As an undergrad engineering student I'm curious if any engineers have found powerbooks as a good fit for them. I've always though apple were bad for engineers since all the major apps are windows based (besides matlab which I think will run on a mac).

i think you just answered your own question

im an aeronautics engineer and i have a powerbook. it really depends on what you need. matlab and mathematica both run (although matlab kinda sucks on mac). if you need stuff like ansys, solidworks, or other CAD or finite element stuff, you can always use virtual pc even though it will be a bit sluggish.

if you want to use engineering apps forget mac, get windows based anything. My iBook is useless when it comes to my RA work.

in my opinion it is a shame that some of these softwares are not available for Macs, I mean can you imagin running CAD 2005 on a Dual G5?...that would be pretty crazy...but at the moment, there is not enough software for people to be happy with, so yeah...in this case, forget about Macs...but if it was graphic designing...it would be a different ball game in a different ball park...

also, i don't think there is no PSPICE simulator on OSX

Altera's Quartus II is windows only too

I think it's funny that the companies who make these engineering programs haven't at least thought of releasing a version for the G5. Considering it's outstanding FPU and VPU, you'd think it would be the ideal platform for these types of apps (hey, it's good enough for supercomputer clusters).

ive read that autodesk is doing a mac version of autocad...

The only problem I have is running Quartus, which only supports Windows. Other than that, I'd say Macs are well suited for engineering applications. Currently, the engineering apps I use most are Matlab 7 and Maple 9. I also have Mathematica (free download from school) installed but I prefer Maple.

X11 is also much better than any X-windows programs I've used on my XP (when I still had it). You'll probably need to use it a lot, if your school allows you to work remotely.

Of course, there're all the other perks of Unix. A lot of nice little programs are available at your finger tip: XMGR, Xfig, Espresso... the list goes on. And for writing reports, TexShop will really spoil you.

I am majoring in computer science and do most of programming on my powerbook.

Same here. I have an imac right now and I am in the process of getting a PB.

there is a difference, you use it because you write sotware, he needs existing software to work on OS X, and a large number of the most useful apps (for engineering) is simply not available for OSX atm.

(p.s. I'm a CS student too , hey there buddy! )

Windows has a plethora of Engineering programs. I would recommend sticking to the Windows platform for what you have to do as an engineer. Virtual PC sounds dreadful when it comes to some of that stuff. I think there is a lot of push for cross-platform programming, so I think it is coming. But for now, only get a Mac if you want a toy.

IMO.