🚀 go-pugleaf

Summers@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.gov (David P. Summers) wrote:

>In article <43g61s$4lh@feenix.metronet.com>, dcorn@metronet.com (David
>Corn) wrote:
>> 12M on a PC will go further than 12M on a Mac.  
>
>That is debatable.

Have you run Win95?  

>A straw man that is off subject.  I've never claimed you needed VM to 
>run with 12 Megs.  I get along fine without out it.

With a PowerMac?  I'm talking about a PowerMac, and I'm more than
willing to concede there's a big difference between the two.  Launch
Excel with VM turned off on that 12M PowerMac...and tell me why it
can't even -load-.  

>> >Heck there are people in my branch going just fine with 8 Meg.
>> 
>> 680x0 or PM?
>
>The ones I've seen have been 040's since most (all?) powermacs come
>with more than 8.  However, since you can scrape by with 4 on an

No, most PMs in stores, stock, come with 8.  Only very recently is
that changing with the PCI PMs...although granted some versions of the
9500, DOS PMs, and other special Macs have been available with 16M
from Apple.  By and large most PMs came with 8M.

Your comment suggests you aren't too familiar with PMs.

>040 I don't believe you can't get by with 12 on a powermac.  Besides

I'm not suggesting you can't "get by".  However, running any sort of
major app on it is an exercise in itself.  Perhaps I should put it
this way - 4M on a 680x0 Mac is like 8M on a PM - slow, requiring RD,
and inefficient.  At work our basic boot setup on a 680x0 Mac takes
roughly 4M.  That's before I run any applications - just to boot the
machine.  Without RamDoubler, we've literally only 4M to play with.
That isn't enough for most users.  

>the bottom line is, if you feel you need more, you just get some.
>This all misses the point that I made that, an older PC is just
>out of luck regardless of memory.  I didn't have a program I couldn't
>run on my Plus because of memory limitations (even after I had gotten 
>a quadra) until about 6 months ago, and even that I could have run
>with stuff turned off (A lot of people at work can still use a plus
>for most software they use).  Contemporary PC's had been obsolete for
>years at that point.

What do you consider obsolete?  Slow?  A Plus is definately slow - too
slow for most modern uses.

>> I think he's talking about motherboard upgrades.  When I can add a
>> 100Mhz Pentium motherboard to an older box for $600-700, that's a
>> definate plus.
>
>I can get a PowerPC upgrad for the same price.

$600-700?  OK, tell me how to add that to my Plus, please.  Or my
IIci.  And tell me why it won't really give the full benefit of the
new memory architecture, since it's a drop-in accellerator rather than
a new motherboard...

The motherboard swaps have been discontinued, so what can I upgrade
to?  

>> Agreed.  Lower-end budget Macs (and PCs, sure) have 1 SIMM socket.  If
>> you have 4M on the MB and 1 8M SIMM and decide you need more, you sell
>> the SIMM.  
>
>I can't speak for all, but my Quadra 610 (a low end machine) had an
>empty simm slot waiting.

The 610 has 2 SIMM sockets, both open on a 4M machine.  But if you
look on the Performa line, many only have 1 SIMM socket open.

>> IIcis are unusably slow for someone who has a job working on a
>> computer full time.  For occasional work it's bearable; for more, I
>> wouldn't waste my time.  The slowest machine we buy today is a 16M or
>> 24M 6100/66.
>
>Doing what?  If you are doing spreadsheets, wordprocessing, figure
>presentation, etc. It works just fine. Maybe someone doing video

You don't use Excel 5.0 professionally, do you?  A IIci is unbearably
slow for all but the simplest of tasks.  Progress moves onward, and
the IIci is left in the dust.

>editing or something needs more, but for the average user a Mac
>offers a greater period of usefullness because it isn't forced
>into obsolesence by lack of support.  I'm reminded of a friend who
>had someone claim they needed a pentium to do wordprocessing.

If you're happy with ClarisWorks 1.0 or so for fast text editing, more
power to you.  However, the latest software from MS requires a modern
Mac to run it, whereas the latest software from MS on an Intel box
seems to require a smaller outlay of hardware.  Amazing how MS
'planned' that, eh?  :)

(I'm not into conspiracy theories.)