Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't apple do just that when they went from a 800x0 architecture to the PPC?
Actually it was the 68k line, not the 808x's from Intel. And PowerPC machines have 100% compatibiltiy with programs made for 68k processors; in fact, its probably the most sucecessful technology transition, ever.
id also probably has a decent guesstimate of how many downloads of the test for each os too. (they can look at the download rates for the linux ports for quake2 and the mac sales for quake.
A large part of the discrepancy is due to Mac users feeling shafted by getting charged $50 for a year old game. All the data files are identical, so they could have gotten them from a PC friend (or just bought the PC version), download the Mac demo, enter the regiserted code, and save themselves $30.
I know he ment 8.x, but you are right, he should have made it clear. The part that I objected to was the putting down of Apples hardware seemingly to keep Windows PC users from going ape shit.
I will say this, though- it's likely that linux has a user base with significantly more Quake-running capacity, because that level of CPU power is really pretty significant
I would think it would be just the opposite because Unix can get so much more out of the hardware than any other operating system. i.e. a 486 Linux box I use regularly is about as responsive as an old 601 PowerMac with sys 8.1.
I'm thinking about getting some older PC's (say 120 mhz) at some point and installing Linux and FreeBSD on them.
What he tried to do was set one processor to make OpenGL calls and the other to handle the rest of the game (networking, physics etc).
He did get something like a 15-20% speed improvement, but both processors were so bogged down communicating that it wasn't practical.
Now, if everybody had quad processor boxes, you could have one processor do the OpenGL calls, one processor to handle the rest of the game, one for overhead the the last to keep your network going.:)
Unlike certain other companies that we could name, Apple has never made any pretensions about offering refunds for the Mac OS if you want to use something else.
The only reason I don't buy a Mac is that the Hardware has always been REALLY bad.
Actually, Apple's hardware always (for the most part) been great. Something like 70% of all Macs ever made are still in use (if nothing else, those Mac classics make great ANSI terminals).
that iMac mouse DOESN'T work,
Actually its a wonderful mouse (for a 1 button). The only think I would change would be to make it slightly longer and add a button.
I don't want a Laptop sized keyboard when I am working on a desktop with room to spread out.t
As with the mouse, the keyboard is awsome. The only things I miss are the end and delete keys. The arrow keys are only bad if you are trying to play a game with them (have to be crazy to use a keyboard in a game anyway). But the iMac's trump card is that it is the best there is at what keyboards are for: typing. The keys are soo comfortable and take exactly the right amount of pressure to use.
First they blamed it on Manson
on
Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
then they blamed it on video games, and now they're blaming it on the Internet. You know what would be really, really nice? If somebody found absolute, undeniable proof that one of these kids wigged out because of something he read in the Bible.
Strange recollection on your part; I distinctly remember Troll Tech and KDE being beaten mercilessly on/. Thankfully the Troll's proposed license finally meets OSD criteria:)
Yes, but did Rob post about 500 stories on it in the space of a month? Maybe some of the Troll bashing was as vehement, but it never escaleted to a mass riot.:-)
You missed the first part of my statement - that other platforms are well-documented.
On current Macs the only parts that aren't well documentated are the ROM chips, and other operating systems aren't going to use those anyway. Everything else (like Firewire for example) has great docs.
You may recall that the lack of such documentation (and Apple's unwillingness to disclose specs) made the Apple Mac m68k NetBSD and Linux ports much more problematic than most.
Yep, the whole 68k line was a bitch. Thats why Linux only works on about half the machines. Still plan on installing NetBSD on my old Quadra at some point though....
Personally, I'd like to see more use of non-x86 platforms in general.
What I would love to be able to do is buy a dual PPC motherboard and put a system together myself. But unfortunatly I can't do that so I will be builing a dual Celery this summer.
Judging from what I've heard from fellow NeXTSTEP/OpenStep developers, they're quite upset that Apple essentially dropped support on Sparc, HP and x86 in lieu of their G3 platform. WHY???
