PC or MAC ?

[mikado2005]

My personal computer is a MacBook. We have had a Mac in our home since 1984 when my wife brought home a new 128K Apple Macintosh. I thought it would never last as I played games on my Commodore 64, feeling pretty cool. How wrong I was.

I use PCs at work and hate them. I find them to be inelegant and counterintuitive. IMHO, there is nothing I do at work on a PC (WP, Spreadsheets, Browser-based thin client applications) that can't be done just as well on a Mac using MS software.

Are Macs perfect? Hell no, but I will give it up for a PC when they pry my cold dead fingers off the keyboard.

 

[Austin8]

My personal computer is a MacBook. We have had a Mac in our home since 1984 when my wife brought home a new 128K Apple Macintosh. I thought it would never last as I played games on my Commodore 64, feeling pretty cool. How wrong I was.

I use PCs at work and hate them. I find them to be inelegant and counterintuitive. IMHO, there is nothing I do at work on a PC (WP, Spreadsheets, Browser-based thin client applications) that can't be done just as well on a Mac using MS software.

Are Macs perfect? Hell no, but I will give it up for a PC when they pry my cold dead fingers off the keyboard.

Nice

 

[Tentacles]

The literotica crowd presents a fine specimen of 'mac vs PC' debate. I consider my self to be a power user and I am comfortable on any system. I am heavily biased towards Macintosh systems, and have used an own many models from the lisa to the G4. But the bottom line is that almost any machine can be configured to behave the way you want it. GUIs are just colored lights to slow the machine down so that a human can keep up. Do your self a favor and learn to use Linux and you will never need another computer for writing. Put the effort into finding a good keyboard. or better yet a typewriter.

 

[trysail]

Jezuz H. Keeeerist. I go all the way back to remote teletype terminals ( yes, with a paper punch tape— does that need to be explained to the young pups? )

Ayuh, all the way back to assembly language, Basic, COBOL and Fortran. Other than adding 2 + 2 and drawing lines, computers weren't especially useful. An IBM 1163 card reader could be taught to sort Hollerith cards which was a nice trick but not especially useful. One needed to join the priesthood in order to be granted admission to the inner sanctum of the glass-walled and climate controlled room housing the IBM 360; an ID card sufficed for access to the card punch machines.

For a while, "distributed data processing" and "minicomputers" were all the rage ( y'all remember Data General, Digital Equipment and Datapoint, don't you? )

Do you remember QYX ( yes— once upon a time, as hard as it might be to believe— Exxon actually went into the word processing business )? Any of y'all ever heard of Wang?

Then there was DEC's PDP machines. ... and Osborne ... and Commodore ... and the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS ... and Compuserve ... and the "The Source" ... and— god help us all— AOL ... and NeXT ... and McIntosh ... and Lisa ... and the IBM XT ... and Netscape ... and Yahoo ... and Google ...

... and VisiCalc ... and Lotus 1-2-3 ( v 2.2 ) ... and Excel 2000 ... and Excel 2007... and HTML ... and RPN ( for H-P's programmable financial calculators ) ... and PFS Write.

I was a quantitative financial analyst ( no, not one of the nutjob Kondratieff wave types, not one of the 200 DMA "snake oil" types, not one of the Fibonacci crackpots nor one of the "technical" charlatans ) and NOT, for god's sake, one of the boneheaded lunatics who put together the toxic alphabet soup garbage of CDOs, MBSs, CDSs. I was a "number cruncher" using an enormous database and immense computing power to find dominant, unlevered, easily understood, seasoned companies that could ( and probably should ) be held "forever" when they became available at attractive valuations.

To this day, I view computers as serious number crunching tools and look askance at their use for game playing, boom boxes, video or image editing, television, instant messaging or other purely entertainment uses ( do you really have to ask what I think of Facebook or Twitter? ) If you want a digital imaging machine, buy something that's dedicated to that use. Unfortunately, the marketeers always end up insisting on "something for everyone"/"one size fits all" and that's how we end up with bloatware and craplets. What fucking genius decided to dispense with numeric keypads on keyboards? I'd like to shoot the motherfucker.

 

[oggbashan]

I go back before the IBM 360 to the IBM 1401 on which I was trained as a systems analyst and programmer before becoming the system manager.

