To keep this from becoming a rehash of the myriad "my computer is
better than your computer" discussions which may be found littering
the web, might I suggest limiting comments to personal experiences with
the platform with which we are familiar?  Speculation about how the
other half lives will inevitably lead to embarrassingly simplistic
generalizations lacking validity, such as:

> ..the MAC is hardly found nowadays except, indeed, in graphics
> surroundings.  One of the reasons for that is that the graphics
> world (based, in fact, directly on the work of monks copying books)
> is slow to adopt new techniques. ...
> By far, not all you can do on a Windows-machine can be done on
> a MAC.  So still using a Mac is handicapping yourself, in a way.

It's very difficult to refrain from countering such propaganda but
suffice to say that the Mac continues to serve a great number of
satisfied customers and the Mac community, and our local user group
specifically (MacNexus.org) is phenomenal in their support and
camaraderie.  My experience with Windows is limited to running emulator
software on my Mac (which allows me to run Windows applications in a
window within the Mac environment) and using Wintel computers down at
the Musicians' Union Hall.  From that my main observation would be not
how different, but how similar both systems are.  Most of the negative
Windows comments I have heard come from Windows users.

> ... The Motorola [68000 family] chip used in Macs, however, is
> a much more intelligent design.  In hardware, the Macintosh is
> a decidedly superior machine to the PC.

Apple abandoned the 68x00 family years ago.  The current processor
family, developed in partnership with IBM, is called the PowerPC and has
recently gone into yet another generation with the G4 and its "Velocity
Engine."  Comparisons between various machines cannot be made on clock
speed alone; benchmarking programs must be run to compare results
running the same applications on each machine.  Despite higher clock
speeds in the Wintel world, Macs outperform in many areas without the
addition of expansion boards (i.e.,  sound/synthesizer, MIDI or
graphics acceleration) which should be considered when comparing final
system prices.

Still, the traditional wisdom of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
remains sound.  And if your particular platform serves you, don't
switch.  I recently came across a Windows only musical application but
instead of switching platforms, I simply purchased a copy of a Windows
emulator and it runs flawlessly on my 233 MHz G3.  Upgrade Wars are
nothing more than the computer industry adopting marketing techniques.
Think: "planned obsolescence."

The comment, "miracles don't last forever," points out the need for
Apple to continue to be innovative if it wants to capture more or keep
what it has of the market.  They seem to do an admirable job but don't
promote their wonders and so they languish.  Still, an author recently
discounted the Windows community's disdain of Apple for only having 9%
of the market with the astute observation, "BMW only has 9% of its
market!"

Al Terego