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If you're doing development, there is an Apple Developer's group - I believe it is free to join. Full of info for those developing software, or sites. The biggest thing with Apple, and one of the reasons that things have stayed robust is their early insistence on standards of interoperability, constancy in key-strokes, formats, etc for developers that were given source code needed to produce software for the MAC OS platforms. In recent years they have become more open for developers.

Very true. One of our best friends, my old grad school office-mate, is a VP on the W3 (world wide web) consortium, and runs a group doing the ISO (International Standards Org) standards for web stuff. It is a huge headache, and he has hilarious and frustrating stories of dealing with the huge corporations - their minions - and how the PC side of the world has been so uncooperative as compared to the MAC side. The mainframers, & graphics guys (like SUN, Silicon Graphics) tend to be more open, as well. But, we've hung out through some amazing conference calls - makes you want to tear your hair out. When he went to MITRE (from his prior job) one of the conditions was that they let him continue on the W3 board. Which they do.

The buzz last year when MS had issues with Vista, some other stuff, and was taking a big hit with the college group and MAC ads - instead of spending money to fix the software they spent a huge fortune - orders of magnitude more- on advertising. Fix your stuff - don't rush it, try to move out of the cartel business - nope, they'd rather just continue along. It's too bad. We have several friends that work in Redmond, and they're smart, good people. But, the company is more interested in being a virtual monopoly rather than making substantive quality improvement.

That's good. No viruses 'cause we're firewalled built-in, and use virus protection software. Honestly, I think in 20+ years, I've had to run the software twice - just in case. But it's always there .

ellice

Nice and sarcastic Ellice - it certainly suggests you believe I am lying. I have no vested interest in any one computer, no shares, nothing, so I just speak about my personal experience.

I may not care for Bill Gates but it is MS that has made the computer the common household item that it is. Then again, I am probably lying about that too.

Actually, Tandy, Atari, and Commodore hooked the "common man" and helped to get the computer off the ground. Apple, at that time, was slower than molasses in January. Their graphics were great, but the Atari - at the time - beat it. Apple got its start in schools, therefore hooking parents. We started with Tandy because of the support - when a 50 meg hard drive was $500. Something not working? Take it to Radio Shack. They'll get it working for you at no charge and teach you all about it. It was a fun time.

Microsoft did it all by unfair competition. All's fair in love and war, I guess. We still use XP. Not sure if we'll upgrade. Our computers work fine. They're fast. Graphics are on par with MAC. And we have few lock ups . . . though they happen.

Dianne

True enough we started with a Commodore 64 but went directly to Win32 (think that was it - too long ago) - mind you the very first thing in the house was Pong ! I see you can get a simulation online now, I can't imagine!

You're lucky - & clearly vigilant at never having had a virus, or glitch.

I am another person who uses MS, and has had no problems with it, and that is about 15 years experience. As Ellice says, it depends on what you do, and for ordinary daily computing, it works for me. More to the point, my computers are assembled by my DS, who is a softward engineer, and he continues to load MS operating systems and OFfice when putting my computers together. Now, part of that is knowing what would be easy for me, and part of it is he works with MS stuff every day, since it is the most common system out there. But he knows I am not an idiot or a technophobe, and if there was something he thought would serve me better, he would tell me. Of course, we are cautious about jumping whenever MS comes out with something new (I still run Windows XP, rather than Vista), given the tendency to throw something new out and work the bugs out later.

I do like WordPerfect, and still run it on my computer, with Word for documents that I am going to email to others.

Dawne

Obviously Dawne we are pretty smart, very boring or liars. I had one small glitch with Vista, having just written that, I couldn't get my photo editing software to respond, however, after running a couple of checks, it's now smooth and lovely again.

I love XP and still have it on the Old Guy and also on the little mini but decided I should have Vista on this when new, have to keep moving along. I have had no issues, I can't say I particularly like some of the moves it makes, but it is reasonably like XP.

Word Perfect came with this one, I could load it or not, as I wished. I didn't in the end. It's now very simple to deal with anything arriving in WP so it didn't seem worth it.

