Why the distinction?

[Khris]

Even today I see posts from people on other boards and blogs stating they "would never buy the overpriced and crappy hardware from Apple, would never own an iPod", etc. The cool thing is when you see statements from people who used to think that way, but now have a Mac because they on a lark decided to stop into an Apple store and look into it.

*raises hand sheepishly*

I have to admit I was one of "those people" who bashed Macs simply because of their past history, and because they weren't running Windows. Thankfully I'm old enough now that I was able to open my mind a little further and install OSX on my Dell to check it out, and give it an honest chance.

Long story short, a week later I rushed out and bought a MacBook. I feel a bit guilty though......every time I learn/figure out something new on my Mac, the phrase that pops into my mind is "The WOW starts now" and MS Windows had nothing to do with it.

 

[Khris]

That's my point, but the detractors who always go by heresay make the Mac seem like it's a devil machine. Apple's constant ragging on mainstream PCs doesn't help that.

Who cares. Embrace the "dark side" and love your devil machine!!

Suddenly I have visions of a fire engine red MacBook!!!

 

[WolfsBane]

Because historically speaking, the term "PC" has referred to the IBM PC and compatibles, which the Mac was not part of many moons ago. This is an age-old argument that harkens back to the earliest days of personal computing.

I don't know how old you are, but IBM has not always been the shell of a company they are today. At one time, IBM was an 800 pound gorilla and anything that they did was a big deal - at least in the minds of large corporations. The letters "IBM" were synonymous with giant thinking machines for many years. And although they were late to the party, when IBM released their PC, all others were instantly overshadowed. This included hugely popular machines from other vendors like Tandy, Apple, Commodore and Atari. They were all seen as toys by big business. So, over time the term "PC" has just grown to mean "IBM compatible", which is more commonly known as the x86 platform we know and love today.

With that said, consumer perception is that "Macs" and "PCs" are two different things. And although at the foundation that is incorrect, it is the perception nonetheless.

Yep... In fact, the early term for PC based systems, was not "PC compatible", but "IBM clones". I believe we started to see other manufacturers start to take business shares away from IBM desktop market when the 386 came out. Early "PC" systems, (8086 and 8088), were pretty much exclusively IBM systems. Interestingly enough, the other "business" system was the c/pm based Apple with it's swappable dual 5 1/4 disk OS system.