Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/01

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Mac vs. Windows
From: Jeff S <four_season_photo@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 22:47:34 -0700 (PDT)

This "Mac vs Windows" debate is a very dead horse; it
passed away sometime in 1996 or so. Please stop
beating it ;-) 

If Leica were run like Apple, we'd be using a
beautifully packaged LeicaFilm which was similar to,
but incompatible with, standard 35mm film, at about a
30% premium due to Leica licensing fees, and sold only
through Leica dealers. Only Leica cameras would use
LeicaFilm. It'd offer some whizzy new features, but
new film emulsions would arrive in standard 35mm
format many months before LeicaFilm, and some
emulsions would never be offered at all: Delta 3200
perhaps, maybe Acros as well.  But how's about some
nice Kodacolor Gold? Here on the LUG, we'd grumble
about Kodak/Fuji/Agfa's stunning lack of vision in
failing to make LeicaFilm their #1 priority despite
it's 3% market share. All LeicaFilm manufacturers
would be compelled to use Leica-approved film
cassettes, but every so often, the one manufacturer
making the cassettes and other special bits would
experience production glitches, and we'd go for a few
weeks without being able to buy any new LeicaFilm
whatsoever.

On the other hand, if Microsoft were in charge of the
situation, we'd have 35mm film same as today. But
Microsoft would produce 95% of the film, chemistry and
paper. The chemistry itself would be a secret, and
only officially licensed 3rd parties would have access
to the formulae, and only select ones at that. On the
whole MS Film would work pretty good, but the popular
MS Film98 would be especially vulnerable to damage by
many strains of bacteria, and a good deal of effort
would be spent keeping one's negatives from basically
rotting away. Eventually, Microsoft would declare that
Film98 could not be made rot-proof, and urge all
photographers to copy their older images onto FilmXP,
which unfortunately would later prove very attractive
to voracious insects.

Meanwhile, some kid too poor to buy MS Film devises a
new emulsion and chemistry from scratch, and offers
the formulae free to anyone who asks. It has the
advantage of being pretty rot- and insect-resistant.
Pro photographers recognize a good thing and begin to
adopt it, but amateurs are initially put off by the
often plain packaging, lack of advertising, the need
to bulk-load, and cut one's own leaders. 

Jeff


>Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 19:50:50 EDT
>From: LRZeitlin@aol.com
>Subject: [Leica] Mac vs. Windows
>
>Bob writes:
>
><<Also, the software outfits devote most of 
>
>their talent to developing applications for Windows
>primarily. We only 
>get the Mac version much later.>>
>
>Word, Excel, and Photoshop, the big three of computer
>software, were developed for the Mac first. 
>
>Larry

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Replies: Reply from Jerry Lehrer <jerryleh@pacbell.net> (Re: [Leica] Mac vs. Windows)