Hmmmm, let me think. Maybe because this would cost lots of money! Money that Apple doesn't have. Hopefully they can get back up to 20% market share and will be able do support more platforms then.
In the meantime, all the old NeXT users can get themselves a copy of Darwin port it to any platform they please.
BTW, Apple wasn't targeted simply because they're Apple - the Open Source community also made Netscape and Troll Tech revise their licenses as well.
I don't recall them getting caned in Linux forums though.
Touting System 8 the way they did was truly a disservice to MacOS users
And how did you come to this conclusion? 8 brought great enhancements to the GUI and underlying OS.
MacOS8 was still a primitive and lousy OS by the standards of the time.
You are forgetting that 98% people who use computers don't give a shit about having a powerful networking OS that has an uptime of a year or more.
Operating systems are more than just kernels and multitasking, they're also about UI's and usabilty, and in these two areas Unix makes Windows look good. Anything that System 8 lacked in buzzword features it more than made up for it in the end user experince.
No, converts from MacOS to Linux did so because Linux actually works as advertised
Again, what parts of the Mac OS don't "work as advertized"? And 99% of Mac users using Linux are still Mac users- they simply have a dual boot system or install Linux on an old machine.
Like NetBSD, Linux gives us a very wide gamutof hardware options - we're not "married" to a single hardware vendor.
You are no more "married" to Apple's hardware than you are to any PC. For my next Mac I'm going to get a tower case so I can fill it up with cheap ATA disks, buy generic PC100 SDRAM and get a nice big trinitron monitor from Sony or some other company.
Conversely, with well-documented hardware (i386 and Alpha in particular), we're not married to one OS. I can (and do) use BeOS, SCO, Windows95/98/NT, OS/2 on my Intel hardware.
I could run Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, BeOS, AUX, NeXT, Mac OS and OS X on my various Macs. What, you can't have an orgasm unless you can install 20 different OS's on you computer?
Though I wish that Apple would/could open more of its OS
They've opened everything but the GUI, Netbooting and Yellow Box. They do have to make money of of something.
Yes, Apple has made some great mistakes (find a computing comapny that hasn't) and continues to make great ones, but get your facts straight before bashing them.
First let me say that you probably didn't intend on it sounding this way, but it seems that you represent the average Slashdot user in that you can't say something wholy positive about Apple.
Its not enough that Apple listend to Perkins and others from the OS community and changed the liscense, you still have to knock the company some way or another.
"Damn Apple and their proprietary hardware and software!"
"Evil Apple for trying to cover their butts from patent lawsuits and US export law!"
"Okay, they changed the lisense, BUT its too damn long AND THEY WILL NEVER BE AS SUCCESFUL AS LINUX!"
Again, this isn't an attack on you and I'm not saying you made some of those "Apple sux" posts. Its just an observation. Damn few/.ers have stood up and said "Hey, nice job Apple. Thanks for listening to us."
I didn't either, but I did watch the part of Linus's speach (via RealPlayer) where he addressed some of the critisisms against the distribution vendors (not RH specifically).
He said something along the lines of the distributions being a great help to the community, because they make Linux more usuable and easier to install for newbies.
I'm probably butchering that since its been a few months since I watched the speech, but you get my point. When the CREATOR of the OS gives his blessing to comanies that make a profit on it, you have NO right to open your mouth and make judgments.
Anybody notice how some harmless (although not terribly meaningful) pro-Mac posts are getting -1's, and some pretty lame anti-mac posts are getting 1's or better?
A/C post:
Looks much better (Score:-1) No, you can't be happy! It's Apple, we need to find something wrong! It's too long... yeah!
While this one was left alone:
You don't need to be a lawyer... (Score:1) by SalsaDoom on Tuesday April
...to see that Apple is a company based on expoitation.
Personally, mabye I'm just negative, but i think that this insane mass trusting of apples new buzzword is gonna get us in trouble. Why work on there OS when we have an already better OS (Linux or a BSD 4.4 light) that has better licencing anyway?
