[HN Gopher] The Power Mac 4400
___________________________________________________________________
The Power Mac 4400
Author : speckx
Score : 102 points
Date : 2024-12-16 16:47 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (512pixels.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (512pixels.net)
| twoodfin wrote:
| Of course, 65scribe has a great (if you appreciate his passion
| and shtick) video on the 4400:
|
| https://youtu.be/40VtkZdOAGo
| toddmorey wrote:
| The article doesn't mention them, but the keyboard and mouse felt
| super cheap, too. Light and flimsy and unpleasant.
| JeremyHerrman wrote:
| But they were the same Apple Design Keyboard and ADB Mouse II
| that shipped with all of the other mid 90s macs though right?
| rbanffy wrote:
| It was a noticeable step down from the previous keyboards.
| Certainly not Apple's best.
|
| Incredible as this might sound, I think the best keyboard
| Apple made was the Butterfly. It was fragile and unreliable,
| but it felt great and sounded crisp and precise.
| system7rocks wrote:
| I managed a lab full of these. So painful to work on because of
| all those sharp edges. We upgrade the RAM by hand though, which
| did help. And went from OS 7.6 to 8.6 eventually... which made
| things a bit more stable. Such weird machines.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Only weirder machine I remember was the Mac TV, I knew someone
| with a school equipped with those.
| duskwuff wrote:
| It's almost cheating given that it was a limited-edition
| model, but the TAM [1] was even stranger.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Maci
| ntos...
| hedgehog wrote:
| Oh yes, I forgot all about those. I've never seen one in
| person but it's a very odd one.
| Lammy wrote:
| The 4400 also uses 3.3V EDO DIMMs like some of the clones. Most
| of the other Apple-branded Power Macs of its era used 5V FPM
| DIMMs.
| fredoralive wrote:
| They quite possibly use the same LPX-40 logic board design.
|
| Going by the developers note Apple created for it, the LPX-40
| is somewhat interesting, but the PowerMac 4400 is basically the
| most "boring" and normal Mac like configuration. PS/2 and VGA
| connectors, PC style MFM only manual eject floppy drives,
| support for "hard power" configurations and an AT like PSU
| connection - they were really going for "shove this into a PC
| case, and you've got a Mac". Also, Apple could've fitted a
| PPC604...
| musicale wrote:
| Cheap in more ways than one.
|
| Fast forward to 2020 and Apple introduces the M1 MacBook Air.
| (Though people still complained about the 8GB memory
| configuration.)
|
| Apple seems to have learned their lesson with entry-level
| machines; the basic iPad and Mac mini are quality designs (though
| storage/memory upselling is still a thing - the cheapest iPad is
| probably aimed at classrooms/kiosks/streaming.)
| MBCook wrote:
| I had no idea Apple ever did this. And the idea of a floppy drive
| that doesn't have auto-inject is just sacrilege.
|
| Even after leaving the Mac in the late 90s and building my own
| PCs getting to mess with a Mac was always a nice experience
| because they were so nicely built physically.
| pvg wrote:
| _And the idea of a floppy drive that doesn't have auto-inject
| is just sacrilege._
|
| Auto inject was gone from Macs well before this model so it
| wasn't directly connected to the cheapness of this thing.
| MBCook wrote:
| Oh. That's too bad.
|
| The first 3.5" drive I ever had was in an LC II. Before that
| I had only used a 5.25 in a PC XT or something like that.
| Being able to have it suck a disc in or ejecting a disc and
| having it pop out with that great mechanical noise was
| fantastic.
|
| Because my age I thought all drives were like that. The first
| time I used a Windows PC (3.0?) I was surprised that you had
| to push the disc in by hand and that it didn't just show up
| on the desktop in Windows. I had to be introduced to the
| concept of drive letters. Seemed relatively barbaric to young
| me.
|
| Of course within about two years I was asking for my own PC
| for all the great games. So that didn't last all that long.
| pvg wrote:
| Hah, yes my childhood experience with these was similar.
| There was your typical 8 bitter 5.25" floppy with its
| floppiness and rattly drives and make-it-double-sided-with-
| a-hole-punch diy-ness. And then there was the 3.5" hard
| plastic square, straight out of Star Wars. A robot would
| eat it and regurgitate it for you on command.
| sizeofchar wrote:
| That is really interesting, in that it is the opposite of
| my childhood understanding. I started with CP/M and DOS,
| and the first time I came to a Linux machine, I just
| couldn't understand how someone could work with drives
| without the letters (dedicated namespaces, right). My
| thought was that it was a less polished design.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It vanished with the 800K drives, in the Motorola era. My
| Color Classic doesn't inject the disk.
| fredoralive wrote:
| I think a Colour Classic still has an auto inject drive, my
| LC II had one. You can tell the manual inject ones because
| the case has a curved indent around the drive. Although
| this is the changeover era, as some late LC IIs apparently
| have the different drive (and lose the Snow White stipe
| along the front at the same time).
| rbanffy wrote:
| Maybe it was an option. I'm not really sure.
| Mikhail_Edoshin wrote:
| There is a small hole near the floppy drive and there also was
| a pin to eject a disk when the computer was off, similar to how
| SIM cards are handled in modern phones. Good design, actually;
| harder to damage data.
| cmiller1 wrote:
| I used to have a 4400/200 with the PC card and honestly loved the
| thing. It was my first Powermac and I could press cmd+enter to
| switch into windows 95, it felt so cool at the time.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| I had a 7600 with the PC Card. Favorite computer I ever owned.
| Lammy wrote:
| TIL that's also the fastest PC card Apple shipped and is
| Gestalt-locked to the 4400/7220: http://www.oliver-
| schubert.com/DOScard/DOScard.html#wishiwer...
