Defends the Macintosh

The Computer File column, which appears every Monday in the Business section, has always shown a strong bias for the IBM Personal Computer and an ignorance of the Apple Macintosh Personal Computer.

I began reading with great interest a recent column titled “Aspiring Desktop Publishers Have Lots of Help” (June 30). Halfway into the article, though, my interest turned to disgust. Once again the column discounted the abilities of the Macintosh, and began to tell how the IBM PC could be used for desktop publishing.

One short paragraph finished describing the role of the Macintosh in desktop publishing, despite a sentence in that paragraph that stated, “Currently, the Mac is the only machine to play host to PageMaker, the leading text and graphic integration program.” If the Mac is such an insignificant computer, why is the leading desktop publishing program written for it?

I decided to read the magazine Publish! that was described in the column. That magazine painted an entirely different picture of desktop publishing. In one article entitled “Slow Down the Presses,” the author states: “Personal Publisher (by ClickArt) looks and works like a Macintosh program, yet in doing so, shines a harsh spotlight directly on the PC’s shortcomings in desktop publishing: a relatively slow microprocessor, no built-in typographic facilities and poor screen resolution.”

You can interpret this quote any way you like, but I think the point is quite obvious. Desktop publishing works well on the Macintosh not just because it “plays host” to the leading software. It works because of the Macintosh.

DANIEL J. GUITERAS

Woodland Hills