Not to belabor the point -- well okay, I will -- but the original person
said:

> Avoid the Motorolas like the plague, at least get a PowerPC one. It's
> the de-facto standard. Many applications are no longer supported on
> Motorola platforms. Some others ship with "fat" binaries with both
> Motorola and PPC support (Reflection comes to mind).

Glenn Cole gave an alternative interpretation to mine:

> My guess (such as it is) is that the original person was confused
> by the Motorola name being used for different things.
>
> Yes, Motorola is the major chip provider, but they used to make
> a line of PowerPC-based Mac clones under the "StarMax" name.
> My guess is that these were what the person heard should be
> avoided.

Two things wrong with that interpretation, imo:

1) The person was comparing "Motorolas" to "PPC"s, the implication being
that Moto never made a PowerPC. The opposite is true. The second clue is
the reference to "fat binaries" which can run on either chip, that is,
they contain code "native" to both processors so you could install it on
both a Quadra 900, say, and a Performa 6360 and it would run on both. (The
doubling of instructions in the code is why they are called "fat"
binaries.) The third clue is that they wrote, "Many applications are no
longer supported on Motorola platforms." Why would *only* Motorola
machines be unsupported if they were talking about a PowerPC clone like
the StarMax? It makes no sense unless they're talking about the old 680x0
chips.

2) I'll admit it, I'm a ringer. I know about the StarMax line because I
bought one in '97. Still use it. Upgraded it last year from a (Motorola)
PPC 604e/160MHz to a (Motorola) PPC 750 aka G3/300Mhz. It's a *great*
machine, very hardy, and should only be avoided if you don't like Macs in
the first place. :-) BTW, StarMaxen are all PPC 603/604 based, afaik Moto
never produced a 680x0 Mac clone. Also, anyone who needs help with a
StarMax need only visit StarMax.net and sign up for the listserv. It's
*almost* as good as this one. :-)

Okay, I'll let the thread die now... (as long as I don't have to respond
again. ;-)

Regards,
Patrick
--
Patrick Santucci
Technical Services Analyst
Seabury & Smith, Inc.