Loss Of Faith, tepid digital waters Options

[jesse]

I am feeling rather defeated. last year i purchased an imac 800mgz, 256, and I have yet to match the stability of my fostex fourtrack. the consept of latency is entirely new to me. So I ask myself, and all of you, why would anyone purchase a 2500$ (canadian) machine then purchase 150 dollars worth of software (tracktion) and another 250 on a decent usb interface. currently i am using imic (60$) and i hate it. Back in the good old days, when a fourtrack cost 300 bucks (1994) there was no such animal as "latency". why then ten years and 3000 dollars later do i find myself in a less productive and more expencive situation? And all for a marginal increase in sound quality. My question is this: how much more do I have to spend to be able to find a program and input/output device that is comperable to the fostex cassette machine i had (still do) ten years ago? Have I gone through all this just eliminate the dreaded tape hiss?! Does anyone else feel like they have been hoodwinked by the glitz and gloss of a sleaker digital future?
I am only twenty-seven and already the future looks dimmer than the past.
...triing hard not to become a luddite...

[DEVIOUS]

I am looking into the digital 8 track world and wanting to add midi too. Just as a thought, how does a hardware digital 8 track fare with the latency problem. I just had the idea of buying a piece of kit like the Zoom MRS802BCD (http://www.zzounds.com/item--ZOMMRS802CD) and having a neat complete 'idea pad' and hoping that with the provided usb connection these ideas could be developed and moved around in a sequencer on my mac. Would this work? Anybody know?

I understand the frustration of this digital stuff- I mean, the less complications, the more time that can be spent on the ideas. After all, this is what it's all about isn't it?

D.