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Response to John Carmack's Comments About Macs
An anonymous reader wrote in to say "
You'll remember John Carmack's recent .plan file, which is
mostly devoted to a commentary about Macs, both the OS and
the hardware. David Every of MacKiDo
fame has written an interesting response in today's column. You might also want to check out the quote by John Norstad (near the bottom of the main page) for a good laugh. "
Enable cookie warnings to find out. It's so they can download more ad GIFs to your hard drive.
Stupid cookies, they have too many evil applications and should be banned.
Cookies are watching you.
Cookies are baked up in the ovens at the Great Hall of the Illuminati.
Beware the cookies!
MEEPT!
The whole "response" is merely saying "Well, OK, maybe the Macs bad in that way, but Windows is worse. Oh yeah, and Unix too." Carmack wasn't comparing the different systems, he was saying e.g. that it's ludicrous for an OS in this day and age to provide no memory protection. This Every guy needs to realize that the Mac community can't just point fingers to get around what Carmack was saying, they need actually to fix some things.
I read the article, and it sounded to me like he was explaining the Macs weaknesses, and then turning around and trying his best to come up with excuses as to why it is. Of course, there are little jabs at the PC everywhere.
I have nothing against Macs, and I hope they regain some market share. But come on folks, you don't need to bash the opposing platform just because you want to promote your own. (Yes, this even applies to MS bashing)
Basically, he was doing nothing but coming up with excuses for the Mac's weaknesses, while at the same time trying to pour salt into the PCs weaknesses. Pretty ametuerish, IMNSHO.
If you were the genuine MEEPT!!, I wouldn't be responding to you, but you aren't, so here I am..
Junkbuster is a great way to get rid of BOTH those stale cookies, and flush out their ads at the same time. Try it.
Sounds like this Macster is just trying to make up a bunch of excuses, and spread a little Macvangelism.
Carmack's comments were short, sweet, and too the point. Apple knows this: thats why they are switching to OS X.
:) for writing bad programs because he was new to the mac!!
The commentator's comments were long,long, and missed the point. Calling something 'low-level' doesn't mean its not a problem! The very idea that he would defend the utter lack of memory management by saying that it was Carmack's fault (pun?
And don't get me started on having to PICK a max vm size for programs before starting them.
-BenRI
bredelin@ucsd.edu
Great logic here:
"There are many other areas that show the Mac is superior. Why isn't there a working PlayStation
emulator on the PC, despite years of trying? The answer is the superior RISC architecture of the PowerPC enables it -- while it is far harder to do successfully with the brain-dead 1970's architecture of the x86 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) -- but for some reason, that type of issue isn't important enough to register on some people's RADAR."
HELLO???? I'm now going to trash all my wintel boxes and bust down on an iMac so I can play PSX games. This is the mecca of all computerdom. Hail APPLE for your wise choice to use a RISC chip so I can play PSX games......
NOT!!! If I wanted to play PSX games I'd get off my fat behind and walk over to to the PSX and play them. Granted after having spend all that cash on an iMAC and all the software needed to do anything real I'd not have any cash left to buy a PlayStation or any games.
What a bogus reason for why the MACs are the better. How bout testing how much heat the units put out and posting those results as well. I'm sure the MACs make about as much hot air as this article was full of. Jeeze..
Carmack is the code god. Mac Wieners are just now figuring out that they might get to touch and feel his power and the only thing they can do is prattle on about how he can't use "all the tools at his disposal." Please.... Get a life here people.. When carmack releases his code for your puny machines you'll finaly see what the rest of us have been playing with all this time and what you wish you had long ago. Kudos to Carmack for taking up this charity case. Perhaps now mac users can end their days of doing graphic and video work to get anything out of their boxes worth what they spent on them.
Windows is better than Linux. Fact. This will change, but by then, OS X will make Mac better than all. Fact. Accept your niche, children.
Mr. Every's comments were quite amusing. They basically amounted to "yes, he's right about that, but.." He plainly admits that the Mac is easy to crash. He admits that the speed claims that Apple makes about the G3 are bunk. Some of his arguments are "yes, but wait for MacOS 9 or MacX" which is basically what Carmack also said.
I could not believe his claims of "the Mac is easier to set up". Nowadays, computers come preconfigured. Installing programs is as simple as popping in the CD and hitting "install". Fortunately or unfortunately, any idiot can use a computer to be productive, or to play games. I could name several who I know (older people who have a hard time learning about computers).
The funniest comment of all was about the iMac being, basically, good. I've had the extreme displeasure and misfortune of having to use one of those "cute" but utterly useless doorstops. Give me a 486/66, I'll bet it would be faster, and even if it wasn't, I still would have been more productive because I wouldn't have had to reboot several times a day.
I truly believe that Mac fanatics are crazy.
Here's the general format of the article, for those who haven't read it:
-Carmack quote
-Some reasons why MacOS is actually really good
-"But then again, this is written from a game programmers point of view"
-"So Carmack is correct, but we are not game programmers, so we shouldn't care"
For example:
Carmack: Apple doesn't have good 3D support
MacKiDo: Ya, but look how good QuickDraw 3D is!
MacKiDo: But then again, it suck for games...
MacKiDo: So Carmack is right after all.
This article does not actually refute much of what Carmack has written, it just says why this doesn't matter to most people.
NO KIDDING -- Carmack was writting for game programmers, not users! Why don't you tell us something that we don't already know.
Also: "Remember, he's a low-level programmer"
yep, a "low-level programmer" who writes extremely portable code (much more than most non-game programmers!), and makes his products highly extensible.
Last time I checked that was the definition of a high-level programmer!
all you mac people do is flame people who flame macs so that doesnt make you any better...
. . .I found his comments balanced and reasonable. His complaints about the Mac OS--lack of protected memory/multitasking, too many crashes, etc.--are the same one's I've griped about for years. I'm glad that he recognizes that they'll be handled in OS X, though. As I've said before, the Mac OS is good and over the last year has gotten better, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for lots of improvement. .450Mhz. . .) so now I guess I'll be getting acquainted true protected memory, even if I have to deal with the occasional Blue Screen of Death. Hmmm. . .maybe I won't be truly happy until I install RedHat Linux. . .
I'm just about to get my first Intel box (mmmm. .
but the guy really does not know what the hell he is talking about. so i think it is fine to flame his ignorant, no-researching ass.
Carmack developed Quake on a NeXT machine, running NeXTStep, an OS that is soon returning as OS X for Mac.
Good luck, Linux folks, you'll need it.
Carmack's .plan update was a statement of the facts doubled up by solid evidence.
.. or maybe even the rotting moldy fungus underneath.
The fact of the matter is - the truth hurts - especially coming from someone like John Carmack - who isn't a Microsoft slave.
Every OS has flaws, every piece of Hardware has room for improvement. Carmack would love to have him games run on every platform - Apple has dreamed that Carmacks games would run on theirs.
David Every needs to check back into the real world. Apple is the underdog - and for a good reason.
If John Carmack is 'low level' then MacKido and Dave Every are the bottom of the barrel
Unfortunately, I don't think they're going to go the NeXT route. There was a page that gave some preview screenshots and explanations. It seemed to say that they were sticking with the MacOS 8 "platinum" look for the most part and adopting things like color wells. I really liked the NeXT interface too...much better than MacOS.
Ok, that's a juvenile response, but it makes the most sense to me. I am not a low-level programmer, just an average nerd. I run Win9x/NT, Linux, and Solaris. Thanks to my girlfriend I now have a familiarity with the MacOS. Her box is a G3 266 desktop system that shipped with 32MB of ram. Out of the box it was unusable for almost any task. So I upped the memory to 128MB of RAM and continued to have problems with particular applications. A mac "power user" explained to me that I would have to manually configure the memory for each application. I was taken aback with this statement. As a result of using her system I've come to have a severe dislike for the OS. The statement that memory management and preemptive multitasking is not important to average users is untrue in this particular case, and, I would suspect most cases.
Can someone explain to me why everone feels the need to slam the MacOS for not having memory protection when no other mainstream OS does? No, Linux/BSD/YourFavoriteNIXHere is not mainstream and all Winblows does is tell you that a memory protection error has occured and then freeze. Like you can't figure it out for yourself. My Win95 box that I use maybe five times a year crashes more in that year than my Mac that I use for several hours a day. Yes, Linux is more bulletproof, but it is just not ready to be a desktop OS.
Ohh great, a Windows user. He must know what he is talking about ;-)~
Hmm...the tea pot calling the kettle black, that's real original. Until OS/X comes out, it's still vaporware. I remember when all the Mac users were jumping up and down about Rapsody getting released, where is it now? I'm not even going to talk about Windoze. I'd run AmigaOS over MacOS anyday. Why? Because it's still technologically superior. Sure, I can run Photoshop twice as fast on a Mac. So how many times did you have to reboot to get that benchmark? Photoshop on NT or Gimp on Linux is much more stable. I guess Apple should work on rebooting their machines twice as fast as x86 machines since they probably need it.
And as somebody mentioned, great, OS/X is going to be better. That's like saying, gee, the Linux 2.2 kernel is coming out and it's gonna be better than 1.0 kernel. By the time OS/X comes out, there will probably be something better on other platforms also such as a newer, friendlier Linux, or a newer BeOS, or maybe even Windoze 2000. And how exactly do you come up with facts that don't really exist anyhow? Windoze is NOT better than Linux, and OS/X may be better than something... but all? I doubt it.
The only OS that's worth running on a Mac is Linux. Period.
The PC architecture - with few exceptions - is 20 years old. Macs are better desgined and have fewer problems. The PPC chip is faster and cooler and is also much better suited for laptops. UNIX is great to program for until you want to do graphics - X is incredibly extensible, but is inconsistent and has portablity problems once extensions are used.
I don't see how you can complain about his comments - he's right with most of his comments. He's also right about good programmers being able to overcome what lacks in hardware and in the OS.
I myself can't get away from the IBM/Intel architecture fast enough. PPC is a great way to go. Of course, I'll have to find something that runs Linux - Linux is revolutionary for OS as well as UNIX and is fixing many "broken" aspects of both . . .
I'm so SICK of reading this "my dick is bigger than yours" shit from the idiots here.
Just do us all a favor, don't post any more news about Apple...ok? No one can have an intellegent conversation about it without all the small-penised, oxygen-wasting douch-bags coming out of the woodwork to either bash Apple or to bash those that do.
Is your life so empty that you have to go out of your way to bash "the other guys" computer? Is your life so much shit because there is someone in the world that runs and likes Macs? Who gives a shit? Someone using a Mac or someone using a PC or someone using a fucking Amiga has 0 (zero) impact on me...as it should be for you.
Also, don't come back with "well, I have to admin a network with ______(insert you're least favorite machine here) on it and it's just a pain with the ________(see instructions at previous blank above) to set up blah blah blah blah blah". Is someone holding a fucking gun to your head to keep that job? If you don't like what you're doing...CHANGE YOUR FUCKING JOB!!! If you can't stand the heat, get out of the industry! Go live on a goat farm somewhere...because some of you can't deal with this shit....INCLUDING ME!!!
But of course, no one will because it's SO much easier to whine than it is to do something constructive with your lives. Just like it was easier for me to write this than to do some pricing of goat farms in Wisconsin.
I may be wrong, but extentions just appear to be a bit of code that may or may not insert iself properly into the system memory. It is obvious that those were an ugly hack since it make sthe system so much slower. If a cleaner interface was though out instad of this obvous hack, they would have a method of loading an unloading these modules to conserve memory and lower the cost of a computer.
Uh, hello? Windows NT (despite its many other flaws) has pretty good memory protection. Even Windows 95 has memory protection, or at least *some* memory is protected, better than the no memory protection of the Mac.
I would venture to say that the Mac is the only OS in wide spread use today that doesn't have memory protection. And this has been the case for years now, *that's* why people say Apple is behind.
Actually, there is a free, on-line reference guide to all those errors. It's pretty handy. Most mac shareware sites have it. Just search for "error codes."
(Can't get to site so please forgive if I have any facts wrong)
Perhaps it would help to rmember that Mac evangelists like this are at a very strange time in the Mac history. A few years back arguments why the Mac was still a great computer were not hard to find. Compared to it's competition, it was pricy but worth it. The OS was cluncky but much better than windoze. Then, they hit the dark ages. The OS plunged into a black hole as Apple's talented programmers appearently had lost it. It sucked but the users didn't see much better in windows (95 was just barely coming into the seen) so this sort of argument was the inevitable result.
