MACS for Digital Publishing... WHY?
Bryan Gosselin
Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
straight answer.
Is it because only the Mac can run the latest Illustrator?
Why doesn't Adobe just make a PC version? To me, it seems that
I could buy a Windows system comparable to a MacOS system
for less money, and I could still run all the major graphics
applications.
If this is true, then how come almost every graphic designer
I've ever met uses a Macintosh? Is there a problem getting
stuff printed if you're on a PC? There's got to be some SOLID
reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated...
Cougar
The simple answer is it is easier to aquire and manipulate different forms
of media on a Mac. It is the most versatile platform. If you add the RAM
and SCSI that you need to a PC the price is the same. Adobe has WIN95/NT
versions of all its popular graphics software. It really comes down to
your personal preference. For me I like the 604e RISC chip because it is
great for rendering and I can exchange things easily with my SGI friends.
In article <507i2h$r...@news.getnet.com>, goss...@getnet.com (Bryan
Gosselin) wrote:
Flame Warrior
goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) wrote:
>Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
>illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
>I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
>or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
>straight answer.
There are more graphic packages, plug-in filters, etc, available for
the mac than the pc.
The pc has so many different hardware configurations, that it would be
a night mare for a right-brained artist to conceptualize.
Graphic power was established on the Mac first therefore it mantains a
niche in this arena.
and finally old habits are hard to break.
heinz szolarz
for the same reason that all the others are not using macs
dtp started up with the mac
today the seniors do not want to switch
-why should there is hardly any advantage
except of the enormous cost of retraining the whole staff
and the newbies keep to what is standard
Bruno Fernandes
goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) wrote:
>Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
>illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
>a MacOS system for less money, and I could still run all the
>major graphics applications.
Back in 1985 you only had two choices though: Macintosh and Amiga. There was
no Intel based machine anywhere near that usable. Anyway, the macintosh started
to take off and until a few years ago there was simply no software of high
enough calibre to run on a PC to do the work. And until last year, any software
that had come out was running under Win3.1 - ugh. So the short answer is that
TODAY you could buy a PC to do everything you want, but a few years back, you
couldn't (and the newest Illustrator still isn't available...)
>If this is true, then how come almost every graphic designer
>I've ever met uses a Macintosh?
History.
>Is there a problem getting
>stuff printed if you're on a PC?
Not if you know what you're doing.
>There's got to be some SOLID
>reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
>advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
Some people will tend to use what other people are already using. Simpler that
way for many. Then there are those that will use what they want to use either
because ti's what they personally prefer or its what they feel will do the job
better.
Bruno
Kym ap Rhys
Hi Bryan,
The Mac was first machine with the graphical user interface and then the
first DTP software appeared (Mac only). Consequently most of the
development for DTP and graphics started off on the Mac and in some
areas is still ahead of the PC - though this is catching up.
Macs were easy to use and the O/S didn't get in the way of the DTP and
graphics unlike DOS/early Windows. Most professional DTP people used
Macs, so prepress software was for Macs etc etc.
However, things are changing now....
Kym ap Rhys
eyeb...@interpath.com
In article <507i2h$r...@news.getnet.com>, goss...@getnet.com (Bryan
Gosselin) wrote:
> Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
>
> There's got to be some SOLID
> reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
> advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
My best guess is that graphics designers aren't computer people, have
little patience with spending all day doing configurations, and are
interested in siomply getting to work with the least amount of trouble.
When you have a piece of software that follows the phrase, "Windows
Installation" with three pages of tiny type, then follows the phrase
"Macintosh Installation" with one sentence: "Click on Install icon," then
the problem starts to become clear.
Also, I've found that running simultaneous programs and multiple windows
to be an important thing in the minds of many people. I know, Win95 can
do this, clumsily, with a lot of set-up. But on a Mac it is effortless
and intuitive.
I've worked in a DOS environment for word processing & spreadsheets for
ten years, so I know PCs well and don't believe I'm prejudiced--I still WP
on my trusty DOS 386 machine. When the time came to get serious about
graphic work, it didn't occur to me to do anything *but* go buy a Mac. I
tried out Photoshop on a Win95 Pentium & a Mac and, to me, the difference
was night and day. Even the mouse movement seemed a lot smoother & more
precise on the Mac.
Maybe someday Microsoft will complete their ongoing project of attempting
to duplicate the Mac O/S. They're about 80% there so far. Good enough
for most apps, but not for serious graphics.
eyebrown
Shawn Callahan
Bryan Gosselin wrote:
Snip
There's got to be some SOLID
> reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
> advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
>
Mac Had the wysiwyg 10 years ago. Graphic artist needed that.
The past belonged to the Mac. Unfortunatly Apple cant manage thier way
out of a paper bag. When Steve Jobs left apple they lost thier soul.
They have lost market share in other areas besides graphics. Graphics
market alone cant support apple. Now, It really doesnt matter what
platform you use. Cost are equal when you get a mac and wintel box up to
the level of serious graphics. Where is apple gonna be in 5 years? Where
is microsoft, Sun, next or the platitude of Os'es that run on PCs gonna
be in 5 years? Do what you want. Use what you want. Its a computer not a
religion. Do good work and you will make money. If you do it with a
computer or a Buick, great. Let the Mac heads or win heads argue while
you make $$.
Chow
shawn
Jay
FlameW...@harrass.com (Flame Warrior) writes:
>goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) wrote:
>>Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
>>illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
>>I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
>>or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
>>straight answer.
>There are more graphic packages, plug-in filters, etc, available for
>the mac than the pc.
>The pc has so many different hardware configurations, that it would be
>a night mare for a right-brained artist to conceptualize.
>Graphic power was established on the Mac first therefore it mantains a
>niche in this arena.
Let's not forget the signifigant advantage the powerpc has in graphic
applications to the pentium/pentium pro. I remember some benchmarks doen
by pc magazine showed the powerpc had easily double the performance of
equivalent clockspeed pentiums for graphic application. Unfortunatley the
same can't be siad for $$%@ microsoft productivity applications. However,
MS office is rather nimble on the latest 604 based macs.
>and finally old habits are hard to break.
--
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
Microsoft Network is prohibited from redistributing this work in any
form, in whole or in part. Copyright (c) 1996 Jay Thomas
Jay Thomas, jth...@pluto.njcc.com http://pluto.njcc.com/~jthomas
Kenneth A. Carter
goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) wrote:
>
> Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
>
> I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
> or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
> straight answer.
Even then gamma settings on the SGI & Mac are optimized for publishing.
Source - http://www.boutell.com/boutell/png/PNG-GammaAppendix.html
* Factory SGI gamma settings are 1.7
* Factory Mac gamma settings are 1.8
* Factory PC gamma settings are 2.5
Goes to show PC users are being left in the dark. ;p
William E. Elston
>If this is true, then how come almost every graphic designer
>I've ever met uses a Macintosh? Is there a problem getting
>stuff printed if you're on a PC? There's got to be some SOLID
>reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
>advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
Graphic designer's tend to be more intuitive, and find the ease of use and
advanced GUI of the Macintosh to be more productive and more rewarding than
PCs running Windows. Also, historically DTP has been a Mac stronghold, and
since many of these professionals have had hands on experience with the
Macintosh, they are less swayed by the spurious claims of the PC vendors
regarding ease of use, networking and setup, price/performance and other
issues. They know better from personal experience.
--
William E. Elston <URL:http://www.halcyon.com/welston/>
"Cafe bouillu est cafe foutu!"
Joseph John Clark
> Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
>
> I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
> or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
> straight answer.
>
> Is it because only the Mac can run the latest Illustrator?
> Why doesn't Adobe just make a PC version? To me, it seems that
> I could buy a Windows system comparable to a MacOS system
> for less money, and I could still run all the major graphics
> applications.
>
> If this is true, then how come almost every graphic designer
> I've ever met uses a Macintosh? Is there a problem getting
> stuff printed if you're on a PC? There's got to be some SOLID
> reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
> advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
>
> Any comments would be greatly appreciated...
From my experience, the reason is very simple. Designers want to design
and not fight, grope, coax, kick, scream with a tool that won't let them
design. It is frustrating and wasteful to spend time on IRQs, DLLs, font
conflicts than doing what a user wants to do. Macintoshes doesn't force
you to become a computer operator. It is an environment that lets the user
concentrate and work on what is important to them.
Marcus Wilson
> Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
>
> I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
> or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
> straight answer.
>
> Is it because only the Mac can run the latest Illustrator?
> Why doesn't Adobe just make a PC version? To me, it seems that
> I could buy a Windows system comparable to a MacOS system
The Mac advantages include system wide compatibility, network wide
compatibility, and cross platform compatibility.
The PC compat. has been plagued with many vendors finding their own ways
of doing the same thing for too long resulting in too many standards for
there to be easy sharing of data pictures etc.
Macs have had Quickdraw since day 1, Illustrator since 1986 or so, and
cricketdraw before that, and so the consistency of postscript and graphics
output has always been available.
Add to this the ease of use, and upgrade of Macs,
> for less money, and I could still run all the major graphics
> applications.
Not for equivalent machines.. The cost advantage of a PC is not there. And
if you include the figures sometimes quoted for after sales support costs
in the region of $2,500 per PC after the sale, that is a major change to
your bottom line. (to get your cheaper than a mac PC to work with the
cheaper than a mac peripherals you picked up)
>
> If this is true, then how come almost every graphic designer
> I've ever met uses a Macintosh? Is there a problem getting
> stuff printed if you're on a PC? Quality and compatibility.
Yes. Unless you've worked with the package that you're using for long
enough to work out the specifics. Trying to get a postscript file out of
some of the PC programs is a real pain. (MS Publisher for instance) and as
for WYSIWYG.. Plug 'n' Play, expandable storage scanner support, extra
monitor support each has it's own headaches that in todays world you don't
NEED to deal with.
There is a choice and professionals choose the one that gets the job done!
Macintosh.
There's got to be some SOLID
> reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
> advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
>
> Any comments would be greatly appreciated...
Well you did ask.!
Regards,
Marcus Wilson
--
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and not necessarily that of my employer
Marcus Wilson - Perth Western Australia
Tom Lane
goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) writes:
> Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
> I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
> or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
> straight answer.
OK, you want a straight answer: the Mac is a better machine.
If you think otherwise then you're suffering from a bad case
of Microsoft brainwashing.
This is not to say that Microsoft hasn't gotten a lot closer to
matching the Mac in ease-of-use; they've come a long way from the bad
old days of DOS. They're still not there yet, though, especially in
the areas of configuration and system setup.
Nor is it to say that Wintel machines aren't cheaper; on a strict
hardware cycles-and-bytes-per-dollar basis, PC clones are generally
cheaper than Apples. In this case the more expensive tool is well
worth its price, especially to those who think their own time is
worth something and don't want to expend it on becoming computer
geeks.
Nor yet is it to say that Macs never have system problems of their
own; they most surely do. They just have fewer problems than
Windows machines do.
To some extent the Mac's dominance today in the graphics arts market
is a residual of the days when the gap between Mac and Windows was
larger than it is now. Five or ten years ago, the idea of doing
serious graphics arts on Windows was a joke. Now, you could get some
useful work done, but few people see any point in throwing away their
existing software and experience to move to what is still an inferior
platform. The argument that it's cheaper doesn't cut much ice.
When Windows is actually *better* than the Mac, you might see some
large-scale migration --- but given Microsoft's record of borrowing
others' ideas rather than producing any of their own, I don't expect
to see that happen any time soon.
regards, tom lane
Larry Jaques
Shawn Callahan <sha...@connix.com> wrote:
>Bryan Gosselin wrote:
>Snip
> There's got to be some SOLID
>> reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
>> advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
>>
>> Any comments would be greatly appreciated...
>Mac Had the wysiwyg 10 years ago. Graphic artist needed that.
I was going to say that the MAC had the depth of color first, but
WYSIWYG is probably more correct. That has changed and the two
platforms (MAC and PC) are quite equalized now. Take your pick:
1 gives you a future, 1 an attitude. <g> (sorry, Ijushaddadoit)
If they've got money to burn, go with SGI or a supersonic
multi-processed PC and RAM out the ears.
>Chow
>shawn
Ciao!
Larry
-------------------------------------------------------------------
give me The Luxuries Of Life * www.diversify.com/~ljaques
i can live without the necessities * lja...@diversify.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Taylor
I've been using PS since 2.5 on an Intel and am a graphic designer. I also
work occasionally for others who use MACS so I've used both. If you've got
equivalent machines (Memory, Power, speed etc. NOT $$'s), PS works better
on a MAC. Motorola chips handle graphics better, and swapping to disk is
still a laborious operation in windows plagued by crashes. with 24Mg RAM,
Open a 100Mg file on the MAC: no problem, on Windows: half expect to crash.
The short answer is RELIABILITY.
Chris Lilley
Kenneth A. Carter wrote:
> Even then gamma settings on the SGI & Mac are optimized for publishing.
> Source - http://www.boutell.com/boutell/png/PNG-GammaAppendix.html
Good reference, although that is a slightly old version, try:
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/PR-png-960701.html#GammaAppendix
I also recommend Charles Poynton's document about Mac gamma handling:
ftp://ftp.inforamp.net/pub/users/poynton/doc/Mac/Mac_gamma.pdf
Either way, though, be careful to compare like with like. Using the
terminology established in the appendix you cite:
> * Factory SGI gamma settings are 1.7
Factory SGI LUT_gamma settings are 1.7 (so the display_gamma
is 2.5/1.7 = 1.47)
> * Factory Mac gamma settings are 1.8
Factory Mac display_gamma settings are 1.8
> * Factory PC gamma settings are 2.5
Right. Actually that is because they do no gamma correction at all,
so display_gamma = CRT_gamma
> Goes to show PC users are being left in the dark. ;p
Or that they need to lighten up ;-)
Actually, what it shows is that if you want all viewers of an image
to see something recognisably the same as what you see, use a format
that can declare what gamma settings were used to create it. Which takes
us back to the PNG spec you quoted earlier.
