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ianbuckley

Apple for Systems Integrators?

15 posts in this topic

We are looking at upgrading our computer hardware for our office. We have always used Dell, Gateway and Toshiba for workstations (desktops and notebooks). I am still scared of Vista, and I am concerned that with XP nearing the end of support from Microsoft that buying new hardware might not be supported for the duration of usage. We typically use workstations for 3-5 years before moving them to secondary equipment. My question to you all is this: Is anybody using Apple for industrial control? Are there issues with compatibility with different programming packages? We are systems integrators and use a great many different programming packages - Cognex/DVT vision, Siemens, Rockwell, Omron, several different motions control platforms, a couple of independent PLC manufacturers for control applications alone. We use Quick Books Pro for accounting, MS Office, and AutoCAD LT for schematics (extensive library of blocks built up over the years). We are considering a single license of AutoCAD Electrical, EPlan or similar, but have not decided if it is worth it for us. Am I right to be concerned about the compatibility of all these programs, or is this something Apple has addressed with the switch to Intel processors? Thanks for any insight.

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The new Apples all have Intel CPUs. This makes it is easy implement virtual machines. This is a common practice with servers so it is tried and true technology. Apples doesn't support as many I/O devices as the Wintel machines. This makes it easy to support the devices that apple does use. You just need to accept that you will need more memory and a virtual machine software package. VMWare's Fusion cost about $50 and I got an extra GB of ram so I can run OS X and Win XP at the same time. BTW, Mac Pros are VERY FAST.

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I have not heard of anyone using Apples for control purposess but there is no reason why you could not run Virtual Machines with your software running on it. We use VM's for testing here. It cuts down on the need for every engineering person to have 3-4 PC's. We also have quite a few large manufacturing customers that use VM's in production very successfuly. I see no reason why you should not be able to do the same.

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I was referring to development workstations, not for use as a pc on the plant floor. It sounds like you can run XP on a virtual machine with no issues - good to know. But does the performance of running XP on top of OS X justify the cost difference between the MAC and a PC from Dell or Gateway (2-3X cost)? You are basically using the same operating system (assuming you get XP on the PC) aren't you? I have read that Apple's audio/video editing suite is great, but that is not that important an application to us. Is there any other compelling reason for us to consider Apple other than really funny commercials poking fun at Microsoft? I mean I love the commercials, as anyone taking Microsoft down a peg is very funny to me, but there has to be a better reason. Thanks, Ian

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The Mac Pros are competitive with the Dells if you carefully compare the specifications except for the fact Apple charges an outrageous amount for raid capability.

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You get a Unix/Mac system AND XP together on the same box. By the way, the performance hit to XP really isn't that bad.

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As a tekkie, i have gone over most computers and played with number of OS'z... Been running XP for a long time as we all have been forced to...(dang Windows for letting it be pirated so easily!!!)... But for a while now i switch to Mac....and let's face it ...it just works. There are numerous listings everywhere as to why make the switch...just google it... but from my experiance ...once i went Mac ...i can never...oh, you know the rest.... To answer to the thread, i have been using EPLAN Electric P8 since 1.7 to now present 1.9 SP1 (1.9.10), i give presentations and do consulting work with it. EPLAN is a very big and performate software, unlike AutoCAD that is mostly a mechanical tool more than anything. So to run a Ferrari like EPLAN on a PC machine might take a beating but on a MAC, even using VMware, it runs much smoother and faster than on a PC. The core of OS X permits you to not have to wait around for dll's and other anoiyances to run around your PC while you wait for a commande to execute. Since Intel was added to the MAC arsenal, i think we can start hoping for better faster machines, specially if MAC starts dipping into other type applications such as CAE tools. Since MAC makes wonders for the media side of things, we are not far away with out technical drawings. Hope this input helped. I also put up a video on youtube running EPLAN P8 on a MAC.... Cheers,

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Interesting blog. So in a nutshell, Vista's problems are because the project management sucked. No surprises there, thats often the case behind many product disasters, not just software ones. However its encouraging to see them admit it. Win7 project management was different, and it sound like it was much better for those working on it, but the judgement on whether it produced a better product remains to be seen, although initially it seems to be better.

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I do not know of any PLC vendor who makes software designed to run on a MAC, so you would always be looking at running a virtual machine running XP or some other Windows. Why bother? If you're going to buy a Mac to run Windows, why not just buy a Windows PC? FYI too, the software for the Siemens Logo smart relay is available in Mac and Linux versions. The software is completely Java based, so it works on any platform.