We can only hope that with the infusion of some tallent into Apple's OS developement that the need for this sort of hollow evangilism will slip away and all those who really care about Apple can try to forget.
In short, don't blame this guy for having nothing substantive to crow about. He's doing his best with what he has.
LINUX RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:):):)
Ok, I used to use MacOS and there were some nice things about it, mainly the clean GUI. But it is unstable, and I absolutely do not tolerate having to reboot or lose data all the time for no reason. I installed BeOS and Linux and haven't looked back. When OpenGL hardware acceleration comes in BeOS R5, Quake will kick ass compared with the MacOS version (and probably other versions as well).
HA HA. You know, I'm not sure if you meant it or not... and I don't care. You've got balls, and I give you mad props for your fscked-up post, my man.
Yeah, that's right. Windows rules...
and Golden Girls was funny.
"From my perspective, I just find it mind boggeling that a "modern" system would not provide memory protection. It just never occured to me.... It's just something I've always have taken for granted. Didn't the people who designed this thing... Oh well....nevermind."
No, they didn't consider it, they made the damn OS 15 years ago. Give them a break. OS X is coming, OS X Server is already here, and it will be better.
Hello McFly! :-)
100 Mhz is about as fast as you will see in any sanely priced personal computer. That is the buss speed that the G3 Towers run at. In addition, the fast backside cash (up to 200Mhz) makes bus speed somewhat irrelevant.
Mobile pentium based systems are slower. Show me a 450Mhz Xeon based laptop and I will show you a bonfire waiting to happed.
/. fast during peak hours?!?!
What kind of crack are you on...
and can I please have some?
The games that ran under DOS had the advantage of DOS extenders that gave them actual memory protection, >64K arrays, and >640K available memory. Using Win16 would have been a huge step backwards.
Listen, the MacOS has problems, anyone who doesn't think so is ignorant. I should also say I really like the MacOS and think OS X is going to rule. OK, you Linux people may think the MacOS is a piece of trash, but I really son't think so. What's good about it is that it's easy. You don't have to know how to program or know tons about computers to use it. That one of the reasons iMacs have sold well: many people asked said they thought the iMac would be easy to use.
Now, I should add that the MacOS was made in 1984(83?) and, unfortunately, some of the crap from back then is still there. But it pisses me off when people say how the MacOS sucks compared to Window 9x or NT or Linux. Hello, these OSs were made far later what expisted in their place in 1984 was total shit. I know this isn't an excuse, but do remember this. Anyways, OS X will be UNIX based so you Linux people should like it.
Now I don't know what Every said but he is a zealot and some of the stuff he writes pisses me off because he is totally closed-minded. Just don't take what he says as the feelings of the Mac community as a whole.
I'd also like to say that Win95 doesn't seem any better to me than 8.5.1(or 8.1 or whatever after 8.0), although maybe developers get pissed working w/ it.
Carmack knows of what he speaks unlike the author of the pathetic rebuttal.
Carmack's perspective was that of a game developer, not a player, so lets end the "games work better on this platform" thing because that wasn't even what he was talking about.
And I don't think that Unix is better/worse than Unix - they server very different purposes, and excel at different things.
Carmack really likes NextStep/OS X. He has written in the past that he would seriously consider switching to OS X as a development platform if Apple dropped OpenGL into their OS (and Apple now has).
One thing that many Linux users miss about OS X is that it is not Unix with the Mac window manager. GNOME or KDE don't do what OS X will have. Why? Because the BSD part of OS X is *removeable*. Without BSD, OS X is simply a sturdy and robust object-oriented OS on Mach. That it's removeable isn't so apparent with OS X Server, but OS X won't even ship with it (should be an add on though). The Yellow Box framework remains intact w/o unix. Only BeOS really compares.
Please beat yourself over the head with it incessantly until you realize that if you put a Xeon in your notebook you could also cook your breakfast on it with an optional stainless steel notebook case.
This guy is just trying to rationalize everything
that is wrong with Macs. How can he say that
the average user doesn't care about the low
level functionality in an OS? This is the
fundation of the OS, if it sucks, the OS sucks!
The fact that MacOS doesn't have memory
protection and premptive multitasking comes out
to the user as crashes and freezes and apps
hogging machine resources.. I have high hopes for
MacOS X but for now, Macs blow because of the
OS. I don't care how good the hardware is..
go back under you bridge, troll
I'm sick of hearing about how Apple's closed OSX is going to suddenly make them relevant. Have you seen the price for OSX server? It's $999! Geez, I sure am glad we have them to save us from M$. They need to concentrate on making a desirable alternative to Intel hardware, which I think they're doing a good job at. Oh yeah, that article's author does Carmack a disservice by repeatedly referring to him as a "low-level hacker". Come on, Quake and its ilk are complete systems in themselves, requiring networking, graphics, database manipulations, and scheduling. (sarcasm on) Yeah, they're just hacks, that's why they're the only company whose software runs on every platform under the sun. That's really easy to do when you code close to the machine. The Mac OS is so high level and elegant, that's why software for it is NEVER PORTED until companies wise up and realize they're designing for 5% of the market.
why is this guy calling unix arcane? has he ever even used or programmed under unix? i smell FUD.
He should be gratefull Quake 3 gets ported to the mac
>Perhaps now mac users can end their days of doing graphic and video work to get anything out of their boxes worth what they spent on them.
What does that statement mean? If I interpret that correctly, it means that because Carmack (He's a deity don't cha know) ported his 14 year old testosterone fueled game to mac, now a mac is worth using; and before, making oodles of cash doing things like graphic and video work was not a worthy use of a computer.
Ah, now I know why GIMPy won't have CMYK. All anyone need to do with a graphics package is to make rad logos and such.
Oh, god! Another wintel-oid, doing his Intel-is-always-better-and-I'll-never-get-a-clue thing.
i'm a mac user, and a unix (irix) user, and i think carmack's comments were right on the money... from the programmers' perspective. the comments about memory protection are entirely true. however, the stength of the macOS is not in what it does for programmers, but what it does to make the user experience better than what windows (and dare i say even linux) currently provide. the macOS gui rocks; the macOS infrastructure sucks when compared to a modern memory-protected, preemptive system. this is no great news. however, if you bear in mind the memory management crap that windows had to go through (640k memory pages & 16bit addressing!) compared to what mac had at the same time (large 32bit clean contigous address space), mac was ahead, but by not moving much has slipped behind. with OS-X the mac will once again have the best, state-of-the-art memory and infrastructure. carmack acknowledges as much. apple has delivered on the first of two accounts (a machine that appeals to consumers, and listening to developers like carmac to get its act together by bringing in stuff like openGL). this makes them worth watching in a new way.
;-)
now if you had a linux kernal, and a mac GUI, that would be nice. something well nigh this will come about with OS-X which will have a state-of-the art Mach UNIX kernal, and a great mac GUI. i haven't heard a single programmer i've talked to that wasn't impressed with the NextSTEP tools which are going to be in OS-X. i wouldn't be surprised to see linux and mac OS-X bring these two systems closer through a common unix heritage, leaving clunky windows NT to the masochists and unfortunates...
What exactly is supposed to be so mediocre about OpenGL? Does this guy have any idea what he is talking about?
Voodoo built into motherboards? Nope, V1 & V2 requires a PCI interface, which is the iMac's last gasp of hope in the a and b models, in the form of that extra slot that'll enable twice-the-cost voodoo cards to be inserted. Voodoo3 will be in motherboards in the near future.
AGP: Every's and others' (MacOSrumors'?) comments on AGP are based not on actual use but remarks made almost a year ago about how first-generation video cards did not show any performance gains on AGP 1x over PCI. Those were 4MB cards like Riva128 and Intel i740 which didn't use all of PCI's bandwidth for textures or geometry, and so there were no gains for using AGP 1x. As new cards like TNT, Permedia3, Rage128, etc. will begin to show, there is a use for AGP.
16MB: Ann Observer was talking video memory here, not system memory.. ATI announced its Rage128 models a few months back with the PC versions coming in 16 and 32 meg flavors, and both Mac models coming in 16 meg flavor only (no upgrade). Either way, its main purpose is as a game card, and not a workstation display card.
Finally, the comment that best sums up this site.
I agree with almost everything John Carmack had to say. When I made the switch from PCs to Macs, the PowerPCs had just came out and a beautiful multi-tasking, memory protected OS named Copland was supposed to follow soon after. Alas, it was not be. Infighting and idiocy kept Apple mired in confusion. Years of "System Error 11" messages had me hungry for an updated OS. I was excited when BeOS came out and I was truly ecstatic when Apple bought NeXT. NeXTSTEP technology will address the MacOS' shortcomings and open the OS to the world of BSD software. Carmack was right about the memory protection. He was right about Apple's 3D efforts(QD3D was kind of cool, but no one bothered with it). He was a little off on the G3 vs. PII debate. Although the G3's are not as fast as some Mac pundits would have you believe, I suspect that the margin is fairly significant. The G3 loses speed in real world tests because parts of the MacOS slow it down. A better measure would be an image processing test in GIMP on a Linux PPC box and on a Linux Intel box. I love the MacOS, and I have a strong aversion to Windows(by the by, I work with NT at school, and it crashes more than my Powerbook running 8.5), but I look forward to the day that MacOS grows up. I'm looking forward to buying the new Apple Consumer Portable and being able to dual boot MacOS X and Linux PPC.
*shrug*
Don't like anything where there's a noticable difference in terms of administration between telnetting in, and sitting at the local console.
Maybe he's using Lin/Apache since his site seems about as slow as /.
Linux users are just as psychotic, defensive and freaky as Mac users, but not as ignorant as Windows users
Linux users may be just as defensive, etc. but at least they are far more likely (in my experience, at least) to back up their opinion with FACTS. That's why this Mac evangelist in particular is getting flamed, because he lacked a factual basis for his response to Carmack, and it showed. The response amounted to little more than a ill-thought-out denial of the fact that the MacOS isn't perfect. Saying that Windows has problems too does not eliminate the problems in MacOS that Carmack pointed out. The author is not being flamed for his choice of OS, merely the poor way he chose to respond to constructive criticism in Carmack's rather balanced, unbiased .plan file. And this sort of flaming happens to Linux or Windows users who make statements that they don't back up too. So chill a little :^)
And the "ignorant Windows users" comment was, well, an ignorant one. Please avoid such generalizations, which are no more true of Windows users than Mac users. Just because most people choose a different platform than you does not make them "ignorant". People have different priorities for what they want in a computer, so let's not assume one individual's choice is the more intelligent or educated.
--Aaron (and yes, I have used Macs, Windows, and Linux machines; so I don't fall under the "ignorant Windows user" umbrella)
Bla bla bla... A Linux-freak who think his favorit OS is ready for the desktop... Ha ha ha ha!
People are going to spit on Linux as a desktop OS no matter what K-I-dont-give-a-fuck and gnome do.
A GUI is about empowering, not enabling!
even though overall I do agree with the fact that Mr. Carmack might wrote his "opinion" with the bias of being a game programmer, could the same be said about this Mac guy?
After all, I thought Mr. Carmack gave much more reasons in how he reached his conclusion that the opinionated nature of this article.
But everyone is entitled to their opinion. As long as everyone respects each other...
-Ming
Ok, what kind of idiotic biased comment is this:
"But here's the catch. Stuff a Voodoo card in an iMac and compare it to a top-of-the-line PC costing twice as much (without a Voodoo card) -- the iMac will win."
Duh, you think PC gamers out there are slapping themselves on the forehead saying "damn, I should have got a cheap iMac instead of getting my top-of-the-line PC WITHOUT a Voodoo card"?
If you get a good PC for games you WILL get a Voodoo2, or even better a TNT. Excuse me but can you upgrade your piece of crap Rage Pro on your iMac to a TNT or Rage128? Don't think so. And how does he even dare compare a machine with a Voodoo card to a machine without one?
Also, he bashes OpenGL and then he points out "I am not a real 3D programmer. I only get the basics of the problems and issues and did some simple 3D stuff on my own (18 years ago)." That's BS. And he didn't even ASK Carmack if he evaluated QuickDraw3D, or many any hypothesis as to why Carmack didn't mention it.
