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or perhaps... the mac mini 2 is intended to have an ipod dock.

This got me thinking - my Sawtooth G4/400 has an internal Firewire port. Clearly, the designers intended the next generation of G4s to have integrated iPod docks.

It's not uncommon for features to get added early in the mobo manufacturing process because it's cheap and relatively simple. This is probably an example of Apple doing a CYA 12 months ago and then abandoning the idea (whatever it was - dock or something else).

You're funny, but my mother-in-law is using a 233MHz G3 beige PowerMac with OS X 1.2.8.

It works pretty damn well, considering it's a nine-year-old machine. She won't be playing UT2004, but she wouldn't even if she could...

Macquarium: http://www.lowendmac.com/compact/macquarium.shtml

Oooooh, woah. Panther on a Beige G3 is like, well, win98 on a 486, if you remember that. Spotty. Not always very responsive. Hardware issues, like PCI video.

The G3's (including Blue and White G3) run various kinds of RAM... but OS 9 isn't very fussy about that, while OS X is. If your G3 tower is willing to run under OS X without you staring at the 'spinning beachball' all the time, you'll need well over 512MB.

Better to get a G4 tower, if you actually care about longevity for the machine. A dual 450 can be had pretty cheap and should have a couple of years left in it.

The price/performance of used Macs is a shocker if you've never looked before. In part it's because the price/usability ratio is still acceptable, and in part it's availability. I hope the miniMac drives those prices down somewhat. Low End Mac is a good place to check out before buying a used Mac, especially if you want to run OS X on it. (Posted from a G3 iMac.)

When Apple decided to go with NeXT over Be, Be couldn't even print. Be, while blazingly fast, was blazing fast for a reason. Nothing was running on it. Apple chose to go with the OS that was stable, proven, and gorgeous. Apple also got NeXT's unbelievably fast development environment, the leading application server software WebObjects, and the Mac's father and Apple's savior, Steve Jobs. (Personal note: I still remember leaving work late for Christmas vacation ecstatic after reading that Steve Jobs was back at Apple.)

Now, nothing I have read about it so far contradicts the facts mentioned here. In fact, at least one member of the team at Apple that evaluated the options has posted here at /. saying pretty much the same thing. Well, at least someone who CLAIMED that he was ...

Yes, I know it doesn't make for quite as good a story... but personally, as a recent switcher and software developer, I'm ecstatic that Apple went with the NeXT (and hence, the Next Step) environment. The X-Code environment absolutely ROCKS!

The original mac had colour

A supporting story with links to more sources

about PowerBook 100 the link I should have provided and you probably already found by doing a google search ..

this is not accurate ...

the LC III -- i owned one. it was a great little box.

They never used "///" again, or any roman numeral above it.

I don't know about that. My LC III at home begs to differ.

The PPC upgrade did make it to market, but wasn't reasonably priced.

See here for reference.

In addition, these machines could run everything up through OS 9. My parents still have a Performa 636CD (same as yours, different software bundle) running Mac OS 8.1 at home. (It would run OS 9, but that started to get rather slow on non-PPC Macs.)

Actually, most benchmarks put the LCII as slightly slower than the LC. Good thing for apple the LCIII was a pretty nice machine.

I'm betting it was a Lisa.

Err, what about the Mac LC III? And considered a pretty good machine, too.

To add, the Performa x200 and x300 lines simply sucked. After reading this, you'll know why. I actually own a Performa 6220; it is a decent machine, as long as you are not connected to the Internet....

To be fair, not all Performas were bad. A Performa, after all, was a rebranded and repackaged Quadra or Power Mac bundled with software designed for home and education use. However, two reasons why the Performa line was bad was the confusing array of numbers (see parent post), duplication (what is really the difference between a Power Mac 6500 and a Performa 6500?) and the Performa x200 and x300 series (which gave the Performa and the PowerPC 603 chip bad names).

a.k.a. the 'Road Apple'- This was the first of the powerPC laptops. But the batteries in this creaking, $5000 beauty would burst into flame while recharging. The press had a field day and the recall was the biggest Apple has ever seen, by far.

