[Technical] Notebooks for New Staff - DET needs to help

[Con Zymaris]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 11:45:29PM +1100, David Rayment wrote:
> Macs consume more problems due to the fact everybody (including my 4
> year old niece) knows windows.
> They are using intel due to the sole reason linux support is widely
> available and there is bugger all support out there for their alpha
> chip.

hmmm, now where do I begin with this one? ;-)

1) Have you ever tried your niece on a Mac? I'd bet a 6-pack that she'd 
   find it far more intuitive than Windows.

2) Macs moving to Intel has nothing to do with Linux. 

3) Macs don't use Alpha CPUs. In fact, hardly anything besides OpenVMS 
   systems do nowdays. Long ago, back in the day (circa 1984) when I first 
   started using them, Macs were based on the Motorola 68000 CPUs. Macs 
   moved through the various newer versions of this chip family over the 
   next 8 years, 68020, 68030 and eventually onto the last of the line, 
   the 68040. The CPU family was then changed in the early '90s to the 
   jointly developed/produced Motorola/IBM PowerPC series. Now, for the 
   third time in its production history, the Macs are switching CPU 
   families again, to the x86 range. Most observers claim that for sheer 
   CPU performance and heat management optimisation, Apple would have been 
   better off with AMD's Opteron range however. Obviously, politics and 
   market positioning had more to play with this decision than mere 
   engineering.


Hope this hekps. ;-)

Cheers,

Con Zymaris

- CEO, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.
- Director, Open Source Industry Australia, Limited.
- Convenor, Open Source Victoria (A Government-funded industry cluster.)

___________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
Web: http://www.cyber.com.au/  Phone: 03 9621 2377   Fax: 03 9621 2477