Mac vs. PC for Engineers: The EE Times Community Debates Popularity and Usability

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- This week Linear Technology announced Mac OS X support for its LTSpice circuit simulation software. According to EE Times in LTspice Goes OS X: Somebody Uses a Mac, LTspice, which now runs on OS X 10.7 and later, lets you simulate designs before committing to hardware and is available at no cost. This was surprising news for Martin Rowe, EE Times Senior Technical Editor, who thinks it is mostly a windows world out there for engineers. He took the conversation online and invited the EE Times community to weigh in.

"While Windows clearly dominates as the computer operating system of choice for engineers, it's no alone. The Mac, long known for its graphics, does enjoy some support as an engineering tool, enough so that Linear Technology ported its popular LTspice circuit simulation software to the Mac. As the comments have shown engineers use other Mac-based tools to design, analyze and test circuits and systems."
--Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor.

Mac versus PCs
Kenneth Wyatt  11/6/2013 10:38:08 AM
"I guess it must have been 5-6 years ago, PC Magazine did one of their periodic speed comparisons using a standard set of characterization software. A Macbook Pro running Windows under Parallels ran faster in all categories than the fastest PC at the time. That was quite an admission from the magazine's standpoint."

Re: Mac versus PCs
anon7632755  11/6/2013 11:17:54 AM
"It is easy for me to blame the OS, when I can directly compare win7 running the latest firefox to MacOSX running the latest firefox on the same exact hardware. One crashes regularly, the other is windows. I'm truly sorry, but your argument is still baseless. It's the APPLICATION that keeps crashing, so the developers of the APPLICATION need to get their act together."

Re: Yes, engineers do use Macs
MeasurementBlues  11/5/2013 10:53:21 PM
"@anon, thanks for the update. One good thing that's coming out of this post is a compilation of engineering tools for the Mac."

To read the complete story and read fuller in-depth comments on EETimes.com, see: LTspice Goes OS X: Somebody Uses a Mac.

If you want to contribute to the community conversation on EE Times as a blogger contact Karen Field at [email protected] or Susan Rambo at [email protected].

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SOURCE EE Times