I'd say this was a bigger 'flop' than most of the items listed, especially things like 'MS Word 6' and a few of the wackier iMac colors. It's even worse than the 'hockey puck mouse'.

My, how quickly they forget...

The Mini is Apple's next step in the direction PCs have already been taking.

NeXT Cube

In talking to PC users about this, I think what it comes down to is that a lot of PC users primarily stick with PCs because they are familiar with it. They don't Macs because they are unfamiliar, do things differently, and the people wear too damn many black turtlenecks. (Well, honestly, I see nothing wrong with this last reason.) More than that, they see the Mac as a toy.

But when it comes down to it, most PC users I have met who talk about how silly Apple computers are either haven't really even used a Mac, or have only used it for a few days or a week. Most of them don't seem to even realize that Mac OS supports multi-button mice and scroll wheels. Oftentimes, the criticisms aren't researched (I know this because they are wrong). Other times, the criticisms seem to be based on the idea that everyone should have a l33t0 gaming machine or a weather modeling workstation. I am always amused by people who complain about the lack of games available for OS X when the only two games they own are The Sims and Civ3

I suppose it's popular among Mac users to offer a complete psychological breakdown as to why PC users like to rip on Macs so much, but I won't bother. I'll just say that it seems that while I have met a few people who have seriously considered and tried both and ended up choosing Windows because they just prefer the platform (people who need to play Half-Life 2 aside), it was definitely just a few of them.

On the other hand, I know it's not too uncommon for PC users to wonder at how devoted Mac users are to their platform - a column on it shows up in some PC magazine a couple times every year. Here's a hint: it has absolutely nothing to do with SPEC benchmarks, application support, shooting demons with shotguns, or even aesthetics.

"Back in the 80s when the Mac was released People said the same thing. Why do you need a GUI Interface where we can get all that we need done in text mode."

This may be before your time? But GUI's predate even Apple's Lisa.

(and that new mac mini has a whopping 32 megs of RAM. jeepers)

Er, that's just for the graphics. The memory is 256K, stock. check it out.

Personally, I'll wait until the Mac 512k comes out...

That's still not bad for early '80's thinking.

Even more interesting is the article also notes that Power Macs are designed to handle dates through A.D. 29,940.

--
It was a bug, Dave.

The first computer I was ever introduced to was the Macintosh Plus and it was very hi-tech for it's time in 1986. It was there I learned the very important nature of computers, gaming. Though brickles and load runner were fun, I was eager to learn more about this powerful machine and what it could do. I quickly discovered text-editing programs. We purchased an additional computer, similar to the Mac Plus, but the name eludes me for whatever reason. I believe for the christmas of 1996, we bought an 'upgrade' from that no longer hi-tech computer. Very sophisticated for it's day, the Macintosh Performa 6400/180 entered my life. This computer was a dream! It was a huge leap and it could actually multitask. I learned about the internet on this machine and how it works, utilizing the local freenet in my town (back then, 28.8k was remarkable!).

Although I've forgotten specific dates, the computers that entered my life after that included a Toshiba Laptop (first introduction to windows!) and many dell computers. Still to this day, I own a dell and I love them to death.

I believe introducing children to computers is best at a young age, as early as kindergarden! Schools these days have kids doing research projects in the 3rd and 4th grade! Introducing them to educational software at first is best, as they can learn from it and get the correct motor skills to utilize computers, as they will only get better from now until eternity.

It wasn't Microsoft, that actually delivered the GUI to millions of people, that revolutionized computers.

Your post sounds like Microsoft distributed Windows to everyone by themselves. Microsoft didn't deliver anything without the help of OEM manufacturers. Microsoft allowed PC manufacturers such as Gateway and Dell to deliver its OS, and gave them huge incentives to only deliver Microsoft OSes. Where do most people buy their PCs from? That, plus the whole episode known as 1995 (PC prices lowering, Microsoft's marketing of Windows 95, Windows's integration with DOS [hurting other DOSes such as DR-DOS and PC-DOS], and Apple's problems with Copland and hardware issues such as the PowerBook 5300, and the Power Mac/Performa x200) is what led to Windows being on nearly every computer there is.

