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Build a Macintosh From Scratch
An anonymous reader writes "MacOpz has posted a great step-by-step tutorial on building your own G4-based Macintosh from scratch. This article includes where to get parts, what modifications must be performed, and tons of photographs. A must-read for anyone that wants a Mac but doesn't want to pay Apple prices."
wow, i wonder what the commercial applications of this are. dek take a pic :)
The problem is that when you sum up everything, you end up with something _more expensive_ than just buying it from Apple.
Oh and of course you also have to purchase MacOS.
{{.sig}}
I feel that many more people would use OSX if they could experiment with it without buying expensive hardware. Building your own mac is a step in the right direction, perhaps an open architecure. I know I would love to try OS X, as I feel it is far superior to windows from what I have seen. But I will never pay the $$ needed to try it. Oh well, I guess KDE will do.
But why wouldn't you just build a Windows computer? Macs are not meant to be built for scratch, that's why you need a guide.
If you add up the costs listed, it ends up cheaper than pre-built boxes from apple...
Really.. I swear..
I live in a giant bucket.
I've always wanted to build a computer from scratch, but I'm not interested in Macs. Does anyone have any information on building a PC from scratch?
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
You can follow other people's progress here:
p c&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=4820959925
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=t
--- I do not moderate.
So couldn't a computer manufacturing company, who has these parts for ultracheap, start making Macs and selling them? Or possibly making Macs that run Linux, Windows, BeOS, whatever...
Oops!
Plant apple seed in ground.
Add water and fertilizer at regular intervals.
Remove weeds at regular intervals.
Eventually, you'll have an Apple.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
It is a violation of the EULA for Mac OS to run it on any non-Apple-branded hardware. This goes for things like MOL too.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Paying to build a Mac from scratch? That's like buying parts and building a Fiat.
As a professional who relies on my Macintosh to generate income, the supposed "price premium" of Apple hardware over a build-it-yourself amounts to a half day's billing.
Add the time to build eating into billable hours, and it would come out as an expensive proposition.
There are lots of reasons to build a machine yourself- better control over the parts, getting a custom config that you can't easily buy, and saving money. I wager that most people's reason to buy a Mac- it works, out of the box, to make us money- is not really compatible with those ideals.
I do agree with one sentiment addressed in the story, and that's avoiding the outlandish prices Apple charges for standard parts such as RAM and hard disks. Most savvy Mac users buy base configs and then load up the RAM and HD's via cheaper, third party suppliers.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
This post has been up for 7 minutes, and you haven't modded it -1, Troll yet? Slow day for the moderators...
I love wastin me some mod points!
Glad to see someone is extending this brilliant principle to the Mac world.
Pay the fuck up!
I want to build an Ultra SPARC-based machine, using genuine Sun parts, so I E-Mailed Sun, and asked them where I could buy the Ultra SPARC motherboard advertised on their U.S.A.-based site, as I am in the U.K.
I was given a phone number for a company who sold them, and I've phoned them loads of times, and not got any info back at all, except that on one occasion I was told that they would try to find out about the availability of the motherboard for me.
It is very frustrating that I can't buy the motherboard! It's about 400 quid, so you would think that they would be happy to sell it to me, but obviously not.
What other decent architectures are there? Alpha? Nope - it's being discontinued.
StrongARM is what I would *really* like to build a machine based on, but I can't find much info about suitable motherboards, (I want to run Linux on it).
Does anybody know of a decent ATX, StrongARM based motherboard, which is supported by Linux?
Also, Transmeta CPUs - where can I buy one? I WANT TO BUY ONE!!! Information about them is very scarce. I didn't even know that they were actually X86 compatible until a few months ago, I thought that they were a completely new architechture!
Isn't the whole point of a mac the shinny case?
I don't understand why a bunch of people want to run OS X anyway. It's proprietary and completely closed source. If you're a serious graphics designer, sure, I can see your reason for wanting OS X.
But, slashdot geeks... I can't understand why they'd want something that removes all kinds of ability to tinker and has a shitty EULA. The OS may be a step up from Windows, but the EULA is almost as shitty.
Even Linux Journal ran a freaking article on OS X. LINUX Journal. I just don't understand the facination with OS X. I've used it briefly, and while it does appear to have a good GUI, it's not free.
Christ, I sound like Richard Stallman. Somebody shoot me. It's just the way I feel.
OS X is a chance for the clones to come back: This German vendor is selling OS X compatible Umax clones with G4 CPUs for EUR 729+.
The PC Case is just ugly. I'm considering to buy an iMac, partly because of it look, seriously. I'm a hardcore programmer. But Mac's look is just irresistible. I think the Unix core make it a partical machine for coding (besides web browsing, etc).
uh.. read the article. it's not 'building a g4 from scratch' so much as 'getting an apple mobo & other random g4 parts off ebay and mounting them in a pc case with some noisy fans', primarily because "it's impossible to use a Zip drive, CD-ROM, and DVD-ROM together in the same machine with any G4 that Apple has ever shipped".
this is a glorified case-mod project for a specific end use, not 'building a g4 from scratch'.
apple frequently dumps older systems at the education stores. about 5 monthes ago, stanford had G4/533/CD-RW/40GB + 17 inch LCD for 1249 (that is 350 added to the screen). other examples are 899 (same time) for iBook 600/DVD. all new machines.
Step Five: ??????
Step Six: PROFIT !!!!!!!!!
Ouch, given that an Athlon XP 2000+ can be had for under $100, it sounds like you're still paying Apple prices.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I was looking at this picture of the backside of the logic board with some interest, having never seen the insides of a modern Mac before. I couldn't help but notice that one of the chips on this board, the middle of the three largish square ICs, appears to be made by Intel (there is a very distinctive large, lowercase i to the left of some other illegible text, which is one of Intel's trademarks). Its impossible to tell what it is from the picture. Is it a PCI bridge? The ethernet controller? You would think Apple would not be keen on using Intel components whenever possible, but then I guess any corporation is going to put profit first. Does anyone know what it is?
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Now if he'd started from some non-Apple PPC motherboard, that would be more impressive.
Has to be the work of Satin !!!!!
Whats a box without the bits that makes Apple good.
OSX, the iApps . Knowing its just gonna work. No DLL's
Sounds like a waste of time but then again windows users and innovation.......
Now, if they had used some generic PowerPC motherboard and got it to boot OS X, that would be news. This isn't.
From what I see of it, apparently he drilled his board in order to mount it. BAD IDEA!!! I'm willing to bet that there are solder traces that are under the board that you can't see. Cut one, and you can kiss the board goodbye - and if you're unlucky, you might've even killed other components in your system.
And uh - not to troll, but where does the "cool" part come in? From what I see, he eBayed for parts, spent more than you would've direct from Apple, and loaded it in an ATX case. Uh, yay?
--pi
worthy of Mordor.
OSX for x86 I know its a pipe dream, I wonder if enofe people petition apple to release it for a rather high price, say 400$ so there not loosing money on hardware sales, I know I would pay 400$ for OSX if it ran on any (or just about any) x86 box
Seriously folks, he quotes a G4/400 at $800. And over at Ars, they quote one at $1000. I don't know about anyone else, but I bought mine on eBay - UPGRADED - for about $750. Go to www.baucomcomputers.com and see for yourself!
This makes it more expensive to build your own, crappier version of a system that isn't that expensive to begin with. Unless you are a whiny Linux apologist.
Whew, watch this get modded to 0 in the blink of an eye!
