchmarking software, Kazaa, WMP are amoung the few that I have had problems with


I also prefer PC's because of the many more options. While macs are begining to use standard parts, the expansion slots are not there. Mac's are desinged to be easy to use, you never have to open it up or understand how it works.
Me, I've been building my own systems since I was 8...
ahh....the good old days with the 386...it still works, BTW. Running DOS 6.2, with Linux going on it when I go find another NIC(network interface card) to stick in it.
My current system is about 4 months old. By getting a pc, I was able to configure it how I wanted.

Aluminum case
cdRw
40gb 7200rpm HD
256mb DDR ram
Ge2 64mb
Soyo Dragon Plus motherboard
Athlon XP 1700+

Got exatly what I wanted, and for $1200, including the 19" flat screen monitor.

Macs may look nicer then some pc's, but when I buff my case, it is nice and shinny...


Wetzel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have you ever tried to overclock a mac?
Any incoheance I blame on Jim.

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by Wetzel
Any incoheance I blame on Jim.

I'm flattered!

[evulish]

Originally posted by weedie

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.

Dual boot! You've got enough room on that 60gb now I could help you get Mandrake Linux running in less than an hour!

As for me...go linux! Debian Woody (Unstable/testing...haven't upgraded to stable Woody...working on it, though) running 2.4.19 with WindowMaker.

My computer history:

Had 2 Commodore 64's back when I was a young'n. Nice computers...I was sad when companies stopped developing for them.
In 1994, we replaced the outdated C64s with a 486. We paid quite a bit for this computer. It ran Windows 3.1 then we *borrowed* Windows 95 from a friend and upgraded I think we then got the internet in that year. How does it feel to be the only kid in your school with the internet? Uhh...bad. (I was the only kid with broadband until last year) In the greater range of $4000. After a lightening storm in 1998, we had to replace the 486 since it got fried. It was replaced by a p2-400 with Windows 98. When trying to copy data from my old hard drive onto the computer, I fried the hard drive (The old one, that is) I learned then that the computer must be OFF when plugging in a molex connector Then, in 2000, the P2 got fried. My parents just ditched the computer! AHH! 2 13gb hard drives, 1 40gb hd, a promise ata 100 card, and I ALMOST lost my dvd-rom! (I did save the DVD-rom drive, luckily) That P2 was the first computer I put linux on. I started with Redhat 5.2 I believe. I installed Redhat 6.2 on it over 5.2 later on. The computer I am on now is a P3-1ghz. I haven't done much with it due to the lack of money. It came with a semi-decent videocard (Nvidia geforce2 mx200 32mb) It also lacks hard drive space. 20 gb is not nearly enough. (I had my old 40gb filled with mp3s) I've upgraded my memory in this from 128 to 384mb. I also put in my DVD-Rom drive. Dvd's in linux are nice. I'd like to get surround sound, a new hard drive, and a good NVidia card with TV-in/out and all that other fun stuff.

I've had more computers than girlfriends. I guess that's okay though since computers are much easier to understand (Heh...I have more heads than girlfriends.)

[Ian W.]

another windows failure...

at BNL today, we were touring the tandem Van de Graaffs. big thigns that create heavy ions for the collider we have. walking through the control room, i noticed a computer moniter with the windows ME task manager thing. it had a big '[NOT RESPONDING]' thing next to internet explorer. i'm hoping that wasn't used to control the van de graaffs. be kinda bad if it crashed while they were running.

[Ashley Weed]

Originally posted by evulish


Dual boot! You've got enough room on that 60gb now I could help you get Mandrake Linux running in less than an hour!


I've had more computers than girlfriends. I guess that's okay though since computers are much easier to understand (Heh...I have more heads than girlfriends.)

First, if I wasn't lazy, and didn't care about making my mom mad, I would do it. Maybe I could load it on that old one that sits at the bottom of the stairs!

Second, hehehe, stop the insanity you are hurting my spleen! Sorry, that was mean. You could always marry your computer! Maybe you'll be lucky and a female geek will join the team next year!


I can't say anything bad about my Packard Bell. That thing was awesome, no matter what I bought hardware or software, I could always get it to load. Even years after it was outdated, after messing with it for a while it would load anything. As for Dell, have you ever cracked one of those cases? Blah, they are horrible creations with wasted plastic. Hewlett Packard does not make me happy with support, you have to pay aroun $40 a minute to talk to a technician, and every call is long distance.

