I had no problem with you criticizing Apple. I just didn't think it made sense to defend Bill Gates. He is successfully doing what the American auto industry tried to do in the early '70s ... market products with buit-in obsolescence.

OOOOOO! You want to talk about the CP/M to MS-DOS thievery? How about the Lotus mugging of VisiCalc? They stole so much the only way to defend themselves was to buy the company they stole from! Early computer software development was definitely the Wild West, with money talking and justice walking.

Even so, granting too broad a patent or copyright stifles progress unnecessarily when a company like Apple uses it to bludgeon others without any merit on their side. They took advantage of our legal system not understanding the whole computer world in the case of Apple vs DRI on the GEM suit. Actually they knew that DRI couldn't pony up the cash to defend themselves and would just knuckle under.

It's amazing that DRI didn't use the same tactics against Bill Gates' MSDOS. Maybe IBM, which decided to use MSDOS, was ready to pony up for the defense and DRI knew they were overmatched. Either way, there is DRI on the losing end of the GEM episode and again losing on the CP/M to MSDOS mugging. They were never a force to be reckoned with again, trying only once more when they pushed DR-DOS out, trying to one-up MSDOS. Didn't work. They couldn't distract enough people.

I'm not totally happy with Microsoft, but at least they are a software company, selling software to anyone with a computer. They aren't necessarily the best. For instance, Aldus Persuasion was a better piece of presentation software in 1991 than Powerpoint is now, with the ability (for instance) to customize text far beyond the anemic abilities of the "standard" of today.

But Microsoft has always been about "good enough" not being the best. And they have been about letting the user decide how the product will be used, not making arbitrary decisions like "games are not going to be played on Microsloth systems." Instead of exclusively supporting their own codecs and telling you to pound sand if you want to use Apple codecs, Microsoft lets you support anything you want. Try Safari in the iPhone and just attempt to play a wmf file. Teee heeee!

Granted, the best of all worlds is represented by the open source Linux world, but some things really are done best by evil corporations. For instance, they alone have demonstrated the cajones and staying power to publish a great submarine simulation. We haven't and I predict we won't see an open source submarine simulation in the same league because voluntary organizations can't maintain the focus and cohesion for the necessary amount of time to produce such a work.

However, comparing Firefox to Internet Explorer any version is like comparing a Ferrari to a 1960's Volkswagon Beetle. I would feel absolutely crippled left with IE as my only browser. So perhaps there are legs in the open source world after all. I think they would be helped by getting over their moral disgust of the commercial world and getting game companies to produce Linux versions. I'd LOVE to play Silent Hunter 4 on my Linux installation! It would be much smoother and more responsive than Windows.

I haven't seen that in a submarine sim, either. But there are a number of Sci-Fi projects of that nature still in the works. And at least one of them has the possibility of getting completed. And, if it does get completed, it will probably outshine anything done by commercial programmers.

:up: And I agree with the sentiments in your last paragraph wholeheartedly.

I just came across this ... funny how people talk about Mac and windows OS being non pc and pc ... they are both pc's. Personal Computer is what that stands for and you can run OSX on any machine you build from scratch. It is not hardware specific.

OT, but to push even farther OT, how do you propose to designate a "non-Apple" PC? Used to be able to use the term WINTEL (never mind that WINTEL has another, unrelated meaning :)). But now that there are plenty of machines built around non-Intel CPUs, WINTEL isn't such a good fit. And, since Apple has about 15% of the personal computer market, "non-Apple" is a little like calling a hamburger a "non-soyburger."

Fact is, there was originally a product called the "IBM PC" and the "PC" name just stuck, like kleenex, bandaid, sharpie, bendix, and many other product names that became common names. While it may not be technically precise, when I ask someone if they have "a PC or a Mac", the vast majority know exactly what I have asked. Common usage tends to prevail.

The "unique" hardware (PPC) was not as high-performance as Apples's marketing had sermonized for years. In fact a core duo Mac mini easily outperformed a dual PPC G5 workstation benchmark-wise and in everyday use.

Apple tries to enforce rules that suit them. In your country Apple's EULA applies to you as an end user, in my country it doesn't. In your country Apple in principle can take owners and makers of "Hackintoshs" to court and win, in my country they would never litigate because they cannot win. Don't blame Apple for trying to be as profitable as they are.

That is why I started building my own custom "Macs" a few years ago: Scalability, ease of maintenance, cost/efficiency ratio. In Europe there are companies selling PCs with Mac OS X preinstalled.

This is odd: The first Apple vs. PC dispute I have come across in months and it is taking place on Subsim and triggered by someone playing SH in a VM :haha:

Silent Hunter: Windows
Servers: Linux / Unix
Anything else: OS X

Well the thing is that Apple abandoned its own microprocessor and its own computer architecture in favor of that called "PC." Whether PC is a good name for it or Standard Industry Architecture or something else, a Mac and a PC are now essentially the same machine. They use the same processor, same memory, same motherboard architecture, same peripherals.

Most Mac users have abandoned the one button mouse in favor of multi-button mice as in the PC world and in fact now they can use the same mice without regard for the supposed difference in machines.

Apple seems to be focused on differentiating themselves by a bewildering array of connectors which are good for nothing but Apple products. When the connector for the iPad was copied, along with just about every other aspect of the machine, by Le Pan and a few others, then companies started making chargers with connectors to make them compatible not only with iPads, but other devices and cell phones, Apple said, "That's enough!"

Now there is a freakazoid connector for the new iPad that isn't good for anything but the iPad and they are prohibiting the world from building anything with a compatible plug. But Apple is cool and when they play Al Capone we all sigh and in unison intone "Ain't that SO cute!"

I not only will blame Apple for their tactics in making their company as profitable as it is but will never pay them a penny for any of their products, no matter how cool or cute. Behind that cool cuteness lies a company with the mind of a thug.

I contend that the game companies should publish their games only for Linux. After all, the gamer with a free operating system and free software has lots of extra money to buy games with that PC and Mac customers do not. Ubuntu and some other Linux distributions are ready for prime time. Steam is already there. I played Counterstrike Source in Ubuntu with Steam and the only difference I noticed from the PC version is that I had more FPS. Watch out Microsoft! Those footsteps you hear are real.

Pardon my butting in, but anytime I see Mac mentioned here I tune in.
"This is odd: The first Apple vs. PC dispute I have come across in months and it is taking place on Subsim and triggered by someone playing SH in a VM "

I've been playing Sh4 on my MacPro using Osx 10.7.n for over a year. Game runs better to my eye, but alas, I still get an occasional CTD. I run with Wineskin using a wrapper. Works as well, maybe even better than under Bootcamp, or the VM. I use the "4 gig patch", so I get SH4 to use 3 gig of ram. Try it, you'll like it.

Byee.