Apple Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" Review (Generally positive but with reservations)

Winsupersite ^ | 4/15/05 | Paul Thurott

[AFPhys]

I've still got a few hundred cards, but I didn't realize an II+ would swallow them!

Ahh... Visicalc --- there's a good program.

You wouldn't believe the data analysis I did with that baby. It probably required about three times as many 'phantom' columns for the intermediate calculations as today's spreadsheets would require, but I did some good work on that. Really, though, most of my work today would be just fine with it. The graphics display would be a bit tough to massage into now, though.

Smiles...

[Dont Mention the War]

...Image Writer II printer...

I sure do miss those. I love the sound that dot-matrix printers make. And on the highest quality setting, the finished output is almost as good as that of an inkjet as long as you stick to text. (Much slower, though.)

I ought to buy one off eBay.

[Dont Mention the War]

Mac OS X 10.0 also included a few flops, which continue in the product to this day, including the reviled Dock, which is used to switch between running applications and, confusingly, non-running applications.

You don't have to use the Dock to switch between running applications or launch non-running ones. You don't have to use the Dock at all for anything if you don't want to.

[Dont Mention the War]

I'm hacking away to get Tiger running on my Timex Sinclair . . .

LOL! I have credit cards with more RAM on them than a Sinclair!

[Terpfen]

Linux is still half-baked. I can see additional software moving to the Mac, but not Linux.

[Dont Mention the War]

Ahh... Visicalc --- there's a good program. You wouldn't believe the data analysis I did with that baby. It probably required about three times as many 'phantom' columns for the intermediate calculations as today's spreadsheets would require, but I did some good work on that. Really, though, most of my work today would be just fine with it. The graphics display would be a bit tough to massage into now, though.

Mindblowing trivia: The PC version of VisiCalc is only 27.5K. There are pictures on this very thread bigger than that.

BTW, you can download and run a legal copy of the original VisiCalc. It's only the the PC version though; the author couldn't get permission from whoever owns the Apple II version now, I guess.

[T'wit]

I have scads of the old 5 1/4s. What I need is a drive for them. Then I could rescue any data worth the effort and hand the disks out for adoption.

[AFPhys]

You haven't tried out any of the Linux releases recently if you believe that.

The 'puter I'm on right now has W98, XP, Mandrake, Fedora, Suse on it, and I often boot up with Knoppix readonly from CD. Mostly using Fedora - my daughter prefers that.

Very seldom use XP any more. Love LINUX --- no problems at all.

[Terpfen]

I'm glad you've got Linux working beautifully for you, but the thing is not ready for general use. OS X is open source done right. Linux is still playing catchup on the desktop, though it's making good strides.

[supercat]

I've got plenty of floppies, but I've been looking for an 80 column card for my Apple II+. And when are they going to get the Visicalc upgrade released? Seems like years since the last one....

I would suggest getting an Apple //e or an Apple //c if you want 80-column support. Although a number of companies designed 80-column cards for the Apple ][+, there was very little consistency in how they were implemented. The Apple //e includes special circuitry on the mother board for 80-column support. Although it needs a plug-in cards to hold an extra bank of memory (which is interleaved with the display memory on the motherboard), all Apple //e computers with 80-column cards (and all Apple //c computers) support 80-column text the same way; all Apple //e computers with the extended 80-column card (and all Apple //c computers) also support double-hi-res the same way.

Some 80-column cards for the Apple ][+ may be of historical instrest, but software compatibility is apt to be dicey. By comparison, almost any software that supports 80-column text will work with a //e or //c.

[supercat]

Mindblowing trivia: The PC version of VisiCalc is only 27.5K. There are pictures on this very thread bigger than that.

I have a really nice text editor that's only 26K. Amazingly enough, it even has a complete Pascal compiler built in.

[AFPhys]

All I had to get Linux working right was to have the courage to install it.

I haven't had to tweak much at all - and I have not done a single thing to avoid virus and other such problems. Mozilla and such work just fine to kill any spyware - the operating system itself is not easy for viruses to crack.

Linux now is ready for general use.

[Terpfen]

The same can be said of OS X, and end users are more familiar with Macs than Linux.

[theFIRMbss]

>Linux now is ready for general use

It is possible
to live a fun, productive
life in, say, Des Moines.

But it's not the same
as living in, say, New York
or Los Angeles.

Windows is New York
or Los Angeles. Linux
is Des Moines. Don't think

that just because you
enjoy one kind of life style,
then the entire world

must submit to it,
or would like it if they did.
See the big picture.