| undersuit wrote:
| There seems to be a lot of hate for the left side disk drive. Are
| right handed people so incapable that they can't handle a bit of
| ambidexterity? /s
|
| I just went and tried inserting a floppy disk with either hand
| and it was exceptionally easy.
|
| Wouldn't a left side disk drive and the standard right side mouse
| placement be a superior workflow?
|
| Was the dislike just because of the change?
| firecall wrote:
| IIRC no in the real world cared about the left sided mounting
| of the drive.
|
| I've never heard that complaint mentioned before, so that
| article is the first I've heard of it.
|
| My anecdata is working at Apple and Apple Dealers in the mid
| 90s to 2001.
|
| But then not many of them got sold in my sphere IIRC. We were
| selling 8600s and then G3s into Ad Agencies etc.. at that
| point.
| MBCook wrote:
| I suspect it's more just that it doesn't "fit" the way all
| the other machines were, it stands out and not in an
| impressive way. It just sort of increases the otherness.
|
| I agree the stuff about being harder for right hand is
| probably just made up after the fact as color commentary.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Was the dislike just because of the change?
|
| It's just because it looked like a WIntel PC and thus was a
| threat to the collective illusion that 1996-Apple offered
| anything substantially different or better than Windows '95
| (source: was a 1996 Macintosh user who used the term "WIntel")
|
| Compare:
|
| - Compaq DeskPro https://serialport.org/pcs/compaq/compaq-
| deskpro-en-c300a/#p...
|
| - Packard Bell Legend
| https://old.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/hjomez...
|
| - HP Pavilion
| https://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/personal...
|
| - Gateway 2000
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Gateway_...
| Lammy wrote:
| Downvote all you want but I was there and literally heard
| people complain about it for this reason lol
| SllX wrote:
| Reads like it was just a bad Mac all-around but the left-hand
| floppy drive was a visible symbol of that on the face of the
| machine because it was different from what was normal for a
| Macintosh in a machine that was full of things that were
| different from a normal Macintosh.
|
| Also knowing Stephen Hackett, I don't think he's capable of
| hate for older Macs. He seems to love even the oddest of ducks
| and has a lab full of them.
| fredoralive wrote:
| I think there's just a bit of snobbery. It's an off the shelf
| LPX chassis with a "Logic Board LPX-40" that Apple also
| supplied to clone makers. The floppy drive being on the "wrong"
| side is just proof that it somehow lacks that special
| something.
| nikau wrote:
| Whole thing seems like a bunch of whining about things that
| don't matter and are good ways to reduce cost with minimal
| impact.
|
| The auto voltage switching - how often are you taking your PC
| to another country with a different voltage?
|
| The lower quality case finish - how many mac users ever dared
| open the case?
| dhosek wrote:
| The era of 4-digit Mac names was such a mess, trying to figure
| out which one was the best option available at your price point,
| One of the best things Steve Jobs did on his return was to trim
| the number of Mac models to a minimum. When my ex-wife was
| looking to upgrade her Windows laptop a few years back, she ended
| up in analysis paralysis because the options just from HP were so
| complicated that she couldn't figure out what she should buy. Say
| what you will about Apple's extreme overcharging for internal
| memory and storage, it's at least easy to pick the right Mac for
| yourself.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's also a better strategy for the company because you'll
| easily pick the right "level" and then it's much easier to
| upsell you on a part or two.
|
| If instead they give you ten thousand combinations you're much
| more likely to just grab "the cheapest".
| rbanffy wrote:
| > you're much more likely to just grab "the cheapest".
|
| And then realize there were better deals at the time and
| tarnish the brand.
|
| Absolutely simplifying the lineup to four Macs was the best
| decision. Right now they have one more than they should - the
| MacPro and Mac Studio seem to clash a lot, especially since
| you can't use the PCIe slots of the Pro for GPUs. What do
| people put in those slots? I'd assume storage and fast
| networking.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| I'd also imagine there's firms using SDI video capture
| cards for on set/production purposes. Outside of local
| storage I also used to see Fibre channel HBAs and the like
| somewhat commonly on the older cheese grater (unsure how
| common that use case is now).
|
| The current Mac Pro to my recollection is also readily
| available in a rack mount format, in and of itself that's a
| solid reason for keeping it alive
| bombcar wrote:
| The Mac Pro is expensive enough that it takes it solidly
| out of the "consumer" arena and puts it into
| commercial/business customers. Those customers _will_ take
| the time to investigate and determine what they need for
| the job.
|
| You can see this by comparing the marketing around the F150
| (a consumer pickup that is used by commercial/business
| customers) and the F650 - https://www.ford.com/commercial-
| trucks/f650-f750/
|
| There have been times where the Mac Pro dipped into the
| high end consumer market explicitly, but we're not in one
| of those times now.
|
| (Do note that some consumers WILL buy "commercial" products
| and Apple's obviously aware of that, but I suspect it's
| hard to get them to recommend the Mac Pro to home users.)
| sgt wrote:
| Especially as a developer - Macs are like a godsend for us. And
| it's a device that you use 8-14 hours a day. Sure, pay a bit
| extra for RAM (which btw has much better bandwidth than the
| competition), in the end that extra cost is negligible.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Yeah both RAM and storage aren't comparing apples to apples
| (heh) when compared as people often do. If you double the
| storage on your MacBook, Apple doubles the number of storage
| chips, with dedicated pcie lanes to each. Since it internally
| operates with something like RAID0, you also get double the
| speed.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Not a very relevant point - the difference between 500 MB/s
| and 5 GB/s mass storage is rarely noticeable.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Depends on what you're doing. It's very noticeable for my
| work.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| In my case, software development with C++. It's basically
| small files and a lot of disk cache.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I'm processing 100's of GB of information (the whole
| historical bitcoin blockchain). Enough to not fit in RAM,
| but the computation I'm running is fast enough to not be
| CPU bound.
