RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - Violence erupted Thursday outside a Research Triangle Park software firm when Mac and PC gang members got into a heated argument over which operating system is the best.
Two PC gang members are in critical condition when a Mac Intel processor was used to slash their throats and three Macintosh hooligans were hospitalized with severe cuts and lacerations.
Violence of this type was thought to be a thing of the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially since Macs are now shipping with Intel processors, said RTP Police Capt. Michael Jones.
It is unclear what prompted the fight, Jones said.
Nervous witnesses said it seemed to escalate all at once when leather-clad Macsters with a big Apple on the back of their jackets walked past a group of equally leather-clad PC "bangas" out taking a smoke break.
"I really thought it was going to be a friendly sort of meeting," said Mashi el Zabbar, a senior systems analyst. "All of a sudden there was a scuffle and I heard internal and external hard drives making a sickly squishy sound against flesh."
Ally Baldwin, a visiting public relations consultant with a firm she declined to name, ran for cover. "I saw one guy being bludgeoned with a jump drive and another yelling and screaming, 'You know what PC stands for, punk? It stands for Piece of Crap.'"
The PC gang banger said an expletive, Baldwin recalled, and replied, "'You know what Mac stands for, jerk? Makes Anything Complicated.'"
That was when the PC banga, Remy Lundquist, was slashed in the throat with an Intel processor, Jones said. His fellow gang member, Sumta Patel, came to his rescue swinging a tower attached to a chain but was sliced in the throat by a rival Macster.
Macsters Roland Q. Zimblast, Efrem Porter and Chad Williams were being treated for severe lacerations.
"It was a bloodbath," said junior programmer Richard Devlin. "I saw the three Mac guys get jumped and pummeled with a Vista box and what looked like a Dell flat screen attached to a noose. It was horrible. I thought they were all getting along now, kind of like the new commercials with Mac and PC. I guess that's just a load of PR crap."
Police charged Macsters Collin Drake, Phillip Drysdale and Pierre Rondeul with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious bodily injury. They were jailed on $50,000 bonds each.
PC bangas Clyde Moreland and Stephen Biggerstaff face the same charges and have the same bond amount. They all have Jan. 15 court dates.
While this was the first outbreak of Mac/PC violence in at least 10 years, it certainly wasn't the largest, said Agent Rene Severenson of the FBI.
In 1993, 26 Macsters were injured and three died while 40 PC bangas were injured and two died in computer gangland violence in Cupertino, Calif.
Duke "Killa" Engles, a warlord for the Macsters, blamed the PC bangas for the violence. "Thangs was all good until them whacked out Mac hatas commenced to dissin' us. You can bet they's to blame."
Hawthorne "Big King" McAllister of the bangas said there would be revenge. "We gonna pay our respects to our wounded warriors and then we gonna kick some PC hatin' ass."
