ratboy666's Journal: Consistent Flamebait Mod

Every time I mention that Apple has always produced sub-standard hardware, I get moderated "flamebait". Every frickin time.

The truth of the assertion isn't called into question -- but still some feel the urge to comment on how these design points are POSITIVE in some way.

I need to rant now.

My first exposure to Apple hardware was the Apple ][, and we released commercial software/hardware in 1978 based on that platform. For post-production of Sesame Street. The cheapness of the hardware allowed an interesting trick; recording a time sync signal onto a video tape using the cassette i/o sub-system. The hardware WAS cheap; early floppies required careful speed matching (we had very early units - within the first 100 produced).

It worked, but it wasn't anything great. Cheap computing for the masses.

Later, after Apple had produced the Mac for a few years (1988 - 1989), we thought that we could sell scanning as a service for insurance companies. Scan the contents of warehouses full of old life insurance policies (especially whole-life) to laser disc. OCR and annotate the policies for easy searching. Our first client INSISTED on Macintosh computers "because everyone knows they are better". At the time, we were using PC Unlimited systems (now Dell), and $100 ethernet adapters, in a Novel network. It worked. Discussing our needs with Apple -- the "Apple expert" insisted that serial networking (appletalk?) would be sufficient for our needs. I purchased a bunch of Macs, scanners, and magneto-optical drives (for mastering).

The results?

1 - Viruses. From commercial software programs.
2 - The need to rebuild the desktop every week or so.
3 - Lack of shielding in SCSI cables results in data loss.
4 - Lack of power supply shielding results in data loss.
5 - Appletalk is NOT sufficient.

On the whole a MISERABLE experience. Upgraded the equipment to ethernet, at a cost of close to $1000 per machine. (standard "ISA" interfaces don't work).

Of course there are no "interrupt" or "dma" issues -- the machine doesn't use fancy hardware like that anyway. Overpriced crap.

Gave me a negative view of Apple that persists to this day. The hardware STILL overheats, and is, in general, overpriced and substandard.

But, everytime I mention it in a comment, I get some frickin Mac fanboy modding me down.

Flamebait my ass.

End of Rant.

PS. I am certainly not a "fanboy" for the Intel camp either. Indeed, I prefer Sparc, PowerPC and MIPS over Intel IA.

But my pizza box Sparc can be used as a hammer to destroy most Macs (and other) PCs and will still boot and run happily after the experience. Really. I have just had the WORST experience with Macs. I imagine that there have been PC brands with equally bad engineering out there. But they are long gone (say, Sanyo MBC550?). Why does Apple survive?