The battle between proponents of Macintosh and IBM PC computers has for manyyears resembled a religious war, and as in all religious wars, much of therhetoric has been driven more by ignorance than knowledge. Very few people aretruly skilled with both Macs and PC. Since PCs outsell Macs by a wide margin -seven to one or more - most people with computer experience actually know onlyabout DOS and Microsoft Windows on an IBM PC or clone.Not surprisingly then, if you ask which computer should you buy, the most commonanswer - from computer sales people, data processing managers, and newspapercolumnists - is a PC. But before you take that advice, ask if your adviseractually uses both Macs and PCs. If he or she knows only one system well,consider the advice suspect. Steer clear of PC bigots and Mac bigots who usejargon: "Only PCs support true pre-emptive multitasking and multipleprocessors." "Only Macs have dual- channel SCSI for fast disk arrays." Thesetechie issues are irrelevant for most users; in any event both systems willoffer all these features in the coming months.
Which computer do I recommend? I think you should get the same kind of computerthat your most technically astute friend uses - a friend you can call atmidnight on Sunday when you really get stuck. If you buy a Mac, you won't needan expert, since you won't get stuck nearly as often. And if you don't have atechnical friend, you will be much better off with a Mac - with some exceptionsthat I will discuss later.
Is the Mac really that much easier to use? Consider this: One quarter of all thequestions that Patrick Marshall has answered in his Q&A column in the SeattleTimes deals with PC problems that never occur on a Macintosh. Macintosh usersnever have to deal with memory management, interrupts, DMA channels, or aSYSTEM.INI file. Inside a Mac, there are no jumpers to set, either on the mainboard or on the vast majority of accessories.PC users have to learn these details or else they can't get software to run. Thecomputer industry estimates that PC users have trouble running 25 to 35 percentof multimedia CD-ROMs. I'm accustomed to trouble. This morning, I installed aCD-ROM for my five-year-old on my Pentium computer and got a message: "IncreaseDMABuffer Size." I doubt if most PC users would know how to respond; what'smore, no message explained two additional problems beyond the DMABuffer size.Through long experience, I have learned most of the hundreds of technical tricksnecessary to get CD-ROMs running on a PC, although a few discs still have mestumped. Surveys show that PC users rarely buy CD-ROMs. A CD-ROM on a PC is toooften like a book with pages glued together or illustrations torn out.
CD-ROM installation problems are almost unheard of on a Mac, aside from a simplefree update for recent system software (Apple's Multimedia Tuner). Three otherproblems are easy to understand - CD-ROMs that need color won't run on ablack-and-white Mac, a few CD-ROMs need more memory than the simplest Macs have,and some Mac screens are too small to show a standard CD-ROM image. I've justanswered the bulk of all Mac CD-ROM installation questions. In the past fiveyears, I have not seen a single incompatible or even difficult-to-install CD-ROMon a Mac. Because no one has to learn any tricks, Mac users buy discs withouttrepidation. As a result, CD-ROM publishers find that Mac users buy CD-ROMs outof proportion to the Mac's market share.
David Billstorm, president of Media Mosaic and publisher of Mountain Biking andother outdoor recreation CD-ROMs, tells me that 40 percent of sales are forMacs. Yet PC buyers call for technical support far more often than Mac buyers.Although both Mac and PC versions have the same price, Media Mosaic makes moremoney from the Mac versions because the cost of answering a single call can wipeout any profit from the sale. For Microsoft's CD-ROM titles, PC users call forhelp at least three times as often as Mac users; on some titles, PC users needhelp nearly ten times as often (1994 figures, corrected for the relative numbersof PC and Mac users). On Christmas day, none of my Mac friends called withproblems; several PC friends called (and each one started by apologizing, "Thesupport lines aren't open today...")The Mac is not completely free of software conflicts, especially for enthusiastswho tend to like complexity. But the conflicts are usually resolved by simplymoving clearly labeled icons from one folder to another; if you make a mistake,you just move the icon back. On a PC, you must use far more difficult techniques- editing cryptic files (WIN.INI, AUTOEXEC.BAT, etc.), setting environmentvariables, adjusting memory locations, changing command-line switches indrivers. If you make a mistake, the computer may refuse to start.
