The Informed Buyer: Choosing a Platform
One In A Series From macRelations


Looking to buy a brand new computer? It amy not be as easy a decision as you think! General concensus is that you need Intel Inside and Windows 95 to get along, but as we'll see that might not be the case. You came here because you want to make the right decision, and our aim is to make sure that you do, if you aren't going to benefit from a Macintosh, we're not going to tell you to buy one, but you might find out they're not half as bad as your freinds think!

You might have freinds who use a Wintel compatible computer(herein refered to as a PC), or perhaps your local school or college uses PCs. It is very typical today to see a lab full of machines running Windows, and very easy to assume that means you should. In truth however the Macintosh, and Macintosh compatible clones are very well integrated with such Windows based networks.

Every new Macintosh can read and write PC disk, as well as utilize a large variety of PC files. What this means in english is that if you stick a 3.5" disk into a Macintosh it will realize if it was formatted for a PC, and if it was formatted for a PC it will show an Icon of a disk with the letters "PC" on it. It also means if you have a file, or document from a PC that the Macintosh can probably read and interpret it, so that you can edit the file using a program on the Macintosh. Latter on we will discuss more options for compatibility on the Macintosh.

Another common belief is that there is more software available for the PC, than for the Macintosh. This all depends on what you count. When the amount of software is counted for the PC they count any and all software available for DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, and any software that will run on both PC, and Macitnosh machines. This means that only a piece of software that runs exclusively on the Macintosh is counted as a Macintosh piece of software. These statistics are quite biased, and it would be foolish to base any decisions on them. In fact the only really large amount of software that is NOT essentially released for both platforms is games. There are far more bloody violent games available for Windows 95, and if that's what your looking for then that might be the platform for you!

What IS a platform? A platform is a term used to decribe a PC, Macitnosh, or UNIX mahine, other operating systems can be refered to as platforms as well but usally they refer to a Mac, PC, or Unix machine when they refer to a platform. An operating system, or OS, is the software that runs your computer's software. Windows 95 is an operating shell. It contains many useful peices of software that you cannot see that help you prgrams run, however it still uses DOS as it's main operating system. DOS is the scarry white text on a black screen that users of PCs often have to use to make they're computers work properly. Macintosh machines use MacOS. Unlike DOS everything on a Macintosh is done by clicking with a mouse. For that reason Macintosh machines are extraordinarily easy to use, and are far better suited to new users than PCs. Unless you inted to develop extremely complicated applications, and, or, administer large networks you will never need to know about UNIX, if however that IS what you need then you might want to read up on UNIX at your local library.

In addition to being easier to use, Macintosh machine are much more user freindly. If you accidentally turn off your Macintosh, or cause the computer to crash it will not require hour to fix configuration files so that you can turn your computer back on. On a PC however it is very likely that you would need assitance to return your computer to a useful state after such an occurance. Also if you insert a disk, or CD into a Macintosh the computer will immeadiatly read it's contents, and place an icon on the screen. On a PC however you wold have to "tell" the computer to look for a disk is a drive, usually the A: drive. Alone with this ease of use a Macintosh does not use extensions in the naming of files! A PC file requires you to have a three letter extesnion on the end of you files to denote what application they co-incide with, with a Macintosh however the computer automatically detects which appliaction you created a file with, and will launch that application if double click on the file it created.

Macintosh computers also come with many features that allow you to better interact with your computer. Using PlainTalk, Apple's own Speech Recognition software you can speak commands to your computer and have it understand them. PCs do not ship with these capabilites. Another feature is Apple script, you can "record" procedures that you do often, and make it so that all the steps you usally take are reduce to the launching of the script. Using the easy to use Apple Script interface you can even make those scripts "speakable", so that you merely speak a command to your computer to have it go though the procedure.

If you need to actually run Windows programs, in the rare event that there is not already a version of the application available for the Macintosh, there are several options for running these applications on the Macintosh. You could buy a popular "emulator" which would let your Macintosh emulate a PC by changing the commands your software uses to talk to the PC into commands understood by the Macintosh. Emulator programs run from th 70-300$ range with varying levels of compatibility. Because emulation is slow you may instead opt for a more expensive PC compatibility card. This hardware addon would have to be installed by a professional but would give you full access to ALL PC software. PC Cards run anywhere from 200-2000$ depending on how fast and powerful you would like your compatibilty to be.