Basically this article is what I would expect from a Mac zealot: Mac rules, and eveyone who disagrees is just a Microserf, is "too dumb to know better" or in this case "is just a know-it-all game developer and doesn't really know anything about high-level stuff".
** really wish all you folks who havent used a Mac since 1984, but still feel the need to bag on it would just sit down and use an iMac or G3 system for a day or two. You would realize how great a system (from a users perspective) it really is.**
I've tried. However I am not a visual person and hate using the mouse. No command prompt means I won't like it. You mileage may vary
Same argument, what the hell am I gonna run on MacOS? 99% of the apps I can run on Linux or NT, what do I need MacOS for? I'm not talking about software availability, I'm talking about OS architecture. AmigaOS is a much better OS as far as innovation and technology goes and it's a lot older too. MacOS just started doing a bit pre-emptive multitasking when Unix and AmigaOS has been doing that eons ago. Even windoze been doing that longer than MacOS. MacOS is pretty much Win16 with a prettier GUI and more user friendly, that's about it. (Note, this has nothing to do with the PPC CPU, PPC is a very nice piece of hardware).
whats wrong with masturbation? im tired
of people using it in a negative sense.
its like saying "you dick"
whats wrong with dick?
why is something BAD automatically associated
with male genitalia.
why is something BAD associated with masturbation? whats wrong with masturbation?
go check out the source code to
"abuse", pretty nice if you ask me.
a hell of a lot better than most
of the source i see out there for
samba, gnu tools, linux kernel, etc.
there are articles about software engineering in the game programmer mags, maybe they used to be
mad hacks but hey guess what, so was everyone else. what do you think the source code to
word or netscape or oracle looks like?
besides, isnt unix the ultimate game?
Yes possibly the reply was a little to obviously defensive. I am a 'low level' tech.I use macs,pcs ,suns etc, and they all have their respective strengths and weaknesses - without fail.
.. gimme thousands ..and a manual and I'll be a happy camper (apart from that it makes it look wayyyy more impressive to visitors =)) ..
As for the one mousebutton.. well I am actually amazed how well it does work (the timing control is amazing) but I do agree with ya on the status light stuff
//jon a macpcsun user who is too lazy to log in as well
"For his words (which are chosen, it seems, with all the maturity of a twelve-year-old Beavis and Butt-head fanatic who blindly defends Windoze in his spare time)"
Where do you get this stuff? So everyone has to be Mark Twain now in order to have any credibility? Did you ever read any of his other plan updates? Do you know *anything* about him other than what he wrote in that one plan file, which incidentally offended you because he didn't like your cherished Mac?
Bla bla bla.
Shut the fuck up already, no one cares.
This guy is using a developmental version without the ehancements to the kernal and when it is finally released the speed difference should be like 5-15% slower but it is a much more advanced interface.
"A good gui on Linux will give you exactly what Apple is going for except with a larger hardware compatibilty base."
You obviously don't know diddly about OS X.
1) OS X Server will be out next month; it has already been announced formally.
2) Strip Linux (with your window manager) of Linux and what do you have? Nothing but a blank hard disk. Strip OS X of BSD Unix and what do you have? A robust object-oriented GUI based OS on Mach. That's right, OS X doesn't rely on BSD, it only uses it to further the total OS. OS X gots the Next tools - the same tools that were used to create the world wide web (no joke). Nowhere else is there such a set of object oriented API's.
There really is a lot more to OS X than just Unix.
John Carmack is not familar enough with the os to pass judgement I agree that some of the macos is poor but it was written in 1982. Carmack thinks OSX will be the best os ever because the original Doom was produced on a NeXT box them ported. He believes NeXT is the best, the only reason he stoped using it was the cost and that openGL was not on NeXT and obviously he likes the library. Sure the OS costs $999, but that is unlimited clients connected, for a 50 client NT package runs $3,000. This is the server not the client.
Keep these two points in mind when
reading MacKiDo:
- if Apple makes it, it is great, even
if it sucks.
- if Apple does not make it, it sucks,
even if it is great.
There seems to have been some confusion as to what I meant. I was trying to make the same point as you. Carmack explained the challenges of porting to the Mac platform, but MacKiDo takes every good point that he makes and says that it is not relevant to end users, constantly reminding us how "low-level" John Carmack is.
I have alot of respect for Carmack and his work. My comments were directed towards MacKido's poor analysis of his comments, and I was not telling Carmack nor Slashdotters to "get a clue".
Sorry for the misunderstand.
> The PC architecture started in 1982
Hello! Buy a clue! The first IBM-PCs were sold in 1981, and significant parts of the architecture were laid down in 1978-1979.
I hate one button mice too, but your AVERAGE user
who is just learning finds it easier with only one
button. I use a Mac every day with a 4 button
ultra-progrommable Kensington mouse and it works
great as well. However, when teaching new users
(like my mom) it was MUCh easier NOT having to
explain how to "right click to pull up the properties menu"
The point is one button is MUCH easier for most
people. If you need more buttons, no problem,
there are many great solutions.
Bite me!
doing tech support for a while now I have learned that you dont want to tell people about the right mouse button unless you want to constantly answer that right or left question all the time. other wise you just need to be straight out and say right click here left click there left doulbe click here right triple click with a half twist, etc.........
people are ignorent, edumicate 'dem
As a Macintosh freak, I have to say that YOU don't get it. Carmack, correctly, pointed out the downsides of the Mac. Oh well. I own a PowerPC desktop, a PowerPC PowerBook, and an old 512K, it brings me great joy to use my Macs for work and play, and I agree with almost every word he says. Carmack is not a "blind Windoze freak." His development system of choice was NeXTSTEP. He loved working with NeXTSTEP, was sad when market realities forced him to turn to the Wintel platform for development, and will probably make OS X his development platform of choice, assuming everything proceeds as expected with the Yellow Box libraries for Windows and other OSs. To be an effective advocate for something you believe in, it is sometimes neccessary to be its harshest critic. The MacOS can be the greatest platform in the world of computers as long as the Mac community builds on its strengths, and identifies and eliminates its weaknesses.
None of the above are or most likely will ever be an industry in itself. *Only* Apple is because the control the hardware and the software for the tightest integration. This is why with the right hardware (G4 with Altivec), UI (yet to be seen), and kernel (UNIX variant) macs have and will be a more mainstream version of what amiga has been trying to accomplish. BTW will all of Linux's strengths and ports to high powered hardware, explain Slashdot's 2nd team standing to Evangilista LOL
Okay, that's not true :-) I just needed to yell above the sound of all the gasbags.
.plan so the article did ramble a bit. Not one of his better articles I would say. Of course, I know a lot of you out there are in denial that Carmack even said anything nice about Apple :-) I guess Hell froze over 'eh?
Here, it's simple.
How about Windows users talk about Windows.
Unix users talk about Unix.
Mac users talk about Macs.
etc.
Why? Well, if you aren't intimatley familiar with something are you really qualified to talk about it? Carmack has been using a Mac for just three weekends. Is he really qualified to talk about it?
As for David Every, well, he knows quite a bit but he doesn't know games apparently. In his defense he wasn't talking strictly games. He hit on several points related to Carmacks
Okay, by now I know a lot of you are still wondering about my oversimplisation of who can talk about what. Alot of Linux users are ex-Windows users. Well, alot of Linux users are still MacOS users. That still doesn't give Linux/Windows users any right to spew ignorant nonsense about Macs and Linux/Mac users the right to spew the same about Windows.
I'm so sorry you guys feel Every pissed on your golden idol. Carmack has a right to voice his opinion and Every has a right too.
Personally I really don't like the id games I've played. Sure they're impressive to look at but so are a lot of other things like cars, quality Japanese Anime, the scenery in New Zealand and Bill Gates bank statement.
Ferret
ferret@nconnect.net
You're comment about the price of OS X is a little off. Yes, the price for the server is 999... But this is not the consumer/client version. What does NT 4 server cost? 1000 bucks for 50 users? OS X costs 999 for unlimited users.
I will bet money that OS X client doesn't cost anymore than 150 bucks.
Speaking of coming up with facts that don't really exist...
Rhapsody _is_ Mac OS X Server. So, yeah, it's going to come out.
I'm reasonably sure that you don't need to reboot Photoshop frequently to get those benchmark numbers; El Stevo did the comparisons in live-time during his MacWorld keynote. Unless the Mac was rebooting AND still finishing the document before the Windows box...
OS X Server isn't quite vaporware, since the DR releases have been available for a long time now. It's as much vapor as any other product which has had a semi-public beta.
>Depite that fact, in general Macs are just as
>stable as wintel boxen. (They also require a >heck of a lot less reboots for every fscking >trivial thing)
Not nescessarily true. My schools' mac computer room has about 25 G3 powermacs. They crash every 5 minutes (no exaggeration). Some of them just hang for no reason at all. Whoopie. Jigsaw is fun though =)
Wasn't the MacOS designed for ignorant people? No command line, nothing 'hard' for people to learn. Its a newbie OS =) HEHE.
Everybody thinks they're right, and that means they need to spew their totally biased opinions (an opinion, by nature, is biased if you ask me) all over anyone when the subject is an entity that makes money as a business. I think it's jealousy. "Sheeeeeit, APPLE can make all that cash selling that worthless POS operating system?! Well FUCK them!" Just shut up, make your own, market it, live the American Dream, and get out of my face. Oh, and have fun.
Uhm, I seriously doubt this Every guy has had any real programming experience in anything but HyperCard. His reply is biased, but so is every other reply. Everything is biased, get used to it.
"All OS's are fucked, some OS's are more fucked then others."
An iMac costs about 2 times the price of a beefy hand built x86 based box. I dunno why I'd pay 2 times the price for a non-upgradable box with a shit OS behind it. Seriously.
I believe that there was a PSX emulator for x86 based systems first. Look around.
OS/X will do everything =) hehehehehehe. HEHAEheahehea. Its what the world has been waiting for. From Apple, a company which hasnt updated its OS for 15 years. Great. Lovely. Windows isnt as slow as a PPC with MacOS for running applications, but x86 maybe slower in BYTEMarks which are done better with a PPC.
But see, your average Joe Blow doesn't benchmark his PC everyday. I doubt s/he cares about how many BYTEMarks his brand-spanking-new iMac can wank up. S/he wants applications, and S/he wants to run them fast. People miss this point, there are alot of Joe-fucking-Blow's out there. Not everyone is writing code for Mozilla =) One may debate that the MacOS is more userfriendly. I really dont see whats so hard about click Start, moving the mouse to Programs, move the mouse down to Microsoft Word, and clicking a button. Oh no, I need a huge IQ for doing that. I think Apple are exaggerating the stupidity of the general public.
I actually like Windows for what it is, a GUI based OS with many applications. It just isnt stable, though. Someone needs to write an OS, which gurantees never crashing. Because as I see it, computers are just electrical appliances for the average person to use. Why should they crash. Someone paid $2500 for their new PC, thats alot of money. Why should the PC crash, taking down their document that they were working on.
Linux is great, its stable, its fast. But it needs a GUI. No need to rip out the command line like in MacOS. Just make it easy for people to use. BeOS does this already... OS/X is the next BeOS. Great. But its been 15 years since apple got a clue. Linux should fight to be THE desktop OS. it has a great underlying kernel.
not when its tediously stupid and makes no sense!
intellectual self satisfaction is mishmosh!
writing something for ones own enjoyment is
not negative and hell isnt that what linux is?
i wonder if anyone would say linux is
coding masturbation? no because masturbation has
some negative connotation that it shouldnt!
what a lame article. he admits the low level mac is a piece of shit and tries to prove it's okay after all.
oh well, that was enough drivel to drive NNNN people away from the mac...
This is a design principle I've seen attributed to Alan Cooper (VB inventor).
How long are you a newbie? How long are you an intermediate user?
Computers should be easy to use, but they should not hinder advanced users either.
I guess option click isn't that hard, but I never thought that learning left/right mouse button was that difficult. I like the properties concept
very much, very OO.
The three buttons in X are too many even though text cut/paste is nice. I use Xfig for diagrams and I always use the little button helper at the top to know which button to press to complete some action.
