PC vs. Mac

Hi. I'm A PC. And I'm A Mac.

Commodore 64

Atari 400

Original Apple II

Original IBM PC

Original Mac

New PC

New Mac

Mac OS

Windows Vista

LINUX

So, just to get our terminology straight, PC actually stands for Personal Computer, which could include any small computer that you might own and use for yourself going back to the early Vic 20, Commodore 64, and Atari computers. Technically, then, a Mac is actually a PC, but to understand how the term PC came to mean one type of computer running Windows, as compared with a Mac, we need a brief history lesson.

Along with Commodore, Atari, Radio Shack (Tandy), and a few others, Apple was an early player in the personal computer business and their early Apple II personal computer set new standards for others to match. There were two schools of thought in the personal computer business: proprietary operating systems built into the computer like the Commodore and Apple, and disk-based operating systems (DOS) like CP/M and, later, MS-DOS, which would allow the computer own to upgrade their OS without buying new hardware. In the case of the Commodore 128 it allowed the owner to run different operating systems on the same computer!

IBM, the blue-chip computer giant in the world of mainframe (take up a whole air-conditioned room) computers got into the personal computer market with their IBM-PC. It's claim to fame was a revolutionary new "open architecture" concept that would allow other companies to develop hardware extensions to the "mother board" -- the primary circuit assembly in the computer. These extensions, originally called "daughter boards", and eventually just called "cards" could add new features and capabilities to the basic computer by inserting them in industry standard slots in the main "box" of the computer. IBM made the standards public and permitted other developers to manufacture components without licensing requirements. This single choice would completely change the future of computer development. And it marked the application of the term "PC" to a single type of computer.

Not to be out gunned as the computer wars heated up, Apple upped the ante with the introduction of the original MacIntosh (Mac) computer targeted at the professional writing and artistic crowds. It offered an innovative (though not actually the first!) mouse-controlled, windowing, desk-top, strange vertical-oriented screens that matched the shape of a standard piece of letter paper, and a powerful new, though still proprietary, operating system.

As the Mac carved out one side of the computer market a number of imitators of the IBM-PC produced what came to be known as "clones" using IBM's open architecture standard but with cheaper processors developed to circumvent IBM's control of the Intel chips, and at a lower price to quickly capture a large portion of the market, all but putting IBM out of the personal computer business. The general term "PC" came to stand for any computer of the IBM-PC type and the name stuck for that kind of system. Early PCs mostly ran IBM-DOS, or it's clone equivalent, MS-DOS, an operating system created by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, co-founders of Microsoft, which was probably a poor rip-off of CP/M (Digital Research, Inc.), a more robust operating system that IBM had originally considered for their personal computer entry but were sweet-talked out of it by Gates. Digital Research later released DR-DOS but missed their mark as the market was already controlled by Microsoft and they eventually went out of business. Later Microsoft introduced Windows, a mouse-driven, windowing, desk-top to compete with the Mac.

The new PCs and Macs are both powerful computers, each delivering their own brand of function and style to the marketplace. Fans gather in each camp, extolling the virtues of their particular choice, but the truth is you wouldn't want to have to live on the difference. It used to be said that the Mac excelled in the arts -- music, film, graphcis -- but that is simply no longer true. Both the Mac, and the PC/Windows combination, are powerful packages offering a rich assortment of software programs (applications) across the full spectrum of usage. There isn't much you can do with one that you can't do with the other.

For most people the choice comes down to a Mac with it's built-in, proprietary, operating system (Mac OS), or a PC likely running pre-installed Windows Vista. But, quite surprising to many, there is actually a third choice moving into the main stream.

LINUX is an open source operating system originally developed by Linus Torvalds and now maintained by a collaboration of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of developers world-wide. LINUX is a powerful, stable, operating system created for the PC and other small computers to provide a UNIX-like environment, originally for techies and geeks. Mac now apparently uses major portions of the LINUX system code in its latest operating system in order to capture its robust power and stability.

As an open source development product LINUX is available (legitimately!) free of charge from many online sources or bundled with software, installation utilities, and service/support packages, in a real box, from commercial sources like Red Hat. It is an excellent third alternative to Vista and the Mac OS with the latest releases (called distributions) offering everything you might need for playing games, working with graphics, keeping your books, writing the great American novel, or just about anything else you can do on a personal computer. LINUX installs in place of (or along with -- called dual-booting) Windows on your standard PC.

Though most people will continue to use Windows on a PC for the foreseeable future, mostly because it is so readily available at affordable pricing and comes pre-installed on most new PCs, some will bravely venture into the world of the Mac. I don't know of anyone who has made that switch who hasn't felt the Mac is at least as good a choice as their PC, and most seem to think it is better. LINUX users are a much smaller crowd and it's probably a more difficult switch for most -- especially the beginner who doesn't yet understand all that is involved -- but LINUX is most probably the superior OS of the three, the new distributions are easy to install, the system is more stable than Windows, or even the Mac, and the price is certainly right.