|
| At home I have a desktop rig with multiple TB RAM and a
| fast server CPU. I would normally ssh into that to run
| tests with the chain mounted on a /dev/shm partition,
| which was a pain and only was accessible when I was at
| home. With my new MacBook Air, the upgraded internal
| drive is large enough to hold the full historical chain,
| and streams from disk fast enough to finish a run in
| comparable time. So now I'm mobile and can work from
| anywhere, with an entry point laptop replacing a
| dedicated server! That's a big change for me.
|
| I recognize not everyone's tasks are bottlenecks the same
| way though.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Absolutely. That's why in newer computers with M.2
| storage I'm delighted to find the existence of SATA SSD
| storage in M.2 form factor. Now I don't have to pay NVMe
| prices any more.
|
| Whereas with Apple, I believe the only choice is NVMe
| storage. What if I want more but slower SSD storage?
| ttkari wrote:
| You mean M.2 SATA storage is available cheaper than M.2
| NVMe where you live? Over here there are very few options
| in M.2 SATA form factor and the prices are almost double
| that of M.2 NVMe, which is really not that suprising
| given the obviously very much higher volumes of NVMe
| parts.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Huh I just checked prices again and you are right. I must
| have remembered wrong. I stand corrected.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I think this is backwards? NVMe should be faster than
| SATA. I don't think Apple uses either though. They
| directly connect the CPU to storage on the SoC. Another
| commenter above is saying they don't even use PCIe.
| kccqzy wrote:
| NVMe is faster than SATA. But for my purposes SATA is
| fast enough; I just hope manufacturers would make SATA
| SSDs cheaper than NVMe SSDs. But alas that's not the
| case.
| philodeon wrote:
| The NVME controller on Apple Silicon is not PCI-based, so
| there are no pcie lanes going to the storage chips at all.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Do we know that for sure? There are I/O lanes being
| allocated whatever the exact technology being used is. I
| just don't see why they'd reinvent the wheel here.
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| I agree for RAM, but not for flash storage. The competition
| usually has as-good or even better flash throughput and
| IOs/second.
|
| The reason people are aggrieved by Apple's storage upgrade
| prices is that you can usually buy a high-end, entire NVMe
| device of a given capacity for less than Apple charges just
| for the upgrade _to_ that capacity, _and_ the NVMe will be
| as fast or faster than Apple's offering.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Aren't Mac the opposite for the developers with subpar
| support for say, containers and dev tools, and crappy out of
| the box window management compared to a laptop running on
| linux?
|
| Seems to me you have to do a lot of manual tweaking and
| install before having something half decent as a dev.
| sgt wrote:
| Linux to me still feels like it used to be in the 90s. It's
| certainly improved, and package management is better, but
| the UI's are inconsistent and of relatively low quality.
| The advantage would be that you have more of a one-to-one
| match with what happens on the server side (which is
| usually Linux for most people).
|
| Some parts might require some tweaks, but usually it's a
| once off and then you're good to go. Containers - haven't
| had much issues, but you might run into some non-ARM based
| images for Docker, but fairly easily solved.
|
| As for window management - what do you mean? The window
| management to me is good, but then I never understood
| tiling window managers and such, if that is your
| requirement.
| chasil wrote:
| You should use CDE for a week to truly appreciate 90s
| UNIX.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environmen
| t
| jasonjayr wrote:
| I've recently spent a considerable amount of time on
| Windows 11(after using linux/x11/wayland/kde for a long
| time),-- the UI inconsistencies are widespread there too.
| Microsoft is only _finally_ finishing the push to make
| all control panels look consistent, and they are doing so
| by removing some of the more detailed options.
| sgt wrote:
| Ironically, Windows is not user-friendly at all these
| days. It was supposed to be. How could this happen?
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> As for window management - what do you mean? The
| window management to me is good_
|
| What's good about it? The fact it doesn't exist?
| hyhconito wrote:
| Err we have virtual desktops, tiling, snapping and things
| you know, out of the box these days. I mean the virtual
| desktops thing is mostly what I use and it's a triple
| swipe on my magic trackpad to switch.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| Since MacOS sequoia apparently. So 3 months since MacOS
| users have window management out of the box.
|
| Better late than never I guess, but they sure took their
| sweet time to implement features standard on Windows for
| 15+ years and 20+ years on Linux.
| hyhconito wrote:
| Before, we just used Rectangle. It's no biggy.
| frou_dh wrote:
| Half-screen tiling (Window > Tile Window to Left/Right of
| Screen, or click and hold the green button), snapping
| (same but hold Opt), and virtual desktops ("Spaces",
| later "Mission Control") have been been available for a
| long time. The former ones maybe not used that much
| because people don't explore the menus.
| kube-system wrote:
| And MacOS had Spaces 6 years before Windows had anything
| similar and Expose for 3 years before they came out with
| a crappy not-as-good equivalent, and the current task
| view still sucks by comparison.
|
| But touch input drivers on both platforms still suck, so
| I don't really care what their Window management is like
| when I can't interact with them without a hand cramp.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| I'm not sure why the need to move the goalposts but I'll
| bite.
|
| _> And MacOS had Spaces 6 years before Windows had
| anything similar and Expose for 3 years before they came
| out with a crappy not-as-good equivalent, and the current
| task view still sucks by comparison_
|
| So what? On Windows and Linux I never needed that feature
| because they always had proper window management, nor do
| I use that feature now. You're comparing Apples to
| Oranges. A Dodge RAM has a tow hitch, a Ferrari doesn't
| have a tow hitch. Is one better than the other, or are
| they better at different scenarios?
|
| _> But touch input drivers on both platforms still suck,
| so I don't really care what their Window management is
| like when I can't interact with them without a hand
| cramp._
|
| All touchpads give me cramps and carpal tunnel, that's
| why I use an angled mouse. Again, moot and off topic
| point. What's the point of a better touchpad if it's
| never gonna beat an ergonomic mouse?
