I was talking with some friends of mine(newley converted mac idiots). We were playing World of Warcraft and his mouse stopped working so he just plugged in a PS/2 mouse(while the computer was running, showing how much mac people know about computers). Then I said "you can't just plug in that PS/2 mouse, you have to rebot". Then he said "stupid windows" trying to mask his computer ileteracy on windows.
Afterwards he started braging about how he hardly ever has to reboot his computer. I wanted to slap him upside his head and say "thats not apple you dumbass thats UNIX underneath". But I held in my rage.
Computer: Mac Mini
Uptime: 18:03
18 hours ago: Apple Software Update forced me to reboot for god knows what reason after upgrading to iTunes 5. Why can't you put off required reboots until later like on Windows?
>>5
Microsoft did the exact same thing for years with DOS. At least Apple chose a decent foundation for their eye-candy.
There are reasons to hate Macs (one just provided above), but yours are kinda dumb. That said, a lot of Mac users are completely blinded by zealotry and deserve to be mocked. Feel free to hate, if you can direct it at the right target.
1: I can't go to the Apple Store (MAC stores sell fashionwear and I'm not into that stuff) because the closest one is eight hours away. So sue me.
2: I do agree that Mac laptops are overpriced. I never said Macs were perfect.
3: Why does your "friend" even play WoW on a PC? It works on Macs as well, and you wouldn't have ranted about your friend in the first place, as they would be running it in their common environment.
If you think Macs made them more retarded, that's false. It enlightened them to a world where you don't have retarded reboots at each click of a button. (Oh, and the kernel panic screen is much more pleasing than the BSOD, hell, it even has transitions.)
4: Apple built upon FreeBSD and Mach, to make Darwin, the opensource core for the Mac. As >>6-san said, Apple chose a decent foundation. Microsoft did not, so switch if you're fed up with it. Move to Linux if you hate Mac. :/
5: >>6, if you ran a custom install for iTunes 5, you could remove the ROKR driver, which is the cause for the reboot after Software Update. (You can custom install most updates by downloading them via Apple's site.)
6: I AGREE WITH >>5
>Why can't you put off required reboots until later like on Windows?
You can. When the window comes up telling you to reboot, just ignore it and switch to another app. You can continue to use your computer all you want. If the installer still being open bugs you, force-quit it.
To address >>1:
1) "MAC" is not the proper abbreviation for the Macintosh. "Mac" is correct. MAC usually refers to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
2) Kinda dumb to fault someone for not knowing something they didn't know. With a USB Mac, having to "rebot" to do something as simple as plug in a mouse is a thing of the past. You haven't had to do this on a Mac since the days of ADB, seven or eight years ago. Why do Wintels still use PS/2, anyway?
3) ileteracy -- This one speaks for itself.
4) thats not apple you dumbass thats UNIX underneath. You're joking, right? What does it matter what's underneath so long as it's solid?
5) I have a Mac laptop too. Could I have got a cheaper machine? Of course. Would I have been as happy with it? Probably not. My 12" Powerbook is tiny and tough, and though it may be a couple generations behind in terms of computing power, it does most everything I want it to do in good time. And really, what does it matter to you if we paid more for our machines if we're still happy with them? Do you think people who drive Beemers are stupid because they could have bought Toyotas for half the price?
6) After typing all this, I just realized that I just fell for one of the oldest troll traps in the book; ah, the shame. But to not post after typing all this would be a waste, so...
Ah, you can plug in a PS/2 mouse into windows and it'll automatically start using it, but you need to already have a PS/2 driver loaded.
Not the brightest of ideas, but it's possible. Try it with any laptop.
4-ch Apple crew checking into a lol "MAC" thread \o/
>>1 has an inferiority complex the size of an X-Box.
If the only comback you have is to insult someones spelling or say that its MAC instead of Mac or some other gay shit like that. You loose big time.
>>12 is a genius.
Hrmm, is knocking Mac users just for the sake of it a great idea -- considering the very owner of this site is a Mac user?
