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Return of the Mac

Ben Gutierrez writes "Paul Graham has posted a new essay on the Return of the Mac which begins with: 'All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs.' Tim O'Reilly said some similar things in Watching Alpha Geeks . From the article: "My friend Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves Powerbooks. These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They're about as hardcore OS hackers as you can get."

26 of 1,499 comments (clear)

  1. I would buy a Mac... by Abreu · · Score: -1, Troll

    If I could afford one...

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    1. Re:I would buy a Mac... by Abreu · · Score: 1, Troll

      Before everyone starts to flame me, let me be more specific.

      If there was a sub-500usd new mac (that is including monitor, mouse and keyboard), probably I could fork over the cash for one...

      But lets be honest, if I can get an AMD system with a 15inch LCD screen, Sempron 2200 proc, and half a gig of ram for about 450usd, how am I gonna convince my wife that I should buy a 600usd mac mini, plus 250usd for the monitor, plus the keyboard and the silly one button mouse?

      Any ideas?

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      No sig for the moment.
    2. Re:I would buy a Mac... by Alan+Partridge · · Score: -1, Troll

      Get a fucking job.

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      That was classic intercourse!
    3. Re:I would buy a Mac... by iamzack · · Score: -1, Troll

      ...if I wanted inferior hardware at a premium price.

      OMGOMG WE JUST GOT THE NEW TNT2 FOR MY G4!! OMG! IT RUNS PHOTOSHOP SO FAST!

    4. Re:I would buy a Mac... by nick-less · · Score: -1, Troll

      I bought one when OSX came out, it was a nice machine and fun to play around with, but it also was to sluggish to switch my development enviroment over to it. The turnaround times where just to high. So my $3000 mac ended up being an expensive music box...
      well, I'll give it another try if I have another 3k bucks to waste...

    5. Re:I would buy a Mac... by mmkkbb · · Score: 0, Troll

      Or you can pay for Windows and the software that runs on it. That will bring up the cost of that $450US system.

      Dell sells $299 all-inclusive systems with Windows and WordPerfect included. Try again.

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      -mkb
    6. Re:I would buy a Mac... by Horse+Rotorvator+JAD · · Score: 1, Troll

      No your an idiot. Dell sells 2.40GHz systems running Windows XP with 17 inch monitors for $299.00. Apple should be able to do something similar. Even if in the short term they only broke even and didn't make a profit, in the long term it would introduce a lot more people to Macs and do a lot to increase their userbase.

    7. Re:I would buy a Mac... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      If you think mac osx is cool you've obviously fallen out of the wrong boat into the wrong ocean.

    8. Re:I would buy a Mac... by Neoprofin · · Score: 0, Troll

      I would buy a mac but: 1) I play games 2) I build my own 3) While you can find old Macs for low prices on ebay most of the time people will give you PC hardware just to be rid of it

    9. Re:I would buy a Mac... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      If you work at a school you should really take advantage of some of the English classes. Your spelling and grammar would shame a 6 year old.

    10. Re:I would buy a Mac... by mmkkbb · · Score: 0, Troll

      OK, great. None of what you said changes the fact that a $299 Dell box comes with useful software and an OS, which is what I was trying to prove in the first place.

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      -mkb
    11. Re:I would buy a Mac... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      How about this one?:

      Only gay-wads use macs.

  2. Macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    TACO FUCKS PIGS

    Fuck Taco in the ass with a big rubber dick!

  3. Yawn... by MSFanBoi · · Score: 0, Troll

    This was said in the early 90's, the mid 90's, the late 90's, the early 2000's and now again. Till Apple has 5% of the market it's rather pointless. Never the less, till they open the OS to the rest of the planet, it's going to be just where it is. And by open the OS, I mean the WHOLE OS, not something I can get from FreeBSD...

  4. Re:unix laptop = key by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    So what. The same can be said about any unix. find the webbrowser, email app, or whatever. It's as easy as a click on any modern unix.

  5. Re:Games are the key... by Alan+Partridge · · Score: -1, Troll

    You're pro-abortion? Do you want the human race to die out or something?

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    That was classic intercourse!
  6. Lemme guess... by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 0, Troll
    Last year's Usenix conference was full of Powerbooks. Most of the top dogs in the industry. That prompted me to buy a PowerMac. It's the best computing decision I've ever made.

    I bet you also voted for whoever your favorite actor told you to.

    Sheep. Baaaaaaa! B-a-a-a-a!

  7. 35% Markup by Monkelectric · · Score: 0, Troll
    Isnt apple infamous for not accepting anything less than a 35% markup?

    Ive been thinking about "switching", but when I looked at what replacing my current hardware with *like* hardware, I was horrified. A laptop configured like my current laptop was about $3200 (I paid 1500$ for mine). Desktops were more humane but still out there. I guess I cant afford yuppie-shic :)

    Also, apple seems increasingly like Microsoft, with the anticompetitve behaviour (suing journalists for instance). It seems to me Apple wants to be the next Microsoft, the cluetrain hasn't made enough stops at Apple yet (read the cluetrain manifesto). Im not jumping ship on Linux for a more restrictive enviornment. I want OGG on an ipod :)

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    Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

  8. giggle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    mac zealots are sooooooo funny.

  9. Re:Marketing people love you! by sjwaste · · Score: 0, Troll

    p.p.p.p.s. you're insane

    Haha, your post was one of the more entertaining that I've read on slashdot in a while.

  10. Re:Oh brother. by ad0gg · · Score: 0, Troll

    I can get a Dell with 17" LCD monitor, KEYBOARD and MOUSE, for the same price. Or I could a 14" laptop from compaq. Or I can go cheaper and buy an emachine or compaq for $350. How is apple affordable? Lets talk about about upgrading, since we need to upgrade about every 2 years. Whats the upgrade path of a Mac mini? Ebay and buy a new computer? Apple loves to sucker people, whether its promising upgrades(performa scam) and never coming through or just making the box nonupgradeable/nonfixable(mini, ipod battery). Its the two year disposable product.

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  11. STUPID FUCKIN' APPLE FANBOY SHIT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I can't believe - well actually I can - that this kind of FANBOY BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA is published here. FUCK YOU! This is the most ridiculous story I've seen in 5 years.

  12. Wow, I definately needed this article by PhaxMohdem · · Score: 0, Troll

    So all the Hardcore OS hackers are switching to macs. That wil be great for Apples bottom line considering these guys are like .00001% of computer users.

    This article is completely retarded too. Much respect to Apple, but Zonk's mother should be punched in the kidneys for even birthing the demi-god who posted this rubbage.

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    The Property of One's : "The Oneitude is directly proportional to the Colditude of the one." - S.B.

  13. amen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    cut out the apple worship, taco!

  14. Apple Laptop Keyboards Unsuitable for Unix Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

    I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

    Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

    Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

    There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

    Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

    Apple has now lost three opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

  15. Re:OT: Dark themes for the Mac? Anyone? Bueller? by aristotle-dude · · Score: 0, Troll
    There are a lot of dark themes. Unity, DSX, Shinobi. Many of these themes have been ported to windows bit originated on OS X.

    Use google.

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    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.