"I've taken apart SGI, Ogivar, Commodore, Atari, and others."
And this related to MAC vs. PC exactly how?
It refers to having seen the choices many constructor have taken for the design of machines, and that engineering always includes choices and compromises, across many operating systems and manufacturers, for the available budget. There are common choices across many computer manufacturers, and the operating system is not the only one. Telling us you have been using Windows and OS X without doing anything mission critical is fine, but dismissing the experience of others usually means that you consider your experience of Windows and OS X the reference by which other should judge both of these operating systems. I don't consider that valid. My experience is mine, and I need to convince my clients that what I propose will be valid, backed by the actual performance my client sees of their own use, from whatever I assemble for them.
Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV)
"Both OS have their pro/con balance."
I've always been curious about that, what is the Pro/Con balance between MAC/Windows? As I stated above there's nothing I can't do on my Windows machine that I can do on my MAC, but the MAC can't handle, CAD, Softplan, ArchiCad, etc. as well as many other programs.
In my experience, several built-in features and software-hardware features are advantages that are not available to most Windows machines. There are also negatives as to other choices Apple has picked as viable strategies or design choices.
Listed, in no particular order: my list of Apple pro and cons design decisions/ implementations. By no means an exhaustive list, and generally deals with Apple specific items.
Equivalent Windows based implementations, are:
- not widespread
or
- common
or
- consistent across Windows based implementations
Apple
Pros:
-
Target mode. Available on [practically] all Apple machines [for many design generations], it simplifies maintenance, recovery, backup.
-
External boot: the ability to easily make an external boot drive that will work for several machines. This greatly simplifies the maintenance of an office/ studio with several machines, even if they are not identical.
-
Drivers. The [relatively] restricted range of hardware chosen for the Apple machines means that drivers are not required to get most computer running to a very stable state. Obviously, this does not include third party items.
-
Firewire: the nearly universal, higher speed drive connection has been very beneficial in a true plug and play drive connection, which includes [modest] power. [Apple rarely uses the four pin variation.]
-
DisplayPort: supports the complete range of video standards by being a 'transport', like Fibre Channel was for storage.
-
component quality: components chosen by Apple tend to be overpriced [to some extent], but overall are quite reliable.
-
Unibody: chassis rigidity to a whole new level, with very manageable weight.
Apple Cons:
-
Unibody: this [portable] chassis design greatly hampers internal access. Among the gripes: a battery replacement becomes a warranty voidable action. What! Same goes with RAM.
-
Glossy displays: no serious graphic pro tolerates glossy displays, even if they can have favourable lighting conditions: it changes the gamma and gives screen calibrators fits [compared to matte screens]. Matte display are not factory options on many models.
-
Glass as a
facade [for iMac and mobiles]. I don't think I need to explain why this could be not so great, considering that they developed a unibody chassis [for their portable line] for rigidity. I already know of three people with cracked/ shattered mobile displays.
There are more items for each, though I'll stop here for now.
As I've said, YMMV. These are my opinions, and please do your own research. You likely have other items in each column.
I'll conclude by answering some of the other comments from "Gemmtech":
"Having assembled video editing stations and graphics workstations since the late nineties, I almost exclusively use Apple as the core of the workstation. Make of that what you will, though I tend towards being atheist towards the clients' use of operating system [and accompanying choices]."
Explain? Obviously Apple isn't in the workstation business, so what do you use to construct an Apple workstation? Is that legal?
- i use Mac Pros. Many video workstations have dedicated video cards for video compression/decompression, or Fibre Channel cards, or other hardware that is not standard issue from computer manufacturers. Until recently, true broadcast quality in real time [on a computer] required a dedicated video card, akin to the [now old, at the time supercool] Targa 2000 Pro or Blackmagic Design HDLink [for SDI] in mission critical setups. In this case, the mission is to edit a daily show like a news show or edit a graphics heavy 30 minute video. The station fails, no show, no money [or a loss of a client]. Workstations usually cost about $20,000 turnkey
From wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workstation"Historically, workstations had offered higher performance than personal computers, especially with respect to CPU and graphics, memory capacity and multitasking capability."
- I don't know why you would think it is not legal.
I have been using Crucial the longest and can't remember ever replacing a bad stick. I use Seagate Cheetah 15K SCSI hard drives, still to this day, I do agree ALL hard drives will fail, but I can honestly say I have never had a SCSI hard drive fail.
- Yes,
we agree about Crucial and Seagate [SCSI]. I have had Seagate [SCSI] drives fail, but they let you know they're failing, usually by making strange, unusual noise [for a Seagate drive]. That has, to date, always given me time to get to the clients' machine and run one last full backup.
And go to Apple's website spec out a similar machine and watch your eyes pop out! Well, actually you can't spec a similar machine because Apple doesn't offer SCSI or high end video cards.
- That's what assembling a workstation involves, among other things. That's my job: build a reliable, rock solid, highly automated, fast [for a while] graphics station.
"Personalities? Please tell me about Steve Ballmer, William 'Bill' Gates vs. Gary Kildall [of CP/M fame]
- QD-DOS"
Relevance? All three good thinkers with Bill Gates the better businessman than Gary Kildall and also luckier. Should we now discuss John D. Rockefeller?
- Quaint. Microsoft 'copied' [many say 'stole'] CP/M to sell to IBM. Find out what QD-DOS stands for.
- Relevance: Steve Jobs does what he does, the same way Michael Dell does what he does. Demonizing Mr. Jobs does not make sense, either.
I'll re-iterate: choose what
you want.
Be aware of the trade-offs made in the design and assembly of what you will buy, as it pertains to daily use, be it heavy or light.
Buy what you need, then buy want you want: pick a machine that does what it
needs, and if budget allows get other stuff with it.
For now,
Regards,
Pascal