iMaculate Conception

Return to Grace Part 3 – Salvation (with the arrival of my new Quicksilver)

Now that Joel has his 867MHz Quicksilver with GeForce3 — he’s never turning back...

In the spring of 2001, I broke down and purchased Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force out of a sale bin to play on my Pismo. I was gong to be spending a tremendous amount of time sitting around airports during layovers over Spring Break, and I needed to have some fun. I was stunned to see the performance on my Pismo was similar to that on my Gateway. Granted, both the PowerBook and Gateway have similar clock speeds, but the Gateway has a 3DFX Voodoo 5500. I should not see decent graphic performance on a Pismo with a 8MB ATI Rage Mobile running the Quake 3 Engine.

Due to a wonderful set of circumstances, and an understanding administration, I was forced to trade in my office computer for a 733MHz G4 in early June. I got the GeForce3 card, so I could take advantage of the open GL acceleration in 3D modeling software, and maxed out the RAM.

Eventually I had to see what the GeForce3 could do with Elite Force, so when I hit a period where I was waiting for other folks to provide me with files, I tried out Mac Gaming for real.

I was AWESTRUCK. With all the graphic settings either maxed out or turned on, the sound set to high quality, and the resolution set to 1280x1024 on my Cimena Display — the game was fluid and incredibly detailed. I had NEVER seen gaming look so good on either platform.

Another luck coincidence occurred right before MacWorld, and I had the opportunity to trade some freelance design skills for a new G4 for home use. On the morning of the keynote I sat hovering over my office computer, waiting for Steve to begin. On more than one occasion I sat back and marveled at how much my computing life had changed — I was about to really finally abandon the platform that I had used (or used me) pretty faithfully for several years.

How Pathetic am I?

So Steve begins — and all I care about is hardware. OS X software, great, X.1 — fantastic. It was kind of pathetic, but I was literally twitching every time I had to sit through another demo. Finally he rolls out the new hardware, and now I’m at the Apple Store online, madly pounding the refresh button, while Steve is still introducing stuff. Megahertz Myth? Sure, I’m buying in, but LET ME BUY ALREADY. I finally hopped out of my office and ran for the purchasing department. Those guys practically have a direct line to Cupertino, for crying out loud!

After a hectic few minutes of running and bugging our purchasing agents, we got into the Store and started ordering goodies. I put in for my 867 with GeForce3, 512 RAM, and other assorted goodies (Muah-ha-ha-ha). I also ordered a few of the Quicksilver 733s for my new lab area and some of the iMacs to sprinkle around the department. We need some Indigo to balance out the Blueberry.

Within a day I was wondering when my G4 would arrive: "Hey Steve (don’t you love how we Mac folks use his first name, like we hang out with the guy?) did say that these were available NOW, so where is mine?" It should be here by now, I just ordered it YESTERDAY. Man, I was seriously hooked.

Heroin Performance

How did I get so hooked so fast? Because G4 performance is like techno-heroin for a former Wintel guy like me. I was ripping through graphics on my trusty office 733 at speeds that frankly were freaking me out. My old dual Xeon machine couldn’t even touch this kind of performance. So now I was a serious Mac junkie. And then the Cinema Display arrived.

I’m sure it doesn’t seem fair that a recent convert gets all the good toys. Tough. They’re mine.

This LCD is so freaking wide and clear that I can’t remember why I had multiple displays in the first place. I ditched the old CRT next to the 17-inch LCD and I’m now just running the Cinema Display. After the first time I ran the iTunes visualizer at 1600x1024 I needed a shot of atropine in the heart ala Mia Wallace in Pulp fiction.

You can read my reaction to the 17inch here — my reaction to the Cinema Display is basically the same, but with more emotion. My god, I can run two programs in decent sized windows next to each other, and still have room for iTunes pumping away in minimized form down by the trashcan. The 17inch is cool, but this one goes to 21.

So I’m cranking out the art and design on the fastest machine I have ever used, and I’m stocking up on games to play on the 867 when it arrives. I’ve grabbed Descent and Summoner in a sweet little deal from www.insidemacgames.com, nabbed Myst III at a local store, snagged Fly!II for an upcoming www.macosjournal.com review (need a good joystick – any suggestions?) and salivated over Red Faction and Max Payne (coming soon).