***
"or modify a PC power supply to power your Mac"
anyone seen any instructions for this?
Yeah, there's another great place to build a macintosh from scratch, you don't have to scrouge for parts to make a S-L-O-W computer, and you don't have to whine on slashdot.
The last thing Apple wants to do is encourage and enable people to "experiment" with OSX on non-Apple hardware. You've noticed, I suspect, that Apple has never marketed an x86 version of any of its operating systems That's because Apple is hardware company, not a software vendor. Sure, they write their own OS, but it is precisely the tight integration of that proprietary OS with proprietary hardware that maintains the "uniquesness" of the Mac. Whether or not that uniqueness is worth the price is a matter of opinion, but the approach does ensure that only company that builds Macs is Apple.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
" I wager that most people's reason to buy a Mac- it works, out of the box"
Actually, it doesn't work as well out of the box, which is why 9 out of 10 users prefer PCs.
This goes two ways: compared to PCs' Macs are crippled/stripped. Out of the box, the PC comes with more extras. Just turn it on and use it, no need to go down to the computer store.... oops, not really any Apple stuff at the computer store, better order mail order stuff and wait for it, and maybe then your computer will be comparable to the typical out-of-the-box PC. Of course, you paid a lot more for less with your Mac in the first place, and now you've paid even more.
And then there is usability. Once you have spent extra to get your Mac to be hardware comparable to the PC, it is still useless for most application situations. The Mac excels in a few niches, but if you want to "think different" and do more with the machine, get a PC.
[Watch it over and over... the commercial about that Gateway that looks like the iMac.... much more useful, easier to use, faster, and costs a lot less]
Real Hackers know how to repair broken traces with wire or trace pens.
Regardless of how you denigrate the final product, the fact is, that guy did something cool that he can talk about to all his friends, and you just posted on slashdot.
...merely put some Apple parts in a PC case. Can you say case mod? As for the price, you can buy a used G4- AGP for $800 easy, so this saves you no money, and if your time is worth money you lose. As for his assertation that you can't put a DVD, CD, and Zip in and Apple cased, wrong, Hell my 9600 had all those and 3 SCSI drives inside. So big whoopdeee dooo for this guy. For the money I'll just buy the new dual 867.
And with these surface-mount custom glue chips, it's just not possible anymore.
It was possible to build Apple's last good computer model, the Apple ][, from scratch--the original versions had nothing but off-the-shelf TTL ICs in it. I've seen several from-scratch Apple ][s built by people from the Former Soviet Union where real Apple ][s weren't available, but Chinese TTL ICs were.
Dude! The lines you just posted will be my new sig. Thanks!
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Coding? With the iMac keyboard? Heh.
Wow, this is so exciting... first a PC board in a Mac case, now a Mac board in a PC case.
How long before someone takes a G4 Mac, removes the logic board from it, puts it back, and put up detailed step-by-step photos on a Web site showing what he or she has accomplished?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"Like the clones that threatened to put Apple out of the business, hence Steve giving them the axe? If you thouhgt the Apple reation to the eMachine rip off was violent, the reaction to unlicenced clones would be horrific."
So you use the same trick (compaq?) used.
Build a machine that can run MacOS-X. But advertise and sell it as a machine that runs PPC versions of Linux. The secret will get out soon enough for the savy, and Apple will be able to do little, as long as proprietary Apple IP is left out.
Most savvy Mac users buy base configs and then load up the RAM and HD's via cheaper, third party suppliers.
How do you simultaneously buy a base configuration with small hard drive / low amount of RAM (to save money) AND the fastest processor? Apple's store bundles the really fast processors with the really large hard drives and amounts of RAM.
you may want to further research whether you will be able to code on these machines. I've heard rumors that GCC is not even included in the OSX. If so, it would make it tough to compile applications.
-=chuckles=- Oh look, its a Hackintosh(old Computer Shopper reference for you guys). Still more cost effective than buying a Mac, though not by much, the beauty lies in the customization options.
Wogs "Freedom's just another word for having nothing left to lose."
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
There fine, unless you outside the US.
All the macs i've ever seen in the UK have US keyboards.
Uk
" = shift+2
@ = shift + ' (where the " is on a US keyboard)
£ = shift + 3
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
"Windows XP is only $150 if your time is worth nothing."
- it could use a standard ATX power supply
- USB fits in the USB spot, Firewire goes in the serial spot and sound fits sound or include a custom back plate
- have a AMR style modem and Network card
- sell at a fairly low cost with a bit of a premium, like say $300-$400 with CPU
This is something I would definately doToo many zeros, not enough ones
"they bug out when opening many apps"?!?
Windows likes to BSOD, but if your processor is causing issues, then you either need a bigger heat sink or have bad RAM.
Processor reliability is independent of number of applications (assuming overheating doesn't occur).
Maybe an unstable OS is what you meant to blame?
While cool, I have my doubts - if you're just looking to play with OS X, I suspect used G3's/PowerPC-based macs with upgrade cards would suffice.
Also, I'm concerned about the suggestion that you use wraps and/or drilling new holes in your mobo to make this work. You can do serious damage if you mess this up.
The only advange I can see to this is you can accumulate parts in stages if you don't have the money for an all-out expenditure. And of course if you just don't like the layout of the Mac case...
Anyone care to compare the value of this project should put a $$ sign on their TIME and then check out used macs selling on places like http://www.Craigslist.org.
/768 MB Ram /30 GB HD/CD RW & Zip Drive/17" Flat Tube sony monitor Trintron 200ES
,2 USB ,Modem ,Ethernet, Pro keyboard and optical mouse , ,Firework MX ,OFFICE X ,Toast 5.1.3,Quark 5 :Final Cut pro 3,Cleaner 5,After Effect 5.5
Unless you are in school and po or your time is just not worth a lot of money (or you have more time than money), this project is not cost effecient. Cool for sure though.
Check out this posting from Craigslist for a system for $1000
Powermac G4 450 AGP
450 mhz PowerPC
16 MB Video Card
768 MB Ram
super fast Internal CD RW 24x Write 12x Rewirte
100 MB ZIP Drive
30 GB Hard Drive
2 Fire wire
It is in mint conditon .
17" Flat tube(not flat panel) sony Trinitron is included
OS X.2 jaguar and OS 9.2.2- installed
Other software installed :
Photoshop 7,illustator 10,Freehand 10,Dreamweaver MX
Flash Mx
Video Editing software
Call or email me if you have any questions 415-xxx-3332
$1000 Firm
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Wasn't there a book a number of years back called "Build Your Own Mac And Save A Bundle"? This seems like a more modern version of that concept, with G4's instead of 690x0's. :-)
See here for a link I found on google about the book- now that I've seen it, I'd love to get my own copy!
Huxley_D
Step One: Buy 3 Used Buicks ....
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
From the article:
Furthermore, water cooling projects for the overclockers become more of a reality.
Aren't PowerPC chips basically un-overclockable? From what I understand, something about the chip design makes it either impossible to overclock it, or makes the speed gained from overclocking it negligble.
c-hack.com |
It is a violation of the EULA for Mac OS to run it on any non-Apple-branded hardware.
I really don't care. I simply ignore EULAs. In fact, I make it a point to not even read them (and I note that Microsoft does not even require that you scroll to the end of the EULA before clicking "I Agree.") I don't violate copyright law by pirating software, but the EULAs are filled with unreasonable crap that just gets my blood boiling.
