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Re: Computers

What I have, for example, is a significant number of investment programs
that are not available for the Mac. Software drives hardware. A major
reason I purchased my first Apple was the "killer app" of Visa Calc.
I am able to find software for 'Wintel' machines that I cannot find for
my Mac. A few years ago MacMotion and ULI timer were key programs in my
physics program. ULI timer is still important but I do have a
replacement on the PC side. Vernier came out with MPLI for Windows so
MacMotion is not quite so important. The Millikan Experiment
simulation-experiment is not available for the Mac and here in Oregon the
experiment was almost impossible to do and that is the reason for
Vernier's software solution.

I do have two Mac programs, Coulomb's Law and Planck's Constant that are
not available for the PC but otherwise I could get along without a Mac.
But this would be foolish since there are still some graphics
applications that work very well on the Mac.

My point is that it is software and what you want to do with the computer
that should determine your purchase. The investment and
telecommunications software (Bulletin Board Systems) are reasons I spend
more time with a PC than a Mac but I see a lot of value in each
system.

Lowell

But what have you got that a Mac user really lacks? You have 50 word
processors to choose from (3 or 4 good ones), Mac people have 6-8 to choose
from (3 or 4 good ones); you have 83 spreadsheets to choose from, Mac
people choose from 5 or 6 (and still get one as good); you choose from 10
database programs, Mac users choose from 5. True, there are fewer software
choices on the Mac side, but still plenty to give us at least one good
choice in each category. How many word processors (or browsers or
spreadsheets or...) can a body use?

To my knowledge, there aren't very many truly unique software packages that
are PC-onl, and there are probably an equal number of truly unique packages
that are Mac-only.

Larry