Gestalt
Topic: Technology
Ahhh... sweet harmony. Opposing camps have come together and formed a more perfect union, established balance, and ensured domestic technology, provided for the common sense, promoted the general welfare and ensured the blessings of... something.

I've long said that Apple Macintosh computers are superior to IBM / Windows based systems in many ways, but that I didn't use them because they lack market support, and they can't be easily upgraded by the user. I expect all that to change.

Soon, say around the year 2006, Macs will be built using Intel processors. It's decided. Motorola will just have to go back to making citizen's band radios and telephones... Goodbye, Moto.

I've seriously considered switching before. But if I can switch and keep market support by using a hybrid platform, maintaining an Intel processor, it just whets the appetite a little more.

I know what I know about computer hardware because I use an IBM system, and I couldn't afford to buy a new one every time I wanted to upgrade. I also couldn't afford to pay someone that knew what they were doing to upgrade the system I already had. I had to do it myself. If I hadn't, I'd probably still be using a 386 DX with a 20 meg hard drive and 5 meg of RAM.*
The beauty of a Mac is that you probably won't need to upgrade often, and you'll probably not learn a lot about its inner workings. But you won't have to. Oh, I know there's complete cyberwonks out there that change their Macs as regularly as they change underwear.** But they don't do it because they have to. They do it because they want to. Often, from what I've seen, it's easier and more effective to just buy a new Mac when you want to upgrade. It's also more expensive. This is why Mac is still in business.

I recall when OSX was released that a lot of third party RAM upgrades became useless because the new operating system wouldn't recognize them. Apple said that "feature" was added because those RAM chipsets hadn't been evaluated for their reliability, or had been evaluated and found to be unreliable. Therefore, in order to maintain reliability in the system, the OS wouldn't recognize or use those RAM chipsets. Which meant that a large number of Mac users suddenly had less RAM. There were 3 ways around it: they could buy "better" RAM (that is, RAM that had been approved by Apple as acceptable), they could retrofit their OS back to the previous one, or they could download a patch and install it. The patch thing only came out as a result of several million angry customers swearing they'd have Steve Jobs' guts for garters if they didn't fix the problem. Presumably, Jobs likes his guts where they are, because the patch was issued.

That kind of highlights what I'm saying... which is, Macs are proprietary. They don't like ham-fisted monkeys poking in their innards, messing about, changing things. It's creepy. It's eery. It's unwholesome. It voids warranties. It's... well, it's fun, but they don't like it.

IBM systems are a nightmare of compatibility issues. They need upgraded regularly, or they'll get behind the power curve and you won't be able to run the software you want. And don't get me started on the operating systems and prevalence of virus activity. But most software is written for them first, and much of it never sees a Mac hard drive.

Why is this? I don't know. I think computer companies just like hurting their customer base. And we, apparently, like being hurt.

I know I do. I'm a Windows user. And with this new merging of Intel processors in Apple computers, I can be hurt by both worlds.

I know. An optimist would say "the best of both worlds." I'm not an optimist. My glass is not half empty, not half full. My glass is twice as large as it needs to be.

It's a compatability issue.

*Actual system specs. Everyone started somewhere. Snigger if you must, but I learned a lot from that old computer.
**Once per week. Generally speaking, cyberwonks in all platform camps aren't all that hygienic.