Mac OS ready for prime time?

I own several Macs and PCs, including a PC that used to be a media center in my car. For everyday use I prefer the Mac. Never fails, hardware is rock solid, and I find I can execute tasks easier and reliable.

I think the safest thing to do now is buy a Mac. If you find that for some reason you need to use a PC you can always emulate or run windows natively on Mac hardware; truly best of all worlds.

Cheers!

 

agreed

 

Don't own one but sure, yeah, its ready.

 

I've been a Mac user at home for years. No Windoze in my house! Now that they have the Intel chip, people are finally seeing the light. Get one! Much more reliable that the POS PC that I use at work.

 

The question I am wondering about now that Mac OSX is running on the Intel (?AMD)chipset is can on take a Windows box and resurrect it as a Mac? I have kinda assumed 'not', just because I a have never heard about this option but assuming obviously doesn't make it right.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jchu @ Sep 4 2006, 12:50 AM) [snapback]313837[/snapback]</div>

No. There are hardware reasons you can only run Mac OS on a Mac machine. Even intel based.

You can add software to the Mac to run Windows. You'll have to buy the Windows OS, you can't just use something from another machine.

You can even choose an emulation that allows you to run Windows and Mac at the same time in different windows.

Please be aware that when running Windows on a Mac it is subject to all of the same viruses etc that a regular PC would so you'll still need to run all of the annoying security stuff.

I imagine some people running both will eventually migrate to the Mac side after comparing them both side by side. Unless there is some software you absolutely can't get for Mac. (Or like me, have a network based system at work that MUST run on a PC.)

And for gamers, PCs are still better. But I wonder how long that will last.

 

I understand you might be reluctant to go for Fedora for instance, but what about Ubuntu, Freespire or the latest Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Chris B @ Sep 3 2006, 10:34 PM) [snapback]313834[/snapback]</div>

Nope I think that if memory servers me Apple puts some ROM Chips on the Mainboard that have properitery Apple code.

Also the OS on the Apple is UNIX based and Linux is a close cousin of UNIX. Apple is just a master at developing great GUI interfaces between the user and the OS.

Wildkow

 

Thanx Godiva, thought so. Actually, the very first computer I owned was a 512k Mac SE, though the only real programming I've ever done on a "PC" in ernest was on a machine which I only remember as having a Z80 chip and 8" floppies!!! (yes 8" not 5" floppies). Certain job restraints require me running at least some Windows based programs. and am currently forced to run way too much overhead (in my mind) just to keep the baddies out. Plan to move back to Macs for my wife and will be considering some flavor of linux as a front end server Also already have the hardware firewall as I move into the real world of high speed access. Yes at home still on 56k modem though a planned move to the sticks... I mean country will seriously degrade that but I should be able to get at least 1 WIFI network signal. Work is a different matter with a secure dedicated T1 line. Unfortunately, will still need a Windows system for a thankfully limited number of work related stuff.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jchu @ Sep 4 2006, 12:00 AM) [snapback]313870[/snapback]</div>

LOL boy did you just date yourself! :lol:

But an 8" floppy :blink: is impressive! I have only had a 5" floppy to play with. :lol:


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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 3 2006, 08:26 PM) [snapback]313735[/snapback]</div>

Excellent. I've been using Macs since 1987 and would not buy anything else. I'm now on my 8th and have recently dumped my first one - reluctantly because it was still in working order. There is a local depot here for receiving junk so I tool my little Mac along and was told to put it in the shed "for screens". I was amazed when I saw how many monitors and TVs had been discarded. They were facing the door so after I laid my little Mac carefully to rest I took a photo which I have titled "Retired - no energy" and am waiting to get a suitable companion picture of humans to put next to it. In the attachment below, my old Mac is in the bottom left hand corner. I'm sure some of you will recognise the model. I think I paid over £2,000 ($3,000?) for it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 4 2006, 09:30 AM) [snapback]313930[/snapback]</div>

It all depends on what you mean by "better." Just to give you some background: I use Windows at home and use Linux ("Scientific Linux," which is basically just Redhat) at work. I also have lots and lots of oppertunities to see Macs because there are a LOT of people in my field (Astronomy) that have Mac laptops and, although I'm not actually the IT guy, I'm one of those guys that everyone goes to with computer questions.

My impression is that for basic web browsing stuff and mail, Macs are really simple and great most of the time. HOWEVER, it is a myth that Macs never crash and that their hardware is completely stable. I've known several people who have had significant problems with MacOS crashing and a few who have had problems with hardware failure. Not to say that Windows is any better (it's probably significantly worse), but Apple likes to convey this image of complete perfection, and I just want to make it clear that this is not totally true.

So, why am I running windows at home?