We were migrating from A2 size record cards to IBM punch cards. We were promised, but never got in my time, magnetic tape drives for storage. All our records were on punch cards. The sorting machine used to wreck cards about once a week.

I became expert at reconstructing wrecked cards with sellotape and making duplicates with a hand punch. In real emergencies I could patch a program by using the 8-bit switches on the CPU.

The card read/punch machines could catch fire from running too hot and igniting the card dust. During the daily update it was a matter of fine judgement to use the CO2 fire extinguisher to cool everything down just before the flash point was reached.

On the side of the IBM1401 was a large red handle marked "Pull in case of fire". My training had emphasised that I should pull that handle if there was a fire in or adjacent to the CPU.

If it was pulled it would rip out the main busbar for the CPU which would then have to be rebuilt at IBM with a lead time of three months. The alternate computer was 100+ miles away and could only be used by us as back-up in the early hours of the morning.

Only once did I reach for that red handle. The adjoining office was on fire and smoke was drifting into the computer unit. I had ordered all my staff out and was standing there like the boy on the burning deck. I didn't want to wreck the CPU but if the fire had reached it while operational there would have been no rebuild possible.

I felt like an idiot when I remembered that I could isolate the CPU from the electrical supply just by turning off the main electrical supply. I was just about to do that, and would have had to re-run the whole day's work, when my colleague came in. He had extinguished the fire in a wickerwork wastepaper basket with one of the few CO2 extinguishers that still had CO2 in it.

IBM told me that no one, ever, had pulled the red handle on an IBM 1401. It would have been easier to make a new CPU than try to rebuild one. Turning the main supply off just deleted the current program and data which could be restored in about 15 minutes.

Later models of 1401 did not have a red handle. The safety instructions were changed to read "Turn off at the mains".

Og

 

[Austin8]

Try, and Og, good posts, man I don't remember any of that stuff!

 

[Handley_Page]

Try, and Og, good posts, man I don't remember any of that stuff!

you're probably too young.
I remember most of that stuff.
FORTRAN ? strange stuff; I never did get to know how to do a log with it.

 

[Noor]

Jezuz H. Keeeerist. I go all the way back to remote teletype terminals ( yes, with a paper punch tape— does that need to be explained to the young pups? )

Ayuh, all the way back to Basic, COBOL and Fortran. Other than adding 2 + 2 and drawing lines, computers weren't especially useful. An IBM 1163 card reader could be taught to sort Hollerith cards which was a nice trick but not especially useful. One needed to join the priesthood in order to be granted admission to the inner sanctum of the glass-walled and climate controlled room housing the IBM 360; an ID card sufficed for access to the card punch machines.

For a while, "distributed data processing" and "minicomputers" were all the rage ( y'all remember Data General, Digital Equipment and Datapoint, don't you? )

Do you remember QYX ( yes— once upon a time, as hard as it might be to believe— Exxon actually went into the word processing business )? Any of y'all ever heard of Wang?

Then there was DEC's PDP machines. ... and Osborne ... and Commodore ... and the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS ... and Compuserve ... and the "The Source" ... and— god help us all— AOL ... and NeXT ... and McIntosh ... and Lisa ... and the IBM XT ... and Netscape ... and Yahoo ... and Google ...

... and VisiCalc ... and Lotus 1-2-3 ( v 2.2 ) ... and Excel 2000 ... and Excel 2007... and HTML ... and RPN ( for H-P's programmable financial calculators ) ... and PFS Write.

I was a quantitative financial analyst ( no, not one of the nutjob Kondratieff wave types, not one of the 200 DMA "snake oil" types, not one of the Fibonacci crackpots nor one of the "technical" charlatans ) and NOT, for god's sake, one of the boneheaded lunatics who put together the toxic alphabet soup garbage of CDOs, MBSs, CDSs. I was a "number cruncher" using an enormous database and immense computing power to find dominant, unlevered, easily understood, seasoned companies that could ( and probably should ) be held "forever" when they became available at attractive valuations.

To this day, I view computers as serious number crunching tools and look askance at their use for game playing, boom boxes, video or image editing, television, instant messaging or other purely entertainment uses ( do you really have to ask what I think of Facebook or Twitter? ) If you want a digital imaging machine, buy something that's dedicated to that use. Unfortunately, the marketeers always end up insisting on "something for everyone"/"one size fits all" and that's how we end up with bloatware and craplets. What fucking genius decided to dispense with numeric keypads on keyboards? I'd like to shoot the motherfucker.

you forgot the Sinclair.


