I don't know what you Apple-Computer-Co pimps have been smoking ... I've never
said ANYTHING about products manufactured and sold after 1990 or so, and I
certainly have limited my comments to the products using the Wozniak floppy disk
interface, which is the basis of the complaints I've had to deal with since
1978. That's not to say that the "other" products are better in any way, but
simply to limit this "discussion" since I clearly have little knowledge of or
liking for Apple Computer Co products, having consistently refused consulting
for companies that used them as computing platforms since my own disappointing
experience in 1980.
I'll repeat, that I find the Apple disk interface of the type associated with
the Apple][ family to be ridiculously fragile, requiring extensive precautions
in day-to-day use and extensive maintenance on a frequent (weekly) basis in
order to make them at all useful. That's a disappointment because technology
available at the same time these devices became popular worked MUCH better,
though people wanting to buy fully integrated systems which the Apple
"computers" of the time were marketed to be, weren't willing to pay the price,
hence, were stuck with the Apple product instead.
Now, as for the post 1985 products, all of you Microsoft-haters ought to
remember how Apple dealt with its user base during the Lisa and early MAC years,
whenever you disparage M$ (not to defend these practices ... ) for its
distribution of different OS API's to different software vendors, depending on
the "deal" that was made.
I'm not at all certain of the truth of the claim that the latest
Apple-Computer-Co products "clean the floor" with the latest P4's or whatever.
I'm willing to believe that their manufacturer claims that, however. It's no
secret that Apple likes to compare the raw computing power of their CPU's with
that of other processors with out taking into account the fact that they take a
large percentage (in the old 8MHz 68K systems it was more than half) of the
CPU's bandwidth and devote it to savimg Apple Computer Co some money. While
it's not a bad idea in itself, from an advertising standpoint, at least,
claiming that, when you use their product with processor XYZ, which performs so
and so with respect to processor ABC, albeit in a different environment than the
ABC uses, it's no better a representation of what you really get after the up to
80% performance penalty for Apple's use of the processor bandwidth to avoid
hardware costs, which hardware costs are passed along to the buyer just the
same, it's no better than the inflated performance claims of the other "camps."
Now, I don't like Apple Computer Co's attitude toward their customers' data,
inherited, for sure, from the '80's, but certainly perpetuated into the current
generation, that if you really wanted a computer, you wouldn't have bought an
Apple Computer Co product. Consequently, I avoid them, and, to large extent,
their customers.
All this stems from the fact that back in the '80's, if even the teensiest thing
went wrong in the Apple]['s interaction with its own FD subsystem, the Apple][
went "TILT" and unless you knew things not yet published, you had no option but
to restart and lose your current set of working data. What's more, if you were
foolish enough to power down the system with a diskette in the drive, or if you
were foolish enough to set the Apple up as shown in numerous installations, with
the monitor atop the 2 FDD's and that pair atop the Apple box, your disk
subsystem gave you what they (Apple Computer Co) figured you deserved.
When I wrote:
"
>
> > Well, I'd have to say that, since the performance and reliability haven't
> > improved since back in the '80's, the Apple was not designed for serious
use,
> ...
"
I clearly meant that the performance of the (APPLE ][) disk subsystems
manufactured back in the '80's, which were the ones under discussion, hadn't
improved in reliability or performance, which should now be clear, as I neither
know, nor care about the performance, or even existence of the Apple produt
line, and probably won't unless things change significantly. We were, after
all, discussing classic hardware, and not the current stuff.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Kaiser" <spectre_at_stockholm.ptloma.edu>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk
> > Well, I'd have to say that, since the performance and reliability haven't
> > improved since back in the '80's, the Apple was not designed for serious
use,
>
>
> I beg to differ. An 867MHz G4 cleans the floor with all but the newest 2.0GHz
> P4s, and the architecture is so compelling that people like id's John Carmack
> are jumping on the bandwagon (he's one of Darwin's developers, the OS behind
> OS X). The days of the "poor Performas" are long gone.
>
> --
> ----------------------------- personal page:
http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
> Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser_at_stockholm.ptloma.edu
> -- The Commodore 64: the last true plug-and-play
computer. --------------------
>
>
Received on Mon Nov 05 2001 - 12:07:28 GMT