I didn’t intend to imply that, SPOOFE. I should have explained myself better-- I was coming from the point of view that the two platforms are fundamentally different enough that to imply that they should have some level of interchangeability is ridiculous.
Agreed.
This can be attributed to software manufacturers having made Windows versions of their software their top priority. I seriously doubt developing for the Mac is inherently more difficult or costly than for PCs. Most software companies (admittedly wisely) choose to play numbers-- there are more PCs out there, thus a larger potential customer base. If a company that made primarily PC-platform software decided to make Mac versions of their titles, 1) it would never be a big priority for them, which would explain the extra time they’d take to get it released, and 2) they’d have to hire Mac programmers, whose cost of hiring they may try to recoup by making the Mac version prices higher.
Companies can indeed profit from producing Mac products, as evidenced by the dominance of Adobe, Macromedia, and, ironically enough, Microsoft.
Fewer Mac software titles, yes, but as I stated in a previous post, this has not hurt Mac users’ productivity any. It’s expected, anyway; you have only whatever percentage of the world’s computers, you’re only going to have roughly that same percentage of the world’s software.
This is a consequence of Apple being a software and a hardware company, and being stingy with licensing. Had Microsoft produced both software and hardware, and licensed as Apple did, it’d be in the exact same boat.
yosemitebabe:
You’re right, Macs can take certain PC components (I’m also not sure which, since I’m not looking to upgrade my system).
No matter what I do, I still can’t get my chevy pickup to run with a Ford Transmission. Why can’t those losers at chevy get their heads out of their asses and GET WITH THE PROGRAM. After all, The Ford PIickup line is the best selling in the world, so they MUST be the best trucks for EVERYONE to use.
a) Contrary to the beliefs implicit in several statements and diatribes in this thread, Microsoft Windows and the various software designed to run within it does NOT run under lots and lots of different platforms as opposed to the MacOS and its various software titles running only on the Mac platform. NO!!! Windows and Windows s/w runs only on PC’s. Dell and Gateway and Compaq and Packard Bell and Samsung are not separate platforms that have gotten compatibility religion somewhere along the lines, they are the same platform rendered by different manufacturers.
b) Contrary to a related set of insinuations, the reason you have dozens of PC manufacturers while only Apple manufacturers the Macintosh platform is NOT proprietary selfishness on the part of Apple, NOR is it because no one cares to clone the Mac even if they could. No, the reason you have so many manufacturers of the PC platform is that other companies were able to reverse-engineer IBM’s PC architecture to the point that MS-DOS (and its various programs) would run on their hardware. This did not happen with IBM’s encouragement or invitation, and it occurred to IBM’s detriment–IBM by no stretch of the imagination controls the platform or sets its primary course any more, and doesn’t have a commanding market share of the personal computer market. Meanwhile, no one has as of yet created a credible Macintosh clone that would run the MacOS and Mac applications without either i) cannibalizing parts from older Macs or ii) stealing the ROM code from Mac hardware ROMs without license or iii) licensing the secrets of making Macs from Apple, which Apple did for awhile to the detriment of their market share, so they quit doing it.
c) Apple continues to make Macintosh computers for the same reason Parker Pen Company continues to make fountain pens: people buy them! As Mac owners, we’d like to see the MacOS gain market share so software development and availability would reach parity with Windows, but it is close enough for us to buy Macs anyway, which no one is forcing us to do. As a computer manufacturer, Apple does not have to be directly concerned with MacOS market share but only with Macintosh market share, which is pretty damn good, i.e., they sell lots of Macs. Compaq and Dell and Gateway and IBM and Samsung and so forth would all dearly love to have a computer of theirs selling like the iMac! So Apple keeps making them; we keep buying them; and they continue to be different from PCs which is why we keep buying them, whereas if Apple suddenly started turning out computers that were Wintel-platform compatible and (therefore) were no longer MacOS-compatible, we’d be unlikely to buy our PCs from Apple.
d) If it bothers you that a Macintosh can only run PC operating systems and executable programs in emulation mode, DON’T BUY ONE!!! Go buy a nice Gateway or a good solid Dell and enjoy the advantages and capabilities of your chosen platform and shut the fuck up about the Mac, which we love because of how it is DIFFERENT from a PC, which is why we keep buying them. (Well, OK, I suppose SOME folks bought their iMacs because they were cute and they couldn’t get a candy-colored Dell. They may not have bought their Macs due to an informed preference for the Mac platform, but they still need the simplicity of the Mac interface unless YOU want to try walking them through their PC tech-support headaches!)
