I borrowed a Macintosh PowerBook 190cs for a few days. This system did NOT have the MS Windows emulator on it.

Based on the observations below, I would never recommend this machine to anyone. Editing simple html files in the text editor is extremely painful.

• To list the files on the hard drive, just double click the icon on the desktop.
• The menus are very irritating - you must hold the mouse button down while you move the mouse. Very difficult and frustrating.
• Apple-H reads the file to you. Good luck understanding it. (The voice was set to bells. Several of the voices are completely unintelligible, but a couple can almost be understood.) (I was looking for Help.)
• There is no place to plug in an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, or printer using standard PC type connectors.
• The reset button is on the back, behind the door.
• The menu at the top of the screen applies to the active window. Windows do not have their own menus. There is no obvious hot key to activate the menu (similar to Alt or F10 on a PC.)
• Windows are re-sized by dragging the lower righthand corner ... only.
• Will not run MS Windows exe files. (Well, I already knew that.)
• The system had Netscape 3.0 on it, but would not open a .htm file from the floppy. First, .htm was not associated with an application. But when I selected Netscape, that did not work either. So, I tried File / Open File in Browser... from the menu. Both times, it reported that the file was not found. Using Copy and Paste, I copied the file from the floppy to the hard drive and doubled clicked the copy - it opened in Netscape, no problems. It even recognized the .htm extension. (PS: Netscape does not have any local help.)
• The Netscape View / Document Source works, sort of. It fairly easy to change to a fixed width font, but that's really not enough. The entire file was double spaced, and using the keyboard to get from one end of the file to the other was extremely slow (no Page Down key).
• Microsoft long filenames are not supported. Only 8.3 names are displayed.
• Double clicking the title bar does nothing. There is no way to minimize a window.
• When viewing a directory, dragging the scroll bar tab does nothing until the mouse button is released.
• In order to remove the floppy, there is no button. Instead, you select Special / Eject Disk from the menu.
• Under Apple / Notepad, you get an application that allows you to type straight text. However, there are no Save or SaveAs options. Everything you type is saved. If you want to organize your thoughts into files and directories ... you can't.
• I opened a PC .txt file. Obviously, the end of line terminator is different - every line starts with a square box. As with the Notepad, there is no way to cancel the changes.
• Like Windows, Mac uses the ubiquitous (and totally meaningless) term Open.
• Calculator - 4 functions only, no scienticic calculator.

• The Power button is marked with an arrow. Hey, I thought it was the backspace key. (Since it is right above the actual backspace key, and since it looks a lot like the PC backspace key ... Guess what is likely to happen.)
• There is no Windows style Del key - The key labeled Delete performs the Backspace function.
• None of the Function Keys do anything.
• The keyboard has both Enter and Return.
• PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End are missing
• There is no number pad functionality (Well, I don't use that anyway.)
• There is no Insert key. That is obviously why MS changed Copy and Paste from Ctrl-Ins and Shift-Ins to the Macintosh like Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V (Option-C and Option-V on the Mac).

I actually like the idea of a single menu for all applications instead of the Windows and Unix OpenX concept of a separate menu per window. Perhaps this should be a configurable option (user preference).

At any rate, the next time someone tells me how great their Mac is, I now have some talking points.

URL: http:// cpcug.org / user / clemenzi / technical / MacintoshNotebook.htm