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Exactly right, bring back the Red Box! see - http://www.lowendmac.com/musings/boxes.shtml

Apple noticed. Kinda.
It's not a bad idea, really. The problem is recouping your engineering costs and convincing people to use your fancy hardware.

Boxy, shared memory slowing performance, no good for games...

The Mac mini is really the IIsi reinvented.

http://www.lowendmac.com/ii/iisi.shtml

I bought an Amiga 1000 with 2 floppies and 512K of RAM. It was about $1600. This was not considered high-end, even when the Amiga was released.

Today, I can get a Dell for about $600 with more functionality.

Sorry, I just don't see where personal computer price have done anything but fall.

Yes, of course prices have fallen!

And, over 20 years, they've fallen to the extent that even by spending less money, you can get a better computer. However, you are wrong to claim that all computers are cheaper as well as better - clearly, I can still spend $1,600 on a computer if I so wish.

And so it is with Blu-ray versus DVDs (versus CDs) - the new products are much better than the previous, but they may come out at the same price as the earlier product. Just as your $600 Dell once cost $1600, and just as indeed you can now spend $1600 on a new computer if you want.

An Apple II was about $2000 when equipped with a floppy.

A high-end macintosh was about $9000 ( Mac IIfx in 1990, reference http://www.lowendmac.com/ii/iifx.shtml) Today, I don't think you can spend more than $3K on a mac, even if you put your mind to it.

Look at intel based laptop prices...they've fallen from about $2500-5000 10 years ago to about $1000 today.

But here, you're selectively picking certain machines, and I already admitted that a downward trend was true in the last 10 years.

Before then, I could pick up Amigas for under £300. And when the A1000 was selling for a lot, you could pick up 8 bits for very cheap also.

Are you sure?

I bought an Amiga 1000 with 2 floppies and 512K of RAM. It was about $1600. This was not considered high-end, even when the Amiga was released.

Today, I can get a Dell for about $600 with more functionality.

386 era machines were about $5000
486 era machines were about $2500

An Apple II was about $2000 when equipped with a floppy.

A high-end macintosh was about $9000 ( Mac IIfx in 1990, reference http://www.lowendmac.com/ii/iifx.shtml) Today, I don't think you can spend more than $3K on a mac, even if you put your mind to it.

Look at intel based laptop prices...they've fallen from about $2500-5000 10 years ago to about $1000 today.

Typically, brand name PC's sell for about $600-800 today including LCD monitor. There simply was no equivalent to this just a few years ago at any price.

Sorry, I just don't see where personal computer price have done anything but fall.

Jobs made a net profit of 3.5b USD on the sale of Pixar.

He didn't own the entirety of pixar after he had sold a bunch of shares in order to keep it afloat. Jobs invested lots of (his own) money in Pixar before it started to make a profit (with Toy Story). before that, it was spiralling down quite fast, just like NeXT was.

More info on http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/0123.html

I'm no hardware hacker, but the way I see it, we could just get one of these BIOS things from an old dell and sort of hotwire it into the motherboard, or uh maybe this daughterboard thing that Wikipedia talks about. I learned everything that I know about hardware architecture from Wikipedia. ITS SO GREAT. Anyway, it would be like using an Atari ST with the Magic Sac. Except backwards. And upside down. Kind of like putting a VW engine in a burned out Benz.

Ack. Now I have to find that damned article.

(It's 9:25 PM when I started my search)

Okay, I got lucky. It only took 60 seconds.

The article is: 500 Days at the Helm: The Rise and Fall of Gil Amelio. It's a good read and where I got my impression of Job's "usurping" Gil Amelio.

MacBook Pro looks, quacks and waddles like a duck - specifically, a retro-fit juiced up model of the old duck, so to speak.

They did it before with Kanga when the G3 came out and they wanted to use it in the PowerBook, and this looks like much the same thing. I won't exactly bet you a thousand bucks that FireWire 800 is gonna come back on newer models, but S-Video, DVD+-RW DL and resolution are all gimmes, and Steve Jobs went on the record as saying that the battery life will be 'comparable' to the PowerBook G4 in some magazine the other day.

