Send your e-mail to <editor@atpm.com>. All mail becomes the property of ATPM.

Makin’ the Switch

While I cannot live without PCs (gotta have my Quake II) I am happy to say that my first Macintosh computer, a Mac G3, will be arriving this week. I’m tired of bloated software, memory leaks, and having to reinstall my computer at least once a quarter.

I’ve been using PCs for approximately 9 years and as time has gone on, they’ve improved but are still built on an archaic architecture holding back all of today’s technology potential while the future of Intel chips (codenamed Merced) is based on another poor technology, courtesy of HP. PowerPC has always been a faster and more powerful chip technology. 

As for the operating system, I don’t have to say a thing; you’ve already heard it a million times.

I hope to continue seeing lots of advancement in the Macintosh platform and will be going right along with it!

Christopher Dickens
chris@ntr.net

                                                                  • • •

Unsubscribe atpmdocmaker

I just wanted to let you know that there is nothing your organization did or did not do, that caused me to unsubscribe. This is strictly a decision on my part based on the direction that Apple is taking.

The elimination of the clones, the refusal to cooperate with Be, Inc. over the technical specs for the new G3 motherboards, the killing of the CHRP specification clones, the outright lying re: the ability of the Mac system software to run on a CHRP platform without extensive modification, and overall the spectre of Steve Jobs returning—all of these factored in create a situation where I have lost my desire to be associated with the Apple environment. I am going to be strictly working with Linux, Unix and BeOS systems as much as I possibly can.

Am I happy about this? No. I really do like the Macintosh platform, at least as an alternative to using Windows. I have always found them to be a tightly integrated package, and usually a much more hassle-free platform to work with.

But, to be brutally honest, Apple has allowed itself to fall far behind technologically. Please note, I said Apple, not Motorola or IBM. Those two companies have been doing wonderful things with the various flavors of the PowerPC chip. I truly hope that they continue to develop newer and faster versions for as long as they possibly can, if only to provide Intel with a reason to keep honest. Apple has fallen by the wayside in terms of system costs, bus speed, graphics integration, and any number of other ways compared to the cutthroat competition in the Intel world. Going back into their hothouse of no competition isn’t going to help them out any.

Thanks for reading all of this diatribe—again, I have no problem with your publication; I just need to focus on other things.

Dave MacLachlan
dsm@maine.com

                                                                  • • •

We’d love to hear your thoughts about our publication. We always welcome your comments, criticisms, suggestions, and praise at <editor@atpm.com>. Or, if you have an opinion or announcment about the Macintosh platform in general, that’s ok too.