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

[Ashley Weed]

I believe it is all a personal decision. Depending on what you have 'inside' will affect your OS stability. Either way, windows is never completely stabble, but is other OS's any better? If you re-load windows when your system shows unstability, you should be fine. If your system is that unstable, you probably need more memory.

[ChrisA]

heres what i see as pros and cons of diff operating systems with macs and pcs

win9x: 95=bad, however win98 is quite stable and also reasonably prices. probably best version of win for the home user.

win NT/2k/XP: all very good operating systems with many more features than previous versions of windows. all are much more stable than win9x. XP is not as stable as 2k as of yet and is more "user friendly" (this all depends on the user and what the user wants to do).

Linux/BSD/Unix: Very good operating systems for the more advanced type users. These operating systems can do almost anything you want them to do. The draw back to these is that they are much more complicated to use.

Mac: Macs in general are made to be super user friendly. With Apple making and/or supporting every piece of the Macintosh computers, it is very easy to get Tech. support or hardware/software replacement. Made to be very affordable computers. The main drawback is that the majority of programs that people like to use are not useable by Macs. Macs in general are used mainly for graphic design and for video editting (i say they do this the best).

Mac OSX: I being a PC user myself was very impressed with OSX. Very graphical and very user friendly. Being able to see it from its beta stages I did see quite a few flaws that were patched up as soon as they released it on the market. One major drawback to this OS as with any OS with a highly graphical user interface was that it required a lot of RAM to run smoothly.

There's not many people who like both. Everyone has their own preference. I just don't like to see people saying bad things about the opposite. Such as Macs suck or PC are horrible. Nothing is bad. Some things are just better in that particular area.

[Wetzel]

Win2k is completely stable.
I've found the root of most instabillty is other poorly written programs that don't play nice with Windows/other programs.
Win 9x, being 16bit code upgraded to run 32bit applications, has an inherant instability. Win 9x is still DOS, just with a pretty interface. Win2K and XP are versions of NT(NewTechnology), which was 32bit from the begining.

Other programs.
They can be poorly written, or leave extra junk around when uninstalled. By extra junk, I mean leaving lines in the registry pointing to things that are no longer there.
Or just poorly written so it uses more system resources then it needs. Dosn't release memory when you close it..all sorts of crap is possible when you don't write good code.
Or you get Kazaa that installs other programs that run in the backgroud that it dosn't tell you about. Or our friend Gator...

This is what I see as the problem with most computers that cause them to crash.


That and Macs are just dirty.


Wetzel
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/me is listening to E:\Nirvana\Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit.mp3 at 95dB.

[Dave Hurt]

The reason I say Win9x is no longer used is because you can no longer buy a machine with Windows 98 or ME on it. It's not used in the sense that 9.x is no longer used. Sure, people still use it because they don't want to upgrade due to money/hardware issues, but for the most part the OS of choice for PC's is Windows 2000 and XP.

And Matt, you were correct. I just think it's silly to go on about the failures of 9x and ME, then go to say how much better OSX is.

And the reason I say the only reason you should get a mac for graphics is because that's what they do... they can't handle complex computations like PC's can. The only thing they do better then a PC is graphic manipulation, and PC's are very quickly catching up.

As for the switch commericals... I think Penny Arcade summed it up nicely... http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-07-12 (Sorry if it offends anyone, I though it was funny I know Tycho can be little harsh on some issues, but sometimes I agree with him)

[Jim Giacchi]

Originally posted by Dave Hurt
the OS of choice for PC's is Windows 2000 and XP.

There's not that much choice in the matter.

[srawls]

There's not that much choice in the matter.

lol, how true. Wal-Mart has now started to sell cheap computers w/ lindows on them off their website, and that's a good start, but as long as windows is defualt installed on 99% of the computers average joe smith buys, then the OS by choice^H^H^H^H^H^Hslimy buisness tactics will always be Windows.

Stephen

PS. yeah yeah, i know, lindows isn't exactly top notch as far as linux distros goes, but at least it's a start

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by Dave Hurt
And the reason I say the only reason you should get a mac for graphics is because that's what they do... they can't handle complex computations like PC's can. The only thing they do better then a PC is graphic manipulation, and PC's are very quickly catching up.

Does no one pay any attention to Jon Lawton, besides myself, himself, and Wetzel?


Please DEFINE "PC graphics."

If you're talking about Windows/x86 graphics, there's a little company called Autodesk who dabbles in such a thing... or even another small company (who recently switched to Windows/x86 for their stations) called Silicon Graphics... perhaps you've heard of them...

As for other archs... please dont get me started...

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally posted by Dave Hurt
And the reason I say the only reason you should get a mac for graphics is because that's what they do... they can't handle complex computations like PC's can. The only thing they do better then a PC is graphic manipulation, and PC's are very quickly catching up.

A common misconception. Macs are way more for graphics, they can do almost anything that a PC can, and it can do more.

As for number crunching, do you have any evidence to back that up? I don't know what you use as an application but the G4 and the P4 are almost identical, in the type of heavy-duty calculations I saw.

However for serious number crunching, like a climate simulator, you would want multiple industrial strength processors like the G5, Itanium, nFORCE, not a personal computer processor.