It wasn't Microsoft, that actually delivered the GUI to millions of people, that revolutionized computers.

Your post sounds like Microsoft distributed Windows to everyone by themselves. Microsoft didn't deliver anything without the help of OEM manufacturers. Microsoft allowed PC manufacturers such as Gateway and Dell to deliver its OS, and gave them huge incentives to only deliver Microsoft OSes. Where do most people buy their PCs from? That, plus the whole episode known as 1995 (PC prices lowering, Microsoft's marketing of Windows 95, Windows's integration with DOS [hurting other DOSes such as DR-DOS and PC-DOS], and Apple's problems with Copland and hardware issues such as the PowerBook 5300, and the Power Mac/Performa x200) is what led to Windows being on nearly every computer there is.

Mark my words - Apple will NEVER release smth like that - at least with the type of specs mentioned on the RUMOR site. This goes against everything Apple prophets...

I agree with you about the market for a lower priced (less-expandable) box, but the eMac has many, many fans, and for good reason. Others at /. have made argued a good case that the price is reasonable, and they have done this without attaching a dollar value to FireWire, OS X, the all-in-one form factor!
The 1.25 GHz eMac Value Equation: Wow!

Don't Use Sharpies on CD-R: There is a modest amount of anecdotal evidence that the use of solvent-based ink markers (Sharpies use an alcohol-based ink), particularly on CD-R/RWs without a protective coating and CD-R/RWs kept in a warm to hot environment can lead to long-term penetration of the ink to the data layer with resulting damage to the data.

Your misgivings are well-taken. I've been using Macs for seventeen years. I came to them after a career as a programmer on PC's and the HP3000. Just some observations:

--You immediately jettison your obsession with malware/spyware/worms, etc. If you aren't obsessed with them on a PC, you're cruisin' for a bruisin'. And that's worth something right there.

--I don't use AppleWorks unless it's necessary. But there's a myriad of software--free, shareware and commercial--that fits the bill. BBEdit, Nisus Writer, TextEdit--it's MUCH easier to find all kinds of good quality, low-cost software for Macintosh than it is for Windows. There's a much lower ratio of trash-to-treasure on Macintosh because crap just doesn't survive very long. A trip to the Mac OS X side of Versiontracker will bear me out.

--Wireless networking is mature in Mac OS X. Acquisition of networks is easier. Configuration is easier. The antennas built into the machines get better reception than Windows machines do--and that's laptop AND desktop.

--Apple hardware purchases hold their value. This machine is four years old. It can be had for about $800. I'd take one in a minute for running Mac OS X. But a new iBook G4 is $100 more. The used Mac market is crazy because the machines are so useful.

It's not all sunshine and roses by any stretch of the imagination. Panther Release 10.3.6 was a disaster, from what I hear. Busts FireWire. Windows-Mac networking interoperability suffers. There are the shortcomings you mentioned in your own situation. It's a balance. Since you're a knowledgeable user, you can make a more informed decision than most people. Macintosh does have its shortcomings, but everything about it is geared toward one thing: Helping you get your work done.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

Any of us Mac geeks here could go on for hours responding to your post (and undoubtedly somebody's writing up a 6,000 word post as I type this), but I'll answer it this way:

I'm an old school Mac user (print shop graphics since '88) and when OS X hit the scene, I was really looking forward to living my life at the command line, becoming an über hacker, since all my years of troubleshooting skills would need to be relearned. Only problem is, there's nothing to do.

Sure, in the early days (10.0.4) I was using unsupported machines (603 and 604e clones with G3 upgrades) so some trickery (thank you, Ryan Rempel!) was required to get it to install. But once installed (and I've since moved to a G4 tower), there's just nothing to do. It really is true: everything Just Works(TM), which in my case, has been something of a disappointment.

I've seen one kernel panic in the past two years, and that happened at the end of the install process for one of the 10.3 point upgrades. The machine booted fine after that, so I don't even really count it. I spend at least as much time using XP at work as I do using this thing at home, and even though my well specced office PC has ~5 times the clock speed, my Mac is *much* harder to bog down or destabilize.