-Kevin
It might work without a BSD userland but not without a BSD kernel. That's what implements minor little things like the file system and networking.
> Strip OS X of BSD Unix and what do you have? A
> robust object-oriented GUI based OS on Mach.
With no file system or networking.
You obviously don't know diddly about Linux.
1)OS X might be out next month, but how many will buy it at $1000?
2)Strip OSX of the window manager, and what do you have? Not much really. Strip Linux of the WM and you still have a very usable OS that you could use for instance as a server (except it won't cost $1000).
Ahh, have you ever tried to write a 100k line application without making ANY mistakes on the way? I mean, fine, you might want the final version to be bug free (which is getting to be more of a pipe dream as complexity increases) but having the machine die repeatedly while you are developing and just trying to search for the bugs is BRAINDEAD. In any case, there should be no excuse for the os dying because of a mis-behaved application.
Of course not, but you do make good example.
Guard pages have not yet been implemented in MacOS. They were supposed to go into 8.5 but didn't make it in.
Even if they were there now, it is not the same thing as true memory protection at all.
BullSh*t. I have 60 macs in daily use, and if there is one user program writes out of it's own memory partition (and it bloody well can, believe me) it can crash the whole mac. Dead. This is the most frustrating feature of an otherwise tolerable OS. I can't understand the comparisons with Win, because windows crashes more frequently (and for stupider reasons) in my experience. Linux is the only OS I use that doesn't crash. OS X may create a killer OS out of the Mac, we should all face that possibility.
WebObjects is free with it too.
if you consider buying one....
no, don't use it on your lap (nor the original PowerBook G3 series).
is Apple's next PowerBook series going to have smaller ROM-in-RAM?
and hardware monitoring like most newer pc laptop?
Uh, mine doesn't have a spell(1).
"man spell" returns nothing.
Instead, I use "man ispell" to get ispell(1).
Maybe mine is just spelled wrong?
YMMV.
well, except that the ppc750 is cheaper than the Xeon, is it not?
i guess it's a triumph for IBM, not Apple, anyway
Rat's ass
Certainly OS X consumer won't ship with BSD...
I have been told by various Apple people, from the Evangelist level to as far up as senior management, that BSD will ship with Mac OS X Consumer. I do not have an Alpha version of Mac OS X Consumer at this time, so I cannot say for certain. They could be wrong. But the word at present is BSD with the Consumer Mac OS X.
I am sick and tired of reading post from all of you "any OS that is not my OS sucks" people. Face it, we live in a free market society. If a company developes an OS to make money, don't bash them, instead support them and their efforts. Competition is what breeds advancement. Sure all of you computer geeks are at home compiling the latest Linux kernel and posting to Slashdot, while the rest of us are out with friends and lovers (and I mean flesh and blood people, not chat room names), you are advancing a very nice OS. I would like to be able to intall LinuxPPC on a zip disk and have a GUI, but is is just impossible with the size of X-Windows. I can with the BeOS and MacOS.
../.." does, do they really need it? Or does someone need an active IE intergrated desktop when they are connecting to internet once in awhile through AOL. The answer is no.
Every OS has it's strengths and it's weaknesses. And sure, some have more than others. MS has said that NT 5.0 will fix some 10,000 bugs in NT 4. Seems like a very high number of bugs in a serious product. The computer world is full of standards, that is why we can all connect to each other via the internet.
Sure CISC and RISC can compete, but there are different. But look at the companies producing the processors. When was the last time you saw an IBM or Motorolla ad with some funky looking guys caring PPC chips? Both of these companies have other concerns. Just like, when was the last time you used an Intel cell phone? Or a Microsoft technology become an internet standard. Quicktime has been adopted as the foundation of MPEG 4, can MS claim anything like that?
Sure the MacOS has it's flaws, but when someone doesn't know what "cd
But for some reason, you all think that there must be one answer, and that answer is the OS that you use. Imagine if there was only one type of car available, or one model of a house, or TV. Where is the choice, and freedom? That is what makes this world great, we can choose how we want to get our work done. Some things work better for certain task than others. Try to imagine if the Monet only had a stiff brush and the primary colors. It just doesn't work. The same goes for computers.
While I will admit that I have my biases to my Power Mac, MacOS 8.5, BeOS, and maybe someday LinuxPPC. I am not closed to the idea of needing to use a SGI Octane, or a Sun Spac, and even (god forbid) Windows95/98/2000. Wouldn't we all be better off with the choice of using whatever we want? Having one OS kinda reminds my of "1984" it just doesn't seem smart to allow yourself to be that controled.
P.S. About the whole "One Button" issue. At present I have my 1-Button Apple Mouse and an ALPs 3-Button GlidePoint connected to my computer. Both the MacOS and BeOS have no problems with it, unless I try to control the cursor with both at the same time. Then they fight each other.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
No, the closer thing to MacOS Extensions in Linux are loadable modules, not kernel patches.
Its just that MacOS Extensions are not as well thought out as the loadable module is - they require patching the MacOS kernel in order to operate, whereas with Linux the kernel has a well defined interface to the loadable modules that allows you to load/unload selectively without creating kernel problems.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Posted by Scott Francis[Mechaman]:
;)
Doom and most of the original 3D shooters didn't run in Win16...or if they did, you were using black magic. Pretty much everything from Apogee before Win95 became mainstream, had "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RUN THIS UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS" prominently in the readme file.
Posted by OGL:
/. posters that attacking Windows is not a way of proving your operating system is good). .plan entry by Carmack said nothing imflammatory or untrue, and this poorly written response was unnessecery and unconvincing.
I thought Carmack's analysis was rather fair and unbiased, but because he dared to make a negative assertion about macs, the fanatics must now come out and try to rebuke him. Basically the idea I got from this article was a mac fanatic showing some token loyalty towards Apple, but being unable to make any real points relating to Carmack actually being wrong. He constantly contradicts himself by simultaneously opposing Carmack and agreeing with him.
Carmack's basic point was clear: The Macintosh is a solid system in some ways, but is not optimal for games because of its weak technical foundation. Despite these drawbacks, it can still be an enjoyable development environment. What was Every's point? That the Macintosh is a good development environment despite having somewhat poor internals? If so, what was the purpose of the entire article?
I'm not sure if it's even worth going over, but Every's writing lacks conviction. Carmack for example will give definite evidence to back up a claim, as he did when he was defending OpenGL against Direct3D, and again here where he discusses MacOS memory protection. Every only contributes biased opinion, mixed with logical fallacy (I don't want to have to remind many
In conclusion, this is crap. The original
-W.W.
Posted by modefan:
Okay, okay, Macs are good (anything is good if it can run linux), but he is really Pro Mac.
He isn't a 3D programmer and definitely not something who does a lot of programmer, nor does he know what it's like in the Win32 environment.
I'm not saying that John Carmack is the God of all programming, but his fundamentals and foundations for his code is something that books should be written about. Even if no one agrees with my statement about John Carmack's technical knowledge, we should all agree that John Carmack's ethics cannot be disputed. If he says something is good, you don't have to believe him, but it definitely could be good. If he says its bad, there is a definite chance that its bad. We all have fucking brains, we can all make decisions, but I tend to listen to people who know what they are talking about.
This guy should make a fucking fishtank with his Mac and get a PC. When the dust settles, he'll get another Mac and realize that a fishtank is fine upgrade from a Mac.
I can't wait to get a used iMac to make a fishtank.
Posted by modefan:
Okay, okay, Macs are good (anything is good if it can run linux), but he is really Pro Mac.
He isn't a 3D programmer and definitely not something who does a lot of programmer, nor does he know what it's like in the Win32 environment.
I'm not saying that John Carmack is the God of all programming, but his fundamentals and foundations for his code is something that books should be written about. Even if no one agrees with my statement about John Carmack's technical knowledge, we should all agree that John Carmack's ethics cannot be disputed. If he says something is good, you don't have to believe him, but it definitely could be good. If he says its bad, there is a definite chance that its bad. We all have fucking brains, we can all make decisions, but I tend to listen to people who know what they are talking about.
This guy should make a fucking fishtank with his Mac and get a PC. When the dust settles, he'll get another lize that a fishtank is fine upgrade from a Mac.
I can't wait to get a used iMac to make a fishtank.
Posted by antivert:
...is that Mac people / PC people / etc have a really strange filter in their heads. When they hear someone say "Mac OS *really* sucks", it gets turned into "Windows rules!". Carmack didn't say a single thing about the PC being better than the mac. This guy is just too defensive.
Everyone just needs to admit that Mac OS *does* suck. That's why we're getting rhapsody. And.. in my perfect world, anyone who says "Windows 95 = Mac OS '89" will be shot. This has to be the most annoying and stupid thing said since the beginning of time.
I hate to sound as if I'm ranting, but.. we have five fingers on each hand. What is the deal with *one* mouse button?! Having only one makes things *more* complicated. How soon before macs will be triple clicking? How long will it be before everyone with a mac must pound out a showtune on that solitary button, just to access a few extra functions? When does it end?!
This is just as upsetting as the Intel "one status light" concept. Gah!@#! I want a hundred lights, and possibly even an LCD display! Even if you don't want that many lights.. wouldn't it be a bit more confusing with only one light?
And now, without a proper ending, I must go. An irate customer wishes to speak to me.
Posted by antivert:
I am in tech support, and I see your point, but I can explain 2 mouse buttons so that (nearly) any user can grasp the concept quickly.
The left button is for "touching" things.
The right button is for getting more choices.
If they don't get it at that point, not being able to figure out two mouse buttons may be the least of your problems. =)
Posted by antivert:
yeah.. I know he comments about it.. that's what made me bring it up. I *suppose* a one button mouse is ok for newbies.. but have Macs really had the choice of a two button mouse for some time? I was under the impression that you couldn't have one. I wonder if the operating system supports two buttons well. Not that it matters.. I will not touch macOS with a ten foot pole. =)
Posted by iLoopy:
We know that Cable is his leader and helps him say that to bash the Mac. MacOS X is the best environment to develop on, now with thousands joining its ranks in development and dropping Unix and Windows to do so! Stop Cable from spreading lies! Fight back for the Mac! Let us get the MacJihad back and fight back!
This article was intellectual masturbation for the author, plain and simple.
I'm glad this guy went to so much effort to agree with Carmack's conclusions...
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
"I did figure one thing out -- I was always a little curious why the early BeOS advocates were so enthusiastic. Coming from a NEXTSTEP background, BeOS looked to me like a fairly interesting little system, but nothing special. To a mac developer, it must have looked like the promised land..."
Hehe. I'm such a bastard.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Seriously, it's hard to judge an operating system that doesn't exist. I think Carmack did a good job explaining that MacOS (as it is now) sucks for a good deal of reasons. I think he's also hoping Apple can pull off MacOS X; he mentioned its design a few times in the
First, I would like to say that John Carmack (& id) is the god of all 3d-shooter-PC-game programming. Why? Because each time he releases a 3d-shooter it is better than all the ones before it on the same platform. Period.
(This is also why Linus (& friends) is the god of all Operating System design. Each time a stable port of Linux is released for a new platform, it is faster than the old OS on the same hardware. (provided it doesn't use Mach, for a fair comparison, both OSes would have to use it))
Second, I have read rants like this before. Low-level weenie? Hey, I resemble that remark! My computer is x86 based, it's an AMD K6/300. The whole package, including the 17" monitor was under $1100, cheaper, faster, and generally superior than the iMac offerings around the same time. And it has a mouse with two mouse buttons, emulating three. I like my "features". And toasters are easier to "learn" how to use than are computers. But I'm not going to try to run a web server off of a toaster...
And notice that Carmack didn't bash the hardware, but the OS. This is the real issue. If it had been cheaper, I would have gotten a PPC-based computer, and put PPCLinux on it... but the offerings from Apple are too expensive, and I prefer having compatibility with at least one other native OS. (I use DOSEmu and WINE as it is, maybe if SheepShaver gets ported I'll switch hardware platforms)
And why does Carmack bash the MacOS? Because it sucks! This is not a GUI argument here, people. This is about the underlying OS. It's supposed to provide file services, access to RAM, etc, etc. And that sucks. If you want a unified look-and-feel, then you have to convince all app developers to only use your API the way you intended (which Apple does) but that is *not* an OS issue, it's a friggin' user interface issue.