I caught myself thinking of building one myself the other day and then whooosh, I figured four computers, one person, one cat, I think not lol It's gonna be a set of snow tires instead :)

Yike, do I have to make a choice among those 3 descriptors?? I know I am not boring, anyway. I was sorely tempted by Vista, because I love the look of it, but DS was the voice of reason to his gadget-loving mum, and said I didn't really need it right now. Which is true, and the upgrade will be down in price by the time I get the laptop which is what I covet next.

Dawne

I have one new big computer with Vista 64 bit, one laptop with regular Vista and one mini with XP. I really don't find a big difference in all three and easily switch from one to the other.

I don't think I would upgrade to Vista now if you don't need to. They will come out with the new program very shortly and that will make Vista look old.

Lucille

Win 7, already out.

Only in beta. Not yet to the general public.

Jim has already been playing with the Beta version.

However he built his own computer back in the 70s, before the other personal computers came out. He had to wirewrap some of the parts.

If I remember correctly there wasn't much you could do with it....but he had it. There were some simple games. He said one or two parts he bought from a kid named Bill Gates, who was selling out of his dad's garage.

Jim called his HAL

When IBM came out with the PC, he bought one....He paid about $2000 and his company matched it. he had to write useage reports to justify their expense.

When H&R Block went to computers we had TRS (???) the regular staff had

For Christmas I got a new Gateway, with 64bit and Vista, dual processors. Jim's computer died shortly thereafter, and he has similar. He always built our machines, but in the last couple of years he has found it cheaper to build them ready made.

Then in April the RV computer died....again Best Buy.

Gill

Seriously - I wasn't being sarcastic at all. Serious. MS has been doing huge ad campaigns with their "I'm a PC" - and you're about the only person I know who has had such a good string.

If I were being sarcastic, I'd have been bitingly so - and put either an emoticon or a sarcasm switch note on. Jeez, Sheena.

See above.

Ellice

Great memory, Dianne. I remember working for Radio Shack, and the TS-80 (or as we called it the Trash 80). But then Apple had some come out that were pretty fine.

When the first Macs came out, that was about the same time as the first IBM PCs. The little Mac was much better - and at that time not much pricier. But, things changed. I remember people flocking to use our first Mac in the office in grad school - versus the PC.

Hence the many years long anti-trust suit against MS.

Lots of choices and decisions. DH still uses a Dell for his official at work lap-top - but the next machine is going to be a new MacBook of some sort. Given it will run Windows natively, that makes some specialty things

- like being able to see how a presentation looks on a Windows platform - better for him.

Today's happy dance - our new printer just got here. Epson Artisan 800. Has super HD scanning capability - and our everyday printer has kind of died. So, we looked and decided to get what DH really wanted (so we can scan photos at 4800 dpi) rather than spend less now, and then still get this in a while. Now I have to get it set-up. Woo hoo. Can't wait to play with the software - evidently this does a lot of stand alone things, and has software designed for photo restoration - which is what we got it for - scanning in all the old family photos.

ellice

LOL - not at all. I think there is a definite market for Macs, and for PCs. Cost is relative - not just the upfront dollars. What do the dollars give you - in totality? Same reason as some people buy less expensive cars and replace them every few years, or shop at K-mart or Old Navy versus Nordstrom or Macy's .

Um, Karen, I can only assume that you're missing a detail. As in is it a MAC on the Intel chip - the last few years? Or an older one on a RISC chip? The older ones, you had to use a PC emulator to then run Windows. Which for some software meant it ran quite slowly. And, point blank, most tech support people that are only Windows trained aren't interested in or good at working any detail on a MAC platform. If it's a newer MAC, on an Intel chip, then someone is working an urban myth I suspect. Given that these MACS run Windows natively by installing Windows, as well as by using a package called Parallels which helps optimize running both platforms. And, umm, it would be Consumer Reports who has found for the last few years that MACs running Windows software programs were faster than comparable PCs.