--
Chris Lilley, W3C [ http://www.w3.org/ ]
Graphics and Fonts Guy The World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/people/chris/ INRIA, Projet W3C
ch...@w3.org 2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
+33 93 65 79 87 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
Jason Kratz
eyeb...@interpath.com wrote:
>My best guess is that graphics designers aren't computer people, have
>little patience with spending all day doing configurations, and are
>interested in siomply getting to work with the least amount of trouble.
>When you have a piece of software that follows the phrase, "Windows
>Installation" with three pages of tiny type, then follows the phrase
>"Macintosh Installation" with one sentence: "Click on Install icon," then
>the problem starts to become clear.
Funny. I don't have to even look at the manuals when installing
Windows software. Really tough to go to the cdrom and click on
'install' or 'setup'. I think you're about 5 years out of date here.
>Also, I've found that running simultaneous programs and multiple windows
>to be an important thing in the minds of many people. I know, Win95 can
>do this, clumsily, with a lot of set-up. But on a Mac it is effortless
>and intuitive.
You're talking out of your butt here. It's again obvious that you are
about 5 years behind in the Windows world. Win95 multitasking is not
clumsy nor does it require 'a lot of set-up'. Windows 3.x
multitasking sucked. Windows 95 multitasking is effortless. Windows
NT multitasking is even better so if its that much of a concern go
with NT.
>I've worked in a DOS environment for word processing & spreadsheets for
>ten years, so I know PCs well and don't believe I'm prejudiced--I still WP
>on my trusty DOS 386 machine. When the time came to get serious about
>graphic work, it didn't occur to me to do anything *but* go buy a Mac. I
>tried out Photoshop on a Win95 Pentium & a Mac and, to me, the difference
>was night and day. Even the mouse movement seemed a lot smoother & more
>precise on the Mac.
Yes, to *you* the difference was night and day. On comparable systems
I didn't notice much of a difference as we use both platforms at work.
The comment about mouse movement is so totaly ridiculous I won't even
comment more on it. And by the way....your comments do show that you
have a bad attitude towards the Windows platform.
>Maybe someday Microsoft will complete their ongoing project of attempting
>to duplicate the Mac O/S. They're about 80% there so far. Good enough
>for most apps, but not for serious graphics.
Ease of use might not be a the MacOS level but looking at the OS from
a technical standpoint Windows 95 is ahead of MacOS. The platform can
be used for 'serious' graphics because the platform doesn't make the
art....the artist does. You seem to forget that the platform is
only a tool...nothing more nothing less. The easiest thing is to use
what platform best fits your needs....not go on about garbage like
'even the mouse movements were smoother'.
Jason
Jason Kratz
t...@netcom.com (Tom Lane) wrote:
>OK, you want a straight answer: the Mac is a better machine.
>If you think otherwise then you're suffering from a bad case
>of Microsoft brainwashing.
This post already reeks of "anti-microsoft' brainwashing. The
straight answer is ' the better machine is the machine that does what
you need it to do'. Its that simple.
>This is not to say that Microsoft hasn't gotten a lot closer to
>matching the Mac in ease-of-use; they've come a long way from the bad
>old days of DOS. They're still not there yet, though, especially in
>the areas of configuration and system setup.
No argument here.
>Nor is it to say that Wintel machines aren't cheaper; on a strict
>hardware cycles-and-bytes-per-dollar basis, PC clones are generally
>cheaper than Apples. In this case the more expensive tool is well
>worth its price, especially to those who think their own time is
>worth something and don't want to expend it on becoming computer
>geeks.
What is wrong with knowing exactly how your system operates? Its not
for everyone but neither is knowing how your car operates. Is there
something wrong with the people who like to fix cars for a hobby?
>Nor yet is it to say that Macs never have system problems of their
>own; they most surely do. They just have fewer problems than
>Windows machines do.
This is purely opinion. I personally haven't had that many problems
with Windows 3.x or Windows 95. I find the mac too limiting in most
respects but that is just me and happens to be my opinion.
>To some extent the Mac's dominance today in the graphics arts market
>is a residual of the days when the gap between Mac and Windows was
>larger than it is now. Five or ten years ago, the idea of doing
>serious graphics arts on Windows was a joke. Now, you could get some
>useful work done, but few people see any point in throwing away their
>existing software and experience to move to what is still an inferior
>platform. The argument that it's cheaper doesn't cut much ice.
Again this is pure opionion. As I said before...the 'superior
platform' is the one that does what you need it to do. There is no
such thing as an 'inferior' platform.
>When Windows is actually *better* than the Mac, you might see some
>large-scale migration --- but given Microsoft's record of borrowing
>others' ideas rather than producing any of their own, I don't expect
>to see that happen any time soon.
Question....do you think Apple came up with the idea of the GUI
themselves? If so I suggest you do a little reading of computer
history.
In the end I say it again.....use what the platform that has the tools
you need...its that simple.
Jason
Roderick Martin
> In article <507i2h$r...@news.getnet.com>, goss...@getnet.com (Bryan
> Gosselin) wrote:
>
> > Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> > illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
> >
> > reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
> > advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
For me, in addition to everything else pointed out, it's screen real
estate. Windows windows are so huge and clunky with all the wide borders
and boxes, that by the time you get two or three control panels on the
screen in Photoshop, there's no room to work!
-Rod Martin
Network 23
Design solutions for a Web Wasteland
Rob Lockhart
In article <TGL.96Se...@netcom8.netcom.com>, t...@netcom.com (Tom
Lane) wrote:
> goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) writes:
> > Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> > illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
> > I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
> > or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
> > straight answer.
>
> OK, you want a straight answer: the Mac is a better machine.
> If you think otherwise then you're suffering from a bad case
> of Microsoft brainwashing.
>
> This is not to say that Microsoft hasn't gotten a lot closer to
> matching the Mac in ease-of-use; they've come a long way from the bad
> old days of DOS. They're still not there yet, though, especially in
> the areas of configuration and system setup.
>
> Nor is it to say that Wintel machines aren't cheaper; on a strict
> hardware cycles-and-bytes-per-dollar basis, PC clones are generally
> cheaper than Apples. In this case the more expensive tool is well
> worth its price, especially to those who think their own time is
> worth something and don't want to expend it on becoming computer
> geeks.
>
> Nor yet is it to say that Macs never have system problems of their
> own; they most surely do. They just have fewer problems than
> Windows machines do.
>
> To some extent the Mac's dominance today in the graphics arts market
> is a residual of the days when the gap between Mac and Windows was
> larger than it is now. Five or ten years ago, the idea of doing
> serious graphics arts on Windows was a joke. Now, you could get some
> useful work done, but few people see any point in throwing away their
> existing software and experience to move to what is still an inferior
> platform. The argument that it's cheaper doesn't cut much ice.
>
> When Windows is actually *better* than the Mac, you might see some
> large-scale migration --- but given Microsoft's record of borrowing
> others' ideas rather than producing any of their own, I don't expect
> to see that happen any time soon.
>
> regards, tom lane
Re. Tom Lane's comments.
I copletely agree with all but the last statement. Having been a Mac
designer for a number of years I have worked in studios with a P.C. stuck
in the corner (best place for it) and have been forced to work on them at
times.
My present full time employer under the guidence of an ex employee who has
set up his own company has put the net onto a P.C. (because he has been
told by this berk about viruses on the net) not a Mac!. To say that it is
a pain in the arse is an understatement.
If you talk to any "serious" Mac person who uses them for a living and has
used a P.C. you will find that for 99.99% of us will find it a very cold
day before we are prized off the Mac and onto a P.C.
If you want to see the kind of things that can be done by a serious Mac
designer visit: www.amacs.demon.co.uk
Then tell me where you can find work done to that standard on a P.C.
Rob.
David Lewis
jkr...@uic.edu wrote:
> from
> a technical standpoint Windows 95 is ahead of MacOS. The platform can
> be used for 'serious' graphics because the platform doesn't make the
> art....the artist does. You seem to forget that the platform is
> only a tool...nothing more nothing less.
Agreed, and the best tool for the graphic artist is a Mac. It can be done
on a PC as well of course, I've done a lot of work on a PC myself. The
question is, why would anyone *choose* to use a PC to do graphics?
David Lewis
jkr...@uic.edu wrote:
> This post already reeks of "anti-microsoft' brainwashing. The
> straight answer is ' the better machine is the machine that does what
> you need it to do'.
Right. And for graphics, the machine that gets the job done is usually a
Mac. Of course, 'graphics' is a very broad term. If you want to run
SoftImage, you need a PC.
> What is wrong with knowing exactly how your system operates?
No one said there was anything wrong with this. The point was simply that
with a Mac you don't *have* to become a 'computer geek' to get your work
done. With a Mac, you have far fewer problems with configuration so you
can focus more on your work that on your computer. With a Mac, tinkering
is usually a choice, with a PC, it's all too often a necessity.
Erik Johnson
Roderick Martin wrote:
> For me, in addition to everything else pointed out, it's screen real
> estate. Windows windows are so huge and clunky with all the wide borders
> and boxes, that by the time you get two or three control panels on the
> screen in Photoshop, there's no room to work!
Huh? If you don't like wide borders, make them thin. The only place
in general where Win uses more screen real estate than make is that
it has menus for most every app instead of one menu bar for all. I
*personally* like this, as it makes bouncing between apps a bit less
confusing. None of the Macs we have have near the screen real estate
of our win machines, because none of them run at 1280x1024, though
I'm sure they could if we upgraded video cards and monitors.
-Erik Johnson
er...@phidias.colorado.edu
http://phidias.colorado.edu/vgallery.html
Kym ap Rhys
David Lewis wrote:
> Agreed, and the best tool for the graphic artist is a Mac. It can be done
> on a PC as well of course, I've done a lot of work on a PC myself. The
> question is, why would anyone *choose* to use a PC to do graphics?
Hi David,
To keep in line with the corporate standard machine in larger companies.
To save money - PCs and their peripherals are still cheaper to buy than
Macs.
I remember the first Mac, they offered a 'test-drive a Mac for a month
free' in the UK. My company got a couple in. Everyone loved them
(engineers, designers, admin folks etc.) the alternative was a (yeuch..)
IBM klunky PC or a Compaq IBM clone. The Compaq ran Flight Simulator
flawlessly and cost over a grand less than either the Mac or the IBM.
The company bought Compaqs. If Mac had pitched their prices under IBM we
wouldn't be using DOS & Windows today and maybe Mr Gates wouldn;t have
quite so much money...
Regards
Kym ap Rhys
Jay Swartzfeger
In article <50hhl5$1n...@piglet.cc.uic.edu>,
jkr...@uic.edu (Jason Kratz) wrote:
>What is wrong with knowing exactly how your system operates? Its not
>for everyone but neither is knowing how your car operates. Is there
>something wrong with the people who like to fix cars for a hobby?
Most artists don't have the luxury of 'fixing' their computer to get a
Quark or Pagemaker file to the service bureau with a noon deadline.
Jay
---
Jay Swartzfeger
In article <50hh9p$1v...@piglet.cc.uic.edu>,
jkr...@uic.edu (Jason Kratz) wrote:
>eyeb...@interpath.com wrote:
>
>>My best guess is that graphics designers aren't computer people, have
>>little patience with spending all day doing configurations, and are
>>interested in siomply getting to work with the least amount of trouble.
>>When you have a piece of software that follows the phrase, "Windows
>>Installation" with three pages of tiny type, then follows the phrase
>>"Macintosh Installation" with one sentence: "Click on Install icon," then
>>the problem starts to become clear.
>
>Funny. I don't have to even look at the manuals when installing
>Windows software. Really tough to go to the cdrom and click on
>'install' or 'setup'. I think you're about 5 years out of date here.
Maybe software installation was a bad example. Win 95 has made this process
rather foolproof. My old employer (a MS-Win only company) had me install an
external CD-R which took 3 days and a total of 3 complete formatting of the
HD and re-installs of Win 95 to get the drive online.
My new employer is Mac-only in the DTP dept. and things have been
enormously easier.
Maybe you also missed the nightmare thread on installing a Wacom tablet
under windows.
>>Also, I've found that running simultaneous programs and multiple windows
>>to be an important thing in the minds of many people. I know, Win95 can
>>do this, clumsily, with a lot of set-up. But on a Mac it is effortless
>>and intuitive.
>
>You're talking out of your butt here. It's again obvious that you are
>about 5 years behind in the Windows world. Win95 multitasking is not
>clumsy nor does it require 'a lot of set-up'. Windows 3.x
>multitasking sucked. Windows 95 multitasking is effortless. Windows
>NT multitasking is even better so if its that much of a concern go
>with NT.
Win 95's multi-tasking is certainly better than 3.x's... but then again,
being better than 3.1 isn't that hard.
>>I've worked in a DOS environment for word processing & spreadsheets for
>>ten years, so I know PCs well and don't believe I'm prejudiced--I still WP
>>on my trusty DOS 386 machine. When the time came to get serious about
>>graphic work, it didn't occur to me to do anything *but* go buy a Mac. I
>>tried out Photoshop on a Win95 Pentium & a Mac and, to me, the difference
>>was night and day. Even the mouse movement seemed a lot smoother & more
>>precise on the Mac.
>
>Yes, to *you* the difference was night and day. On comparable systems
>I didn't notice much of a difference as we use both platforms at work.
>The comment about mouse movement is so totaly ridiculous I won't even
>comment more on it. And by the way....your comments do show that you
>have a bad attitude towards the Windows platform.
