Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!gatech!udel!burdvax!dave From: dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: give me solid facts: why is the mac better than MeSsy DOS/WINDOWS Message-ID: <16936@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> Date: 21 Mar 91 17:38:36 GMT References: <1991Mar16.021936.21633@amd.com> <16918@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> <1991Mar21.024213.9550@amd.com> Sender: news@PRC.Unisys.COM Organization: Unisys Corporation, Paoli Research Center; Paoli, PA Lines: 113 In article <1991Mar21.024213.9550@amd.com> phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) writes: >In article <16918@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: >|As to "overwhelming advantages": unfortunately, this uniformity across >|applications is very hard for DOS users to see, and even harder for >|them to understand the importance of, but for me it's crucial. I use > >I don't buy this at all, unless you're talking about the DOS straw man. >If you are trying to make a useful comparison of Mac vs Windows, I >find the Win apps I've seen to be quite consistent in terms of >there being a file menu, edit menu, clipboard, etc. Oops, sorry. I thought most applications still didn't use Windows. Shows how much attention I pay to the DOS market, I guess. >Beyond that kind of stuff, I don't really see that Macdraw has anything >at all in common with Adobe Illustrator. AI doesn't even have a grid >for god's sake. There's not much standardization for exchanging >drawings either. Macdraw doesn't even read PICT and loses information >when you write PICT. I agree that nothing is perfect. I only claimed that the Mac was much superior to IBM clones in this regard. I still do. In the Mac world there are probably as many examples of programs that can't read each others' data, are there are examples of programs in the DOS world that CAN. >|had an IBM I would probably learn to use ONE word processor and ONE >|drawing program, thus severly limiting what I could do with the > >And what do you use on the Mac? Mostly WriteNow and MacWrite (ancient version). I use MiniWriter a lot, TeachText often, and McSink on rare occasions. I use MindWrite when I feel the need to do outlines as well. When I really have to, I even use MS Word (bletch). Oh yes, I've used QUED/M. I play with the Nisus demo a lot, hoping I can afford it soon... And the THINK Pascal built-in editor, of course, but I'm not sure that counts. For painting/drawing I use MacPaint a lot, MacDraw rarely, Studio One when I'm doing anything fancy, SuperPaint 1.5 on occasion. That's on my old B&W Mac. Oh, and Hypercard, of course. On my new IIsi I use Color MacCheese, PixelPaint, and DeskPaint and DeskDraw. I've used and discarded a few other shareware-type programs that weren't very powerful. Why, what do you use? >|The range of programs doesn't, because the thought >|of having to read all those manuals is too daunting. And I certainly > >There's some truth to that, but to a hardware engineer like myself, >if I wanted to use a transmission line analyzer badly enough to >read the manual, I could run something on the PC. Not on the Mac >that I'm aware. Actually the manual isn't that bad, and this >comparison is beside the thing I'm interested in which is Windows >v Mac. Sure, I can read manuals if I have to. Mac manuals tend to be pretty bad, because they feel they have to describe lots of self-evident things. Like commenting code this way: A = A + 1; /* add one to A */ In general, you have to read manuals when there are CONCEPTS you need to learn; you don't need them to tell you what's on the menus! For example, we just got SoundEdit, and I simply don't understand some of the things on the menus (I can use them, though). And then there's MS Word, where you need to read the manual just to find the menus.... But if your point was that it's easier to find specialized IBM software for things like analyzing transmission lines, you're absolutely right. The market is ten times bigger, after all. Besides, IBM programs can be a lot simpler than Real Mac programs (I'll bet your analyzer doesn't use Windows), so they're easier to write. >|don't want to have to figure out how to configure one of the things; I >This is one real advantage of the Mac. But there's nothing that would >prevent a company from selling preconfigured PCs. With Mac, you only >have one source. If you are willing to accept that, you can do the >same thing with PCs. Perhaps I misused the word "configure". Yes, I'm used to just buying a new piece of equipment, say a CD-ROM reader, and just plugging it in, but I really wouldn't mind a half-hour configuration procedure that much. What I meant was, the last time I had to use floppies on an IBM, I had to get out of my program, maybe re-log in as root (I forget), put in the disk, run some program to mount it (because the IBM was just plain too stupid to realize I had stuck in a disk), then get back into my program again. I don't remember the details. Do Windows users still have to go through this sort of sh-, er, nonsense? >|once learned how to format disks (though I've forgotten the details >Windows makes this easy now. Thank God for that. Formatting disks alone was enough to put me off IBMs. What a joke! >Can you say straw man? Heck, I can even say things like "evangelist." More seriously, I make no bones about the fact that I'm convinced the Mac OS is far superior, even against Windows. However, I admit that reasonable people may have good reasons for prefering IBM. I feel I am not at all prejudiced, in the literal sense of "pre-judge," since I've seen and used both, and have reasons for my opinions. However, I admit that I don't pay a lot of attention to the IBM world, and things there may change fairly significantly before I notice. And that's as fair as I can be.