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Stephen Ferrell: “I never said a single word about the IBM PC. Why do you keep putting words in my mouth.” | “The first PCs and Macs NEVER had soldered-in memory”

You said “first PCs”: all of the PC’s standards “back in the day” came from IBM and all of the first PCs were IBM, hence IBM PC or IBM PC compatible. You assume I’m putting words in your mouth because you can’t rationalize public knowledge. Computers today are at a plateau unlike the 80’s, so 64GB of RAM is far more remarkable than 640K. Come on.

Stephen Ferrell: “You keep using marketing terms to convince everyone that Apple has the solution for every user.”
I said the exact opposite, I’ve no idea why you claim I put words in your mouth when you perform that exactly of what you accuse.

Stephen Ferrell: “Macs certainly don’t fit into my work flow because my business runs software that isn’t even available to run on M-series Macs such as AutoCAD.”
Autodesk is notorious for keeping their software on Windows and treating their employees poorly (Gary Yost went in depth with this extensively), you’d have to roll back the clock 25 years if you want proprietary CAD on UNIX (re: CATIA). Or you’d have to switch to FreeCAD.

I never said a single word about the IBM PC. Why do you keep putting words in my mouth. IBM was just as bad as Apple when it came to proprietary, expensive solutions. I keep talking about industry standards and you keep bringing up examples of companies who have/had no interested in standards because it hurt their bottom line. A single solution can in no way be “contoured” to everyone’s needs. You keep using marketing terms to convince everyone that Apple has the solution for every user. If that were that case, Apple’s market share would be much greater than the 20% mark where it stood in 2023. Macs certainly don’t fit into my work flow because my business runs software that isn’t even available to run on M-series Macs such as AutoCAD. And before you start crowing about Rosetta, AutoCAD with any extensions won’t even run properly under Rosetta and AutoDesk doesn’t even offer AutoCAD for M-series Macs. They still offer it for Intel based Macs but even that’s problematic because most of the civil engineering design and CAM extensions for AutoCAD don’t work under MacOS and never will. There are a huge number of users and businesses out there who rely on industry standard hardware and software and Apple has no interest in either. They’ve chosen to stay in a niche market where they sell hardware in a salon at boutique prices for casual, hipster users who are willing to pay steep prices just to stay in fashion. In the engineering field, whenever we think about systems to do our heavy lifting, Apple is not on the list, period. Contour that.

Stephen Ferrell: “Apple has spent the past 40 years stepping further and further away from industry standards and the only reason for doing so is to keep its customers locked in to expensive Apple proprietary solutions.”

I’ve already mentioned that all OEMs tend to divert from standards when it’s convenient for them, you’ve chosen to ignore this. Tim Apple and Bill Gates never have your best interests in mind. Microsoft have done horrible things to UEFI, and they lie saying GPT requires UEFI… it does not, GPT predates UEFI itself.

Stephen Ferrell: “Apple has gone down this path not only with RAM but with other hardware such as NuBus, Firewire, MagSafe, ADC, etc….always claiming that the reason for these non-standard interfaces were for reasons of performance.”

Certainly, and ADB was deliberately wired such that plugging a PS/2 device in there blew up the port. Um… Firewire isn’t exclusive to Apple, IBM co-developed it which is why many IBMs have firewire and it did have better performance over USB and was bidirectional, you should know that? All laptops use proprietary power plugs generally, I don’t see what your argument is there. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a completely proprietary-free device, and quite frankly the proprietary aspects of vintage computers is what interests me the most… hence the PS/2 Model 95.

Stephen Ferrell: “The first PCs and Macs allowed for dedicated RAM slots and sockets because operating systems and software application requirements were constantly growing. Constant upgrades of the CPU, GPU and RAM were a necessity.”