| kube-system wrote:
| My point here is that your above idea of "proper window
| management" (or "window management [full stop]") is your
| own personal opinion.
|
| There are differing schools of thought in how computers
| should be interacted with, and your opinion is one of the
| many opinions that exist.
| hyhconito wrote:
| Yeah. Linux got left in the dust in about 2005 and no one
| has worked it out yet.
|
| The principal difference is the sheer quality of the
| client desktop experience hasn't improved since then. The
| Linux desktop apps are pretty terrible, unreliable and
| clunky and most of the progress so far has been rewriting
| them again and again in slightly different desktops to no
| avail (gnome over the years for example). Yet still
| things like fractional scaling barely even work.
|
| While everyone was pissing around with that and fanfaring
| open source, Apple refined a whole suite of apps that
| ship with their macs and phones and ipads that just work
| and sync properly.
|
| And that's what is important to a lot of people, not
| whether the icons are in the title bar on gnome, any
| purity etc. Usability is number 1. And Linux is not.
| lproven wrote:
| Another very odd comment, to me.
|
| > Aren't Mac the opposite for the developers
|
| No?
|
| > with subpar support for say, containers and dev tools,
|
| It's a Unix machine. All that is right there and readily
| available.
|
| > and crappy out of the box window management
|
| Not really, no. Add one app and it's a tiling environment.
| Actually that is built-in in macOS 15 but I've got it
| turned off as I have a tiling app I've been using for 15+
| years and I'm happy with it.
|
| > compared to a laptop running on linux?
|
| No. It's a better UI in every way, less hassle, more apps
| and better support.
|
| I've been using Linux for 28 years now and for a while it
| improved beyond all recognition, but it's getting very
| clunky again with all the bloat now.
|
| I switched to macOS on my desktop machines once I could
| afford it, and Linux for laptops. This is a happy
| compromise.
|
| But I've also been writing about it for well over 25 years
| and that means reading other people's writing about it and
| where possible talking to them.
|
| _All_ the professionals evangelising Linux in the 20th
| century have moved to Macs now. It 's the same core
| experience, but done better.
|
| > Seems to me you have to do a lot of manual tweaking and
| install before having something half decent as a dev.
|
| I can't speak for being a developer because I'm not one,
| but I can speak about Linux and macOS as a pro.
|
| This is the wrong way to use a Mac.
|
| The right way to use a Mac is not to fight it. Accept
| things as they are, learn to work with it, and add the
| extras you need.
|
| You can't customise macOS very much and it's hard. So,
| don't. Be like bamboo, not a tree: bend with the wind,
| adapt to where you are, and then grow where you want to go.
|
| The result is a proper full on UNIX(tm) environment which
| needs little to no maintenance and has integration to an
| extent no other Unix-like OS will ever achieve.
|
| Your questions seem to me to be motivated by bias and
| conviction of faith, and it is misplaced, as any such
| fervent belief is.
| Emigre_ wrote:
| > No. It's a better UI in every way
|
| That's very subjective. I prefer KDE Plasma.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Subjective indeed. I like Gnome Desktop's simplicity and
| straightforwardness.
| lproven wrote:
| See my comment above.
|
| Although colleagues have earnestly described why they
| like GNOME, and demonstrated it, all I see is people who
| don't know how to use the existing, 35+ year old keyboard
| UI of Windows, or the simpler and only a few years
| younger one of NeXTstep/macOS.
|
| I can't stand GNOME myself. It doesn't get out of my way.
| It wastes a tonne of precious vertical space on its
| wasted panel. Its app-switcher is poor. Its window
| management is atrocious, but then, I've met with and
| interviewed the dev team, and they don't manage windows.
| They switch between full-screen sessions instead. I'm
| looking at twin 27" screens right now, and I want to see
| 5 or 6 apps at once. GNOME obstructs that massively.
|
| But it's trivial to configure macOS to be as minimal as
| GNOME. Dock to autohide, cmd+space for the app launcher,
| trackpad gestures to hop between full-screen apps. It's
| not how I work or want to, but it's easily achieved.
| lproven wrote:
| I am honestly boggling here.
|
| Yesterday I upgraded Fedora Asahi 40 to 41 on my M1 MBA,
| and KDE is _so bad_ I was reduced to laughter at its
| pathetic clunkiness. But then I am a documented KDE-hater
| ever since the days of KDE 2.0.
|
| And GNOME, too, but at least it has the mercy of being
| pretty. Horribly confining and with an appalling keyboard
| UI, but it's pretty.
| Emigre_ wrote:
| > KDE is so bad I was reduced to laughter at its pathetic
| clunkiness
|
| We can all have our particular taste. I don't think KDE
| Plasma is "bad". I personally prefer KDE Plasma.
| sgt wrote:
| Interesting, I loved KDE 1 when it came out... that was a
| couple of years ago, 1998 I think. I ran it on Slackware.
| lloeki wrote:
| > I've been using Linux for 28 years now and for a while
| it improved beyond all recognition, but it's getting very
| clunky again with all the bloat now.
|
| Oh my this rings so true.
|
| While some don't like systemd (which is fine, everyone's
| entitled to their own choices) I do like the more
| cohesive and consistent approach a lot.
|
| But then my two uphill battles are:
|
| - Xorg is still my go-to in spite of limitations Wayland
| aims to solve (colour management, heterogeneous
| multihead) but I can't for the life of me seem to be able
| to make it stable/reliable/usable.
