PC or Mac?

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 2:13 pm

Yeah put up a the goods and we may be tempted to taste

lethelgirth87 · Post by **lethelgirth87** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 7:09 pm

OR.....you can just let us win, because from the standpoint right now, 80% of the people that voted voted for PC! ROCK ON!

Jass Films · Post by **Jass Films** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:32 pm

Well the fact is basically, i'm the only person at the moment who supports macs, and i also know there is no way i can convince you PC crazed people that macs are better. The only way that is possible is to sit you down in front of a mac and show u where it excels over the PC. But we all know that ain't gonna happen, and i ain't gonna turn this topic into a flame fest.

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:56 pm

lol agreed.
I may not accept your opinion but i will defend your right to say it

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:10 am

Well even tho I run PCs exclusively, lets take a look at the comparison somewhat opbjectively....
And I venture to guess I've been writing code and working with personal computers longer than probably anyone else on here ( unless there is another old fart here) and I KNOW for longer than some of you guys have been sucking air LOL - I mean hey I damned near bought a PCjr when they first coame out!!
1) Ease of use, with windows / MAC OSX Call that pretty much a wash, they are both useable by anyone who scores slightly higher than a rock on an IQ test...
2) Speed - The processor clockspeed is about the most worthless, marketing diven benchmark that has EVER been foisted upon the public ( OK witht he exception of how manufacturers rate the min lux on a cam ). The Speed of the proc ( GHz/MHz is ONLY valid if you are comapring procs of the same generation of the same family. When manufacturers start to give us useful info like MIPS or MegFLOPS/GigaFLOPS then we will have a benchmark to compare different paltforms.
3) Design History - PCs started out as IBMs bastard child - and in many ways still is. MAC was designed from the ground up, and was a closed system, therefore allowing more stability and better technology advances. PC users have been so used to backward compatibility to support legacy hardware and software, both with the physical systems as well as the OS, that we have hobbled the technology from advancing to where it could be... bottom line, we're cheap so and so's who don't want to have to buy everything new when we upgrade hardware. Apple drew the line, and did not focus on backward compatibility, their advancements were into the market place faster. The open architecture of the PC allowed multiple manufacturers to enter the market place with hardware, but MS still held us hostage

If we could drop all the legacy BS from Windows as well as the systems, we would have a MUCH better machine in the PC than we do today. The double edged sword here was that the open architecture drove the price in the PC world down through competition, and being so cheap

we moved the inferior machine into the forefront of market share. It has only been the last couple of years that PCs have even come CLOSE to catching up on the innovation front.
3) CPUs - The MAC uses a much more efficient micro code, performing operations in fewer instructions and hence fewer clock cycles than Intel. The RISC based processor on MACs is descended from the Motorola 68000 family of porocessors, and having written assembler code for both 68X Motorolas and x86 based Intel chips... the Motorola wins hands down.
OK so so far the MAC fans are all cheering! But sit down guys....
4) Software - No doubt for selection and price, PCs win hands down, tho it is getting closer in the price arena. Is the software any better?? Nope, it just makes sense for the vendors to put their effort into writing software with the higher possible user base for sales.
6) Price.. no brainer here.. PCs again on competition. Price performance break, ehhh closer there, but I still think PCs have the edge, but not all that great.
7) Video editing - Once again the MAC shines, the MAC was able to do braodcast quality video work years before PCs, hell Commodore Amigas where there before the PCs ( see Vudeo Toasters history) and still leads the pack. I have yet to see a professional NLE shop where PC based edit bays outnumber MAC based edit bays.... fact oflife guys, the MAC does it better - maybe not cheaper but better, and generally more stable. - Oh and IMovie doesn't count unless you consider Windows Movie Maker to be a powerful editor. They both work well for what they are, but neither is pro level.

So the question on everyone's mind ( ok maybe on SOMEONE's mind ) is why if MACS have so much going for them do I run PCs exclusively...
a) I AM a cheap b*st**d

b) and more improtantly, I support a WIntel based network at work, and just don't have time to get as up close and personal with a MAC as I do with my PCs. I understand how Windows and the hardware works, so I can fix it quicker, and easier.
I came really close in the early 80's to purchasing an Apple Lisa, and if I had, I'd probably be running a MAC right now.
Is one better than the other... In certain areas maybe ( Mac in video/graphics PC in pure raw number crunching ) but generally speaking.. not a chance, they just do it differently....

edinc90 · Post by **edinc90** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:35 am

You made me do it:
First I would like to respond to this:

lethelgirth87 wrote:...plus macs just don't seem to be as fast as a pc...

