BKMACUPC.RVW 940505 Hayden Books 11711 N. College Ave., Suite 140 Carmel, IN 46032-5634 317-573-2500 317-581-3535 800-428-5331 800-428-3804 or 201 West 103rd St. Indianapolis, IN 46290 317-581-3718 fax: 317-581-4669 hayden@hayden.com haydenbks@aol.com 76350.3014@compuserve.com "The Mac User's PC/The PC User's Mac", Marmel, 1993, 0-672-48545-1, U$24.95/C$31.95 And it came to pass that not all within the land of IS dwelt peaceably with each other. And the Users of the Macintrash marched in the streets and said, "Our box is a friendly box! And is good for graphics! And it has a garbage can!" And the Users of Messy-DOS on machines compatible with those of the Itty-Bitty Machine Corporation did hurl epithets at them and said, "Your box is a toy! And if we want pictures we can use the Window of St. Gates!" And the elders of IS, who oft times used both, and also MVS, and VMS, and UNIX, besides, looked upon all this and shook their heads, and thought dark thoughts. And there came one who said, "Lo! Let both sides read of my scroll, that they may learn of the other and dwell together in peace and compatibility." And your servant did look upon the scroll, and upon the one side it was called, "The Mac User's PC," and upon the other side it was called, "The PC User's Mac." And upon one side was an image like unto an apple and upon the other was the likeness of an orange. And your servant did grin quietly to himself. Whereupon did your servant open the scroll, and there were inscribed therein many things to make one go, "Hmmmm." For it appears that there were as two different scrolls, of the same format, but both being as instructions to those who knew not computers at all, rather than those who knew the one computer and were being told of the other. For do not both use 3.5 inch diskettes, and do not both have keyboards with alpha numeric keys, editing keys, cursor movement keys and function keys? And yet both scrolls speak of these things. Neither scroll, however, speaks of resource forks on the Mac, nor of default file extensions on the PC. Therefore, neither are of use to the experienced Mackist and DOSite, knowing the basics of computer use and wanting to cross over. Further, your servant beheld that eleven of the twenty-two chapters of the book altogether dealt neither with the PC nor with the Mac, but with WordPerfect for DOS, Windows and Mac; Word for DOS, Windows and Mac; Excel for Windows and Mac; and 1-2-3 for DOS, Windows and Mac. Yet, again, were there two whole chapters devoted to transferring files which said, again and again, the same words and procedures, as well as two chapters whose sole purpose was to tell people not to use data bases. Wherefore, I say unto ye: if thou art a technopeasant and must needs use both computers at once where none dwelt before, then buy this book. But as for those wishing help in crossing platforms, that scroll has yet to be written. (And when he had said all these things, the Atarites and Amigoids rose as one user and cried, "Shame, that thou canst not get along with each other! And besides, our box is better than your box." And the elders of IS looked one upon another, and shook their heads and thought dark thoughts.) copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKMACUPC.RVW 940505 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (contact: 1-800-SPRINGER)