In short: don't base your opinion on a rushed-to-market "frist psot"-like machine.

I need to look it up again, but the new Intel Macs have somethign similar to Apple's ROM, or it's another ROM, which can not be coppied without doing so illegally. So unless Dell backwards engineers Apple's tech, they would have to break the law to install it on their machines.

I personally don't recall any court case involving OS X and clones. Jobs killed off the clones, by not renewing their license for newer versions of Apple's ROM when they would not re-negoiate their terms. This was back in 97, way before OS X.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clones

http://lowendmac.com/history/1997dk.shtml

I remember requesting a 300 Mhz G3 from Power Computing, only to see it killed by Apple, which then introduced a 266 with a slower backside cache. Blah...

And I suppose you'd be happy to use a Mac Portable? :)

Nope. Here's an interesting article on that subject.

http://www.lowendmac.com/misc/01/0618.html

"... the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple..."

Hardly. Former Apple CEO Gil Amelio wrote a book chronicling his experiences in the Bad Old Days of Apple. One important part that stuck with me is when he asked the editor of a major national newspaper (I believe it was the NYT) why they always ran stories about Apple as major, headline news.

His answer? He had conclusive data that every time an Apple headline ran, sales for that issue spiked by 5%.

Low End Mac has more information about the Apple/Sun dealings here (yes, I'm well aware that this article was featured on /. a few weeks back) and here.

Low End Mac has more information about the Apple/Sun dealings here (yes, I'm well aware that this article was featured on /. a few weeks back) and here.

..... where it had everything except ROM chips (which the user had to supply from a desktop Mac) so that they didn't get sued out of existance by Apple(http://www.lowendmac.com/clones/outbound.htm l for more). Oddly enough, what put them out of business was the release of the first Mac Portable.

This time around they are taking iBooks and (allegedly) converting them into tablets. That is sure to get the attention of the horde of Apple lawyers who will surely sue them out of existance.

iiMac sounds like Mac II. There already was a Mac II.

http://lowendmac.com/ii/ii.shtml

I assumed they wanted to get rid of the "power", since they aren't using Power PC chips anymore.

No, just so used to the Powerbook name after so many years using Apples. I dunno, just seems sorta "off" to me. My friends at Apple say the same thing, people hate the name, but they'll come to like it (hopefully).

The only apple "portable" that didnt bear the name powerbook that I can remember was the Apple Portable (a.k.a. "Luggable") w/ a teeny 640*400 screen (Link).

or just be stupid and call it a PowerBook for no damn reason

I guess Apple was just stupid.

Yup... The early Mac laptops were called Powerbooks before the Power PC chip. Remember that Apple's old slogan used to be "The Power to be your best."

Here's info on the Sony designed Powerbook 100

http://www.lowendmac.com/pb/100.shtml

Did they? I'm not entirely sure about that.

They sure did. I'm a machead and used to use some of the old PB Duos. For a listing, look here. Take for example, the Powerbook 190.

Older PowerPC Powerbooks are listed here.

Did they? I'm not entirely sure about that.

They sure did. I'm a machead and used to use some of the old PB Duos. For a listing, look here. Take for example, the Powerbook 190.

Older PowerPC Powerbooks are listed here.

Did they? I'm not entirely sure about that.

They sure did. I'm a machead and used to use some of the old PB Duos. For a listing, look here. Take for example, the Powerbook 190.

Older PowerPC Powerbooks are listed here.

I certainly agree that Jobs deserves much credit as a visionary, and many of the things he's pushed (USB, FireWire, UNIX-based OSes, etc.) have been fine ideas that worked out well. His visionary nature can sometimes collide with practical reality, though, such as the first time he tried to kill floppy drives: not with the iMac but with the original NeXT cube in 1988.

