____________________________________________ SURVEY RESULTS: COMPUTER USE BY FANS ON alt.tv.twin-peaks Copyright (c) 1991 by David L. Claytor (tuttle@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us) Well, I finally got around to compiling the results of a survey I posted here on alt.tv.twin-peaks concerning computer use by fans of Twin Peaks. The original posting read as follows: From: tuttle@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (David L. Claytor) Subject: Computer use Summary: Which make/model computer do you use? Keywords: Computer, mac Message-ID: Date: Thu, 03 Jan 91 18:39:28 EST Distribution: world Organization: The Programmers' Pit Stop, +1 313 665 2832 A friend of mine contends that the majority of Twin Peaks fans *must* be Mac users. It "stands to reason," he claims, "given the nature of the program." He supports his contention by citing the Mac Plus in Sheriff Truman's office and the Mac laptop used during Cooper's meeting with FBI Internal Affairs. If you're so inclined, e-mail the make/model of your computer to me tuttle@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us by 12:00 p.m. EST, January 31, 1991; I'll compile the replies and post the results here on alt.tv.twin-peaks. _______________________ I am pleased to report that I received 122 responses, many of which were thoughtful and quite detailed, from the following individuals: zecca@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Admiral Avenger) dkrause@orion.oac.uci.edu (Douglas Krause) blbusby@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Brian L. Busby) daled@meaddata.com (Dale Drummond) Rajiv Arora "Mark Gleaves" VARGO@binah.cc.brandeis.edu mjv@brownvm.brown.edu (Marshall Vale) deleone@cs.wisc.edu (Renato De Leone) muffy@mica.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) Delia Cioffi tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) "Janet M. Swisher" Doug vanderVeen sawires%aludra.usc.edu@usc.edu (Kalim Sawires) heinen@cayman.AMD.COM (Dirk Heinen) smn@rhea.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Sarah McCord Nabee) dog@cbnewsl.att.com mdm%wdl50@wdl1.wdl.loral.com (Mike D Marchionna) mvb@MIT.EDU (Mary V. Burke) rjp1@ihlpa.att.com (Robert Pietkivitch) rmb@cblph.att.com (Richard M Brack) Jonathan Levine Mike Melnyk Brian Kendig bobh@twinkie.bellcore.com Breck Witte Dean Hansen lll@iris.brown.edu (Lawrence Lee Larrivee) krs@uts.amdahl.com (Kris Stephens) Malcolm Mladenovic sandell@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Gregory Sandell) jwk@scripps.edu (John Kupec) davidb@psych.toronto.edu Carol Miller-Tutzauer bam%rudedog.asd.sgi.com@SGI.COM (Brian McClendon) phz@cadence.com (Pete Zakel) rcarter@isis.cs.du.edu (Ron Carter) Rich_Haller@computing_ctr.uoregon.edu (Rich Haller) Marci Swede genoa@ATHENA.MIT.EDU bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu bhanafee@ads.com (Brian Hanafee) D Neilson Marc Milgram Bernie Roehl jlecount@pyrps5.pyramid.com (Jason LeCount) leebai!crane.aa.ox.com!heifetz!leebai!caen!uwm!lll-winken!pacbell!PacBell. CO (Kelly Marinan) arthur@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Arthur L. Chin) jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) russw@cs.utexas.edu (Russ Williams) SEILER@AMARNA.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Ed Seiler (a.k.a. Bruno Frescobaldi)) "Dave Pawson" kriguer@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Marc Kriguer) vanhoek@bend.UCSD.EDU (Karen van Hoek) nhess@us.oracle.com (Nate Hess) nate@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Nate Berggren) David G. Paschich sally@mica.berkeley.edu (S. A. Wilson) Haakon Dahle Asger H|gsted rjb@allegra.tempo.nj.att.com (Ron Brachman) chandler@wc.novell.com (Mark Chandler) tj@CS.UCLA.EDU (Tom Johnson) snoopy!Logicon.COM!jeff@ucsd.edu mvpab@mvgpn.att.com (Paul A Bouchard) Lane_Molpus@NEXT.COM raveling@Unify.com (Paul