This is just the mac users trying to bring there little platform back, and i'm suprised how many peopel are buying in to this ploy. Apple has been the king of propieitary for since it was created, don't you people know we still can't run linux on a lot of there hardware?
this company is B A D.
Its gonna make you people do there work and then toss you aside when they are done using you! This ASPL is apples way of getting free development (Thats exploitation) out of you. If you ask me, and i suppose mabye you didn't, but we should tell apple to go backrupt and save us a lot of trouble smashing there shitty MacOS X into the ground with linux/bsd4.4light.
To the Mac users: Run LinuxPPC if you want Open Source. Fuck Apple.
"I don't know what life is, but nobody gets out alive"
And this one (though not quite as negative) was even bumped up to 2: APSL is NOT Open Source (Score:2) by schani on Tuesday April 20, @08:43AM EDT
9.1 Infringement. If any portion of, or functionality implemented by, the Original Code becomes the subject of a claim of infringement, Apple may, at its option: (a) attempt to procure the rights necessary for Apple and You to continue using the Affected Original Code; (b) modify the Affected Original Code so that it is no longer infringing; or (c) suspend Your rights to use, reproduce, modify, sublicense and distribute the Affected Original Code until a final determination of the claim is made by a court or governmental administrative agency of competent jurisdiction and Apple lifts the suspension as set forth below.
this means, in other words, that if someone claims that any part of the source infringes on his copyright or patents, then apple has the right to suspend your use of this piece of code. note that it is not necessary that this someone actually proves that the code infringes! all apple needs to take the code away from you is to find someone willing to CLAIM an infringement. then apple can suspend your rights until the case is settled, which can take a very long time, as we all know
Maybe the moderating just happend to be a little uneven at the time, but it lookes more like bias on the part of the moderators. (just watch this get knocked down to -1).
that Apple will open source the player and server apps, but keep the development tools proprietary. And they are perfectly entitled to do that considering all the work that they've put into it.
Really looking forward to play Quicktime movies under Linux......
In the end, Linux is FAR more likely to kill the Mac than Windows.
Never going to happen. Linux is a powerful operating system beats the @#$#@ out of the old Mac OS for networking, stability and multitasking.
However, the Mac OS returns the favor on the end user side. It has a highly polished GUI, the best way for linking applications to documents, and is the only OS where you can install new hardware or software and have it just work 95% of the time.
Once OSX client is out, Apple with have the best of both worlds. I still plan on using Linux though and maybe even FreeBSD on my Macs.
1)will it run linux (redhat-intel) on the free copy of Virtual PC?
It should. VPC works by emulating an Intel processor, so any OS designed designed for it should work. I belive there's documentation with the CD for doing generic floppy intalls; I can look it up for you if you want as I have VPC.
If you like Red Hat you might try LinuxPPC, which is a port of RH.
2) will it run OSX or Darwin
Yes, although I don't belive its supported. Reported it works just fine, but remember that OSXS has no powersaving functions (don't know if you can put it to sleep). i.e. you can't dim the screen, have the HD spin down after being used etc.
3)is it fast?
The Powerbook is, VPC is not. If you got the G3 300 Powerbook it would probably be equal to a 100-150 mhz Pentium. Its fine for compiling and running basic applications, but don't expect to play Quake on it or work on big files with Gimp in VPC.
As for the Powerbooks speed, it will beat the tar out of any PC notebook currently made, because the G3 is a much cooler processor and uses less power, so you can use faster chips. However, the whole thing weighs seven pounds while you can get some damn sexy PC laptops from Sony that weigh less than four.
4) am iwasting my time? (if you think I am, give a better reason than Mac's suck, i don't care)
No. G3 laptops are powerhouses, and have lots of goodies like the option to use two batteries in it, fast ethernet and built in video i/o. The DVD is pretty nice too.:-) It will run OSXS/Darwin and Linux natively, and you should be able to run any PC OS out there with VPC (just don't expect it to be fast).