So, if Apple, Microsoft, or any other vendor wishes to sue me for violating their EULA, bring it on. I'm tired of the bullshit. You make a product and I buy it. It's not a "license to use" and I'm not playing that game any more.
No question the older boxes have serious limits on bus speed. My point was that it's cheaper to buy an 8600 just to get the case, power supply, floppy, mouse, and CD drive then it is to buy the parts separately.
You'll end up with a near-server class case and power supply (complete with flip-open side, anchored cable harness, etc.) and a bunch of devices for the cost of an inferior case bought alone. Of course, getting the guts of a whole other Mac, in effect, for free, is a fun bit of icing on the cake.
As for the used parts pricing and those implications, oh dear. Please don't get me started on that. Let's just say that since the resale value of the Newton IP alone (even given a licence that only allows sales in the developing world) would be worth more to the right buyer than, say, the entire Visor corporation shows that Apple still makes a regular habit of sticking their head WAY up where the sun don't shine.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Not only is it only about upgrading old Mac motherboards, but even the linked page says it's about building your own G4 from scratch. The only part of this that's not a simple "upgrade your old Mac to run OS X" is that it mentions using regular ATX cases. I can't see why you would want to do that unless you were doing a cool case mod.
Pardon me for yawning, but been there done that about to replace a Linux box with one. And the only reason I did it is I already had an old Power Computing Mac that was already sufficiently upgraded. I'm now debating whether it's worth upgrading my $60 thrift store Power Wave.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I'm curious, how often do you feel your PC? Mine just sits on the floor chuging away. I guess if you're into the tactile pleasures of handling your computer the Mac may be the way to go. For the rest of us who are interested in Price:Performance the PC still leads the way.
This is about as comparable to building a Mac from scratch as making a meal from scratch is to tearing the platic from the pudding, poking holes over the remaining items and microwaving for 6 minutes. (Do you think I eat too many microwave meals)
No-one builds computers from scratch any more, they just assemble off the shelf parts with idiot-proof keyed connectors.
These lamoid "new generation" hackers don't know what "from scratch" means. They should try wire-wrapping or resist ething your own board some time. I'll bet they couldn't build a simple countdown timer with LED output from scratch if their life depended on it. Computer from scratch; humf.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
faulty hardware issues!
Just to check, we all noticed that they're still using a fair number of apple aprts, right? Its not like its parts made by somebody else, he's just scavangeing parts from other sources than apple for apple stuff.
Mod point free since 2001
Dont start this again...
..HORRIBLE hardware support, think about how insane it would be to port the os to x86 then support ALL THE freakin cheapo hardware...
If you want to software get the whole package, they are not more expensive if you add it all up... in fact the ibooks are VERY well priced for cheap laptops, the higher end apples, are insanly high priced though...
Ever try NeXTSTEP for Intel?
I dont own a mac yet (tibook for college soon) but, I can tell you that other then macos my reasons for going apple are the whole package, the support, the community, the well done everything,
and the analness of steve jobs...
wtf is up with my reply title, i never wrote that???!? WTF
I couldn't afford an Apple II, so I bought the
little spiral bound manual. It thoughtfully
included a full schematic (with part numbers),
and the full Boot and Bios Rom listings! I think
it was the Rom code that tipped me over the edge
into the project of building my own.
I wire wrapped the circuits, and hand programmed
byte by byte the 5 Roms (2705s, if I recall). One
for Bios, and 4 for Apple Basic. Memory chips
were the most expensive components at the time.
And it worked! Noisy circuitry, I almost had to
position my hands like I was playing a therimin
to get it to have a clean display.
Super of Apple to do 'open source' before it was cool!
My. Bitter much?
OK, in order,
Also some of the apps you mentioned are very processor intensive. Which ones? I only mentioned two and I've done heavy work on both on setups much smaller than the ones that I mentioned. (though, then again, I also did tabloid layouts in Quark XPress on an SE so perhaps I'm just insane.)
Until Motorola gets off its ass...[blah,blah,blah]I agree that Moto's lost its mojo. That's exactly why Apple is fighting to get control over this AltiVec thing and switch to both multi-CPU standard and IBM as primary chip source. Personally I'ld prefer to see them do a hostile takeover of Motorola and personally DESTROY EVERY EXECUTIVE THERE but that's just me and perhaps I'm a tad vindictive.
[rant that consumers are stupid and fall for this MHz baloney] And where precisely did I disagree with that? Though as it happens I think that that is starting to lose power as a generation of buyers comes in that is far more tech-literate.
They have also had a history of sticking it to the dev's. Yes, they do. Including friends of mine and to me as an IT guy who stood up for them and got screwed. Again, where exactly did I say otherwise?
[blah, blah, apple are assholes, their tech is cool, company is untrustworthy, more Apple screws devs, some distorted perception re cloning] Yeah. So what? I'ld rather be with a, what is that, " bussness"?"busness"? that is reliably profitable so they won't go the way of DEC, Amiga, etc., etc., etc.
["I'm a gamer; I NEED power.] Bully for you. I don't know what thread you *think* you're in but this is one about building low-cost, scratch-built boxes and that was what I wrote about.
Some of my family will buy a computer [for] wizo bango software [from] best buy.[they make foolish choices and it pisses me off] I'm sorry and I feel your pain. Users suck, especially when they sit at the dinner table and blame *you* for *their* cluelessness. But again, isn't this a thread about purchasing by folks who solder for fun?
Thanks for the links though. You're most welcome. I hope that they come in useful.
Rustin
Oh, BTW, I apologize to everybody out there for my universally sour tone these days. Sometimes starting a company on no money really isn't fun at all and I'm afraid that you folks are getting some bleedthrough. I will try to give a little more thought in the future to giving my posts a lower arrogant asshole factor (AAF? perhaps a new mod variable).
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
I can get:
Dual 867MHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache
& 1MB L3 cache/processor
133MHz System Bus
256MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive (DVD/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX
For $15,000, Yes the new! windtunnel enclosure.
GCC3 is included with OS X 10.2, and I've been using OS X to program since 10.0... all you have to do to get the compiler is install the dev. CD.
I use my G4 450 for coding, this machine is more than capable of coding.
By the way, Linux will work exactly same way (or even better ) as it will run on PPC. Either way, Sparc, Alpha or PPC, no need to buy any proprietary OS, especially that crappy Mac OS * :)
Less is more !
Dude, I'm not even a Mac user, but you've gotta be joking. That Gateway Mac wannabe is *fugly*! All rubbery and shit. And oooooh, I can tilt the screen up and down!
The swivel screen on the iMac is what makes you want it, not just because it's flat.
Cupertino, CA
15 September 2002
Dear Slashdot Editors:
Your article on building Macintoshes is a threat to the valuable intellectual property rights of our client, Apple Computer. You are hereby ordered to cease and desist publication of this article, or face legal action.
All your Mac are belong to us.
Sincerely,
I. Will Cheatham, Esq.
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, P.A.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
... at +1 no less.
Oh lord. Now you're done it. Somewhere within a year, we're gonna see a new Darwin group calling themselves the Johnny A.'s or the JA Consortium or JohnA L0pht or something.
And it will all be your fault.
I hope that you're sorry.
In very other words, cool metaphor; I like it. Other people probably do too.
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
And it costs nearly zero. It's called software emulation. I have an old PDP 11 and a Vax 1180 as well as a Univac 1180/82E running Octal around here somewhere. Oh and again it's in software.