I go that far back too.

 

[SirLicksAalot]

To this day, I view computers as serious number crunching tools and look askance at their use for game playing, boom boxes, video or image editing, television, instant messaging or other purely entertainment uses ( do you really have to ask what I think of Facebook or Twitter? ) If you want a digital imaging machine, buy something that's dedicated to that use. Unfortunately, the marketeers always end up insisting on "something for everyone"/"one size fits all" and that's how we end up with bloatware and craplets. What fucking genius decided to dispense with numeric keypads on keyboards? I'd like to shoot the motherfucker.

H ah aha. Funny and receptive at the same time.

This is the same model Microsoft held for PC back then, software to do business work i.e., spreadsheets with tons and tons of built in analytical functions. Because back then, personal pc's are mainly found in the office environment, not like today where most have one of their own, in my case, three: A desktop, a laptop, and an office pc.

Now it's no longer personal, but more like public computing. If it's open to all, expect bloatwares and craplets to follow, just look at anything with the word public attached to it i.e., restroom, gym, golf course, clubs, etc. etc.

MAC on the other decided to go a different route, like private club - centrally controlled from the top: Software, hardware, and peripherals. It's effective at controlling the crap trying to get in, but it limits the open space community that sprouts ingenuity.

MAC users go with whatever Apple comes up with, keyboards with no numeric keypads and all. PC, on the other hand, have keyboard selection numbering into the hundreds, if not thousands.

Public computing, huge selections, crap and bloatwares to follow, or go with private exclusive access, expensive, fewer selection, but also fewer crap and craplets

 

[Austin8]

MAC users go with whatever Apple comes up with, keyboards with no numeric keypads and all. PC, on the other hand, have keyboard selection numbering into the hundreds, if not thousands.

There's seems to be some controversy over the latest 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models; specifically, the fact that the 15-inch MacBook Pro has lost its ExpressCard slot in favor of the same SD-card reader found on the new 13-inch versions.

I think having an SD-card reader will be handy, but I do understand the frustration of those who actually use ExpressCard peripherals. Both of you! (just kidding) Still, there's another reason, beyond photo-downloading convenience, to dig the SD-card slot, seems it's buried in an Apple support document.

Can I install Mac OS X on an SD storage device and use it as a startup volume?

Yes seems to be the answer... Change the default partition table to GUID using Disk Utility, and format the card to use the Mac OS Extended file format to do so.

This means that assuming you've got a card with enough capacity—say, 16GB to be safe—you'll be able to install Mac OS X and several of your favorite utilities onto an SD card and then boot from it. Can you say, "smallest emergency disk ever"?
✯✯✯✯

Hey Licks good to see you!

 

[sookie80]

I have both....a pc laptop, which lays dying in its laptop bag ... and a Mac desktops, sitting happily on my desk w/ no issues whatsoever.....

 

[Austin8]

Hi sookie,

First let me say, Welcome to the AH, hope you enjoy your time here with us, and thanks for posting.

My pc laptop is dying a slow death as well, while my mac notebook keeps me a happy camper.

 

[Austin8]

Apple has yet to prove that it can prosper in a post-Steve Jobs world, but this week's Worldwide Developer Conference brought the company closer to that goal. With Jobs seemingly poised to soon return from medical leave, the company he co-founded looks better positioned to live without him, when that time eventually comes.

That is good for Apple, its customers, and even for Jobs, whose presence has previously been seen as the key to his company's success.
Apple trotted out a small collection of senior executives during Monday's product announcements. While customers can be excused for not knowing the names of people like Bertrand Serlet, who showed the new Snow Leopard OS, the parade of talent demonstrated that Apple is not just Steve Jobs.

Still, it is not just clear how many important decisions these people really make. Apple needs to start giving credit where it's due.
Phil Schiller, the marketing boss who has stood in for Jobs at recent announcements, still lacks "Elvis," but people have grown to accept him in a product leadership role even though he is not really a techie. Schiller has long been considered Jobs faithful lieutenant, but has not stood out on his own.
When Jobs' health became an issue, many wondered how the company would fare without his singular leadership. Despite the show-and-tell on Monday, we still do not know for sure. Throughout his illness, Jobs has been widely presumed to have his fingers in the products announced this week and those to be included in years of announcements to come.