|
| - Pulseaudio was a debacle, so I used ALSA since like
| forever and could do great things with it. Trouble is
| some modern things expected become hard to impossible
| with just ALSA. Enter Pipewire, which conceptually sounds
| like a great thing but it is so obscure and
| underdocumented that I just can't wrap my head around it.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> All the professionals evangelising Linux in the 20th
| century have moved to Macs now._
|
| _> Your questions seem to me to be motivated by bias and
| conviction of faith, and it is misplaced, as any such
| fervent belief is._
|
| Weird to accuse someone of conviction of faith while
| confidently claiming that all linux users switched to Mac
| and how Mac is the be-all end-all of computers. You're in
| a bubble if you think so, I can definitely tell you that.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| You're arguing with one of the better writers for _The
| Register_ , there.
|
| I'm not much of a Linux person, but I have been using
| Macs since 1986 (as a developer), so I can attest to most
| of Mr. Proven's statements, irt to the MacOS.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> You're arguing with one of the better writers for The
| Register, there. _
|
| You're saying that like it should mean something. It's
| still the subjective opinion of a person. It holds no
| more or less value than the subjective opinion of another
| person. Being a journalist doesn't automatically make you
| the supreme authority on something, you're still just a
| professional opinionator (no offence), but that opinion
| can be different than other users.
|
| _> I have been using Macs since 1986 (as a developer)_
|
| That's an issue IMHO. Long term MacOS nerds are the ones
| who got used to all the quirks and can't see anything at
| fault as they molded themselves into he platform with
| age, developing muscle memory workarounds without
| realizing, so to them that status is perfection.
|
| Meanwhile, new users to the platform will see things
| differently.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> It 's still the subjective opinion of a person._
|
| It depends on who "the person" is. In this case, it's a
| seasoned professional, who uses both operating systems
| regularly, at a fairly advanced level, and also explains
| this stuff to others, while being held to journalistic
| standards.
|
| Also, _The Register_ tends to hire pretty sharp folks.
|
| _> Meanwhile, new users to the platform will see things
| differently_
|
| That's always the case. Unless you are an invested user
| of a platform, it's likely to be uncomfortable. When
| folks ask me if they should get an Apple device, as
| opposed to an Android/Windows PC, they are often
| surprised, when I say they should probably get what they
| are already used to.
|
| Truth be told, there's plenty of good in all UI
| (including CLI), and people get very efficient, using
| their UI of choice. I find that it's usually best, if
| they stay on it.
|
| Having been an Apple developer for decades, I have been
| absolutely slathered in bile from Apple-haters. It seems
| to be pathological. I assume that's because of the
| "snottiness" of Apple's approach. It's actually
| deliberate, and part of their branding. It can get
| annoying, but I know why they do it. Personally, I don't
| feel that way, despite being invested in the Apple
| ecosystem, and I don't hate other approaches, either. I
| managed a multi-platform development team for a couple of
| decades. It was not conducive to effectiveness, for me
| (or any of my employees) to be jingoistic about platform
| choices.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> it's a seasoned professional_
|
| Professional in what? I'm also a professional. Is my
| opinion not just as valid? Is MKBHD also a professional
| in this sense?
|
| _> who uses both operating systems regularly_
|
| I think many people on the planet, including children,
| can use two or more operating systems regularly and
| provide opinions on them, it's not a rare skill or
| something that requires academic degrees. Is their
| opinion not just as valid?
|
| _> while being held to journalistic standards_
|
| A lot of events proved that "journalistic standards" mean
| very little, especially in the modern era of online
| publications being dependent on click ad-revenue. For
| example look at the disconnect between critics ratings of
| movies and audience ratings, or between car reviewers and
| car owners. Similarly, Microsoft and Apple make OSs for
| users, not for professional critics or journalists.
|
| It's still just someone's subjective opinion on an OS,
| not something numerically and logically quantifiable as
| being the right opinion. It's not like it's a debate with
| Linus Torvalds on the correct implementation of mutexes.
|
| _> I have been absolutely slathered in bile from Apple-
| haters._
|
| What does this have to do with me? What's with this
| victimization attitude on people lately? Should I feel
| guilty or sorry about something some other random people
| said something mean to you in connection to this topic?
| It's a conversation between you and me, I don't care
| about what others did.
| sbuk wrote:
| > Long term MacOS nerds are the ones who got used to all
| the quirks and can't see anything at fault as they molded
| themselves into he platform with age, so to them
| everything is perfect. Meanwhile, new users to the
| platform will see things differently.
|
| An easier way to phrase that is "people have confirmation
| bias." You _clearly_ exhibit this in your post. New users
| depends on if they 've used other desktop environments or
| not. I'm confident that someone who has never used a
| desktop computer before would be more productive on a
| Mac. Had they used Windows, they may be confused.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| I could not agree with you more.
|
| I am replying to you from my third mac. I got it less
| than a year ago and it is the first Mac I have used since
| 2010 or so. Sure I am getting used to it but it does
| surprise me how different some things are from my typical
| XFCE/Win10 environments. I know unintuitive is the wrong
| word but at least for my own intuition, it is
| unintuitive.
| lproven wrote:
| Thank you very much! :-)
|
| It is very much a thing of modern times to be lectured
| on, for instance, desktop design, when I am fairly
| confident I've used more different desktop environments
| than the person accusing me is even aware exists.
|
| (I would estimate I've used 35-40 different desktops
| across over a dozen or more GUI OSes. The first I owned
| myself was an Acorn Archimedes with RISC OS 2, an
| environment far weirder than any hardcore Linux advocate
| could even _imagine_ ... a default editor with two
| separate independently-navigable cursors (source and
| destination), three mouse buttons all _heavily_ used, and
| no permanently on-screen menus of any kind ( _only_
| context menus).
|
| Ah well. So it goes.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> It is very much a thing of modern times to be lectured
| on for instance, desktop design_
|
| Where did I lecture you on that?
|
| _> when I am fairly confident I 've used more different
| desktop environments _
|
| Does using more desktop environments makes one's opinion
| on a specific desktop design more valuable than everyone
| else's? It's not like you're designing them, you're just
| using them, just like me and millions of other people.
