Older timer here :)
Back in the 286/386 and 486sx/dx days Pc's were prefered in the UK because they
could be upgraded ALOT more and Games ( Doom, Duke3d, quake, Age of EMpires)
were on pc. Voodoo Grahpics cards Going from Visa, to pci to Agp, the new
cases, Hot spotting, AND most importantly the PC had DOS! ( not windows always
hated it since GEM)
DOS 6.22 = My happiest days as a young teenager. ( happiest days as a kid was
when I was 5 years old and I got a Spectrum 48k)
When the 386 hit the stores with all the add ons, mods, games and everything
else MAC could no compete ( in uk anyway) Hell I remember IBM computers and
Acorns being in some schools and homes.
It's all about Fashion now. The argument about " upgradability" has been
destroyed and replaced with our want for "new things" upgrading is no longer
"cool" in the tech world something I blame MAC for.
----- Original Message -----
From: Raymond E. Feist
To: feistfans-l
Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 1:55 AM
Subject: Re: Possible copyright infringement noted...
On Feb 28, 2012, at 4:09 PM, BW~Merlin wrote:
I have never understood this argument that MACs are better for multimedia
and everyone I have asked have said "I don't know they are just better". They
use the same processors now (Intel) and the same graphics cards (nvidia or AMD)
and the same software (Corel or Adobe) which have been used in Windows machines
for years. For the same price point a Windows machine will be much better
equipped and yet this myth as I believe it to be of MACs being better for
multimedia work keeps persisting. Does anyone know of a solid case where a MAC
is better?
Today it makes little difference, for the reasons you've sited; the
predominance in Mac users tracks back to the days when there was a big
difference. Up until the adoption of Intel chips by Apple, the Motorola chips
were better graphics processors for really esoteric reasons. For the neepers
among us, if I get a fact wrong, feel free to correct. The first issue was a
"pipeline" issue, i.e. Moto's data words were shorter than Intel's back in the
day. So if a Mac dropped a data bit and got a checksum = false, it resent 8
bits. If Intel dropped a data bit at the end of a 24 bit word, it had to
resend 24. Over the long haul, that added to the time for rendering overhead.
Secondly, Motorola Floating Point Operations Per Second (Flops) were at a
higher rate as part of the chip design so at similar clock speed, Motorolas
were faster. Lastly, the design of the I/O between motherboard and graphics
chip and the associated busses were more efficient. So, back in the days of
the early Motorola 68000s v. Intel 286/386 Macs were better for graphic use.
Ask the old timers about how long it took to do ray tracing.
So, that's why the Mac developed more Mac users in that community. Years of
using Macs and by the time PCs caught up for graphics, why bother switching?
When the G4 and Intel Macs started to show up, the Mac pretty much put Apollo
and Sparc out of business. When a $5,000 computer could render as fast as a
$30,000 dedicated work station . .; .
Today it would be a question of what you're more comfortable with. The price
is about the same because you'd have to beef up a PC in memory and video
upgrades to match at Mac out of the box, but after that it's which OS you're
happier with.
Best, R.E.F.
----
www.crydee.com
Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by
stupidity.
