[OS X TeX] New Mac

Bruno Voisin bvoisin at mac.com
Mon Sep 18 13:48:09 CEST 2006


Le 18 sept. 06 à 13:28, Victor Ivrii a écrit :

> Please do not undermine our efforts to persuade university
> administrations that mathematical typesetting requires ENORMOUS CPU
> power, A LOT of RAM, HUGE HD and really nice and large screens :-)

Yes, that's indeed the problem. I can understand Claus Gerhardt's  
praise for powerful Macs and large screens:

> Let me repeat my educated opinion that a Laptop should be  
> considered as a substitute for the real thing (fast computer, large  
> monitor), which has its merits  when travelling.
>
> If you have the advantage of sitting at your own desk, you should  
> use a fast computer and a large monitor for texing (24" is  
> sufficient, but only Apple's 30" Cinema display will make texing fun).

However, the fact is that we, at universities or research institutes,  
paid and funded on taxpayers' money, often cannot afford this. It's  
already difficult enough to convince administrations that one needs a  
Mac, when, for one third of the price (certainly an exaggeration, but  
that's what I'm usually answered by administration people), one could  
get a Dell with similar functionality.

As for desktop vs. laptop, I fully and completely agree with Fernando  
Pereira:

> For the last 12 years or so (I lost track), my main everyday  
> computer has been some laptop (mostly Apple) with one or more  
> external displays at work and at home. [...] I sacrifice some speed  
> and local disk space to the huge convenience of having my work  
> world (email, papers, data files, class notes, presentations)  
> always with me. [...] I found that for me the sacrifices in speed  
> and display space are more than worth the efficiency of not having  
> to worry about synchronizing and maintaining multiple machines.

Now if only I did have external displays too!

Bruno Voisin------------------------- Info --------------------------
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