Also, OpenOffice has been surprisingly good since I started using it recently. In addition to that, I recommend two additional apps for a new Mac user: A $25 app called Little Snitch for more fine grained control over IPFW, and a freeware app called Desktop Manager that gives you a totally freaking awesome virtual desktop implementation with mind bending eye candy.

In a way, it was actually easier ten years ago to convince people... all you had to do was point out that Macs cost four times as much, but we still bought 'em. Now that they're comparably priced, that argument doesn't work anymore. Ain't that a bitch? Well, no. Otherwise I'd still be using my old dual 604e tower.

If Apple ... and Sony would ... team up

Apple actually got Sony to build the first Powerbook (third the weight of the Mac Portable; not matched for size by Apple for 10 years).

With the PowerPC being used in the Xbox 2, it's more likely to see IBM, Apple and, er, Microsoft join up for gaming.

I'm sure you remember when Apple's customers dropped them so they could buy computers from Power Computing. I think what he means is that currently you are paying extra $$$ for the nice industrial design of a Mac, and also not getting the support we would like.

So, suppose you could buy a less expensive computer that didn't have the nice industrial design, but did run OS X. Also, it had a better warranty and better support than Apple gives. Yes, this would cause me to drop Apple like a hot potato. I have only used Macintoshes except during the time that Power Computing was in business. Back then, I bought Power Computing for me, and for other Macs at my company.

If Apple is going to license their OS, they better make sure they are prepared to compete in the hardware world.

Ah. You're obviously not old enough to remember the original Macintosh :)

The Quadra 900 and the Quadra 700 came out in 1991. Both were powered by a 25 Mhz 68040 CPU.

So I'm thinking he means his tipping point was in '93 when he actually purchased his powerbook. My guess is that he bought a PB 180, which used a 33 Mhz 68030 CPU. The 180 was arguably the finest laptop of it's day.

The first PBs to use the 040 chip was the Blackbird series, which were introduced in 1994.

The Quadra 900 and the Quadra 700 came out in 1991. Both were powered by a 25 Mhz 68040 CPU.

So I'm thinking he means his tipping point was in '93 when he actually purchased his powerbook. My guess is that he bought a PB 180, which used a 33 Mhz 68030 CPU. The 180 was arguably the finest laptop of it's day.

The first PBs to use the 040 chip was the Blackbird series, which were introduced in 1994.

The Quadra 900 and the Quadra 700 came out in 1991. Both were powered by a 25 Mhz 68040 CPU.

So I'm thinking he means his tipping point was in '93 when he actually purchased his powerbook. My guess is that he bought a PB 180, which used a 33 Mhz 68030 CPU. The 180 was arguably the finest laptop of it's day.

The first PBs to use the 040 chip was the Blackbird series, which were introduced in 1994.

The Quadra 900 and the Quadra 700 came out in 1991. Both were powered by a 25 Mhz 68040 CPU.

So I'm thinking he means his tipping point was in '93 when he actually purchased his powerbook. My guess is that he bought a PB 180, which used a 33 Mhz 68030 CPU. The 180 was arguably the finest laptop of it's day.

The first PBs to use the 040 chip was the Blackbird series, which were introduced in 1994.

It was an audacious move for Intel to rhyme its architecture with "Titanic" and still not expect its utter perdition.

Given the rhyming, I'm surprised it lasted this long.

Call me a luddite or not, but I don't upgrade (i.e., buy brand new products over $100) because I can't afford to buy a brand new computer (or even motherboard + processor) every year or so; I have other needs. Rather, I buy stuff used and work with them, and continue using them until I can no longer satisfy my needs with them. For example, my fastest PC is a 475 MHz K6-2 with 64MB RAM and a 10GB hard drive, running FreeBSD. I also have a few other computers used for different tasks; heck, I even obtained a Macintosh SE a few months ago, and (although lacking a modern floppy drive) its serves my basic word processing needs with MacWrite, and I can move files off of it by networking it with a printer cable to my Performa 6220. Even though I'd love to have a Power Mac G5 and a new iPod to come with it (I'm saving for that), my old computers and CD player would serve me well until that comes.

