There are two things that grate on me about Apple -- price (way too high, even for premium equipment, which it is) and their attitude.

Remember, this is the company that pissed away business customers because they refused to put a parallel printer port on their boxes, for reasons of "we know what's best for you". They also refused to provide standard networking software for years -- "ours is better" . Yeah, sure, but it ain't what everyone needed, and it's not like Apple computer invented networking or anything. All the protocols preceded the applications.

I love the systems in general, but the "proprietory" attitude makes me nuts. Ditto for proprietary firmware in drives, etc. Most of that is gone now -- by force, not choice, as Apple nearly died before they figured out no one was going to pay three times as much for the same drive PC users could get at Best Buy and just plug in.

I've had this discussion with a consultant at Apple (position uknown, probably managment), who told me I must be a "commodity computer user". I suppose all the other people who used to have a Mac and swapped to PCs must be as well, eh?

Goes a long way towards explaining the loss of market share Apple has suffered over the last ten years. Way out there equipment, but don't expect them to respond to YOUR needs, they know best, especially when they don't know what you are talking about.

Jobs and Wozniak started their business selling illegal cable descramblers, if this is a hint. Lots of ego to go with the smarts, but neither one has any formal compter theory training. Neither does Bill Gates -- he dropped out. Today, for what he did, he'd probably go to jail instead of leaving school (he hacked into the campus mainframe and gave himself lots of time, which he used to develop a commerical application to simulate an Intel 8080 processor, then filed a patent and copyright). It shows in the OS, sadly.

The Mac shell for Unix is great, I hear. XP is OK -- I've never crashed mine at work, anyway, but GE uses Windows 2000 for nearly everything. I've only had virus trouble (the usual ones), no crashes. No viruses on the Mac so far.

If you can afford a new Mac, you are getting premium equipment. All of mine still run, including the IIfx (40 MhZ, 24 mgs ram in 1991, $10,000 when new, no monitor -- I got it used), so they will be with you as long as you want to run them. Software is great, if not mainstream, performance is equivalent, although IBM and Motorola are lagging on processor speed due to low sales, etc., a good deal if you don't have to worry too much about price.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!