Honestly if you build something out of used/junk parts it's because you need a cheap limited purpose server to do some mindless task quietly in the corner. Not that this is bad thing. I have a house full of Frankenclones for routers, firewalls, mail servers and so on.
Quick question. Are you perhaps under the impression that Apple is still selling the disk-shaped mouse? That's been gone for years.
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
LOL :), I like the fact that they're using an Intel heatsink,,, sure, they might have a mac,, but to anyone who looked in the side of the case, it'd sure as hell look like a wintel PC,, (case, heatsink, etc.) what's the point of having an apple if ya can't show it off??
Reece,
I checked this book out from our local library a while back. It details how to build a 'catalog Mac' of the 68k variety. You still need some genuine Apple parts, though.
You might try Alibris - the author is Bob Brant.
They have a few copies for sale-- most of them overpriced, IMHO, since they deal with such outdated hardware. You might get inspired by it, but I doubt you'd actually want to build the machines he covers in the book.
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Where do you live? India?
Why would you even consider touching a computer for anything less than $30k + benefits?
Okay, I'm a bit pissy. Even a lot pissy. But if you think that this only merits a 1, well, I'm just glad that I'm shifting my focus to my own site soon.
Enjoy my refs while you can, Malda and co. 'cause in two months or so I'll be gone, gone, gone.
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
If you're going to put quotes around it, at least get the sentence right.
Ben Franklin said in 1784, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (That's the most reliable one I can get out of Google.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Even swapping out the CD-ROM drive is a massive chore IMHO.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
This seems about as practical as building a new car from scratch. This is actually less practical because the only place you can get new parts is from the dealer....and you know how the dealers like to screw customers on part prices.
I simply ignore EULAs. In fact, I make it a point to not even read them
n g-an-amateur-pr0n-site-ware, etc.
That's where, most of the time, the publisher divulges if a product contains adware, spyware, i'm-taking-all-your-honeymoon-pictures-and-starti
As this may be the only place you can read about those things (before Ad-Aware catches up), if they're not obviously listed as installation options, you'd be better off going through it.
Get off my launchpad!
Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think BeOS can run on a G3 or G4 except through emulation like VPC. Apple never gave Be what it needed for that generation of processors.
"Form should follow function...unless it's just plain ugly."
More to the point -- seriously, how long before Apple tries to shut them down for recreating (reverse-engineering?) the Mac without a license??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
...DO NOT follow this guy's instructions! He ended up making a total mess, and risked frying his CPU.
While it's improbable, it is possible that spreading thermal paste on anything other than the CPU core could cause the system to short circuit. The author at macopz got the adhesive all over the freaking CPU, which could lead to problems down the road. Please read Arctic Silver's instructions if you've never applied thermal paste before. This guy DOES NOT know what he's doing, at least when it comes to installing processors.
Uh, that's not probably not Arctic Silver...that's thermal grease.
And, there's a pad over the rest of the CPU's components.
If there's a danger from Arctic Silver, perhaps we shouldn't be using METAL heatsinks, huh?
A few times when I've built my own PC's from scratch I did so because I wasn't quite satisfied with the quality of all parts offered in any given pre-built system.
One of the reasons to buy a Mac though is the build quality and cohesive selection of parts. (More true of the laptops than the desktops, but still).
I have no desire to build my own mac because I'm happy enough with how they've already built them!
And like others have said if you're just after a cheap system to play with buying used will probably be about as cheap as scrounging components, plus it will probably look a lot better...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i know i'm the odd man out with this, but i find this article interesting. firstly, it once again reminded me that Mac is really just a proprietary PC. secondly, i *may* have a real use for this article... i built a PC for my family ages ago, which is now slow, outdated, and garbage. my mother really liked the Macintosh, but it was far too expensive and i played the PC elitist. she was comfortable in the Mac interface. "it just works", all that jazz. she finds even windows daunting, but she was comfortable with the mac. now - cloning a new or refurbished mac is economically stupid. yes. but, if all i had to do was buy the logic board, processor/heatsink, a 256MB stick of memory, a cheapass video card, and OSX - then my mother can be entirely comfortable at a FAR MORE REASONABLE price! i can keep the harddrive, CD-ROM, floppy - no need for Zip and CDRW, etc. perhaps, after working this all out, i'll decide it's still not right for us - but it's an option. and that's why the article was useful... it gave me an option i didn't know i had! i'd *love* to throw yellowdog on some nice apple hardware for myself, but i never knew until now that i don't have to pay through the teeth for a basic system! now i know! thanks for posting the article!!
What's so interesting in fitting a Apple motherboard into a PC case? At least it's not building a Mac G4 from scratch.
:(
To do so, you'd have to find a generic "no-name" ppc74xx-compatible motherboard.. I think Motorola made some test boards for 8xxx series (with RapidIO) and the Amiga boom last year promised some new PPC motherboards too. Too bad none are shipping consumer products alike the x86 mobos.
Anyway, the "article" was quite misleading.
A "Case Mod" != "Build a Macintosh From Scratch"
I hear you brother!
you mean entirely out of money!
| - | - |
Directly from the article:
"The first thing to do is to prepare the thermal cooling solution. I used a little Arctic Silver that I had around and put about half a pea sized amount on the top of the CPU."
So yeah, it is Arctic Silver. And those metal heatsinks only come in contact with the CPU core.
Good lord, haven't these people ever heard of FireWire? All of those devices have FireWire versions - hell, you could probably put all three of them on one port, run them all simultaneously, and see no performance hit over having them in the case.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
No, I am thinking of the "pill shaped" mice (for lack of a better term) where the button is the mouse.
They are approximately the right shape, though they don't feel particularly comfortable to me, but the fact that I can't rest my hand on it without clicking sucks.
I suppose many people probably wouldn't have a problem with them, but I am particulary picky about input devices, if I had a choice I wouldn't use anything other than the Logitech optical MouseMan wheel. Unfortunately, they don't make it any more, and I don't particularly care for the new model.
I dunno. The words "grease" hit me in the head a few times there.
Arctic Silver, the company, makes other products aside from the real "arctic silver." Their thermal grease products don't have silver in them, and, given the white color of that photo, that's grease. That won't harm any electronics.
Actually, with all of the new Macs the developer tools are on the harddrive in a package. It only takes a double click.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
I bought an 8500 off ebay for around $75.
First, the 8500 was designed by a drunk. This is not an easy machine to rip apart.
Second, after downloading Stuffit and trying to run it, I get an application error message. I have been unable to run XPostFacto because I can't even get Stuffit working.
Third, after moving some of the DIMMs around (thinking Stuffit's problem is RAM-related), the system won't boot at all.
Fourth, even if I did get Stuffit working, XPostFacto requires the existence of a MacOS 9 partition; you cannot natively install OSX only (it plays a trick and moves the root directory from the CD to disk filesystem). I bought a 9gig Micropolis SCSI drive to solve this problem, not that it's been much use.
This pile of junk is sitting on my kitchen floor until I have time to deal with it, which may be never.
Well, I'll be a monkey's distant cousin. You're right. :-) (For my fellow clueless: check in
"/Applications/Installers/Developer Tools".) And here I was, wondering when I'd remember to haul my Developer's tools disk into work (or wait for all bazillion megs of software to download from Apple) to get those up and running on my new G4. Now, you'd think that would get more prominently mentioned somewhere...
Of course, the Developer Tools get even more interesting when you realize that you can use Interface Builder with Perl (using CamelBones and with Ruby using the RubyCocoa stuff, and probably with Python using a tool taht I haven't tried to look up yet.