Now, I wonder how much a first-generation iPod costs....

Call me a luddite or not, but I don't upgrade (i.e., buy brand new products over $100) because I can't afford to buy a brand new computer (or even motherboard + processor) every year or so; I have other needs. Rather, I buy stuff used and work with them, and continue using them until I can no longer satisfy my needs with them. For example, my fastest PC is a 475 MHz K6-2 with 64MB RAM and a 10GB hard drive, running FreeBSD. I also have a few other computers used for different tasks; heck, I even obtained a Macintosh SE a few months ago, and (although lacking a modern floppy drive) its serves my basic word processing needs with MacWrite, and I can move files off of it by networking it with a printer cable to my Performa 6220. Even though I'd love to have a Power Mac G5 and a new iPod to come with it (I'm saving for that), my old computers and CD player would serve me well until that comes.

Now, I wonder how much a first-generation iPod costs....

• Mac
• Vectrex (and more)

Co-incidence? They do look similar in physical design to me (I'm purely thinking of a physical resemblance, not actual hardware).

Cheers,
Ian

So the Linux box would capture the print job and then do something with it? I'd love to help, but this kind of thing (serial protocols, etc) is outside my bailiwick. I'll point you to the MaX list at LEM though. That's where I ask all these sorts of questions, since it involves *n*x. Signal to noise there is very high, which is nice.

Not all of 'em.

It "gets around" the clause by virtue of the fact that a Centris is Apple hardware.

Maybe the reality distortion field isn't calibrated properly.

Serial printers and scsi devices are the only things I know of that fit into this category for OS X (on supported machines i.e. G3 or better). A scsi device won't work on that old PC if you don't have a card for it.

I'm also burnt out on... the costly updates and dodgy performance unless your willing to fork out big $$$

Not sure what you're referring to on the costly updates. OS X - 10.3 is $129 at the Apple store. If you're referring to upgrading old software to be OS X native, you don't have to if you really don't want to. Virtually all older classic applications will run fine in Classic mode.

As to dodgy performance without topline hardware, I'm using a 450MHz blue & white G3 at home (that's mid-1999 hardware) and have no "dodgy performance issues." Similar hardware can be found today for $200 - $300.

Your first sentence probably says more about why you like XP than any comparison between the two platforms.

So let me get this right, did Apple now invent LCD all-in-one computers? You do know that they where around prior to even the original iMac (see Sun Voyager for an example)?

While the Sun SPARCstation Voyager did come out in 1994, it was only three years later that Apple released the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh. At least the Mac was competitively priced at $7,499 versus the $13,995 of the Voyager... :-)

Hello there. I'm posting this from a Powerbook G3 at 266 MHz with 64 MB RAM, running Debian GNU/Linux and Gnome 2.6 and Firefox just to disprove you. I also have Emacs open at the same time, and switching between the apps works fine. Thunderbird and Firefox are too heavy to run at the same time without getting sluggish though, as they would in any environment on a computer with 64 MB. And I wouldn't run OpenOffice.org in Gnome, although it does run quite well in WindowMaker (it takes about a month to start up, though).

I've got 256 MB of swap, of which 79 MB is currently in use.

I also run Knoppix on a 450 MHz Pentium II with 128 MB RAM once in a while. No swap, but it still works, and is good enough to browse the web and chat in Kopete. That's with KDE 3.x.

Not trying to whore here but if my "google for it" suggestion was too vague for some, here are some articles on why porting OS X would be a very bad idea from Apple's perspective.

No Intel On OS X Part I: Economics 101
Porting Mac OS X to Intel

I predict that, within three years, and using its patent for color-changing plastics, Apple is going to give you an iTV.


Been there, done that.

... the least problematic Mac I've owned yet.

We're still running our Mac LC II, with all original parts except the display. And that was more an upgrade than a failure - went from 12" b&w to 15" colour. It's still running MacOS 7.0, as it has since 1992. Even if it is a Road Apple!