Yup, the NeXT cube first shipped only a 256 MB optical drive. At the time, blanks cost about $50, and back then downloading software wasn't really an option, so software distribution was problematic. When asked about the lack of a floppy drive, he dismissed it as "'70's technology." I remember thinking: "Well, keyboards are 19th century technology, but I wouldn't want a computer without one." Jobs did relent and NeXT cubes got floppy drives in 1990.

I certainly agree that Jobs deserves much credit as a visionary, and many of the things he's pushed (USB, FireWire, UNIX-based OSes, etc.) have been fine ideas that worked out well. His visionary nature can sometimes collide with practical reality, though, such as the first time he tried to kill floppy drives: not with the iMac but with the original NeXT cube in 1988.

Yup, the NeXT cube first shipped only a 256 MB optical drive. At the time, blanks cost about $50, and back then downloading software wasn't really an option, so software distribution was problematic. When asked about the lack of a floppy drive, he dismissed it as "'70's technology." I remember thinking: "Well, keyboards are 19th century technology, but I wouldn't want a computer without one." Jobs did relent and NeXT cubes got floppy drives in 1990.

Amelio wasn't so bad. Just recently there was a posting about this http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/23/ 0850242&tid=187&tid=3 The full story being here: http://lowendmac.com/orchard/05/1221.html

There were bad omens from the beginning. Instead of having a speech laid out word for word, Amelio would speak from a detailed outline. According to Amelio, his writer (whose identity has yet to be revealed) was behind schedule and making excuses. Revisions continued to be made up until show time.

To make matters worse, the TelePrompTer malfunctioned, garbling most of the text that had been loaded on it.

The other presenters did not fare so well either. Nobody had told them where they would enter the stage or how to stand so the cameras could pick them up.

Because of the malfunctioning TelePrompTer, Amelio had to ad lib the order of appearances and ended up inadvertently snubbing Muhammad Ali. What was scheduled to last for 1-1/2 hours droned on to 3 full hours, ruining the finale of Steve Wozniak appearing with Steve Jobs.

Macworld San Francisco was a disaster, and Amelio was in the middle of it. The press had a field day with his poor performance, spawning a new term in Apple parlance, a droneathon. Amelio was embarrassed by his performance and took the blame for it. Only later was it revealed that he was largely a victim of the mistakes of others.

I found these sites to be useful in determining where to get the latest deals on used macs:

• Low End Macs
• Apple Refurbished

That's part of the magic behind Apple's product line. "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests, perhaps in a spare room somewhere along with their model rockets and comic books--as per a good friend of mine at the time. And this was fine; computers were not mainstream in the individual citizens' world. As computers became more and more integrated in our lives, form became just as important as functionality.

Revisionist bullshit. Computers were not all ugly off-white boxes "back in the day", and Apple has made some damn ugly hardware over the years.

To the first point, computers have always been an assorted bag of good looking equipment and ugly beige boxes. The IBM PC was infamous for being an ugly beige box but it was the exception rather than the rule. Most companies competed for attention by producing eye-catching hardware. Commodore was famous for their attractive designs - chunky styling and rounded edges with colours that were fashionable (in the 70s). I still find the C64 to be one of the most stylish personal computers ever made.

Here's another gorgeous design from "back in the day", the Sinclair ZX81. The slim case meant it slipped easily into the television cabinet and the jet-black casing was revolutionary for the time. Remember that back when this computer was released most TVs still had wooden (actually veneer) cabinets and hi-fi stereos were rarely connected to the television. This computer was positively space-aged looking by comparison. It was exceptionally attractive and many houses had this proudly seated under the TV.

Outside the PC world, mainframe companies used impressive designs to showcase their hardware. Cray had achieved legendary status for the bench seat inspired Cray-1. That particular design is still recognized today as one of the most distinctive mainframes ever built. However Cray was never content to stay still and they outdid themselves with the Cray-2 which had waterfall cooling towers. There's still nothing in the PC world that can even begin to compete with Cray for distinctive and attractive form.