I totally agree about the mouse movement being flakey. Sure, it's probably
a subjective thing because I've been a Mac user for 5 years, but I still
can't stand Win 95's mouse movement at all, especially for doing critical
things in Photoshop like selections/paths.
>
>>Maybe someday Microsoft will complete their ongoing project of attempting
>>to duplicate the Mac O/S. They're about 80% there so far. Good enough
>>for most apps, but not for serious graphics.
>
>Ease of use might not be a the MacOS level but looking at the OS from
>a technical standpoint Windows 95 is ahead of MacOS. The platform can
>be used for 'serious' graphics because the platform doesn't make the
>art....the artist does. You seem to forget that the platform is
>only a tool...nothing more nothing less. The easiest thing is to use
>what platform best fits your needs....not go on about garbage like
>'even the mouse movements were smoother'.
You're right about the artist makes the art... but the artist is screwed if
he uses a PC and needs a service bureau.
Jay
---
Erik Johnson
Jay Swartzfeger wrote:
> Maybe software installation was a bad example. Win 95 has made this process
> rather foolproof. My old employer (a MS-Win only company) had me install an
> external CD-R which took 3 days and a total of 3 complete formatting of the
> HD and re-installs of Win 95 to get the drive online.
I'd put more blame on the installer who has to reformat the harddrive
(?!) in
order to install a cd-rom. I personally find pc hardware much easier to
deal
with in general due to the component nature. I want a faster computer,
I
swap processors or motherboard and sell the old stuff. Much easier and
cheaper than with Macs where often you have to replace the who unit
(though
not always).
> My new employer is Mac-only in the DTP dept. and things have been
> enormously easier.
>
> Maybe you also missed the nightmare thread on installing a Wacom tablet
> under windows.
Haven't had any trouble installing Wacom tablets on a number of
different
Win machines, even the lcd wacom tablet we've got (which is pretty
nifty).
> Win 95's multi-tasking is certainly better than 3.x's... but then again,
> being better than 3.1 isn't that hard.
My experience is that Win3.1 multitasked better than the Macs I've used.
And Win95 does better, and NT is better still. Perhaps the Mac has
improved,
but I never enjoyed the modal nature of printing, scanning and many
other
fundamental tasks that was the case on our Mac Quadras.
> I totally agree about the mouse movement being flakey. Sure, it's probably
> a subjective thing because I've been a Mac user for 5 years, but I still
> can't stand Win 95's mouse movement at all, especially for doing critical
> things in Photoshop like selections/paths.
Then buy a better mouse. You tend to get what you pay for with mice.
The
Mac and Win deal with mouse movements pretty much the same as does
practically
every other computer.
> You're right about the artist makes the art... but the artist is screwed if
> he uses a PC and needs a service bureau.
Hmm, I've never been screwed and need to use service bureaus all the
time
regardless of what platform they choose to use.
Shawn Callahan
Check out Corel Zara
Find it yourself. (perhaps there is a little smiley face icon that can
show you how)
Eat dust and crow for desert.
Programs do graphics and patforms do them too? What apple PR guy did
you sleep with last night. Graphic Artist do it dude...you know...what
you were supossed to be doing in art school, learning how to design.
Who gives a S**t what patform you did it on. Open your mind.
Live long and prosper or whatever..
Ciao!
Shawn
Jerry Kindall
>Who gives a S**t what patform you did it on. Open your mind.
A Mac will make you fiddle with the computer stuff less, leaving you more
time to concentrate on the work. This is what "lower support costs"
translates into in the real world, where most of us maintain our own
machines.
I must say, I do respect people who do good work on PCs. I'm amazed that
people can deal with those confounded machines and still have time to do
their work.
>Shawn
--
Jerry Kindall <kin...@manual.com>
Manual Labor <http://www.manual.com/>
Technical Writing -- Internet & WWW Consulting -- We Wrote the Book!
Our satisfied customers include id Software, ResNova Software, Scantron
Quality Computers, and HouseMaster. Find out what we can do for you!
David Lewis
Shawn Callahan <sha...@connix.com> wrote:
> Check out Corel Zara
> Find it yourself. (perhaps there is a little smiley face icon that can
> show you how)
> Eat dust and crow for desert.
> Programs do graphics and patforms do them too? What apple PR guy did
> you sleep with last night. Graphic Artist do it dude...you know...what
> you were supossed to be doing in art school, learning how to design.
> Who gives a S**t what patform you did it on. Open your mind.
Open a dictionary.
WEHJ
Mark Taylor wrote:
>
> I've been using PS since 2.5 on an Intel and am a graphic designer. I also
> work occasionally for others who use MACS so I've used both. If you've got
> equivalent machines (Memory, Power, speed etc. NOT $$'s), PS works better
> on a MAC. Motorola chips handle graphics better, and swapping to disk is
> still a laborious operation in windows plagued by crashes. with 24Mg RAM,
> Open a 100Mg file on the MAC: no problem, on Windows: half expect to crash.
> The short answer is RELIABILITY.
>
> > goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) wrote:
> > >
> > > illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
> > >
> > > I've been looking for a simple answer to this question
> > > or a LONG time now, and it seems nobody can give me a
> > > straight answer.
I know of personal experience that when you work on multiple large files
that once you have tried to bring in more than can handled by ram and
the scratch disk that PS will crash at that point. How does that get
handled on a mac?
€ RoGeR JoHaNsSoN €
> >was night and day. Even the mouse movement seemed a lot smoother & more
> >precise on the Mac.
>
> The comment about mouse movement is so totaly ridiculous I won't even
> comment more on it. And by the way....your comments do show that you
> have a bad attitude towards the Windows platform.
Actually, mouse movement _IS_ different. On the Mac it's just like he
says, a lot smoother and more precise. I don't know why, but that's the
way it is.
--
.-----|----.
| o | o |
| / |
| (__ | ** Any views expressed in the above message are my own. **
| \____|_/ |
| | |
'------\---'
Markus Roessler
> Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
because the handling and reliability is much better. Try it out. Move
pict file from the desktop to photoshop or adobe premiere...its very
handy. Everything works with plug and play, like scanners graphic
tablets and so on.
Customers asked me the same question and I can only reply that I can do
the same on a PC, but the product will cost more.
Markus
Breakwater Books Ltd.
> > You're right about the artist makes the art... but the artist is screwed if
> > he uses a PC and needs a service bureau.
>
> Hmm, I've never been screwed and need to use service bureaus all the
> time
> regardless of what platform they choose to use.
>
> -Erik Johnson
> er...@phidias.colorado.edu
> http://phidias.colorado.edu/vgallery.html
I hate to add more fuel to the fire but...
I work for a publishing company that was completely PC based. About six
monts ago we finally
made the move and changed our production department to be Mac-based.
Things have never
been easier: we have a better choice of service bureaus and much beeter
quality as we are
saving thousands on print jobs with a quicker turnaround time.
As someone who has never touched a Mac until six months ago, they are
much easlier to use and
you definetly do NOT crash as much.
Carla
Jerry Kindall
In article <Roger.Johansson-...@news.dacapo.se>,
Roger.J...@dacapo.se (€ RoGeR JoHaNsSoN €) wrote:
>In article <50hh9p$1v...@piglet.cc.uic.edu>, jkr...@uic.edu wrote:
>
>> >was night and day. Even the mouse movement seemed a lot smoother & more
>> >precise on the Mac.
>>
>
>> The comment about mouse movement is so totaly ridiculous I won't even
>> comment more on it. And by the way....your comments do show that you
>> have a bad attitude towards the Windows platform.
>
>Actually, mouse movement _IS_ different. On the Mac it's just like he
>says, a lot smoother and more precise. I don't know why, but that's the
>way it is.
The Mac uses an acceleration curve to map the mouse movement to on-screen
pointer movement. Win95, from what I can tell, uses an accelration
THRESHOLD. I.e., if you move the mouse faster than a certain speed,
cursor motion is accelerated. On the Mac multiple "thresholds" are used
so that acceleration is smoother. For me, it's a lot easier to "hit"
on-screen objects on the Mac than on a PC.
Cougar
You go ahead and use Corel Zara and make 20k a year. Maybe get a cool job
doing graphics for the Sunday newspaper, dude. The designers who charge a
minimum of 500k to do a web site are not using PC's.
> Check out Corel Zara
> Find it yourself. (perhaps there is a little smiley face icon that can
> show you how)
> Eat dust and crow for desert.
> Programs do graphics and patforms do them too? What apple PR guy did
> you sleep with last night. Graphic Artist do it dude...you know...what
> you were supossed to be doing in art school, learning how to design.
> Who gives a S**t what patform you did it on. Open your mind.
>
>
Erik Johnson
Breakwater Books Ltd. wrote:
> As someone who has never touched a Mac until six months ago, they are
> much easlier to use and
> you definetly do NOT crash as much.
They may not crash as often as Win95 (which isn't saying much), but they
still crash, which is always a real drag. However if one uses NT, one
will
quickly forget what crashing is. Try this with your Mac... run a busy
web
server, email server and ftp server on the same machine, add a couple
modems
for dial-in PPP serving. Then run photoshop in the foreground and (with
adequate ram) be unable to tell that all that other stuff is in the
background,
AND rest assured that the machine will *never* come down taking all
those
services offline.
Our PowerMac webserver is slower for webserving when that is *all* it is
doing. And it is not as usable when it is running its webserver.
Jay Swartzfeger
>> If you want to see the kind of things that can be done by a serious Mac
>> designer visit: www.amacs.demon.co.uk
>> Then tell me where you can find work done to that standard on a P.C.
>> Rob.
>
>Check out Corel Zara
>Find it yourself. (perhaps there is a little smiley face icon that can
>show you how)
>Eat dust and crow for desert.
>Programs do graphics and patforms do them too? What apple PR guy did
>you sleep with last night. Graphic Artist do it dude...you know...what
>you were supossed to be doing in art school, learning how to design.
>Who gives a S**t what patform you did it on. Open your mind.
>
>
>Live long and prosper or whatever..
>Ciao!
>Shawn
I give a sh*t. I do a majority of my work in Bryce 2.1-- Mac only.
Jay
---
,-~~-.___. *********************************
/ | ' \ * Jay Swartzfeger Pittsburgh Pa *
( ) 0 *-------------------------------*
\_/-, ,----' * Writer, Musician *
==== // * SCO Unix OS 5 Administrator *
/ \-'~; /~~~(O) *-------------------------------*
/ __/~| / | * evge...@fyi.net *
=( _____| (_________| *********************************
Jay Swartzfeger
In article <322CB7...@phidias.colorado.edu>,
Erik Johnson <er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
>Jay Swartzfeger wrote:
>
>> Maybe software installation was a bad example. Win 95 has made this process
>> rather foolproof. My old employer (a MS-Win only company) had me install an
>> external CD-R which took 3 days and a total of 3 complete formatting of the
>> HD and re-installs of Win 95 to get the drive online.
>
>I'd put more blame on the installer who has to reformat the harddrive
>(?!) in order to install a cd-rom. I personally find pc hardware much easier >to deal with in general due to the component nature. I want a faster >computer, I swap processors or motherboard and sell the old stuff. Much >easier and cheaper than with Macs where often you have to replace the who >unit (though not always).
Maybe I should've been a tad more specific-- by CD-R I meant a recordable
cd-rom drive. And how am I to blame when this supposedly 'plug and play'
drive conflicts with my sound card, wipes out the two PCMCIA cards
installed, and totally corrupts Win95's registry? When the registry get's
screwed, my experience has been that a simple re-install of Win95 won't
do-- a format is in order to re-write the registry, which (I think) is a
read-only file.
I partially agree with you on the PC's 'component' nature. But I also
believe that Mac's retain their 'usability' longer, which takes a bit of
the edge off of having to upgrade.
For the record, Power Computing mac clones are just as easy to upgrade as
PC's.
>> My new employer is Mac-only in the DTP dept. and things have been
>> enormously easier.
>>
>> Maybe you also missed the nightmare thread on installing a Wacom tablet
>> under windows.
>
>Haven't had any trouble installing Wacom tablets on a number of
>different
>Win machines, even the lcd wacom tablet we've got (which is pretty
>nifty).
I'm glad that you had no problems with your Wacom (really!). I'm just
passing on what I've read, and also 3 graphics artists I know personally
who've wrestled with PC's and Wacom's (2 of which are switching back to
Mac).
>> Win 95's multi-tasking is certainly better than 3.x's... but then again,
>> being better than 3.1 isn't that hard.
>
>My experience is that Win3.1 multitasked better than the Macs I've used.
>And Win95 does better, and NT is better still. Perhaps the Mac has
>improved,
>but I never enjoyed the modal nature of printing, scanning and many
>other
>fundamental tasks that was the case on our Mac Quadras.
My experience has been just the opposite. Go figure ;)
>> I totally agree about the mouse movement being flakey. Sure, it's probably
>> a subjective thing because I've been a Mac user for 5 years, but I still
>> can't stand Win 95's mouse movement at all, especially for doing critical
>> things in Photoshop like selections/paths.
>
>Then buy a better mouse. You tend to get what you pay for with mice.
>The
>Mac and Win deal with mouse movements pretty much the same as does
>practically
>every other computer.
We were using 'quality' logitech mice. I don't know why (Windows graphics
API? Is there such a beast? I dunno.), but Windows mouse movement does not
seem as precise on screen. Subjective, sure. But that's been my experience.
>
>> You're right about the artist makes the art... but the artist is screwed if
>> he uses a PC and needs a service bureau.
>
>Hmm, I've never been screwed and need to use service bureaus all the
>time
>regardless of what platform they choose to use.
Maybe this blanket statement on my part wasn't fair. Let me clarify-- close
to 3/4th's of service bureaus are Mac only or primarily Mac. There are
bureaus who handle PC stuff, but from my experience there doesn't seem to
be the options there for a PC user that there is for a Mac user-- *in
general.* Yes, there are full-fledged bureaus out there that can handle
PC's as well as Macs, but they are far fewer in number.