Maybe the Mac wasn't built as fast as your PC. Obviously if the Mac you were using had 254 MB of memory and your PC had 512 MB the PC would be faster!
Second:

Grant wrote:hmm technically it could be argued that Microsoft copied some of the concept of the Windows OS from Apple

I agree! Apple has named two of their OSs after animals: Jaguar and Panther. Now Microsuck is calling their new OS "Longhorn." Coincidence? And if you notice on some PC commercials when they list the stuff that comes with the comp, the background looks like this: http://www.ibiblio.org/mcarroll/sites/A ... _metal.jpg
The same texture as the Mac OS X windows. Hmm, I wonder? Also the desktop pictures in those commercials...http://www.developpeurs.info/macosxrumo ... esktop.jpg Again, they have the same blue lines, not exactly the same, but close enough...

Raptor wrote: b) and more importantly, I support a WIntel based network at work, and just don't have time to get as up close and personal with a MAC as I do with my PCs.

If you haven't noticed (probably not) Macs are very good with networking. My friend has an iMac G4 (the flat panel ones) and he has the only Mac in his house. The rest of his family has PCs. He plugged in his Mac to their Ethernet cable and connected to the network. He could see every other PCs HD as a network drive. He plugged it in and it worked. No set up of hardware or software (besides hard wiring his house with the Ethernet, but he would have to do that anyway for the PCs).

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 1:21 am

PCs will pick straight up to, it's called DHCP... not a pl;us actually, and yes... OSx finally 'infected' (as an old MAC editor I know terms it) the MAC OS with SMB protocols...

U.S.Amateurfilmaker · Post by **U.S.Amateurfilmaker** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 2:38 am

A lot of people claim mac has a better quality video output than a PC? Is this true, becauseI thought it was all based on codecs and not the hardware you're running, which only determines the speed at which you render.

justsomeguy · Post by **justsomeguy** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 2:49 am

If you haven't noticed (probably not) Macs are very good with networking. My friend has an iMac G4 (the flat panel ones) and he has the only Mac in his house.

id have to disagree there, my friends apple has one of theose airport thingys attached to it, and 1 out of every 20 times i go there is the networking actually working, even the interent doesnt work.

Obviously if the Mac you were using had 254 MB of memory and your PC had 512 MB the PC would be faster!

sure amac might go faster if it had the same memory or cpu speed, but that would cost WAY more money. its hard to find a mac under $1000 with over 1 ghz. (well maybe not, but i really have no idea)., while you can get a 3 ghz system for about $700 if you build it with a pc. so basically if macs maybe do more with less, but your gonna end up paying about 3 times as much.

edinc90 · Post by **edinc90** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 2:57 am

You are right, Macs do cost more, but for a 1 GHz eMac it is only $800. As for the Airport problems, have your friend talk to me and I can probably fix it.

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:05 am

For crying out loud!! Clock speed means nothing in this discussion!!! You can't compare the proc speeds!! The clock speed is only a valid comparison between processor of the same generation of the same family. And as far as wireless networking, I just ripped it out of a classroom full of PCs due to it's lack of reliability.

justsomeguy · Post by **justsomeguy** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 6:05 am

For crying out loud!! Clock speed means nothing in this discussion!!! You can't compare the proc speeds!! The clock speed is only a valid comparison between processor of the same generation of the same family.

yeah, that was my point kinda sorta. but i thinbk i kinda cam out sounding the opposite. which is why i said:

so basically if macs maybe do more with less, but your gonna end up paying about 3 times as much.

in other words, there proc can be faster even though its at a lower speed cuz its completey different from a pc. but the main thing i hate about macs is that you cant really by any hardware or anything other than from apple. this increases realiabitly al ot. but it makes it impossible too build ur own comp. and i hate buying comps from the company, id rather build it myself and know everything about it cuz i built it

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 8:52 am

Definitely one of the advantages of a PC, although Apples are supporting a LOT more PCI cards, I still like the roll your own 'puter method LOL

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 8:57 am

If there is one thing that drives my nuts about a Mac is the crazy whole-mouse clicker. I try moving the mouse and it clicks randomly on me. Who ever came up with that stupid concept? Now a PC mouse on a Mac would be a lot better.

