TGV's Profile

A few points: Apple could provide similar reliability for Windows on their hardware. They know the hardware and only have to supply a limited number of drivers. Rejection of all other drivers will improve stability. And Waa, I know Latin is a dead language (except in the Vatican). I was only using it since French is quite alive and Latin is one of its (dead) predecessors. And "why everyone assumes that the chips that will be running OSX will be the same Intel silicon that’s inside a Dell box?" Because the current developer systems that Apple sells are like this and not in a million years (ok, not in five years then) is Intel going to develop separate chips for Apple. If it wasn't profitable for IBM, it isn't for Intel. Apple wants Intel because of the development they do, not to get stuck on another dead end. And it has been said that the new Apple systems will run Windows, so yes, they will be "similar" to Dell boxes, but hopefully with a somewhat better construction.

When I started to do some "real" development in my job at the university, I quickly ran up against the limitations of DOS machines (LISP under DOS was a nightmare, and my C programs always wanted more than 640kb). Very, very fortunately, the department had some money, and I could get an 8Mb machine! Wow. That was a Mac II. It had a graphical color display in the days when VGA graphics looked worse than a TRS-80. It had WYSIWYG software. It could print on the laser printer without saving the document as text only and transferring it to a VAX/VMS machine. In short, it was awesome. Later, when people started getting similar functionality under Windows 3, the difference between the Mac and the PC was still huge. I had a Mac at home and ran my simulations and music software on it without any problem, something that the Windows users could not say. In the early 90s, they still had to use WordPerfect in text mode to get their work done, since the rest of the editors was, well, rubbish. TCP/IP worked without problems on the Mac. Ask older Windows users about this "trumpet" thingy. But don't forget to put on an asbestos suit before you do. I could use SCSI peripherals, CD burning, etc. long before the PC users started dreaming about it. It's true, the PC slowly improved. Windows NT was much better, although definitely not for (l)users. XP is quite stable and useable, even though it is quite a CPU and memory hog, but PCs have gotten powerful, that you hardly notice. The drivers also seem to have been standardized, so that installing new hardware shouldn't take more than two or three reboots... But man, apart from raw processor speed, the Mac is still superior. It's a pleasure to use. It doesn't continuously inform you of unused icons on your desktop, of updates (with messages that disappear before you can read them), of wireless networks that I couldn't care less about. And the things it should do, it does well and swiftly. Two months ago, I showed my mac to a friend who had huge problems with his PC (viruses, ADSL misery, updates that erased his private files, etc.). He nearly got mad at me. "You call yourself a friend, and you didn't even tell me that a Mac is so much better?" Since then, he's also a happy Macker. And I certainly wouldn't be able to help my father, whose knowledge of computers is minimal, had he bought a PC... All that, plus, I really love XCode...