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by evulish
I've had more computers than girlfriends.

That goes for me, too...

[Ian W.]

i won't even comment on the girlfriend to computer ratio...

[Dave Hurt]

Well, just a couple small things...

First off, don't compare anything to Win 9x... it's not used anymore, and of course it has problems. That's why it's not run anymore So comparing OSX to 9x, OSX will obviously win. Try comparing 9x to 9.x. I'm willing to say that 9.x has more problems then Windows 98. And the biggest problem is, you don't have the control in a Mac enviroment that you do in a Windows enviroment. (Yes, I do work on macs. We have 4 G4's and 1 G3 and about 150 pc's where I work, and we have more problems per mac then we do per pc. They're horrible machines, and when something goes wrong, we usually have to call a specialist because we're unable to recover it ourselves.)

Anyhow, as for current OS's, the only reason you should have to use a mac is graphical projects. Even then, the newer PC processors are so fast at crunching numbers, they're just as fast, if not faster, then the macs at graphical applications.

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by Dave Hurt
Well, just a couple small things...

First off, don't compare anything to Win 9x... it's not used anymore, and of course it has problems. That's why it's not run anymore So comparing OSX to 9x, OSX will obviously win. Try comparing 9x to 9.x. I'm willing to say that 9.x has more problems then Windows 98. And the biggest problem is, you don't have the control in a Mac enviroment that you do in a Windows enviroment. (Yes, I do work on macs. We have 4 G4's and 1 G3 and about 150 pc's where I work, and we have more problems per mac then we do per pc. They're horrible machines, and when something goes wrong, we usually have to call a specialist because we're unable to recover it ourselves.)

Anyhow, as for current OS's, the only reason you should have to use a mac is graphical projects. Even then, the newer PC processors are so fast at crunching numbers, they're just as fast, if not faster, then the macs at graphical applications.

To say that an operating system is not used anymore is not really the most openminded thing a person can say. I have more than one computer in this house running Windows 9x, so that makes your first real point untrue, and invalid.

I'm not going to talk about OS X vs. Win9x.

Second, the statement that "the only reason you should have to use a mac is graphical projects" is insane.
How many of those Apple.com/switch commercials do you see with people talking about "The only reason I got a Mac was to produce professional quality computer animations"? None.

Gargargar. I could have elaborated a lot more, and been more concise, but I have this tendency not to be able to do that when I'm pissed off...

[Matt Reiland]

To say that an operating system is not used anymore is not really the most openminded thing a person can say. I have more than one computer in this house running Windows 9x, so that makes your first real point untrue, and invalid.

Yikes!

I think (correct me if I am way wrong) Dave would like people to compare equal versions in their arguments. It is 'unfair' to say that Mac OSX is so much more trouble free and full of features than Windows 3.1 or that Windows 98 crashes so much more than the latest Mac's. Your argument holds a little more water when you say XP might not be as stable as OSX (which I can't comment on but I will tell you my 2k machines are rock solid)

Mac's look nice, I am sure they have quality hardware in them but they are not me, and why do people who use Mac's always run Windows emulators anyway????

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by Matt Reiland
I think (correct me if I am way wrong) Dave would like people to compare equal versions in their arguments.

No one can correct you but Dave, himself.

My first comment was supposed to state that one shouldn't just disregard an operating system from conversation because they think "it's not used anymore, and it has problems." All operating systems have problems. Some are more compatible than others. Some are more stable than others.

[srawls]

but I will tell you my 2k machines are rock solid

We have some 2k machines at NASA, and the one I am on STINKS!!! It crashes maybe once every 2.5 days, and above that I get programs not responding at maybe 1 per half hour!!! I can barely get work done w/o having something fail.

That beeing said, I didn't set up/install those machines, and I don't know who has done what with them. Maybe if I got a fresh win2k install, with no outside programs, then everything would work fine. But the problem I have with windows is that strange bugs seem to just show up. Now, I do have win98 here at home, but the next time we get a new computer, that will change to linux. (I have a 4gb hard drive now, so dual boot's not a good option for me.)

Recently, though, I've started using a friend's server (I connect w/ ssh), which runs debian on it. I do some simple hacking (perl/C) on it, and play around with some simple commands to get used to linux, mainly. After a week on it, grep and man are my new favorite friends now

Stephen, who will be windows free definitely by the time he goes to college