Life is just grand.
Babar
I can certainly see where mouse preference is a personal thing, but just to make sure...
You do know the tension of the mouse click is adjustable on the bottom? I have a friend who could not use the mouse as shipped, but wasn't aware that the mouse click force was hardware adjustable.
These people have looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
"There is no way that a 1GHz G4 competes with an Athlon MP 2000, and most of the other components are comparable."
Would you say your Athlon MP 2000 (which runs around 1500 MHz) is comparable to an Intel Pentium 4 2000? If you do, then you must concede the possibility that the PowerPC G4 1000 may likewise be comparable.
If the Athlon can overcome a 33% clock speed deficit, the PowerPC may be able to overcome a 50% clock speed deficit.
Really they are I feel they just need justification for the mistakes they made in the first place and spend even more money in being defiant about there mistakes. If they say that they have the funky new OSX then this is the biggest mistake they make. Bcoz OSX is nothing but linux with a different GUI and if I am not mistaken most of linux development has been done on x86 architecture. I am just not ready to pay $1200+ for something that runs linux which again can be downloaded for free and oh yeah I forgot to mentions that I cant possibly play all my games ;)
[Quoting TotallyUseless]
5 81 79&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.c om%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveK CToHomePage&searchMode=Expert&kbhost=kbase.info.ap ple.com&showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurve y=true&sessionID=anonymous|148075579
/
Re:EULA violation (Score:1)
by TotallyUseless (tot@m[ ]com ['ac.' in gap]) on Monday September 16, @03:13PM (#4267833)
(User #157895 Info | http://www.shiner.com/)
There are no Mac boot roms, at least not on the hardware. None. At all.
[End Quote]
I'll paste the info from the TIL article.
What is iMac Firmware Update?
iMac Firmware Update is based on customer feedback, and increases the reliability of iMac booting. It is being provided to every iMac customer as preventive maintenance. The iMac Firmware update upgrades the Open Firmware boot ROM code using a simple application downloadable from Apple's web site.
2. Dual-image boot ROM
The iMac Firmware update installs a second boot ROM image within the flashable ROM. Should there ever be a future firmware update, the second image serves as a backup should the firmware update fail. Although a firmware update failure is highly unlikely, providing the second image would allow the iMac to start up.
Flashable ROM - Does that sound like hardware to you? Hmmm I think it does.
There's a little button on all macs that when you press it allows you to access the open firmware boot ROM - it's pretty cool - you should try it sometime.
Anywho the open firmware boot ROM must be present for Mac OS to boot - you aren't allowed to copy them & sell them.
That's why there aren't any clones - otherwise you could install Mac OS on ANY motorola based hardware & it would run. But you can't.
Why? Boot ROM!
Anyway her'e the apple TIL article before I forget
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=
AND here's a link to some non apple PowerPC based hardware that won't run Mac OS because there ISN'T a boot ROM.
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/briQ
___________________________
I'm not a geek, but I play one on TV.
OS X 10.2, G4 CPUs.
.bomb fired a useless MAC "professional" on the way down. I was one of the last to go (because I am a useful person), the Mac users were the first to get laid off HA HA HA).
/etc like a normal human being.)
.
.mac accounts.
t ml
.DOC reader installed. Ever. Maybe a PDF reader if I can't figure something out using google, a few nesgroups and other better-than-manuals-and-man-page sources.
.DOC is still a problem, I have noticed that documents shared even between Office X, XP and 2002 are very inconsistent. Its MSFT playing the upgrade me to fix problems game. For complicated layout and manuals, use Framaker or a LaTeX backended application or something realistic.
/etc) and old binaries included without gcc in the default install. Its only young in that Apple does not know very well how to serve people who use unix.
I'm sorry, but I have a G3 B&W Yosemite Rev 1 at home, I kept a PPC around to see how Jaguar and OS X matured (I had great hopes). (I got it for free - I snagged it when a
It's upgraded to 1GB Mem, G4-500/1MB, PCI Radeon 7000 32MB and a new 40GB/2MB Maxtor with FDB technology. (I had to patch the 1.4 firmware from Sonnet because Apple is SCUM and block G4 CPU upgrades because they are pigs).
All I have to say to Mac "people" (zealous animals).
HAHAHHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAH.
HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAH HAHHAHA.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I'm selling it to a zealot on Ebay. OS X is such a fucking Hack, and PPC is dead - slow as SHIT.
All the apps for Mac are commercial AND overpriced. The GNU/Open/Free/BSD free apps are for *nix, not and approximations of one.
The best applications on Mac are Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. HAHAHAHAHA. It's so true. Closely followed by Adobe applications.
The funny thing is I CAN USE THEM ON A PC, faster.
OS X installer package manager sucks. Apple, check out FreeBSD.
OS X windowing system is closed, slow as fuck, and memory hogging. Apple, check out FreeBSD.
OS X takes FOREVER to "optimize" after installs. Whatever. Check out FreeBSD. Installs are fast.
OS X is easily corrupted. Don't use the command line, if you edit the wrong thing. POOF. Apple, check out FreeBSD. (Oh yeah, gotta love that windows-like registry crap, no you cant edit
Mach kernel is arcane. Carnegie Mellon deprecated development on it in 1994.
Steve Jobs is an arrogant, complete fuck. Not that Ellison and Gates isn't, but Jobs is an industry loser. From his first intellectual property theft at Xerox, to his failed NeXT, to his current job as Chief at Apple, he is rude, arrogant and has done nothing but create a pack of rabid zealots in what could have been an enlightened Unix loving user segment.
And now, Linux on PPC. NetBSD on PPC. ANYTHING ON PPC. It's a joke. It's a laughable joke.
All I have to say is NT 4.0 on a PPC with an XP-like GUI is more mature than OS X is today. BeOS would have been great. But this horribly proprietary slow, fat, shit system based on one of the worst incarnations of BSD I have EVER seen, Darwin, is just crap.
And that's just what Apple users are used to getting. Expensive hardware, and crap, inferior software. OS X is a lot closer to[and crappier than - relative to Windows 2000] Windows than Unix.
FreeBSD or DIE baby.
I have come to put down apple zealots once and for all. I have put together enough evidence to end this argument forever.
Bruising by Apple Roland Miller III - and other cases against apple
One notable fact concerning Apple's customer base is that it has always tested very highly in the category of brand loyalty. "Once a Mac user, always a Mac user." Apple has depended on this customer loyalty to get it through some rough times. It could always count on a portion of the market to continue to buy Apple products and continue to upgrade with Apple products. Despite (or perhaps due to) this loyalty, Apple has subjected its customers to some decidedly anti-customer abuses.
The latest example of Apple bruising its customers is a doozy. Due to shortages of the higher speed G4 processors, Apple speed reduced its entire line by 50 MHz and kept the prices the same. On top of that, Apple unilaterally cancelled all outstanding G4 orders with instructions that customers should reorder their systems. This has the net effect of increasing everyone's cost for the same system.
Needless to say, this action produced a massive and immediate customer backlash. Based on what I have seen on the net, this uproar lasted a few hours before Apple backed down and started to rejoin reality. After about a day of total confusion and rampant rumors followed by a week of small clarifications, Apple made right and reinstated all G4 orders except the high end 500 MHz model. Those customers were offered the choice of purchasing the "new" 450 MHz model at the original 450 MHz price, which is what should have been done in the first place.