Therefore, this article was off-topic, which is pretty bad considering...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
yea I liked the way he backed up all his assertations with facts... Like this one (reposted from MacNN.com)
b sp SPECint95     SPECfp95
Responding to his Carmack's comment that "Spec95 is a set of valid benchmarks in my opinion, and I doubt the PC systems significantly (if at all) outperform the intel systems," one reader noted the actual numbers:
         &n
400-MHz PPC 750 (G3)    18.8    12.2
400-MHz P II*      15.8    12.4
450-MHz P II      17.2    12.9
*Comparable integer to a 375-MHz PPC 604e (15.9) or
a 333-MHz G3 (16)
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
yea... where is rhapsody... I was wondering that myself...
all im hearing about is this MacOS X Server thats being released at the end of the month (officialy anounced by apple)
OH YEA! now I remember... their the SAME DAMN THING... Common people Rhapsody was a CODENAME and now the product is here...
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
On another note, the error messages on Macs are among the least helpful I have ever seen. "Application Unknown has quit because an error of type 3 has occurred")
This may be bad, but at least you can go look up the error number somewhere. On Windows, I have seen such gems as "Internet Explorer was unable to open this site. An unexpected error has occurred" and "Internet Explorer was unable to open this site. The operation completed successfully."
Go to for more examples of bad Windows error messages.
However, if you do get a blue screen of death, it gives you a register dump and a process list. You can also set the OS to write a dump of all system memory to a file for debugging purposes.
Hell, there's still a fair amount of the code in MacOS that's 68K assembly. That's right, it still hasn't been converted over to native PPC code. Why? Who knows? You'd think after all this time, they'd have finally gotten it all converted.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Sure, linux users pile on someone who cant BACK UP their opinions. However, Carmack is not such a creature. He's got the relevant experience to make his word alone worth something as well as some useful details.
Carmack's comments weren't just a matter of some malicious troublemaker making comments based on contrived situations or greivously out of date information.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I don't spose you have _any_ idea how bad the Mach microkernel is.
Hrm.
Apparently there's a Windows registry entry which tells the system not to bother with memory protection.
Magic! No GPFs, ever. Just as reliable as the Mac.
Bzzt! This is a *bad* thing. All it means is that instead of the app crashing, you'll have crap in your memory space which may or may not cause all hell to break loose, *much* later on, when you won't be able to match cause and effect.
FWIW, it's about 3 years since I last used a Mac, but when I did, I found they crashed a *lot* even using "mature" apps like Supercard.
The artical seems about what I would expect. Maybe even a little _less_ opinionated than I expected. People who like Mac's are firmly intrenched in believing there is nothing wrong with them. When I think of the mac users I know, I do believe that the Mac's they use are probably a good choice for them. Most of them (forgive me, but I am speeking of the ones I know) are not capable of multitasking themselfs, so that ability in a system is unnessessary for them.
I do think the hardware in general has some interesting (and always has had, remember when even the cheap mac's had SCSI, and hardly anyone in the x86 world did?) features. If they were able to crank the bus speed up to >100MHz on even current hardware, and BeOS or some *NIX was avaliable, I would definately get one, and I haven't personaly bought a Mac since 1994.
But, to defend something and try to minimize or totally ignore it's faults is not wise. For example, Linux has experianced success due to the fact the community faces it's problems head on and attackes them. The Apple community use to do that in the past, but now they seem to have changed thier tune a bit.
Wouldn't we all love to find just ANYTHING that didn't have SOME shortcomming? But to say things like RISC is superior, but forget that it's running on a system with a slow bus is shortsited. Overall though, what did you expect this guy's responce to be? I guess I am a little supprised that he even did mention that there were some shortcomings...
That's good news. I am not even going to bother replying to the other guys post, bus speed and communication rates between componants do matter... ;-) I have seen how x86 systems run faster at 2.5x112 than they do at 4.5x66 at some things. It matters. Cache is important, but not the only thing.
Linux preformance on G3 needs to be polished a bit from what I hear, but I don't know for sure. I would seriously consider a G3, and am looking into it more and more. Mac might make my list of interests. I tell you one thing that does are some of the IBM's (the 43P-140 and the 43P-50) that have got my intrest too. I think AIX makes them a bit steep in price though, and a _good_ free *NIX port would probably make them much much more popular systems, but that's all opinion.
Mac is impressive in some areas, many actually. I think the thing that turns me off the most is the vocal people who use them and defend them at all costs... I like the boxes, but, a bus speed boost would help in something that has to function as a part time server IMHO (despite some peoples excuse that it doesn't matter, I still believe it does).
Got a link to the new ones you could send me, resaler's street prices or anything?
Believe it.
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Secondly, if the MacOS was so fscking cool, why did the guy who made Alladin have such trouble getting it to run on Atari ST's due to NULL pointers being dereferenced all over the place?
I actually was really impressed with MacOS when the 256Kb Mac came out. I also liked NeXTStep, which relied heavily on FSF tools. But bashing like this does a disservice to the Mac and its community.
Finally, his Unix bashing was unnecessary, just adding spite to a pretty pathetic article, which relied on making John Carmack appear out of contact with the real world.
No, Every got it more or less right. John Carmack is a game programmer. A very, very good and extremely talented game programmer, yes, and one worthy of a lot of respect, but do not forget that he is still a game programmer: no more, no less. Not a genius, not a god. Just a programmer, with all the ego that comes with it. He doesn't like the Mac's underpinnings, but that's to be expected because they aren't as well-suited to the things he does. For his words (which are chosen, it seems, with all the maturity of a twelve-year-old Beavis and Butt-head fanatic who blindly defends Windoze in his spare time) to be taken as gospel simply isn't right. He's human. Humans are fallible. Such as screaming over having to take the time to properly debug an application for a change, since the OS doesn't coddle the programmer in exactly the same way many of you accuse MacOS of coddling the user.
Personally, I don't like him very much. Professionally he's one of the best game programmers I've seen; quite possibly the best. But frankly, I don't like very many other aspects of him.
It isn't entirely true, you see. Most of the people here on Slashdot rant and rave about MP without even knowing what it is.
You see, MP is not simply something you implement. It is many things, which have come to be collectively known as "memory protection," though full memory protection would be a much better term. A system which contains what Slashdotters commonly know as "memory protection" implements all of these techniques. Linux is in fact one such system. MacOS is not. But, due to the nature of memory protection, it is not an all-or-nothing deal.
MacOS has implemented many of these techniques since 1984. The system's own memory is especially well-protected. When it gets to user apps, then yes, it degrades a bit. But not completely , unlike the FUDmongers who always pop up on Mac-related posts would have you believe.
Yes, MacOS has room for improvement. Actually, it has a lot of room for improvement. About as much as Linux, actually; the improvement is simply needed in different areas (still, they are just as important, though the aforementioned FUDmongers would have you believe otherwise). But it does not merit the kind of bashing it is given here.
I believe MicroConversions makes a Voodoo2 card which pops right into the Mezzanine slot of the Rev. A and Rev. B iMacs. The Rev. C iMac has no such slot, unfortunately (I'm not above saying that Apple is capable of mistakes; I still maintain that Steve Jobs is quite often an insane fool).
Sorry to burst the bubbles of so many Mac-bashers with that one. The iMac was not designed to be an expandable machine, after all; don't bash it as though it were meant for a high-end user. You want expandability? You can have it plus the cool coloring now. It's called the Power Mac G3.
Actually, you can get Apache for MacOS, though it's under a different name. A company called Tenon handles the ports; they call it WebTen.
I don't believe, however, that mod_frontpage works on it. Meaning, sorry guys, that's not a Mac that's gone down.
It's especially a service because when Carmack says "no memmory protection" he happens to be wrong. "Only partial memory protection" yes, "no memory protection," no.
Carmack apparently doesn't completely understand the concept of giving credit where credit is due, nor do most Slashdot users, judging from most of the posts I see in this thread.
It quite interesting to see how so many people here instantly flock to any mac story simply to flame it. Shouldn't you be coding or arguing over licensing agreements?
...uh... HELLO?!?! That is what the whole site is about...
Some of you, in your infinite wisdom, said the story was simply a front for mac evangelism
Just listen to what some of you are saying:
"My opinion of mac users..."
"How can he say anyting positive about MacOS..."
"That dude is soooo immature..."
What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you so afraid of a mac counter-point that you must dismiss it immediately? I'm sure most of you don't own macs, or even want to for your various and valid reasons. But watch out when you make these kind of judgements on people.
-- Are you an EFF member yet?
I agree. This guy seems to throw around the terms "low level" and "high level" with considerable abandon, making whatever he is actually saying annoyingly vague. I believe strongly that precision is extremely important whenever one is trying to participate in a reasoned discussion, and this author sorely lacks such precision, thus obfuscating his logic.
----
----Daniel Pearson of the UMBC LUG
You have to look at the perspective, just like he did.
Look at his perspective. His mission in life is to abolish all PCs, but simply, because he doesn't like them (it's true, look on his page - he's an admitted zealot). As a zealot, but not a 100% Fudster, he'll using anything if it had a shred of evidence to support him sretched out five times long. This guy will make a benchmark proclaiming a Mac peice of software faster than a PC peice of software if he can find one function that shows it, and use that function to prove it, even if every single other functions is faster on the PC.
He provides an interesting opinion, and represents the zealots of the Mac community, but trusting him on accuracy is like trusting a politician on honesty. It's a grave mistake.
That's the frame of reference. Now realize he didn't actually back up anything he said with fact. He's FUDDING... pure and simple.
The original Mac used a 68000 processor, which lacks an MMU (Memory Management Unit), without which it's *impossible* to have hardware memory protection. In order to run a "real" memory protected OS, such as Linux, on a 68k Mac (or Amiga or Atari), you need at least a 68020 + external MMU chip.
In a similar vein, in the Intel world, you need at least an 80386 to have a "real" OS, because earlier x86's didn't have an MMU either.
Looking at other OS's from the 80's, the Amiga didn't have memory protection either, but it did at least have preemptive multitasking. Windows 3.1 had neither, but OS/2 had both. The question is not why MacOS didn't have memory protection in 1984 (it wouldn't have run on an original Mac if it did!), but why they never added memory protection, even when they had the perfect opportunity with the 68k->PowerPC transition.
-Jake
--
Jake
Come on now, what did your mother tell you? Just because one person does something doesn't mean it's ok for others to as well. IMO at least, it's worse when someone who has some reputation as an authority engages in a FUD campaign than when some random guy posts a flame on /.
> may not understand what Carmack means by "no memory protection"
Doesn't mean it's not important, and it doesn't mean the guy should try to rationalize the importance of it away. Carmack said that it's ridiculous for a modern OS to lack memory protection. Really, this is *truth*...MacOS is the last OS that doesn't have it and it shows...Linux, OS/2, NT, *BSD, Unix and even Win95 (when running 32 bit apps at least) have it and it shows in terms of stability.
The same warranty agreement applies to any Mac, not just iMacs: if someone other than an Apple-authorized dealer opens the case during warranty, the warranty is void.
:o>
But if you're messing around with the innards of your computer, I doubt you really worry about warranty.
It's worth pointing out that the new iMacs won't have a mezzanine slot, but they come standard with the ATI RAGE 128 cards, which everyone is ooing and ahhing over, like it's gonna be even better than Voodoo2. Plus you can supposedly get into 'em easier than the original blue-only line of iMacs.
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
But the PowerPC architecture was a great leap forward when the 601 came out in 1992, such that a 68k emulator had to be coded into the system software. That was "G1". :o>
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
So this guy has the balls to start out his commentary with almost all game programs have X bad qualities. I don't know Carmack so I will assume he has them as well. It was a very poorly covered ad hominem(sp?) attack. And then he implies he would have been more insulting but he needs to appease Carmack. Now I don't know anyone involved but that doesn't seem like a reasonable way to begin discourse.
Second of all by the time I was halfway through the page I was ready to get sick over the "its just another point of view." WTF? From the Im hungry I want another piece of toast point of view my toaster is a better computer. The original claim was not about comnparing platforms per se but only about faults in apple's low level internals which are not made up for by the ease of one button mouses.
Which is another anoying statement. How dumb do you have to be not to get the right and left concept down (opps double clicking with that button didn't work...which one do I press now??)