If you want the most powerful and expandable laptop, get a Powerbook. If you are on the road a lot and don't want to hawl around 15 lpbs of gear (puter + accesories), get one of the new ultralight PC laptops.
Rare that it will crash the computer, I work at my schools computer lab as a help/consultant,
Wow, what a coincidence, so do I!
and I have yet to see a mac app crash that dosn't freeze up the whole system
Well, maybe your school's cs department is run by idiots like mine is. You see at my school, the powers that be think that letting Mac users force quit applications is bad, and disables it. So if an app freezes the gui, you have no choice but to do a hard restart.
granted that I don't think they have the latest os upgrade
Small world! At my school, we are stuck with 8.1 when they should have upgraded to 8.5 months ago.
Note: Most of the lockups occure when people go to save or to print,
Damn, we could almost be going to the same school here. The Mac printing setup is extremly half assed here.
I guess Mac's are officially "mainstream" again...
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In windows, you at least have some hope of recovering from the app crashing.
Its called a force quit. Command-option-esc.
I guess Mac's are officially "mainstream" again...
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GUI: Have you ever seen one of the machines Xerox Parc put out? Looks remarkably like a mac, so I don't think mac people are in a position to claim invention there.
Have you compared the Xerox park GUI to the Macs? You seem to forget that this happend over 20 years ago. Do you honestly think Apple has made only incremental improvements to the Xerox GUI?
No, Apple did not invent the GUI, but they have taken it light years beyond anything else (with the possible exception of the NeXT GUI).
These concepts have been well understood for decades and their power proven time and again. And this is not deep magic. Heck, even *I* have written a kernel with pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory.
Could you also provide backward compatibility to thousands of older apps since you would be switching to a kernel based OS? Could you also write an API that would allow a quick upgrade path for older applications?
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Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't apple do just that when they went from a 800x0 architecture to the PPC?
Actually it was the 68k line, not the 808x's from Intel. And PowerPC machines have 100% compatibiltiy with programs made for 68k processors; in fact, its probably the most sucecessful technology transition, ever.
AFAIK it is already possible to kill the GUI and use X Windows under OSXS, you'd just have to do it yourself as Apple doesn't inlcude it on the CD's.
If you can't, I would expect a commercial or free OS version would be available soon.
I'm also hoping that OSXS supports virtual consols and desktops.
id also probably has a decent guesstimate of how many downloads of the test for each os too. (they can look at the download rates for the linux ports for quake2 and the mac sales for quake.
A large part of the discrepancy is due to Mac users feeling shafted by getting charged $50 for a year old game. All the data files are identical, so they could have gotten them from a PC friend (or just bought the PC version), download the Mac demo, enter the regiserted code, and save themselves $30.
I know he ment 8.x, but you are right, he should have made it clear. The part that I objected to was the putting down of Apples hardware seemingly to keep Windows PC users from going ape shit.
I will say this, though- it's likely that linux has a user base with significantly more Quake-running capacity, because that level of CPU power is really pretty significant
I would think it would be just the opposite because Unix can get so much more out of the hardware than any other operating system. i.e. a 486 Linux box I use regularly is about as responsive as an old 601 PowerMac with sys 8.1.
I'm thinking about getting some older PC's (say 120 mhz) at some point and installing Linux and FreeBSD on them.
What he tried to do was set one processor to make OpenGL calls and the other to handle the rest of the game (networking, physics etc).
:)
He did get something like a 15-20% speed improvement, but both processors were so bogged down communicating that it wasn't practical.
Now, if everybody had quad processor boxes, you could have one processor do the OpenGL calls, one processor to handle the rest of the game, one for overhead the the last to keep your network going.
Unlike certain other companies that we could name, Apple has never made any pretensions about offering refunds for the Mac OS if you want to use something else.
The only reason I don't buy a Mac is that the Hardware has always been REALLY bad.