So, I'd get a bit more details about what she really was using. I don't run Windows on my 4 year old MAC, but I don't need to. And I know that I have to use Virtual PC with this one as it is the last model made on the RISC chip, though a dual processor tower, and quite fast. The dual processor - great for math/science applications - which includes serious graphics software (as graphics drawing like Illustrator is really all math processing). Overkill if only doing normal word processing, web stuff. I suspect your friend has been trying to use the Virtual PC emulator, which is slower when going than on some PCs - IME. OTOH, Our BFs have a few laptops which run Parallels, or just Windows installed on them - and work like charms. Including running specifically written for PC platform software.

The lesson is to get all the facts, or as much info as you can. And 25 years ago, well, ummm - there wasn't much PC software.

Ellice

Again, you missed my specific point. As in, is it a MAC on an Intel chip, or an older (few years) on a RISC chip processor? Since Windows is Windows is supposedly Windows, and the machines built on the Intel chip can be run Windows natively (as in just install Windows - nothing special), any "Windows based software" should run if, IF, the user has indeed installed Windows. There is other software that allows a user to run both OS systems simultaneously - just switch between windows. However, the fastest way is to just be open running one OS or the other (i.e. Either OSX or Windows). If, it's an older machine, which I'd guess is your friend's situation, then you have to use a PC emulation software package, and install Windows. Which is more cumbersome, and can be tricky.

For curiousities' sake - as in sort of truth in advertising- you could actually ask which Mac version is being used. My money is on an older machine not with the Intel chip. Which machines were never advertised as able to run Windows - except with the emulation package. It is only the newer machines that are advertised that way. And you still have to buy Windows as most people get the Mac OSX included with their machine.

Pretty funny, as it doesn't sound like your neighbor is much of a geek. IME things aren't very hidden at all on a Mac. Much more open than the file system used by Windows. Again, unless you're working on a very old running pre OSX (10.xxx) software, and even then it's easy enough to find things. The OSX software is quite straightforward. And point blank, there is that big thing that looks like a magnifying glass generally on top screen border of most desktops - called "Sherlock" - lets you search for anything, and you can select if you're searching a specific drive, all drives, a set folder, etc. Pretty idiot proof if you're not sure what system to look at. Then there is the thing that looks like a light switch with an Apple - "System Preferences" - which is broken into Personal, Hardware, System, Internet & Network" - and can always be found thru the Apple icon, plus, the basic "finder" - try the "go" command-which lists things like Applications, Network, computer, Home, utilities.

There are some very easily read, full of info books - in particular the ones by Andy Ihnatko, which spell out with graphics where to find all kinds of things and how to do things with a MAC. There are versions for the OSX Tiger & Leopard operating systems. Might be worth suggesting.

For the real software writing geeks - they can always run Unix (command language) on a MAC, even split the screen and run that on top, with the "pretty" desktop below.

Windows is the effort to make DOS have a better GUI, and was designed to imitate the MAC OS.

Whatever.

Ellice

I remember a relative giving us their hand-me-down Trash 80 when I was younger and my mom and I got totally hooked on a game - you were a lord of a fiefdom and had to take care of your serfs and soldiers and try to build an empire without getting killed off in your cold and drafty castle over the long winters....too funny - it wasn't much more than Pong or Dos type graphics but we played for hours! LOL

MelissaD

How about the very first games: text only driven. No animation. Stories with mazes to get through, puzzles to solve.

Dianne

I just found an app that will let me play some of those on my iPhone. I conquered Zork in multiple formats and played Adventure until my access to that computer went away.

I love that style game and they just don¹t exist like that. I'd rather draw my maze than have it there in front of me. I knew a guy that went on to write some of the next gen games for Infocom.

Turns out that if you have a Mac, you can down load Zork. OH NO, here we go again!

Cheryl

LOL - when I was an undergrad oh so many years ago, I had a friend in the Comp Sci dept. We would go play Lunar Landing on a PDP standing tower machine in the room adjacent to the main-frame. On a screen built in. Could only do it after normal hours - but my friend was a Research Assist and had a key. About 35 years ago. Yikes (well, I was a very young undergrad). Then we got "asteroids" and a version of pong.

Eventually we could do Pong on terminals, and then there was a Dungeon fantasy - verbal only - that we could play.

Ellice