Besides, for those who do dispise them, you'll probably be pleased to know, it's likely they're on the way out. The PowerPC CPU architecture, which Apple has used for literally years, has been dropped now, in favour of the Intel x86 (IA32) architecture -- the first x86 Apples due for release in a few years time.
This is a shame though, because Apple did have a very nice system architecture. But alas, they lost their way when they released the iMac (first Apple desktop to use IDE disk drives instead of SCSI), and few people are able to justify the cost of the machines, dispite 1GHz G5's running rings around the latest P4 CPUs.
(Hrmm, I wonder what the Apple evangelists will say when this day does arrive ;-)
> iMac (first Apple desktop to use IDE disk drives instead of SCSI)
roffle
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/stats/mac_quadra_630.html
might have even been one before that, but I can't for the life of me remember the model name
>>13: I guess that makes me a "looser." :emo:
>>15: It's a mistake to think that the x86-based Macs are going to be just generic x86 boxes with the Mac OS installed; they'll probably be more like today's Macs, just with a different chip at the heart. And as for that stuff about Apple "losing its way" and 1GHz G5s outpacing the latest Pentiums, I think you were just talking out your ass to make your post longer... While the PPC should be able to outpace the Pentium without breaking a sweat, and for a few times in its history it certainly did, the reason Apple is switching is because IBM can't/won't keep their R&D and manufacturing pace high enough to satisfy Apple's demand. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intel_Transition and please do better research before writing. (My first Mac, a Performa 631CD from 1995 or so, used an IDE hard drive, IIRC.)
Another reason why Apple is switching to Intel is power consumption. If you know how much heat a G5 generates, you know what I'm talking about.
Ohh, right... okay so it wasn't the first one with IDE. :-) Heh, learn something new everyday.
I do know for a fact that Apple prided themselves on the fact that most of their systems ran SCSI though. ;-)
As for the PPC vs Intel thing, well... it's very much a horses for courses market, but per MHz, PowerPC does generally outperform Intel systems. My understanding though, is that Apple was getting impatient waiting for low-power G5 CPUs to be developed for use in their laptops, and hence decided to make the switch.
Backward compatability will be interesting though... I wonder how their newer machines will keep up when they're trying to emulate a PPC. ;-)
>>19
Intel rates their own processors' thermal design points under what they consider to be typical usage scenarios. For a P4-670 (3.8 GHz), that typical TDP is 115 W. IBM provides minimal information here, but http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=3 takes an educated guess (supported by evidence from Apple's site) that the G5's typical TDP is 59 W and that its worst-case TDP is 80 W.
Looks to me that Intel runs much, much hotter than G5s. There are Pentium 4-powered Dell Optiplex boxes at my workplace that exhaust uncomfortably hot air out the back even when their processors have been idling for over 10 minutes.
No, I'm not bashing Apple, I'm just bashing Intel. :)
>per MHz, PowerPC does generally outperform Intel systems.
I should think that per MHz, just about anything outperforms Pentium 4 systems. Even Intel's own Petium-M series, which appear to be on par with AMD's Athlon XP, though I couldn't find a formal benchmark. The whole Pentium 4 series was a comedy of one broken promise after another.
In the later half of 2006, Intel will be moving some of its desktop processors onto a modified Pentium-M architecture, so by the time Apple's switch comes around, they might actually have competent performance-per-clock to brag about. Wouldn't count on it, though.
The P4 is horrible at power consumption, but the Pentium-M architecture is surprisingly good. As far as I've heard, Intel is moving away from the P4 Netburst architecture entirely.
>The whole Pentium 4 series was a comedy of one broken promise after another.
To be fair, 90 nm or whatever the new width was was/is a bitch for all processor manufacturers.
Heh, don't I know it. My P4M-based laptop guzzle its secondary battery in 2 hours flat -- and it's primary battery is totally knackered (lasts half an hour on a good day).
AMD64 isn't exactly brilliant in that regard either. Some of the regulars in #mipslinux (irc.freenode.net) often poke fun at the sort of power requirements imposed by these CPUs.
Unfortunately, PowerPC-based laptops are rather exxy (not to mention proprietry). One company did produce a "SparcBook", that is, a laptop based on Sun's SPARC architecture... but they're even worse (try > $8000 for a machine).