Marriage is the "pseudo-ethics" that cloaks the messy truth of sexuality in the raiment of propriety -- it's "Don't Ask,
This MacKido guy has his head up his arse. I thought Carmack was impartial, right on (especially about memory management. It's 1999 fer pete's sakes) , and actually quite optimistic for the Mac. (I use 'em all. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Mac memory mgmt sucks. Windows postscript sucks. Linuks GUI sucks.) so what. Mac postscript is great. Windows 3d is great. Linux stability and configurabilbty is marvelous. If you got em, smoke em.
As a Mac enthusiast, I beg you to just ignore everything you ever see written by David Every. His web site is reasonably nice, but his "editorials" unfailingly paint a picture of Mac users as clueless, narrow-minded, defensive bigots. I'm sure he means well, but the only reason I ever read his stuff is for the humor value. Don't waste your time, please.
I do have issues with Carmack's stance on Macs, but they're "attitudinal" (heh) not technical. He's got some emotion-based Mac-hatred in him, which I think is a shame, but he's coming over slowly. Even just a year ago, I couldn't imagine him agreeing to speak at MacWorld Expo, for example. If all goes well, in a few years he'll be doing all his development on some variant of Mac OS X (since it is based on the "OS love of his life," NeXTSTEP, after all)...something I think he'd welcome with open arms after all the NT development he's done. "He's got no love for the Empire, I can tell you that."
To keep the non-Mac fanatics from getting the wrong idea: Mac OS X isn't that far away, and Mac OS X Server (which will be much more like what most non-Mac users think Mac OS X is supposed to be: semi-Unix-ish with NeXT frameworks and all that jazz) was just released at MacWorld Expo SF.
.plan, so we'll see what he thinks when he gets his copy of the OS X Server release. And anyone who wants to do Mac OS X ("non-server") development now can do so using OS X Server and only have to make very minor changes when OS X is released in a year or so.
I'm sure Carmack will evaluate it soon. He's played with the various development versions of Mac OS X Server and written about it in his
Mac OS (as in Mac OS 7, 8, etc.) has essentially been a lame duck for the past year or so, and with OS X Server out, it's as dead as Win3.1 was when Win95 was released: still installed all over the place, but clearly in the rear view mirror from now on. The idea at Apple, though, is to make it seem like there never was a change, thus OS X (and even OS X Server, to some degree) looks and behaves like the old Mac OS. Don't be fooled, it's a bigger change than even Win3.1 all the way to Win NT. Apple's done this once before, with a full CPU switch (68k to PPC), which was pretty damn impressive, IMO, so I have faith they'll pull this switch nicely too.
My opinions of Mac users didn't raise much. Instead he should be complaining on why Apple has such crappy low-level parts. After all the applications must rely on a solid ground. Until then the Blue Screen of Death rules MacOS.
I knew that but I really like saying 'Blue Screen of Death'. It makes my Windows friend furious. ;)
I knew that but I really like saying 'Blue Screen of Death'. It makes my Windows friends furious. ;)
Memory protection is a concern for the user. When an app trashes the memory of another app that's definetely a problem for the user.
Those are exactly Carmack's words: "the low level OS SUCKS SO BAD it's hard to believe" :)
What's the point of all this "I don't like the Mac, I don't like Windows" crap? EVERY operating system has its strong points and its flaws. Unix is no exception. Let's get off this topic and quit bashing somebody else's favorite computer. If it works for what they need, fine. Instead of bashing the Mac and Windows, why not just look at whatever strengths they do have and make Linux do it better?
You are confused... you don't need a "PCI slot" to have a PCI bus. Or are you suggesting laptops lack a PCI bus???
The iMac has a PCI bus, which has connected to it a "nonstandard" (not looking like a PCI-thingy to you) Mezzanine slot. Griffin Technology is making a voodoo2 board that taps into the iMac video, using this interface.
Regarding motherboard usage, it wouldn't be practical and I don't think it's worth it given quick obsolescence, but it's possible (unless heat is a factor which is an overall design issue).
Reread your post, silly AC... like 3Dfx would deliberatetely build in a check to see if their chipset is running on a PCI CARD.
Regarding the video card memory again, nothing is "standard"... only what you have. I do not think Apple will stick with non-upgradable 16MB cards for long; nothing permanent about this. Agreed bout the purpose, just a game card and a diehard is just gonna yank out the card as soon as 64 MB cards become available..
The Griffin Card is VooDoo2. Gaming IS a concern to iMac buyers and to Apple but it's not a PRIMARY concern for people walking out the door with iMacs. Simplicity and reliability common to household appliances is what THESE people want.
I wish Griffin well in selling their V2 adapter, but it's a low-key kind of product that isn't going to sway many iMac people from choosing between an iMac or a G3 desktop. Certainly iMac'ers won't care about TWO V2 cards in SLI mode. You can add 2 vards to the G3, or more likely someone will develop a dual-chip VooDoo2 on a single PCI, since the current motherboards were designed with 3 PCI slots.
This VooDoo2 arguement of yours sounds a lot like the "floppy drive" or the "15 inch monitor arguement. Almost a million people so far don't share the same computing passion you do. Who wants to run Unreal in 1024x768 on a 15" monitor? Most people who want 2 VooDoo2 cards and SLI are going to have a 17, 19" or 21" monitor.
Like John said, the 4x AGP is faster than double-speed PCI in the G3, but it's just not important *YET*. The fact is Apple IS listening to game developers, but they can't change all things overnight. Apple has smartly decided to consolidate onto 2 motherboards, but this also means they won't have AGP until the next design later this year. Macosrumors has published a source as stating they COULD add AGP to this current motherboard, but at cost. Right now Apple had more important redesign issues like move the slow boot-ROM into faster RAM, etc. We'll just have to wait and see.
Scott
"anything but Microsoft"
OK, I see what you mean now. Hope I didn't come off too defensive - I try not to.
:-/
I loath both Mac and Linux "elitist advocates"... be it MacKido or AC trollers.
I can't live just on Linux.. I want to... but it doesn't have the apps and games I use; I need either a Mac or Windows for that stuff, and I'm trying to be Microsoft free as soon as possible.
I really hate PC hardware. You wouldn't happen to know where I can find a how-to on installing Linux + Windows on a large hard drive (17.2 GB total but the BIOS only sees 8.4)? Between that, SuSE 5.3's YAST bugs and Microsoft DOS 6.2 FDISK bugs I have lost 10 hours this week
Maybe it's just me, but i think that the
programmer should probably try to write his code
so that his applications don't cause memory
errors.
HEY! I'm a computer programmer, and I never thought about this! Let's just write code that does not crash! Whaou! What a breakthrough in C.S.!
2) You Linux guys have to learn
something: The Mac OS is not made for user-made
programs. It's a commercial system, designed for
commercial apps. It's made to be easy for users
to use and leave the code to professionals.
Honey, you failed to fail to suck. Most Linux users, like myself, are professional programmers. Remember: Apache, Perl, qmail, whatever, though not 'commercial' software, have NO match in the commercial world in terms of reliability and standards compliance.
So go masturbate yourself, and don't comment on a (good) programmer's ability if you don't know anything to programming.
Every *really* irks me with his Religious Zeal sometimes.
I suggest that some of you Basher-types Try reading MacOpinion for a better idea of what sane, civil Mac folks are like. D. Every is a relic, of a time loooong gone.
He's the kind of 'Evangelist' that gives Mac Professionals and Users a bad name. Trouble is, can't figure out a way to shut him up...
Real Good Mac Writing macOpinion.
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
"David Every": I'm not going to attack John Carmack.
"David Every": Low level weenie
"David Every": Wrong
His "dicksizing" comment(s)
THIS is the problem with these Mac Zealots. They pull this "I'm trying to be polite" crap and flip snotty, completely biased, bass ackwards comments out. It's a wonder Every can breath with all the crap coming out of his mouth.
I have the same problem with most hardware and software zealots.
READ THIS ARTICLE PEOPLE! This is how NOT to address an issue. It's how to address an issue if you want to alienate people left and right.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I have a lot of respect for John Carmack, I have been playing his games since Commander Keen, but when I read his .plan on the Mac I was quite angry as it was TOTAL FUD.
The general vilifiction of Apple in this forum shows what morons you all are. How many people who layed out comments have actually written an Application for the Macintosh? I venture to say maybe one other than me. Apple sponsored a Linux port long Intel gave cash to RedHat.
What really got to me about Carmack's comments was talking about Apple overstating their processing power. Apple has every right to say what they say. We have all seen the Intel ads where they show mpegs running, OpenGL graphics and the claim thats what you get with a PII. BULLSHIT! All the applications shown required hardware accelleration to get the results shown. Now Intel is claiming the have "the most advanced processor technology". Give me a break, I rarely hear people bitching about Intel overstating their performance. Apple actually showed durring the keynote a couple of realworld examples of better performance. It may not have been twice as fast, but it was faster!
As for the programming enviroment (not talking about Codewarrior, which after a few more months Carmack will be a Metrowerks spokesman). Had he spent the last 2 years programming Mac Toolbox applications instead of Win32, he probably would have plenty of nasty things to say about Win32. He has already claimed MacOSX to be everything he wants. If he wants to crash less while developing, install "The Debugger" (www.jasik.com) I would guess he would have rebooted about 1/10th of the time he needed to without it.
A limited form of memory protection is used in Mac OS 8 and up: "guard pages" are placed in memory between the system heap and application space. It's a buffer zone and not bulletproof but I run my Mac )S 8.5.1 system for 12+ hours a day every day (too noisy to keep it on while I sleep, but over the summer it chugged happily along with weeks between reboots) and it /never/ crashes. It's all in how you tune your system.
But here's the catch. Stuff a Voodoo card in an iMac and compare it to a top-of-the-line PC costing twice as much (without a Voodoo card) -- the iMac will win. The stock iMac is also probably better than most PC's being sold today. MHz and processor performance is way over-rated in system performance. What matters is what you are doing, and how you configure your machines (and the entire system). Computers are still complex and people place way too much value on processing power, which is a left over from when all the low-level geeks ruled the world. Try out what you are doing to know for sure.
Well, despite the fact that you can't put a Voodoo in an iMac (um, why would anyone buy a Voodoo I anymore?), does this fellow _really_ believe that an iMac with a voodoo is going to outperform a PC that costs _twice_ as much?
Ooooh....I see. We're talking a PC without a 3D card. Hmmm...gosh, isn't that like saying "You can buy the most expensive bicycle you want--it's never going to outperform the Apple Motorcycle."
What a fruit. First say "What matters to you is what you are doing -- not benchmarks", and then claim that Macs perform better, just to praise the Mac. Dude, you need to control your tangents...those three paragraphs made him look like a fool.
Are you talking about the mezzanine (sp?) slot? Last time I checked, Apple would not even acknowledge that it existed. Is someone making a V2 for that slot? I don't know how Apple is handling addons of those fashion--does it, or does not not void their warranty putting in addin cards that officially aren't meant to be there?
From what I understand, the point is moot now because the mezzanine slot no longer exists on the new iMacs. If anyone can, correct me if I'm wrong...I'm curious to know.
Fact? windows better than linux? huh? maybe on a GUI level and a user/program base level but I dont realy see any other levels of FACTS?
And everyone else-- why bash the guy(forget his name) and macs. He basicly just aggreed with Carmack to a certain degree because people were emailing him to give a response. oh i dunno
doobman
What an amazing cop-out.
Fact: all non-trivial software contains bugs.
This is true no matter how competent you are. And no matter how bug-free your own code is, you're still at the mercy of possible bugs in:
So there's no excuse for lacking memory-protection in the kernel. Precisely zero.
The response to Carmack was completely unnecessary and kind of pathetic in its defensiveness. Some "Mac evangelists" need to grow a skin IMO
I'm just happy to see Carmack taking Macs seriously. Now we just gotta relax and hold on for OS X.
It costs $200 bucks and fits in the Mezzanine ("Perch") slot. So your comments about fantasies and/or lying are baseless. Oops.
Reading this has transihed the image that has taken the past few years to build. I was never into macs.. actually laothed them before.. till i saw cool things like photoshop and myst and linux on mac. That's when i found apple stuff cool and the people who run them intelligent. (since they want to do some productive work without spending too much time).
