source file: m1506.txt Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 15:57:33 -0500 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1505 From: Gary Morrison > Here at SJSU we have been committed to Macs from the start even though we > do have Windows and SGIs- But 95% of things are Macs- we just got the new > G3s and they scream! I recently paid off all of my credit cards, and promptly (as I promised myself - hey, it's the American way, right?) went off into debt again by upgrading my dreadfully outdated PowerBook 145B (25MHz 68030, 8Meg RAM, 80Meg disk, 640x480 black and white (literally - not even grayscale) screen) to a G3 PowerBook (230MHz G3, 96Meg RAM, 2Gig disk, 1024x768 16-million-color screen). Not surprisingly, to say that it's faster would be an understatement to say the least! It's pretty darned quick alright, and that even with no "backside cache", the G3's claim to fame. And on top of that, the G3 PowerBooks aren't all that much more expensive than comparable PC laptops - a little more expensive, but not much. Now that's mostly because there's no "generic" PC laptop business to speak of (or none that I know of). Laptops are dominated by name brands, and thus name-brand prices. Desktop machines Pentium II machines, on the other hand, are probably going to be cheaper than desktop G3 machines, since you can get non-name-brand desktop PCs. I hear that there have been some early problems with the various audio sequencer plugin formats, and hardware as well, not quite working on the G3 machines. I don't personally know much about that, since I haven't upgraded my desktop machine yet, but I hear that it won't be long before the problems are solved, if they aren't already.