From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: October 31, 2007 1:52:58 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Macs and Holmes


Perry;


On 31-Oct-07, at 12:51 PM, Perry Holcomb wrote:


Milton,


Why don't you buy a new MacBook Pro or at least one of

the Intel Core 2 Duo MacBooks and write it off??


It isn't that easy..


First off, the fall of the US dollar and rise of the Canadian dollar has cut the revenue I receive from the meager Astro IIDC sales by 40% from what it was about 12 months ago. So I'm be squeezed horrendously on a financial basis, as are all Canadian Exporters. For example, even though oil is now at $94 USD per barrel, producers in Canada were making the same amount of money as January with $80 USD a barrel, in Canadian dollars. Meanwhile inflation here in Calgary is 6.5% per year and costs keep rising.


Secondly, I would never buy a Laptop without a card slot, so the MacBook Pros are the only option. The problem is that if your USB or FireWire or Network card or any other input peripheral "dies" on the board and is not covered by Apples' warranty or Apples' warranty expires, then your up for very expensive repairs.


Thirdly, Canada has very different taxation rules and the normal write off rate is either 20 or 33% of the remainder per year (percentage depends on how you class it). So I can't "write it off" against the meager earnings I make with Astro IIDC and have to spread it over 5+ years. Also the pricing is an issue too, as the lowest end MacBook Pro is $1999 USD but it's $2199 CDN, where as it should be (given todays exchange rate of $1.05 CDN = $1.00 USD) should be $1901.00 CDN, so it's a $300 CDN rip off right now.


Fourthly, several of the tools I need to use for OSX development were never ported to Carbon by Apple. They are require to make QuickTime components and they only run under Classic. Switching to x86 or Leopard means I more or less have to give up development of those products. The only other options to those tools are unsupported, not continued and cost $00's of dollars to purchase if the manufacturer still will sell them.


Lastly, I am still not unimpressed by the current crop of x86 processors, especially for a laptop which will basically "cook" your privates if you use it as a "laptop" like I'm doing now with my G4.  My G4 at 1.25 Gighz actually pushes 30% more data through than a 1.67 gighz Core Duo does when decoding Bayer Video. When you compare Altivec to SSE x86 (which I'm doing with now in the re-write of Astro IIDC), it's a joke and explains why Apple is pushing GPU instead of SIMD as solutions.


I've replaced my eMac G4 700 with a new iMac 17" and

my really old PowerBook G3 (that only had USB 1.1

ports) with a new 2.16 gH, IC2D, 13" MacBook.  The

latter will be used for my new Imaging Source firewire

cam (direct from Germany with the firmware upgrade)

and Astro IIDC.  I'm ordering the cam directly thru

the Charlotte (NC) office of TIS to get the newest

hardware/firmware.


My hardware is more up to date and so I see very little need to replace it except for testing. And at least 50% of Apple customers are still on PowerPC, so there is still a huge market for PowerPC software and users.


There's a world of difference between the old and the

new Macs.  Besides, you can run Windows on these new

Macs!


I have x86 Macs here, just not expensive laptops. And I already have Windows boxes here that runs "real windows". They cost 1/2 of a what a Mac does if you shop around (older modesl)  and I need them to have "real" ports like serial, parallel and card readers for doing firmware work. All those Hardware Tools are windows only and the USB converters simply have too many timing issues to make them work.


Altho Apple has sent me the new 10.5 DVD ($9.95

because I ordered my Macbook after 10/1), I'm still

running 10.4.10 (8R2232) and shall continue to do so

until the 10.5 upgrade downloads have been coming thru

for a while.


From what I remember it was 10.4.2 before Apple finally got the new 10.4 release stabilized. I really wish they would get their act together and quit screwing with the plumbing with each version for no good reason. I'd much rather be adding features rather than screwing with re-writing code they've broken because Apple could be bothered to test something that is "out of the box" and is a 3rd party product.


TTYL..


Milton Aupperle