But the truth is, Apple has been producing great cheap laptops since at least 2001 or so; the laptop market is different from the desktop market, and I think Mac has a much higher market share there, particularly with the scientific/engineering crowd.

What “prejudices” am I confirming? I already made it clear that I am neither anti-Mac nor anti-Mac-user.

“As for why people might mention their Mac but not their PC to an audience? Because Apple is trendy, cool, and the people who use it generally love it. PCs are common, generic, lack class, and don’t really inspire passion among their users.”

In other words, you can’t wear a PC as a badge of membership in a hip elite, like you can a Mac. That helps explain the “conspicuous consumption” behavior I described above.

Why should a laptop “inspire passion”? And why should someone who does feel passion for their computer (!) assume that I, as a member of their audience, do or should share it?

“I’ve seen a few very cool-looking PC laptops. But for the most part they are about as interesting as an electric razor.”

Really? Or are you just saying that to be vindictive because my comments about the white models gored your ox? If not, it’s a funny thing to assert given the similarity between other Powerbook models and PCs — which in some cases are visually differentiable only by the illuminated Apple logo on the back of the display.

A number of them have to connect to the projectors, but I’ve noticed almost no problems for either the PCs or the Macs. So my observations don’t support your observations. I suspect you’re looking for data to confirm your prejudices.

As for why people might mention their Mac but not their PC to an audience? Because Apple is trendy, cool, and the people who use it generally love it. PCs are common, generic, lack class, and don’t really inspire passion among their users. I’ve seen a few very cool-looking PC laptops. But for the most part they are about as interesting as an electric razor.

As for my apparent criticism of the appearance of Powerbooks, note that I only made light of the white variety, while expressing appreciation for the models which look more like the originals. I don’t like the white ones (or iPods for that matter) because they look like medical equipment, while I like the look of the other variety because they seem more like the tools of a professional. Another way to see it is that the white models are based in European industrial design trends, which don’t do anything for me, but the black ones are rooted in Japanese industrial design, which I find more attractive. It’s simply a matter of taste.

Gee, I read Byte magazine from the ’70s on. I can’t speak about Card, but I sure don’t remember Pournelle viciously attacking the Mac. I do remember that he spoke about both good and bad points on the Mac, PCs, Amiga, etc. In the early days, there was little doubt that the machine was underpowered and had too little RAM to do its job well. And because of the design, you were forced to “hack the Mac” to add RAM, hard drive, etc. I remember Pournelle praising much of what they could do, and there was no contest then when it came to graphics – Macs won. But if you wanted to write a lot of text, quickly, a Mac was the wrong choice at that time. They were just too slow.

I agree that it should be the right machine for the job. I see little reason for computer wars. Funny how you took Pournelle’s comments, though. He complained about PCs and PC software at least as much as Macs.

You know, I’m old enough to remember the Good Old Days. Serious computer-user savants like Orson Scott Card and Jerry Pournelle attacked the Mac viciously for having such dumb ideas as a graphic user interface and a mouse…after all, line commands were much more powerful! And you know what? They were right for them! It really is how you were trained. But they had to attack people with different ideas for some reason.

Flash forward a few years. All the Wintel computers have GUIs and mice. Including the ones owned by Card and Pournelle. It is just evolution, folks. I won’t make the obvious joke about Intelligent Design.

Card also rails about the appearance of things like iMacs, iPods, and the like—something echoed in the above essay. Okay, he doesn’t like the appearance of those items. Fair enough. But lots of people do—based on sales. So how it is wrong to take design appearance into account? And don’t take my word for it: as soon as Apple comes out with a strange new design, other Wintel designers start to copy it. And yes, I am aware that Apple got the mouse and GUI from PARC.

I guess I don’t understand the snide comments. I don’t care what kind of a computer a person uses—that is their choice. And I certainly don’t make judgements about the personality of someone based on their computer choice.

Reading about the AV problems made me smile. I just got through eleven interviews at various college campuses. At each, I gave teaching and research seminars. I used my much-maligned Mac iBook at each one, and didn’t have any problems at all.

I did have to carry the correct cables, since projectors are of several sorts.

Now, I have seen glitches with embedded movies and such on PowerPoint…but let’s face it: PowerPoint was not designed for the Mac platform. Me, I test what I design on both Mac and Wintel platforms.

My wife is a Wintel fan, and I have long been a Mac enthusiast. Different choices for different people. Still, it is inaccurate to make the claim that one computer or another is “best.” Period.

Just my two cents. But the Computer Wars need to end, and being snarky about the appearance of the computer is not the best route.

I still have problems with it, of course. But on the whole fewer problems than with a PC.