David Lewis
Erik Johnson <er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
> They may not crash as often as Win95 (which isn't saying much), but they
> still crash, which is always a real drag. However if one uses NT, one
> will
> quickly forget what crashing is. Try this with your Mac... run a busy
> web
> server, email server and ftp server on the same machine, add a couple
> modems
> for dial-in PPP serving. Then run photoshop in the foreground and (with
> adequate ram) be unable to tell that all that other stuff is in the
> background,
> AND rest assured that the machine will *never* come down taking all
> those
> services offline.
Erik, perhaps you need to read the subject line of this thread. No one
said the Mac was a better server. This thread is about why the Mac is
better for graphics. The comment you were responding to was a comment from
someone using thier Mac for doing digital publishing, not web serving and
running Photoshop at the same time. I am sure the person you responded to
could care less about the stability of NT. The Mac excels at digital
publishing, Windows anything (3.1, 95, NT) does not.
Erik Johnson
David Lewis wrote:
>
> Erik Johnson <er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
> Erik, perhaps you need to read the subject line of this thread. No one
> said the Mac was a better server. This thread is about why the Mac is
> better for graphics. The comment you were responding to was a comment from
> someone using thier Mac for doing digital publishing, not web serving and
> running Photoshop at the same time. I am sure the person you responded to
> could care less about the stability of NT. The Mac excels at digital
> publishing, Windows anything (3.1, 95, NT) does not.
I admit that I missed the very first post so only have the Subject and
the various other posts to go by. But Digital Publishing implies more
than just going to a service bureua for output. Digital Publishing
implies that the medium is digital... which could include publishing on
internet, authoring 3d and multimedia and the like. In which case web
serving might be an important capability. And other posts in this
thread
have referred to designing web pages... pretty handy to have a web
server
and good internet capabilities.
Mac may have carved a rapidly shrinking niche in the desktop publishing
and prepress arenas, but digital publishing implies a whole lot MORE.
Considering that the bulk of tools for doing all these tasks exists on
both platforms, it is pretty hard to claim that the Mac excels and
'Windows
anything' does not. My machine is quite capable of performing every
task
(much of which might be considered Digital Publishing) I demand of it
reliably without crashing (well, it does get a bit boggy when I try to
work on 80meg images in photoshop with only 48meg of ram but that's a
different issue).
Mick O'Dwyer
Shawn Callahan <sha...@connix.com> wrote:
> Rob
> If you want to see the kind of things that can be done by a serious Mac
> designer visit: www.amacs.demon.co.uk
> Then tell me where you can find work done to that standard on a P.C.
I hate to break it to you, Rob, but anyone who can use
illustrator/freehand on a Mac can use it on a PC.
It's not the platform that makes someone a good designer/illustrator.
Or do you just like starting petty flame wars.
> Shawn
> Who gives a S**t what patform you did it on.
Certainly not a satisfied client.
Mick.
PS
I liked your bike and Lancia illustrations, Rob, you're pretty
good...but not so good that you're setting new standards.
--
http://aoife.indigo.ie/~mikeyod
photography - imaging - design
hdoan
In article <cougar-0409...@term1-12.sb.west.net>, cou...@west.net
>You go ahead and use Corel Zara and make 20k a year. Maybe get a cool job
>doing graphics for the Sunday newspaper, dude. The designers who charge a
>minimum of 500k to do a web site are not using PC's.
>
Platforms do happily co-exist for graphics work. I know of pc apps that can
handle color palettes and compression much better than the macs. Java is much
easier on the pc. Conversely, some tools are easier on the mac.
NO one in the right mind should be so religously narrow.
--HD
Shawn Callahan
Cougar wrote:
>
> You go ahead and use Corel Zara and make 20k a year. Maybe get a cool job
> doing graphics for the Sunday newspaper, dude. The designers who charge a
> minimum of 500k to do a web site are not using PC's.
Each one of those guys making 500k a year doing web sites are now making
more $$ than Apple inc. Do you really think apple has a clue?
Stay with your toy computer, some of us look foward not back. Cowpland
is doomed. Make the change now while you can still find some sucker to
buy your mac. LOOP kernals are yesterdays technology...but apple didnt
tell you about that so I must be lying. Steve Jobs knew it in 1988, too
bad the corp he founded is draging down so many with it. BTW Most of the
guys I know doing Major corporate websites have gone to a flavor of
Unix. 500k? They own thier agencies right? who in thier right mind would
pay anyone that cash, and if you are working for someone else, why work
for that when you can make more on your own?
Apple still has a chance, put the gui on top of unix (appleunix?)
Peace
shawn
Roderick Martin
that Windows could "do" the "mini" title-bars that I see on all the Mac
PS's control windows. That saves quite a bit of space on the Mac side.
My 8500 and Apple monitor does 1280x1024 (or close to that) right out of
the box. No cards needed. Personally, I can't work at that resolution,
but most of my work is for Web design and I hate squinting at my screen.
Plus, one thing I _still_ haven't seen a Windows machine do yet is
multiple monitors. Just plug in another monitor on the Mac and you've
doubled your screen real estate without sacrificing your eyesight.
But this all just goes to show that it really just comes down to a
matter of personal preferences. I personally could not stand to work on
a Windows machine and you personally don't have the issue that I have
with the screen space.
To each his/her own...
-Rod Martin
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> Stay with your toy computer, some of us look foward not back. Cowpland
> is doomed. Make the change now while you can still find some sucker to
> buy your mac. LOOP kernals are yesterdays technology...but apple didnt
> tell you about that so I must be lying. Steve Jobs knew it in 1988, too
> bad the corp he founded is draging down so many with it.
Took the words right out of my mouth. If you want a real world analogy of
the Mac, it's like a beautiful woman with bad teeth and no brain; she's a
complete knockout--until she opens her mouth and talks. The Mac has--or at
least used to have--a gorgeous GUI built on top of a very insubstantial OS.
Not much difference there between the Mac OS and an Atari video game
console: the ability to load into memory whatever you stick into it, and
that's about it. The so-called geeks who cared about such things as
performance or reliability never got fooled by the Mac's pretty face.
My theory is that most Mac enthusiasts just like all those molded plastic
gadgets of the Mac: the neat keyboards, the ADB plugs and the cutesy little
monitors and cases. Oh, look, it has a little animated Mac when you boot;
how sweet.
The fact is, even the latest PowerMacs have a really sluggish GUI: I was
amazed to find out how slow and unresponsive these fast machines feel.
Clicking around on buttons and menus and moving windows feels like bad old
Windows 3.0 on a 286. Well, considering half the OS runs under emulation,
the speed is actually quite decent.
I am not a Microsoft or Windows proponent--far from it; just somebody who
was always a tad weary of Macintosh hypomania and single-mindedness.
Now that I've written this stuff, I don't even know why I bothered:
Mac-heads remain Mac-heads, and Windows zombies remain, well, just that.
Paul
Erik Johnson
> Admittedly, I haven't used Photoshop for Windows, but I did not know
> that Windows could "do" the "mini" title-bars that I see on all the Mac
> PS's control windows. That saves quite a bit of space on the Mac side.
Same little mini title-bars. Windows, like Macs, like just about
everything
else can do anything it is programmed to do. Those little title-bars
aren't
built into windows but coded by Adobe.
> My 8500 and Apple monitor does 1280x1024 (or close to that) right out of
> the box. No cards needed. Personally, I can't work at that resolution,
> but most of my work is for Web design and I hate squinting at my screen.
> Plus, one thing I _still_ haven't seen a Windows machine do yet is
> multiple monitors. Just plug in another monitor on the Mac and you've
> doubled your screen real estate without sacrificing your eyesight.
Well to run 1280x1024 without going blind you really have to have a 20"
monitor capable of 72+Hz in that resolution. As for multiple monitors,
you can do it in the Win world with the right hardware, but it is not as
basic a feature as on the Mac. Basically you need at least 2 video
cards
that are designed to coexist, which VGA based cards are not.
> But this all just goes to show that it really just comes down to a
> matter of personal preferences. I personally could not stand to work on
> a Windows machine and you personally don't have the issue that I have
> with the screen space.
Oh, believe me, I am quite the screen real estate miser. I personally
couldn't stand an OS that even had a chance of going down on me. Which
is why I only use Win95 to play games and test software. But yes, it
all boils down to personal preference... which is often based on what
one is used to.
G Ray
Shawn Callahan <sha...@connix.com> wrote:
> Check out Corel Zara
> Find it yourself. (perhaps there is a little smiley face icon that can
> show you how)
> Eat dust and crow for desert.
> Programs do graphics and patforms do them too? What apple PR guy did
> you sleep with last night. Graphic Artist do it dude...you know...what
> you were supossed to be doing in art school, learning how to design.
I use a Pentium at work and a Mac at home. I'm neutral on the platform
wars, but I can't help noticing that it's always the anti-Mac camp who
sooner or later descend into this kind of hysterical adolescent
nonsense. As I say, I'm neutral, but count me in with the more rational
sounding Mac-advocates. (And BTW, the _pointer_ really does seem a lot
smoother and more accurate on a Mac. In W95 you can use a control panel
to _increase_ flicker/after-image, but you can't turn it off)(?)
Peace
Graham
--
Macca CMYK - Leicester UK
gw...@b4word.u-net.com
gr...@foobar.co.uk
Steve Bryan
In article <322E57...@connix.com>, Shawn Callahan <sha...@connix.com> wrote:
> ...Do you really think apple has a clue?
> Stay with your toy computer, some of us look foward not back. Cowpland
> is doomed. Make the change now while you can still find some sucker to
> buy your mac.
I know I'll kick myself for replying to a moron like you but this is just
pathetic. You can easily buy 225 MHz boxes right now for standard software
like PhotoShop, Premiere, and many, many others. You can also buy
multi-processor units from multiple vendors, all sharing the same API's so
software from multiple software vendors will run without hiring an
overpaid unix wizard. A "toy" computer! Save your money and buy yourself a
clue. (You could also look into a general education: how do you get
"Cowpland" out of Copland, a well known American composer? Loser.)
--
Steve Bryan
VSI, Inc
Eden Prairie, MN 55346
sbr...@vendorsystems.com
Erik Johnson
Alan Boucek wrote:
> You obviously don't use a Mac. Yes, there are some critical weaknesses in
> the OS that Apple should be ashamed of not correcting, but they rarely
> have an impact on everyday production work on a properly managed system.
> Macs used for real production, whether print, video or audio have to be
> reliable and have to be able to sling lots of data around. So called geeks
> get so caught up in being able to fine tune every little detail in their
> systems that they lose sight of the work that they need to get done to get
> paid. I don't get paid to be a computer consultant- I get paid for the
> work that I deliver. My very stable Macs are effective tools for getting
> lots of high-quality work done.
That is good. Don't think that current NT based systems require any
much
fine tuning. We've all got our work to do (though somehow manage to
find
the time to respond to rather inane threads like this one in newgroups).
Macs are not toys as the previous poster childishly implied. They are
tools that perform many tasks quite ably.
> Are you completely oblivious to the fact that Macintosh is the dominant
> platform in the design, print and pre-press industry? Film and video
> editing? Audio editing? Holding its own in scientific research and film
> and video special effects?
Film and Video Editing? I've seen very little about Mac solutions in
rec.video.desktop. Either Amiga or Win95/NT represents the bulk of
the posts. Design? Maybe, maybe not... there are many designers using
many platforms all to produce some pretty amazing work. Mac 3d
capabilities
are starting to look pretty tired compared to multiprocessor NT boxes
with
$3000-$5000 OpenGL video boards. The Mac is currently king of the print
and
pre-press industry, primarily due to momentum (similar to the momentum
that
Amiga has in video). Most places I've seen use a variety of platforms,
and
often have as many or more SGI's than Macs. Audio is another Mac
stronghold,
but more due to a few excellent applications that are only on the Mac
than
any technical advantage to high end pc hardware like Turtle Beach.
> ADB plugs that work? It looks like Microsoft and Intel have come up with
> their own version (and better) after ten years. Big 20" monitors that have
> been the standard in the professional world that uses Macs for 4-5 years?
> Is that smiling face any sillier than a sky with clouds?
ADB is nice, and one advantage Mac has as a result of centralized
control
of hardware design. It would be nice if PC would follow suit, but that
would
take the collaboration of too many competitors to agree on standards so
is
unlikely anytime soon. But the decentralized nature of the pc world has
other
advantages (price, selection, availability of very high
quality/performance
individual components).
Big 20" monitors have been the standard in the *professional* world
regardless
of platform for much longer than 4-5 years. A big monitor can be
attached to
any computer even an old 286. I've had my 20" monitor (well, one burned
out and
was too expensive to fix) for about 5 years now. Actually, I've rarely
seen a
big monitor on a Mac around here. Most of the big monitors I see are on
Unix
and NT boxes.
> > The fact is, even the latest PowerMacs have a really sluggish GUI: I was
> > amazed to find out how slow and unresponsive these fast machines feel.
> > Clicking around on buttons and menus and moving windows feels like bad old
> > Windows 3.0 on a 286. Well, considering half the OS runs under emulation,
> > the speed is actually quite decent.
>
> What are you comparing? A new Pentium machine vs a Mac IIci? Why is the
> fastest Photoshop platform *still* a machine running Macintosh OS?
I think he said he was comparing to PowerMac. I too have found the
PowerMacs
I've used (granted they aren't the most recent generation and not PCI
based)
to be surprisingly sluggish... primarily in the area of screen redraw.
The fastest Photoshop machine... that is debatable. The contenders tend
to
be a multiprocessor Mac *clone*, a multiprocessor P-Pro w/NT, or some
flavor of Unix with a specialized board for accelerating certain common
Photoshop
functions and/or filters. And there is no clear winner... each 'wins'
at some
tasks and all have weaknesses. Though not completely current, you can
get some
idea of what you can expect from these various platforms running
photoshop at
http://www.macweek.com/mw_1008/rev_photoshop.html.
