Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 02:10:23 -0000
From: EvangeList <evangelist@apple.com>
Subject: Tidbit - Windows and Bootable Zips

Keyword: Advocacy, Why Macs Are Better

This tidbit is from: 

Daniel L. Taylor

One thing you need to remember to do when comparing the costs between a 
Mac and a PC is to add in all the little fees for all the little 
enhancements necessary to add features to the PC that come standard on a 
Mac.

For instance, check out Brian Livingston's latest column at: 
<http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayNew.pl?/livingst/livingst.htm>.

"I wrote last June that someone had invented a $15 software utility that 
makes 100MB Zip drives bootable. (See "A cool utility lets you boot from 
an IDE or parallel port Iomega Zip drive," June 9, 1997.) This allows you 
to make a bootable Windows disk, which is impossible in the limited 
storage space of a 1.4MB A: drive.

The developer of the program, called ZppA (pronounced "zippuh"), was 
Bluesky Innovations, in San Jose, Calif. The company has since developed 
an ISA add-in board that without software turns parallel port Zip drives 
into bootable drives under Windows 95 and Windows NT. This hardware 
add-in costs $35."

$15 just to create a bootable Zip disk? $35 if you want it to work 
without any special set up procedures??? Funny...for my Mac all I did was 
drag a System Folder over to my Zip disk.

What's next? Having to pay for built in scripting? Or the ability to 
delete applications?

Oh wait...Windows users already have to do that. No wonder so many 
developers choose to develop for the PC. MS left plenty of holes for them 
to fill with $15 and $35 add-ons.... ;-)
__________________________
Digital Guy Sez: 

Actually, as a someone who sometimes wrestles with PC's himself when 
appropriately begged to do so by a suffering user, I'm amazed they got 
something other than the C: drive to boot at all at ANY price. :-)