Where to buy a laptop?

[d_rawk]

1. you hate macs cause they are different

2. you switch to a mac and are uncomfortable for like a week

3. you start to get weird feelings of "aha" all the time on the mac

4. you realize ... damn... osx is about the best OS ever.

5. you use a pc again and it seals the deal forever.

Back on a PC again as I've fucked up my power adapter. As much as I know the above will piss Ollie off .. what are you gonna do.

[SaggyBalls]

If you're planning on using it for music, you may want to keep in mind that some products (Apogee Duet and One for instance (which are great products)) are only mac compatible.

[ollie]

Back on a PC again as I've fucked up my power adapter. As much as I know the above will piss Ollie off .. what are you gonna do.

Sounds like Mac's aren't as reliable as they claim!

My advice for you is to be more *adapt*-able.

[bouche]

the only problem I've had with my iMac was it got stolen, but when I replaced it and the time machine backup brought my machine back, I was amazed.

[d_rawk]

Sounds like Mac's aren't as reliable as they claim!

My advice for you is to be more *adapt*-able.

Nah, I'm just really hard on the poor thing. The fact that the system itself has survived what I've made it endure without any complaints is actually a testament to its durability. But the power cables could certainly stand for some extra re-inforcement.

[ollie]

It amazes me the lengths that Apple fans will go to in order to defend their products.

"It's not Apple, it's me!"

You're not just buying a computer, you're joining a cult!

[ollie]

the only problem I've had with my iMac was it got stolen, but when I replaced it and the time machine backup brought my machine back, I was amazed.

This will amaze you even more then!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backups

[d_rawk]

It amazes me the lengths that Apple fans will go to in order to defend their products.

"It's not Apple, it's me!"

You're not just buying a computer, you're joining a cult!

Haha, I hear ya .. I'm really trying to be measured and not reduce myself to fan-boyism, but in this case I have to say: it's not Apple, it's me. I have a pretty severe movement disorder and I've broken many a laptop - other than the power adapter, the macbook pro has weathered everything without protest and has survived the same conditions that killed other machines. However, I will say that people that I work with have also had complaints about that particular cable and needing to replace it too often (and I suspect they are far gentler with their machines than I) so yeah, Apple could most certainly do better in that department particularly given the costs of replacement.

[SaggyBalls]

I used to have a mac and I am still impressed, even after a couple of years using PC.

there are several differences that make either look better from different perspectives.

If you know how to partition your hard drive and manage your page file (so i've been told) then PC can outperform a mac (so I've been told) but pound for pound out of the box, MAC is just a tighter unit.

One thing that makes a big difference is that Macs break down data into smaller packets, keeping them more manageable, and they tidy themselves up much better. They defragment themselves.

I like them but would consider a great PC as well.

If you don't like them because the key commands use different modifyer keys or because you don't really think for mac (control click rather than right click, you're a mouse user rather than a key command kind of guy, you're set in the start menu operation mindset, or don't like the info bar on macs...or just because) then it's either gonna be only use a mac and retrain or go PC.

If you can get past the tech cult argument and don't mind a streamlined product line, and can get past how 'clever' apple is about their products (that can get tiresome to many) then it's pretty clear that they've got typical PCs beat.

If you PREFER PCs for only good reasons and are computer savvy (or can get some help from pc geeks) then Mac can't hold a candle to your upcoming kickass PC notebook.

But if there's a chance you're going to want to buy an apogee duet or one (or other audio interface by apogee) then bite the bullet and get a mac.

[d_rawk]

Good post, and balanced.

Anyone else here geeky enough and just quite old enough to recall the Amiga vs. PC wars?

Shit -- is there such a thing as an Amiga laptop? That would really eff with Velvet's head.

[bouche]

I remember when Amiga came out, but I don't ever recall a war. C=64 was easily accessible for highschoolers with Burger King jobs, and the Amiga was just a dream. PC was unreachable in terms of price.

We had a great little network of warez trading going on in highschool for the C=64. I don't remember anyone with an Amiga, but I got to use one at a computer club (yep, joined a C=64 users group in kingston that met monthly).

The only people with an IBM PC in the mid to late eighties were kids who's fathers worked for a university as a professor or were a doctor.