While it is possible for me to see some corporate logic behind the original decision, never the less, this bright idea should not have left the meeting room where it was hatched. It doesn't take an MBA
(obviously) to predict the firestorm that was touched off when this decision was implemented. The only positive thing I can see in this fiasco was the speed at which corrective steps were implemented. The corporation responded to its customer's will and proved somewhat nimble in the process.
Another recent example of Apple bruising was with AppleShare IP 6.2. Apple decided to charge several hundred dollars for this upgrade (the previous being 6.1.) The only problem was that aside from a few new features, it was mainly seen as a bug-fix and compatibility upgrade for MacOS 8.6 (which itself was a free upgrade to 8.5.1.) You couldn't run ASIP 6.1 on 8.6 and you couldn't run the upgrade on 8.5. Again, the reaction was very predictable: customer outrage. Apple listened to its customers and eventually made 6.2 a free update to 6.1.
You may have also have heard about Apple purposefully preventing G3 owners from installing G4 CPU upgrades with a firmware upgrade that officially solved another problem. People were again outraged when the rumor was confirmed by all of the CPU upgrade companies. The outrage keyed on false advertising and speculation that Apple released a Trojan horse.
There were unofficial rumors from anonymous Apple employees that this firmware block will be removed with Mac OS 9. However, there has been no official word from Apple concerning this issue. In the meantime, all the CPU upgrade companies have announced that they have gotten around the block and that their respective upgrade will work fine when they ship.
While Apple has responded favorably to two of these examples, all of these misfires do take a toll. Many people simply will not tolerate this sort of behavior from a major corporation. A company simply cannot afford to make too many of these types of decisions and still remain in business.
Ultimately what can be learned from these examples?
The perception of the "bottom-line" doesn't always coincide with the needs of the consumer resulting in corporate mistakes of judgement. Some of them can be bad enough to make the pages of the Laramie Daily Boomerang. I can't speculate on whether these bad decisions were based on stupidity or on over estimating the loyalty of Apple*s customers or both. Apple has taken concrete steps in most of these cases to defuse the situation. As long as Apple continues to admit that it is wrong and make things right immediately, I will still tolerate being one of its customers.
Until next time. .
dah dah dah.
Apple tried to block G3 owners from upgrading to G4. Nice guys. PowerForce G4 ZIF
The PowerForce G4 ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) is the only G4 CPU upgrade you will want to upgrade your "Beige" Power Mac G3, "G3 All-in-One" educational model, Blue and White G3's and the Yikes Motherboard Graphite G4's. The PowerForce G4 ZIF is one of the highest performance CPU products when used with "AltiVec enhanced" software. Utilizing the second generation PowerPC 7410 processor ("G4") the PowerForce G4 includes a full 1 megabyte of backside cache running at up to 220MHz.
G4 ZIF Upgrade vs. 800MHz G4 Apple: PowerForce ZIF G4 550/220/1MB Apple G4 733 Price $289 $1599
The Bottom Line: If you already have quite a bit invested in your Power Mac G3, it just makes sense to upgrade the processor rather than opting for the new G4 systems from Apple. Apple has finally eliminated all of the legacy ports with the removal of the ADB port on the new G4 systems, not to mention the removal of the serial ports, and SCSI on the Blue and White G3 systems. So the choice is clear. PowerLogix saves you hundreds of dollars over the cost of buying a new system!
PowerLogix was the first to release a solution for the G4 ROM block for Blue and White G3s.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article2.html?a rtnum=60 839
TITLE Firmware Update: Firmware Updates 4.1.7 and Later May Disable Out-of-Spec Third-Party RAM Article ID: Created: Modified: 60839 4/12/01 9/28/01
Read up. Apple is trying to make it harder and harder to use "out of spec" hahahaha memory. Luckily www.crucial.com always works. But imagine, a firmware update that DISABLES YOUR MEMORY.
This is a good start (the buying public is sending a message to Apple, how do the intend to GROW thier market share????????)
http://www.barefeats.com/pmddr.h tml - new macs slower DDR
SPEC-CPU-2000 (INT/FP)AthlonXP1800MHz 738/624 -- Pentium4 2533 MHz : 893 / 878 -- Power4 1300 MHz : 804 / 1202 -- Itanium2 1000 MHz : 807 / 1356 -- G4 1000MHz 306 / 187 (read and weep http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/05/182/ )
SPEC-CPU-2000 (INT/FP)
AthlonXP1800MHz 738/624
Pentium4 2533 MHz : 893 / 878
Power4 1300 MHz : 804 / 1202
Itanium2 1000 MHz : 807 / 1356
G4 1000MHz 306 / 187 (read and weep http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/05/182/ )
AthlonXP 1533Mhz
FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE
OpenSSL 0.9.6a speed 5 Apr 2001
137.7
sign verify sign/s verify/s rsa 512 bits 0.0009s 0.0001s 1109.2 14497.3 rsa 1024 bits 0.0040s 0.0002s 252.8 5308.0 rsa 2048 bits 0.0220s 0.0006s 45.6 1635.9 rsa 4096 bits 0.1419s 0.0021s 7.0 468.6 dsa 512 bits 0.0007s 0.0009s 1377.3 1161.0 dsa 1024 bits 0.0019s 0.0023s 530.2 437.7 dsa 2048 bits 0.0060s 0.0073s 165.9 137.7
P3 550MHZ x 2
FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT #3
OpenSSL 0.9.6g 9 Aug 2002
39.5
sign verify sign/s verify/s
rsa 512 bits 0.0027s 0.0002s 375.7 4308.0
rsa 1024 bits 0.0131s 0.0007s 76.4 1499.7
rsa 2048 bits 0.0760s 0.0022s 13.2 451.7
rsa 4096 bits 0.5066s 0.0076s 2.0 130.8
dsa 512 bits 0.0023s 0.0028s 433.2 360.6
dsa 1024 bits 0.0064s 0.0078s 155.3 127.8
dsa 2048 bits 0.0212s 0.0253s 47.2 39.5
1GHz Motorola PPC OpenSSL 0.9.6
33.0
sign verify sign/s verify/s
rsa 512 bits 0.0024s 0.0002s 422.7 4565.7
rsa 1024 bits 0.0131s 0.0007s 76.2 1433.4
rsa 2048 bits 0.0850s 0.0025s 11.8 396.5
rsa 4096 bits 0.5872s 0.0092s 1.7 108.9
dsa 512 bits 0.0022s 0.0026s 464.3 387.9
dsa 1024 bits 0.0070s 0.0085s 142.8 117.0
dsa 2048 bits 0.0245s 0.0303s 40.7 33.0
G4 867 / 896MB / 10.1.2
24.2
sign verify sign/s verify/s
rsa 512 bits 0.0029s 0.0003s 346.3 3521.8
rsa 1024 bits 0.0172s 0.0009s 58.3 1062.2
rsa 2048 bits 0.1149s 0.0034s 8.7 293.4
rsa 4096 bits 0.8009s 0.0128s 1.2 78.3
dsa 512 bits 0.0027s 0.0034s 366.6 295.3
dsa 1024 bits 0.0094s 0.0114s 106.8 87.4
dsa 2048 bits 0.0334s 0.0413s 29.9 24.2
Mystery ClawHammer/.
signs/sec verifies/sec
rsa 512bits 965.9 12211.9
rsa1024 bits 205.0 3980.0
rsa 2048 bits 33.0 1093.3
rsa 4096 bits 4.7 288.5
I laugh at you, as i sit on FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT on an SMP box that will whip your fucking gay shit machine's ass. With a Cherry on top, I get to use win2k for crap-software.