[Wetzel]

Originally posted by Dave Hurt
The reason I say Win9x is no longer used is because you can no longer buy a machine with Windows 98 or ME on it. It's not used in the sense that 9.x is no longer used. Sure, people still use it because they don't want to upgrade due to money/hardware issues, but for the most part the OS of choice for PC's is Windows 2000 and XP.

The first point is incorrect, you can still buy ME, just not for much longer. Also, in the busniss world, there are still a very large number of machines running NT versions from before 2000. I would also not call Win2k and XP "the OS of choice". Microsoft would like nothing better for there to be no choice of OS's besides Windows. Calling Win2k and XP the OS of no-choice would be more accurate.

And the reason I say the only reason you should get a mac for graphics is because that's what they do... they can't handle complex computations like PC's can. The only thing they do better then a PC is graphic manipulation, and PC's are very quickly catching up.

This is also incorrect. The reason macs excell at graphical applications is because they do the complex computations better then a pc can. The major reason that Mac's are not a good choice for other things is lack of software support, not the hardware. It is similar to the reason I don't run Linux on my main computer, there is not the software support for it.


Wetzel
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All you misconceptions are belong to us.

[ChrisA]

Originally posted by Dave Hurt
And the reason I say the only reason you should get a mac for graphics is because that's what they do... they can't handle complex computations like PC's can. The only thing they do better then a PC is graphic manipulation, and PC's are very quickly catching up.

as a student of a motorola sponsored team i must say that it is quite appalling to hear someone speak this way about Macs. Seeing as Motorola is one of the companies that helps make the processors for Macs id have to say that theyre anything but weak.

the deal with macs is that they are limited software wise as to what they can do. to say that they cant do complex computations is just wrong. heres a fyi for ya. graphics are not just what is shown on your monitor. for example movie compression is all complex computations. and Macs are better at that than PCs so therefore Macs can handle it better than PCs in that respect.

[jon]

It's all a matter of time...

[Dave Hurt]

Mac processors are risc processors. They take large complex equations and break them down into simpler problems. PC processors are becoming more and more risc, that's why Intel and AMD processors have been able to reach such high speeds so fast.

The reason Mac's have been the choice for graphics applications is because they could break down the large instructions and process them faster. And since graphics applications usually have really large instructions, it benefited even more from this.

With the newer Intel and AMD chips, they are now breaking down really complex instructions into smaller instructions in a similar fashion. They are not pure risc chips, but they are a hybrid.

So yes, Mac's are better for graphics, and maybe a few other things. But when it cuts down to it, the hybrid chips of Intel and AMD are starting to outperform the Mac's.

As for if Mac's are better, why don't you see more of them in the buisness field? The only time I've ever seen a buisness use macs is in a graphics department. And trust me, if we wanted to run the software that we run on a PC on a mac, we could. Most everything we run is in Java, and can be run on anything from our AS/400's to our macs. But mac's are too expensive and too difficult to customize the way you can Linux or Windows to be practical in a buisness enviroment. For the same, if not faster, speed, you can pay 1/4 to a 1/2 for a pc of what you would pay for a mac.

Ok, so I know this thread was supposed to be about software, not hardware....

There are plenty of choices besides Windows 2000 and XP. There are countless dist. of Linux, Unix, BEos, bsd's.... and most of them arn't very hard to learn, espically the newer releases of Linux. Out of all of them, I perfer Win2k. It's fast, stable, and highly configurable. I also run Xp and Redhat occassionally. They all have their own uses.

And as for knocking Motorola for making "weak" processors, oh well. I'm not here to be politically correct, and it's no different from saying Ford is better then GM

[Matt Reiland]

it's no different from saying Ford is better then GM

Those are fight'n words!!!


Just Kidding

Matt from GM

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by Dave Hurt
Mac processors are risc processors. They take large complex equations and break them down into simpler problems. PC processors are becoming more and more risc, that's why Intel and AMD processors have been able to reach such high speeds so fast.

I haven't read any more of the post than that, and I'm not going to, unless specifically told to.

You do not make sense.

You mention "PC processors"... again, you're being too general; and no, they are NOT becoming more "risc".

Clock speeds are increasing, but that does not change the x86 instruction set...

Please know the terms you're using before proceeding to make asinine comments.

[jon]

Asnine comments.... I think all the posts are pretty asnine myself. People can use whatever sucky OS they want. If they want to use an OS that costs way too much, and has taxes, and breaks the law, and takes months to fix security holes, and that gives users lack of choice, and that buys out the government, then by all means let them do it.

I'm all for the open source OS's. They're run by the people, so you have choices. Sure they may be a bit more difficult to use at first, but if you're too stupid to figure out a few simple commands, you deserve to be under the wrath of them nazis.

Sure you may not agree with me, and sure I may not have made any sense, but I don't really care. Stop fighting and use whatever you like best, and don't knock something you've never tried. Don't lie to yourself, that one time you 'tried' Linux, you didn't really try did you? And yes, I'm a Linux advocate.

P.S. - Any flames will be ignored and/or responded to with bigger and better flames.

Jon