[Leica] mac vs pc windows

["Gary Klein" <gklein@excel.net>]

I have used both in manipulating photographs. Here are my observations.

The mac  version of photoshop 5.0 works rather nicely with a majority of
scanners etc.  You can read window disks with a mac if you have the pc
exchange extension enabled.  Make sure if you get a mac to get at least 128
meg of ram, if not more.  Make sure you have an adequatly sized hard drive
with plenty of space for your scratch disk.  If you buy a Nikon LS30
scanner, make for sure it has the latest version of flash memory and
software as there was an earlier inferior version.  You can download the
improved versions if you find an early one.

The PC will work fine with imaging programs such as PHotoshop 5.0,
Micrografx Picture Publisher, Paint Shop Pro 5.  I have these programs on my
PC and they work just fine on my relatively modest PC, 233 mhz AMD K2
chipped with 48meg of Sdram.  If you are planning to do serious large scale
work, I would suggest the latest pentium III chip machine with at least 160
megabytes of Sdram, a large hard drive.   I personally believe the mac vs pc
war is relatively moot with the new fast pc chips and improved ram types.  I
think today its pretty much a matter of preference.  With the right software
picked out you can even save to a mac format to a mac formatted disk with a
pc.  Sure the software may cost you an extra $60, but then you would avoid
having to buy more expensive version of office productivity software (ie
office 2000)

Get either scsi or usb scanners as they work faster than parellel port
models.  Also in either case make sure you have a video card that will allow
millions of colors with the largest monitor you plan to buy with the pc.
Get as much video ram as you can.  If there is an option to upgrade do it.
You won't regret improvements in this dept.

gck