Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!wilkins
From: wilkins@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Mark Wilkins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: IIcx vs. IIci
Message-ID: <3884@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 22 Jan 90 04:20:34 GMT
References: <3892@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Lines: 38

In article <3892@mace.cc.purdue.edu> ar4@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Piper Keairnes) writes:
>In the next month or so I will be afforded the opportunity to buy a new Mac.
>My questions are:
>
>1) Is the IIci worth $1000 more than the IIcx?
>      I know that the IIcx would require a video card, and that puts the two
>      within $500 of each other.
>
>2) What is the real FEEL of the difference in performance?
>      I would rather have a FEEL of speed comparison than a benchmark
>      comparison.
>
>3) Is there enough software out there that doesn't work with the IIci to
>   make it not as attractive a buy as the IIcx??


   Since you say you normally work on an SE, I'm not sure that speed would
be the big issue for you.  However, the IIci does have a couple of
advantages, including updated and bug-fixed ROM that has much better support
for 32-bit addressing, which will be useful in the future.  That and the
speed were worth $500 to me when I bought mine. :-)
   However, there are compatibility issues with products which fiddle with
low-level things.  Certain programs, for example Cricket Graph 1.3.1 (for
which a patch was recently posted to the Info-Mac Digest) access the ROMs
directly, which because of the updates is a problem.
   Probably the biggest non-speed issue is that now, and in the future, you
will have to deal with fewer ROM patches which means that your system heap
will be smaller and you will have more memory to play with.  If you are on a
1 meg system this is important now.  If you want a 2 meg or greater system,
this probably won't matter so much until new system software is released,
but that won't be more than a year AT WORST, probably 6 months, and I guess
you will probably have your system longer than that.
   If the extra $500 causes you any qualms at all, though, you probably will
be happier with a IIcx.  I'd say unless the speed is an issue for you, as it
is for me, you will find it's a close call.

-- Mark Wilkins
   wilkins@jarthur.claremont.edu