The odds are that neither you nor I have a machine that would even come
close
to the performance of a bleeding edge example of any platform, and if we
did,
we wouldn't for long.
> I also spend lots of time using a Unix workstation. Each has its
> advantages, but a Mac is easier to configure (Irix is the easiest Unix to
> configure though)
The above article from MacWeek found the Mac clone and NT about as easy
to setup.
The Sun on the other hand...
> and there's lots of software that I want and need.
Well, there we some common ground... there is a lot of software that I
want and sometimes need... too little money, too little time, too little
hard drive space.
Bill Fosher
I> >If this is true, then how come almost every graphic designer
> >I've ever met uses a Macintosh? Is there a problem getting
> >stuff printed if you're on a PC? There's got to be some SOLID
> >reason why people involved in graphics or publishing find some
> >advantage in using a Mac over a PC.
If you ask a farmer why barns are red, he'll tell you that red paint is
the cheapest. If you ask a paint manufacturer why red paint is cheapest,
he'll tell you that it's because the farmers buy so much to paint their
barns.
There is no straight answer to why the Mac OS has become the standard in
the publishing industry, other than that it was there first with the most.
The price advantages of PC hardware have more to do with not having to buy
things you don't need. If you're writing term papers, you don't need two
Pentiums running 100MHZ. Or a soundblaster, or SCSI ports, or ... or ...
or ...
all of which are included in the price of Macs.
--Bill
Cougar
In article <322F35...@phidias.colorado.edu>, Erik Johnson
<er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
> Film and Video Editing? I've seen very little about Mac solutions in
> rec.video.desktop. Either Amiga or Win95/NT represents the bulk of
> the posts.
What? Avid dominates non-linear editing in film and television, and the
others use Media 100's. The use of After Effects is now over saturated
television. Every other commerial, bumber, filler and network or station
identity is done in After Effects. The Fox network does virtually
everything in Painter. Showtime does everything with a Media 100. I could
go on but why respond to this crap simply, you pull the Mac completely out
of the entertainment industry and you would have a pretty dull world.
Maybe you see a bulk of posts cause they are having more problems when not
using a Mac. Did Amiga or Microsoft develop Quicktime? C'mon! No they
supported an over-hyped switcher and copied the MacOS respectively.
>Design? Maybe, maybe not... there are many designers using
> many platforms all to produce some pretty amazing work. Mac 3d
> capabilities
> are starting to look pretty tired compared to multiprocessor NT boxes
> with
> $3000-$5000 OpenGL video boards.
Mulitprocessor NT boxes with OpenGL cards cost between $20k and $30k! Not
a fair comparison to even a $10k Mac. Youre right this is an inane
thread. I use different platforms too but the Mac dollar for dollar is the
most versatile.
David Cake
The historical answer is that Macs were first and best with digital
publishing. There is a very large installed base of graphic designers.
Especially small firms/departments or solo workers who have to do most of
their own day to day computer work, and rely on their Mac expertise to get
them out of dozens of day to day problems.
But why is it still the platform of choice? Partly, maturity of market.
The big apps are a little behind on the PC, but not that much. But the
dozens of small add ons, the specialised niche market products, they are
not out there for the PC. Suitcase, Debabeliser, photoshop filters, these
sorts of products are quite a bit behind on the PC. The big apps have had
most of the really bad bugs ironed out by now. System technologies like
Colour Sync, or full QuickTime support, or seamlessly supporting several
different font formats, or easy standard multimedia on every machine. Its
a case of a new emerging market vs an old mature market.
And partly its that Apple still has an edge where it counts. New stuff
like the multiprocessor machines, technologies like QuickTime VR,
QuickDraw 3D, still mean that the Mac is still ahead enough (admittedly,
the gap is a lot smaller than it used to be) that the cooler stuff is
often there first.
And partly - its just that the old customers have little reason to
change. Macs have a speed advantage where it counts for digital publishing
(at the mid to top end). All the old stuff still works, and by and large
developers are still out their working making good new stuff. So why
change to something that is ALMOST as good? Hardly compelling.
Cheers
David
David Cake
In article <aboucek-0509...@p21.ts1.walrus.com>,
abo...@walrus.com (Alan Boucek) wrote:
> You obviously don't use a Mac. Yes, there are some critical weaknesses in
> the OS that Apple should be ashamed of not correcting, but they rarely
> have an impact on everyday production work on a properly managed system.
As a technical person who knows and uses several platforms (though Mac
by preference) I have to say there are critical weaknesses and truely
horrible hacks in every major operating system out there. Macs are no
exception. Neither are any variant of Windows, or Unix. All are, at their
core, based on outdated technology that is completely inappropriate to the
machines and uses they are now used for. IRQs, A-Traps on PowerPCs, kludgy
UFS that still lies about its file size because its so unreliable when it
gets near full (ever got a disk over 100% full on a unix machine?). They
are all pretty ugly under the skin...
...but on Macs, it doesn't get in my way.
> Macs used for real production, whether print, video or audio have to be
> reliable and have to be able to sling lots of data around.
Amen. Macs can be made to work reliably for high powered work far more
easily than other machines. For corporate IS, you can get around config
problems by buying lots of identical machines, all pre-configured with a
standard working configuration. Which works for business and corporate
paperpushing, but would be an absurd mistake in digital publishing, or
other areas that require flexibility and adaptivity. There may be horrible
hacks designed to evolve a single program 68000 OS made when we thought
MacPaint was cool to work as a multi-tasking PowerPC based system used to
make digital video - but they work well and don't get in my way of doing
useful work. Whereas the internal of PCs (contortions so that machines
made today can still run programs written for DOS 2.0) do cause lots of
problems, and Unix too. Not that you can't get useful work done in both,
but its less likely to happen without a highly skilled support person
around to make it work.
> > Now that I've written this stuff, I don't even know why I bothered:
> > Mac-heads remain Mac-heads, and Windows zombies remain, well, just that.
Maybe he's right - I know and use and have had to support Windows, NT,
Unix and Mac - and I still prefer the Mac. But if the job is done better
on something else (our Alphas are used for things I would never use a Mac
for), then I use it. The right platform for the job should be what any
real professional (in any field) strives for. But I just can't help
thinking that if everybody had that attitude, there would be a lot more
Macs in the world.....
Cheers
David
Roderick Martin
Uwe Wolfgang Radu wrote:
>
> My theory is that most Mac enthusiasts just like all those molded plastic
> gadgets of the Mac: the neat keyboards, the ADB plugs and the cutesy little
> monitors and cases. Oh, look, it has a little animated Mac when you boot;
> how sweet.
What posts are you reading? I have not seen one post stating that a
little animated Mac on the screen when they boot is the reason they
prefer MacOS to WinOS.
> The fact is, even the latest PowerMacs have a really sluggish GUI: I was
> amazed to find out how slow and unresponsive these fast machines feel.
> Clicking around on buttons and menus and moving windows feels like bad old
> Windows 3.0 on a 286. Well, considering half the OS runs under emulation,
> the speed is actually quite decent.
_Which_ PowerMac model are you referring to? I've used Windows 3.11 on a
486 extensively and it in no way compares to the speed of my PowerMac
8500. Perhaps you were looking at one of the Performa models?
> I am not a Microsoft or Windows proponent--far from it; just somebody who
> was always a tad weary of Macintosh hypomania and single-mindedness.
You don't sound like a Microsoft proponent, but you do sound very
anti-Mac. From your post, you sound very Windows single-minded.
-Roderick Martin
Roderick Martin
Erik Johnson wrote:
>
> Film and Video Editing? I've seen very little about Mac solutions in
> rec.video.desktop. Either Amiga or Win95/NT represents the bulk of
> the posts.
The Avid Media Composer 1000 and 8000 are the leading choice for
nonlinear digital editing. They use the MacOS. They are incredible
systems for only $70-80,000.
> Design? Maybe, maybe not... there are many designers using
> many platforms all to produce some pretty amazing work.
Many, but not most. Ask around. Take a poll.
> Mac 3d capabilities
> are starting to look pretty tired compared to multiprocessor NT boxes
> with $3000-$5000 OpenGL video boards.
I expect that to change with the release of Lightwave 3D for the Mac
this fall.
> But the decentralized nature of the pc world has other
> advantages (price, selection, availability of very high
> quality/performance individual components).
Which is now changing thanks to the new Mac clones.
> I think he said he was comparing to PowerMac. I too have found the PowerMacs
> I've used (granted they aren't the most recent generation and not PCI based)
> to be surprisingly sluggish... primarily in the area of screen redraw.
The PCI based machine have IMO, absolutely no sluggishness when it comes
to screen redraw or other OS functions...and things are only going to
get better with the next OS installments.
>
> The fastest Photoshop machine... that is debatable. The contenders tend
> to be a multiprocessor Mac *clone*, a multiprocessor P-Pro w/NT, or some
> flavor of Unix with a specialized board for accelerating certain common
> Photoshop functions and/or filters. And there is no clear winner... each 'wins'
> at some tasks and all have weaknesses. Though not completely current, you can
> get some idea of what you can expect from these various platforms running
> photoshop at http://www.macweek.com/mw_1008/rev_photoshop.html.
Gee, why the emphasis on clone? If there is something inherently wrong
with using a Mac clone in a comparison, then I trust your computer
housing label reads "I-B-M."
> The odds are that neither you nor I have a machine that would even come
> close to the performance of a bleeding edge example of any platform, and if we
> did, we wouldn't for long.
Who is saying they have to be? We use what gets the job done in the best
way for each of us. Top performance is usually not the top requirement.
-Roderick Martin
Erik Johnson
> Mulitprocessor NT boxes with OpenGL cards cost between $20k and $30k! Not
> a fair comparison to even a $10k Mac. Youre right this is an inane
> thread. I use different platforms too but the Mac dollar for dollar is the
> most versatile.
Hmm... multiprocessor motherboard $400, $650/processor=$1300, 64M edo
RAM=$500,
OpenGL VideoBoard = $4000, Fast/Wide SCSI=$250, 2Gig SCSI drive = $500,
case, keyboard, mouse, floppy = $200, cdrom=$100, sound=$100, 20"
Viewsonic
Monitor = $1250, WinNT = $300, network card = $50...
$8950... that is about what we are paying for the box we are purchasing
(actually a little less cause we'll start with one processor). And
that's
with a 20" monitor. Even if we got more ram on the OpenGL board, and a
few
hundred more megs of system RAM, and a number of GIGs more drive space,
we'd
be *way* under $20k.
Now, what was that about dollar for dollar versatility?
hdoan
In article <cougar-0609...@term2-17.sb.west.net>, cou...@west.net (Cougar) wrote:
>In article <322F35...@phidias.colorado.edu>, Erik Johnson
><er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
>of the entertainment industry and you would have a pretty dull world.
>Maybe you see a bulk of posts cause they are having more problems when not
>using a Mac. Did Amiga or Microsoft develop Quicktime? C'mon! No they
>supported an over-hyped switcher and copied the MacOS respectively.
>
geez, you have no clue.. The Amiga led the video revolution.. Ever heard of
Newtek Toaster.. Sure, avid is far superior but newtek led the video desktop
revolution.
>
>Mulitprocessor NT boxes with OpenGL cards cost between $20k and $30k! Not
>a fair comparison to even a $10k Mac. Youre right this is an inane
>thread. I use different platforms too but the Mac dollar for dollar is the
>most versatile.
>
naw.. You can get a dual Pentium Pro OPNE GL system for less than 10k. You can
get a dec alpha for 10-14k
rob simmon
> any technical advantage to high end pc hardware like Turtle Beach.
actually, high end Mac audio hardware is FAR superior to Turtle Beach.
Check out Pro Tools by Digidesign.
and maybe the reason you see more posts from Amiga and NT users in
the video newsgroups is 'cause newsgroups are frequented by hobbiests,
and the real pros don't hang around much.
-rob simmon
Edward S. Eslami
In article <lewisda-0309...@anx178.ccs.tuns.ca>,
lew...@tuns.ca (David Lewis) wrote:
>Right. And for graphics, the machine that gets the job done is usually a
>Mac. Of course, 'graphics' is a very broad term. If you want to run
>SoftImage, you need a PC.
I'm sorry, but did you forget about Silicon Graphics for running Softimage?
___________________________________
Experience dictates that people \ Edward Sherwin Eslami
are very different from each other. \ "THE DATA-JUNKIE"
Wisdom shows us that we are the same. \ esl...@haven.ios.com
- - - - - - \ Duo...@aol.com
Information Overload, is that possible? \ WWW page coming later
Jeff Callegari
The Mac has been good to me...I still enjoy it more than a PC...I really
think
I am more productive with it (partial familarity/partial "the machine").
When
I sit down in front of my Mac I smile...when I sit down in front of my
PC I
know it is work and I don't have the silly grin! Windows seems like a
cobbled
attempt at a Mac by engineers...but my Mac seems like more than
a purely engineered marvel.
I am getting weary of the OS wars...like any war, I guess after awhile
the
people who are getting bombed just hope for peace. Sometimes I think the
best thing would be if MicroSloth just got out of the OS business and
sunk
all their energy into making all sorts of neat applications for
EVERYONE! If
MicroSoup did that I am sure they would more than make up the missing
OS and OS related money!
jeff
Edward S. Eslami
In article <50hh9p$1v...@piglet.cc.uic.edu>,
jkr...@uic.edu (Jason Kratz) wrote:
>eyeb...@interpath.com wrote:
>
>Yes, to *you* the difference was night and day. On comparable systems
>I didn't notice much of a difference as we use both platforms at work.