In promoting Steve Jobs as key to all things Apple, the company has given little publicity to contributions made by others. It has always been presumed that others contributed to Apple's success, but such contributions have rarely been acknowledged in public.
Most people, for example, believe Jobs developed the iPod himself, and have no awareness of former Apple exec Tony Fadell's role as the real father of the world's most popular music device.

This week, Apple showed that it has a talented bench, but with Jobs' health a persistent question, it only makes sense for the company to spotlight--in a more meaningful way--the contributions of others.

If Apple wants to emerge from one man's shadow, it still has some distance to go. Still, this week was at least a start.

 

[Austin8]

*bump*

 

[Byron In Exile]

I go back before the IBM 360 to the IBM 1401 on which I was trained as a systems analyst and programmer before becoming the system manager.

We were migrating from A2 size record cards to IBM punch cards. We were promised, but never got in my time, magnetic tape drives for storage. All our records were on punch cards. The sorting machine used to wreck cards about once a week.

I became expert at reconstructing wrecked cards with sellotape and making duplicates with a hand punch. In real emergencies I could patch a program by using the 8-bit switches on the CPU.

The card read/punch machines could catch fire from running too hot and igniting the card dust. During the daily update it was a matter of fine judgement to use the CO2 fire extinguisher to cool everything down just before the flash point was reached.

On the side of the IBM1401 was a large red handle marked "Pull in case of fire". My training had emphasised that I should pull that handle if there was a fire in or adjacent to the CPU.

If it was pulled it would rip out the main busbar for the CPU which would then have to be rebuilt at IBM with a lead time of three months. The alternate computer was 100+ miles away and could only be used by us as back-up in the early hours of the morning.

Only once did I reach for that red handle. The adjoining office was on fire and smoke was drifting into the computer unit. I had ordered all my staff out and was standing there like the boy on the burning deck. I didn't want to wreck the CPU but if the fire had reached it while operational there would have been no rebuild possible.

I felt like an idiot when I remembered that I could isolate the CPU from the electrical supply just by turning off the main electrical supply. I was just about to do that, and would have had to re-run the whole day's work, when my colleague came in. He had extinguished the fire in a wickerwork wastepaper basket with one of the few CO2 extinguishers that still had CO2 in it.

IBM told me that no one, ever, had pulled the red handle on an IBM 1401. It would have been easier to make a new CPU than try to rebuild one. Turning the main supply off just deleted the current program and data which could be restored in about 15 minutes.

Later models of 1401 did not have a red handle. The safety instructions were changed to read "Turn off at the mains".

Og

This is great. Og, you're a trooper.

Stories like this are so cool. My earliest memories are of the CDC 3170, and later the IBM 360 at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. IBM had a clever plan to donate machines to universities so that students would be trained on their equipment. Later, I saw an IBM 370 at a commercial facility, and the difference was surprising. Instead of hundreds of lights and switches on the front of the 360, the 370 had a stark blank metal panel, with just an on/off switch and a "Fire" pull switch in the upper right. All those other functions were handled by a separate mini-computer, via keyboard and console. And the bootstrap program was loaded from an eight-inch floppy disk. Progress!

 

[Hooper_X]

PC. I can build a PC to any hardware specs I like. Then I can install whichever combination of operating systems and software that tickles my fancy. The PC platform affords one vastly more choices than any Mac. I'm perfectly capable of deciding which tools are best for my needs. I don't need Steve Jobs to tell me what's hot in the streets.

In the interest of full disclosure: I've hated Jobs since the late 1970s, and I've always viewed Apple users (as far back as the Apple II) as cultists.

 

[ChainedEros]

I have a PC now, but I think I want a Mac.

 

[ChainedEros]

PC. I can build a PC to any hardware specs I like. Then I can install whichever combination of operating systems and software that tickles my fancy. The PC platform affords one vastly more choices than any Mac. I'm perfectly capable of deciding which tools are best for my needs. I don't need Steve Jobs to tell me what's hot in the streets.

What about a PC laptop? Can you build those as well?