|
| _> than the person accusing me is even aware exists._
|
| Care to point out what exactly did I accuse you of?
| lproven wrote:
| I didn't. Turn your paranoia down. I never mentioned you
| once and none of this is specific or particular to you.
|
| But, to answer one point: yes, I _do_ think that broad
| experience of lots of different desktop GUIs _does_
| qualify someone for comparing them, and for identifying
| particular strengths or weaknesses of particular ones.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> I never mentioned you once and none of this is
| specific or particular to you._
|
| Who were you referring to in this statement?
|
| _> than the person accusing me is even aware exists_
| lproven wrote:
| > confidently claiming that all linux users switched to
| Mac
|
| I did not say that. I did not say anything resembling
| that. It's an absurd claim.
|
| What I said was:
|
| <<All the professionals evangelising Linux in the 20th
| century have moved to Macs now>>
|
| Which followed, and was in the context of, the sentence:
|
| <<reading other people's writing about it and where
| possible talking to them.>>
|
| In other words: the _professional_ Linux advocates --
| that means, the people who were advocating and
| recommending Linux _to non-Linux users_ -- _that I read
| and knew and sometimes have talked to_ -- switched.
|
| Not people in the Linux biz talking to other people in
| the biz.
|
| People like author Charlie Stross, who is occasionally
| cstross on here, who for years wrote the Linux column in
| the UK edition of _Computer Shopper_ and was as such
| perhaps the most visible UK tech journalist writing about
| and recommending Linux.
|
| Or Neal Stephenson, author of the seminal "In the
| Beginning was the Command Line", which if you have not
| read recently you _need to_.
|
| Here's a free copy.
|
| https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt
|
| Mac users now.
|
| Context is important and must be considered. You
| apparently did not.
|
| > and how Mac is the be-all end-all of computers.
|
| I didn't say that either.
|
| It's got a damned good case to be the most sophisticated
| general-purpose desktop/laptop there's ever been, though,
| and it's held that place pretty much the entire century
| so far.
|
| Tastes differ. Not everyone likes it. That's fine. I am
| not saying everyone should.
|
| But I'm saying that if you read the widest possible range
| of OS and UI discussion and debate, there is a fairly
| clear consensus that what was Mac OS X and is now macOS
| is, while flawed, about the best there is.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> <<All the professionals evangelising Linux in the 20th
| century have moved to Macs now>>
|
| In other words: the professional Linux advocates -- that
| means, the people who were advocating and recommending
| Linux to non-Linux users -- that I read and knew and
| sometimes have talked to -- switched._
|
| I'm sorry, but as a professional journalist surely you
| must know the contradiction you've introduced here with
| the difference between "all Linux evangelists moved to
| Macs now" and "all those I know and read of switched"
| because those two statements are not the same thing.
|
| One statement deals in absolutes("all Linux evangelists
| switched to Mac") and can be supported by sources if so,
| the other is a opinion based on your bubble ("all that I
| know switched to Mac") which is just your opinion that's
| different than the situation in my bubble and holds just
| as much weight.
| homarp wrote:
| >container and macos
|
| docker assumes there is a linux kernel underneath, not a
| mac 'unix' kernel... so you end up having to have, just
| like on Windows, a vm running a linux kernel to run a
| docker container
| lproven wrote:
| Yes, I am fully aware of that.
|
| But I am told -- I do not work with this stuff myself --
| that if you simply install Docker Desktop, or something
| equivalent, it just happens, invisibly and out of sight,
| zero intervention and zero maintenance.
|
| Which is the general Mac story, even now.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes and for reasons I was running an x86 SQL Server
| Docker image on my ARM Mac and that just works
| lproven wrote:
| Wow! :-)
| sgt wrote:
| Although if you can find ARM images, make the effort. I
| stay away from anything x86 via Rosetta as I don't want
| the slowdown.
| criddell wrote:
| > The right way to use a Mac is not to fight it.
|
| I've found that to be true on every OS I use. Customize
| as little as possible and things tend to work better
| _and_ you will have better luck finding answers when
| something does break.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Being a developer isn't a synonym for UNIX.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I've worked with Unix and Windows in the past decades and
| each and every time the only scenario Windows wins is
| when I'm developing applications for Windows.
|
| Since I develop mostly for server-side, a Unix-like OS is
| a no-brainer. I have all three OSs on my desk and the
| least satisfying to use is Windows - it's relatively slow
| and difficult to troubleshoot device driver issues. On
| Linux you can always look under the hood and on Macs
| there is no such thing as device issues.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yet, it is quite possible, although surprisingly in
| modern times, to be a developer, without dealing with
| UNIX, nor Windows.
|
| Developer job !== UNIX.
| rbanffy wrote:
| There are plenty places in embedded where the toolchains
| exist only for Windows.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yeah, then again Developer job !== Windows, in case you
| haven't yet got the point.
|
| Being a developer has nothing to do with a specific OS in
| particular.
| amelius wrote:
| Apple makes consumer electronics.
|
| From a professional perspective they are toys.
| messe wrote:
| That's an elitist attitude that has very little basis in
| reality. Would you care to justify it?
|
| Plenty of professionals, including developers, use Apple
| machines for their work, as tools not toys.
| hyhconito wrote:
| So an actual certified commercial Unix workstation is a
| toy now?
| kergonath wrote:
| People have been saying that for 40 years now. Give it a
| rest already.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| You do realize that many, many movies have been edited in
| various versions of Final Cut Pro on Macs right?
| Including several Academy Award winners.
|
| Movies like _Parasite_, _The Social Network_, and _300_,
| to name just a few.
|
| If that's a toy, I'd love to hear what is industrial
| strength.