>The comment about mouse movement is so totaly ridiculous I won't even
>comment more on it. And by the way....your comments do show that you
>have a bad attitude towards the Windows platform.
>
>>Maybe someday Microsoft will complete their ongoing project of attempting
>>to duplicate the Mac O/S. They're about 80% there so far. Good enough
>>for most apps, but not for serious graphics.
>
>Ease of use might not be a the MacOS level but looking at the OS from
>a technical standpoint Windows 95 is ahead of MacOS. The platform can
>be used for 'serious' graphics because the platform doesn't make the
>art....the artist does. You seem to forget that the platform is
>only a tool...nothing more nothing less. The easiest thing is to use
>what platform best fits your needs....not go on about garbage like
>'even the mouse movements were smoother'.
>
>Jason
>
>
No Jason, your wrong. It is not garbage that 'even the mouse movements were
smoother.' The way a mouse moves on a Mac vs the PC is a perfect example of
the difference between the two platforms. Apple engineers spent MONTHS on
the algorithm for the mouse movement back in '83. They went to test groups
several times to test usability on this one 'garbage' detail. This is one
of MANY examples of the attention to detail that Apple pays to their
operating system.
Bryan Gosselin
I recently posted a question asking why graphics pros prefer
Macs for digital publishing, and I got a lot of feedback. Almost all
of my replies were very informative and intellegent in their responses.
However, I didn't ask the question to start a mindless "MAC vs. PC" war.
Some examples...
>> > OK, you want a straight answer: the Mac is a better machine.
>> > If you think otherwise then you're suffering from a bad case
>> > of Microsoft brainwashing.
>Check out Corel Zara
>Find it yourself. (perhaps there is a little smiley face icon that can
>show you how)
>Eat dust and crow for desert.
I just have one more question...
Eat dust and crow for desert???
I know you probably meant *dessert*, but
I fail to understand why I'd want to eat crow.
Bryan Gosselin
Gark
This thread has is turning into a petty flame war.
If you want a really answer to the question, call up some respected design
firms in your area. Ask them what machines they use and WHY.
Most will give you the same reason.
Cougar
Wow good prices! Getting an educational discount? Get them to through in
Softimage for free. I'll take one just to play with Lightwave 5.
Anyway to clarify, if you are serious about 3D modeling, animation or
digital video on NT boxes you want to look at companies like Integraph,
Carrera, and Netpower that offer a choice of chips like DEC Alphas, R4400
and PentiumPros, and OpenGL graphic boards offering combinations of
geometry, texture and rendering acceleration. OpenGL boards like
AccelGraphics AG500, FastSolids, and FastSolids Elite are cool but on some
NT boxes texture mapping is not an option. These systems are highly
optimized, with large high-speed memory systems; 24-bit double-buffered
video; and I/O support for composite and component video, including D-1. I
like the new Integraph Studio-Z ($27k) cause its optimized for animation
and video production right out of the box. These NT boxes start at about
$15k and go all the way up to $50k and are a serious alternative to more
expensive SGI systems (especially when you consider Photoshop costs $2500
for unix). I could probably build a stripped NT system with no-name
components to prove a price point but in the end it wouldnt be capable of
doing what I wanted and would be unreliable. And unfortunately most of the
good PC clone companies who offer inexpensive NT systems get very quiet on
the phone when I start talking about things like two SCSI interfaces
of10MBps fast SCSI-2 8-bit and 20MBps fast and wide SCSI-3 16-bit. Its a
shame they are missing a whole market of graphic designers who like NT and
want boxes optimized for graphics etc.
Well you know what you need, to do what you want, and can put the pieces
together for a cool inexpensive NT system. Versatile platform is another
issue for me and involves more than just price. I have obviously
considered NT. But in my case I have to do almost everything from
shooting, modeling, animation, and printing back to film, and need
friendly software and to coordinate with other people. You get that
versatility with the Mac.
In article <323056...@phidias.colorado.edu>, Erik Johnson
<er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
> > Mulitprocessor NT boxes with OpenGL cards cost between $20k and $30k! Not
> > a fair comparison to even a $10k Mac. Youre right this is an inane
> > thread. I use different platforms too but the Mac dollar for dollar is the
> > most versatile.
>
> Hmm... multiprocessor motherboard $400, $650/processor=$1300, 64M edo
> RAM=$500,
> OpenGL VideoBoard = $4000, Fast/Wide SCSI=$250, 2Gig SCSI drive = $500,
> case, keyboard, mouse, floppy = $200, cdrom=$100, sound=$100, 20"
> Viewsonic
> Monitor = $1250, WinNT = $300, network card = $50...
>
> $8950... that is about what we are paying for the box we are purchasing
> (actually a little less cause we'll start with one processor). And
> that's
> with a 20" monitor. Even if we got more ram on the OpenGL board, and a
> few
> hundred more megs of system RAM, and a number of GIGs more drive space,
> we'd
> be *way* under $20k.
>
> Now, what was that about dollar for dollar versatility?
>
> -Erik Johnson
> er...@phidias.colorado.edu
> http://phidias.colorado.edu/vgallery.html
DocOzone
In article <507i2h$r...@news.getnet.com>, goss...@getnet.com (Bryan
Gosselin) wrote:
:Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
:illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
:
:If this is true, then how come almost every graphic designer
:I've ever met uses a Macintosh?
This is simple. I remember when computers first invaded the commercial
screen printing shop I used to run. Prior to this point, all of our
artwork came as stats, and the camera was where most of our film positives
came from. We purchased one of the original Mac SE's, with the 300dpi
laserprinter, and we were producing camera ready art (kinda crude, but
still serviceable). No more paying for typesetting, we saved a bundle of
money. I remember checking prices/availability back then, and it was the
laser printer that sold us. Things just kind of grew from there, and it
was easiest to build on the system we knew. After 8 years I've left the
printing industry, and work solely as a freelance graphic designer. My
platform? The Macintosh, of course. Folks like the computer they already
know. It's like the Illustrator vs. Freehand debate, basically people like
the program they first learned, and gripe about the other one.
Your pal, -doc-
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Thaddeus "Doc" Ozone "Specialization is for insects."
Personal home page..........<http://www.visi.com/~drozone/>
Apocalypse Studios...........<http://www.ozones.com/ozone/>
-------A proud WinterNyet Refugee from July of 1996--------
DocOzone
Hiya Folks! Who starts these foolish platform wars anyway? Well, I just
read all 64 post (so far) in this thread, and I'm going to reiterate the
answer I gave earlier, as no-one else has mentioned it. IT WAS THE
LASERPRINTER! Digital publishing as hardly existed 10 years ago, it's a
direct offshoot from the traditional print industry. Traditional print
shops bought Macs because they could also buy a (relatively) cheap, camera
quality printer. The designers there learned the Mac, because it was
there. Inertia sets in, folks like what they know. Remember your roots,
people.
William Evans
goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) wrote:
>Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
>illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
Having been a comercial photographer for over 20 years I can tell you
the simple answer. We have worked with agencies and designers BC and
AC (before computers and after computers). I would say that over 90%
of them knew nothing about computers before purchase. So they asked
other designer what they used. MAC was the answer so MAC is what they
bought. So as more graphics people bought MAC's the better the
software apps for MAC's became.
I doubt today if the key apps are any better from one OS to the other,
but in the support apps from third party sources, the PC is at least
18 months behind.
________________________________________________
William Evans Hayman Studio Inc.
wje...@worldnet.att.net
_______________________________________________
Marcus Wilson
For a definitive answer from someone in the prepress game, you might want
to read and comment on this article.
This tidbit is from:
<cbal...@htc.net> (Corey Baldwin)
I work for a small commercial printer. My job is to take files on
Syquest, Zip, or Jazz disks, output them to film and pass them on to the
stripping department. Our pre press department is Mac based and 95% of
all files that come in are Mac Pagemaker, Quark, Illustrator, Freehand,
Photoshop.
Other than the occasional font problems or graphics missing all the files
pretty much run without problems. But unfortunately on occasion we
receive PC files; Pagemaker, Quark, CoralDraw. These files are a total
nightmare! Even if you use the same fonts they use or they select a
Postscript printer driver before they start the project, things just get
screwed up! Text reflows, tables fail to print (unless they are saved as
an eps) graphics shift or don't print correctly (especially if they are
CoralDraw graphics).
But the worst of all is the differences in
the character sets, for example if they use accents or fractions.
Depending on the file this could be a minor set back to a major disaster.
All this and I haven't even started talking about fonts. 95% of PC files
that come in do not include fonts. When I call the customer to talk to
them about the missing fonts, most don't even know where or how to place
them on disk, and when I finally receive the fonts they are TrueType,
which our RIP chokes on. Some print fine, some don't print at all, some
print on one page but not another. All this takes a tremendous amount of
time to fix these problems, which translates into larger costs and
delays. Many shops charge 20% more to output PC files, and they claim
they still lose money on every one that comes in. Thankfully that is a
very small percentage!
Also to date I have not received a single file that came from a Win95 PC,
and when asked if they were going to upgrade, most answered with a rigid
NO and some are planning to buy a Mac because of the problems they have
trying to get PC files output, and the rest, well, seemed indifferent.
Also recent printer magazines shows that the Mac is the platform of
choice and that there are no plans to migrate to Wintel platform.
So if you know anybody thinking about buying a computer for graphic arts
or desktop publishing and are considering a Wintel box, tell them they
look into the hidden costs and problems with that platform, once they are
educated they will make the right choice, and buy a Mac.
Corey Baldwin
Electronic Pre-Press
Printing & Publishing
Hope this reintroduces some reality back into the discussion.
Regards,
Marcus Wilson
--
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and not necessarily that of my employer
Marcus Wilson - Perth Western Australia
Jason Kratz
cou...@west.net (Cougar) wrote:
>Did Amiga or Microsoft develop Quicktime? C'mon! No they
>supported an over-hyped switcher and copied the MacOS respectively.
The Video Toaster was much more than an "over-hyped switcher". If you
really knew anything you'd not make that obviously bogus statement.
The Amiga was the first system with an NTSC output, even on the lower
end models. Made it (and still does) a very viable platform for video
work. The only thing 'copied' from the MacOS was parts of the GUI.
The Amiga OS itself is superior.
Jason
Jason Kratz
esl...@ios.com (Edward S. Eslami) wrote:
>In article <50hh9p$1v...@piglet.cc.uic.edu>,
>jkr...@uic.edu (Jason Kratz) wrote:
>No Jason, your wrong. It is not garbage that 'even the mouse movements were
>smoother.' The way a mouse moves on a Mac vs the PC is a perfect example of
>the difference between the two platforms. Apple engineers spent MONTHS on
>the algorithm for the mouse movement back in '83. They went to test groups
>several times to test usability on this one 'garbage' detail. This is one
>of MANY examples of the attention to detail that Apple pays to their
>operating system.
No. I'm not wrong. I don't know anyone who uses a mouse to do
serious artwork on a PC or Mac or whatever. Every artist that I've
ever met who uses a computer for anything more than a hobby to do
artwork has a drawing tablet. Mouse movement is an irrelevant point
when using a drawing tablet. Nice to know that Applet paid so much
attention to the details of mouse movement but has yet to put real
preemptive multitasking in the OS which windows has had for a long
time now in the form of NT and more recently in 95. Lets not mention
the Amiga which had it back in 85 and Unix even earlier. The best bet
is to get the platform that is going to suit your needs. Enough said.
Jason
Roderick Martin
hdoan wrote:
> geez, you have no clue.. The Amiga led the video revolution.. Ever heard of
> Newtek Toaster.. Sure, avid is far superior but newtek led the video desktop
> revolution.
Anything can be superior if you throw enough money at it. Gee, if I had
$85,000 I would probably buy an Avid myself!
For the money, absolutely nothing beats the Video Toaster.
-Roderick Martin
Matthew Malthouse
In article <322E9D...@pop.state.il.us>, rma...@pop.state.il.us wrote:
} But this all just goes to show that it really just comes down to a
} matter of personal preferences. I personally could not stand to work on
} a Windows machine and you personally don't have the issue that I have
} with the screen space.
In the begining there was the dos pc.
And it was lousy for graphics.
The came the Mac, and it was good (if expensive).
Designers used the Mac because it could do what they wanted.
And now in the world of Pentium and Win95 there's little
diference to what the machines can do.
But designers, especially if they were there in the begining,
still use the Mac.
Because it is good (if expensive) and does what they want.
But mostly because it's what they're used to.
Matthew
__\/__
/ ^ ^ \
(\| (o)(o) |/)
------------------------oOOOo--oo--oOOOo----------------------------
"You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."
mailto:matthew....@guardian.co.uk
The opinions expressed are not those of the Guardian Media Group
-----------------------------------Oooo.----------------------------
.oooO ( )
( ) ) /
\ ( (_/
\_)
Todd A Bartholow
Edward S. Eslami (esl...@ios.com) wrote:
: In article <lewisda-0309...@anx178.ccs.tuns.ca>,
: lew...@tuns.ca (David Lewis) wrote:
: >Right. And for graphics, the machine that gets the job done is usually a
: >Mac. Of course, 'graphics' is a very broad term. If you want to run
: >SoftImage, you need a PC.
: I'm sorry, but did you forget about Silicon Graphics for running Softimage?
: ___________________________________
: Experience dictates that people \ Edward Sherwin Eslami
: are very different from each other. \ "THE DATA-JUNKIE"
: Wisdom shows us that we are the same. \ esl...@haven.ios.com
: - - - - - - \ Duo...@aol.com
: Information Overload, is that possible? \ WWW page coming later
What about a DEC Alpha or a MIPS R4400? NT & SI run on other processors besides
the x86's. Just thought I would throw that in. <g>
Todd
David Lewis
In article <50on79$2...@news.getnet.com>, goss...@getnet.com (Bryan
Gosselin) wrote:
> I just have one more question...