Actually, Apple's hardware always (for the most part) been great. Something like 70% of all Macs ever made are still in use (if nothing else, those Mac classics make great ANSI terminals).
that iMac mouse DOESN'T work,
Actually its a wonderful mouse (for a 1 button). The only think I would change would be to make it slightly longer and add a button.
I don't want a Laptop sized keyboard when I am working on a desktop with room to spread out.t
As with the mouse, the keyboard is awsome. The only things I miss are the end and delete keys. The arrow keys are only bad if you are trying to play a game with them (have to be crazy to use a keyboard in a game anyway). But the iMac's trump card is that it is the best there is at what keyboards are for: typing. The keys are soo comfortable and take exactly the right amount of pressure to use.
then they blamed it on video games, and now they're blaming it on the Internet. You know what would be really, really nice? If somebody found absolute, undeniable proof that one of these kids wigged out because of something he read in the Bible.
Strange recollection on your part; I distinctly remember Troll Tech and KDE being beaten mercilessly on /. Thankfully the Troll's proposed license finally meets OSD criteria :)
:-)
Yes, but did Rob post about 500 stories on it in the space of a month? Maybe some of the Troll bashing was as vehement, but it never escaleted to a mass riot.
You missed the first part of my statement - that other platforms are well-documented.
On current Macs the only parts that aren't well documentated are the ROM chips, and other operating systems aren't going to use those anyway. Everything else (like Firewire for example) has great docs.
You may recall that the lack of such documentation (and Apple's unwillingness to disclose specs) made the Apple Mac m68k NetBSD and Linux ports much more problematic than most.
Yep, the whole 68k line was a bitch. Thats why Linux only works on about half the machines. Still plan on installing NetBSD on my old Quadra at some point though....
Personally, I'd like to see more use of non-x86 platforms in general.
What I would love to be able to do is buy a dual PPC motherboard and put a system together myself. But unfortunatly I can't do that so I will be builing a dual Celery this summer.
Judging from what I've heard from fellow NeXTSTEP/OpenStep developers, they're quite upset that Apple essentially dropped support on Sparc, HP and x86 in lieu of their G3 platform. WHY???
Hmmmm, let me think. Maybe because this would cost lots of money! Money that Apple doesn't have. Hopefully they can get back up to 20% market share and will be able do support more platforms then.
In the meantime, all the old NeXT users can get themselves a copy of Darwin port it to any platform they please.
BTW, Apple wasn't targeted simply because they're Apple - the Open Source community also made Netscape and Troll Tech revise their licenses as well.
I don't recall them getting caned in Linux forums though.
Touting System 8 the way they did was truly a disservice to MacOS users
And how did you come to this conclusion? 8 brought great enhancements to the GUI and underlying OS.
MacOS8 was still a primitive and lousy OS by the standards of the time.
You are forgetting that 98% people who use computers don't give a shit about having a powerful networking OS that has an uptime of a year or more.
Operating systems are more than just kernels and multitasking, they're also about UI's and usabilty, and in these two areas Unix makes Windows look good. Anything that System 8 lacked in buzzword features it more than made up for it in the end user experince.
No, converts from MacOS to Linux did so because Linux actually works as advertised
Again, what parts of the Mac OS don't "work as advertized"? And 99% of Mac users using Linux are still Mac users- they simply have a dual boot system or install Linux on an old machine.
Like NetBSD, Linux gives us a very wide gamutof hardware options - we're not "married" to a single hardware vendor.
You are no more "married" to Apple's hardware than you are to any PC. For my next Mac I'm going to get a tower case so I can fill it up with cheap ATA disks, buy generic PC100 SDRAM and get a nice big trinitron monitor from Sony or some other company.
Conversely, with well-documented hardware (i386 and Alpha in particular), we're not married to one OS. I can (and do) use BeOS, SCO, Windows95/98/NT, OS/2 on my Intel hardware.
I could run Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, BeOS, AUX, NeXT, Mac OS and OS X on my various Macs. What, you can't have an orgasm unless you can install 20 different OS's on you computer?
Though I wish that Apple would/could open more of its OS
They've opened everything but the GUI, Netbooting and Yellow Box. They do have to make money of of something.