I just installed 6C115 OS 10.2 final on a G4 with 1GB of ram. SNORE. Youd think Apple would pick up on the fact they have a slow implementation of Unix on slow and inferior hardware.
Look to IBM Power4 or Intel for salvation, Motorola sucks. Intel has a larger payroll that Motorola makes on the PPC, and it shows, losers.
You make me sick you MAC zealot maggot. I see through you. Your snarky little "hahahaha," your non chalant elitist proto-communist attitude. You make me sick. You want to legislate mediocrity because you are a communist and don't believe the biggest, fastest or most qualified should win. Feiss isn't about MAC, It is such a stupid fag-ridden ad campaign, I as a Unix and PC user (as well as SPARC and HPPA) have noticed this CRAP. As far as feiss being cute, I would let her suck me off and I would crap on her for a nice Schei*e video. As far as SPEC marks go, truth hurts, doesnt 'it zealot? You like making Jobs richer? Keep at it losers. The day my company fired an x-apple (& x-NEXT) employee was the day things go better around the office - he was a techno nerd jerk, he wanted technology for technology's sake, not because it was useful. He failed to do his job, and we fired him. I hope you contract terminal cancer you snarky little faceless mac zealot fuck!
Project status as of Oct 1994
CMU is no longer doing general system development work on the Mach Operating System Kernel. The reseach goals of Mach were accomplished and faculty interest in OS research has moved in new directions. As a result, suppport for external users of the Mach kernel is mostly just in the form of on-line help files, documents and unlicensed code. The Mach WWW Home Page will direct you to other sources of information.
There is still some work being done at CMU on the Mach multi-server system (Mach_US) and real-time Mach. Information about both of these areas is accessible from the Mach home page. Mark Stevenson may contacted about Mach_US at jms@cs.cmu.edu. The Mach real-time group can be reached at rt-mach-request@cs.cmu.edu.
Development work on Mach is also continuing at the Open Software foundation, University of Utah's Flexmach project, Helsinki University of Technology's LITES system and the Free Software Foundation's HURD system.
Last updated on Oct, 1994 by mrt@cs.cmu.edu
Apple profits halve in Q2
Jobs preducts flatness ahead
By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 16 July 2002, 22:05
APPLE MADE A NET profit of $32 million for its third quarter, almost half the profit it made in the same period last year, and turnover fell three per cent to $1.43 billion compared to the quarter in 2001.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4467
Funny, a BSD platform hanging in the balance because it fails an an MSFT VAR. Its not BSDs fault, trust me, its Apple.
Will Microsoft dump Mac support? http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4485
Two firms slag off each other
By INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 17 July 2002, 12:22
IS MICROSOFT CONTEMPLATING ditching support for Apple Macs? That's the thrust of an article that appeared on Wininfo a day or two back, but if Microsoft is getting out of the Mac market, it's not quite yet.
And all is not well in other respects, reports Mac Rumors, which has posted what it says is an Apple FAQ saying people will have to pay for
Microsoft has already prepared a press release to time with the Macworld Expo saying that it has announced a Microsoft Office V.x "triple header", this being an announcement which offers better mobility with Palm handheld for Entourage X, a way to buy Office v.X cheaper, and some Windows compatibility with the RDC client.
The Wininfo article, however, quotes Kevin Browne, who runs the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft as saying Apple hasn't made much of an effort to promote Mac OSX, even though there are opportunities.
He is quoted as saying that "if things don't dramatically turn round", it might be Goodnight Mr Chips for Steve Jobs firm.
But the same article says that Apple blames Microsoft for sales problems with Office v.X.
Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates have traditionally had a somewhat strained relationship. Is this the beginning of the beginning of the end between the two companies?
Wininfo.
Mac Rumors is providing a blow-by-blow account of what's happening at MacExpo on the site link above - it seems Apple may well announce support for Nforce 2, too.
On the Nvidia site, here, you'll see that Digital Vibrance Control is "currently unavailable on Mac systems", which is more than just a hint, we guess. *
*JOBS KICKS off MacWorld Expo at the Javitz Center at 09:00 Eastern time. There will be a live Webcast using Quicktime, natch, here.
Note: The Dell 1650 and 2650 are both cheaper, the 2650 has SMT, and ECC (and nice linux ecc support as well, it logs ECC errors in syslog). They also include onboard RAID(option via 7899 asic) and a U160 AIC-7899 by default. And you can buy retail CPUs and retail memory for Dells often at half the price without voiding the warranty.
Apple charges $500 per 120GB EIDE drive. HAHAHAHA.
Apple is right about one thing, that Alpha has existed for some time, but have you ever tried actually buying an Alpha? Its hard, I know an engineer who works for
DEC->/Compaq->/HP, and I was dying to buy one, and he couldnt find
anyone to call me
about getting one.
Apple's New 1U servers: Sorry. Doesn't fit well in a market where the Dell 1550/1650 and 2550 and 2650 exist. Sorry. THEY DON'T PUBLISH SPEC numbers. Apple is a dying breed, I just recently tried to revive my interest in them only to be disappointed. The Motorola PPC architecture is embarrassingly slow, and they always are quick to point out the near-useless Altivec and some obscure filter in Photoshop, but its not true. I have a Mac, several PCs and a SPARC at *home*, so trust me people, this box is a bore. And OS X and Open ClosedROM make putting regular memory, disks and CPU upgrades NEAR-IMPOSSIBLE, they try to block it so you have to buy the same part from them 3x the cost. And the Dell 530 Dual P4-Xeon with SMT buries the fastest Mac by almost a factor of two. OS X is no great shakes as of yet because even though most of the porting off of Classic has been done, there are annoying remnants of classic everywhere, including a gamut of Apple utilities. These are notoriously the worst Administrator-unfriendly boxes in the industry, and I have used a few boxen in my time. OS X's Darwin kernel will be sorely eclipsed by Linux 2.6, and 2.4.X is already superior in all the ways I can tell (This isnt to say BSD it bad, but I dont think this OS demands a PREMIUM). I tried YellowDog, Madrake and Debian on PPC as well, and they ran (even with aggressive G3
optimizations) rather
poorly - but interestingly far faster than native OS X.
This is a dying gasp of air from a dead Unix vendor, who has had to turn themselves into a Microsoft VAR (most popular Mac Application: Microsoft Office X). If you have an insatiable fetish for PPC, DON*T. Wait for Hammer. Remind yourself about SMT, and 2.8GHz clock speeds before you go pay for obsolete/deprecated silicon. And the term RISC? Pathetic. I happily resell our product on a 1650 and 2650. We "configured" a Mac box because we were genuinely curious. We laughed at the final price and moved on. This isn*t a troll, or a flame * its reality. What this box does can be done with a 1650, with redundant power supplies, with SCSI and hardware raid build ON BOARD, dual gigabit NICs onboard, dual 1400 MHZ/512cache Tualatin (with SPEC numbers to gauge the performance
by) (2650 gets high clock Xeons), two 64bit/66Mhz slots, onboard video, console redirection, USB, etc. And for half the price. And you can use retail Intel CPUs,(cheap), retail hard drives (if you don*t want to buy the Dell ones at a modest premium), and retail Crucial.com memory (the same memory Dell uses for Half the price). All in all, you get a box, for half the price, with twice the features and performance. And this is coming from a person who doesn*t even LIKE Dell. (I feel I can always build better more reliable systems than most of the PC vendors.) BBBBBBZT. Apple, you lost, you lost, you will always be niche because OS X isn't where it needs to be * on an X86.