Raveling) kkoda@ucsd.edu (Kerry Koda) dak1200@ma (David A Kavanagh) Eric SHAMASH "JONATHAN H. DAVIDSON" tel%egypt@uunet.UU.NET (Terry Monks) Shin C. Kao apple!well!cbm (Chris Muir) att!fang!ablnc!kimi@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Mark Wahl fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Oceanstar) Larry W. Virden "Shawn Broderick" vanka@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Suryanarayana Vanka) wybbs.mi.org!meyers (John Meyers) "PCURRY 415-723-0730" Brad H Needham Robert B. Neville robertj@fernwood.mpk.ca.us (Young Rob Jellinghaus) perz@edc3jr.gsph.pitt.edu (Walter G. Perz) srm@packard.att.com (Steven R Marcovici) leebai!caen!sharkey!ames!claris!netcom!drazil (Devin Ben-Hur) cdr@brahms.AMD.COM (Carl Rigney) eblinder@dorsai.com (Eva Blinder) Jon Ross vanth!jms@amix.commodore.com (Jim Shaffer) "Robert Noone" aamiddle@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Arthur Alan Middleton) ilh@goldilocks.LCS.MIT.EDU (I. Lee Hetherington) Paris H Magasiny norm@wbst845e.xerox.com (Norm Crowfoot) Keith Dawson David Barr Brady Duga leebai!indetech.com!janet (Janet Christian x2054) rlcarr@ATHENA.MIT.EDU eddie@bme.unc.edu (Eddie Averett) jennifer@ux1.lbl.gov (jennifer schuman) waggoner@dtg.nsc.com (Mark Waggoner) Jeff Pelz stuart@cup.portal.com (Ken Stuart) Chuck Dupree Tiny Bubbles... mig@beach.csulb.edu (Mig Gomez) leebai!caen!uwm!Atherton.COM!jamsheed (Jamsheed Hayatghaib) Greg M. Brown (I apologize if I missed anyone or listed an address incorrectly.) In evaluating the replies, I attempted to the adhere to the following criteria: 1) Determine the primary computer which the respondent used for work or to read net news, and 2), count only the respondent's vote, i.e., disregard the "other computer at home" and other alleged TP fans in the same office or at home. Nevertheless, of the 122 responses, I excluded six from the final tally, because each of these individuals reported having access to both mac and non-mac computers, neither of which sounded primary. What did the survey prove? Nothing, really. The original premise was flawed to the extent that it should have read "the majority of Twin Peaks fans WHO READ ALT.TV.TWIN-PEAKS *must* be Mac users." I don't know if it would be possible to extrapolate from the population of newsgroup readers to the universe of all TP viewers who use computers. Also, lumping computer users into either/or groups (mac and non-mac) skewed the basic distribution. Breaking the results into mac and non-mac groups, however, my friend was wrong. Non-mac users outweighed mac users, 60% to 40%. That is, the majority (60%) of TP fans who read alt.tv.twin-peaks and replied to the survey do NOT use macs. BUT, of all the computer makes/models reported, the Macintosh had a distinct edge. 46 Macintosh 40% 25 workstations 22% 23 IBM/clones 20% 12 Amiga 10% 10 Others 9% Thus, while it is NOT true that the majority TP fans who read alt.tv.twin-peaks use macs, it IS true that more macs are used by TP fans who read alt.tv.twin-peaks than any other make of computer. Concerning the macs on the television program, it is probably true, as Paul Raveling (raveling@Unify.com) wrote, [that] "The Macs are computers of convenience -- Apple supplied the Twin Peaks folks with a whole mess of them at (I believe) no charge. . .Apple sometimes does some odd things to support the arts." Asked if he could support his assertion, Paul added: "It's all word of mouth from Scott Frost. He and the other writers all have a Mac at home, and when we visited the studio there was a modest herd of Macs in one of the business-like (non-set) rooms. On the question of whether they were bought, leased, or donated, I'm modestly sure that Scott said they were donated, though it wouldn't surprise me if the price of the donation was working one or two into appearances in the show." Thus, the reckoning of Janet M. Swisher