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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!mgodwin
From: mgodwin@rpp386.cactus.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Something else you can't do on the Mac
Message-ID: <17609@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 10 Jan 90 05:59:20 GMT
References: <21628@mimsy.umd.edu> <3470@hub.UUCP> <10287@zodiac.ADS.COM> <818@edstip.EDS.COM>
Reply-To: mgodwin@rpp386.cactus.org (Mike Godwin)
Organization: The Center for Weird Studies
Lines: 41

In article <818@edstip.EDS.COM> ohrnb@edstip.EDS.COM (Erik Ohrnberger) writes:
>Look at it this way:
>If you buy a Mac, all you'll ever run is Finder and System.
>If you buy a PC compatible you have a choice, based on your needs:
>DOS, Unix, Xenix, Pick, PC-MOS and a whole host of others.  If you needs
>change, you can change the OS to meet the new needs.

Heh. I knew there was a reason I'm dissatisfied with my Mac, but I
just couldn't put my finger on it. Then you pointed it out for me--
I can't run the Pick system!

>If I have a 386 PC clone, and need to get into Multi-User OS, I just by
>some memory, some disk, and some software.  The Mac will never get to
>a multi-user level. 

I'm on a Mac right now, Erik. It talks well enough with the big UNIX machines
over at the nearby university as well as with the desktop Xenix machine run by
a friend of mine. If I need to do access to nifty UNIX features, they're
only a phone call away.

More seriously, I don't know many people, whether Mac users or PC users (or
users of any other kind of machine, for that matter) who suddenly find 
themselves confronted with the need to change their OSs. For users,   
the functionality of applications is more relevant than the functionality
of any OS--of course, I'm distinguishing ordinary users from programmers
in this.

Sometimes, of course, extra functionality may derive directly from a
particular OS. (Not that this is the kind of thing that drives people
in the direction of MS-DOS.) But in my experience, with lots of users on
lots of different machines, that's rarely the critical consideration.



--Mike

-- 
Mike Godwin   UT Law School  | "... and first I put my arms around him yes  
mgodwin@rpp386.cactus.org    |  and drew him down to me so he could feel my   
(512) 346-4190               |  breasts all perfume yes and his heart was      
cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!mgodwin |  going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."