[ale] mac v pc

[D. Alan Stewart]

> When I can run Mac OS on my PowerPC board, come talk to me.  Until then, it's
> closed. 

My point is that there are different aspects and degrees of 'closed' and 'open'.

> The really funny thing is that those *exact* same changes have taken place in
> the Intel market, where you claim such migration is impossible.
> Intel-compatibles have gone from AT / PS/2 keyboards and mice to USB, they've
> gone from ISA to PCI / AGP with little dalliances with other busses (EISA,
> MCA), they've gone from one operating system (the DOS family) to a
> fundamentally different one (the NT family), etc.  So much for the
> superiority of the proprietary architecture.... 

Yeah, I exagerated. Mea culpa.

Still, larger migrations happen much faster in the Apple universe. I don't think 
the change from AT-style ports to PS/2 ports compares to the migration from 
the original Mac keyboard/mice ports to ADB. ADB integrated multiple 
keyboards, mice, and other input devices onto one daisy-chained bus. PS/2 
ports were just a change in form factor, I believe the signal is the same. Then 
there's the move to USB. Yes, almost every PC in my company has USB 
ports. Yet there is not a single USB device in the company. Every Mac 
comes with a USB keyboard and mouse, and it's been that way for a couple 
of years. I have yet to see a PC that comes standard from the manufacturer 
with any Firewire ports, which all Macs are equipped with. Windows 95 is the 
first version of Windows considered to be 32-bit; 32-bit Mac OS 7 came out 
in 1990 or 1991. Intel motherboards eventually were available with onboard 
SCSI, but long after Apple put it on every motherboard. The list runs on...

( I am speaking of the mass PC market. There have always been alternative 
operating systems that provided differing functionality, but 95% of PC users 
are Microsoft operating system users. )

The Intel universe hasn't gone through a migration that can compare to the 
switch from 68xxx to PowerPC. Apple did it in a couple of years. I think it'll 
take the PC market longer to switch over to Itanium, which is not near the 
same leap.

So there's pros and cons to both approaches. One of the reasons I've always 
bought Macs is that I wanted to be sure I would always have the choice...

Alan


D. Alan Stewart
Senior Software Developer
Layton Graphics, Inc.
155 Woolco Dr.
Marietta, GA 30062
Voice: 770/973-4312
Fax: 800/367-8192
FTP: ftp.layton-graphics.com
WWW: www.layton-graphics.com


"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they
are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do
not refer to reality." - Albert Einstein

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