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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jasper Janssen writes:
> On Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:33:38 GMT, "Christopher L. Weeks"
> <c576653@cclabs.missouri.edu> wrote:
>
> > Right, I think it's a bad argument tactic to suggest that Macs are
> > cheaper than Intel hardware. It just ain't so. But, they are faster,
>
> No. They are neither faster, nor cheaper, nor faster per unit of
> currency spent. It used to be, back in the glory days of PowerPC, that
> the fastest Mac boxes beat the fastest Intel boxes. Not any more.
Unfortunately, there's raw speed and then there's effective speed. Today's
Windows machine takes anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes to boot, in my experience.
And from what I've seen, Macs aren't any better.
Does anyone here remember the Apple ][ ? In my head I can still hear the
sounds of one booting off of a floppy disk -- dead-to-ready in about 15
seconds! (If you wanted to just run from ROM, it was ready in about 1 second!)
So here we have today's 400+ MHz, 32-bit machine taking anywhere from 4 to 20
times as long as a 1 MHz 8-bit machine just to wake up. Start any application
and you'll find a similar deficit. Sure, the icons are a bit prettier than
they used to be, but I don't see 20 or even 4 times the value added from the
good old days.
Don't get me wrong -- I make my living writing software for Wintel machines,
and I'm not one of those people living in a shack in Montana, clutching my
slide rule while I write my manifesto. But you can split hairs all day about
specifications and benchmarks without ever talking about the stuff that really
matters.
Forget about Janet Reno. The person who really ought to be watching Microsoft
is Alan Greenspan!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | OS advocacy (was: Re: Perl rules!)
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| (...) Right, I think it's a bad argument tactic to suggest that Macs are cheaper than Intel hardware. It just ain't so. But, they are faster, more reliable, easier to use, easier to maintain, less reliant on MS (which matters to some), and home to (...) (25 years ago, 26-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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