12 Macintosh
User's
Handbook
As
to
the ultimate answer, you will have to decide whether
the Mac suits
your
needs
better
than
more conventional com-
puters such as the IBM PC®, Compaq® portable, Kaypro®,
etc. In this chapter, as well as
throughout
much
of
the
remainder
of
this book,
we
will
attempt
to
provide
an
objec-
tive, unbiased view
of
the Mac. For those
of
you familiar with
the more traditional personal computers, the difference between
the Mac
and
these will be immediately
apparent.
For
those
of
you
not
familiar with traditional computers,
we
have provided
a brief discussion which contrasts the Mac and the IBM
PC.
We will
not
attempt
to
carry this discussion through the
remainder
of
this book. Therefore, if
your
purpose in reading
this
book
is
to
gain information
to
help in making a purchase
decision between the
Mac
and
a traditional computer,
we
recommend
that
you
do
additional research on those tradi-
tional computers. We will
attempt
to
provide the necessary
information on the Mac.
Why
is
the Mac Different?
In order
to
operate conventional personal computers, the
user must master
that
computer's operating system.
An
operat-
ing system
can
be defined as a
group
of
programs
which
manage the overall operation
of
the computer.
The most
popular
personal computer operating systems
to date have been
MS-DOS®
and
CP
I
M®.
Both
of
these could
be described as literate operating systems. In this context,
literate means the ability to read
and
write with comprehen-
sion. With a literate operating system, the user must have the
ability
to
encode
an
operation into a written command.
That
command
must be entered into the
computer
via the keyboard.
After it has been entered, the
computer
will display the com-
mand. Here the user will generally read the
command,
check-
ing it for accuracy. Once he
or
she
is
certain
that
the
command
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