| pimeys wrote:
| Yeah. I like to run docker without needing a Linux vm, I
| like the choice of desktop environments and they are superb
| for me compared to the macos desktop. KDE Plasma 6 is one
| of the best desktops I've ever used.
|
| Now with the atomic distros, such as Aurora, you have a
| rock solid base you never touch, updates are atomic so you
| can always reboot to the previous version if needed and you
| create lightweight containers for development.
|
| My current setup is Aurora as the base distro, all GUI
| applications from Flathub and the terminal automatically
| opens up in distrobox which runs Arch Linux with Nix. Super
| solid, super fast and everything just works.
| hyhconito wrote:
| Some of us don't build containerised web applications you
| know.
|
| It's basically a Unix machine. A very fast and very cheap
| one.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| The window management thing is really overblown in my
| opinion. On macOS I just keep two monitors with separate
| virtual desktops enabled on both with apps assigned to
| specific desktops which reduces management to almost
| nothing, which is even easier and lower effort than a
| Win9x-paradigm desktop or tiling setup (which I've found
| requires a surprising amount of micromanagement to keep
| usable).
| scarface_74 wrote:
| All of the Macs finally come with 16 GB RAM which is decent.
| prmoustache wrote:
| > she couldn't figure out what she should buy.
|
| I am not sure what "should" means in that context.
|
| Surely many models would have been suitable. It is more a self
| induced SKU nightmare/issue for the manufacturer.
| lproven wrote:
| > I am not sure what "should" means in that context.
|
| Really?
|
| The phrase means "what was the best choice", which means "she
| could not figure out which model offered the best balance of
| price, performance and features."
|
| I can't offhand think of a more efficient way to phrase it,
| TBH.
| amelius wrote:
| > One of the best things Steve Jobs did on his return was to
| trim the number of Mac models to a minimum.
|
| So much for choice.
| kwanbix wrote:
| 100% agree. I call it the "toothpaste paralysis." It's like
| when you're shopping for toothpaste, and brands like Colgate
| have so many overlapping options that it becomes impossible to
| figure out which one is actually the best. Unfortunately, I
| think the same thing is starting to happen with MacBooks again.
| It's not as bad as before, but it's definitely not as
| straightforward as it used to be.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| The MacBook choices today seem relatively clear?
|
| - Pro if you need maximum CPU/GPU power.
|
| - Air if you want something lightweight and don't need the
| "Pro" level CPU/GPU power
|
| If you're only doing email/web, you should probably go Air.
| (There are no bad choices with the Apple silicon Macs for
| general use, it's mainly a question of how slow you want your
| video rendering chores and Xcode builds to be.)
|
| Then multiply by screen sizes, which determines the overall
| size of the machine.
|
| Edit: formatting. HackerNews support markdown challenge.
|
| Edit 2: fuck, forgot non-Pro. Maybe you're right.
| radley wrote:
| The MacBook Pro also has a choice of regular, Pro, Max, and
| Ultra chips.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| The MacBook Pro has the choice of Pro and Max.
|
| The Mini has the choice of base or Pro.
|
| The Mac Pro/Studio has the choice of Max and Ultra.
|
| IIRC.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| iPad has reached that state. The regular iPad and the Pro
| make some sense but the Air is in a very awkward middle.
| twoodfin wrote:
| The Air exists so the Pro can have expensive Pro features
| and the (null) iPad can hit an impulse purchase price
| point.
|
| While those two are pulling in opposite directions, having
| nothing in the middle would leave a big market gap.
| kergonath wrote:
| > The era of 4-digit Mac names was such a mess, trying to
| figure out which one was the best option available at your
| price point
|
| Yeah. I really liked my 9600 but the Performa lines were way
| too confusing.
| troyvit wrote:
| I didn't mind it that much because the higher the number was
| the more powerful the computer tended to be. The 9500 was super
| good. The 8500 not bad. The 7500 was the best of the mediocre,
| and the 7200 was similar but not as great.
|
| During that time we bought our Macs from a local computer
| store. Our guy, Fred, always helped advise us, but he was
| pretty frustrated overall with the whole situation. I mean he
| also didn't get why anybody would want a Mac when Windows
| devices were cheaper, more standard, and less buggy.
|
| > One of the best things Steve Jobs did on his return was to
| trim the number of Mac models to a minimum.
|
| Fred always said that if they ever introduced colors to
| computer cases he was going to quit. Jobs came along with the
| iMac and less than a year later he retired. It cracks me up how
| he stuck to his word.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Keep in mind the 9500 (and 9600) and 8500 were at or near the
| top of the line and relatively easy to figure out. If that
| and the 7000 had been the only things Apple shipped, fine.
| The problem was the 4000/5000/6000 range, and Performa vs
| Quadra/Centris/Whatever. It was a complete and total mess.
|
| Your Fred also clearly had a weird sense of "less buggy." At
| that time, Windows was essentially a GUI atop an extended
| version of MS-DOS. Look up any contemporary serious review
| and you'll find complaints about stability. Compare to OS/2.
| troyvit wrote:
| Heh I disagreed with Fred that's for sure.
|
| Also thanks for bringing back the memory of all those
| "other" macs. I'd forgotten how weird it was trying to
| distinguish between all those meaningless names, and the
| marketing behind them didn't really help much.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| The most awful machine I've ever used was a circa-2000 98SE
| Celeron Compaq Staples special that my family bought when
| the old Performa gave out one evening and we needed a
| replacement right away. Aside from being a little slower,
| that Performa was better in every single way despite being
| four years older.
| tcdent wrote:
| I used an 8500 as my personal machine for way too long. With
| a Sonnet G3 upgrade and maxed out RAM, it stayed viable for
| way longer than it should have.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I didn't mind it that much because the higher the number
| was the more powerful the computer tended to be. The 9500 was
| super good. The 8500 not bad. The 7500 was the best of the
| mediocre, and the 7200 was similar but not as great.
