Flexi for mac?

[PrintPostal]

Really good unbiased comparison of Mac vs PC
https://photographylife.com/pc-vs-mac-for-photography

9) Upfront Cost and Performance
If so far it appeared like I was giving all the credit to Apple, this is one area where it will be a huge slam on Apple’s face. If one evaluates cost and performance (which go hand in hand), Macs don’t stand a chance against PCs. I could build a very fast PC, which will slaughter pretty much any Mac out there, at half the cost. Don’t believe me? Take a look at my ultimate PC for photography article and try to find a similarly spec’ed Mac (hint: it does not exist). For about $2K, my PC would be screaming fast, delivering unbelievable performance.

Mac works better out of the box and has a lot going for it but if you wanted to spend $5000 on a pc and $5000 on a mac. PC would smoke the mac.

 

[Bobby H]

Ugh, good grief. The issue is more about software rather than hardware. 10-20 years ago there was a legitimate debate on Mac vs Windows when it came to computers doing sign industry tasks. Today there's no debate at all. If you're working in a sign company and want to try to get the job done using a Mac you will soon be struggling badly. And that's because just about all of the software that is sign industry specific is now Windows-only.

Way back when Flexi was sold by Amiable Technologies they had Mac and PC versions of Flexi. The Mac version eventually got canned after the Scanvec-Amiable merger. IIRC CASmate was always a Windows-only application, that is before it moved up from MS-DOS. Others like SignLab, Gerber's offerings, etc have all been geared for Windows. Even now, how many sign industry applications have versions that run native under OSX? I can't think of any current applications at all off hand.

Then there's RIP software. In my shop we have used Roland VersaWorks and now Onyx Thrive. Both are Windows-only applications. They don't run under OSX. Maybe there's some other large format RIP software that does run on OSX, but Thrive and VersaWorks are currently among the most popular. Oh, Flexi has a RIP too. It's Windows only. I think the same is true for Gerber's products.

CorelDRAW is still arguably the most popular vector drawing application with sign companies. But version 11 was the only one ever released for the Mac platform (around 16-17 years ago). The Mac crowd turned its nose up at it and effectively told the Canadians at Corel to go #%&! themselves. Corel has not entertained making a native Mac version of CorelDRAW since then. Message received loud and clear from the Mac crowd. Mac people prefer to do without Corel. So they can just keep doing without it forever. I visit the Corel forums from time to time and there are lots of requests for Mac versions. The requests tend to draw a few laughs. I guess it takes about 20 years for a Mac zealot to become aware of any consequences that could come from terminal Mac fanatic snobbery.

In the end a Mac set up in a sign shop is likely to be forced into running an emulated version of Windows just so it can run actual sign making applications that control plotters, routing tables, large format printers, etc. IMHO, it's silly to pay a huge premium for Apple-branded hardware only to be forced to run icky Windows on it.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Then there's RIP software. In my shop we have used Roland VersaWorks and now Onyx Thrive. Both are Windows-only applications. They don't run under OSX. Maybe there's some other large format RIP software that does run on OSX, but Thrive and VersaWorks are currently among the most popular. Oh, Flexi has a RIP too. It's Windows only. I think the same is true for Gerber's products.

No "maybe" about it. There is Caldera and that one is exclusive Unix-like only. I say Unix-like only, because not only does it run under Mac OS, but (drum roll please), it runs under Linux as well. No Windows version that I'm aware of. It's fairly popular, I think there is one MM here that really likes it (or at least did, maybe that changed, dunno).

CorelDRAW is still arguably the most popular vector drawing application with sign companies. But version 11 was the only one ever released for the Mac platform (around 16-17 years ago).

Corel, about the same time, also had a Linux version as well. Hell, even their own Linux distro (creatively named Corel Linux). That didn't last either, but that was more about how they did things, more then anything else. Their distro (which truly was a distro and not just some fork of another distro) strayed too far away from the rest of the Linux ecosystem.

In the end a Mac set up in a sign shop is likely to be forced into running an emulated version of Windows just so it can run actual sign making applications that control plotters, routing tables, large format printers, etc.

Not emulated, why too much of a performance hit to do that. Virtualized yes, but not emulated (while they are related, they are different in key ways). Not unless Apple stupidly went all in on ARM based chips even on their PCs (yes, Macs (at least the types of Macs used in this discussion) are PCs, sorry cultists). Which may be more possible then I would want to think.

Then of course, it may work under WINE (this could be hit or miss though).

Now, the 3 types of tools that you mention specifically. If the caveat is to run sign specific applications only to run those equipment, that may be a stumbling block. Can you run those equipment, still create signage without having to run sign based applications, that's something else.