Apple computers - the Marmite of the technology world.

[NeMo]

Unfortunately Apple seem to be going full-on consumer gadget company and the latest round of Macbooks don't appeal at all (stupid touch bar in place of ESC/function keys, insipid hardware specs, forced donglisation of useful things like SD card slots), and Linux has come a long way so will probably consider something else once the current one is finally past it.

I couldn't agree more. I'm writing this on a Late 2011 MacBook Pro, and while the current model is a bit faster, it lacks things, like a CD/DVD drive, USB 2 slots, and especially the magnetic power cable that I can't quite live without -- and fail to see the logic of removing!

I'm not convinced Apple still view the Mac operating system as the "crown jewel" it once was, and over the last couple of years their hardware has been innovative in some ways, but lacklustre in others. I'm hoping the next generation Mac Pro will indicate a return to form, but I'm not holding my breath. On the other hand, I have to use Windows at work, and Microsoft hasn't convinced me to jump ship yet!!!

Cheers, NeMo

[NeMo]

You can run Mac OS on a PC and vice Versa and Lynix on either as long as the I/O is configured correctly.

Installing Windows on a Mac is trivially easy via either Apple's own Bootcamp or a third-party virtualiser like Parallels; doing the same thing on a generic PC is not easy -- and more to the point, is completely illegal.

Microsoft sell their operating system to be installed on whatever you want; Apple sell Mac OS X expressly for their hardware. We can argue the merits of this as fellow geeks, but at the same time we should be up-front about the legality of it.

Cheers, NeMo

[railsquid]

But that overlooks the fact it's a genuine UNIX machine capable of running UNIX software and operating systems without too much bother.

So how does that differ from a PC? PCs can all run Linux, which is UNIX-based. Just curious...

Ok a bit of history.

The first Unix V PC compliant versions ran on Motorola 68000 family processors which by coincidence was the processor of choice for the first Mac computers.  This is where the Lynix Mac association came from but is now somewhat out of date.  I know this because I worked on the first port of Unix on a PC (1981).

Most modern Mac computers are almost identical in design and structure to PCs not least because they all now use Intel processors.

You can run Mac OS on a PC and vice Versa and Lynix on either as long as the I/O is configured correctly.

The prime difference remains the ethos of the different OS versions.

In 1983 the VP Marketing for Apple explained it as follows.

PCs are built by engineers to be used by engineers. Mac computers are designed for lay people who need to do clever things but don't want to know how it is done.  He then turned to his VP of engineering and in a quiet aside said "most people are going to be too stupid to own a PC so they are going to buy a Mac".

And there you have the Apple marketing strategy neatly summarised.

NB note the date he said it and look what has happened.

You are aware that it's not 1983 any more and OS X is a fully certified UNIX? Though as stated above, unfortunately it looks like history is repeating itself and Apple is dumbing itself down.

You can run Mac OS on a PC and vice Versa and Lynix on either as long as the I/O is configured correctly.

What on earth does "as long as the I/O is configured correctly" mean, and what is "Lynix"?

[Snowwolflair]

In 1983 the VP Marketing for Apple explained it as follows.

PCs are built by engineers to be used by engineers. Mac computers are designed for lay people who need to do clever things but don't want to know how it is done.  He then turned to his VP of engineering and in a quiet aside said "most people are going to be too stupid to own a PC so they are going to buy a Mac".

And there you have the Apple marketing strategy neatly summarised.

And Apple's marketing strategy was so successful that Microsoft bailed them out in 1997

Yes the statement was a red rag to Microsoft and they went out of their way to try and kill off Mac OS.  Having said that it was only windows 7 and Windows 10 (forget Windows 8 ) that have started to offer the generic usability offered by Mac OS.

As for legality of cross platform OS installs, its a complete minefield, not least as there are shareware "Mac OS" synthetic OS variants around for PC, which are not tied to an Apple licence and as yet Apple has not tried to legally block them - yet.  But we are really in Geek territory here.

[Snowwolflair]

What on earth does "as long as the I/O is configured correctly" mean, and what is "Lynix"?

Bad spelling 

I/O is how the software talks to the hardware (Input/Output), which is physically different in PCs and Mac computers.

