Although from the top of my head I think the original reason OS X is so popular with media production, etc, was to do with how it handles processing/multi-tasking. I think this was addressed for Windows though. Can anyone elaborate on this as I'm unsure if it's true.
That may be true. Having said that
OSX MacOS had a few additional advantages over Windows... at least, earlier versions of Windows, I know nothing of Windows beyond XP or before 95. I think it ran like this:
i) Early days availability / compatability / monopolies.
OSX MacOS was more stable and could run processor-intensive tasks like graphics apps with less chance of dying than early Windows.... not only that, Photoshop didn't debut on Windows til version 4. Then people who had learned media production on macs at grunt level became managers of studios and stuck with what they knew when they were controlling their department's resources, ie buying new machines, and the flow of kids from college coming in at the bottom had all learned on Macs. Swapping files between platforms used to be a complete nightmare. Your printer (person, not device) might flip his wig if presented with a Windows Zip disk or even more elderly storage medium because he jolly well had a Mac, so you had one too.
ii) Workflow. SIMPLER and more intuitive earlier in the game than Windows. MacOS workflow (and actually OSX workflow) was more suited to the types of tasks media producers would be performing, like grabbing a load of files from one place, dumping them into an application, processing them there, dumping the output of that into another app... I can't articulate it properly (because I'm drunk) but I used to think Macs were ridiculously overrated until I found myself in a commercial media production environment around 1999, and then it just clicked and I understood. There are lots of minor stumbling blocks and annoyances in older versions of Windows (maybe in current versions too, I don't know) which slow you down dramatically when you're doing those types of tasks. One which springs to mind is this : when you grab a file from a folder and dump it onto a program in your taskbar a Mac will open that file. Older versions of Windows will throw up a stern warning that 'You cannot drop an item onto a button on the taskbar'. Why not just open it, dipshit? (Patent reasons, possibly). The older Macs worked WITH you, Windows always seemed to work AGAINST you or make you do things its way. I grew up with Windows, switched to Macs for work, used them for far less time but was still much faster and more focused doing almost anything on a Mac rather than Windows.
/ramble
) about a replacement pooter than arrived mere days before me lappy became unusable (at least for me at the moment - still got a lil project for ya one of these weeks :D
). From one of your earlier posts it seems like an eminently upgradeable situation which is just dandy. A bit of minor irritation when it puffs and pants a bit too heavily is a helluva lot better than the other option which currently resides back in its box being not another option :D
