I am a huge computer collector and enthusiast, and as a result I both own and have used many different architectures of computers that were running over a dozen different operating systems over the years. In fact, I personally own a collection of over 50 computers in my basement (if you would like to see a list of all of the computers that I own you can see a list of them on another forum post
here) that includes machines from Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, DEC, Commodore, Hewlitt-Packard, and many more. If I was to vote for this poll based on which architecture of machine that I own the most of, then I would have to vote for SPARC-based Sun workstations running Solaris (I have 25 of them). However, that unfortunately wasn't an option on the list. At the same time however, as far as what computer systems I get the most work done with I would have to go with IBM-compatible PC's running various versions of Microsoft Windows.
As a result I voted for PC.You have to face it-- PC's have many merits that Macintoshes are just not able to cope with. The number one thing for me is that PC's have loads and loads more software than Macs will ever have. You Mac people can argue that you have software available to you until you are blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is that I have seen estimates that indicate that there is at least 10-times as many software titles available for PC's as there are for Macs, and I personally feel that that figure is a gross understatement. And the reason for this is easy to explain: market share. From the reports and articles that I have seen, Macintoshes enjoy somewhere between 8-percent and 10-percent market share. PC's running Linux have less that 1-percent market share. That leaves the rest of the pie dominated by Microsoft Windows. Now if you were a software company, what operating system would you want to invest your time, money, staff, and resources in developing applications for? An OS that 1 out of 10 people use or an OS that 9 out of 10 people use? Sure you Mac people may have Adobe Photoshop available to you, but if you use a PC you can choose between Adobe Photoshop and around 20-other image editing programs as well, all meant for different skill-sets and price ranges to fulfill your need and your ability to pay. And heck, you Mac people may not even have Adobe Photoshop available to you much longer with the way Steve Jobs has been dealing with Adobe lately! The fact of the matter is that PC's come with software to do just about anything, and you usually have at least a dozen options to choose from. With Macs you have just got to cross your fingers and hope that Apple has an "i-something" that happens to do what you need.
Another problem with current Macs Intel-based Macs is that nowadays they are becoming pretty close to just being PC's that have extremely limited hardware options available to them and a huge price markup. If you truly love MacOS X then buy a "hackintosh" PC, a PC that uses the compatible hardware options to what Macs use, for less money and then run MacOS X on that. I don't know why you would want to ruin a good PC that way, but hey, PC's give you that choice. Will Apple sell you a Macintosh that runs Windows 7 on it? (You can run Windows 7 on a Mac you know! I have seen it done!) Heck no, and the company would probably excommunicate you from even asking. But with PC's you can build them with the parts that you want, place those parts into whatever case you want, and then run your choice of operating system on it, whether it is some version of Windows, MacOS X, one of about 500 Linux distros, or even the x86 version of Solaris 10. And if you want to build an ultimate gaming PC with quad SLI graphics cards, a SATA RAID array, duel 6-core i7 processors, liquid cooling, three thermoelectric radiators, a custom case, and enough electroluminescent wire and LEDs that you can see it from space, then a PC will allow you to do that-- not a Mac.
Some of the forum members here have been talking about how pretty they think that those minimalist brushed aluminum Macintoshes look, but in my opinion they have nothing on the sexy-looking pearlescent purple-painted Sun Blade 1500's with their bright red "Sun" badges, or even my pretty aqua-colored SGI Indys. Heck, even the computers from Steve Job's other computer company, NeXT, looked better. However, if you were a Mac user I suppose that you would
have to like how they looked, because it is not like you get any options to change their appearance!
In any case, as far as good-looking computers go, my favorite computer isn't a Mac, a PC, or even a Sun. As far as I am concerned, the coolest-looking computer of all time was this:
The CM-5 supercomputer from Thinking Machines, Inc.I am sorry, but that machine above is an epic world of awesomeness! The architecture of the CM-5 was loosely modeled after the neurons of a human brain-- the name of the company that built it, Thinking Machines, wasn't just trying to be cute when they picked their name! They were building specialized supercomputers for artificial intelligence research. Each one of those ominous red LED's aren't just for show either-- they glow when their corresponding "neuron" is active. One of the main customers for these room-filling Darth Vader fridges of doom was the equally dark and sinister U.S. National Security Agency, which found them useful for code-breaking work. You may also remember seeing one of these supercomputers in the background of the operations center in the 1993 film
Jurassic Park. While the Jurassic Park novel said that the operations center used a Cray supercomputer, Stephen Spielberg thought that the CM-5 looked far more impressive, and I definitely agree with him. Computers should look like they are capable of plotting against you and enslaving the entire human race on a whim, not like they are some kind of piece of minimalist modern art!
