<BR>Heschi, As far as my list, it was demonstrating that there are many areas that the Mac was ahead on, some are recent, some are not. But all (I think) are ones that Mac adopted first. (Some were standard on Mac before/way before standard on PC; even though you could get them on PC.)<P>As far as you and your friend, yep games are a problem. It is even moreso for you two due to MS networking. Some games use MS networking so even if they get ported, you can't do mac vs PC games. There are some changes going on in this regard, but we will see how useful it becomes. You may need to check out some Mac gaming sites to see what is avialable, and what will work for PCvMac games.<P>Ceaser is a similar game to AOE, I think it has more city building/planning involved though. I only played the demo, but it was pretty fun. (i think it is actually Ceaser 3) Diablo 2 is coming out for both also. (And should be either at the same time or soon afterwards, there will be playable version at MWSF in Jan.)<BR>What games would you two like to play if you both had PC's. Maybe we can work it from there. View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif<P>As far as Apple being done, it was just covered pretty nicely.<P>
Mac OS X: too little, too late?
- Thread starter Ken Fisher
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resteves said:<P>"You also forgot, firewire, scsi, standard ethernet, standard cd-rom, multiple monitors, usable IR, sound, multimedia boxes,etc."<P>FireWire was first seen on Compaq PCs in the summer of 1998.<P>SCSI was always way more expensive than IDE and eventually Apple dropped it for IDE. Only recently has Apple caught up with the PC in IDE speeds.<P>Networking has been standard on Macs for ages because it is the only real way to connect PostScript printers to Macs.<P>Although people on BBSs have assured me that they use multiple monitors, I have seen hundreds of Macs (yes, hundreds) and I have never seen it IRL except once as an experiment for a couple of hours.<P>Apple's original IR was non-standard (in other words, it only worked with Apple peripherals). Eventually, they had to drop it in favor of the industry standard.
After reading the four pages of this forum I think it has wandered off the point. From reading the posts it's apparent that there are a lot of knowledgeable people who can answer these questions: what are the fundamental architectural and SW engineering differences between Mac OS X and Windows 2K? And, what are the practical implications of those differences? Only after an objective technical comparison can we answer which is "too little, too late, or "too much, too soon".
Venture:<P>"FireWire was first seen on Compaq PCs in the summer of 1998."<BR>FireWire was first seen at Apple R&D. They invented it.<P>"SCSI was always way more expensive than IDE and eventually Apple dropped it for IDE. Only recently has Apple caught up with the PC in IDE speeds."<BR>Apple started using IDE in low-end machines and SCSI together to cut costs on internal drives. They didn't drop SCSI until they put in FireWire. Speeds were always current for the cheap machines where they kept IDE for many years.<P>"Networking has been standard on Macs for ages because it is the only real way to connect PostScript printers to Macs."<BR>Networking was there two years before PostScript. The ImageWriter II dot-mat printer networked. Apple built the first PS printer, too.<P>"Although people on BBSs have assured me that they use multiple monitors, I have seen hundreds of Macs (yes, hundreds) and I have never seen it IRL except once as an experiment for a couple of hours."<BR>That may be, but it works beautifully, and multimedia designers have always liked it a lot. Developers, too.
The topic is Mac OS 10, not standards, we can see apple moving to this, no one can argue with this (drop adb, drop mindin 8 serial, drop infared(IRDA i think)). <P>Get with the topic people instead of bullshitting into other topics.<BR>If u want to do that then start up another thread....<P>chipper regards
im inclined to second the motion by mr aardvark. <P>to the topic at hand:<P>osx is looking good to me (i detest all current commercial released versions of macos btw)<P>this will be a nice improvement i think. this will give those g4's some decent software to run on em View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif (not counting linux...)
""FireWire was first seen on Compaq PCs in the summer of 1998."<BR>FireWire was first seen at Apple R&D. They invented it.<BR>____________<P>And in true Apple fashion, they took their time implementing it. The spec, IIRC, has been around for several years.<BR>____________ <P>"SCSI was always way more expensive than IDE and eventually Apple dropped it for IDE. Only recently has Apple caught up with the PC in IDE speeds."<BR>Apple started using IDE in low-end machines and SCSI together to cut costs on internal drives. They didn't drop SCSI until they put in FireWire. Speeds were always current for the cheap machines where they kept IDE for many years.<BR>_____________<P>Sorry, Apple used IDE/16 when the rest of the world had gone to IDE/33, and then stuck with IDE/33 when the rest of the world had gone to IDE/66. Finally they implemented IDE/66.<P>And also, Apple ran a single-channel (two devices only) IDE bus for the longest time; kinda handy when you have a hard drive and a CD and no place to go except SCSI (which on the last bunch of G3s that used it was an astounding 5MB/sec.! SCSI-1 in 1999 [for a few days]. Whatta concept.).<P>"Networking has been standard on Macs for ages because it is the only real way to connect PostScript printers to Macs."<BR>Networking was there two years before PostScript. The ImageWriter II dot-mat printer networked. Apple built the first PS printer, too.<BR>______________<P>Doesn't alter the fact that there was no equivalent to the parallel port, and just about all those printers needed network adapters (which often added $250 to the cost of the printer).<P>
"And in true Apple fashion, they took their time implementing it. The spec, IIRC, has been around for several years."<BR>The lousy management was too busy trying to be a PC company. I'm not sure when the open spec was finalized. I know I read an article about it in MacWorld in the very early 90s.<P>"Sorry, Apple used IDE/16 when the rest of the world had gone to IDE/33, and then stuck with IDE/33 when the rest of the world had gone to IDE/66. Finally they implemented IDE/66.<BR>And also, Apple ran a single-channel (two devices only) IDE bus for the longest time; kinda handy when you have a hard drive and a CD and no place to go except SCSI (which on the last bunch of G3s that used it was an astounding 5MB/sec.! SCSI-1 in 1999 [for a few days]. Whatta concept.)."<BR>As I said, they used it to take advantage of cheap HDs in less expensive machines. SCSI1 was standard on every machine since the Mac plus. Biege G3s, except the cheapest models, also had a SCSI2 card included.<P>"Doesn't alter the fact that there was no equivalent to the parallel port, and just about all those printers needed network adapters (which often added $250 to the cost of the printer)."<BR>Serial. AppleTalk always supported a straight serial connection as well. My HP DeskWriter sure did. So did my ImageWriter II. So did the LaserWriter.