|
| The general rule was that the first digit represented the
| form factor, the second digit represented the base model
| (logic board), the last two digits represented the value-add
| configuration (amount of RAM, size of HDD, and included
| software package), then CPU speed was given after a forward-
| slash, and there might be a CD somewhere in there for
| configurations which included an internal AppleCD drive.
|
| The PowerPC-era form factor numbering scheme was actually
| established in the 68k era with the all-in-one LC 500-series,
| the pizza-box Centris 600-series (descendant of the original
| LC form factor), the desktop Quadra 700 (descendant of the
| Macintosh IIx/I [compact] form factor), the mid-tower Quadra
| 800/840AV, and the full tower Quadra 900/950. Computers were
| called Macintosh when sold by Apple (like to schools) or sold
| through Apple's dealer network, called Workgroup Server (WGS)
| when sold in server configurations (like with AppleShare/IP)
| and called Performa when sold direct to consumers (like
| through CompUSA, etc).
|
| It started well with the initial models of NuBus Power Mac:
| the pizza-box 6100/60, desktop 7100/66 (I had this one!!!),
| mid-tower 8100/80, and full-tower WGS 9150 -- different form
| factors but obviously denoted as the first PowerPC model
| (x1xx) of each series.
|
| The 6100 makes a good example of this era because it got an
| especially large number of consumer-focused SKUs where it was
| known as the Performa 611{0..8}CD, a server version known as
| the WGS 6150/60, and an eventual speed-bump when it became
| the Power Macintosh 6100/66 and WGS 6150/66:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_6100#Models
|
| Then the exceptions to the numbering scheme started with the
| second generation of PowerPC machines, the first to switch
| from NuBus to PCI. They reintroduced all-in-ones as the Power
| Mac 5200 series (famously horrible machines) and stuck the
| same board in a Quadra 630 style case as the 6200, both with
| a PowerPC 603. They introduced a desktop 7200 and mid-tower
| 8200 with PCI but still using a PowerPC 601, so the x2xx
| still seemed to represent release order and not CPU. But then
| they _simultaneously_ released the 7500 and 8500 with a
| PowerPC 604. Were these supposed to be fifth-gen models? What
| happened to 3 and 4? They introduced a six-slot PPC604
| machine at the same time, the Power Mac 9500, but there was
| no PPC601 9200.
|
| Next year, the 6400 appeared in a curvy and quite nice-
| looking consumer mid-tower case, but 6xxx has now represented
| three different form factors. The 7600, 8600, and 9600
| replace their respective x500 counterparts, so now we're back
| to release order? It doesn't mean CPU generation, because
| there are higher-end 9500s with PPC604e instead of just 604,
| and lower-end 7600s with just 604 and not 604e.
|
| The year after that, the Power Macintosh 7300 (I had this
| one!!!) replaces the 7200 _and_ the 7600, so now we 're going
| backwards even though it's a better computer? It doesn't mean
| release year, because the 5300 and 6300 are a year older and
| are just speed bumps of the 5200 and 6200. Except the 5260
| which is newer than the 5300 and a much better machine, which
| was replaced by the 5400 which is a 6400 board in a 5xxx-
| style case. Except the 6360 which is a 6400 board in a
| 6200/6300-style case because they had already used 6400 for
| the tower form-factor the board came from. The 6500 and 5500
| were speed bumps of the 6400 and 5400, but at the time of
| their release were two years newer than the 7500/8500/9500.
|
| The 4400 falls outside of all of this, so at the time it felt
| like Apple trying to build a cheap Wintel-style business
| machine. There had been 68030 machines numbered 4xx, but they
| were consumer-only Performa variants of the LC III. Except
| the LC 475 which was a Quadra 605 in a LC III style case.
|
| Except, except, except. What a fucking mess lol
| have_faith wrote:
| I think the iPad is the current outlier of that strategy.
| There's the iPad, iPad Mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro, with
| overlapping sizes. It's too much differentiation I think.
| vardump wrote:
| > The era of 4-digit Mac names was such a mess...
|
| Same goes for a lot of other products. For example CPUs, GPUs,
| TVs and fridges.
|
| Sometimes appliance names are nearly impenetrable.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| How dare you attempt to sully the honor of my beloved Power Mac
| 9500, or take an implicit shot at my Performa 638CD -- which
| was not even 4 digits, but 3 digits and 2 letters. You need to
| check your wiring, friend, or dial up your SoftRAM.
| webwielder2 wrote:
| 6400 on the other hand was up there with the Color Classic,
| Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, and PowerBook 500 as objects of
| 90s pre-Jobs desire.
| Mikhail_Edoshin wrote:
| I had that model. Modernized it later by adding more memory, more
| video memory and eventually a Sonnect G3 extension card that made
| it very fast. With that card it did run Mac OS X, 10.3, as far as
| I remember, and was fairly usable.
|
| What it did not have though was true color; the video card simply
| did not produce it, even with maxed out video memory. As far as I
| understand the cause was that the memory was too slow for that.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It could have been worse. Apple use to love selling Macs that
| were crippled by horrible buses.
|
| My first Mac was an LCII. It had a 32 bit 68030-16Mhz processor
| with a 16 bit bus.
|
| I won't even get started with the 12 inch 512x384 monitor that
| few games were compatible with
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| TFA says it s been followed by the Macintosh G3 desktop... But
| the G3 was just a beige PC too. Slightly heavier than a regular
| tower PC but still very beige.
|
| Not Apple s greatest era. They weren't the old Mac cool anymore
| and they weren't yet iPod/iPhone/iPad cool.
|
| Some G4 were actually good looking and had a great monitor too.
| But to me the G3 that followed that 4400 was just as bad Apple.
|
| I have fond memories of the OS and still own it though.
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