Apple's decision to make their products just as appealing outside as inside is a major part of why I am one of their many fans.

Apple has produced some awfully ugly crap over the years as well. Take a look at the horrendous beige box that was the Mac II. It was by far the ugliest PC on the market at the time; even the IBM PC at that time wasn't as cringe worthy as the Mac II. How about the uninspiring Performa 575 which was also an unreliable piece of crap. Or take a look at the ugliest computer that Apple ever made... the PowerPC 4400 (argh, my eyes, the goggles do nothing).

Recently Apple has started making their computers attractive - the trend seems to have started with the iMac - but so what, the rest of the industry is doing the same thing. Everybody is making attractive cases these days; the only difference is that in the x86 world it's a choice and if you don't want to pay the premium for style then you don't have to.

So to your original points - it is not true that "back in the day" all computers were ugly off-white boxes, and it's not true that Apple has some sort of "magic" in their product line. Apple is like the rest of the companies; they've made ugly hardware to cut costs, and now like most PC manufacturers they're producing more attractive hardware to

That's part of the magic behind Apple's product line. "Back in the day," computers were ugly, huge, clunky, off-white boxes that people generally kept out of sight of guests, perhaps in a spare room somewhere along with their model rockets and comic books--as per a good friend of mine at the time. And this was fine; computers were not mainstream in the individual citizens' world. As computers became more and more integrated in our lives, form became just as important as functionality.

Revisionist bullshit. Computers were not all ugly off-white boxes "back in the day", and Apple has made some damn ugly hardware over the years.

To the first point, computers have always been an assorted bag of good looking equipment and ugly beige boxes. The IBM PC was infamous for being an ugly beige box but it was the exception rather than the rule. Most companies competed for attention by producing eye-catching hardware. Commodore was famous for their attractive designs - chunky styling and rounded edges with colours that were fashionable (in the 70s). I still find the C64 to be one of the most stylish personal computers ever made.

Here's another gorgeous design from "back in the day", the Sinclair ZX81. The slim case meant it slipped easily into the television cabinet and the jet-black casing was revolutionary for the time. Remember that back when this computer was released most TVs still had wooden (actually veneer) cabinets and hi-fi stereos were rarely connected to the television. This computer was positively space-aged looking by comparison. It was exceptionally attractive and many houses had this proudly seated under the TV.

Outside the PC world, mainframe companies used impressive designs to showcase their hardware. Cray had achieved legendary status for the bench seat inspired Cray-1. That particular design is still recognized today as one of the most distinctive mainframes ever built. However Cray was never content to stay still and they outdid themselves with the Cray-2 which had waterfall cooling towers. There's still nothing in the PC world that can even begin to compete with Cray for distinctive and attractive form.

Apple's decision to make their products just as appealing outside as inside is a major part of why I am one of their many fans.

Apple has produced some awfully ugly crap over the years as well. Take a look at the horrendous beige box that was the Mac II. It was by far the ugliest PC on the market at the time; even the IBM PC at that time wasn't as cringe worthy as the Mac II. How about the uninspiring Performa 575 which was also an unreliable piece of crap. Or take a look at the ugliest computer that Apple ever made... the PowerPC 4400 (argh, my eyes, the goggles do nothing).

Recently Apple has started making their computers attractive - the trend seems to have started with the iMac - but so what, the rest of the industry is doing the same thing. Everybody is making attractive cases these days; the only difference is that in the x86 world it's a choice and if you don't want to pay the premium for style then you don't have to.

So to your original points - it is not true that "back in the day" all computers were ugly off-white boxes, and it's not true that Apple has some sort of "magic" in their product line. Apple is like the rest of the companies; they've made ugly hardware to cut costs, and now like most PC manufacturers they're producing more attractive hardware to

Could not get to the linked article, but if it is the same as this one:

http://lowendmac.com/musings/05/0127.html

then that thing is positively Romper Room!