<BR> <I>"3. I find it amazing that Apple has the resources to develop a fully featured, modern OS that will likely (I think) come out only a month or so behind schedule. The other OS rival (MS) can barely put out anything on time right now.'</I><P> Repeat after me: Copland. Rhapsody.<P>
""Doesn't alter the fact that there was no equivalent to the parallel port, and just about all those printers needed network adapters (which often added $250 to the cost of the printer)."<BR>Serial. AppleTalk always supported a straight serial connection as well. My HP DeskWriter sure did. So did my ImageWriter II. So did the LaserWriter."<P>Sure. The Mac serial port connection with many printers was around modem speeds - 56K, sometimes 115K. Although the actual serial port was capable of much faster throughput, the printer could only achieve this if there was a bunch of electronics in it (not much by modern standards, but enough to add to the COGS [Cost Of Goods Sold]). So most companies took the easy way out and only implemented the cheaper but much slower approach.<P>
Billium:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Serial. AppleTalk always supported a straight serial connection as well. My HP DeskWriter sure did. So did my ImageWriter II. So did the LaserWriter.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Sure. And did you happen to notice the miniscule number of printers available to run on the Mac serial port, as compared to the PC side with a parallel port? OK, that sounded rough and I kinda apologize, but one of the things that moved me off the Mac platform was the lack of choices. All of the new printers I've purchased since 1993 have parallel ports only; not Mac serial ports. As a result, I've been able to use the printers on both my PCs and my old Amigas (when I still used them).
Mac OS X is awesome. I just about came when I saw it on the webcast!<P>--<BR>Everybody needs a little KoRn.
Er I am not one of those over-zealous Mac Fans, but I do think that OSX will give Apple more life in the next few years. The old MacOS was getting old, and they couldn't give it the things that it needed like true pre-emptive multitasking, real crash protection, etc. So the move to a Unix based OS was not too far fetched. <P>Personally I would have gone with BeOS myself, it is cheaper, and more high tech than NeXTStep ever was or OSX ever could be. It also would have had support for multiple processors and a full multimedia environment that Apple is now trying to work into OSX. Plus BeOS already had a PowerPC port, NeXTStep didn't when NeXT was bought. That is most likely why Apple used parts of the BSD Unix systems to make OSX. It is still; however, recycled Unix with a pretty new GUI and API laid out over it. <P>But it is going to save Apple from extinction.
<BLOCKQUOTE><I>Personally I would have gone with BeOS myself, it is cheaper, and more high tech than NeXTStep ever was or OSX ever could be.</I></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I'm not sure about "cheaper" (rumor has it that Be wanted $500 million, $100 million more than NeXT was bought for...and NeXT included a huge libaray of mature software and frameworks in addition to its (also mature) OS), but "more high tech" is definitely debatable. Remember, "newer" does not always mean "more advanced." NeXT was way ahead of its time.<P><BLOCKQUOTE><I>It also would have had support for multiple processors and a full multimedia environment that Apple is now trying to work into OSX.</I></BLOCKQUOTE><P>The NeXT tech also supports multiple CPUs, and NeXT's graphic/text/display architecture was far more advanced than Be's. Further, extending/changing from NeXT's Display Postscript to, essentially, Display PDF is simpler than starting from scratch with Be's traditional QuickDraw/GDI-class display architecture.<P><BLOCKQUOTE><I>Plus BeOS already had a PowerPC port, NeXTStep didn't when NeXT was bought.</I></BLOCKQUOTE><P>True, but NeXT's stuff was already on multiple CPUs so portability was good. Be was a much less mature OS (it couldn't even print back then) and they (allegedly) wanted too much money. I think NeXT was clearly the best choice.<BR>
John you are correct BeOS was very immature when Apple was looking around for an operating system for their machines but they have been working for quite some time on adapting (rewriting ?) NeXT for their platform. Given the same funding I believe that BeOS would have a lot more features than it has now and availability of a lot more APIs. <P>I haven't looked a lot at NeXT but since it is based on the Carnegie Mellon Mach microkernel MacOS X should have fantastic scalability on multiple processors and be very stable. It will not have the lightning fast context switches of BeOS nor will it be as fast on system calls.<P>As religion Mach wins big but in practice BeOS is probably a better solution when dealing with "media".<P>// Secret Hero
Yeah, and when Apple bought Next, Steve Jobs came with it. View image: /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
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