[d_rawk]

I never had a C-64, but did have an Apple ][e - for a long time the only person I had ever met who had a computer in their house was my engineer uncle. I used to hack away on his Apple ][ all the time and eventually we ended up with one in our house, too. (I remember the first time I saw a Macintosh - the old black and white one that nobody ever purchased any software for - and being so surprised that the same company could go in such a different direction). I learned BASIC on that machine as it was much like a C-64 in that the terminal environment had a BASIC interpreter out of the box. I used to read books on pascal and assembly like they were novels, but never actually got an environment to code either until much later on the PC side.

When I managed to score for an IBM PS/2 (a shit machine by any measure, but amazing to me now that one could run a BBS complete with filesharing off a machine with a 30 meg harddrive and less than a megabyte of memory) is about the time that I recall there being a very devout, though small, band of Amiga devotees who were almost rabid in their defense of the superiority of the thing. Probably like what us mac-geeks look and sound like to Ollie, really.

Never touched one. Not even sure that I was ever in the same room as one. I do remember a lot of movements to revive Amiga OS in later years and have to admit that it looks like it would kick Window's ass if it had been pursued. I'm gonna guess that we are at about the Windows 3.1 or just prior era here .. maybe prior, because I was definately in DOS and pretty much lived in Telix at the time.

The only people with an IBM PC in the mid to late eighties were kids who's fathers worked for a university as a professor or were a doctor.

True that. I recall the first time I saw one. "Wow, it's an IBM!"

Jesus we're old! Fun to geek out though. Maybe we need a computer nostalgia thread.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

Edited February 18, 2010 by Guest

[d_rawk]

Yep, but I'm pretty.

[ollie]

I never had a C-64, but did have an Apple 2e

Do you remember the game Taxman? It's a Pac-man clone. My friend had an Apple 2e and I loved this game. I was devastated to find out that there wasn't a wildly popular OS-X port I could play on the Mac. I've searched high and low.

And dude, I ran a BBS off my C-64 on a 300 bit modem!

Geek pissing contest ensues.

[d_rawk]

And dude, I ran a BBS off my C-64 on a 300 bit modem! Geek pissing contest ensues

You meant baud, not bit. Let the piss fall where it may.

(And yeah, I actually totally do remember taxman .. and another pacman clone that involved fish, but I can't think of the name of it)

[ollie]

And dude, I ran a BBS off my C-64 on a 300 bit modem! Geek pissing contest ensues

You meant baud, not bit. Let the piss fall where it may.

Pwned.

[Freak By Night]

Pffft. I had a PDP-11.

[bradm]

My high school had a DEC LSI-11.* Two 10-megabyte removable hard drives (which had a drawer thing that you had to pull out before you physically installed the hard disk platter, which had its own case and handle), a DECwriter III teleprinter, and a bunch of VT-100 (clones?) terminals. 258kb (yes, kilobytes) of memory, and eight users editing, compiling, and running WATFOR-11 programs (including a couple of years spent writing WATFOR-11 programs on mark-sense cards).

Aloha,

Brad

* My brother was three years ahead of me. He took a computer course, which involved the students writing programs on mark-sense cards, and having the teacher, at the end of the day, driving over to the other school that actually had a computer to try to run them, bringing whatever printouts (including errors) were produced back to my brother's class the next day.

[bouche]

And dude' date=' I ran a BBS off my C-64 on a 300 bit modem! Geek pissing contest ensues[/quote']

You meant baud, not bit. Let the piss fall where it may.

Pwned.

I too ran a BBS out of kingston on a 300 baud modem. I also was known as Dr. Winston O'Boogie and I was arranging beatles tunes using the 3 voices of the C=64 on SID editor. I wish I could hear those now. I arranged If I Fell, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, and that's all I remember.

Before all this, I had a TI-99 4/A computer on which I learned Basic.

[peipunk]

I too was a part of the C-64 revolution. I remember upgrading to a 450 baud modem and thinking I was the absolute shit.

I recently downloaded a C-64 emulator and a massive file of thousands of games, I actually spent quite a few hours playing one of my old favorites, basically a text D&D style dungeon crawler called Oubliette:

When I first played this game, a friend of mine in Grade 8 had bought the datasette version that took 45 minutes to load!

[Ms.Huxtable]

Is this helping you out Velvet?

[bouche]

Velvet, here's where you can get what everyone's talking about.

[ollie]

That's a great deal. I don't think I've ever seen that bad-ass little side keyboard. Nice trim on the printer and disk drive.

[bouche]

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