[NeMo]

As for legality of cross platform OS installs, its a complete minefield

No, it's really not a minefield in the sense of being a grey area open to interpretation. If you try to install a copy of OS X you bought from Apple or its nominated resellers (the only legal sources) then you have broken the license. End of story.

There is no minefield at all with install Windows on a Mac. Microsoft will be more than happy to sell you a copy!

And Apple's marketing strategy was so successful that Microsoft bailed them out in 1997

Not quite. Time for some history, boys and girls. Mid 90s Apple was certainly in a bad place. Losing market share. While contemporary versions of the Mac OS were miles better than MS-DOS, and arguably still much better than Windows 3.1, the gap between the Mac OS and Windows 95 wasn't nearly so obvious to the casual user. (Arguably, there wasn't a massive gap at all, but let's leave that for now.)

But while Microsoft certainly looked in a very strong position, it was actually a victim of its own success, and Microsoft needed to not look like a monopoly. More critically, an ongoing lawsuit between the two companies was causing both of them serious grief, and it wasn't obvious Microsoft would win. The investment by Microsoft in Apple was in some ways a personal deal between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who if they didn't exactly like each other certainly understood one another and had a long history together. Anyway, the deal wasn't so much saving Apple but more "putting the past behind them" via mutual agreements on technology (putting the legal issues to rest) while simultaneously allowing Microsoft to argue, correctly, it wasn't a monopoly and therefore not subject to anti-trust laws.

Far more important, in some ways, than the shares bought in Apple (a mere $150 millions' worth) was the promise by Microsoft to continue with a Mac version of Office. This allowed companies and schools to keep buying Apple computers with the knowledge they'd still be viable for the next few years.

Microsoft did sell their shares eventually, getting a nice profit out of it, but Steve Ballmer was never a fan. He felt they should have let Apple die.

Cheers, NeMo

[Snowwolflair]

As for legality of cross platform OS installs, its a complete minefield

No, it's really not a minefield in the sense of being a grey area open to interpretation. If you try to install a copy of OS X you bought from Apple or its nominated resellers (the only legal sources) then you have broken the license. End of story.

There is no minefield at all with install Windows on a Mac. Microsoft will be more than happy to sell you a copy!

And Apple's marketing strategy was so successful that Microsoft bailed them out in 1997

Not quite. Time for some history, boys and girls. Mid 90s Apple was certainly in a bad place. Losing market share. While contemporary versions of the Mac OS were miles better than MS-DOS, and arguably still much better than Windows 3.1, the gap between the Mac OS and Windows 95 wasn't nearly so obvious to the casual user. (Arguably, there wasn't a massive gap at all, but let's leave that for now.)

But while Microsoft certainly looked in a very strong position, it was actually a victim of its own success, and Microsoft needed to not look like a monopoly. More critically, an ongoing lawsuit between the two companies was causing both of them serious grief, and it wasn't obvious Microsoft would win. The investment by Microsoft in Apple was in some ways a personal deal between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who if they didn't exactly like each other certainly understood one another and had a long history together. Anyway, the deal wasn't so much saving Apple but more "putting the past behind them" via mutual agreements on technology (putting the legal issues to rest) while simultaneously allowing Microsoft to argue, correctly, it wasn't a monopoly and therefore not subject to anti-trust laws.

Far more important, in some ways, than the shares bought in Apple (a mere $150 millions' worth) was the promise by Microsoft to continue with a Mac version of Office. This allowed companies and schools to keep buying Apple computers with the knowledge they'd still be viable for the next few years.

Microsoft did sell their shares eventually, getting a nice profit out of it, but Steve Ballmer was never a fan. He felt they should have let Apple die.

Cheers, NeMo

Don't disagree, but minefield is Mac OS clones that have not been challenged and could be challenged some day.  A lot of businesses run these clones especially in the US.

[NeMo]

Don't disagree, but minefield is Mac OS clones that have not been challenged and could be challenged some day.  A lot of businesses run these clones especially in the US.

If you're talking about the licensed Mac clones of the mid 90s, such as those from Power Computing, then yes, that's an interesting bit of history right there. If I recall correctly they were limited to 603 and 604 processors, so unlikely to be able to run any version of OS X without serious difficulty (OS X needs at least a G3 processor, and modern versions are Intel processor-specific).