But with this latest stab at carmack! Ack.. that's the killer. Now i'd view every single Appl user through a different pair of lenses. Hell, I'm actually going to suggest Carmak to fuck these ungrateful bastards and stop supporting apple computers altogether.
Hell.. just write quake III for linux (ps.. i'd like a alpha-linux non server version also)
--
www.mackido.com is not accepting http connections at the moment...
CERT needs to issue an advisory about the dreaded Slashdot DOS attack, which is initiated by being linked to from slashdot.org
I love linux on my pc. I've never really used macs. When I think of a mac, I think of the little box with a black and white screen my roommate bought from the bookstore freshman year at UC Davis. Back then, macs were everywhere on campus. Mac powerbooks for my poetry class. I really wanted one, but couldn't afford one, and typed my papers on a brother word processor. I started college in 1992, so the intenet was just born as a consumer tool. We played risk all day, and everyone else in the dorm always wanted to use it to write papers. He was so smug about it. He would say, "wanna use my mac?" "Nope, my word processor is fine," I said. I bet he still uses that little black and white screen in a gray box. I was jealous, I admit. Now I have an ugly beige box from dell with a killer OS, thank you very much. And I prefer the console [I'm being smug]. Go lynx; Go vi, Go bash, Go debian...
Windows is better at linux at what? Give an example. All windows has is more device drivers to its collection; expect that to change. Unless you've ever installed and used linux, you are speaking out of your arse. But Windows 2000 will definitely improve the user experience at least two-fold; it will be stable; and have excellent backward compatibility. ;)
tell me that. How did I read your article. I'm confused; I'm lost. I never use a wm when I run linux; yet, linux has been up for months. How did I read this and post this response. .....Mulder? I'm over here Scully... Mulder that's a CLI... I read the documentation, Scully...
John C ports quake over, a feat in itself, and gets whine infested weasle catteringsd as thanks?
John C has got more mercy than I do, Id let the 5% rot in emus and Marathon.
Quake, becuase it proves Action speaks Louder than Whine
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
"Uh, hello? Windows NT (despite its many other flaws) has pretty good memory protection. Even Windows 95 has memory protection, or at least *some* memory is protected, better than the no memory protection of the Mac."
Yes that's true. A friend of mine, developing high-tech analysis software, switched from NT to 98 for development environment because NT allowed for more memory relateds bugs to go undetected. On Win98, the whole machine freezes when there's a bug. That way he gets more bug-free software.
I develop on NT, and I find the system almost never crashes. Too bad though the apps and development tools crash indefinitely, forcing me to reboot anyway. But the system is stable. almost all the time.
-- we turn sound into light...
Yes. That is 100% correct. It will be fixed within
:))
the year with the realease of OS X.
HOWEVER:
Depite that fact, in general Macs are just as
stable as wintel boxen. (They also require a heck
of a lot less reboots for every fscking trivial thing)
Lack of memory protection is a problem for the
developer, not the end user. It also tends
to result in programs that dont cause alot of
segmentation violations as such violations tend
to take out the whole machine; thus increasing
reliabilty. (at pains to the developer
Bottom line: It will all be fixed within a matter
of months and we wont be having this discussion
anymore.
Chris
..fast multithreading!!
a mail/etc. when I am writing about it.
When I use my NT/Linux machine I either have a dozen of Emacs/term/browser/snavigator/lyx/blah-blah on my multiple KDE desktops, when I am coding or a dozen of Illustrator/Powerpoint/browser/Sc.workplace/Eudor
At the same time my MC simulation are running in the background.
Both Linux and NT handle it rather well (I take care of my NT - I need it, Linux just runs by itself) it switch smoothly between application, without annoying delays and loss of productivity.
USER Interface is not just smooth and consistent widget set (and I would give Java Metal a notch above MacOS look). It is also an ability to USE
(as in USER) the system smoothly and consistently.
Other part: I have sensitive eyes - that's why I browse the Web using IE under NT. X windows system fonts are terrible and almost impossible to make a single working configuration under Netscape. I also prefer some particular color scheme and font size.
With Steve Jobs awful ego - he designs system that are not customizable - try to change Look & Feel under NeXT - Jobs knows what it is better for you (yeah, right). I hardly could use NeXT at all for longer than 15 min in a row - Jobs favoritte UI appearance - physically hurt my eyes.
That's not what I would call a good UI overall.
Mac people behave like a bunch of brainwashed idiots.
Think different - use system you can customize, do not lick Jobs's ass..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
You one button mouse guys are dumb as hell. Mac users aren't stuck to what came in the box. Incase you haven't looked at a Mac in the past 10 years (which I bet includes about 60% of you) you can remove the mouse and remove parts.
You can get a 2 button mouse if you choose to do so. The "average" consumer could care less and is probably happy with one mouse. People (like myself) who want to use a two or five button mouse can do so. I'm playing with Linux and can't wait to get my hands on OSX. It's sure to beat the hell out of the current MacOS.
It's a shame though that my crappy low-level OS can run circles around WinANYTHING as far as functionality and productivity go. Hmmm....
there are several cookie cutting programs out there.. but some sites with passwords require them to log into. oh well.
waste to much time arguing.
Or boy, Mac people are indeed brainwashed, to claim thatthere is ANYTHING good about current system...
I am flying....
..OS..
..SUCK !!
YOUR..
The fact that David Every has to preface every paragraph of his article with disclaimers (addressed at the die-hard Mac fanatics) points to an interesting symptom of the Macintosh community--rabid devotion rivaling that of many ultra right-wing religious fanatics. Any criticism of the Operating System is immediately met with peals of thunderous disapproval, flames, weeping, gnashing of teeth, the whole nine.
.plan file, I knew that his inbox would be glutted with burning screeds from Mac users everywhere leaping to the defense of their Godlike OS. This is a tragedy because both Mac users AND Apple should be listening to what people like Carmack have to say.
./ comment thread has seen their fair share of flaming responses to "attacks" on Linux. Let's keep those minds open, people.
I own a Mac, and I use Windows NT and Linux quite a bit as well. I definitely choose the Mac as my system of choice for home use because of its easy administration, and because I've used Macs since I was in 7th grade. However, I do not feel that it is the end-all of operating systems, and I am the first to point out many, many, MANY flaws in the interface, some that (gasp) Windows has handled better.
Anybody who saw Quake when it first arrived on the market, and compared it to (what was then) the second most technologically advanced game available (Doom) HAS to appreciate that John Carmack is a fscking genius and therefore should respect his opinion.
Mr. Every points out that Carmack is a low-level programmer, which is a point that many users could conceivable overlook if they don't know much about development. But the sad thing is, after reading Carmack's
PS -- the symptom of ultra-orthodox devotion to one's operating system is not confined to the Mac community. I know anybody reading this far into a
because I can't get to it. He should try Linux+Apache. :) Even during peak hours Slashdot is pretty fast!
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
he must have one of those little Intel-plugin cards... hey, I "assumed."
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
Wow, this is one of the most aggresively misinformed pieces I've seen in a long time.
He starts with overwhelming stereotypes of game coders and game code and all that's wrong with it in his opinion. Then he offhandedly mentions that he's never seen Carmack's code (this ignorance in spite of the fact that Carmack has released more code to the public than pretty much everyone not named Linus). Guess what, He doesn't know what the hell he's talking about when it comes to Carmack's code.
I like how he says he not aiming to insult Carmack, identifies Carmack as a low-level coder, and then then takes pot shots at "low-level weenies".
I especially love the flagrant display of ignorance with regards to id's developement environments. No, id never developed Doom in a "Win16" environment. Doom was developed on Next! Jesus, you'd think that maybe he'd want to at least get that one right, as it comes from Steve Jobs.
Before Doom, it was mostly DOS with assembly code. After Doom, Quake was primarily coded using DJGPP. The enhancement process for Quake 2 was the first time id did major developement in a Win32 environment, and Carmack touches on in the original plan entry. He did read that, right?
Ooh, hardware tech... I was gonna rant on the fact that he displays broad ignorance of CPU architecture issues by ignoring the fact that Intel's desktop CPU line's depend on a decoupled microarchitecture with a very RISC like core, but then I realized that there's a decent chance he knows this and is purposefully misrepresenting the truth. Note how he ignores the major generational differences between the Pentium and Pentium Pro/Pentium II lines when making his dismissive statements about CISC.
BYTEmarks--Wonderful, I guess embarrassing shills with abandonned benchmarks are to be the final remembrance of the departed Byte magazine.
"Stuff a Voodoo card in an iMac..." Uh, how? Could be I missed something major, but I'm pretty damn sure iMacs lack PCI slots, which Voodoo cards require. This is THE misrepresentation that made me write this. What a load. At best this guy is off in a fantasy world. At worst he's knowingly lying to his readers.
He excuses the lack of AGP to the snazzy (and available to PC and Mac users) Rage 128 3D graphics setup by saying that local memory is significantly faster. Yup, and PC users will be getting that card with up to twice the ram available (32 MB) that the Macs have defined as their standard (16 MB), and of course PC's will be feeding that RAM with a faster pipe.
"Why isn't there a working PlayStation emulator on the PC, despite years of trying?" Uh, tell that to Connectix. They've promised to sell their emulator on both platforms. Or check out the emulators projects at http://www.davesclassics.com/psxemu.html. (It all seems pretty pointless though. Connectix wants $50 for it's Mac PS emulator, while the real thing cost $100 new.)
And one last thing, he's not "moving" his games to the Mac, he's expanding then to include the Mac's niche market.
Ugh.
"* Voodoo does NOT require PCI slots."
I'll take your word on it.
"You could build one onto a motherboard if you want."
Doubtful, as no has ever built any of the currently available Voodoo cards and chips (Voodoo, Voodoo Rush, Voodoo 2 and Voodoo Banshee) onto a motherboard. But just doubtful, as "it hasn't happened" != "it can't happen"
"The iMac has a high-bandwidth slot + port called the mezzanine, and this is what Griffin Technologies is using for their iMac VooDoo card."
I'll take your word on it. That's why this is the only point I qualified with a "Could be I missed something major..." prefix. And is that a Voodoo, or Voodoo 2? If Voodoo 2, can I get a Voodoo 2 SLI configuration in an iMac, doubling the fill rate? Single slot SLI configurations are available for PC's, and I'd hate to take a step back from the performance level my SLI rig gives me.
"* Regarding above, I am disappointed the iMac rev3 didn't build one in. Then again I wouldn't buy one simply because I am used to larger monitors. Maybe when they revamp for 17/19"ers..."
:-) I too am spoiled by large monitors...
"* AGP isn't all it's cracked up to be, and that can be backed up. Intel was nowhere NEAR the performance peak of PCI when they introduced AGP. AGP is just one more area of the motherboard this CPU vendor can control, as Intel slowly closes the platform."
No, AGP isn't all it's cracked up to be, but yes, current AGP implementations are faster than the double-speed PCI slot in the new G3 boxes.
"* How has Apple defined 16 MB as "the standard" any more than currently-shipping PC's with 12 MB RAM defined THAT as the standard for Wintel? This is just a current configuration, and games adapt to all sorts of setups, or you'd still be setting up EMM386 . Cranking PCI up to 66 MHz and 64-bit is a good short-term solution for gaming bandwidth."
The AC covered this pretty well; 16 MB video memory available to Macs, 32 MB video memory, fed by a faster pipe, available to pc's. As Carmack said though, this point is is of little overall importance.
Benchmarks--I'll be more interested when the measure relevant to the discussion, Q3A timedemos, can be done in person. Setting equivalent image properties and running timedemos should provide very useful 3D game performance comparison numbers. I still relish the memory of watching Cyrix apologists trying to find a way to wiggle out of timerefresh comparisons...
And for the other guy, yup, looks like I was wrong about some level of Voodoo availability for the iMac. Show me to be wrong on all the other points in my original post and I'll welcome both you and Every back from fantasyland.
Wow, this almost slipped by me:
"AGP is just one more area of the motherboard this CPU vendor can control, as Intel slowly closes the platform."
Did I really just see a Mac user bemoan the alleged closing of the PC platform?!?
Hah! Pot, kettle, black!