Nonexistent problem. Older Macs used the internal SCSI bus for internal hard drives. If you wanted to replace your hard drive or add a second to your SCSI chain, all you needed to do was buy a SCSI hard drive; it did not have to be an APPLE-COMPATIBLE SCSI hard drive (that’s redundant). If for some reason you needed to read a PC-formatted (FAT) SCSI hard drive, you could attach it to the SCSI bus and see the files and folders, remove it later, and hook it back up to a PC, no problem, completely interchangeable.
Newer Macs are more likely to use ATA hard drives, which have long been more common on PCs than SCSI (especially for internal hard drives). To put a new ATA drive into a Mac, you buy one, plug it in, and it works. Format it for HFS or HFS+, install your MacOS, and boot from it. Or just hook it up and boot from something else and, as with SCSI, you can see the contents of a PC-formatted hard drive. Two weeks ago, my girlfriend dragged out her old (dead as a doornail) PC notebook and I pulled out the 2.5" ATA hard drive, switched into my Mac PowerBook in place of my own hard drive, and booted from a bootable CD. I then proceeded to copy her long-unavailable files from her hard drive to a Zip cartridge, something she could not do from her new Compaq laptop due to the difficulties of getting it to boot from something other than its own internal hard drive.
Anyway, completely interchangeable hardware for the hard drives.
CD-ROM drives, similarly, come in two flavors (mainly): SCSI and ATAPI. Not all CDROM drives are bootable for Macs, but most CDROM drives will at least work for reading CD contents if you have the appropriate bus to connect them to.
External peripherals are now mainly compatible as the PC platform has turned away from its incompatible and archaic parallel port, serial port, dedicated mouse port, and dedicated keyboard port and gone with USB instead, while the Mac platform has mothballed the ADB bus (formerly for input devices like keyboard and mouse, mainly) and serial port and likewise gone with USB. This compatibility even extends backwards in both directions for both platforms: you can buy a USB-equipped PC, buy a USB-to-ADB converter, and hook up your classic Apple Extended Keyboard to your PC; or put on a USB-to-parallel converter on your G4 tower’s USB chain and hook up an old Epson LQ parallel-port dot matrix printer.
Indeed! What the hell is Chevy thinking? The nerve! Because, as we all know, all cars must be the same. People don’t need to choose between different types of machines. Rolls Royce, Dodge, Ford, Jeep - they all should be built the same! Use the same tires, the same engines! Yes, that will make us all happy!
Nope…Duron, Celeron, Pentium, PentiumII, Pentium Pro, 486, blah blah blah, all use the x86 Instruction set. They use (mostly) the same assembly commands (mov, etc…) Granted, there are some differences, but these are in minor extensions, such as MMX.
The G4, meanwhile, shares NONE of the same instructions.
Not only are the instruction sets different, but they use a different paradigm. The x86 series of processors is CISC based, while the G4/PPC is RISC based. Don’t ask me to explain this, as I only have the faintest idea of what it means.
In short, the difference in processors is actually MUCH greater than the difference between diesel and gasoline.
All right, now I’m curious… what, exactly, is it about the G4 (an admittedly powerful chip) that makes it so difficult to create an “adapter” so it can use the majority of the products on the market? As much as I respect Apple, I simply cannot see any point in trying to remain “isolated” for so long, which is why I believe they’re taking so long to re-integrate back into the market.
And don’t get me started 'bout the iMac :D. 'Specially the first ones (although the iMac is starting to be released with much better stats, thankfully).