Yes, Apple has made some great mistakes (find a computing comapny that hasn't) and continues to make great ones, but get your facts straight before bashing them.
I take back everything I ever said about moderating (previous story I belive).
First let me say that you probably didn't intend on it sounding this way, but it seems that you represent the average Slashdot user in that you can't say something wholy positive about Apple.
/.ers have stood up and said "Hey, nice job Apple. Thanks for listening to us."
Its not enough that Apple listend to Perkins and others from the OS community and changed the liscense, you still have to knock the company some way or another.
"Damn Apple and their proprietary hardware and software!"
"Evil Apple for trying to cover their butts from patent lawsuits and US export law!"
"Okay, they changed the lisense, BUT its too damn long AND THEY WILL NEVER BE AS SUCCESFUL AS LINUX!"
Again, this isn't an attack on you and I'm not saying you made some of those "Apple sux" posts. Its just an observation. Damn few
I didn't either, but I did watch the part of Linus's speach (via RealPlayer) where he addressed some of the critisisms against the distribution vendors (not RH specifically).
He said something along the lines of the distributions being a great help to the community, because they make Linux more usuable and easier to install for newbies.
I'm probably butchering that since its been a few months since I watched the speech, but you get my point. When the CREATOR of the OS gives his blessing to comanies that make a profit on it, you have NO right to open your mouth and make judgments.
Oh yes it does, in that posts on one side seem to be rated differently than the other. Maybe I'm just being paraniod, but thats my obeservation.
Anybody notice how some harmless (although not terribly meaningful) pro-Mac posts are getting -1's, and some pretty lame anti-mac posts are getting 1's or better?
A/C post:
Looks much better (Score:-1)
No, you can't be happy! It's Apple, we need to find something wrong! It's too long... yeah!
While this one was left alone:
You don't need to be a lawyer... (Score:1)
by SalsaDoom on Tuesday April
...to see that Apple is a company based on expoitation.
Personally, mabye I'm just negative, but i think that this insane mass trusting of apples new buzzword is gonna get us in trouble. Why work on there OS when we have an already better OS (Linux or a BSD 4.4 light) that has better licencing anyway?
This is just the mac users trying to bring there little platform back, and i'm suprised how many peopel are buying in to this ploy. Apple has been the king of propieitary for since it was created, don't you people know we still can't run linux on a lot of there hardware?
this company is B A D.
Its gonna make you people do there work and then toss you aside when they are done using you!
This ASPL is apples way of getting free development (Thats exploitation) out of you. If you ask me, and i suppose mabye you didn't, but we should tell apple to go backrupt and save us a lot of trouble smashing there shitty MacOS X into the ground with linux/bsd4.4light.
To the Mac users: Run LinuxPPC if you want Open Source. Fuck Apple.
"I don't know what life is, but nobody gets out alive"
And this one (though not quite as negative) was even bumped up to 2:
APSL is NOT Open Source (Score:2)
by schani on Tuesday April 20, @08:43AM EDT
9.1 Infringement. If any portion of, or functionality implemented by, the Original Code
becomes the subject of a claim of infringement, Apple may, at its option: (a) attempt to procure the rights necessary for Apple and You to continue using the Affected Original Code; (b) modify the Affected Original Code so that it is no longer infringing; or (c) suspend Your rights to use, reproduce, modify, sublicense and distribute the Affected Original Code until a final determination of the claim is made by a court or governmental administrative agency of competent jurisdiction and Apple lifts the suspension as set forth below.
this means, in other words, that if someone claims that any part of the source infringes on his copyright or patents, then apple has the right to suspend your use of this piece of code. note that it is not necessary that this someone actually proves that the code infringes! all apple needs to take the code away from you is to find someone willing to CLAIM an infringement. then apple can suspend your rights until the case is settled, which can take a very long time, as we all know
Maybe the moderating just happend to be a little uneven at the time, but it lookes more like bias on the part of the moderators. (just watch this get knocked down to -1).
that Apple will open source the player and server apps, but keep the development tools proprietary. And they are perfectly entitled to do that considering all the work that they've put into it.
