OK, my antique PC, which has served me well for 10 years or more, is a Win10 PC, which means it is a victim of planned obsolescence.
Any thoughts on switching to a Mac? I want to do everything you do. Record with an external mic, run down rabbit holes, easily type business letters and so forth.
Tech Talk Question - PC vs Mac
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Hi @BanJoe I too am a casualty of Win10. I have had a PC since the day’s of DOS and FidoNet moving to Window’s 2.0 at the birth of the WWW and upgraded through every Windows version. My current PC is not Windows 11 compatible and is only about 6 years old but the CPU is not Win11 compatible. I suppose I could upgrade the processor but I think I’ll be upgrading to a new PC in the fall. Black Friday seems a good time to upgrade. I bought my MacBook Air in 2019 and I have never really mastered it. I use it mostly for Messaging/FaceTiming with my two daughters and five grandkids.
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My 10-year old PC is a re-built Dell. I had them put in an SSD & never looked back.
I’m already an iPhone user, so I don’t think the learning curve will be too steep. I’m curious how a Mac desktop would work with Audacity & an external mic…or do I have to open my wallet yet again.
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I can’t answer those questions. @BanjoBen @Mark_Rocka and I think @Michael_Mark are all into Mac’s TabView works on a Mac. I copy my Tef Files from my PC onto a memory stick and access them that way.
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@BanJoe I frequently use an external mic with my Mac and it works great. Web browsing and typing in a word processor are other very basic functions the Mac does easily too.
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Before you buy a new machine, give Chrome OS flex a try. It allows you to reuse your old PC or apple device to make it operate like a Chromebook/Chromebox. You can partition your drive to keep Windows as an option, or try it before committing to it by running it from a USB drive without installing it. No more sluggish startups, constant software updates, viruses worries, monthly fees for software, etc.
I gave up on Windows and Apple based machines years ago and have been happy with the performance of my Chromebox and Chromebooks. There are a few things I miss like Band in a Box and the full version of Tabledit. But anything that works with a web browser works fine. If you partition your drive you can continue to use the Windows system, just don’t go on the Internet to avoid viruses. Soundslice is web browser based, so it will work on a Chromebook. Most computer peripherals work by simply plugging them in. One thing I don’t like about Chrome is that it doesn’t allow webpage text colors to be changed. That can be surprisingly annoying with some web pages (including Banjo Ben’s). Web page designers seem to think gray shaded text is more appealing, it can be hard to read sometimes.
The software is free for most things like spreadsheets, word processing, slideshows, etc. The free software lacks certain features available in Word for example, but for letters, reports, etc. they are more than sufficient. Only powerusers will notice the difference. I have written many technical reports, spreadsheet analyses, slideshows, etc. using Chromebooks. If you have to have the full version of a particular software (e.g. Adobe) you can buy a license and it works fine.
Chrome OS flex is free and works with most machines. Google has a list that shows if a machine is compatible or not. Some older PCs have a bios chip that requires the start up routine to initiate Windows, that won’t work with Chrome OS flex and there are a few USB drives that are not compatible for some reason. Give it a try, you might like it. It doesn’t cost anything.
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Thanks for the suggestion but I think I am going to upgrade in the fall. I have tried other OS in the past but I’ve always come back to Windows I am just comfortable using it.
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Hi yall - I bought my first Mac in 1985, been using them for every kind of thing since. Music Apps I use are Logic Pro for recording/writing, Band-in-a-Box Mac for quick easy arrangements, Transcribe for slowing down speeding up changing key, and of course Mac does all the internet/word processor/spreadsheet stuff. My wife has a MacBook Pro and she has to do a lot of bookkeeping stuff like Excel, Dropbox, Microsoft Word docs, scans for tax/ accounting etc. she uses the same MacBook to do all her music composition in Logic Pro and Finale for scoring/notation. I also use the tab software (Tabledit?) that seems to be ubiquitous for bluegrassers. Don’t know much about pc’s but love my Mac’s. Internal camera and mic are pretty decent, but I use Universal Audio interfaces and external mics for better recording quality and flexibility. Herb in Atlanta
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My 2¢: Mac is fine if you are already used to it. If you have been using Windows, just get another Windows machine. Dell Refurbished has some great deals on capable laptops.
Macs, besides being more expensive in general, have a pretty different operating system. Some people love it but you’ll likely find it to be a bit jarring if you are used to Windows.
@The_Mole’s suggestion of ChromeOS Flex is great, assuming you or someone you know have enough technical chops to get it installed. The user interface is pretty Windows-like and you get a ton of apps through Google Play. I’d also suggest you try Linux, but somehow I suspect @BanJoe isn’t interested in getting in that deep 
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Excellent suspicion! I’ve toyed with the idea of turning my old Windows into a Linux machine, or I could practice my banjo. The banjo wins again!
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If only we could convert our tired old Windows puters into shiney new Twangers. This world would be a happier place.
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