Bill,
As always you have cogent arguments. Apples upgrade path has always sucked, probably due to Apples desire to sell more complete boxes for more profit. Possibly due to the chip/board evolution itself, compatability, CISC to RISC etc.
One thing though. The majority of computer users are not like you. And the 60% (?) of those who do not now use, but will in the next ten years are definitely not like you.
They're like my friend with her 486.
Her dad started trying to hook up a printer (new) to it 6 months ago. He tried to add ram 2 months ago. This guy wrote machine code for space launches. But he's having trouble with these upgrades. Her computer is still a paper weight. My other friend writes C code for a living. Took him a month to add a new Pentium board to his 486. Tried and failed to add an Intel board ended up with and AMD board, I think. For the last month he's been trying to add a raid array with no luck yet. He also tries to use it as a phone machine, works about 70% of the time.
It's never taken me more than 2 hrs. to add anything to my Mac, printer modem, track ball, drawing tablet, drum machine, two removeable drives and never a problem. My neighbor, who until 2 years ago had never touched a computer, has a raid array, 3 hard drives, one syquest, a printer, modem, two monitors, drawing tablet, game hardward and who knows what else hooked up to his 7100, with few problems.
Of course this is the gist of the Gistics report most graphics guys know. I know lots of Graphics guys in LA who make $100/hr on thier Macs and some who make $200/hr. Do you think they care if a Mac costs $300 bucks more?
Also, PPCs are faster at floating point calculations.
Anyway, I don't know whats going to happen but I doubt that Macs will go away in the near future.
Doren |