It’s not “difficult,” per se, it’s been done with softWindows and many others. It’s just INCREDIBLY innefficient to translate all the code while a particular program is running. Asking why you can’t run Windows programs on a Mac is like asking why you can’t run nintendo64 games on a PC. It can be done, it just takes a lot of overhead, that really isn’t worth it.
You know, I’m a Mac user, but I despise this attitude. I had it myself until a few years ago, when I realized how immature and counterproductive it was. I use a Mac because it’s what I grew up with, it’s what I’m most familiar and comfortable with, and I have heard no compelling reason to change. I’m sure when you get down to it, the same goes for pretty much everyone. This my-computer-is-better-than-yours junk is just annoying.
Unless Macs are perfect and run flawlessly 100 percent of the time, you should not make statements like this.
People buy PCs because A: many more options (although Apple is gaining there), and B: you can buy a powerful machine for under a grand… and for less than two grand, you can get a godlike computer.
People buy Macs because A: the sheer power is extremely useful (and often necessary) for the specialized tasks that they do, and B: yes, the MacOS is more stable, due to the lack of redundant programming designed to encompass a wider product base.
I really don’t want to give the impression that I’m anti-Mac. I’m critical of Apple, yes, because they’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes in the past that nearly ruined the company. However, I just wish that Macs were compatible with more market products (the last number I heard was 15%, although I don’t have a cite for that… get that compatibility up to 50%, and then they’d dominate the market, assuming they can do so without trading in any performance).
I am in the slightly unique position of having both Macs and a PC. I started out with a PC, and got a Mac. (And then another!)
This “our computers are better than yours” thing is often (at least in my experience) started by PC users. Probably because there are so many more of them than Mac users. Sure, Mac users will do it too, of course. I am a little sick of hearing it as well, since I have both computers, and use both platforms.
I do believe it is true, however, that some PC users get bent out of shape at the very thought of Macs. I’ve encountered if first-hand. Also, once I caught some guy (looked like he was well into his 20s) playing with an iBook at the computer store. He was getting it to say “Macs suck” over and over again, with the Mac’s built-in speech function. Sheesh, grow up, fella! And I’ve read tales on the IHateApple.com boards of guys going out of their way to mess up and almost destroy Macs that are on display in computer stores. Do Mac users generally go out and do this to PCs? I haven’t heard of it.
AHunter wrote: (emphasis mine)
I see nothing offensive in that. He calls Dells “good” and “solid” and he talks about “enjoy the advantages and capabilites”. There is NOTHING wrong with choosing something else because you like how different it is. I love my Macs because they are different. And I will keep on getting Macs. I love being able to enjoy the best of both worlds, computer-wise.
yosemitebabe: I dislike the attitude because it implies that PC users shouldn’t criticize Macs. I prefer the brutal honesty of PC users’ criticisms of the Mac and Apple. If the criticism’s got any merit, it points out weaknesses the Mac has. In the long run, they’re actually helping you. At the very least, they’ve made you a more informed, more objective user.
Anyway, the OP:
I remember about a little while back there was an article about the Software Publishers Association lambasting Microsoft for not adhering to WWW-related standards. Could have been the W3C… memory’s vague. Anyway, MS’s insistence on not following standards has certainly not gone unnoticed. It’s just a matter of no one being able to do anything about it.
AudreyK: Thank you for veering this thread away from another Mac vs. PC debate.
Microsoft has created some genius software, but because it tries to accomplish too much with it’s software, it starts running into problems. However, this is how innovations occur: trial and error, until it all clicks and they are able to proceed to the next step. It is far cheaper to do stuff this way than to start from scratch every time.
As for Microsoft not adhering to standards…Who’s standard’s are we talking about? AOL? IBM? Intel? Conglomerations of these companies? Microsoft has been pretty good about following standards that it has been involved with developing (Glitches and bugs are completely different than deviating from standards).
Allow me to say that there is a special corner somewhere in Hell waiting for Bill Gates where he will have to perform Fluid Dynamic Calculations* on a fucking abacus!
