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The problem with this amazing new device, with its sexy new operating system, is that it has the wrong name.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Check out this tough competitor for Windows PCs


March 17, 2002


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2002, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2002, The Post-Standard

   Windows XP has company. If you're willing to try something new, take a good look at something from Microsoft's biggest rival.
   It's called OS X, pronounced "oh ess ten." The company that makes it is ... well, it's a name you'd instantly recognize, but I'll keep it to myself for the next minute or so. If I told you what it is, you'd start thinking wimpy thoughts. I'm convinced that most people who use Windows -- and considering Microsoft's monopoly, that means 90 percent of the known population of the universe -- have wimpy thoughts when they hear the name of this company.
   So stick with me. You won't be disappointed.
   The new operating system is just half of the excitement from this mystery manufacturer. The rest is a hardware maven's idea of bliss. Instead of PCs -- the computers that Windows runs on -- this new operating system runs on something else, a different kind of computer altogether. This "other" computer isn't a PC at all.
   I can tell you're a little worried. I bet you think I'm trying to get you interested in some sort of Internet device that only four people have ever seen, one that uses some kind of strange software from a company that will follow 6,000 other dotcoms down the road to bankruptcy in three months.
   Not a chance. This thing's a real computer, with a real operating system. In fact, the company behind it has a pedigree you can't touch with a 10-meter totem pole: It INVENTED the modern personal computer in 1984.
   The problem with this amazing new device, with its sexy new operating system, is that it has the wrong name.
   Remember what I said about wimpy thoughts? Try me out. This new computer is an Apple. It's a Mac.
   Argh! Mister Rogers, Sun City retirement homes, pink flamingos decorating your lawn and ... and Macintoshes!
   Wimp city, dude!
   But Macs have changed. They're still cute, in a modern-art sort of way, but they have a new software engine under the hood. The operating system is tried-and-true Unix with the kind of multitasking that would make an octopus jealous, and the hardware is so fast that some operations get finished before they're started.
   Well, almost. I'm getting carried away. But it's all for a good reason. For the first time in years, I'm madly in love with a computer. I bought a Macintosh dual-processor G4 computer -- the one with two 1-gigahertz processors and a built-in DVD burner -- a few weeks ago and haven't stopped raving about it yet. I'm driving my wife crazy, my cat hides when he sees me coming and my parrot is quickly learning how to repeat "This is amazing!" three times without taking a breath.
   I installed the Mac alongside my trusty Windows 2000 PC with the idea of doing my digital video editing on the Mac while using my Windows PC for everything else. Silly me! I made my first DVD the day I opened the box the Mac came in. I made the second one the next day, after editing two hours of vacation videos in three hours with the Mac's built-in video-editing software, and then sat for hours in front of my dual-barrel machine while playing Pop Goes the Web Page on the Net.
   I got my mail working in less than a minute -- I doubt that I'll ever forgive Microsoft now that I know what the word "easy" really means -- and I fished around on the Internet for a Web-page editor that would match the one I use in Windows. (I found a half dozen.) I lost track of the time each evening three days in a row and fell asleep reading Macintosh how-to guides night after night.
   Could I possibly relegate my double-gig delight to a secondary role? No way. It's now a co-star. My Windows 2000 PC, its pride intact, is still doing a zillion things that have to be done, but my new Mac is taking on many tasks that have to be done quickly. It's four times as fast as the PC.
   And the new operating system, Apple's proud new OS X, is trying hard to make me a convert to this new kind of Unix. Will I succumb? Come back next week and I'll confess all.