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[OM] Macs vs PCs; 16-bit apps (was Re: an Albert intervention)

Subject: [OM] Macs vs PCs; 16-bit apps (was Re: an Albert intervention)
From: Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 21:36:51 -0400
At 1:03 PM +0000 9/3/03, olympus-digest wrote:
>Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 23:48:18 -0700
>From: Jan Steinman <Jan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [OM] Re: an Albert intervention
>
> >From: Albert <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> >Another problem is operating systems.  Do you trust M*crosoft to not 
> >screw you over?  They can decide to chuck support for 16 bit apps in 
> >their OS, and render anything and everything you have obsolete..  (if 
> >you still have 16bit apps)  With new 64bit chips out from AMD and Intel, 
> >32bit will become slowly, a thing of the past.  64bit with splits is 
> >great.. and if and when programs decide to go 64bit, they might not 
> >support all the older formats, regardless how popular..
>
>Man, you got the wrong computer!

Agree!  


>The Mac G5 is a 64 bit computer that transparently supports 32 bit apps. It is 
>available TODAY -- not simply "chips are out," waiting for someone to design 
>boxes around them. And from the independent tests I've seen, they pretty much 
>smoke a dual 3 GHz Pentium.
>
>What are 16 bit apps? Apple users have never had to deal with such things -- 
>all Mac programs were always 32 bit.

Yes and no.  While the 68000 family of CPUs had 32-bit addressing from the 
start, the memory busses were 16 bit, so moving a 32-bit word (address or data) 
took two bus cycles.  Many programs used 16-bit data items, to to reduce memory 
demand.  

Another key issue was the rarity of hardware floating point arithmetic in the 
old days.  Software floating point was the alternative, but it was very slow.  
The software developer could not assume that FP hardware was available, and so 
used integer arithmetic only, leading to the programming decision of 16-bit 
versus 32-bit data words.  Very few things really need all 32 bits (parts per 
billion), while 16 bits (parts per 30 thousand) can be a bit coarse, but 16 
bits usually won.

Canvas (the draw program) was originally all 16-bit, but today (Canvas 7) seems 
to be a mix of 32-bit and 16-bit integers.

The arrival of universal hardware floating-point is changing this, as FP is far 
easier on the programmers.

I did have a lot of fun when computer salesmen from major vendors tried to 
convince me that my code would run faster on their brand new 64-bit computers, 
because such computers could "do twice as much work as a 32-bit computer".  I 
replied that the air traffic control code of interest here was originally 
16-bit code, and still was, whatever the word size of the new platforms, so 
those new 64-bit words would only be 1/4 full.


>Yea, I know. The next thing I'm gonna hear is how much more expensive Macs 
>are. What is your peace of mind worth? Unlike Microsoft, who has their market 
>by the short-hairs, Apple takes pretty good care of its users. I've never 
>worried about getting "screwed over" by Apple, as you seem to do about 
>Microsoft. Apple has always had well-engineered migration paths when they made 
>big changes.

Actually, for comparable performance and build quality, the prices are 
comparable.  However, one cannot compare clock frequencies megahertz for 
megahertz.  The Power PC architecture is more efficient than the Pentium 
architecture, so it takes fewer PowerPC megahertz to yield the same Pentium 
performance.  Actually, with modern computers, the memory system speed is more 
important than the CPU speed.  One should compare speed in practical 
benchmarks, and ignore megahertz claims.


>Also, the last time I got a virus on a Mac was 1989! Although I have to put up 
>with RECEIVING them from my Windows friends who thoughtfully put me in their 
>Outlook address book, I don't have to worry about CATCHING the damn things. I 
>came back from Utah to find over 600 copies of the latest virus in my Trash. 
>(MacOS X Mail knows how to put anything with a Windows executable attachment 
>in the Trash. :-)

Yes.  Me too.  Though I don't automatically trash Windows executables, because 
some self-extracting archives come that way.  Use Stuffit to extract them.


>So, not to start a computer war or anything here, but why keep bitching about 
>Windows when you can actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
>
>  <http://www.apple.com/switch>
>
>(Unless, of course, you simply like to bitch, in which case, Windows is a fine 
>choice! :-)
>
>If you don't want to replace your hardware (which will be worthless in 18 
>months anyway, unlike Macs, which IDC says have a useful lifetime of nearly 
>twice as long), why don't you try Linux?
>
>I can never understand why people who buck the Nikon/Canon hegemony for an 
>over-priced, exquisitely designed, 30-year-old camera system don't embrace the 
>Mac.

Changing computer types is far more trouble than changing cameras.

And many applications run only on Windows.  If one such application is 
necessary...

So, I run Windows 2000 at work (it's the Corporate Standard, and comes with an 
IT Department), and Macs at home (where the IT Department is me, I set the 
standard, and my IT word is law).  I would never run Windows at home -- too 
much trouble.  At work, I didn't get a vote.


Joe Gwinn


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