In the past year, the hottest new category of Windows software has been"uninstall" utilities, programs that can remove Windows software. Windows andWindows software can put dozens or even hundreds of files on a hard disk; aperson can't keep track of the files without help from another computer program.The Mac neither has nor needs an equivalent utility; removing a program isusually simple and besides, every file is identified by its type and the programthat created it.
Quite aside from utilities, more software is available for the PC than for theMac. You may have a specialized need that can be met only by a PC, particularlyfor business applications. In a few areas, particularly graphics, the Mac leads.For the vast majority of users, and certainly for anyone buying a familycomputer, there is no significant difference in the applications - wordprocessors and so on - available for either system.
Microsoft's applications and many other major programs come in both PC and Macversions. The PC version may come out first, presumably because the publisherwants to reach the larger group of customers first. The real reasons may not beobvious. Aldus (now Adobe) PageMaker, a program that was originally developedfor the Mac, came out in a version 5.0 first for Windows. The project managerexplained to me that the programmers disliked Windows intensely. Aldusmanagement insisted on the Windows version first, because if the programmerswere allowed to finish the Mac version first, they might never finish theWindows version.
Although the Mac has obvious appeal to the computer novice, the people whoreally understand computers also tend to prefer Macs. At the recent ElectronicEntertainment Expo in Los Angeles, most of the new, unfinished multimediacomputer software - even software destined for PCs - was demonstrated on Macsrather than PCs. Famed supercomputer designer Seymour Cray uses a Mac. Twodivision heads for major PC clone companies called me independently last year;they were leaving their companies and wanted to know which Macs to buy for theirnew startups. I know of three companies in the Portland area started in the pastyear by former Intel managers. Two of the three companies chose Macs as theirprincipal computers. (Intel makes most of the CPU chips, such as the Pentium,that drive Windows computers.)Corporate data processing (DP) managers generally prefer PCs; most have littleexperience with Macs. PCs do ensure full employment for the DP staff. At Intel,where many employees are true computer experts, the DP department figures on onesupport person for every 30 Windows computers. The DP department was astonishedto learn that one Intel division had 120 Macs and got along fine with a singlesupport person. Mac users rarely have problems, and when they do, the answersusually come from other users rather than from the DP department.
The hidden cost of support - and perhaps frustration - at least partiallyoffsets the Mac's higher prices. The price gap has narrowed, but it will neverclose completely. Macs come with more standard features - all Macs, includinglaptops, have sound and networking built in. Apple has usually - but not always- used higher quality components than the average PC clone. PC accessories aregenerally cheaper, but then I've seen a lot of bad keyboards and fuzzy monitorson PC clones. A good monitor costs the same for either system. Ultimately, Applespends more money; it makes major investments in research and development. Forthe typical PC clone company, R&D consists of reading spec sheets fromTaiwan.
Macs have a longer useful lifetime. I use a five-year-old Mac to play today'smultimedia CD-ROMs without difficulty. In the past five years on my PC, I've hadto change the CPU twice, the video card twice, the motherboard twice, and thesound board once, just to play ordinary discs. (I also switched to double-speedCD-ROM drives on both systems.)
Apple has made many strategic errors. The first Macintosh clones are only nowbeginning to appear. Ten years ago, I called for Apple to license the Macoperating system at a MacWorld Expo keynote panel. Many in the audience hissedat my remarks. Yet by refusing to license the Mac system early, Apple made theenormous success of Microsoft Windows possible.
Within the computer industry, the description "more like a Macintosh" is alwayshigh praise. The description "more like Windows" is rarely used as praise,except perhaps in contrast to "more like DOS."
Microsoft tells everyone that its forthcoming Windows 95 is more like aMacintosh. The key features of Windows 95 - long file names, plug-and-playhardware installation, direct file display - have been on the Mac for elevenyears. Yet despite much clever engineering by Microsoft, Windows 95 cannotovercome the chaos inherent to the PC world, both for hardware and for the neednow to run three wildly different operating systems and application software(for DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95). Mac users have never had to cope withsuch jarring changes.
Microsoft's genius lies in getting things to work - more or less - despite thePC chaos. Apple's genius lies in getting so many things right in its fundamentalMacintosh design and avoiding chaos.
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