*(Fluid dynamic calculations are so complex that, using pencil and paper, an individual could not complete a single one within their own lifetime.)
As to a more vivid display of vitriolic verbiage, I refer you to Warren N.'s tirade below.
Sorry, I don’t realy want to engage. I like to make gross sweeping generalizations which do not really hold up to the rules of logical debate. (Because, frankly it pisses people off, which can seriously liven up a debate!) I’m a pot-stirrer!
To answer the questions, I’d pick door #1, really, but I’m still hesitant to even post this. I started the hijack… my bad! I find PC/Windows software irritating, because it never does what I want it to and at the same time, I can get the same software to perform the elusive function on my Mac. However Microsoft products still hog my Mac’s RAM and since other companies’ software doesn’t necessarily do so, I blame Bill - he’s not enough of a programmer to understand that there is a more efficient way to code the stuff. Also, I just like to blame Bill Gates because I’m jealous he’s a ga-jillionaire and I’m not. . .
I, too, am tired of the whole Mac/PC debate and only brought it up to point out that PC/Windows are not the only options out there. There is another way… and it’s all relative, based on what you learned on and what you’re personally more comfortable with. I think the cross-platform issues are becoming more moot with each passing upgrade.
You may now return to the regularly scheduled thread.
It’s a fair and reasonable question, and despite the BBQPIT venue, I’ve been thinking of how to answer it as a General Question kind of thing. (Do threads ever migrate from BBQ to GQ?)
OK, let’s zoom in real real close and watch what our CPU is doing, shall we?
::watching together for awhile::
Mostly, you’ll notice that it is loading values from RAM into its own little CPU desktop, optionally doing something to some of those values like multiplying or adding some of them, then storing it into some other locations in RAM. Incredibly simplistic, boring, straightforward kind of behavior, yes? In this particular case, the RAM from which it does the original LOAD is a set of values for red, green, and blue parameters for pixels. Those particular color values are part of an instruction set for drawing a window. The source location of the instructions is the operating system, in this case MacOS 8.6, but a conceptually (if not esthetically) similar set of instructions resides in Windows somewhere. The destination location of the instructions is a part of the computer’s RAM that is devoted to what the monitor screen should look like right now. The reason that the CPU is moving these values from one part of RAM to another is that the application in question, Macromedia Freehand, issued the instruction to draw a window when I went Command-N because I wanted a new document. (It did a lot of other things at the same time, since merely creating the appearance of a window is not sufficient, but we are ignoring the rest of what Freehand is up to for now). This particular copy of Freehand is, of course the Macintosh version of Freehand. Therefore, it “knows” where in the world of RAM the always-available operating-system instructions for drawing a generic window are hidden, and where else in the world of RAM the always-present values for what your screen oughta look like are hidden.
The CPU understands the instructions given. The instructions as the programmers originally wrote them were typed out in a language called C++, which is chock-full of terms and brackets and indentations. The equivalent instructions that the programmers for the Windows version of Freehand wrote were also typed out in C++, but the Windows programmers could not call on the same ROUTINES for drawing a window, not only because a PC window doesn’t look like a Mac window but because the memory addresses in which Windows stores instructions for window-drawing bear no relationship whatsoever to the memory addresses at which the MacOS holds window-drawing instructions. A window is a window and a house is a house, but if you borrowed one architect’s blueprints and substituted them for the blueprints for a different house designed by a different architect, their ways of handling the same general requirements could be very different, and by the time you get down to the details you have no overlap at all.
Meanwhile, I have Eudora open checking my email periodically and I’m playing an audio CDROM. The MacOS contains instructions that each running app talks to regarding which window gets drawn on top of which other window, and which processes must give way to which other processes that have first dibs on dumping their bits of data into the destination locations. If Eudora wants to beep while the CDROM wants to keep making Shostakovich sounds, the OS must come up with the right load / store routine to make the right sound come out of my speakers, and the CPU must be able to speak the language.
The CPU does not speak C++. The CPU speaks “on” and “off”, rather exclusively.
