[Qcwa] operating environments other than Microsoft Windows

[Dick Rucker]

on 9/8/02 13:42, Allan Henry Kaplan at w1ael@mindspring.com wrote:

> I doubt seriously that there are
> MANY on this reflector not using IBM-compatible machines on Windows.  I
> will just bet that that category covers at least 99% of the users.
> There is at least one advantage to using a "non-standard" machine and/or
> operating system -- immunity to viruses, worms, etc.   You pay for that
> by missing out on the "standard" applications, e.g. Word, Excel, et
> cetera.

You're right about the reduced exposure to trash written to take advantage
of the loop-holes in Microsoft's software, loop-holes found in both its
operating systems and and in its applications that so freely accept macros
written in Visual BASIC.

But you might be surprised to learn that Excel was released for the
Macintosh in 1985, a few years before it was made available for the PC.  I
still have the floppy disks for the original Mac version, and I'll bet that
if I loaded it on a Mac today, it would still run fine.

It's amazing how Apple has been able to keep legacy software alive despite
many technical changes and improvements.   That has been true at least for
third party applications written by programmers who respected Apple's
guidelines at the time for the use of the application programming interfaces
offered by the Mac OS.  Those who didn't, wrote programs that most likely
broke as the OS evolved.

I have an outlining program, MORE 3, last updated in 1991 that runs fine
today within a Classic window on my Macs running OS X.  I still use it
because it is far superior to any other outlining program I have found on
either the PC or the Mac side.  There is a new one on the Mac side, just
out, that looks like it might, in time, become competitive in features and
ease of use to MORE, and I will welcome that, if and when it happens.

There's still nothing comparable on the PC side so far as I am aware.  The
outlining feature in MS Word is a joke.

Excel was subsequently moved to the PC platform under Windows, and became a
bigger success for Microsoft there, along with Word, etc.   Despite the
dominance of MS Windows in the market place, Microsoft has continued to
provide fair-to-excellent support for the Macintosh, at least regarding
these programs: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer, Messenger, and
the two email clients: Outlook Express and Entourage.

In other areas, that has not been as true.  For example, there is no version
of Microsoft's Access database for the Mac, so FileMaker Pro has taken the
place of Access on the Mac side of the fence.  FM Pro is very competitive
with it in terms of capability and scalability.  In terms of ease of use, FM
Pro wins hands down.

The makers of FM Pro were far-sighted enough to produce a complementary
version of FM Pro for Windows, so that users who want to use FM Pro in a
Windows environment can do so.   Both versions were made cross-platform
compatible, so that PCs and Macs can be successfully networked together to
share a common FM Pro database, regardless of whether it is running on a PC
or a Mac.

I currently use Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Entourage, which are included
with the latest version of Microsoft Office for the Mac OS X operating
system.  I also use FM Pro for data base applications when Excel is not the
best choice.

I own  several Macs plus a Dell laptop running Windows 98.  For me there's
no question as to which operating system is the easiest and most reliable to
use.  My operating practice is:  Use my Macs when I can and my PC when I
must.

The only reason I own the Dell laptop is to run amateur radio related
programs, such as Digipan for PSK-31.  Programmers for amateur radio have,
for historical reasons, concentrated on the PC platform, so Mac guys like me
have to make some accommodations.  One option is to run PC-only programs in
a "Virtual PC" window inside the Mac OS, and many folks do that quite
successfully.  The other option is to also own a PC for such programs.  For
several reasons, I chose the latter route.

Outside the arena of amateur radio, I have not found a lack of good software
choices for the Macintosh.  For digital photography, I use Photoshop 7.  For
vector graphics, I use Corel Graphics, and for a painting program, I use
Corel Photo-Paint.  For financial work, I use Quicken.  I could go on, but
the notion that one can't find great software to run under the Mac OS is not
true in general.  The one exception I know of is of amateur radio.

Even in the amateur radio arena, I recently found that the newly released
MacDopplerPRO program is superior to Nova for Windows, which has been the
top-rated program for making satellite orbital predictions.  I used Nova on
my PC until I discovered MacDopplerPRO. Since then, the PC for satellite
work has stayed on the shelf.

My hope is that those amateur radio gurus who love Unix will soon discover
that the new Mac OS X operating system offers a great implementation of
Unix, an unbeatable human interface, and a choice of several programming
environments including Carbon, Cocoa, Java, and Unix.   Hopefully, that will
lead others to try to produce other gems for ham radio operators who love
using their Macs.

73, Dick Rucker, KM4ML