It might be amusing to have one on your desk as an amusement if you were already known as a quirky engineer, but otherwise it's just embarassing.

This article, written in JANUARY, provides a better overview of the product.

A few interesting quotes...

That's because the QWERTY layout was never intended to slow down typists - a common accusation from Dvorak supporters - but to allow them to type quickly without jamming the keys in their typewriters. In other words, QWERTY was designed to be efficient, too.

The New Standard Keyboard addresses the issue of key layout by subsuming ergonomics and typing efficiency for the sake of the hunt-and-peck typist.

Meaning it targets the lowest common denominator... another quote I read said that it was target at (or atleast could appeal to) senior citizens and those who don't know how to type. I can see that... but figure the market for people who are going to die before it makes sense to learn how to type is probably not that large or sustainable. Could be wrong.

Anyways the website for the product is here, and appears to under reconstruction. Lame... like the color scheme of this keyboard.

Old news... lame news... next please.

That's just not true.
The Outbound Notebook was an unauthorized clone. Not a licensee.
In fact, here: http://lowendmac.com/clones/index.shtml

Has been done. A couple years too early perhaps...

http://www.lowendmac.com/roadapples/mactv.shtml

Perhaps my powerbook could have "unofficially" had 1.25GB of RAM. I sure would have loved to know that a year or so ago, if true :-( I did read that there was some memory in Japan or something I could have used at the time but that seemed like too much hassle and then I forgot about it after that.

Perhaps my powerbook could have "unofficially" had 1.25GB of RAM. I sure would have loved to know that a year or so ago, if true :-( I did read that there was some memory in Japan or something I could have used at the time but that seemed like too much hassle and then I forgot about it after that.

people outside Apple caught wind of it and ran with the story trying to take shots at Apple's actually decent market share or portables. the name about it burning up is kind of stupid considering how many other companies actually have to recall batteries, power supplies etc from customers to replace them from overheating. just in the last year or two we heard about "risky" laptop batteries and game system power supplies out in the public. Apple caught it before they were released, so nobody outside Apple ever actually experienced the flaw.

the machine itself had some other design bugs, but the flaming powerbook one was what people used to scare Apple customers. "the machine may set your lap on fire" sounds a lot more threatening than "this portable has a crappy hinge".

the comment above linked to LowEndMac.com's page for the 5300. that site has a whole section dedicated to Road Apples (Macs that failed to live up to their potential). it's a pro-Apple site so it's interesting to see what they consider stinkers. they also have their Best Buys page for the best of older Apple hardware. neither of those has anything from the last few years, so keep that in mind if you only know more current Apple hardware. i think the newest stinker is from around 2000 and the last best buy is older than that.

Of course, the Outbound, a Mac clone that used semi-legal SE ROM chips, was the first true Mac laptop...or something to that effect. I LOVED mine, and their customer support was the absolute BEST...which may explain why they're now kaput.

http://www.jagshouse.com/outbound.html

and

http://www.lowendmac.com/clones/outbound.html

Agreed.

Note that the Mac Portable came in two releases (the second one of which had a back-lit display). Both of them had lead batteries, adding some more weight apart from the sturdy case. Neither of them was called "PowerBook" officially.

The first PowerBook proper (i.e., also called by this name) was the PowerBook 100, see:

http://www.lowendmac.com/pb/100.shtml

At 5 lbs., the PowerBook 100 can be called a true portable, even by today's standards. It had a processor very similar to that in a Mac Portable (a special version of the MC68000 running at 16 MHz).

Regards,

Walter.

P.S. The PowerBook G3 Series "Wallstreet"/"PDQ" and G3 Firewire "Pismo" - the best of the best among notebook hardware. Maybe the IBM Thinkpad T-series comes close...

The Apple 5300

OS X could be made to run just fine on whatever machines they throw at it, I think.