 

[Byron In Exile]

http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/HtmlHelp/Images2/eniac3.gif

 

[Hooper_X]

What about a PC laptop? Can you build those as well?

high-end laptops are of no concern to me.
I used to buy $3K laptops, but then I wised up and realized that was a suckers game. Laptops don't age well and they are difficult to upgrade. For my portable computing needs, a new--very inexpensive--solid state netbook every year does the trick perfectly. ...moreover, I don't feel like an asshole when it's a paperweight.

 

[freshface]

high-end laptops are of no concern to me.
I used to buy $3K laptops, but then I wised up and realized that was a suckers game. Laptops don't age well and they are difficult to upgrade. For my portable computing needs, a new--very inexpensive--solid state netbook every year does the trick perfectly. ...moreover, I don't feel like an asshole when it's a paperweight.

That's an area where I think Steve Jobs has it all wrong. He's famously dismissed netbooks by saying that he's never seen a laptop for less than $1,000 that wasn't junk. Sure, his MacBook Air is pretty and light, but it was just recently reduced to $1800. My $250 netbook may not meet his quality standards, but it takes very little space in luggage, weighs two pounds, does what I need when I travel, and I don't worry about it being lost, stolen or damaged.

 

[Byron In Exile]

http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/HtmlHelp/Images2/IBM7094.jpg

An IBM 7094

 

[Hooper_X]

That's an area where I think Steve Jobs has it all wrong. He's famously dismissed netbooks by saying that he's never seen a laptop for less than $1,000 that wasn't junk. Sure, his MacBook Air is pretty and light, but it was just recently reduced to $1800. My $250 netbook may not meet his quality standards, but it takes very little space in luggage, weighs two pounds, does what I need when I travel, and I don't worry about it being lost, stolen or damaged.

Well, I'm not a fan of Steve Jobs in any area. When I was a kid, I was a great admirer of Steve Wozniak, but I always thought that Jobs was a dictatorial douche.

That said, you've made my point exactly. My solid state netbook--which was a hair over $400--does everything that I need in the way of mobile computing. To be perfectly honest, the only reason that I still use a laptop--as opposed to simply working on my phone--is for the full-sized keyboard and larger screen.

 

[oggbashan]

More IBM 1401

I was operating a baseline IBM 1401 with 1.4k of memory. That meant that COBOL and FORTRAN were beyond its capabilities.

We used IBM's Symbolic Programming System, SPS-1 because the advanced version SPS-2 required at least 4K memory locations.

I soon found that SPS-1 was a dog when assembled and changed to machine code. I and my colleagues at three other locations around the UK used to compete to see how much processing we could get done in the time that the card punch machine moved its punches from rest to strike and retract. That time we measured in Nanoseconds.

The savings we achieved improved the processing time as originally programmed by IBM from three hours to 34 minutes at the expense of card wrecks if the punches were slightly slower due to atmospheric variation. By trial and error we produced a stable program at 42 minutes.

We also improved the print speed for documentation. Again we made mistakes. If we got the print program in an inadvertent loop the fan-fold paper would shoot out of the printer at four miles an hour. That was expensive in paper, particularly the pre-printed fourfold multiple copies.

My machine was subject to vibration. The site's internal full-sized steam railway passed within six feet of the computer building which was a temporary structure erected when the original building was destroyed by bombing in World War 2. The building would rock as the trains passed despite a notice instructing the drivers to slow down. The IBM 1401 and its ancilliaries were installed on a sprung suspended floor. Unfortunately the designers/installers hadn't allowed for heavy goods trains six feet away. The floor would bounce and sway.

Eventually we replaced the "Slow Down" notice with a "Whistle" and the nearest person would hold steady any machines actually operating at the time the train passed.

We had the obligatory demonstration programs. One would produce music from a switched-off transistor radio's loudspeaker. It came with the US and British national anthems. We added "Colonel Bogey", "Get out and get under" and "She's got a lovely bunch of coconuts". The other program would print out a strip tease on fan-fold paper which ended with the lady covering herself with a sign advertising IBM. That was soon modified, and by request of the female staff a male version was produced. That one had alternate endings with a crude random selection of erect, erect large, flaccid and rarest - ejaculating. The last was usually greeted with ironic cheers.

Og

 

[Austin8]

Byron, the pics are way cool, and Og your stories always impress me thanks guys!