El Brenty · Post by **El Brenty** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 1:42 pm

I'd like to throw something into this duiscussion:

If Macs are so good, so much better than PCs, why aren't they the mass-market choice? Why aren't the software vendors favouring Macs, making people buy the hardware? There's tons more PC software than there is for Macs.

edinc90 · Post by **edinc90** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:39 pm

Epsilon wrote:If there is one thing that drives my nuts about a Mac is the crazy whole-mouse clicker. I try moving the mouse and it clicks randomly on me.

Look on the underside of the mouse. There will be a ring around the LED (red light). You can rotate that ring for click sensitivity (- is soft, o is medium, and + is stiff).

CamClub wrote:If Macs are so good, so much better than PCs, why aren't they the mass-market choice?

Because Bill Gates was better at marketing his software than Steve Jobs was at marketing his Apple I.

Epsilon wrote: Why aren't the software vendors favoring Macs, making people buy the hardware? There's tons more PC software than there is for Macs.

Because why waste money and time developing for a computer that is 15% of the market share? In the way of games it is most obvious, but many more games and software are made for both now. (Adobe, Ambrosia, Pangea Software, and other third party small or single person developers).

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:44 pm

CamClub wrote:I'd like to throw something into this duiscussion:

If Macs are so good, so much better than PCs, why aren't they the mass-market choice? Why aren't the software vendors favouring Macs, making people buy the hardware? There's tons more PC software than there is for Macs.

He he he he see my previous, we PC people are cheap SOBs. From a technology standpoint, Apple did it right. Unfortunately for them, it sucked from a marketing standpoint.The price of PCs quickly dropped to below those of Apple as more manufacturers began producing IBM'clones'. The only way to distinguish their product was on price. When IBM designed the PC in the early 80's, they felt the desktop computer was going to be a minor market. Their focus was still on Min and Main frame - their 'big iron' machines- System36/38 Now the AS400/RS6000. They gave the PC project very little time to engineer their entry into the desktop market, and even less of a budget. Most of the components for the original PC where lifted from existing technology, and used an open architecture, which allowed anyone to enter the hardware market since the machines contained little that was proprietary or protected technology. Very quickly the business world, who still hadn't quite figured out the true value of PCs went with the solution that offered cheaper alternatives. Apple meanwhile continued using their proprietary architecture, building a more solid stable rapidly advancing machine, while the PC world continued to demand cheap, and backward compatibility.

IBM finally got wise to the concept of -"Hey we developed this family of machines, but everybody else is selling more than us!" And so was born the IBM PS/2 with Micro Channel Architecture(MCA) MCA was a true high speed 32 bit bus, capable of supporting fast scsi drives and with a blistering ( Well in it's day blistering 33MHz bus speed). Unfortunately for IBM it was incompatible with existing ISA cards. Remember the ISA slots were either 8 or 16 bit at 8 MHz bus speed. MCA was a proprietary architecture only available from IBM or to be licensed from IBM. The machines were considerably more expensive than competitors, but IBM was counting on users to want to pay the premium for the performance aspects of the PS/2.

Wrong again Big Blue!. Several other manufacturers developed the EISA specs, a 32 bit bus that wasat least somewhat backward cxompatible with ISA. That technology was easily licensed from th consortium who developed it, but agai never caught on. Even tho it was open architecture, the initial development of cards to support those slots never allowed for enough volume to be produced. Hence, both superior technologies went away, not due to being bad or poor performers, quite the contrary, they were exceptional performers in their day. PC people are just cheap SOBs

And so our love afair with backward compatibility continued. We demanded that todays systems support 20 year old technology. Let's face it, it has only been the last few years since Mother boards have not included one or two ISA slots for older crds, that is the 8Mhz bus( actually 16 by this time if the card could handle it..)

Apple, which controlled the design and implementation of their products, would release a new generation machine, with no concern for backward compatibility - either hardware or software. Since Apple controlled the licensing of hardware, and wrote the OS, they were able to wrap their machines and OS ina lighter shell to support hardware, and to include hardware optimizations in the OS. Something MS has never had the luxury of doing. Apple OS is designed to support one type of Proc. WIndows has to support Intel/AMD/Cyrix and who knows who else. But when you upgraded your MAC, you bought new hardware, and a new OS, and often had to replace your software with a new version, since Apple software could be written to support a specific OS / hardware combination.

