Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 02:13:38 -0900
From: EvangeList <evangelist@apple.com>
Subject: Tidbit - Mac Evangelism Story

Keyword: Advocacy, Why Macs Are Better

This tidbit is from:

David T. Bernat

The following story is absolutely true. It's also a little long, so watch 
out!

Just after Christmas, a good friend of mine invited me to "geek out" with 
him and some other guys at his co-worker's house... basically, we were 
going to network our computers and play Quake all day. My friend owns two 
Wintel machines, and he intended to let me use one for the day, but since 
my 8600/200 is a beefier machine, with a Techworks Power3D card added on, 
I thought it might make a good impression on this mostly Wintel crowd. My 
friend (a closet Mac evangelist, even though he's a Wintel owner--a 
strange breed indeed) agreed with a grin, so we packed up and drove into 
hostile territory.

We arrived and met all the people we didn't know, and pointed out that we 
brought my Mac "just to see if we could make it work". One fella furrowed 
his brow at that and said, as if he hadn't heard correctly, "A Mac?" We 
affirmed that he had heard correctly, to which he furrowed his brow 
further and mused, "What kind of freak would bring a Mac?" I filed this 
insult away without acknowledgement.

My friend had brought the eight-port hub for everyone to connect to, so 
we set about getting everything in place. One computer was set aside as 
the Quake server, running the game for us to join. That one was set up 
first, and everyone else began trying to join the game. I quickly 
realized (after booting my computer, setting up MacIPX, and attempting to 
join the server's game [elapsed time: 5 minutes]) that MacQuake seemed to 
be incapable of joining a game of PC Quake, so I resigned myself to using 
my friend's "extra" computer.

After a half an hour or so, everyone else was having problems connecting 
to the Quake server as well. After numerous reboots (you hafta reboot 
Win95 every time you change any network setting), they were all getting 
frustrated. One fella (the same fella who called me a freak) actually 
announced at one point, "Well, I think I have to install this new network 
card I got," and proceeded to crack open his case, whip out the old card, 
and stuff the new one inside. Then, of course, he had to fuss about with 
the setup/network settings on Win95, taking even more time. A different 
guy realized he had a virus on his machine. Everyone else just had 
problems.

Eventually my friend fixed all the problems on all the PC's, and my Mac 
was able to join the Quake game after all. We realized, in fact, that 
through the whole 2.5 hour setup process, my computer was the only one 
that had been properly connected to the network. My friend and I laughed 
at this, while the Wintel folk tried to make jokes about it ("Whoah, a 
Mac actually worked for once, hyuk hyuk"). I rolled my eyes, filed the 
incident away, and started playing (blowing someone away in VR is a great 
way to make up for filed-away insults).

When we got bored with plain vanilla Quake, we tried transferring 
different levels and patches around; since they were using a Microsoft 
network to share files, I wasn't sure how to make my Mac speak to their 
computers. I decided to use BetterTelnet as an FTP server, and have one 
of the guys ftp files over to my machine. We all assigned fake IP numbers 
to our machines and attempted the transfer, but ran into problems... it 
turned out that, for some bizarre reason that simply reeked of Windows 
95, only one of their computers was able to ftp to my computer. Before we 
had realized this, the fella (who called me a freak) chimed in with his 
take on the situation: "I don't think the Mac can *do* TCP/IP," he said. 
It occurred to me that perhaps this particular fella had never used, 
touched, or perhaps even breathed the same air as a Mac before.

Later we tried some different patches, like Capture the Flag games. I 
knew that to use such a patch under windows, you have to run Quake from 
the command line and specify the patch you want to use as a command line 
argument. I didn't know how to do it on the Mac. Of course, before I 
discovered the solution, the fella (who called me a freak) offered his 
advice. "Well can't you just use the command line?" he said. "The Mac 
doesn't have a command line," I responded, "it doesn't need one." "Well, 
can't you write a batch file?" This one really amused me; it seemed as 
though he didn't realize that a batch file is just a list of command line 
commands, which you feed to a command line interface (DOS). Since the Mac 
doesn't have a CLI, I would have thought he could have figured out the 
answer to this one himself, but I helped him out anyway: "Of course I can 
write one; it's just a text file. But it won't *do* anything, since the 
Mac doesn't have a command line."

He scoffed. "You mean you can't script anything on the Mac? Hah!"

"Of course I can write scripts for the Mac. But it's not the kind of 
script you're thinking of. The MacOS is a completely different paradigm 
from Windows 95. You shouldn't say, 'the Mac doesn't *have* a command 
line interface,' you should say, 'the Mac doesn't *need* a command line 
interface.'"

As I spoke, the obvious solution came to me. I tried (on a whim) 
drop-launching the folder containing the patch onto Quake, and lo and 
behold, it worked. He seemed to struggle to keep his jaw from dropping.

I'd like to think I made an impression on this guy. This was really the 
exact sort of situation in which the Mac absolutely shines. Consider: my 
computer was up and running on the network smoothly in about five 
minutes. I never had to crack open my case to install my "new network 
card". I didn't have any viruses on my machine (it was once said that 
Wintel software can be broken down thusly: one third games, one third 
viruses, and one third that doesn't work). I was able to set up and run 
an FTP server with zero glitches on my end. I was able to change my 
network without rebooting my computer. And I was able to use my computer 
in a very intuitive way, without learning some klunky and outdated 
command line syntax.

I wonder what kind of "freak" will be bringing a Mac to the next Quake 
Fest. Certainly this one will. :)

David T. Bernat