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Re: Computers

At the risk of a flame war, I agree with Chip. I share lab space with a
computer science faculty. He's always got the lid off his IBM clone,
re-installing hardware or software etc. (And that's fine, he is suppose to
know how to do that stuff; it's his job.) When he wanted to set up a lab
for his students to actually see and manipulate a TTL signal from a serial
port he turned to me and we did it on a Mac with Vernier's ULI connected to
a Mac; set up time = 10min.

So if knowing what is going on under the hood is important to you then go
IBM clone with Microsoft. If plug and play is important, the Mac is still
ahead for now. I suspect that in 5 or 10 years there won't be any
difference. As Chip pointed out; in 3 years you'll want to upgrade anyway.

I think that part of the Mac/PC argument if fueled by the fact that people
who are attracted to the technical end of computers are the ones we turn to
for advice about how to use them and what to buy. Computer scientists find
computers intrinsically intersting and would be very frustrated in not
being able to get into the hardware. The history of the market has been
that when we ask the experts what we should buy they (because of a
technical orientation) have traditionally favored the PC. Until Win95, Macs
really were by far easier to use, particularly for first time users and
those who don't care how the thing works.

If you were to load UNIX on various versions of Macs and PCs going back
from the pentium and Power PC 604 chips through the 680xx series and x86
series you would find that in terms of raw computing power neither platform
has always been ahead. The windows environment operating system was
developed by Xerox many years ago. Both Sun and Apple took advantage of the
fact that Xerox lost interest in the windows operating system and
'borrowed' it for their platforms. Microsoft is now following suit. I
predict that in 5 years there will not be much difference; most operating
systems will be some kind of windows environment, most likely operating
from a UNIX like shell. I'll bet future operating systems will run on any
hardware platform, too.

kyle

At 6:07 AM on 2/25/97, <phys-l@mailer.uwf.edu> wrote:

Mac vs PC? Pick up the annual reports from Apple and Microsoft. There is
not much question about which way the trend is going. As many have pointed
out the old computer will run the old software and work for years, but
the selection of upgrades, software etc has to be better for the computers
using the more popular operating system. Windows 95 works so much like a
Mac that there seems to be no compelling reason to by Mac.

Warning: Biased response.

I don't think I'd base my choice on who is making the greatest profit.
Pick the one you like the best. This isn't marriage. You get to pick
again in 3 to 5 years so you can always change your mind then.

The bottom line is whether you like to tinker with the machine or not, and
whether you have access to (or are) a computer expert. If the answer to
both is "no" then you are far better off with a Mac. If the answer is yes,
get a PC by all means. They are cheaper and more customizable.

On weekends I work with a bunch of PC experts. Weekends are filled with
tales of problems overcome. This last month one of them erased the EPROM
in his modem. Solution: buy a new one. One of them accidently set the
monitor to all black while adjusting its resolution, but was able to
recover by blindly moving the mouse to where he remembered the control was.
Another inadvertantly erased the BIOS whatever the heck those are. People
come to these guys for help because they are the experts. And I can't
tell you how many friends have PCs but are unable to use (pick one) the
CD-ROM, the modem, the printer, the internet, etc.

I sometimes feel left out with a Mac. There is no challege to using any of
these things. No tales of harrowing trouble-shooting to share. Plug and
play.

Chip
I'm not connected with Apple in any way. But I run a physics Mac lab for
students despite the fact that I know NOTHING about computers. I'm glad I
don't need help because the experts are perpetually over in the business
building sorting out Windows problems!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
! kyle forinash 812-941-2390 !
! forinas@indiana.edu !
! Natural Science Division !
! Indiana University Southeast !
! New Albany, IN 47150 !
! http://Physics.ius.indiana.edu/Physics.html !
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!