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Simple. I bought a Windows PC. Guess what happened? It totally sucked. I bought it in February. It was the worst computer I ever bought. It was roughly the speed of a P3 at about 600 MHz, but it had 4 GB of RAM and a Core 2 Duo processor clocking in at something over 2 GHz. It was a Dell, and it came virtually loaded with enough viruses, trojans, etc., to drive me up the wall. I mean, I can right-click "New Folder", and even that SIMPLE ACTION generates some sort of security warning. Give me a break! Funny thing is that it was acting like some teenager had been downloading pirated software off the internet and loaded it up with viruses, but it hadn't even been ON the internet. For me, the "Vista experience" just had me repeating "serenity now, serenity now, serenity now!" My wife couldn't understand why I kept slapping the keyboard, banging my head against the wall, and constantly going back to her 2 GHz 1 GB RAM XP based AMD 64 PC from about 5 years ago whenever I actually needed to get work done. No PLC development software would run on it, and everything just plain ran crappy. Every time I tried to load or do anything, all I got is security and/or compatibility problems. I got blue screens of death type stuff about once or twice a day too destroying whatever I was working on. Oh, did I mention that it ran Vista? Because XP really wasn't available. And yes, I know what I'm doing. I had all the patches loaded on it. I had checked for viruses. It was just the darned OS that was causing all the problems. So, in desperation, I tried loading up Ubuntu Linux just to see what would happen since we'd had good luck using it around work for things like web servers. Wow, didn't know it was actually that fast of a machine. Everything "just worked". It was everything the Vista hype claimed to be. The processors rarely got above 5-10% system load and I rarely ever even exceeded memory. Most of the time if there was a "compatibility" issue, it would just pop up an error, show me the software that would fix it, and then go download and install it automatically. Software would load and unload without any hassles at all and it didn't take 25 minutes just to decide whether or not to do it. It was as if someone designed an operating system to be easy to use. Oh, and that stupid "Windows Help" that is anything but? Well, let's just say that the user manuals are actually informative. Software development is actually trivially easy, especially since I don't spend 95% of my time trying to code around Microsoft bugs. I still get "bug fixes" for the OS about once a week, but they aren't multigigabyte downloads anymore, they are fixing very small almost unnoticeable problems, and everything isn't labelled a "security warning". Actually once in a while, I get an "enhancement" which generally means that the OS memory footprint or CPU footprint shrinks, or that the graphics card drivers get a little faster. I don't have a virus checker...don't need one. No mystery pop-ups from crapware that I didn't actually load when I loaded a software package. From boot to internet browsing is 45 seconds. It shuts down fairly quickly too without spending 25 minutes doing whatever it is that Windows does from a simple shutdown command. Vista would still be contemplating it's device drivers if it tried to boot in 45 seconds, and that includes after you get a desktop but can't actually do anything useful for 5-10 minutes while Windows sucks down CPU doing whatever it normally does during "morning coffee". The majority of the interval on Ubuntu is mostly limited by non-OS stuff like negotiating with the wireless router and BIOS startup. OK, now there's still that pesky problem of running Rockwell software among others. Well, it runs just fine and happy in a window to a virtual machine. In fact, I can boot, reboot, shut down, and do anything else I need to do with Windows in a few seconds instead of minutes or hours. I can keep separate copies of everything so there's no software conflicts or anything else screwy and unpredictable going on. I can trivially allow or deny Windows "playing on the internet" which the OS likes to do just for the heck of it, even when it's not doing anything network worthy. I can save/load/run directly out of ISO CD images instead of using the slow CD drive at all. And if the machine gets screwed up, I can just revert to an earlier saved state and restart again. Ahh, sanity. For the record, the reason that Windows 7 will be "OK" is because Microsoft is publishing, get this, a virtual machine to run Windows XP in. The virtual machine runs on top of Windows 7 so that you can run Vista-compatible (err, Windows 7 compatible) and Windows XP compatible software without conflicts. There's really no difference for those of us in the controls world whether we run Windows 7, Mac OS, or Ubuntu. In the end, you will still end up running a virtual machine to support all your software. Just makes you question why you would want to run a Vista-derived OS though. In my 2 months of trying to struggle with Vista, I've sworn off the Microsoft crack pipe for a long, long time. Edited by paulengr

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I still have XP on my PLC programming computers. My personal desktop is Vista 64-bit and I have had NO problems since I bought it in December. It's an HP, and didn't come with tons of crap loaded on it. After working with them for years, I'd have to say Dell sucks anymore. Once you turn off that stupid extended security in Vista, it's not as bad as most people say it is. It won't keep asking for permission every time you try to do something. I still run most PLC software on my home PC in VMware machines, as for example Mitsubishi software supports Vista, but only 32-bit versions. They all work fine in a virtual machine.