> Eat dust and crow for desert???
> I know you probably meant *dessert*, but
> I fail to understand why I'd want to eat crow.
>
> Bryan Gosselin
Uh oh Bryan! Now you've done it. You're going to start a big stupid 'crow'
vs. 'dust' debate now ;-) Seriously, don't worry about the mac vs. pc
thing this thread started. It was bound to happen. For the most part, this
thread was very informative.
Edward S. Eslami
In article <511lm8$1v...@piglet.cc.uic.edu>,
jkr...@uic.edu (Jason Kratz) wrote:
Jason, Jason, Jason, what are you talking about? You obviously do not know
anyone who uses a "computer for anything more than a hobby." I work in
Graphic Design and about 20% people have them. Their are only two reasons
for having a graphics tablet, wrist problems or Illustration. Other reasons
are just gravy (and the gravy is good!).BTW, I personally own two Wacom
tablets, and I recommend them to anyone, they are far more reliable than
mice on any platform. Anyway, preemptive multitasking is not that important
to graphic designers, Apple's earliest implementation of multitasking
(switcher) came before the PCs were even thinking about multitasking. Give
it a rest Jason! There will always be people like you who do not care about
quality, but please do not brag about it!
Erik Johnson
> Anyway, preemptive multitasking is not that important
> to graphic designers,
Speak for yourself (he said while copying a few hundred gif files across
modem to server).
> Apple's earliest implementation of multitasking
> (switcher) came before the PCs were even thinking about multitasking.
Ha ha.
Denton
Roderick Martin wrote:
>
> Uwe Wolfgang Radu wrote:
> >
> > My theory is that most Mac enthusiasts just like all those molded plastic
> > gadgets of the Mac: the neat keyboards, the ADB plugs and the cutesy little
> > monitors and cases. Oh, look, it has a little animated Mac when you boot;
> > how sweet.
>
> What posts are you reading? I have not seen one post stating that a
> little animated Mac on the screen when they boot is the reason they
> prefer MacOS to WinOS.
Strange also how he fails to mention his boot-up cutesy little flying
Window on a cloud backdrop.
>
> > The fact is, even the latest PowerMacs have a really sluggish GUI: I was
> > amazed to find out how slow and unresponsive these fast machines feel.
> > Clicking around on buttons and menus and moving windows feels like bad old
> > Windows 3.0 on a 286. Well, considering half the OS runs under emulation,
> > the speed is actually quite decent.
>
> _Which_ PowerMac model are you referring to? I've used Windows 3.11 on a
> 486 extensively and it in no way compares to the speed of my PowerMac
> 8500. Perhaps you were looking at one of the Performa models?
I own/use both myself, not the highest end machines on both line-ups,
but certainly not the worst. Speed? Hmmm, seems to me that speed is
relative to the amount of work someone can accomplish in X-amount of
time on that particular machine. I can do more work faster on my Mac
any day than on my PC... But no, it doesn't drive the Doom graphics as
well... If this guy just wants to play Doom, well, he could have bought
a Sega Genesis.
>
> > I am not a Microsoft or Windows proponent--far from it; just somebody who
> > was always a tad weary of Macintosh hypomania and single-mindedness.
>
> You don't sound like a Microsoft proponent, but you do sound very
> anti-Mac. From your post, you sound very Windows single-minded.
The beginning of this post wasn't so much a Mac/PC war but someone
wanting to know the basic differences and why a high percentage of
graphics designers chose the Mac over the PC... I rather liked the
reply about graphics designers not wanting to fight with their machines,
but rather work on them... But I really think that a lot of it has to
do with the Apple Quicktime technology being exclusively Mac for its
first few years of existence, and possibly a great deal of it has to do
with the yet unbroken 640k memory barrier on the Wintel machines... So
certainly more features are packed into Mac graphics programs than the
comparable Windows programs.
--
_____________________________________________________________
| |
| Denton - Sysop |
| Denton's Keep BBS - Houston Area (713) 992-1433 |
| http://www.iwl.net/customers/denton/index/dkeep.htm |
| Denton's Animated Images - for those awesome webpages! |
| http://www.iwl.net/customers/denton/animate/animated.html |
|_____________________________________________________________|
Denton
William Evans wrote:
>
> goss...@getnet.com (Bryan Gosselin) wrote:
>
> >Why is the Mac so popular among graphics designers, digital
> >illustrators, and other graphics professionals?
[snip]
> I doubt today if the key apps are any better from one OS to the other,
> but in the support apps from third party sources, the PC is at least
> 18 months behind.
I personally think that the key apps aren't as good on the PC, although
I agree with all of the rest of what you said. It's like this... when
the software designers are making stuff for the PC, particularly things
like graphics design programs, works packages, etc, they're having to
think about the lowmemory requirements of the PC... This hampers how
many features they can pack onscreen at one time. In order to do
something else, the lowmemory has to quick-swap. So consequently, what
you see out of the PC world is having to do imports and such, while with
the Mac, it's all on-screen at one time. I think the PC world is
managing, scrappy buggers, but the Mac has no worries here... want a
feature added? Okay, no sweat... Want a classic example? Check out
any works package for the PC and compare it to Clarisworks 4.0 for the
Mac.
Marcus Wilson
In article <323843...@phidias.colorado.edu>, Erik Johnson
<er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
<snip>
> Speak for yourself (he said while copying a few hundred gif files across
> modem to server).
> Ha ha.
>
> -Erik Johnson
Yeah, but who need preemptive multitasking to do this?? My mac does this,
downloads 3 separate files from netscape, batch downloading with fetch,
and continuing to work with freehand and background printing. All this on
a lowly LC630.
So what's in a name? I guess it's just that you NEED preemptive
multitasking when your apps are not written to be friendly to the other
apps running on your machine.
Personally this has not been my experience with most recent mac software,
in that I can be downloading, listening to great CD music, and working
away in my day job.
Regards,
Marcus
fran...@mail.sdsu.edu
In article <lewisda-0409...@anx178.ccs.tuns.ca>, lew...@tuns.ca
(David Lewis) wrote:
-» This thread is about why the Mac is
-» better for graphics. The comment you were responding to was a comment from
-» someone using thier Mac for doing digital publishing, not web serving and
-» running Photoshop at the same time.
OK...my 2 cents worth...
As a designer who uses Photoshop on a PCI PPC (mac)....and has dabbled
(trying not to be annoyed) on a NT and win'95 system...I like mac better
because:
a) simple keyboard shortcuts are standard across most all mac programs
(command +x=cut, command+z=undo etc...) on some PC programs the alt+z isn't
an undo for example.
b) Multiple monitors!!...I have a small 15" for my palettes and a 21" for
the canvas...can PC even support multiple monitors?...Painter4 and
Director5 seems too cluttered with even a big monitor.
c) i like the "folder" way of storing files instead of directories, and
drop and drag files instead of using the "open" menu. Minor point: file
aliases on a mac make for great shortcuts while I've found that "shortcuts"
on win 95 doesn't always work the same nor just plain work...maybe it's
just me...
d) a Wacom tablet that is attached by adb plug.
e) color seems to be richer on a mac. ( but I do dislike, because of the
gamma difference on a PC monitor, having to "lighten things up to look
correctly on PC when doing cross platform graphics.)
f)not having to put suffixes on everyfile!!! some programs will do this
automatically like Graphics Converter.
these aren't the only reasons but it's just 2 cents worth. Basically I can
get work done and can exchange most every graphics file with clients (being
able to format and write PC disks) without too much fuss. Because that's
what's important; get any source in any format, work on it, and give the
client what they want in a form that won't be a fuss for them to use...make
it easier on them and they tend to write that check out faster...
ok...so I reiterated....Oh jeez...is it really 5am?!?!
Gary Zuercher
In article <sun-130996...@classic38.nv.iinet.net.au>,
s...@iinet.net.au (Marcus Wilson) wrote:
One reason the Mac has always been preferred by artists and creative
people is that the original GUI was designed by an artist and not
engineers. The interface is basically transparent, allowing the user to
intuitively translate creative ideas into digital data that can be output
easily.
Remember, Apple created the concept that whatever an artist could see on
the screen could be output to a Laserprinter using Postcript. WYSIWYG was
implemented on the Mac first.
This whole way of creating ideas on a computer just seems natural to me.
The Wintel way seems kind of clunky and, well, ugly. A Windows environment
sort of looks like somebody threw up at the Disney studio and thought the
vomit might look good as a GUI.
--
Regards,
Chroma
Bob G.
> One reason the Mac has always been preferred by artists and creative
> people is that the original GUI was designed by an artist and not
> engineers. The interface is basically transparent, allowing the user to
> intuitively translate creative ideas into digital data that can be output
> easily.
Let me get this straight, you think that any person who has a degree in
engineering can't be an artist, and can't be creative? And you also
think that if any of the persons working on the Mac team developing the
original GUI used in Macs had called themselves "Engineers", the
"Artists" wouldn't have used the Mac? I'm glad you cleared that up. BTW:
How do you know that none of the people working on the original Mac GUI
didn't have degrees in engineering?
> Remember, Apple created the concept that whatever an artist could see on
> the screen could be output to a Laserprinter using Postcript. WYSIWYG was
> implemented on the Mac first.
Actually, wasn't it Xerox who created the concept, and the first
computer to use WYSIWYG? That's were Steve Jobs (is that how it's
spelled?) got the idea. He just had a better vision of the future of the
personal computer than the management (not the engineers) at Xerox.
> This whole way of creating ideas on a computer just seems natural to me.
> The Wintel way seems kind of clunky and, well, ugly. A Windows environment
> sort of looks like somebody threw up at the Disney studio and thought the
> vomit might look good as a GUI.
Sounds more like Windows bashing than fact. I haven't used the MAC
version of Photoshop, but does it look that much different on screen on
a MAC, than it does on a PC in Windows?
> Regards,
>
> Chroma
Bob G.
David Lewis
Den...@IWL.net wrote:
> I really think that a lot of it has to
> do with the Apple Quicktime technology being exclusively Mac for its
> first few years of existence
Actually, Quicktime is still basically Mac-only. The Windows version of
quicktime offers playback only... no authoring abilities at all. Apple is
working to remedy this though for those masochists among us that *insist*
on creating multimedia on a PC.
€ RoGeR JoHaNsSoN €
In article <323A52...@openix.com>, atbb...@openix.com wrote:
> > This whole way of creating ideas on a computer just seems natural to me.
> > The Wintel way seems kind of clunky and, well, ugly. A Windows environment
> > sort of looks like somebody threw up at the Disney studio and thought the
> > vomit might look good as a GUI.
>
> Sounds more like Windows bashing than fact. I haven't used the MAC
> version of Photoshop, but does it look that much different on screen on
> a MAC, than it does on a PC in Windows?
Yes, it does. Call it Windows "bashing" if you like, but the Windows
interface is so ugly it takes my mind off what I'm doing...
--
.-----|----.
| o | o |
| / |
| (__ | ** Any views expressed in the above message are my own. **
| \____|_/ |
| | |
'------\---'
Edward S. Eslami
>In article <323843...@phidias.colorado.edu>, Erik Johnson
><er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
>
><snip>
>> Speak for yourself (he said while copying a few hundred gif files across
>> modem to server).
>> Ha ha.
So, the only things you can do at the same time on your Wintel machine is
word process and copy files?
>Yeah, but who need preemptive multitasking to do this?? My mac does this,
>downloads 3 separate files from netscape, batch downloading with fetch,
>and continuing to work with freehand and background printing. All this on
>a lowly LC630.
>
>So what's in a name? I guess it's just that you NEED preemptive
>multitasking when your apps are not written to be friendly to the other
>apps running on your machine.
>Personally this has not been my experience with most recent mac software,
>in that I can be downloading, listening to great CD music, and working
>away in my day job.
>Regards,
>Marcus
Well put, Marcus. I do all my 'net stuff on a stock IIci (68030/25!). I
also have a 9500/120 to do graphics stuff. I use my IIci as a server
downloading files that I download back and forth to my 9500, do Netscape,
Fetch, Newshopper all simultaneously with VERY little slowdown.
David Lewis
atbb...@openix.com wrote:
> Let me get this straight, you think that any person who has a degree in
> engineering can't be an artist, and can't be creative?
Well, I don't know about the computer side of things, but I have studied
*architecture* (the building kind... not computer architecture) for some
time and worked with *structural* engineers and I would have to say that
in my experience (architect/engineer) my answer to this is yes. But we are
veering seriously off topic. I agree that the 'artists developed the Mac
GUI and that's why artists like it' comment was pretty far fetched.
Gary Zuercher
In article <lewisda-1609...@anx119.ccs.tuns.ca>, lew...@tuns.ca
(David Lewis) wrote:
I didn't say "any" engineer, only the ones who created the original Windows
GUI look and feel. It was really ugly. Gates definitely needed some design
help there. Now the interface of Internet Explorer is much, much nicer.
Different designers...much nicer look. A degree in engineering doesn't
mean aperson can
or can't be creative...only that they have a certain kind of analytical,
problem -solving mind. Artists, graphic designers, musicians etc. must be
able to create new, original ideas (and create new problems for engineers
to solve, probably). My apologies to any creative engineering types who
were offended.
Larry Jaques
ga...@chromaconcepts.com (Gary Zuercher) wrote:
>>GUI and that's why artists like it' comment was pretty far fetched.
>I didn't say "any" engineer, only the ones who created the original Windows
>GUI look and feel. It was really ugly. Gates definitely needed some design
I'm sure that System 1.0.0 GUI was just picture perfect, Gary. ;)
================================================
Save the Endangered Boullions from being cubed!
http://www.diversify.com/~ljaques/index.html
===============================================
KEN RICE
ga...@chromaconcepts.com (Gary Zuercher) wrote:
>In article <sun-130996...@classic38.nv.iinet.net.au>,
>s...@iinet.net.au (Marcus Wilson) wrote:
>>In article <323843...@phidias.colorado.edu>, Erik Johnson
>><er...@phidias.colorado.edu> wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>> Speak for yourself (he said while copying a few hundred gif files across
>>> modem to server).
