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From: ngg@bridge2.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: IBM vs. Mac debate
Message-ID: <178@bridge2.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-May-86 18:38:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: bridge2.178
Posted: Thu May  1 18:38:40 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 3-May-86 20:02:17 EDT
References: <2515@sdcc6.UUCP> <1019@runx.OZ> <13351@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <978@well.UUCP>
Organization: Bridge Communications, Inc., Mountain View, Ca
Lines: 73

> 	Here is a great reply that I pulled off a local BBS. It was written
> by an un-named third party.......
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Just a few points to spur your memory:
>   
>   Disk drives:  Do you remember that the original IBM PC came out with
>   single-sided diskette drives (holding a vast 160Kbytes per diskette), and
>   that as soon as double-sided ones came out (less than a year later, as I
>   recall) the singles were instantly worthless? Did IBM offer an upgrade (as
>   Apple does on its internal drive, at least)?  I have a pile of them in a
>   back room of my shop.  They're yours if you want 'em.  So now we have a
>   double-sided "standard" that allows a puny 360K per diskette, though
>   current technology permits drives with up to 5 times the storage to be very
>   affordable.  Now the PC AT (of which I'll say more in a moment) has a 1.2
>   Mbyte drive, a big improvement.  Does anyone distribute software on such
>   diskettes?  Does anyone carry data from place to place on such diskettes? 
>   Does anyone use them for anything?  Do they even work reliably reading and
>   writing good old 360K diskettes?  No:  PC diskette storage won't get any
>   better until IBM bites the bullet and comes out with, you guessed it,
>   3-1/2" double-sided drives storing 800Kbytes, sometime Real Soon Now.
>   
>   Memory and processors:  Do you have an IBM PC with 640Kbytes of memory on
>   your desk? I do.  Do you wish you could have more?  Have you read the
>   articles in PC Week about all the squabbling over competing "extended
>   memory" formats?  Have you looked at how those boards work to see what
>   dreadful, bug-engendering kluges they are?  Have you sighed realizing that
>   any program wishng to take advantage of such memory has to be upgraded and
>   redistributed?  IBM's "power" machine is the AT, which doesn't even have
>   the same processor as those 5 million regular PCs out there, but still
>   can't handle any more memory without being incompatible.  Even in crippled
>   (8086 emulation) mode, it's still easy to write a program that runs fine on
>   a PC and blows up on an AT.  Most popular programs did, until they were
>   upgraded by their manufacturers.  It's IBM-compatible, though, by
>   definition if by nothing else.
>   
>   Operating systems:  Do you remember DOS 1.1?  Do you remember spending a
>   lot of time switching diskettes from 8-sector unlabelled DOS 1.1 format to
>   9-sector labelled DOS 2.0 format?  And then to 2.1 again a few months
>   later?  Do you remember waiting for your favorite compiler to work under
>   DOS 2.1 (not to mention supporting 8086 "large model" and floating point)? 
>   I do.  Does good old WordStar support DOS 2.1 pathnames even now in 1986? 
>   Meanwhile, many manufacturers still distribute software on single-sided
>   8-sector unlabelled diskettes.
>   
>   Display hardware, etc.:  When I sit down with a new piece of IBM PC
>   software I try to figure out if it will run on my PC at all by looking at
>   the "hardware requirements" section of the manual, if there is one.  Then I
>   look through the "foolproof" installation batch file to see what ghastly
>   things it wants to do to my disk directories to install itself.  Then I
>   configure it for the type of monitor and display adapter I have, then for
>   the type of printer I have.  Then I come back the next day and, assuming
>   all of the above works, I start to learn to use the program.  (I couldn't
>   use a very expensive program I was supposed to demo today, because it
>   insisted that I have a Hercules card.)
>   When I sit down with a new piece of
>   Mac software, I stick it in the drive and start working, probably without
>   looking at the manual.
>   
This is about one of the best arguements in the debate that I have read. Its
amazing some of the crazy little things that the Mac has had to overcome in 
the road to where its at. All those issues that are stated above were 
espoused somewhere, by some writer. The Mac's operating system is one of the
simplest to learn, because with rare exception you will find almost every major
program has the basic functions of file management and printing are exactly orr
Software package handles file managment and printing functions in nearly the
exact same way. And as technology continues to advance more equipment and 
software will become rapidly obsolete. And its been proven a million times that 
in the long run man will always look for the easy way to do something and that
is what the Mac Excels at, "easy to USE"

			Norm Goodger
			Bridge Communications
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