Fumbling on Ecstasy said:
blue,
what are your reasons for choosing windows over another platform? I'm kinda curious what you look for in an operating system since I know you have a lot of experience in this field and you konw the inner workings of these things.
[Set your wrist-wake-up-alarm to "jolt" in 10-15 minutes. There will be no test.]
The less tangible reasons tend to revolve around an anti-authoritarian streak. It's dogged my PC life. I NEVER would have bought an IBM brand box back when they were still a major player. And it probably goes without saying that I've had serious issues with MS. In fact, I've run completely MS-free machines before (for a couple years actually). And even though I use some of their products for my day job (database and now some web development) and their OS (XP, of course, which I really like) MS accounts for a very small number of apps on my machine, which I built myself (after negative experiences, my own and others, with big name vendors).
If I had to live in a world where the same company made my hardware
and my OS and even my
apps (Logic, anyone?) I'd start feeling like I was living in some kind of candy-colored big-brother land. (Think "The Prisoner.")
In the old days my "loyalty" was to the notion of a generic pc that could run multiple OS's (I also ran DR-DOS, DesqView [a task-switching windowing interface that could host multiple dos or other sessions], Geoworks, and, hmmm.. oh yeah, Windows 3.0 and 3.1.
I'll freely admit that I hated Windows 3.x [3.0 was a trainwreck]. The 3.x family had a thoroughly illogical windowing interface that, thankfully, was completely overhauled in Win95.
Windows 95 was the turning point in my relationship with MS OS's. I had lots of problems getting set up because I had an extraordinairily comlicated setup (a pair of ADATs in MIDI synch and/or acting as 8x8 input/output A/D/A converters, an early SCSI cd-burner and a jazz drive, scsi scanner, another consumer sound card, a dedicated high performance MIDI card (to keep up with the torrent of MTC that my ADAT controller put out -- I had a total of 4 MIDI ins and 6 outs... and as many as 4 outboard MIDI keyboards/modules and internal SoundFont sample playback using a SB AWE32... I had some real IRQ headaches, lemme tell you. For a while in the early days of W95, it really was "plug and pray." (By W98, things were pretty butter smooth.)
But it all somehow worked. During the W3.1 days, I'd been used to being laughed at (rightly so) by my Mac-loving music pals and, until I synched the ADATs to the PC, I never really thought of it as anything more than a convenient way to program and deliver a MIDI sequence.
But all of a sudden I was doing things my Mac friends had just been talking about.
Because MS added in a dedicated multi-channel audio support layer and a plug-in layer (for standardized
audio fx and other multimedia plug-ins) way back in the early days of W95 (similar to what Apple has finally added to OS X Jaguar), I've been enjoying things like interchangeable plug-ins and hassle-free MIDI and multi-channel audio (not to mention the ability to switch between multiple sound cards) since the mid-90s. By Win 98, Plug and Play was solid; adding hardware was a snap.
One thing a lot of Mac people have taken for granted was the necessity to set up extensions and manage memory alottments for programs. Windows people just look at you funny if you mention that kind of thing to them. They've never had to deal with it (unless they go back to the W3.x days). Just as OSX takes over memory management, Windows has handled application memory allotment since 95. (That said, some of the Mac's stability and ability to squeeze performance out of hardware has probably been its ability to run as a single process machine.)
And I
did look into switching when my old ADATs started going south (around 2000). I figured I was looking at a new audio a/d/a interface anyhow, so I decided to look into whatever advantages I might gain by switching software apps (I looked into switching from Cakewalk to Cubase) and even hardware platforms which would open up the possiblity of Digital Performer. (I also took a look at a Digidesign/PT set up. Too much $$$.) I didn't consider Logic because I was barely aware they were still in production.
I didn't like what I saw. I didn't care for the Cubase that was out then, at all. Undoubtedly, some of that was just unfamiliarity -- but it just seemed extraordinairily awkward... there were extra steps everywhere. I really hated the file handling, the necessity to treat each audio clip as a separate file. (Yes, I know they are anyway in all the major systems. I just don't want to have to think about it. I just want to hit record and go. And CW gave me that ability. And as wacky as their internal management seemed I only had lost clip in maybe 80 or 90 or so projects. [Truth be told, that could even have been my error. I don't think so, but...].)
And when I looked at the Mac (again c. 2000 and in all practical respects pre-OS X) I was distinctly underwhelmed. The prices of the hardware at the time were far from competitive. The iMac and Cube were a joke for my purposes (you're talking to someone who's filled up 8 slot boxes before).
The G3 Towers looked pretty good as hardware platforms but the OS was just
woefully behind the times. I was already used to the multi-tasking capabilities of Win98... when I played with Macs it seemed like a big step backward. It felt like using Windows 3.1 again -- but at least it had a halfway sane interface, unlike the benighted W3.1. (And the Mac's nicely organized access to system settings and the extension manager
did look very clean and sensible. MS has learned
something from Apple on that -- XP's new system settings pages are a big improvement and much more sensibly laid out. But I give Apple propper and due on that angle.)
So, there was no way,
then. Now, the decision might be a lot tougher. Mac prices are more competitive now (still pretty high on a per-megaflop basis). They've announced some G4 boxes with more slots (and, of course, the ubiquity of USB and FW devices has cut down greatly on the need for expansion cards). OSX is real and has pretty good support outside the audio world (and within a year should be pretty much go there, too). I'm anxious to see the goods on the new audio and MIDI layers and how they handle things like plug-ins and audio data-streams.
But will I change? It's highly unlikely. If I was to make that kind of change I think you'd have to see Apple make the Mac OS an over-the-counter OS (ie, port it to AMD and Intel chips or reopen the clone market). It'd probably be more likely to see me move to a generic unix platform if major audio apps ever went there... I simply don't want to be in a world where one company controls my destiny. Sure, Apple's mostly making ok decisions now but who knows what could happen in the future. And, truth be told, that's exactly the nature of my fears about future MS moves. Still, over the course of my near 20 year involvement with personal computers, I am -- overall -- much more comfortable with the business and technical decisions that MS has made than those Apple has made. Do I like MS? Not exactly. Do I trust them? Let's just say they're
somewhat predictable. And that's what you need when you're making long term decisions.