FWIW...don't want to flame anyone or denigrate their preferences, just relating personal experience...
I used a Mac at work for 10 years, and bought 2 for home during that period. Not a darned thing wrong with the platform.
In April, TPTB--more accurately TPT Sign My Paycheck--decided my dept. and one other were going to volunteer to go WinTel, since we decided we needed to be able to do magazine-design-and-production-type-things-and-stuff on either platform.
Okay..."Hall! Bangalore!" "Yes, Sarge," says I, saluting, putting on my tin hat, grabbing the bangalore and crawling up to the wire, where sat a tricked out Dell OptiPlex running NTW 4.0.
Fast forward to October 8.
I don't miss the Mac. I won't bash it, but I don't miss it. In fact, I so don't miss it I went out and bought a P166/32/2.0/12x/SB16 ISA from a good friend ($100), picked up a Canon BJC printer ($52 incl. shipping courtesy eBay), found an STB Velocity4400 16MB PCI video card ($69 incl. shipping, found thru PriceWatch), and I'm using the same external 28.8 modem (all I need to fly, and less strain on the old 200W power supply) and--with a cheap, or more accurately free, adapter--my already-on-hand 15" Apple MultiSync monitor with the built-in stereo speakers.
When my student loan reimburses me for my out-of-pocket tuition down payment and book expenses, I'm going to sink it into a BH6/Celeron 400/64MB RAM/new case, cooler & power supply, and maybe a Labway or equiv. Yamaha 724 PCI sound card. At usually under $20, awesome value for money (it's what I use at work, since the Dell doesn't have a game port).
So I get to fly--however badly--now, with the certain hope of flying much better (from the hardware standpoint, anyway) in a few weeks. I've tweaked the video for better frame (installed the card myself

), changed BIOS to re-enable an unaccountably disabled serial port, and lived to tell about it (more to the point, so did the computer).
It'll get me 30-40 fps in all conditions (anything over 24 is just gravy anyway), for about $700. And I can overclock if I can pass the gut check.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the Dark Side(tm)

maybe isn't as bad as it's made out to be. It's worked out well for me...just as the Emperor had foreseen.

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Flathat
'Black Dahlia'
No10 RNAS "The Black Flight"
Angel on your wing, devil on your tail
[This message has been edited by Flathat (edited 10-08-1999).]