On 6/6/05, Bill Holt <billholt at iglou.com> wrote: > As a dedicated user and developer since March 1984, who's promoted the > platform at almost every opportunity, I hate it that the following song > is what comes to mind: Our D I V O R C E, become final today ....
Mine was a month ago, the powerbook was finally sent to hibernate in the basement a week ago. I write this on a dual Win/Lin cheapie Dell laptop. > My current feeling is that it would be too embarrassing to continue the > "relationship" and that I'll just be a user of convenience. I > anticipate embracing the lukewarm, moldy smell of platform neutrality. I got tired of the other half in the relationship taking advantage of me. That said, Apple make the best laptops out there. IBM were next, but they've sold the business and I'm not confident the Thinkpad will be a class act in 2 years when I buy a replacement to my 4 year old powerbook (the Dell is a 2 or 3 year old stopgap). If I could triple boot an Apple (OS X, Win XP and x86 Linux), then I would have the perfect machine. The biggest problems with that idea are: a) One-button mouse. Windows/SuSE Linux on a Powerbook will be painful unless Apple start shipping two button laptops. Three button with a scroll-wheel would be best. b) Only Apple machines are likely to run OS X. I can't see Apple supporting all the Intel hardware out there, it'll just be a small subset. You'll either buy an Apple, or you'll choose your bits very carefully. That said, the open-darwin project means that some things (network cards, hard-drives) will be well supported. Graphics cards (for full OS X features) and wireless would be my main worries, especially for a laptop. I've also heard that there are likely to be differences at the BIOS level on the machine, no idea if that would be true. Still, a triple-boot machine would be very nice. Hen | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be July 26. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