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Interesting. Almost all of our systems at work, from laptops to rack-mounted servers, are Dell, and I don't recall any experience like that. My Vostro 1500 laptop, new in July 2008, with Core2 Duo 1.4GHz CPU and 3 GB RAM, running Win XP SP2, has only failed once in running PLC software: GE Fanuc Cimplicity Machine Edition 5.00 would not load one file that included 90-70 remote I/O adapter targets. (We have the latest versions, but the major client with that program hasn't upgraded.) I will say that every time I loaded a new application, the startup time increased a little bit, as if every programmer felt that some permanent utility was necessary to be sure that I got their "experience." There's also a noticeable increase in boot time if I'm connected to the office domain. Mike

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I really fail to understand the grumbles about Vista. I have a very high spec core duo machine (E8500 @ 3.16Ghz) with 4 gig RAM (high speed), a high end nVidia video card (to run my Dell 30" monitor), RAID drives, Vista Business (with UAC turned off) and have never had an issue. The machine is fast and I have never had a blue screen of death - not so with XP Pro - used to have to reformat the hard drive every 3-6 months!!! The slowest part of the machine is the processor!!! Lots of externals, Canon scanner, Xerox C4250 Docuscan, Xerox D4350 Docuprint, SATA external drive, speakers (jazz while I work from the net), iPhone (pain the the 'a'), Olypmpus digital camera, wireless communications with a PLC that runs my orchid shadehouses, fax machine, wireless network for internet, Canon inkjet for printing CDs, second screen, Oce A0 laser plotter, USB drives of course, Blueray disk as well. The machine works hard and faultlessly. My laptop is a Dell Vostro 1710 (the screen is wonderful), E9300(?) core duo (second fastest laptop core duo processor made) with 4 gig RAM and Vista business - once again no problems whatever. The only problem with the laptop is that I got one with the bad nVidia chips that fried mother boards and Dell built me a new computer - after 4 visits from the service guy who could not fix it even with a new mother board. It is a high end processor also. Both machines fly, I run Virtual Box with XP Pro inside for some software from 'slack a**e' industrial companies that are 3 years behind the times. Quite frankly, XP Pro runs much better inside Virtual Box on Vista Business than it ever did standalone for me. I run Office (mainly Word and Excel but Publisher very regularly too for documentation), CAD, Citect SCADA, Omron PLC software, Omron and/or Crimson screen software, graphics manipulation software, Internet, Outlook, NOD32 virus scanner, PC Tools, Registery Mechanic, Photoshop, Diskeeper and various other things all at the same time and never a problem - XP Pro was an absolute disaster handling that much work and I got very sick of it. Did not invest in Vista till SP1 though and it has been great ever since. Very happy camper!!

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You have a monster machine. Anything should work on that. Vista didn't work very well for me so I switched to a Mac. What p!$$e$ me off more than anything else is Windows slow response even when you have a relatively fast PC. My PC was 2.4 Mhz and 4GB ram. Still it would go to sleep. I would try to start a program and it looked like nothing was happening. Then 10 copies would start up and my memory was used up and thrashing the disk. I get tired of the application not responding notice. What is really infuriating is that the CPU meter would indicate that the CPU usage was at 2%. I have a an old Mac Mini powered by a PowerPC. It can be overwhelmed when rendering a video or copying a DVD but is still responds to the key board and the multitasking. I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard or OS X 10.6. It makes better use of the 4 CPUs that I have on my Mac Pro at work. The last few days I have been rendering videos. The MacPro does it easily and still will respond to the keyboard. I still need a WinXP VM because there is so much software that I use that is Windows based but I will always use a Mac. I have played with Ubuntu 64bit. Ubuntu does not have the polish that Mac OS X has. One of the software programs I use most is wxMaxima and it runs on many platforms.

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