• CPU: 266 MHz PPC 750
• RAM: 128 MB
• VRAM: 6 MB SGRAM
• Video: ATI Rage Pro Turbo
• HDD: 6 GB EIDE drive

The 52/53k limit was due to power restrictions on the lines. This article has this and more gems about 56k.

Mac OS X will not be available on any old x86 PC, though, as Apple wants to retain control over its hardware platform.

Right, Apple wants the fastest, smoothest and most gorgeous OS. It won't run on any old X86. You don't see V12 engines in Hyundais either. You don't see marble floors in Section 8 housing. You don't see big, soft seats in coach class.

Boy, you're either really young, or have a selective memory.

Back in the mid 90's, Apple was licensing MacOS to third-party clones, who did provide much less expensive hardware, which were popular and did undercut Apple's hardware sales. As a result, Apple did stop licensing MacOS to third party hardware vendors, putting at least one company out of business and sinking the product lines of several others.

So, yeah... Apple's reasons for not wanting people to install their OS on anything but their own hardware has nothing to do with "Quality" and has everything to do with protecting their margins on hardware.

--- SER

One of the things that keeps me from going with the Powerbook is the lack of a very small notebook in the lineup. Apple at one point did have an ultraportable (for its time) -- the Powerbook 2400. I wish they had something like this now. I don't mean something that's the same size, I mean a notebook that fills the same spot -- just big enough to be usable, small enough that I don't mind carrying it everywhere.

I'm currently using the Fujitsu P7010D, an ultraportable with very good battery life. If Mac OS X ran on this system, I would switch.

--Pat

Not really. The only major plus the Mini has going for it is its form factor - in pretty much every other way, hardware-wise, it (comparitively) sucks and is expensive.

You can't do a valid comparison by ignoring features and form factor is definitely a feature.

I never suggested otherwise. I was merely pointing out that form factor would have to be of major importance for the Mini to be considered competitive. If it isn't - if you can handle having a bigger case - then it doesn't stack up particularly well to PC competition. You can buy a PC *and an LCD* for only marginally more than a Mini on its own.

The problem with comparisons like yours are that they are trying to pick a random type of computer, which Apple does not sell an equivalent version of, and compare it to some computer Apple does sell a version of.

And the problem with the typical Mac user comparison is that they pick a Mac, then try to match up the PC to it very specifically (usually to the point of adding in the retail cost of certain pieces of bundled software).

I am not trying to pick a random type of computer. I am pointing out that for only a little bit more than a Mini, you get a fully functional PC that is substantially superior in most ways.

Apple offers a limited selection of computer types, but that is a separate issue. There are mac mini like x86 computers.

Well, if you're going to be as pedantic as you apparently are, there aren't "Mini like" PCs, because you can't get PCs that slow these days.

They are all much more expensive, not half to one tenth the price, as the earlier post claimed.

I did not - and do not - agree with the 2x-10x comparison. However, most Macs carry a price premium, given their features (there are exceptions). Often they have a specific feature - like form factor - to "justify" that price premium. However, if you take that specific feature out of the equation, because it isn't relevant to you, then the price premium rapidly becomes excessive.

The Mini is not a particularly good Mac. It's a G4, and thus lacks the memory and bus bandwidth OS X requires to run well. It's further crippled by a slow hard disk and an outdated video chipset. It was obseleted by Tiger (and CoreImage) within months of its release. I won't be surprised at all if Low End Mac deem it a Road Apple a few years down the track. Really, the only thing going for it is the form factor - so if that's important to you (for whatever reason) then the price is probably reasonably. If it isn't (like, say, for me) it's a bloody ripoff. A G5 iMac is a far better value proposition (but, again, for me is a waste of money because I already have screen, keyboard, etc. Oh, for a headless iMac...)

Try doing a comparison with the ibook, and see if you can find a consumer grade laptop with the same feature set, for less. Is it significantly less, as the previous poster claimed?