1. It's cheaper. The hardware is cheaper, the OS is cheaper (since I have a friend at Microsoft), and any upgrades I want are cheaper. Since, with an Apple, you're largely limited to their hardware, there's no competition to force them to lower prices.

2. Apple likes to say that things "just work." While that is largely true, on the occations where things don't "just work," it's hard to get them to work. As someone who is fairly computer saavy, I feel like Windows makes it easier for me to try other options when things don't work (However, see #3).

3. Inertia. I've run Windows for a long time at home, and know how to do a lot of basic, daily things in Windows. Also, it's what I've always done, and I've been fairly happy with my Windows experience (especially Windows XP), so I've continued to do it.

4. Despite my age (late-20s), I still have somewhat of an interest in video games (call it "making up for a childhood without them"). The game situation is really much better on a Windows machine. While this may not directly apply to you, it is true that there is quite a bit of third party software out there written for Windows (and not Mac). This is becoming less true these days, but there still is a significant lag.

So, despite all of this, my next laptop will probably be a Mac. From a work perspective, Macs make a lot of sense. There's a fairly large Astronomy user base out there for Macs, so there's a lot of the important software has been ported to MacOS. For giving presentations, the Macs just *look* pretty.

That said, I will keep my Windows machine at home. In my experience, it's been quite stable and I've been very happy with its performance. It's not really practical for work (although, anyone who's interested in having Linux functionality on their Windows machine needs to try Cygwin), but that's why I have Linux at work. For the stuff I need/want to do on a daily basis, it works well for me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jchu @ Sep 4 2006, 03:00 AM) [snapback]313870[/snapback]</div>

PCs have never had Z80's - their chips where intel (or derived) 8086 series. The Zilog Z80 was derived from the antediluvian i8080 chip - a true relic.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Betelgeuse @ Sep 4 2006, 10:17 AM) [snapback]313947[/snapback]</div>

One of the things I've noticed about my Mac (it's a secondary machine, my primary machine is a Linux machine) is that it's as memory hungry as anything I've ever seen. On Linux I can run OpenOffice, a web browser, amarok, etc without any slowdowns. On my Mac, I start to get the infinite beachball of waiting as soon as I open have more than a few applications open and start to switch between them. I think it's because the UI on the Mac has trained people to stick with one application at a time. But that's pure conjecture.

It may just be that Mac programs are larger than their Linux (and I'll say it, Windows) parallels. I'd never seen a memory hungry mp3 player until I met iTunes. Sure, it organizes your collection and lets you purchase music, but there are other MP3 players which do more with less.

It boots quick, and it looks slick... but once you seriously start pounding on it, it falls down fairly quickly.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(triphop @ Sep 4 2006, 07:40 AM) [snapback]313958[/snapback]</div>

Maybe a relic now but it was superior in it's time and except for a lie it would be the Intel of today rather than Intel.

Wildkow

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10532-0.htm...61&start=-1

 

If you aren't a fan of Linux, you might end up hating OS X becuase it's going to look the same to you under the hood. I use Windows, Linux and OS X regularly. I did not like any Mac OS before OS X.

For predictability and stability I prefer my Linux box, but I don't have all the applications I need under Linux. I've had both Windows and OS X flake out on me. I'm still not sure why I have to run run a disk utility to repair permissions on OS X. I wouldn't install something on windows without creating a save point in case it decided to kill my registry. I guess no OS is perfect. It just will cost you a bit for the hardware to find out if you like OS X. Sounds like a Mac Mini may be a good intro.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Sep 3 2006, 11:34 PM) [snapback]313863[/snapback]</div>

There's hacked versions of OSX that disable the hardware check and allow running on many modern PC hardware. Just not practical, nor legal, however.

I've made my opinions of OSX in the previous Linux thread. To add, pick what you use the computer most for. I stay with Windows because that's where all my games are at, but I use BSD for my firewall because I built it before all these dinky linksys/dlink boxes became mainstream.

For internet, it's at least almost equivalent across platforms. For productivity, you still have the inertial of Microsoft Office to contend with which isn't multi-platform.

Multimedia: there's more codec development in Windows for developers, but Macs have the more user-friendly commercial apps.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Sep 4 2006, 03:20 AM) [snapback]313876[/snapback]</div>

Date themselves! I remember paper tape and core memory. We had to hand toggle the bootstrap code into core. First you toggled in the absolute loader, then read in the relocating loader from paper tape. A two pass assembler required you to run your paper tape through the reader twice. The first hard drives I worked with held 256k, as in 256 thousand, not mega anything. We did so much octal coding that one of my co-workers subtracted his checkbook for a whole month using octal. He only discoverd his mistake when the bank statement came in the mail and it didn't balance.

Tom