The binary rendition of the platform-specific compilation of the platform-specific version of the C++ code is ultimately a set of digits. These digits are the rawest elemental version (short of voltage drops and whatnot) of what even the geekiest of programmers think of in terms of things like
add rEAX,rEAX,20
add rEBX,rEBX,30
li rTemp1,40
addco. rPF,rTemp1,rECX
rECX,rPF
which is “machine language”, the down-to-the-bone instructions for loading, storing, and doing things to loaded values. Problem is, what you see above is PowerPC machine language instructions. PowerPC is “RISC”, meaning that it uses a smaller dictionary of possible instructions. The Intel CPU for which Windows and its various apps are compiled is also in real life “RISC”, but it deals with “CISC” instructions in order to be backward-compatible with its x86 forebears. And CISC instructions use a much larger dictionary of possible instructions which, inconveniently, are not necessarily of equal length when they get to the level the CPU itself understands. So the Intel equivalentof the above PowerPC machine language is
ADD EAX,20
ADD EBX,30
ADD ECX,40/
OH YEAH, one other little thing…the raw digits that come the CPU’s way, the ones and zeros, come in little chunks called bytes. Each byte contains a bunch of bits (8, I believe). Well, the PowerPC and its entire working environment work on the assumption that each byte comes with a certain “end” of it labeled "this end up"and it starts reading in digits from that end. The Intel architecture of CPUs does that too, only it makes the opposite assumption.
So…you want to run a Windows app on your Mac and don’t understand why the fantabulously powerful G4 chip can’t just up and run it?
You’re asking:
a) That, after staring at the string of instruction digits, it cleverly rejects the notion that the RAM is corrupted and that although the instructions mean nothing coming forward, it should up-end them and try them from the reverse order, never mind that, being a CPU, it has no intrinsic notion of where “start” might be from any order other than the one it is accustomed to.
b) That, having somehow managed to reverse the order of the packets of digits so that it is reading them in the intended direction, it cleverly realizes, after having read a few instructions it has no comrehension of, that the instructions are coded in a different language that would tell a different CPU with a different set of orders it knows how to follow; and being bilingual and well-educated and no doubt equipped with a monumental set of extra chips that aren’t present on a real G4, reads them anyway.
c) That, having interpreted the foreign-language instructions from the little-endian ass-backwards PC executable instruction stack, it cleverly realizes, after looking at instructions that say, in effect, to load a block of memory from as incomprehensible and nonexistent memory address based on an entirely different memory map in which addresses are held in virtual file cabinets that the PPC doesn’t even have, it cleverly understands that these instructions are NOT gibberish but should instead be replaced by a set of analogous instructions, based on its surprisingly intuitive grasp of how a rival chip would parcel out memory addresses and how they would generally compare with its own native memory-address space, despite perhaps having its own stuff from its own native OS or apps loaded into those rougly analogous locations, and despite the foreign PC application’s usually inappropriate built-in assumptions about what is present in the memory-addresses that it is instructing the G4 to load from.
d) That, having encountered a (cleverly decoded and memory-remapped) instruction to load what appears to be an offset of the stored PRAM instructions for key repeat rate and load them into a destination currently occupied by part of a PostScript description of how to print the font “Helvetica”, it ignores such silly instructions and says to itself, “let’s see, if I were running Windows, which I’m not, those addresses would correspond to the places where Windows stores its windows-drawing instructions and where Windows keeps its current-screen-pixels raster, respectively, so I bet I should do the Mac equivalent”, and then goes on to figure out the Mac equivalent which means loading a totally different set of instructions from a totally different location and moving them into a totally different destination.
e) That, having correctly intuited the Mac equivalent and implemented it as far as the correct response to this one running (foreign, PC) app is concerned, it then makes some educated guesses as to priority-setting and override-rights as far as how a running PC app in a MacOS environment OUGHT to behave in conjunction with running Mac apps.
And that’s just for drawing one freaking little window. And I’ve probably grossly oversimplified.
