Windows 8

[Spikedude]

Originally Posted by ff7chocoboknight

Why on Earth would anyone want Mac OS X?

I bought my Mac when all the comparable windows laptops were using Vista, and my mac was using the Power-PC integrated OSX leopard. While mac was experimenting with extremely fast loadup times, compatibility with old programs, easy backups through time machine, and amateur media editing software (as emera already pointed out, GarageBand, which I still occasionally use to record music when I don't have my friends around to help me with stuff like Abelton); Windows was instead experiment with "HEY, HOW CAN WE MAKE OUR DESKTOP LOOK REALLY REALLY FANCY AT THE COST OF BEING ABLE TO RUN SIMPLE PROGRAMS?!" Macs back then were a godsend for anyone who planned on using a laptop in school (near instant startup, no viruses EVER meaning never losing files, never crashing mid class, etc etc), when the best PC alternative were either crappy netbooks or paying out the wazoo (and you'd still have ended up with either vista or the already-outdated Windows XP). Since then, Mac has ditched power-pc (making everything less compatible), made it as hard as humanly possible to develop freeware (due to the "app store" making so much money), and flown through 3 additional operating systems in the course of 4 years, while Windows buckled down and made an extremely successful Windows 7.

The reason I want Windows 8 now I already explained: It's free. They're beta testing it and you can download it straight from the Microsoft website for free.

I don't understand why people have to be such fanboys about operating systems. Microsoft and Apple are both money-sucking computer conglomerates who intentionally make new software incompatible with old versions so you have to repurchase every major program for every operating system. Neither is "the good guy" and they both have plenty of advantages and disadvantages. Plus, Windows 8 is moving HEAVILY in the direction of Apple as far as the lack of customization and the need to subscribe to their "developers program" in order to create software (aka say goodbye to freeware with windows 8).

TL;DR: shut up and answer the question, or just don't post PLZZZ

[ff7chocoboknight]

Originally Posted by Spikedude

TL;DR: shut up and answer the question, or just don't post PLZZZ

No.

[cbk1994]

Originally Posted by Spikedude

Since then, Mac has ditched power-pc (making everything less compatible)

Are you just pulling this stuff out of your ass or what? Not that I agree with the rest of your post, but this is a pretty strange statement. They switched to a different processor architecture, and as such, all apps need to be recompiled for the new architecture or be run using emulation software. They had plenty of good reasons for switching off of PPC, too.

The same thing happens in the Linux world. It's just less of a problem because most software tends to be free (as in freedom) and can fairly easily be compiled for new architectures by the community. On OS X it's a bigger problem in a large part because more programs are non-free (and thus can only be recompiled by the developer). The vast majority of software has Intel versions available now (even Graal).

Microsoft and Apple are both money-sucking computer conglomerates who intentionally make new software incompatible with old versions so you have to repurchase every major program for every operating system.

If you don't understand how the change to Intel chips necessitated the transition, then you shouldn't be talking about it.

Your comment about Microsoft is particularly ridiculous. Microsoft goes to incredible lengths to keep new versions of Windows compatible with old software, even building in quirks in their operating system so old apps continue to run. For example:

Originally Posted by Joel Spolsky, "How Microsoft Lost the API War"

I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it.

[Spikedude]

Originally Posted by cbk1994

Are you just pulling this stuff out of your ass or what? Not that I agree with the rest of your post, but this is a pretty strange statement. They switched to a different processor architecture, and as such, all apps need to be recompiled for the new architecture or be run using emulation software. They had plenty of good reasons for switching off of PPC, too.

The same thing happens in the Linux world. It's just less of a problem because most software tends to be free (as in freedom) and can fairly easily be compiled for new architectures by the community. On OS X it's a bigger problem in a large part because more programs are non-free (and thus can only be recompiled by the developer). The vast majority of software has Intel versions available now (even Graal).


If you don't understand how the change to Intel chips necessitated the transition, then you shouldn't be talking about it.

Your comment about Microsoft is particularly ridiculous. Microsoft goes to incredible lengths to keep new versions of Windows compatible with old software, even building in quirks in their operating system so old apps continue to run. For example:

Not everyone knows as much about every operating system as you, I was just making my point that there's no reason to derail every thread that mentions an operating system into an argument over what operating system is best when all of them have the same number of problems in different places. The point I was making there was that the only popular open source operating system (linux) has never had the same sort of problem with suddenly changing chipsets and making their computers incompatible with old software. I used to run Windows 95 way back in the day and was in love with Red Alert: C&C, and switching to XP made it so I couldn't run the game anymore. When I had Mac OSX Leopard I ran Microsoft Office: mac 2004 and Starcraft BW/Diablo II; switching to Lion would make it so I can't run any of these (and never will be able to without purchasing a new microsoft office, diablo III, and starcraft II). I was simply asking if switching to Windows 8 would do the same to Graal and it's developer tools, and then the whole thread got thrown off into "DUDE LOL MAC? WINDOWS 8? LOLOL."

Thanks for the information though. I wasn't intentionally being a dipstick about the companies and saying they don't try, I was just pointing out that the argument over which operating system is "best" is a bit of a moot point.

This thread should honestly be closed. Clearly nobody knows the answer to the original question, or if they do they'd rather just argue about operating systems than make any attempt at answering.

[cyan3]

Originally Posted by cbk1994

Are you just pulling this stuff out of your ass or what? Not that I agree with the rest of your post, but this is a pretty strange statement. They switched to a different processor architecture, and as such, all apps need to be recompiled for the new architecture or be run using emulation software. They had plenty of good reasons for switching off of PPC, too.

The same thing happens in the Linux world. It's just less of a problem because most software tends to be free (as in freedom) and can fairly easily be compiled for new architectures by the community. On OS X it's a bigger problem in a large part because more programs are non-free (and thus can only be recompiled by the developer). The vast majority of software has Intel versions available now (even Graal).

This is likely going to be a problem for Windows 8 in the future considering some dedicated devices with Windows 8 pre-installed may be using the ARM architecture instead of x86 making older software incompatible unless it is either re-compiled for ARM or emulated.