The Mac vs. Windows War is Over. And the Winner is...

....everyone. Apple will officially support booting Windows XP on Mactel
hardware. That's not emulation; it's native on Intel hardware. Please
see http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/. Apple had originally said
that it would "do nothing to prevent" customers from running Windows on
their Mactels, but that it wouldn't actively support that, either.
I don't think anyone believed that.

This is not the full monty, in my opinion; that will come (sooner, not
later, I suspect) when Mac hardware can run Windows /simultaneously/
with Mac OS X (BSD Unix,) as Macs already run Unix software
simultaneously with Mac OS X software. Yes, the Mac has been able to
run Windows in this fashion for years, but only by emulating a Pentium
processor. That's fine for astronomy and other software that is not
resource-hungry, but it's not suitable for most games, 3D rendering, or
other heavy-duty applications, e.g. This emulation capability ("Virtual
PC") was an attraction for Mac users, including many amateur
astronomers, but it is unlikely to have attracted many Windows users
who would have liked to switch to the Mac OS.

The winner hardware-wise /should/ be Apple. With the exception of a
certain area of Colorado, increasing numbers of Windows users, both
private and in business, have been buying Macs. They're called
"Switchers," but it isn't really known whether they are giving up their
Windows machines or just expanding their capabilities. With the Mac
becoming the only computer that can run Mac, Unix, and Windows software
/natively/ no one has to give up anything, and the task of choosing
which hardware to buy is likely to be a no-brainer in a much wider
variety of disciplines.

Unfortunately, the Windows side of a Mactel will still require the full
range of security software (except in a certain area of Colorado); only
the Mac side will remain impenetrable (except in a certain area of
Colorado.) It has been common practice for those running Windows under
emulation on a Mac to use only the Mac OS side for the Internet.
Windows software downloads are done on the Mac side where there is no
potential for harm, checked for viruses and other malware, then moved
to the Windows side and installed.

Davoud

****

While this is not a statistically meaningful sample, I was interested
to hear this morning from a friend who works in one of the
Baltimore-Washington-area Apple stores that they were swamped with
customers waiting to get in at opening time. Employees were at first
puzzled -- they had not heard about "bootcamp" at the time, but the
customers had, and were snapping up Mactels "like crazy." Windows-users
all, they were. Two had brought Windows laptops with them, hoping for
trade-ins!

Attn: all persons who have quaint old eyepieces with glass at both ends
and no wires hanging from them, and no wires hanging from their
'scopes, either, for that matter: kindly accept my apology for wasting
your time with this post.

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com