Well,
Here's my two cents. I'm one of those switchers Apple was talking about. I'm a PC guy and a programmer. I switched over to Macs at home because I was sick of fixing my PC at the casa. When I came home to putz around, I just wanted it to work and Mac has been great.
Since I cursed my grandmother by giving her my last PC for free, I had nothing to operate all this Windows software that I couldn't sell on Ebay. So I bought Virtual PC 5.0 off of Ebay with Windows XP Home.
That being said I'm running Dual 500Mhz G4 Gigabit (Codenamed: Mystic) with 1GB Ram, 240GB Hard Drives, OS X 10.3, and OS 9.2.
I found that with version 5 it doesn't work in Classic Mode very well at all and like my previous Windowing Experineces would crash on Boot. In order to successfully run Version 5, I had to boot into classic running 9.2 and then start it up. It is slow on boot--grab a cup of coffee. If my Mac boots in 1 minute this emulator was booting in 3.
That being said, these versions will not support Direct X required software. (That means most games developed for Windows use this technology. It's Windows answer to Open GL, which the reest of the computer world uses)
For your father, what programs does he want to run? I use Adobe everything on my Mac. I use Macromedia Everything on my Mac. I have over 200+ games that my little crumb crunchers spend hours killing time with on my Mac. $600 on Ebay and the ability to run OS 9.1 on your Mac can get you really far! I'm living proof.
What will that do for your father? It depends. Does he want to complain or be cool? The idea that software isn't available for Mac is really a farce. More importantly cool stuff like Warcraft III, Everquest, Rogue Spear and all that other really really modern stuff is all there on Mac. Neverwinter Nights and everything, but since I'm preaching to the choir here tell your dad to go to this site if he has Mac vs. Pc issues:
http://macvspc.info/
Enough of my ranting.
Here's my two cents. I'm one of those switchers Apple was talking about. I'm a PC guy and a programmer. I switched over to Macs at home because I was sick of fixing my PC at the casa. When I came home to putz around, I just wanted it to work and Mac has been great.
Since I cursed my grandmother by giving her my last PC for free, I had nothing to operate all this Windows software that I couldn't sell on Ebay. So I bought Virtual PC 5.0 off of Ebay with Windows XP Home.
That being said I'm running Dual 500Mhz G4 Gigabit (Codenamed: Mystic) with 1GB Ram, 240GB Hard Drives, OS X 10.3, and OS 9.2.
I found that with version 5 it doesn't work in Classic Mode very well at all and like my previous Windowing Experineces would crash on Boot. In order to successfully run Version 5, I had to boot into classic running 9.2 and then start it up. It is slow on boot--grab a cup of coffee. If my Mac boots in 1 minute this emulator was booting in 3.
That being said, these versions will not support Direct X required software. (That means most games developed for Windows use this technology. It's Windows answer to Open GL, which the reest of the computer world uses)
For your father, what programs does he want to run? I use Adobe everything on my Mac. I use Macromedia Everything on my Mac. I have over 200+ games that my little crumb crunchers spend hours killing time with on my Mac. $600 on Ebay and the ability to run OS 9.1 on your Mac can get you really far! I'm living proof.
What will that do for your father? It depends. Does he want to complain or be cool? The idea that software isn't available for Mac is really a farce. More importantly cool stuff like Warcraft III, Everquest, Rogue Spear and all that other really really modern stuff is all there on Mac. Neverwinter Nights and everything, but since I'm preaching to the choir here tell your dad to go to this site if he has Mac vs. Pc issues:
http://macvspc.info/
Enough of my ranting.
Most people's use of word processors barely scratches the surface of their capabilities, and thus, probably any word processor would work great for him. In fact, when OpenOffice finally gets completed for OS X, you can sell him on the prospect that it's FREE!