And the closest I've come to MIPS-based laptops is the early Windows CE-powered units, many of them running NEC VR41xx-series CPUs (64-bit MIPS3), Phillips Poseidon (32-bit MIPS1) or the Toshiba TX39H (also 32-bit MIPS1).
So yeah... take your pick. We've really got a lot of choice.
> 4: Apple built upon FreeBSD and Mach, to make Darwin, the opensource core for the Mac. As >>6-san said, Apple chose a decent foundation. Microsoft did not, so switch if you're fed up with it. Move to Linux if you hate Mac. :/
Actually, they just used NeXT. They even kept the crappy parts of NeXT (mach-o) and fired the people who complained about it, thanks to Avadis Tevanian being totally nuts.
lol .dylib
Several year old powerbook (TiBook)
uptime
14:21 up 11 days, 15:10
its only at 11 days because thats how many days since I moved house :)
It was very expensive but in the 3+ years that I have had it the machine has crashed all of once. This is with heavy graphics, flash, video, 3D work every day.
The main advantage of macs to me is the interface its all designed very well, I'm talking usability design here (Although macs do take pride in appearance this isn't what I'm talking about) I find if you want something done on it you just have to imagine whats the easiest way it would be to do that task and that will be the way it is on a mac.
Take this example, to close a window you press Command + W, command is basically like the control key on a mac it handles shortcuts and such thus shortcut key + W for "Window" while on a pc this would be alt and F4, why alt? I mean pretty much everything else on the machine is activated by control, although you have control and W for closing a single window too I think but alt+F4 is the pushed method of closing a window and doesn't seem consistent with the rest of the OS.
Then you have the fact the control key is actually the furthest modifier key from the actual letters on pc keyboard, it should be where the windows key is really seen as that doesnt do anything hugely important and is more just a branding feature.
Oh and the osX colour picker is absolutely amazing, it makes the windows one look like a pathetic childs toy.
So in the end for me it doesnt come down to actual power, games, or any of that nonsense it comes down to stability and good usability diesgn.
>>25
My Pentium M Centrino lasted 4 hours and a few minutes and I was browsing my flash folder most of that time. Maybe you have bad power-saving programs.
>>29
Pentium 4 M isn't Pentium M. P4-M uses about 40W, P-M about 10W.
Yes, common mistake there...
Pentium 4 Mobile is MUCH more of a power guzzler than Pentium M.
And actually, the problem is a bad internal battery -- the unit is second hand, and it looks like the previous owner just ran it off AC power without discharging it.
This not good for most rechargeable batteries -- the only ones that handle this are Lead-Acid batteries.
Of course, all the bitching in this thread completely ignores the fact that there is, in fact, a HARDWARE reason that Windows requires a reboot, due to the electrical signaling of the PS/2 bus. That and the way old PS/2 devices were wired. Basically, thanks to the retarded signaling protocol of the PS/2 (no synchronization frames), you can't actually tell WTF each bit corresponds to if you just plug a PS/2 device in halfway.
>And actually, the problem is a bad internal battery -- the unit is second hand, and it looks like the previous owner just ran it off AC power without discharging it.
>This not good for most rechargeable batteries -- the only ones that handle this are Lead-Acid batteries.
Really??? I was wondering why my laptop's battery only lasts 18 minutes now...
>>32
Oh, really? Why doesn't Linux require reboots all the time, then?
> you can't actually tell WTF each bit corresponds to if you just plug a PS/2 device in halfway.
Could have fooled me. I used to do that all the time with my laptop.
>>35 Laptops are a different matter -- the BIOS and hardware on them may in fact be designed to handle a PS/2 device being plugged in.
Desktops however are another matter.
>>34 Because it doesn't screw up like Windows does? The only thing Linux needs to reboot for is...:
Windows typically needs reboots whenever you move the mouse. ;-) Well okay, that's an exxageration. You typically reboot for all of the above reasons... plus...
...and I'll bet there's even more.
Is it really fair to compare a ten-year-old windows version to a current Linux version? XP requires very few reboots these days. Linux might not require a reboot in most cases, but your average user will probably have to reboot anyway, because they don't know the heavy magic needed to avoid rebooting. In many cases, a reboot will be the easiest way to get things going anyway.
Maybe the BIOS handles it, maybe it doesn't. In any case, XP seems capable of handling it. I also routinely changed my IP settings in Win98 without reboot.
Obviously, windows does need to be rebooted more often, but most users won't notice this. It's rare enough to avoid being an annoyance, and most people turn their machines off for the night. These aren't servers here.
Truth be, there's very little of the old *nix complaints that still stick to windows, other than everyone running as administrator, and my pet peeve: the RPC service.
>>36 Well, the only one which is Win9x specific is the one regarding changing IP addresses. And of course, in that example, I'm comparing Windows 9x to Linux of the day.
Linux has been able to do this sort of thing on the fly since Red Hat 4.0 days. (Kernel 2.0)
Mind you, you can get worse. SCO OpenServer required you to re-link the kernel and reboot to change the IP number. DHCP?? Don't be rediculous!
>>38 No, WinXP doesn't handle it... it would be hardware that handles it. The OS does play a part, but the majority of the hotplug capability is hardware driven.
> majority of the hotplug capability is hardware driven.
So what? The OS is still involved, since mouse events don't magically appear in the event pumps.
In any case, >>32 is wrong. You can reset a PS/2 mouse by sending 0xFF down the wire, which makes the entire assertion irrelevant.
> I'm comparing Windows 9x to Linux of the day.
I've already mentioned that you could do this in 98. I did it all the time. If someone rebooted, it only meant they didn't know how to change it... a lot like linux, right?
> SCO OpenServer required you to re-link the kernel and reboot to change the IP number.
Oh, really? And which version of OpenServer was this?
> And of course, in that example, I'm comparing Windows 9x to Linux of the day.
Yeah, well, I'm comparing Linux 0.9 to the Amiga OS of the day, and I must say that Linux really lacks a decent GUI! Who on earth would use that when you can get an Amiga with state-of-the-art graphics and interface instead?
BTW, after a bit of research I discovered that some versions of OpenServer really do need a relink and reboot.
It's the most retarded thing I've seen in server software yet.
>>41 SCO OpenServer 5.0.4/i386 to be exact. Circa ~ 1997. This was before they got snapped up by Tarantella(sp?), and of course, later again by Caldera (the company who then picked fights with IBM over leaking Unix source code).
And before you ask -- yes, I have used SCO... it's horrible. :-P
I don't think SCO has gone very far from those days.
http://www.sco.com/products/openserver6/
That page suggests, yes, they have moved forward somewhat... they've gone from supporting 4 CPUs, up to 32. Wow... Linux runs on 128 and above just fine -- first did so on an Origin 2000 system back in early 2001. There are other improvements, such as hotplug SCSI, which have existed in Linux and BSD -- even Windows, for years. This version also apparently adds AGP support -- something Windows has had since Win98, and has been in Linux almost as long.
SCO OpenServer 6 was released this year.
I guess they call their software distribution CD, Skunkware for good reason then... ;-)
http://www.longlandclan.hopto.org/~stuartl/atomic/skunkware.png
"Entertainment", eh?
>>9
I imagine that PS/2 ports, since they usually just work and (since they're usually implemented with a 1970s-vintage 8-bit microcontroller) take up negligible space on the chipset dies, will be with us until either Intel or Microsoft declares them dead. Look at how long it took ISA to die, even after PCI became commonplace.
>>32
I've seen some motherboard manuals saying not to do this, since it could blow a mini-fuse or even damage the keyboard controller due to the inrush current. I doubt it's that much of a big deal now, but back in the days when every keyboard was guaranteed to have a NMOS 8048 in it, I could see bad things happening.
You're missing one crucial piece of the puzzle: PS/2 ports sit on the ISA bus. Any computer that has ditched the ISA bus will not have PS/2 ports.
Note that just because it doesn't have ISA slots doesn't mean it doesn't have the bus. Lots of the old hardware components are connected on the internal ISA.
Can't read past the first entry on a numbered list.