The iBook is actually a reasonably good deal - which is why I own one (although they're not as good as they used to be). However, like all G4 Macs, OS X performance sucks. It's value lies primarily in its size but, again, other than that it's nothing outstanding (ie: if you're just after a smallish laptop, rather than a really small laptop - so anything up to about a 14" is ok - then the iBook doesn't stand out). For example, a 12" Dell Inspiron 700 is about $400 cheaper, is maginally larger (but lighter) and will be substantially faster. Stepping up a bit in size, an Inspiron 600M can be had for only $750, whereas a 14" iBook is $2000.

Not really. The only major plus the Mini has going for it is its form factor - in pretty much every other way, hardware-wise, it (comparitively) sucks and is expensive.

You can't do a valid comparison by ignoring features and form factor is definitely a feature.

I never suggested otherwise. I was merely pointing out that form factor would have to be of major importance for the Mini to be considered competitive. If it isn't - if you can handle having a bigger case - then it doesn't stack up particularly well to PC competition. You can buy a PC *and an LCD* for only marginally more than a Mini on its own.

The problem with comparisons like yours are that they are trying to pick a random type of computer, which Apple does not sell an equivalent version of, and compare it to some computer Apple does sell a version of.

And the problem with the typical Mac user comparison is that they pick a Mac, then try to match up the PC to it very specifically (usually to the point of adding in the retail cost of certain pieces of bundled software).

I am not trying to pick a random type of computer. I am pointing out that for only a little bit more than a Mini, you get a fully functional PC that is substantially superior in most ways.

Apple offers a limited selection of computer types, but that is a separate issue. There are mac mini like x86 computers.

Well, if you're going to be as pedantic as you apparently are, there aren't "Mini like" PCs, because you can't get PCs that slow these days.

They are all much more expensive, not half to one tenth the price, as the earlier post claimed.

I did not - and do not - agree with the 2x-10x comparison. However, most Macs carry a price premium, given their features (there are exceptions). Often they have a specific feature - like form factor - to "justify" that price premium. However, if you take that specific feature out of the equation, because it isn't relevant to you, then the price premium rapidly becomes excessive.

The Mini is not a particularly good Mac. It's a G4, and thus lacks the memory and bus bandwidth OS X requires to run well. It's further crippled by a slow hard disk and an outdated video chipset. It was obseleted by Tiger (and CoreImage) within months of its release. I won't be surprised at all if Low End Mac deem it a Road Apple a few years down the track. Really, the only thing going for it is the form factor - so if that's important to you (for whatever reason) then the price is probably reasonably. If it isn't (like, say, for me) it's a bloody ripoff. A G5 iMac is a far better value proposition (but, again, for me is a waste of money because I already have screen, keyboard, etc. Oh, for a headless iMac...)

Try doing a comparison with the ibook, and see if you can find a consumer grade laptop with the same feature set, for less. Is it significantly less, as the previous poster claimed?

The iBook is actually a reasonably good deal - which is why I own one (although they're not as good as they used to be). However, like all G4 Macs, OS X performance sucks. It's value lies primarily in its size but, again, other than that it's nothing outstanding (ie: if you're just after a smallish laptop, rather than a really small laptop - so anything up to about a 14" is ok - then the iBook doesn't stand out). For example, a 12" Dell Inspiron 700 is about $400 cheaper, is maginally larger (but lighter) and will be substantially faster. Stepping up a bit in size, an Inspiron 600M can be had for only $750, whereas a 14" iBook is $2000.

Apple leads the way for the Windows world to follow.

True, the Plus did not have an internal hard drive... originally. It came with 1MB RAM and one internal 800k floppy. But... I installed an INTERNAL 20MB 5.25" ST-225N Seagate hard drive into it, by mounting it diagonally to the CRT, and soldering the SCSI connections directly to the motherboard. It was great!

Performance-wise it was OK (my previous machine was an Atari ST), but the thing had a great GUI for its OS, and with Lightspeed Pascal graphics was easily accessible.

When I think about those years, I stop even considering complaining about my PBG4 not being fast enough :-)