🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5823@well.UUCP> rogue@well.UUCP (L. Brett Glass) writes:
>> P.S. Ever notice any similarities? :
>
>> Apple II - 8-bit machine, open architecture, slots, keyboard, video,
>> drive, 1979
>> IBM PC   - 8-bit machine, open architecture, slots, keyboard, video,
>> drive, 1982
>
>8-bit machine? News to me. If you're going to call the Mac a 32-bit machine,
>you durn well ought to call the PC a 16-bit one.

Fair enough.

>> Macintosh - 32-bit, Mouse, Graphical User Interface, 3 1/2 inch disks,
>> circa 1984
>
>You forgot: Closed architecture,

True, but as a former 128K Mac owner, I think that this was less of a
disadvantage than you might think.  Note that most of so-called
"expansion slots" in a PC are not used for "expansion" at all, but
rather for basic necessities such as a video controller, disk drive
controllers, clock chips, serial/parallel ports, etc. -- all of which
were *built in* to even the 128K Macintosh (along with the AppleTalk
networking capability).  I found that the only really important thing
that the lack of a bus made difficult was memory expansion.  (Although
note that on later, busless Macs such as the Mac Plus, memory
expansion was made much easier by the use of SIMM technology.  Opening
a Mac Plus and dropping in a couple of SIMMs is about as easy as
opening a PC and dropping in a memory card.)

> only 128K RAM,

This situation existed only for a short time.  As of 1986, the
standard Mac came with 1 megabyte of memory.  Right now, I can stick
up to 4 meg into my Mac, and have all of it fully addressable by the
operating system.  Whereas the typical PC is still saddled with the
640K limit (and don't even talk to me about this LIM expanded memory
bank-switching bogosity.)

>slowest floppy disk drives in creation,

This is a common misconception.  If you look at the benchmarks, you
will find that the original Mac drives are as fast as typical PC 5-1/4
drives.

>no hard disk from Apple for YEARS,

Yes, but hard disks were available.  Personally, it doesn't make much
difference to me whether my drive is from Apple or not.  Even now that
Apple sells hard disks, I wouldn't consider buying one -- they're just
too bloody expensive.  For the same reason, if I owned a PC, I would
probably not buy a hard disk from IBM.

>no multitasking until 1988,

Which is a lot sooner than multitasking will be available from IBM...

>(and then only with some applications).

Actually, ANY Mac application which is written to Apple's guidelines
should run fine under MultiFinder.  Of course, to take full advantage
of the multitasking, most programs need to be modified.  However, I
feel that this is a small price to pay in order to get the benefit of
multitasking, *now*.  Clearly, MultiFinder is a short-term solution,
but it gets the job done.

>> IBM PS/2's with OS/2 - 32-bit, Mouse, Graphical User Interface,
>> 3 1/2 inch disks,circa 1988
>
>You forgot: Full 32-bit bus, 

You mean, like in the Mac II?

>open architecture,

Ah yes, as in the Mac II.

>multitasking OS,

Uh huh, Real Soon Now.  (By the way, MultiFinder is here *now*, it
works, and it IS multitasking.)

> runs existing software base.

This is a joke, right?

>Sounds like IBM might have made some strides after all.

Yep, they sure have.  They're striding right along in Apple's
footsteps. :-)

Let's just make up a little score card:

Things Apple did before IBM
---------------------------
Graphical user interface
Mouse
32-bit architecture
3-1/2 disk drives
Built-in video, disk drive controllers, clock chip, etc.
OS capable of addressing large amounts of memory
Multitasking

Things IBM did before Apple:
----------------------------
Open architecture (not even this if you count the Apple II...)

>
><rogue>

Note: Since this discussion is not really relevant to
comp.windows.misc, and has all the makings of a "PC x vs. PC y" holy
war, I have redirected followups to some more appropriate newsgroups.

----
Mark Vita                              ARPA: vita@ge-crd.ARPA
General Electric Company               UUCP: vita@desdemona.steinmetz.UUCP
Corporate R & D                              vita@desdemona.steinmetz.ge.com
Schenectady, NY                              desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP