For all of Mac's KISS attitude...

[paultakeda]

It is remarkably primitive when you're trying to debug and repair a system problem.

No, really, when was the last time you had to press more than ONE key at a time during boot to trigger an event?

PCs simply go with DEL for hardware, F8 for the system software.

Here I am, trying to fix this G3, and I'm awkwardly holding down Command-Option-P-R to do one thing, Command-Option-O-F for another, and Command-S for yet something else.

Sheesh.

At least the damned thing is Darwin and the UNIX-base is robust... once I get to it after holding down all those keys.

[ncttrnl]

Its a Mac... if it breaks, you buy a new one.


That model is probably out of style by now anyway. ;)

[Paul]

try restarting an ipod, I'd kill for a true on-off power switch on this thing.

[Paul]

oh and for those who don't know what Linus is talking about, KISS, Keep it simple stupid. at least that's what we use it as.

[paultakeda]

Well, apparently, it's the main administrator account. How is it that a specific account's preferences/settings are so much junk that launching ANY application causes it to "unexpectedly quit"!??!

I'm ignoring the problem, created another admin account with clean user prefs and everything works fine.

I'll have to figure it out eventually, but right now, I'd rather lick a frog than go through OS X help sites where the common answer is to wipe the drive and reinstall the system.

[jimmijames]

have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?

[paultakeda]

have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?

Boy, did I.

[jimmijames]

Boy, did I.


well that is the extent of my knowlege of how "tech support" works.

[Alan_One]

one corrupted preference file can ruin your whole day (or more). Start transferring your files from one account to the other. It's gonna be a while..........

[madajb]

I'll have to figure it out eventually, but right now, I'd rather lick a frog than go through OS X help sites where the common answer is to wipe the drive and reinstall the system.
I hear good things about defenestration...
-ajb

[paultakeda]

Thankfully, the G3 is used only as a browser to check HTML rendering... no files to transfer.

Otherwise, yes, a defenestrating would have been the obvious action.

[Alan_One]

I hear good things about defenestration...
-ajb

Wouldn't it be cool if they had a button for that?

[paultakeda]

Hee hee.

[madajb]

Macs suck, and the people who use them are probably gay.
-ajb

[lostntainted]

i work on computers all day and in my professional opinion i'd say you could try this:

required materials: old set of steeltoe boots, one "slugger" brand baseball bat, one mac pc, one new HP pc

1. first you set the mac on the ground
2. stomp the $h!t out of it until your foot gets tired
3. use bat to finish job
4. set new HP pc on desktop
5. surf to Apple website and email pictures to customer service with explanation attached

:tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup::tup:

(you don't have to use HP for this but i haven't had any issues with mine yet)

[Alan_One]

Macs suck, and the people who use them are probably gay.
-ajb

What's up with Alan_Two?

I love my mac. I'm a happy mac kind of guy. the world is so rosy and beautiful. All the pretty icons. It sits so gleefully under my desk keeping my feet company. With its pretty candy shell. And the pretty keyboard with the beautiful white keys and clear plastic case. I love my mac. It's so pretty.

[audi9k]

Macs suck, and the people who use them are probably gay.
-ajb
whoa hey now! what's up with that?

[demetrivsX]

Hmm...*opens attachment*...oh look!, a virus! *delete*...carry on. Yeah, Macs are so...vulnerable?

[paultakeda]

Macs aren't as vulnerable by virtue of obscurity.

Same goes for browsers such as Firefox and Safari. Eventually, given enough market share, they will be prime vectors for new exploits.

Declaring that Macs are inherently safer is the same as declaring Macs are inherently marginalized pieces of hardware.

Hm... okay, you win.

[Alan_One]

Sure, marginalized. But Apple's R&D sets the standard all PC mfgr's follow.

If it's on a PC it was on a mac first (cept for a few small things like eide drives).

The PC world watches apple for all their new product offerings.

[paultakeda]

That's an overstatement. It's true, yes, but nothing has driven the advance of PC hardware development more than the game industry of the 1990s.

Apple consistently influences design (how long did it take for the PCs to finally shake the iMac color scheme and go their own way the last few years), and certainly the iPod has been revolutionary, but the PC world watches Apple as much as it watches within itself.

[Alan_One]

We're splitting hairs. I'm talking about Industrial Design and Ideas.

Games have driven development of very specific components within computers (which btw began in digital film editing suites and then bled over)

What I'm saying is about more banal things like "hey! look how thin and cool I can make this laptop."

Any PC manufacturers with cool thin metal laptops? Or how about cool looking cases for towers?

Apple brought high design to the PC market. All the pc manufacturers just follow.

[paultakeda]

Games have driven development of very specific components within computers (which btw began in digital film editing suites and then bled over)


Games forced the development of new buses, faster CPU and GPU units, better sound processors and audio systems, bigger and brighter displays, high-precision mice, better networking, new and faster media recording and reading, and all the infrastructure in cooling and power they require. That's pretty much everything.

As for where they bleed over, that's pretty much how technology transfers, from highly confidential to highly corporate/business to consumer.



What I'm saying is about more banal things like "hey! look how thin and cool I can make this laptop."

Any PC manufacturers with cool thin metal laptops? Or how about cool looking cases for towers?

Apple brought high design to the PC market. All the pc manufacturers just follow.

I'll buy that argument. PCs didn't look cool till Apple developed the iMac.

Of course, Apple and Macs looked like crap before the iMac as well, so it's not exactly a long-standing history of looking to Apple for style.

[madajb]

I'll buy that argument. PCs didn't look cool till Apple developed the iMac.

Of course, Apple and Macs looked like crap before the iMac as well, so it's not exactly a long-standing history of looking to Apple for style.
That's based on the assumption that iMacs looked good....
-ajb

[paultakeda]

Let me revise the statement.

PC manufacturers didn't look to Apple much for style until the iMac.

[Alan_One]

Games forced the development of new buses, faster CPU and GPU units, better sound processors and audio systems, bigger and brighter displays, high-precision mice, better networking, new and faster media recording and reading, and all the infrastructure in cooling and power they require. That's pretty much everything.

I had to have hardware acceleration for my 3d Apps long before any game. And many of those things you're citing began their explosion (Audio, Video, Bus Speeds, Displays, Mice, all of them) on the mac which is not a gaming machine by any means.

In 92 I was using an optical mouse with a 22" Radius monitor listening to 44khz playback on a Mac IIVX. I've been working long enough to have "been there" for everything from SCSI 2 to the early dev of Firewire (Apple) to the 1st CD ROM Drives (Apple). I'm not saying that games haven't accelerated development. But don't short change Apple's contribution to PC's as a whole. While Apple was looking to improve their position as the leading machines for graphics professionals they were giving game developers what they needed to dream up the next thing.

Apple sets the standard and PC's copy it (cept for games).


I'll buy that argument. PCs didn't look cool till Apple developed the iMac.

Of course, Apple and Macs looked like crap before the iMac as well, so it's not exactly a long-standing history of looking to Apple for style.

C'mon, you didn't like the Quadra 840Av ;) ? Apples design (contracting out with firms like Frog Design) has always been well respected within the design community. The difference is that before they were focused more on the eloquence of the interface and now their paying additional attention to their industrial design. They're understanding that computers and electronics sell much like automobiles. You need to make them look like they perform.

No machine is without problems. You shoulda dumped that G3 a long time ago.

Dual Processors :)

[madajb]

Linus -
Don't argue with a Mac fanatic.
Facts bounce off them like bullets off Superman.
I think the Reality Distortion Field ships standard in every Mac.

-ajb

[Alan_One]

Linus -
Don't argue with a Mac fanatic.
Facts bounce off them like bullets off Superman.
I think the Reality Distortion Field ships standard in every Mac.

-ajb

D'nile isn't just a river in Egypt.

"Facts" aren't being disputed.

And Linus knows everything I've noted is "true".

Do your homework Alan 2 :P

And don't call me names or I'll take the ball home and no one will play. :rolleyes:

[madajb]

Endlessly repeating things doesn't make them "true" but, hey, if it makes you feel better.
-ajb

[Alan_One]

One liners with little in the way of "content" only get you by at a comedy club. And yours aren't even funny today.

If you can't contribute then I'd love to introduce you to my friend Chata.

[paultakeda]

No machine is without problems. You shoulda dumped that G3 a long time ago.

The machine is fine. It was OS X that screwed up my user prefs.

:D

[madajb]

Well, against my advice on debating Mac fanatics:

The first commercially available(though rare) CD-ROM drives belonged to Atari back in '86ish. The Quadra didn't get them until, what '91 or so? (Anyone know if there an external Apple CD-Rom before that? I know Amiga had one for the 500, but I don't know about the year on that.)

