Re: The PC wars are over and the PC won

In article <1137365394.379840.126910@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
imouttahere@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Steve Hix wrote:
> > In article <1137355840.530548.199190@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> > imouttahere@xxxxxxx wrote:
> > >
> > > It's been a two-way street. Apple ditched nuBus for PCI in 1995.
> >
> > NuBus was then at the end of its growth, and couldn't match PCI for
> > speed, and was more expensive. Time to switch.
>
> Agree. Gratuitous incompatibilities are pointless.
>
> > >USB in 1998.
> >
> > Good replacement for ADB; higher performance, hot-swappable, cheap, and
> > peripherals were on track to be cheaper and more widely available. Time
> > to switch.
>
> Agree. Gratuitous incompatibilities are pointless.
>
> > > Then AGP in 1999.
> >
> > Performance, no significant cost hit, graphics vendors were moving away
> > from PCI to AGP. Time to switch. (And now it's time to switch to PCI-e.)
>
> Disagree. AGP was clunky and the mac upgrade market was a joke so slots
> were pointless anyway.

In a lab I use/support at work, we have some B&W G3s and Sawtooth G4s,
all still useful.

There is a large difference between the B&Ws graphics, using PCI, and
the Sawtooth machines (sad AGP though it is).

The switch was worth it.

> > > Heck, Apple could and should have gone with EFI a year or two ago.
> >
> > Oh yeah, that would have been great.
> >
> > Burn resources to switch the PPC machines to EFI, just in time to
> > replace them with the new Intel architecture.
> >
> > Makes no sense at all.
>
> Gets it debugged in parallel.

Wonderful. Two sets of problems to debug at the same time, for a product
line with an announced termination.

> Then again you're right, endian issues
> might make it a nightmare and why screw with stuff on the PPC mbs that
> is frozen, plus EFI, being so low level, is pretty easy to work on in
> parallel anyway.
>
> > > Industry standards == good, but going 100% Intel means Apple has
> > > basically given up differentiation at the micro level, at least to a
> > > very large extent.
> >
> > So what?
> >
> > Nobody (but some of us gadget freaks) cares what's inside the box. As
> > long as it works, it's cool.
>
> I agree. Going Intel makes sense at the macro level, just as it made
> sense for Steve to kill the NeXT hw division 13 years ago. I'm mourning
> the death of Apple *Computer*, and more than that, the passing of the
> last proficient, independent personal computer maker on the planet.
>
> People who were born after the Amiga came out aren't going to care
> about that I guess. I remember what the world was like before Wintel
> monoculture, and still have hope that that world isn't quite passed
> away yet.
>
> I have hope that someone will start with a blank sheet of paper and
> come up with something way cooler than what we've got now.
>
> Sony's got the hardware of this vision with the PS3 (as does Microsoft
> with the XBOX2). The system engineering side is what is missing.
>
> > The OS, on the other hand, is a big deal.
>
> Well, the apps are the big deal at the user level. A year from now,
> putting a Gateway laptop running NT6 side-by-side to a MBP running
> 10.4.x, you're going to be hard put to point out any Mac advantages
> worth the $200 price difference, until you go to the apps.
.

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