If you're talking about Hackintosh, then they're interesting, but definitely not legal. The courts have more or less consistently agreed with Apple on that one -- in the US, at least.

Apple did, in fact, have its own plans to produce the Mac for Intel processors all the way back to the mid 80s, though the most serious attempt was 'Star Trek' during the early 90s when it wasn't clear that Motorola's family of 680x0 processors was going to keep pace with Intel's x86 family. Came to nothing, of course, but the history of this project is particularly interesting and at the time the stories that emerged from Cupertino and made their way into Macworld were fully indicative of Apple at the time. Plenty of politicking between departments and managers, brilliant ideas, money being lost all over the place, and all sorts of great innovations failing to make it into the real world.

Cheers, NeMo

[Snowwolflair]

Don't disagree, but minefield is Mac OS clones that have not been challenged and could be challenged some day.  A lot of businesses run these clones especially in the US.

If you're talking about the licensed Mac clones of the mid 90s, such as those from Power Computing, then yes, that's an interesting bit of history right there. If I recall correctly they were limited to 603 and 604 processors, so unlikely to be able to run any version of OS X without serious difficulty (OS X needs at least a G3 processor, and modern versions are Intel processor-specific).

If you're talking about Hackintosh, then they're interesting, but definitely not legal. The courts have more or less consistently agreed with Apple on that one -- in the US, at least.

Apple did, in fact, have its own plans to produce the Mac for Intel processors all the way back to the mid 80s, though the most serious attempt was 'Star Trek' during the early 90s when it wasn't clear that Motorola's family of 680x0 processors was going to keep pace with Intel's x86 family. Came to nothing, of course, but the history of this project is particularly interesting and at the time the stories that emerged from Cupertino and made their way into Macworld were fully indicative of Apple at the time. Plenty of politicking between departments and managers, brilliant ideas, money being lost all over the place, and all sorts of great innovations failing to make it into the real world.

Cheers, NeMo

If the rumor mill is to be believed Apple are reconsidering a PC based Mac OS to boost their software sales and to back off their reliance on their own hardware designs which are struggling.  The view in the valley is they are letting some of the clones run unchallenged to gauge the market uptake.  Pert of the reason is that Windows 10 has forced tighter compliance of design by the hardware manufacturers.   The other rumor is that Apple will licence a second source manufacturer soon.

[PostModN66]

How do you switch it off?    I'm not joking...any suggestions?

Cheers Jon 

[NeMo]

How do you switch it off?    I'm not joking...any suggestions?

Cheers Jon 

Shut down, from the Apple menu at far left. You'll find Sleep and Restart there, too.

Generally, avoid shutting down or restarting unless you have to. Each time a computer (of any sort) restarts, there's a jolt of power that goes through the circuitry. Ages components faster than waking them up from Sleep. At least, that's what I've always been told!

Cheers, NeMo

[PostModN66]

Thanks Nemo!

Cheers. Jon 

[Ian Bowden]

All electronics benefit from being left in standby rather than switched off. Failures often occur at start up, however the cost of leaving some domestic equipment on is quite high, sometimes in just the risk of fire from the build up of heat and dust on components.

[mr magnolia]

The thing that drove me nuts when I tried to use a Mac laptop was the absence of a Delete key.

Fn + Backspace.

Next!

AHA!
my life has just changed.

[grumbeast]

Not to fan the flames at all, but I can't believe were still arguing this after all these years!

I've been in IT of one sort of another all my life, for the record, the first Mac I used was a Mac plus in 198wibblewibble and have had one model or another for since (with a brief couple of years with a PC due to work commitments).  I've used all sorts of PCs and Unix machines over the years and I can safely say

I just don't care anymore!   I just want something that works easily and I think OSX still has the edge over windows (I use a PC in work.. so I can compare them)

I do think apple have dumbed things down too much in the last couple of years with OSX, and I haven't actually turned my iMac on for a couple of months (do most of my internet stuff on my iPad)

What I really get hacked off with though is people who claim the Mac is good for Artsy stuff but anything serious or engineery needs a PC / Unix box (implying anything serious cant be done on a mac).  I have 5 years of doctoral research in Artificial Intelligence exclusively using a Mac which would give lie to that claim grrrrrrrrrr

Anyhow, these days I'd rather do something a little more analog