Holy cow, that's got to be the definition of chutzpah.
this article really ticked me off. first off,
on a lot of points, he's just plain WRONG.
plus, it's littered with that strange mix of
defensiveness and euphoria that has always
dogged advocates/apologists for any platform.
these are COMPUTERS, not SPORTS teams for
crying out loud -- tools we use, not
teams we jeer or root for.
first, he pigeonholes john carmack
with a "low-level programmer" stereotype, and
then uses that stereotype to marginalize
carmack's comments regarding the mac. fine,
at least he admits his bias up front.
second, like it or not, after years of
wintel playing catch-up to apple,
apple IS playing catch-up to wintel on
a number of issues, and these are *NOT*
just "low-level details that most programmers
won't care about". macOS does *not* have memory
protection, pre-emptive multitasking, or (until
now) a reasonable approach to hardware-accelerated
3D. like it or not, WindowsNT does.
face it: programmers make errors. if those
programmers use C or C++, those errors may
try to write to random locations in memory.
if the OS lets them, they will blow away
other apps, or poke holes in the OS.
Unix, and WindowsNT won't let you. MacOS
will. ergo, macs will crash more during
development. sorry, it's true.
next, to compare the quake performance of
3D-accelerated mac to a non-accelerated PC
is ludicrous. of *COURSE* the mac will
win; that's the whole point of having
hardware acceleration in the first place!
also, notice that in one paragraph he says
"OpenGL is a pretty mediocre implementation
with lots of shortcoming", while in the
next he admits "I am not a real 3D programmer. I only get the basics of the problems and issues and did some simple 3D stuff on my own (18 years ago)"
i presume that didn't include writing any OpenGL
code.
anyway i'm sure most of slashdot knows all
this stuff already. i just wanted to get
this of my chest. articles like this make
my blood boil, and they certainly do nothing
to help the image of mac enthusiasts.
btw, someone should tell him that ISA is a
bus standard, not an instruction architecture
(maybe he was thinking of IA32?)
I _like_ MacOS not having protected memory - ;)
it makes it so much easier to fool around with
the low level stuff
OK, I agree that not having PM and PMT is
outdated, and I will be upgrading to MacOS X
eventually, but I use MacOS at home, and a dual
boot Linux/NT box at work, and I find that the
from the user experience, this doesn't matter
too much as Linux and MacOS are both very
responsive, and I need to reboot MacOS because
of crashes less often (except when I'm fooling
around with the low level stuff!) than I need
to reboot NT because of memory leaks.
MacOS has by far the nicest interface.
Windowmaker on Linux would come close if I could
get a file manager as nice as the Mac Finder.
So, responsiveness (233Mhz machines)
Linux > MacOS >> NT,
user interface
MacOS >> Linux > NT.
Roy Ward.
Dude, what the Hell are you smoking? Every is more fanatical than Steve Fucking Jobs himself. Try reading some of his other articles sometime. They're all pretty much like this one. There probably isn't a writer around who distorts the facts as much as him.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Don't even try to say the defensive, childish behavior exhibited by so many Mac users, and exemplified by David Every, is similar to the behavior of Windows users. There's a reason why Mac users have gotten the stereotype that they have, and for a great many of them, it's very valid. The Mac is way healthier than OS/2 or Amiga, yet you don't see the wholesale whining from those two groups that you see from Mac advocates. BeOS is still an underdog to the Mac, and you generally don't see it from their userbase, either. Just talk to a tech writer sometime about the immaturity of Mac users whenever anything but glowing praise is written about an Apple product -- it really is pathetic.
For a great example of what I'm talking about, I recommend that everyone check out comp.sys.mac.advocacy sometime. Some of the Mac defenders there surpass even the great David "I never met a fact I couldn't twist" Every.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
You can sit around bashing MacOS all you want,
but as far as I'm concerned Linux is worth
less than zero until ProTools runs on it.
Hey, don't forget HURD... But BeOS is better than HURD, which is better than Plan9...
It seems you are comparing apples and oranges. Windows9x is cool for typing papers and playing games, WindowsNT is great for developing new toys for Bill Gates, Linux is great for Intranets and such, BeOS is great for killing time. I'd say that MacOS is good for something, but I'd be lying. You see, it is all relative my boy... You must choose the OS that fits you, and love it.
As for MacOS X, I am not holding my breath... System 7 and System 8 were supposed to be salvation... Need I say more? Crapple had the opportunity to go with BeOS, and fumbled the ball. Hello Dell...
-p9
Ok...almost every post on this topic has been referring to this guy's "cluelesness". Whether he is or not, is highly debatable..he said some suspicious things, but it's impossible for him to know everything about everything in perfect detail...
His story was agreeing mostly with Carmack's points. He had some well to the point doubts about their accuracy, but he mostly agreed with the fact that a lot of the low-level OS parts are _bad_ or non-existent. The point in bringing up Mac OS X here was to show YOU that Apple knows this...they want to fix it.
His story intended to show people that Carmack was looking at the Mac architecture overall from a low-level user's point of you and his point of view does not, and will not apply to every mac user out there.
Some people were wondering why he sustained that OpenGL is average...well..because it is. OpenGL has some very nice features and it is quite fast, but it doesn't have the benefits that QuickDraw 3D brings..file format, different shaders etc. This is not to say OpenGL is bad...it isn't..it's very good...but in many ways QuickDraw 3D is better (if you don't believe me, check out QD3D documentation and compare it to OpenGL).
Some people were complaining about what happened to Rhapsody..it's now available in the form of Mac OS X Server..it's expensive, that's true..but you go ahead and use it as a server OS for a week and you come back and tell me if it isn't worth it.
I don't realize why Carmack crashed his machine the way he did...If he is the God people say he is (he may very well be, and I think you need to be to put out something like Quake) he should, would have been able to figure out his mac..but he's new to the platform so it's perfectly understandable to not know the Toolbox in and out right away. I hardly doubt that say...any of the Bungie engineers crashed their machines as much while developing Myth (and equally demanding if not more game engine).
The whole point to this post is to check your own cluelesness before accusing anyone of it. Don't pre-judge someone based on the camp they are talking from. Heck..if it were that way I should completely dismiss Carmack's comments before even reading them because he's always been a PC guy..but I don't..he's got good points and I appreciate seeing them. Keep and open mind guys/gals...don't rant just for ranting. Use a computer for what it does for you, not because it's cool(er) is cheap(er) or is neat(er). Live on...
Regards.
First of all, it is stable if it's apps are well-
written. But I'm not even going to bother arguing
that point. The reason the Mac OS still has some
of the same faults it did 15 years ago is because
it is still the same OS. Try and use an old DOS
program in Windows. You can't even run Doom. You
can''t even find Linux software that old. For
better or worse, simplicity, continuity, and
backwards compatibility carry with them some clear
drawbacks. And that's that.
Two things: 1) You're sure Carmack's a genius?
Why is that? Your close, personal friendship has
given you great insight to his IQ? For all you
know, he could be the Rain Man (note: i'm not
implying he is). 2) You Linux guys have to learn
something: The Mac OS is not made for user-made
programs. It's a commercial system, designed for
commercial apps. It's made to be easy for users
to use and leave the code to professionals.
The reason one button mice lead to so many
complications is because of lazy companies that
port windows software to mac without bothering to
reorganize the controls, just substituting option-
click or something else inconvenient. Myself, I
wish I had a more advanced mouse. I rather like
the scroll wheel, although I can't really imagine
using the right button for anything but gaming.
With smart program design, one button is plenty.
The PPC is indeed newer than the x86 architecture.
I've got a G3 'cause I think the hardware is
definitely superior to an Intel. And I, myself,
happen to love the OS, but that's partly because I
grew up on it, and also because I know I'm not
ever going to try to write myself any apps. But
that doesn't mean I don't recognize it's faults.
You talk about the PPC, then compare it to *NIX.
That's apples and oranges. Better hardware does
not a better OS make. No matter what I think.
Yup! OS X Server is $999.
For that amount you get:
Unlimited users
Web Objects (Not the full version, but not a demo either)
A full Unix OS (This is new and welcome)
Apache (OK, so this is free anyway...)
How much does it cost to have unlimited users for NT 4.0? While OS X Server is not free like Linux, it does have some features and ease of use experience (something that might not be as important to most readers here as to the outside world) that Linux and cannot provide.
OS X Server will not cost Educational places $999, you can bet on that.
Let us go to the stars, dream new dreams, and renew the embers of hope that have long since grown cold.
1. Doom ran in DOS. Not Win16. Research.
2. MacOS is a pain to develop for because of lack of memory protection. Using Bounds Checkers should not be necessary just to get your program to run.
3. Carmack's post was to discuss how it looks like Apple finally is beginning to get their s**t together. He still thinks MacOS is a lame platform for the 90s, considering every other mainstream OS (and most non-mainstream OSs) have modern OS architectures (with memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking, virtual memory, etc)
4. If you put a 3dfx in an iMac and nothing in a P2-400 and run a 3d game that wants 3d accel, then OF COURSE the iMac will be faster. But ONLY because of the 3D acceleration. Put an iMac with a Voodoo next to a P2-400 with a Voodoo, and everyone who actually does their homework will know that the P2-400 is faster.
5. Mac users need to get out of their brainwash that the current MacOS is so great. It's a terrible OS from a programmer's perspective due to lack of modern architecture. It's just good that Apple is FINALLY figuring it out. And yes, I've developed on Win32, Unix, Mac, BeOS, Dos, Amiga, Apple 2, C-64, etc etc etc. MacOS X looks like it could be a great OS.
Summing it up: Do a bit of research and get rid of the bias. Apple HAS fell behind over the last few years, and they realize it. All Carmack said is that MacOS sucks to develop for, get rid of it. Apple said, "we are". Carmack said, "OK, groovy."
'nuff said...
Rhapsody is not vaporware, Steve demo'd it at MacWorld, and it's shipping next month. It's called OSX Server. Those people who rewrote their apps for Rhapsody: StoneDesign, et. al can run them on OSX Server.
I am currently debugging a windows app remotely from my Mac.
The MAC is crashing when the windows box gets an error.
Development work on the Mac, which is what JC was primarily talking about, sux hardcore.
chug chug chug BOOM!
If only my boss would let me turn this 'puter into a BeOS machine.
Whatever happened to MEEPT!!'s account?
MEEPT!! may have been annoying at times, but really fun to read at others.
No, he's saying what Mac advocates usually say: That the MacOS doesn't suck, it rules, and the things that Carmack says are shortcomings are actually benefits and features. This is pretty much typical of rabid Mac fans. Don't get me wrong, I like Macs (particularly those running Linux) but as a PC user I feel the need to put the Mac in perspective and not base my whole argument around the notion that Steve Jobs can do no wrong and that the Mac is a magical machine. :)
Call me old-fashionned but I prefer my big beige box. :)
"Do it the hard way first, so you can appreciate the easy way later."
Exactly. You hit the nail right on the head. After reading the article, this guy isn't qualified to defend the Mac. Either that or he's just stupid. He obviously doesn't know much about Carmack or his background either, he's just trying to say "nah-ah! Windoze and Unix suck more". Carmack is more than just a game programmer. The man is a coding genious and his opinion should be taken VERY highly.
"Doom and some other games used to be Win16, which had many more uglies with memory management and scheduling, and made the Mac OS look wildly mature and consistent."
That proves right there he doesn't know what he's talking about. DooM or any other id game never came out for Win16. He's also throwing in useless stuff about the Mac UI being better. Who the fsck cares? Carmack was talking about the low-level portion of MacOS. If you build a beautiful building on sand, it's still gonna fall down when there's a storm. I'd rather have the (debatably) "MORE sucky high-level" Unix than a buggy MacOS. This guy is no more qualified to talk about this subject than Bill Gates is qualified to talk about how to be a bodybuilder.
I think the problem with his analogy of "We have a PSX emulator so we're better" is what makes him look stupid. First of all, they are porting the emulator to Win95/98, if they don't get a court order to stop development before that. Secondly, this is a stupid comparision because all the other PSX emulators were never made by a commercial company, it was always Joe User in his garage doing it in his spare time. ANY system can be emulated, it's just a matter of how well it will run. This is just another example the author of this editorial showed his stupidity.
I agree...but with all this critiszizzzms (can't spell) flying around, I just want to say that eveyone should wait for OSX before making judgments as to Apples lame OS. This will be very cool.. I hope they keep a lot of NeXT with the port.