Gore asked 'PC or Mac?'

Copyright © 2000 Nando Media
Copyright © 2000 Associated Press

By SANDRA SOBIERAJ

YBOR CITY, Fla. (February 10, 2000 8:13 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - For the techno-candidate, it was like asking about his underwear. At a town-hall forum with campaigning Vice President Al Gore, computer whiz Michael Phillips asked Gore: Which do you prefer, the PC platform (or operating system) or Macintosh?

"That's kind of a high-tech, boxers-or-briefs question, there," chuckled Gore, repeating the line as if to buy time to consider his answer.

In his bid to be president, Vice President Gore has courted both the Apple-computer types in Silicon Valley and the mighty Microsoft set in Washington state.

Gore said he used Apple until "finally the delay in the availability of the new high-tech applications software got to be so long that I finally switched over."

Gore held out some encouragement to the disappointed Phillips, who sported a rainbow-colored Apple lapel pin: "You know, Apple seems to be coming back with the iMac, don't you think?"

Phillips, a 19-year-old college freshman studying digital arts, suffers spinal muscular atrophy and, confined to a portable bed, can move just his fingers and his eyes.

He told a reporter he hoped to convert Gore to Macintosh because, "it's the most user-friendly and powerful computer and it's excellent for assistive technology" for the disabled.

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