[geeks] Wooh - Mac OS X.2

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Joshua D Boyd wrote:

> Another part is financials.  If I want to make an SGI my next
> computer, I will need the SGI (figure $300 for O2, or $500 for
> Octane), and then the development kit for another $600.

The dev. kit is part of the OS on 6.5.x, and is available for free for
previous versions of the OS.  GCC sucks, but it is usable if you can't
afford MIPSpro.

> Or, for $900 to $1100, I can buy an older G4 with OSX, and while the
> graphics won't be as meaty, the compiler will be free, and the
> development kits are far nicer from what I've seen,

To each their own.  POSIX.1 with X11 suits me fine.  What more do you need
that you isn't available for free?

> and it will likely be a faster machine, at least for general desktop
> use.

Perhaps.  It depends on what you run.  I have no real complaints about
what I run, except that I could really use a second CPU if I'm going to be
doing Postgres and compiling and coding and web-browsing and such all from
the same machine.

> I'm not saying that't what I've going to do, but it does weigh on my
> mind that it might be more practical to go with a mac over and SGI for
> my next main workstation.

If you want Aqua and Office vX and newer versions of Adobe apps, and
4-byte integers are fine for you, you're probably right.  If you just want
a tasty 64-bit Unix that no one seems to love (except for us IRIX ports
guys!), you'll be pleasantly surprised with what a machine as (relatively)
old as an Octane can do.

my primary bitch is that I can still afford neither 1600x1200 nor texture
memory.  But, I have a Sun and a PC that have 1600x1200 framebuffers in
them, so it's no big loss.

I should point out that I'm not a heavy graphics user.  I play games on
the PC, and I like playing around with subdivision surfaces on the Octane,
and I occasionally toss something together in GIMP, but I'm no modeler.
I'm a data-cruncher and typesetter, so I mainly go for fat I/O pipes and
the overall ability for the system to figuratively walk, whistle, eat
crackers, chew gum, pat its head, rub its tummy, and recite the alphabet
backwards simultaneously without breaking a sweat.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke
  "gnu: we aim to fuck up everything with the potential to not suck"
                                                   --alex j avriette