PC people are cheap SOBs and didn't want to have to spend the money everytime they upgraded. Remember most of the high end graphic apps we use on PCs today started out as A MAC based software. Adobe, Corel, Quark all made their entry into the MAC world. Unfortunately, the market share of MACs doesn't allow a software vendor to both innovate and maintain competitive prices, unless it is a vertical app, like pro editing. Generic apps like word processing, and spreadsheets, will always be cheaper on the PC platform. Their performance is pretty much platform independent, runa s well on one as the other. But when yu get into vertical, special purpose apps where the software can take advantage of OS and hardware specifics, that is where MACS pull away in perofrmance, and why even with pricing they continue to flourish in high end Video/Graphics/Publishing shops. So why should software vendors even develop MAC apps, when the PC world provides a larger market, and longer product life on the upgrade route. Simple economics for the software publishers. The vertical markets are a pretty small market genrally, and performance is often the primary consideration in their choice of software. Smaller software publishers often enter the game as MAC publishers due to less competition. Easier to get their product noticed. As far as retail availability of software, once again it is market share. What retailer is goinfg to waste space on a machine with 8% or so of their available market when they could throw a few more games out there for the kiddies to gobble up for their PCs LOL.

So why are PCs the dominant market leader in market share? Well from the above, it should be obviouis.... PC people are cheap SOBs! We buy primarily on price, not performance.

Brent, aren't you sorry you asked now LOL:)

edinc90 · Post by **edinc90** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:51 pm

Wow Raptor, you must have a lot of time to write something like that. I'm too lazy to read the whole thing but I got the main idea: PC people are cheap SOBs.

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:58 pm

It's the condensed version of my " PC history " lecture from class, If you like I could paste in the three days of lecture notes I used to use in the classroom LOL. ( Actually I probably can't, been doing it off the cuff for so long I probably don't even have my lecture notes anymore) Hey kewl, someone else from PA!

edinc90 · Post by **edinc90** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:05 pm

Yeah, I'll stick to the condensed version. Ugh, PA, don't remind me. My friend says we should all move from Wyo. to California and I'm starting to agree with him. I think Epsilon has the right idea.

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 4:37 pm

He he he well we're kind of leaning toward FLA as soon as the two youngest finish college. My wife works at Penn State so they get a huge discount. 6 years when they are both done, we're outta here!

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 2:59 am

I like my PC, because it is big and kicks a**, the biggist resion why I'm not on on the mac, is not just because I cheep, but because I'm to lazy to learn how to work the mac, that and I hate single butten mice, must have my two butten mice. You will never convice me, unless your willing to give me $3000 to by a G5, then I would give it a chance.

justsomeguy · Post by **justsomeguy** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:01 am

dont they have two-button mice for the mac?

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:40 am

They do now... used to be one button, but then hey, used to be on windows there were two buttons, the right just never did much LOL

Jass Films · Post by **Jass Films** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 5:03 am

dont they have two-button mice for the mac?

yes they do, most companies now make their mice compatatible now on both mac and PC.

You are right, Macs do cost more, but for a 1 GHz eMac it is only $800

You guys need to remeber when comparing prices to look at the specs, you macs are more expensive because they are more fully loaded then most PC's. The emacs are great value, the bottom line emacs comes with a built in burner and DVD player, and for not much more you get an 80 gig mac with both dvd and cd burner. To get the same thing remembering emacs are flat screen you are looking at paying almost double. As for imacs, well they are flat panel, and come with a lot of features. The fact is really, PC's are the ones that are more expensive once you try to match features.

If Macs are so good, so much better than PCs, why aren't they the mass-market choice? Why aren't the software vendors favouring Macs, making people buy the hardware? There's tons more PC software than there is for Macs.

Macs were the favoured choice once apon a time, but it's the same thing that is happening with consoles at the moment. One company leads microsoft drops prices to try and sell more, the cheaper prices means easier accessability which = more users which = more software which = market leader but it is not neccesarrily better, just more widely used.

If there is one thing that drives my nuts about a Mac is the crazy whole-mouse clicker. I try moving the mouse and it clicks randomly on me. Who ever came up with that stupid concept? Now a PC mouse on a Mac would be a lot better.

well buy one and put it on it....

for every question there is an answer.