As I had already mentioned, the IBM PC 5150 had soldered-in memory ICs which you’ve chosen to ignore, the ZX Spectrum and C64 had fixed memory; you had to use later external expansion devices which nobody really did. RAM slots were not a thing back then (IBM revolutionized the PC by bringing SIMMs to the Personal System/2 series which clone manufacturers followed, and guess what, they used proprietary modules). And we’ve not even gotten into the infamous 640K limitation. Sockets/bus never guarantee endless system memory expansion. GPUs as we know today didn’t exist then and in some instances (many instances) you were limited to whatever onboard 2D acceleration the machine came with (re: PS/2 Model 25, PS2/E), and there were so few graphics cards released for MCA that you almost always had XGA/2. We’ve not even gotten into all of the problems with all of the conflicting graphics standards back then, and yes many boards did have the 2D accelerators and character ICs soldered on to the boards or integrated in something else.

You’re viewing vintage computers through rose tinted glasses as if there were never any issues or if each system actually could be upgraded without reprimand.

Stephen Ferrell: “In regard to operating systems and applications, this is still the case today. PCs back then could even be upgraded with more RAM after the SIMM/DIMM sockets or slots on the mainboard were filled by installing an ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) board populated with more SIMM/DIMM slots or socketed RAM chips.”

You’re conflating computer science history by merging in modern concepts with old… SIMMs and DIMMs did not exist during the original IBM PC. Upgrading a system through an ISA or MCA bus had certain limitations based on if your card was compatible with the motherboard or if the OS could even handle it. Sometimes there were even problems with these external memory cards and they did not always work reliably or with all software. Then you also had things like the infamous Intel cache tag on Pentium 1, if you upgrade most socket 5 or socket 7 systems beyond 64 MB the system cannot cache it and your performance tanks, so you effectively have a system that wastes hundreds of megabytes of potential memory.

Whiiiich goes back to the whole thing where if everything is integrated in a single solution contoured to what you need, you’re not going to have all of those problems. We take this all for granted now.

The first PCs and Macs allowed for dedicated RAM slots and sockets because operating systems and software application requirements were constantly growing. Constant upgrades of the CPU, GPU and RAM were a necessity. In regard to operating systems and applications, this is still the case today. PCs back then could even be upgraded with more RAM after the SIMM/DIMM sockets or slots on the mainboard were filled by installing an ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) board populated with more SIMM/DIMM slots or socketed RAM chips. Apple has spent the past 40 years stepping further and further away from industry standards and the only reason for doing so is to keep its customers locked in to expensive Apple proprietary solutions. Apple has gone down this path not only with RAM but with other hardware such as NuBus, Firewire, MagSafe, ADC, etc….always claiming that the reason for these non-standard interfaces were for reasons of performance. That simply wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. A prime example is how Apple was forcing iPhone users to use more expensive proprietary ports and chargers. Thankfully the EU saw thru Apple’s BS and passed legislation forcing Apple to put “standard” USB-C ports on their phones. With current Apple Macs, you don’t even have the option of running non-Apple operating systems unless you’re into some serious hackery that risks bricking your device, something that was supported on pre M-series Macs. And God forbid you need to repair an Apple product. Most users will be forced to just buy another piece of hardware from Apple if their current system malfunctions or fails whether it’s a Mac, Apple Watch, iPhone, or whatever. Apple doesn’t want you upgrading or repairing anything they produce. They want you to buy new hardware every 18-24 months to maximize their profits.

Hey, I want to buy a system with a fixed amount of RAM where the RAM, CPU, storage, and GPU are soldered to the board so that I can never expand it. Said no computer user EVER!

Everywhere else in the world, a budget-built system is one engineered with a fixed amount of RAM soldered to the mainboard with no option for upgrading the CPU, GPU, storage or RAM. But Apple users live in some sort of Bizarro World where they have been brainwashed into thinking that buying a budget-built system produced by Apple and sold at boutique prices is a good thing and somehow chic.

Stephen Ferrell: “I never said a word about “standard PC users”. You did. I stated, “performance-oriented PC users”. There’s a huge difference and any references I made to “standard” were in regards to “industry standards”, something which Apple will always avoid in order to gouge its customers.”

I meant standard PC users as in enthusiasts which all of your arguments are coming from. Someone actually in performance computing (whether private or corporate) will not be concerned with cost or even sockets, most of which doesn’t use standard sockets or memory controllers anyways.