Lastly, if any of you happen to have taken a look at the list of the computers that I own that I linked to above, you will see that I actually do regretfully own one Macintosh. I found it for sale at a hamfest for $3 some time ago, complete with keyboard, mouse, and various assorted cables. I figured "any" computer could be worth $3. Boy was I wrong. The Macintosh that I bought happened to be the Performa 6205CD, which, as I found out the hard way, is universally known as the worst Macintosh ever made. "How bad can it be," you ask? More horrible than you could possibly ever imagine. I'm serious! For starters, Apple in its infinite wisdom decided to connect the 64-bit PowerPC chip to a 32-bit bus, which was a crippling move right there. But it gets worse-- they then designed the machine to allow you to be able to add only one 32-bit SIMM at a time instead of installing 32-bit SIMMs in pairs. What this did was force the PowerPC processor to have to use 4 entire processing cycles just to read one single processor instruction when most computers can do it in a single cycle. This cut down the speed of the processor in this machine by as much as
one-half to two-thirds!!! That's bad, but it gets worse still-- to save money Apple did away with using multiplexer chips to interconnect different speed controller chips on the motherboard, instead opting to have everything connect to two 32-bit buses connected to the processor. This meant that if a device on one bus needed to talk to a device on the other, then it would have to go through the processor to do so. But remember, that processor was running at essentially 1/3 speed due to the 32-bit memory bus, so having to use the processor for inter-bus communications as well *really* slowed things to a crawl. For example, the memory controller, IDE controller, and the video controller all shared the same 32-bit bus. That meant that if you downloaded a file off of the Internet your video picture would freeze. If you typed anything with the keyboard while loading a webpage, what you typed would be lost due to the same type of 32-bit controller problems. Due to a lack of port controllers in this machine (once again to save money), if you plugged a card into your COMM port your MODEM port would stop working. And there were even more problems still! If you are interested, below are two articles where you can learn in great detail about all of the technical flaws of this crawling horror of a machine:
Road Apples: Power Mac and Performa 5200-53xx & 6200-6320Performa and Power Mac x200 IssuesIf you ever wonder why Apple Computer nearly went out of business in the 1990's, that machine above and its brethren were the reason. I swear, anyone who even dared to root for a Mac in the Mac vs. PC fight back in the mid-1990's must have been truly drinking the Apple Kool-Aid. PC's back then may have had their flaws, but at least their motherboards had multiplexers and port controllers, and could download a file without their video completely freezing while the download was in progress! Jeez!
And in case you think that I am basing all of my Mac experiences on that one old model, I am not. Back when I worked for my student newspaper in college I had to use a G3 iMac running Mac OS9. The thing that I remember most about those wretched machines were their stupid "hocky puck" mouses. Nothing is more annoying then to try to drag and drop something only to find that your mouse pointer is going in a different direction then where you rolled it because your mouse is a stupid circle and you can't tell by touch which way is up! And as recently as last year I had to use an Intel iMac when I worked as a web developer for an advertising agency. Luckily, this work place had Microsoft mouses plugged into every Mac and had all of the worthless puck mice tossed into a box in the back of the store room, which is where they rightfully belonged! MacOS X was definitely more pleasurable to use than OS 9, but it had its own set of annoyances. One was that it couldn't play the BBC World Service's live radio audio stream, which I liked to listen to while I was working. Neither Quicktime nor Flip4Mac could do it. I finally found an old no longer supported version of Windows Media Player 9 for OSX and installed that, and that ended up working like a charm. Another nuisance was those annoying bouncing icons in the dock bar. My workplace at the time forced us to use iChat to communicate with one another, even if we were sitting next to each other, because they didn't want the noise of the programmers talking between their half-height cubicles to disrupt the sales people in their plush offices if the sales people chose to leave their office doors open. *sigh* With the whole web department communicating in an AIM chatroom through iChat, that stupid iChat icon was bouncing up and down all over the place all of the time making its annoying little "whoop" noises. And when the head of the department decided that we should use the Yammer app for department communications as well, simultaneously, I then had two bouncing annoying icons constantly breaking my concentration!
And why does Apple still insist on placing the "minimize," "maximize," and "close" window buttons on the left side of the program windows still? I would go to work and try to close something on my Mac, and I would out of habit try to close the application window on the right side. Then I would go home and try to use one of my trusty Windows or Solaris machines and suddenly find myself trying to wrongly close the application windows on the left side. Guess what Apple! 90-percent of the world uses Windows! That means that 90-percent of everyone expects to close their application windows on the right side! That's called a de-facto standard, and you are just making it more difficult for 9 out of every 10 people who has to sit down and use one of your machines by insisting on still doing things your own way! And how come when you do hit the red "X" close button on a some Mac applications the application doesn't quit, but just minimizes down to the dock, while still other applications
will quit when you hit the red "X"? And how come so few Mac applications support more than one mouse button? It would be nice if I could right click on something to cut and paste every once in a while! And how about that rainbow pinwheel that you see whenever a Mac decides to freeze and die? And contrary to what most Appleheads will tell you, you really do end up seeing that rainbow pinwheel a lot. You hear about Windows Vista being bashed a lot, but my own Vista machine has proven to be more stable to use than the Intel Mac that I used to use at work ever was. I'm sorry, but while Macs may have had their advantages when they first came out in 1984, I just don't see any clear advantage to owning a Mac in this day and age, especially if you haven't used one before and have to suffer their learning curve.
To end on a positive note, one thing that I will hand to Apple is that they did a good job covering up the fact that MacOS X runs on top of a UNIX kernel. You can use MacOS X everyday for months and be completely oblivious to the fact that everything that you're doing is running on top of UNIX. People who develop Linux desktops should take note of this-- it is this separation of the desktop experience from the UNIX underpinnings in MacOS X that you should be striving for. I have used a half-a-dozen different Linux distributions by now, and while they all claim to have "user friendly" desktops, in all of them I have found their beauty to be only skin deep. I don't think that I have ever used a Linux distro where I wasn't forced to change a text configuration file in a text editor or find that the only way to do something was through the command line at some point. With MacOS X I never had to edit a UNIX configuration file, nor did I ever *have* to use its terminal (I still used its terminal a few times just for fun). You don't have to know anything about UNIX-like operating systems to be able to use a Mac, while in contrast if you don't know how to use UNIX-like systems while trying to use Linux for something more sophisticated than simple web browsing or OpenOffice, then sooner or later something will go wrong, require the use of attempting to change some ancient configuration file with vi, and you will be royally screwed. Since MacOS X is a direct descendant of the NeXTStep operating system created at NeXT, I guess that is the one thing that I will admit Steve Jobs did an acceptable job on.
Sorry for the very long-winded rant there-- I guess that this topic really struck a chord with me!
Poll