>>> Ha ha.
>>>
>>> -Erik Johnson
>>
>>Yeah, but who need preemptive multitasking to do this?? My mac does this,
>>downloads 3 separate files from netscape, batch downloading with fetch,
>>and continuing to work with freehand and background printing. All this on
>>a lowly LC630.
>>
>>So what's in a name? I guess it's just that you NEED preemptive
>>multitasking when your apps are not written to be friendly to the other
>>apps running on your machine.
>>Personally this has not been my experience with most recent mac software,
>>in that I can be downloading, listening to great CD music, and working
>>away in my day job.
>>Regards,
>>Marcus
>>
>>--
>>Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and not necessarily
>that of my employer
>>Marcus Wilson - Perth Western Australia
>One reason the Mac has always been preferred by artists and creative
>people is that the original GUI was designed by an artist and not
>engineers. The interface is basically transparent, allowing the user to
>intuitively translate creative ideas into digital data that can be output
>easily.
>
>Remember, Apple created the concept that whatever an artist could see on
>the screen could be output to a Laserprinter using Postcript. WYSIWYG was
>implemented on the Mac first.
>
For what it's worth (and it's probably not worth much) , the term
WYSIWYG was coined by the folks at AM International when they
introduced a preview monitor for the CompSet and CompEdit typesetting
machines. That was in about 1980-1981. Before that, we did all of our
composition on monochrome terminals using embedded codes. That was
TIIAHIWWYW (Type It In And Hope It Was What You Wanted). The monitor
ran a little routine that "previewed" what your job would look like
when you generated it, ran it through the processor and took a look at
it. It's kind of amusing, looking back because the preview was in
amber characters on a black background monitor and cost around
$25,000.00. Among users, the phrase was usually translated to
WYSIAWYG, (What You See Is Almost What You Get). There was no
PostScript page description language and the monitor was generally
helpful, but couldn't be relied on for small type and tight
run-arounds, etc.
When the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, PostScript, the
LaserWriter and PageMaker were all in the future and I dismissed the
Mac as a joke. By late 1985, the handwriting was on the wall for
anyone who cared enough to interpret it.
The publication, TypeWorld, ran a huge headline, "WAR," in their
February, 15, 1985 issue, which announced the LaswerWriter. Frank
Romano, then editor, could see the implications of this humble
machine. And the nearly $7,000.00 price didn't seem like much to
people who had been paying around $24-28K for direct input typesetting
machines.
I sold my gear for what I could get out of it and blessed the fact
that I didn't wait any longer. I now teach in a lab with about 30
Macs, and have a Mac at home. But, truth be known, I'd even take a
Wintel machine in preference to what we used to have to do to produce
a camera-ready page.
>This whole way of creating ideas on a computer just seems natural to me.
>The Wintel way seems kind of clunky and, well, ugly. A Windows environment
>sort of looks like somebody threw up at the Disney studio and thought the
>vomit might look good as a GUI.
>--
>Regards,
>Chroma
Jesse Rosen
In article <51qoap$f...@watt.electriciti.com>, lja...@diversify.com (Larry
Jaques) wrote:
>ga...@chromaconcepts.com (Gary Zuercher) wrote:
>
>
>>>GUI and that's why artists like it' comment was pretty far fetched.
>
>>I didn't say "any" engineer, only the ones who created the original Windows
>>GUI look and feel. It was really ugly. Gates definitely needed some design
>
>I'm sure that System 1.0.0 GUI was just picture perfect, Gary. ;)
>
Actually, esthetically, System 1.0.0 wasn't all that different than today's
System 7.5 (except for the lack of color of course) -- still much cleaner
and more easily understandable than W95, in my opinion.
--
Jesse Rosen * jro...@gmx1.com * http://www.gmx1.com/users/jrosen
---
"I am always optimistic, but frankly, there is no hope." - Hosni Mubarek
Dave Williams
> > One reason the Mac has always been preferred by artists and creative
> > people is that the original GUI was designed by an artist and not
> > engineers. The interface is basically transparent, allowing the user to
> > intuitively translate creative ideas into digital data that can be output
> > easily.
>
> Let me get this straight, you think that any person who has a degree in
> engineering can't be an artist, and can't be creative? And you also
> think that if any of the persons working on the Mac team developing the
> original GUI used in Macs had called themselves "Engineers", the
> "Artists" wouldn't have used the Mac? I'm glad you cleared that up. BTW:
> How do you know that none of the people working on the original Mac GUI
> didn't have degrees in engineering?
I'm sure there were a few engineers involved, but Chroma's point is valid
about the interface being designed with people in mind, right down to the
appearence (i.e. the "pinstripes" on Mac windows)
>
> > Remember, Apple created the concept that whatever an artist could see on
> > the screen could be output to a Laserprinter using Postcript. WYSIWYG was
> > implemented on the Mac first.
>
> Actually, wasn't it Xerox who created the concept, and the first
> computer to use WYSIWYG? That's were Steve Jobs (is that how it's
> spelled?) got the idea. He just had a better vision of the future of the
> personal computer than the management (not the engineers) at Xerox.
Actually, I don't think so. Apple ripped off a lot of ideas from Xerox,
but I think WYSIWYG layout/printing came later.
>
> > This whole way of creating ideas on a computer just seems natural to me.
> > The Wintel way seems kind of clunky and, well, ugly. A Windows environment
> > sort of looks like somebody threw up at the Disney studio and thought the
> > vomit might look good as a GUI.
>
> Sounds more like Windows bashing than fact. I haven't used the MAC
> version of Photoshop, but does it look that much different on screen on
> a MAC, than it does on a PC in Windows?
Double-click on the icon of an image created in Photoshop. On a Mac, what
you see is Photoshop opening itself and displaying the image. Does this
"look" the same when you double-click on the icon in Windows? Maybe it
does in Windows 95, which is probably the best effort yet to imitate what
those artists and engineers introduced in 1984. The fact that Windows is
getting closer to the Mac interface tells me all I need to know about
who's leading and who's following. Please don't flame me for this. I get
enough of that from my PC-using girlfriend.
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Chroma
>
> Bob G.
Dave Williams, Editor "A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the
The Star Democrat Online ground. As a journalist, you are expected to
http://www.stardem.com know the difference." - UPI Stylebook
Wizard
In article <mail-20099...@sd012.delmarva.net>, ma...@stardem.com
(Dave Williams) wrote:
>In article <323A52...@openix.com>, atbb...@openix.com wrote:
<snip>
>I'm sure there were a few engineers involved, but Chroma's point is valid
>about the interface being designed with people in mind, right down to the
>appearence (i.e. the "pinstripes" on Mac windows)
This is accurate. Apple hired people to work on the interface, including
artists, so that the Mac would be something that people used. Software had
to be designed around the interface. Apple still has rules about this,
although some (Hello, Kai!) ignore them.
<snip>
>> Actually, wasn't it Xerox who created the concept, and the first
>> computer to use WYSIWYG? That's were Steve Jobs (is that how it's
>> spelled?) got the idea. He just had a better vision of the future of the
>> personal computer than the management (not the engineers) at Xerox.
>
>Actually, I don't think so. Apple ripped off a lot of ideas from Xerox,
>but I think WYSIWYG layout/printing came later.
>
<sigh> People, at least get the facts straight.
1) Xerox's PARC had an internal computer where some of the applications
used icons.
2) Apple didn't "rip off" anything from Xerox. They licensed it.
3) Apple did create the OS-level features including the use of Icons for
everything and the pull-down menus. No, they did not create these things,
but they put them at the OS level for the first time. MS claims to have
done that, but in fact, Windows is just an overlay in Win95 and NT is
currently designed primarily for workstations. Most PC and Windows
software is 16-bit and will not work well or at all on the 32-bit NT.
<snip>
One thing neither of you have mentioned is the difference of the Intel
designed Microprocessor use on PCs (and the chip clones, too) as opposed
to the one designed by Motorola. The Intel design is excellent for
pushing numbers and flipping switches. Indeed, the earliest monitors for
PCs were "TTL" monitors designed for teletype machines. It was incredibly
difficult to get a decent drawing program on the Intel machines. On the
other hand, the Motorola chips were made to do vectors. The beautiful and
simple Mac interface could not have been created for the PC.
Even today, there is no PC emulator that can do a good job running Mac
software. In fact, it's not worth the time to try to use the current
version of Windows on anything less than a very fast 486. On the other
hand, the latest MacOS, 7.5.5. will even run on a "lowly" Mac Plus, a
ten-year-old computer! It was not until the advent of Win 3.1 and the
speed of the 486 that good graphics hw/sw became part of the PC world.
Now, they are catching up on the Mac.
Even so, the thing which made clones popular--low price due to a wide
variety of manufacturers--has led to so many "standards" that a person has
to be very careful with hw and sw problems. Plug-n-play barely works in
the PC world. It's been a standard in the Mac world for a decade.
Combine these things: ease of use, more appropriate hardware/software
combinations and a focus on the market and that is why Macs rule the
digital publishing world.
Just compare the smoothness of the Mac mouse as it smoothly moves its
pointer across the screen and the jerk-jerk-jerk of a typical Wintel
mouse. If you can't see and sense the difference, you should go into a
field other than art or publishing.
Wizard
WEHJ
Wizard wrote:
>
> Even today, there is no PC emulator that can do a good job running Mac
> software. In fact, it's not worth the time to try to use the current
> version of Windows on anything less than a very fast 486. On the other
> hand, the latest MacOS, 7.5.5. will even run on a "lowly" Mac Plus, a
> ten-year-old computer! It was not until the advent of Win 3.1 and the
> speed of the 486 that good graphics hw/sw became part of the PC world.
> Now, they are catching up on the Mac.
>
Your comparisons are a little lopsided so I would gather that you are
more of a Mac user than a PC user. For instance, if you have ever seen
a Mac trying to run Softwindows or whatever it is called, you could say
that there is no Mac emulator than can do a good job running windows
software. And certainly it would be preferable to have a higher end
pentium to run windows, but Win95 will run on as little as a 386SX,
although I am pretty sure it would be crawling along badly. And while
it is true you could run 7.5.5 on a Mac Plus you have to strip so much
of it that the machine can't handle, as you do with Windows95 on a 386
machine, the Mac Plus would not go any faster or operate any easier than
the 386. I helped a friend install 7.0 to his Mac Classic and by the
time we were done, with the help of a very experienced Mac user, we had
to leave so much stuff out it wasn't really worth going through the
whole thing in the first place. And you compare Windows, about what 6
years tops, with the Mac OS that is ten years old, which really doesn't
seem very fair now does it.
Just to balance it out, however, I'd take the Mac Plus over a 386SX
given a choice. Given a choice between what I have now and what I could
get from Apple for about 50% more than that, I cheaped out (although I
love my new computer!!!!).
Three cheers for everyone, it won't make any difference either way.
Wizard
Reposting article removed by rogue canceller.
<snip>
Even today, there is no PC emulator that can do a good job running Mac
software. In fact, it's not worth the time to try to use the current
version of Windows on anything less than a very fast 486. On the other
hand, the latest MacOS, 7.5.5. will even run on a "lowly" Mac Plus, a
ten-year-old computer! It was not until the advent of Win 3.1 and the
speed of the 486 that good graphics hw/sw became part of the PC world.
Now, they are catching up on the Mac.
Even so, the thing which made clones popular--low price due to a wide
Shawn Callahan
Right click 2xs and it opened in win 2.0, whats your point?
Left click and I can send that file to the printer, email it, send it to
a zip disk, run it though a macro, or what ever..all without opening
another window or photoshop..gee. The mac only gets good for the power
user when they use those keys....who cares about beginers at this stage.
Take a course and catch up. I refuse to work on a dumbed down system
that is cute so novices can feel good. I have work to do. BTW whats the
big deal with the multi-processor macs? the os cant use multiple
processors..Oh we must be talking those servers that run NT that apple
licenced from Microsoft or AIX. If a OS falls and no one is there to
hear it, is it really there? BTW ever run Photoshop on a mutiprocessor
NT workstation? Hard as hell to set up and get working, but holy shit,
does that thing FLY!
remember Mac and windows will not be the os you work on in 10
years...you HAVE to Learn New things constantly. Its what we do now
like it or not. Complain all you want, I'll be collecting your paycheck
then.
ciao
Shawn
Sindged but not burned
David Lewis
Shawn Callahan <sha...@connix.com> wrote:
>I refuse to work on a dumbed down system that is cute so novices can feel
> good.
Like Windows95 for instance?
J. Chardine
There are several themes running in this thread- one being the "feel" of
the Mac vs. Windows, in particular the mouse. I work in a mixed office
situation (equal numbers of Macs and Windows boxes) and occasionally work
back and forth between the two platforms (literally run between the two
machines). This is where you can really notice the difference. I am
*always* struck by how I feel more "connected" to the desktop and icons on
a Mac than I do on Windows. Partly this has to do with how the mouse and
pointer work so much better on the Mac. When I move from a Windows box to
a Mac I always feel a sense of relief for the first few seconds of using a
Mac- very hard to describe but those who have done this will know what I
mean. Of couse I can think of many other reasons why the Mac makes for a
far better working environment for all applications, not just graphic
arts.
--
from one of the Chardines in Torbay, Newfoundland
Dietrich Hohenegger
As I think someone else once posted here, but it bears repeating: you can
make art with a stick in the dirt - it doesn't matter what tool you use.
As far as who did what first, what difference does that make? C'mon folks,
let's do some art and quit wasting time...