More than likely though you would not need a PC card, most Macintosh uses get along fine with the standard compatibility offered on the Macintosh. Most major software applications are available for both platforms. Microsoft Office, Microsoft's suite of business applications is availaible for the Macintosh and is fully compatible with the PC version. Similarly Internet Explorer, Corel Word Perfect Suite, Netscape Navigator, America On-line, and many other popular packages!

Another myth is that Intel's Pentium is the fastest most powerful proccessor! The micro-proccessor to a large extent reflects on the snappyness of your overall system. The Pentium does not perform very well in comparison to many other PC proccessors. In fact you would probably want a chip from Cyrix, or AMD, in a new PC, as they are far cheaper and perform far better than Intel's Pentium proccessors which are known for performing badly, and overheating, as well as having bugs!(As the latest Pentium II has!)

Macintosh computers don't use any of the above proccessors! They use the PowerPC, which is jointly manufactured by IBM, and Motorola. PowerPC chips perfrom very well. In fact they perfrom up to 70% beter than Iintel chips of the same megahertz rating. In short a 160MHz PowerPC would seem about as fast as a 200MHz Pentium. Because they are smaller, and require less energy these chips are well suited to laptops, which is why Apple Computer has a PowerBook laptop computer running at 240MHz. In the comming months they will release an even faster machine running at 300MHz. These machines can emulate PC software about as fast, if not faster, than PC laptops can run it native, or without emulation.

Another popular trend is MMX. What IS MMX? It's a bunch of intructions built into the proccessor that speed up some multiedia programs. Unfortunaty it is not very cost effective. Programs must be specially created for use with MMX machines in order to see any real benefit from them. For this reason it is usually smart to avoid this buzzword, especially if it cost more for a machine equipped with it. The reality is that few programs are designed to benefit from it. Motorola is working on a similar VMX option for it's chips that will give them similar cpabilities as MMX, if indeed you are interested in applications that do benfit from MMX technology. Also Apple Computer will be adding a Philips Tri=media proccessor to some of it's machines. Unlike MMX the tri-media chip is an actuall chip that helps the main proccessor speed up multimedia intensive programs. It is a far better technology, and you would see far more benefit from that chip.

The last issue we will discuss is the speed of a logic board. You should be aware of the logic board speed when buying a new computer, and because it is purposely not advertised you will probably have to ask a technition directly about it. The logic board speed determines how fast your data moves from RAM to the proccessor. In english that means that if you have a slow logic board, your proccessor won't perform very well, and will still seem slow. A fast locig board could be as fast as 80MHz, which is still ridiculously slow when compared to the proccessor speed. A slower machine could have logic board speed of a little as 40MHz. It is best to aim for 50 or 60 MHz. Remember the faster the logic board speed the faster the computer will run, and as a result you will spend less time waiting for your computer to sit there and proccess data. This will definitly reflect in your productivity.


Bottom Line: If you are buying a new computer be realistic! Do you want to be editing config.sys, and autoexec.bat files to do simple task?(Here's a hint if you've never heard of them then you don't want to mess with them!) If your looking for an educational computer that will do the work you want, and still be running applications 3, or 4 years from now then you should consider a Macintosh! If you are looking to play games I'd reccomend a home console system like a Playstation, over a PC as a PC cost far more and is built for to do more things. With Apple Computer working hard to add things like DVD, and other multimedia capabilites the Macintosh will continue to hold it's place as a leader in multimedia. Think carefully, remember if your spending 2000+ dollars on a new computer you want to get the most for your money right! I hope that you now feel a little better equipped in your quest to find a new computer and wish you luck. There's a lot of choices out there, and if your not properly prepared you can really get a bad deal fairly easily, consumer electronic stores like Radio Shack, Sears, and CompUSA take advatage of your lack of knoweldge to an extent, so you should learn as much as possible before actually buying a system. Remeber also that the salesmen recieves a commision for each sale they make, they make as much a 170$ for selling you something like a Compaq, and only about 70$ or selling you a Macintosh. If the salesmen seems overly interested in selling you a machine, than in hearing what you want then you might want to really look closely at what he's trying to sell you.
The next installment of our "Informed Buyer" series will discuss what kind of hardware you would want from a new system, because this changes so fast it is hard to keep up with what's par, and what's ahead of the game. While we touched on hardware in this installment, we will detail it in the next one. Thanks for reading, and again good luck in finding that system of your dreams!
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