chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

I am a PC user. I have owned a few MACs but did not find them intuitive. I have dealt with a lot of MAC users and generally I have found them to be NOT technical people (I know there are exceptions here before you start). The MAC users frequently start off with PCs but find they can't hack it and change. It is a mind set thing. A MAC user is the type of person that does not understand the difference between an alkaline or heavy duty AA battery. Very difficult to deal with if discussing technical things. It is what it is.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Absolutely. I just want it to work. I want it to do what I want it to do. I never wanted to have to learn command line codes or ask “how do I do ___?”

Yes, they cost more. But we’re willing to pay for the convenience and ease of use.

jlg1000 Loc: Uruguay / South America

Also, that comment shows that you know very little about computers.

Most of those 1000 computers are SBC based.

SBC's are designed to run 24/7 on harsh environments and last almost forever. Remember that next time that you ride on a train or use an ATM.

I've just checked the network, and many of the first batch built in 2005 are still running. Rugged little boxes, ha!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I'm lucky I dealt with my first computer in 1973 when I took a statistics course in college. I hated it (NCR Century 100… punch card input of Fortran 77 code, line printer output, no terminals). Fast forward to 1983 and the Apple IIe, then a PC in '84, a Mac in '85, and a slew of Macs and PCs from '86 to 2012 at work. Meanwhile we had PCs and Macs at home, and still do.

I built radios in my youth. So I built a PC about 20 years ago to use as a FileMaker Pro database server. It went together like Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys or an Erector Set. It was a fine PC, but it ran Windows. I didn't consider a Hackintosh.

I use Macs for the same reason I choose other tools... they don't get in my way of doing what it is I want or need to do. Windows (and DOS before it) always seemed to get in my way. I understand technology quite well. But unless my goal is dealing specifically with technology, I want it to fade into my subconscious as I use the tool.

hpucker99 Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

I have found that my iMacs far outlast any PC I had in the past. Right now, I am typing on a 2013 27" iMac that is still working. Two years ago, I gave my 2009 27" iMac away so the grandkids could watch children's programing.
Any 9 year old PC is now used as a doorstop if it hasn't been scrapped.

I don't know what walled garden you are referring to, please expand.

hpucker99 Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Why would you want to?

jlg1000 Loc: Uruguay / South America

...for money

leftj Loc: Texas

So you forget your password and you blame Apple for that. Priceless!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

PC users refer to Apple being a "walled garden" because of the curated App Store vetting all the software sold on it. iOS and iPadOS are truly walled gardens, because unless you "jailbreak" the operating system, you can't circumvent it (easily).

The Mac itself is as open as you want it to be, especially if you are a UNIX user and a coder. Macs are based on BSD UNIX. The Terminal application in the Mac Utilities folder gives you a command line to UNIX. Intel Macs can run almost anything natively (Unix, Linux, MacOS, Windows) if you set them up properly. Apple Silicon runs ARM software, so it will be a little while before native versions of other systems run on it. Win 11 for ARM runs under Parallels Desktop now, however. Software selection is a bit limited.

dhspeck

Nice capture, anyway.

twb930s Loc: Aldie, Virginia

I remember taking those classes in college and using some type of mainframe to run our Fortran programs. I had fun with it and enjoyed programming until I dropped my tray of cards. After that, personal computers and on-screen programming made sense.

jlf1938 Loc: Acworth, GA

That is not true. I went to Apple and could not wait to get back to my Windows PC. Apple sucks, in my opinion. You can have it.

therwol Loc: USA

I don't know when it started, but when I was in college in the early 70s, people were already using computers without cards, typing their programs directly into terminals. The computer could be used by many people in many locations through "timesharing". I had a genius friend who used to type his papers into one of those terminals as "programs". He'd save them and edit them but not run them because they were not really programs. Then he'd print out the final "program" to turn in as a paper. If he had been a real genius.......

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I started with computers sometime around 1959. IBM 650 mainframe running SOAP (Symbolic Optimized Assembly Program). The only thing available to me was card input at the time. Eventually got to Fortran, then Fortran IV (all card input). Got a Xerox minicomputer to run some instruments in the lab. Assembly language programming allowed me to control the equipment, take data, do some pre-processing, and store it on tape. In 4K of memory.

Then we got an Apple ][ in the lab and it did the minicomputer thing with the lab instruments. Back then you could access the motherboard and buy (or even build) cards for I/O to specialized things. When the Mac came out that wasn't possible so I became a PC guy. Stayed there for 40 years. Got a wife who was into Mac, but just for internet stuff. She didn't do any programming or computation.

While I was a PC guy, I wanted to write some apps for my phone (Android at the time). Phones are not real computers in the sense that you can readily program them, you have to install programs so you have to write the program and import it. Never got into the actual programming of the phone, but I was able to write php code that would run programs through the internet. The nice thing about that was that it would work on my Android phone or on my PC or on my field workers' iPhones. And my internet host could store the data for me to analyze later at home.

When I got the new wife, she had an iPhone and I had an Android phone. We tried to communicate through text but sending texts between Android and Apple was really poor. Some texts would go through right away but some took 24 hours or more to come across. When my Android contract was up I got an iPhonhere were a lot of good things about that, but a lot of disadvantages also, since it was sometimes hard to transfer data between my iPhone and my PC, and the Apple screen is not as easily configurable as the Android screen (where to place icons). Had to learn how to deal with the Mac (minimally) to keep my wife running online.

So last Christmas she got me a MacBook M1. Took a couple weeks to get my data in (dealing with differences between Win10 and MacOS transfer operations) and I still haven't completely gotten used to the windows controls (upper left on MacOS, upper right on Windows) but slowly I'm becoming bipolar. I learned to use a trackball instead of a mouse years ago because it didn't take up any real estate on my desk (which was always full of paper). Never got comfortable with a trackpad on the laptop but I could turn it off on the PC. The MacBook pad is right below the keyboard and I have to leave it on for my wife (who can't use my trackball) so every so often my fingers brush the pad and move the cursor somewhere unexpected. Really screws up my typing.
.
These are all muscle memory issues which hopefully will resolve with time (assuming that I have enough time left at 83).

On the whole, the integration of MacOS and iOS is helpful. The isolation of MacOS software is not helpful to me. Communication between PC and Mac sucks, so there's a lot of sneakernet (with adapters to convert all my USB-A stuff to Thunderbolt connectors). The speed of the Apple silicon is VERY enjoyable. Limited tests show a factor of about 3 advantage to Mac in running some Python programs. LR/PS load quickly on the Mac and sometimes take a minute on the PC (they ARE 2015 machines with a lot of stuff on them). So all my photo work is on the MacBook. The Python programs work differently on the two platforms, so some things are still done on the PC. The battery life is GREAT on the Apple silicon M1. Maybe 8-12 hours compared to 2 on the PC.

leftj Loc: Texas

That’s pretty funny. There’s always one of those. So want us to believe you bought a Mac and then turned around and bought a windows pc.