Really looking forward to play Quicktime movies under Linux......
In the end, Linux is FAR more likely to kill the Mac than Windows.
Never going to happen. Linux is a powerful operating system beats the @#$#@ out of the old Mac OS for networking, stability and multitasking.
However, the Mac OS returns the favor on the end user side. It has a highly polished GUI, the best way for linking applications to documents, and is the only OS where you can install new hardware or software and have it just work 95% of the time.
Once OSX client is out, Apple with have the best of both worlds. I still plan on using Linux though and maybe even FreeBSD on my Macs.
1)will it run linux (redhat-intel) on the free copy of Virtual PC?
:-) It will run OSXS/Darwin and Linux natively, and you should be able to run any PC OS out there with VPC (just don't expect it to be fast).
It should. VPC works by emulating an Intel processor, so any OS designed designed for it should work. I belive there's documentation with the CD for doing generic floppy intalls; I can look it up for you if you want as I have VPC.
If you like Red Hat you might try LinuxPPC, which is a port of RH.
2) will it run OSX or Darwin
Yes, although I don't belive its supported. Reported it works just fine, but remember that OSXS has no powersaving functions (don't know if you can put it to sleep). i.e. you can't dim the screen, have the HD spin down after being used etc.
3)is it fast?
The Powerbook is, VPC is not. If you got the G3 300 Powerbook it would probably be equal to a 100-150 mhz Pentium. Its fine for compiling and running basic applications, but don't expect to play Quake on it or work on big files with Gimp in VPC.
As for the Powerbooks speed, it will beat the tar out of any PC notebook currently made, because the G3 is a much cooler processor and uses less power, so you can use faster chips. However, the whole thing weighs seven pounds while you can get some damn sexy PC laptops from Sony that weigh less than four.
4) am iwasting my time? (if you think I am, give a better reason than Mac's suck, i don't care)
No. G3 laptops are powerhouses, and have lots of goodies like the option to use two batteries in it, fast ethernet and built in video i/o. The DVD is pretty nice too.
If you want the most powerful and expandable laptop, get a Powerbook. If you are on the road a lot and don't want to hawl around 15 lpbs of gear (puter + accesories), get one of the new ultralight PC laptops.
Rare that it will crash the computer, I work at my schools computer lab as a help/consultant,
Wow, what a coincidence, so do I!
and I have yet to see a mac app crash that dosn't freeze up the whole system
Well, maybe your school's cs department is run by idiots like mine is. You see at my school, the powers that be think that letting Mac users force quit applications is bad, and disables it. So if an app freezes the gui, you have no choice but to do a hard restart.
granted that I don't think they have the latest os upgrade
Small world! At my school, we are stuck with 8.1 when they should have upgraded to 8.5 months ago.
Note: Most of the lockups occure when people go to save or to print,
Damn, we could almost be going to the same school here. The Mac printing setup is extremly half assed here.
In windows, you at least have some hope of recovering from the app crashing.
Its called a force quit. Command-option-esc.
GUI: Have you ever seen one of the machines Xerox Parc put out? Looks remarkably like a mac, so I don't think mac people are in a position to claim invention there.
Have you compared the Xerox park GUI to the Macs? You seem to forget that this happend over 20 years ago. Do you honestly think Apple has made only incremental improvements to the Xerox GUI?
No, Apple did not invent the GUI, but they have taken it light years beyond anything else (with the possible exception of the NeXT GUI).
These concepts have been well understood for decades and their power proven time and again. And this is not deep magic. Heck, even *I* have written a kernel with pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory.
Could you also provide backward compatibility to thousands of older apps since you would be switching to a kernel based OS? Could you also write an API that would allow a quick upgrade path for older applications?
Uh huh. Since 95. Apple has used one form of anti-aliasing or another since the Apple II.
Nice try......