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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (22538)	1/15/1999 7:01:00 AM
From: Linda Kaplan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213173

Jeff: You said, "disk drive search code that surveys the USB (and Firewire bus) could be added to the startup recodable RAM and, when the code detects a disk installed in an external drive, it proceeds to load the disk vendor's drive code and the Apple system from the disk." But who here at my house could code the RAM? Could I do that? AAPL did not ship external SCSI hard drives, but still had the computers check for startup on the SCSI port, from the beginning. If your CD drive is broken or you've lost or stepped on your startup CD Rom disc, you are helpless without being able to use the USB for startup drives. I'm starting to get an anxiety attack at the thought that I couldn't start up from an external hard drive. Linda

To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (22538)	1/15/1999 12:39:00 PM
From: BillHoo	Respond to of 213173

<<What the hell's a BIOS?>> BIOS chips are similar to Apple System ROM. However, since there is no standardization in PCs, they could never get them to do stuff like, boot from external CDs, hard drives, zips, Jaz, etc. What you have to do on a PC is (before your computer dies and becomes an emergency) create a boot floppy, install a system and install and configure all of the necessary drivers. More often than not, no one does this before hand and as a result emergencies can take several hours to days to revive a dead PC where on the Mac it takes minutes. That's also one reason you can have one Mac administrator support 120 machines vs. 4 PC techs for the same number. Min Cost per year on Mac $40,000 vs. $160,000 per year on PC (varies due to geography - not including hardware costs - PCs are also cheaper grade components likely to pay more on hardware replacement too as it is more frequent - Also does not include overtime costs as PC techs are likely to be contractors who love the overtime $$). -Bill_H