A IIVX was mono out, right? This is in contrast to the Amiga 3000, which had stereo RCA out, and was 4096 colors to boot.

First Commercial computer with a mouse? That'd be the Star, back in 1981.

And hell, don't modern G5s use the PCI bus designed by Intel?

Apple has had as many missteps as they have successes(Apple III?), and they haven't always been the "cool" company they are now. Remember those Performas in the mid-90's?

But, Apple has managed to survive, and sometimes thrive, in the face of fairly overwhelming competition, so they must be doing something right. And I hope they continue to innovate, because if nothing else, Apple as a _company_ is very good at "Thinking Different"(even if they aren't very good at grammar. heh)


-ajb

[paultakeda]

Don't forget that the first GUI belonged to Xerox PARC's Alto (1973) and Star (1975), essentially a decade before the coming of the Macintosh.

[paultakeda]

Remember when Apple decided to kill Claris?
Give up "gaming" as a potential market, causing Marathon developers Bungie to end up on the Microsoft Xbox (after a long and colorful passage of time)?
Remember System 6? That last GOOD Mac system?

:D

[Alan_One]

mmmmm Marathon... I was just playing Halo 2 with a couple of buddies and they've included a map that's drawn straight from Marathon 2.

IIVX Audio was Stereo not mono and it put out millions of colors if you could afford a color monitor

Atari... sheesh. I didn't know we were talking one off's :rolleyes:

What about SCSI, Firewire, and DIMM's?

Those performas were the worst. pretty much any machine that they were going to discontinue would become a performa untill they ran out of inventory. But that was due to Apple's strategy at the time that didn't include Steve Jobs. Back when apple was trying to be a PC and even Sony was making an Apple clone. Remember UMAX?

The best thing they ever did was to use industry standard components (ide, pci, video cards) in their new machines.

I like the macs for the same reason I like European Cars. Originals are always cooler than copies.

[demetrivsX]

I like the macs for the same reason I like European Cars. Originals are always cooler than copies.

Couldn't have said it better!

[madajb]

IIVX Audio was Stereo not mono and it put out millions of colors if you could afford a color monitor

With a meg of VRAM? I'm thinking not.
The only stereo available was through the headphone jack on the CD, and that was only when playing CD's. Input/output on the board was mono.


Atari... sheesh. I didn't know we were talking one off's :rolleyes:

First is first. =) And the Amiga came before the Mac as well, which would make the Mac third.


What about SCSI

Adaptec 1540(2?)in PC's in1984, 2 years before the Mac Plus. Sun-4's came with SCSI around the same time, but I think the Mac Plus beat them to market, and were certainly cheaper.


, Firewire,

Is it still a dollar a port? =)


and DIMM's?

Certainly possible. Anyone know what the first Apple to ship with a DIMM was?


. Remember UMAX?

I liked the clones. But it certainly didn't fit with the whole "Apple is worth the markup" image they were trying to project.


I like the macs for the same reason I like European Cars. Originals are always cooler than copies.
I suppose that'd depend on if you consider your computer a tool or a lifestyle.
I fall squarely in the tool category.
-ajb

[madajb]

Gah. See, I let myself get sucked in by a zealot.
=)
-ajb

[Alan_One]

I fall squarely in the tool category.
-ajb

Yes you do :D

And having reduced my Mac triumph to but a couple of firsts I suggest - a very effective tool.

But maybe you'll consider that the simpler a tool is the easier it is to wield and the more powefull it can be.

[paultakeda]

Amiga was by far the best multimedia personal computer in the late 80s. The Mac was a distance 2nd, the PC in a third place so far as to be indistinguishable dot in the horizon.

Remember MODs?

:D

[paultakeda]

And Defender of the Crown. Mmm. I still boot up the Amiga emulator just to play that game.

Crappy game.

But mmmm.

[Alan_One]

I never made it to Amiga.. I kinda stalled at Commodore 128 and then lept to Mac "classic". Beach head (1 and 2) was my game.

[madajb]

M.U.L.E

-ajb

[ronsega]

Macs are the bestest eVAR!! (http://www.shooshtime.com/clips/video.php?id=4071)

It's one of the Mac commericals redone! (some profanity)