On Dec 11, 2003, at 07:25 am, Larry le Mac wrote:
Not like to side with Windoze, but I have to make a comment here. This is an area where there resides an ignorance among a lot of Mac users.
I can tell you, from my vast experience, there is a lot of ignorance in the vast majority of computer users about one area or another...
Many think that computing is all about Office packages, Internet and graphics/DTP/film/music.
Apple appeal to this market as it is the majority 'mass market' that you can make one thing fit a lot of people in.
The PC has a 100% domination of everything which involves machines, interfacing, control etc.
I know people who are still using an Apple II for it ;-)
Yes I agree, however, it is a more flexible platform hardware wise. The Mac is just not designed for specialist hardware applications. People tried in vein to use it when the NuBus Mac came about but alas it didn't really 'stick'. The Apple II was great for that, but as Apple phased it out it lost out to PCs.
Yes, the PC still has floppy disks), but so does all NC machines.
I ain't complaining about that. It's a good backup if your network fails :-)
The PC still has an antique parallel port, but so does a lot of technical
equipment.
Most USB printers still have parallel ports, it's dog slow but at least it works, unlike some USB stuff. On that point many PC people refuse to use USB with a Windows machine as it's not reliable enough on Win9x versions. I can't say i have any problems with it in XP however.
RS232? The Mac gave it up 6 years ago, but there are masses of technical equipment which uses this, but then again the Mac could never use these in the first place.
The Mac used RS453 or something like that but, apart from a few voltage differences that are not all that major, it amounted to a different plug. I suppose it might be if you are designing hardware but certainly most applications of RS232 also work on a Mac :-)
Don't forget Serial is still *supported* on the Mac, just via a USB adapter.
Any Mac user who thinks the world would be a better place without the PC is very ignorant...
And doesn't play many games, or at least mod many games ;-)
Just a thought/reaction...
You run into a very interesting conundrum here. Is the fact the PC uses serial/parallel/floppy/DOS etc. because lots of peripherals and equipment use it or is the fact that lots of equipment uses serial/parallel/floppy/DOS etc. because no-one has bothered removing it from the PC? Bit of a chicken/egg argument that one. As I said it's all about inertia.
That said it's a lot easier to predict the behaviour of older standards like serial and parallel.
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