[Technology columnist Walter S. Mossberg answers readers' questions]

Q: In your spring buyer's guide, you wrote that adequate graphics chips will be more important than ever, but in the past you've advised that memory, or RAM, was key to speed and performance. Can you now get the same gains by buying or adding a better graphics chip? Or is RAM just as important as ever?

A: There are lots of things that can improve the performance of a PC or Mac. But adding memory still gives you more bang for the buck than any other, in my view. What I was saying last week is that the forthcoming Microsoft and Apple operating systems will be relying more on graphics chips to help take some of the load off the main processor and speed up certain tasks. Even so, a better graphics chip isn't a substitute for more main memory. In fact, most moderately priced computers use so-called integrated graphics chips, which lack dedicated memory and share some of the computer's main RAM. So having plenty of main memory is directly related to getting the most out of such graphics chips.

Q: Can the iPhone be connected to desktop peripherals? I want to be able to plug my iPhone into a large monitor and printer.

A: There are already several apps, including one from Hewlett-Packard, that allow you to print photos wirelessly from an iPhone to a printer that's connected to a Wi-Fi network. But, as far as I know, there is nothing on the market today that can connect an iPhone to an external monitor or keyboard, or to a printer for nonphoto printing. However, Apple has announced that the new 3.0 version of the iPhone operating system, due this summer, will enhance the ability of the iPhone to work with add-on hardware, either via cables or wirelessly. The company showed this off with medical devices, but it's possible that some third party could make it work with monitors or printers or keyboards.

Q: A recent article in the Journal reported that a person had installed the Mac operating system on a Windows laptop. Is this really possible and is it legal?

A: Apple doesn't sell or license its Mac OS X operating system for use on non-Apple hardware. In fact, the company considers it illegal to install OS X on other brands of computers. Nor does it produce OS X drivers for non-Apple hardware features that are built into competitors' computers. Nevertheless, some computer hobbyists have installed OS X on non-Apple hardware, and posted photos and videos online to prove it.

Even if you are willing to ignore the legal issues, this process, while not brain surgery, takes more skill than the average user possesses. And, in the end, some features of the computer may wind up disabled or require workarounds to function. For instance, on one such machine I saw, the speaker port didn't work with the Mac OS.

專欄作家莫博士就有關電腦和其他電子設備的常見技術問題答讀者問。

問：在春季給買家的建議中，你提到合適的顯卡將比以前任何時候都更加重要，但過去你曾建議說，內存才是對速度和性能至關重要的。現在如果購買或增加性能更好的顯卡，電腦性能也能同樣改善嗎？還是說內存依然一如既往地重要？

答：有很多方式都可以改善PC或Mac電腦的性能。但在我看來，增加內存還是比其他的辦法性價比更高。我上周的意思是說，微軟(Microsoft Co.)和蘋果公司(Apple Inc.)即將推出的操作系統將更多地依賴顯卡來幫助減輕主處理器的負擔，從而加快某些任務的運行速度。即便如此，更好的顯卡也替代不了更大容量內存的作用。事實上，大多數中等價位的電腦都使用所謂的集成顯卡，這種顯卡沒有單獨的緩存，需要共享電腦的主內存。因此有很大的內存空間就直接關系到讓這類顯卡發揮最大的作用。

問：iPhone能連接桌面設備嗎？我想將iPhone接入大屏幕顯示器和打印機。

答：已經有一些應用軟件可以讓你從iPhone通過無線網絡(Wi-Fi)連接打印機打印照片，其中有一款是惠普公司(Hewlett-Packard)的產品。但據我所知，市場目前還沒有能讓iPhone連接外部顯示器或鍵盤的產品，或是連接打印機打印非照片文檔。不過，蘋果公司已經宣布，今年夏天即將發布的iPhone操作系統3.0版本將通過無線或有線連接提高iPhone與外接硬件的兼容性。蘋果公司展示了iPhone與醫療設備連接的情況，但很可能會有第三方公司讓它兼容顯示器、打印機或鍵盤。

問：《華爾街日報》不久前的一篇文章說有個人在一臺Windows筆記本電腦上安裝了Mac操作系統。這真的可能實現嗎，是否合法？

答：蘋果并不出售或授權其Mac OS X操作系統用于非蘋果公司生產的硬件。事實上，蘋果公司認為在其他品牌電腦上安裝OS X是非法行為。該公司也不為競爭對手的電腦內置的非蘋果硬件設備生產OS X驅動程序。不過，一些電腦愛好者在非蘋果公司的硬件設備上安裝了OS X操作系統，并在網上發布了照片和視頻以為證明。

即使不考慮法律問題，在Windows電腦上安裝蘋果操作系統雖然不像腦外科手術那么復雜，但需要的技巧也比普通用戶所掌握的更多。最終，電腦的某些功能可能會失靈，或是需要替代方案才能運行。比如說，我就看到過一臺這樣的電腦，它的音箱無法兼容Mac OS。