[HAL9000]

"Of course you can't buy a Mac with an OS not from Apple."

Yes, you can. Apple's online store sells Office v.X for Mac Professional Edition which includes Windows XP Professional. You can buy it with a Mac.

"Motorola makes the chips for them, who makes the computers?"

Motorola does manufacture PowerPCs, but Apple is switching to IBM's PowerPCs. Microsoft and Sony are also using PowerPCs for some of their future products.

"As does your need to use the Wintel shorthand and completely ignore AMD and other competitors."

I don't ignore AMD - I have a couple of computers with AMD processors.

"Drop the red herrings Hal, I've come to expect better from you."

Sorry if I've disappointed you, but after 30 years as a computer user, I just won't settle for a second-rate platform like Wintel.

[discostu]

Nobody is asking you to settle for anything, jsut to aknowledge the truth:
Mac was gunning for a dual monopoly, anybody that was around when it still looked like Windows vs Mac would be a fair fight knows that
No software bundled with the OS is truly free, anybody that's opposed to government largess and insane taxes should be able to transfer the logic over

Those were my simple direct statements that you've been moving further and further away from with every post.