Stephen Ferrell: “and any references I made to “standard” were in regards to “industry standards”, something which Apple will always avoid in order to gouge its customers.”

OEMs defy standards all the time, IBM has soldered CPUs to mobos directly, lenovo used proprietary jacks for external dongles, HPE serializes HDDs and RAM against the UEFI so you have to buy their parts etc. A simple Google search would reveal all of this to you.

Stephen Ferrell: “And for the record, people who buy M-series Macs are usually just hipsters with too much money and too little common sense who only care about surfing the web, social media and graphic arts or music.”

Conclusory statements like that are dangerous. There’s not enough hispters in the world to warrant Apple’s stock and there are serious users who make usage of macOS’ UNIX functionality.

Stephen Ferrell: “This article and the entire thread has devolved into you gaslighting anyone who responds to or criticizes your article and now you’re tossing around a bunch of meaningless specs in order to overwhelm us with your vast knowledge.”

I’m just responding to anyone who’s curious and explaining my rationale as the Mac Pro 2023 does indeed have its niche 🙂

Stephen Ferrell: “If I didn’t know better, I’d assume that Apple paid you to publish this article.”

Then you’ve never read it well as many things I’ve mentioned are quite anti-Apple, they also wouldn’t portray their products against vintage IBM ones.

Stephen Ferrell: “And no, soldered-in memory HASN’T always been a thing. The first PCs and Macs NEVER had soldered-in memory”

Some of the memory ICs on the original IBM PC 5150 are in fact directly soldered on with no sockets. ZX Spectrum had fully soldered-in memory too. Can’t comment on early Macs as already mentioned, I’m not an Apple person this is the first mac tower I’ve ever purchased.

I never said a word about “standard PC users”. You did. I stated, “performance-oriented PC users”. There’s a huge difference and any references I made to “standard” were in regards to “industry standards”, something which Apple will always avoid in order to gouge its customers. And for the record, people who buy M-series Macs are usually just hipsters with too much money and too little common sense who only care about surfing the web, social media and graphic arts or music. This article and the entire thread has devolved into you gaslighting anyone who responds to or criticizes your article and now you’re tossing around a bunch of meaningless specs in order to overwhelm us with your vast knowledge. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume that Apple paid you to publish this article. And no, soldered-in memory HASN’T always been a thing. The first PCs and Macs NEVER had soldered-in memory and most PCs even today avoid it for good reason. Soldered-in RAM is usually only found in laptops and budget systems. Computer users interested in performance avoid systems with soldered-in memory for very good reasons for which you seem blissfully unaware of. Or maybe you are aware ,but you’re just unwilling to admit it and will keep gaslighting respondents to protect your fragile ego.

Well a standard PC user isn’t going to buy a specialized workstation and probably has no need for something like a macbook. M2 Ultra with base 64 GB of RAM already eclipses any feasible upgrades for many years to come and it runs all of my software the fastest I’ve ever seen defying Wirth’s Law for the first time; and even if you could upgrade it, the system would have other deficiencies at that point. If we want to take a 19 year old system like my Pentium 4 as an example: I did upgrade it to an RTX2060, but the CPU has no further upgrades because intel never released anything beyond a 3.8 GHz prescott 2M causing one IC to have 12nm but the other 90nm. So even if a CPU is socketed there’s no guarantee that you can continue upgrading the CPU even though you could in theory upgrade other parts. So you’re always going to be “locked-in” by some component of a system even if it has sockets.

Soldered-in memory has always been a thing (IBM has been doing it forever i.e. PS/2E, Transnote & 701C) and it’s only going to become more popular.

“I’m actually in favour of the RAM being soldered-in for the M series because it allows better integration and performance with the CPU but the proprietary SSDs are purely anti-consumer and vindictive.”

That’s an irrelevant point to most performance-oriented PC users who will buy a discrete GPU to meet their needs. RAM soldered to the board is just as proprietary, anti-consumer and vindictive. On M-series systems, it means no RAM upgrades for your CPU nor your GPU. You are locked into a finite amount of RAM with no possibility of upgrading to a better GPU without moving to the next newer system that Apple releases at a boutique price, which is exactly what Apples wants.