Nirvana – It Actually smells like Endust rather than Teen Spirit

So I’m slaving away on lab reconfigurations and getting ready for the students to come back when Dave (our intrepid editor), on his way to the campus library, wanders into the newsroom with a grin on his face.

"Are you expecting something?" Dave asks.

"Why, am I getting something?" I ask in eager anticipation. I’m wondering if he has software in his bag, or a Snickers Bar (I’m a bit hungry, and Snickers always satisfies).

"Well, I just saw a guy unloading a bunch of graphite iMacs and a single G4 outside," Dave muses, " and I figured they were yours."

Now I’m confused — nobody else in this building orders Macs and I’m not expecting any iMacs, so I figure someone’s finally seen the light, and there will be squeals of delight issuing forth from the stairwell soon. I was told by the Apple rep that I’ve been pestering to not expect the G4 until the last week of August.

So we sit down and chat and suddenly this G4 appears. I been playing it pretty cool up until the appearance — I figure its not mine, but my hope is up anyway. In about a nanosecond, the box is open, and we’re rifling through installation CDs (no OSX and 9.2 branded discs, hmmmm...) and yanking that sweet piece of Quicksilver out of the box. After the obligatory oohs and ahhs I have to run to a meeting, so I store the 867 in my office, and sit through a meeting trying not to think about it.

As I’m finally getting ready to go home, my wife calls to tell me she will need to stay late at the office to clean up some loose ends. I’m nearly delirious knowing that I will get some quality time alone with the new machine — guilt free.

Now, my office at home is my lair. All my crap is in alphabetical order; the fourth pile of crap from the door is filed under Q for "Miscellaneous." I don’t like to clean up, because I lose everything. However, I find myself picking up the desk and ACTUALLY CLEANING IT WITH ENDUST. This was really strange behavior. I cleaned around the bizarre panorama of action figures that occupies the built-in bookshelf, but really...

After some initial cleanup, I taunted the Gateway for a few minutes and then dismantled it and tossed it into the corner. Okay, I gently put all the Wintel crap in the corner. How cool are the new G4 systems? I’m down to one powerstrip, that’s how sweet they are. No more massive cord mess under the desk, and this actually looks like someone knew what they were doing when they put it together.

I get everything set up – iSub, Apple Pro speakers, 17inch LCD, Intellimouse Explorer, Jabba the Hut Beanie Baby – and fire the bad boy up.

Boom! The speakers go off at full volume, sending the dog howling to the front of the house. Cool. I’m setting there giggling maniacally as the 9.2 loading screen comes up – it RIPS through the load in no time flat and then...

...Blue Screen. I get a light blue screen for about 30 seconds.

"What the hell is this Blue Screen crap – the $%&*ing Wintel box is on the floor in the corner!?!"

Finally, the Welcome, Bienvenue, Benvenuto, Wilkommen, Hi, How Ya Doin’ animation starts playing and I breathe a sigh of relief.

How fast is the 867? Remember those Memorex commercials with the cat in the Lazy Boy sporting shades and a scarf? It’s fast, baby. When Steve (I really do feel we’re on a first name basis) says, "It’s very fast," you know the sucker is going to haul some patootie.

Photoshop is FAST. Director is FAST. Final Cut Pro is FAST. Gaming is REALLY REALLY FAST. There is a noticeable speed gain from the 733. I’m talking cranked up graphics and sound, high resolutions and blistering frame rates. There is a trip to CompUSA for a joystick and game pad in my IMMEDIATE future.

The Inevitable Conclusion (Finally)

So I’m sold on Mac. I’m back, baby. There is only a single PC in my sea of Blueberry, Indigo, Graphite and Quicksilvers, kept simply for cross-platform CD creation and web testing. The Journalism department has now over 50 Macs, and I’m never going back to Wintel. Never ever! Period.

The Gateway is destined for my wife’s home office. Don’t blame her – she works in a bank – that uses Compaqs for crying out loud. She’ll get the Gateway just to assure her that PCs can be stable. At least she’s not surrounded by Dells, but that’s another column.

At the beginning of this 3-part column (part two here), I wrote the following:

"I read somewhere that the most passionate evangelists are those who have been converted to either a new religion or back to their original faith."

So if you run into a large, bald, bearded man in a midwestern computer store, and he launches into a spiel on the merits of buying fruit, be patient. My fervor hasn’t quite died down yet. I doubt it ever will.

Joel Davies

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