Opening the Windows

to Truth

Debunking Myths about the Mac. [Circa October 1995]

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There are only two types of personal computers selling in the world today. Macintosh and the Macintosh-like And to the latter, after all the multi-million dollar advertising blitz and media hype around Windows 95 has settled down, we can allow one modification: More Macintosh Like. " The equation is as simple as that.

Even a duffer can see that the Macintosh concept of computing owns nearly 100 percent share of the personal computer market. In a rather ironic way, the Macintosh has lived upto its founder, Steve Jobs vision of making a dent in the universe. In the Indian context, what is even more ironic is that people have not even heard about the Macintosh and ask rather sweetly for a “Mac486." All the myths surrounding the Macintosh can be exploded with small crackers attached for sound effects to the following paragraphs.

Mac is incompatible. Actually it is the world’s most compatible machine. It can run, in addition to the Mac OS, DOS and windows ( under emulation), Novell Netware and various implementations of Unix, IBM Os/ 2 is being ported onto the Macintosh. And the Macintosh Application Environment can also run, for example on Sun SparcStation, giving you a virtual Mac on a Sun machine.

Mac software is sparse. All ground-breaking software packages have made their debut on the Mac, and even today most have superior performances on the Macintosh. MS Word was actually born on the Macintosh way back in 1985 -86 ! And so were Excel, PageMaker Photoshop, Illustrator, Macromind Director, and hundreds of others, before being ported onto the IBM PC compatible platform. A Mac user has thousands of titles to choose from for any conceivable kind of application - some types of which you can't even dream of as yet on PCs.

Mac and PC have cross-platform Incompatibility. You can take your data files between Macs and PCs easily and invisibly. Work on MS Word on the PC. Save the file on disk and take it across to the Mac, and continue working without missing a heartbeat. The same is true of all your files formatted as text. Spreadsheets, databases, graphic images, animation or even sound.

Mac is only meant for DTP. My sweet left foot ! If your belong to the creed that wallows in this belief, please go back to the top of this page and start reading this column again. Pronto! In fact, the mac is also the world's numero uno computer for the multimedia and education markets. Most multimedia titles available on PCs are developed and authored on the Mac.

Macs tend to be standalones. Ironically, all Macs are born with networking. Most of them support two networking protocols: Apple's own Apple Talk as well as EtherTalk [Author’s note: AppleTalk here refers to the networking available through the printer port, while EtherTalk to the networking available through Mac’s Ethernet ports and dongles. At that time, Apple had rather confusing terms for networking protocols and systems. Macintosh supports TCP/IP, of course]. Plugging the Mac into existing Windows, Novell or even Unix workstation networks is simple Plug and Play. The Macintosh can even connect to IBM and DEC mainframes. At Apple's headquarters, Macs are use as front-end terminals to Apple's in-house Cray supercomputer.

Everybody uses IBM clones. Why should I stick out like a sore thumb? Some independent studies have shown that Mac users are atleast 40 percent more productive than their counterparts using PCs! Also PCs undergo a far higher downtime due to: the iterations of upgrades users have to suffer; lethal virus attacks; at times shoddy workmanship and quality and assembling of components: and bugs and incompatibilities arising out of a patchwork approach. And let’s not forget the steep learning-curve due to an inconsistent approach by developers to creating applications and application interfaces.

Macs are Expensive. Excuse me ! Work out the real cost of ownership, and you will find that Macs keep your away from the killer cycle of constant upgrades that the wintel market sucks you into. Were you to configure a PC identical to Mac, it would be far more expensive due to a lot of features taken for granted on a Mac. A few examples : IBM motherboards with more RAM expansion slots and capabilities cost more than ordinary motherboards. The cost of a SCSI adapter is extra on an IBM compatible, and so is a SCSI hard disk, Ethernet hardware and software also cost extra. And you don’t really get a 64 bit processor on x 86 anyway.

You can’t develop on the Mac. All computer languages and newer ground-breaking languages are available on the Mac. In fact award wining developer toolkits like CodeWarrior allow developers to simultaneously create for RISC Macs, CISC Macs, and even x86 platforms. Development is much easier as compared to development for Windows.

You don’t get pirated software. You don’t need it with the free or nearly free bundle offers and the low cost of Mac software today.

There are winds of change blowing outside your window(s). Open it, and just feel the power to be your best.