TO give a better link for you, since you will have trouble finding this on your own, I'll put you right where you need to be to see Motorola PPC chips are, well, so horrible they wont publish industry standard Specmarks. http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/results/cpu2000.h
Sorry. Apple. Steve Jobs keeps them in business but his ego is trash. I know people who work there, personally . You pay for his ego.
Ok. Publish your findings. No, I didnt think so. So its as conjective as my assertations, which are based on my whim in addition to evideince (or lacktherof), and the reading of the CPU Report, EE Times, etc. I'm into this industry, and unless you are a zealot, you would know PPC is IBM now. Motorola is in the dirt.
Bzzt. I like NeXT. Ahead of its time, over priced. Darwin is useless, I have 1.4.1, its crap. OS X is nice looking, but it is *very* easy to "piss" the system off, its package manager is so bad compared to RPM I wont even start, and it is, as as what I consider a *nix to be, wholly inadequate and incomplete. Next.
About being content free, thats a snarky, trollish accusation. Now why dont you use Purify on yourself and remove all the said cruft and actually say something in Apple's defense besides naming Mach 3.0+ (like if it was 5.0+ would it make a shit bit of difference.) I hate zealotry.
And about computing pleasure. This isnt fafenugen or a driving experience, dude, its about stuff WORKING, well, for the lowest cost with the cheapest parts. There is no sex appeal in server administration.
Funny, everytime I have gone to a Mac shop they have, for as long as I can ever remember, always, ALWAYS had NT based servers. Unilaterally.
And I saw a few Mac shops in my time in New York.
You know what, not that I like NT, but they worked more reliably (generally Compaq
servers) than the Macs did. (Mostly these days non parity memory and no SCSI anymore, its a PC with horrible Mot-PPC).
Funny. When I run a linux or *nix or NT based server I dont have a
For those wondering why
As far as OS X being "young", I think its probably the oldest feeling Unix there is. Old kernel, old Unix specification (I happen to like what I find in a SYS V style
I gave OS X a fair shot on a G3 with 1GB of memory. Its good. I wated to use it instead of Microsoft crap for home use, but I wouldnt switch from Win2k after that. They also block CPU upgrade cards, which are expensive. They try to block 3rd party memory. The included keyboard and mouse always sucks. And they try not to partition non-apple drives with Drive Setup, which is the WORST partitioning utility, and Apple's partition maps are screwed up and stupid, and trying to run OS X without classic is diffcult because so many fools still have ported thier stuff to OS X.
I'll stick to PCs for home computing, and think about other vendors for servers.
I gave OS X a fair shake. I have many machines at home and with Gnucleus I was able to get just about every Mac app compiled native for OS X in existence. (Thank god I wont be keeping any of them or buying any of them - try before you buy, people)
I have to say that the total lack of incumbent middleware is horrible with OS X. Its barely an OS out of the box. I hate having to boot from a CD to manage anything, and its multiboot handling is inferior. The Norton set of tools is pathetically weak for the money. Office X is admittedly excellent. But thats it. IE was mentioned not too long ago as rendering incorrectly and having a huge security flaw that is fixed in 5.2.1, but the response from MSFT took much longer than they do for x86.
If OS X was ported to x86 (looks like it has) I would buy it. Period. Forget buying a PPC ripp off machine though.
I noticed on the OS X cd there is i386 directories littering the place and darwin
(hahahah) works on like one computer with an intel chip deep in the belly of Apple, but they are not trying to make Darwin/X86 more appeling than ANY ANY of the other BSDs, they all destroy Darwin in useablility, even when you get darwin from http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/.
I came, I saw, I mastered it, I left. Its BORING.
And as far as IPFW. IPF for OpenBSD is out. and there are no decent APP-firewalls for OS X (Firewalk sucks), Brickhouse is a joke of a GUI.
I am thinking Kerio Winroute/Personal Firewall as a base comparison. The fact nothing analogous exists in Mac OS X land make this platform more unuseable. Also, if Apple like fit and finish on Unix, why dont they make the more complicated things useable througha GUI (like Brickhouse did for IPF). Noo, the only people Apple caters to is those who die thier hair purple and sucks on pacifier and laugh at baby rattles while they are e-tarded from thier last bout with Xtasy after the cool rave for mac zealots.
1 - Nope, not a troll opinion. People trying to name trolls are often themselves trolling by crying wolf.
2 - Pirate, no. I deleted the software. They are liars because they say on their product literature that the product can do things it simply cannot. Do you buy a car without a test drive. NO. Do lots of states have cool-off periods. Yes. Are you are one of those inferior software developers that cant let people try before they buy because you cant deliver on your promise? Or you just and advocate for that because you benefit somehow?
3 - OS X would be easier to eat (its cheap at $130.) if I could use it on a cheap Intel box. Then I could leave it there, tinker with it, do more to make what I like about other Unices available to OS X. I borrowed a Mac G3 (350/1MB cache, 1GB memory, 15GB HDD/2MB
buffer) and * Linux ran better (Debian, Yellowdog and Mandrake * I did try them all) , * GNU-Darwin was near-useless compared to the Linuxes * let alone that pile of garbage apple calls Darwin 1.4.1, and * Mac OS X was horribly slow and clunky. I also find that Administration in OS X is counterintuitive.
Now to address your pathetic complexes. Your quoting is interesting. You were upset about my thread(s) and were looking to pick apart any of my comments. Grasping at straws. First tactic you used was name calling / labeling. Cheap shot. Then you tried to confuse good consumer strategy (protecting my wallet from thieving/lying software developers who often sell your privacy to marketing companies, and fail to deliver proper support for software and force version upgrades that should be called service packs) with piracy, and thus , you were attempting to assassinate my character. I would never, and have never, created revenue for myself, any of the businesses I have worked for with unlicensed or pirated software. I am an advocate for paying for what you use to generate revenue for yourself. I utterly resent your insinuations. Now you try and hit your own self justified home run by saying "Nah, wah, why would you want OS X if you don*t like it wash." I don*t mind the software, I think it is a meritorious endeavor to have a polished UI on Unix. I don*t see the point in cornering it to a pass* , deprecated, slow SPECmarkless overpriced platform. I would appreciate it far more if it would be ported to x86, but alas, Microsoft would pull the Office X plug because it would compete (rather well I might add) with Windows XP. Therefore, Apple is a Microsoft VAR, their existence is to stay afloat and give their shareholders money, not innovate anything useful in the community.
Sorry I wasn*t fooled by them like you were. I resent you, you are alike Mao, Stalin, Hitler. The experts agree, censorship works. If I am a fool, let me foolishness speak for itself * as writing on this wall* * but you are far more sinister than fool, you want to dictate, excise, remove. You want the world to be as you see it, and cannot accept a subjective opinion because you are probably sexless and very pathetic. I resent you.
I RESENT ALL OF YOU APPLE MAC LUNATIC ZEALOTS!
I'm pretty sure this guy is actually using Apple hardware, he's just not buying it from Apple. The MB he uses if I'm correct is what Apple uses, the CPU is an upgrade which is fine under the EUL I think.
revolution
I have a bondi blue iMac here that I stripped apart, removed the hard drive, replaced it with w 30 gig drive and added memory.
Total time: 25 minutes.
I tried that with an older gateway I had and it took about the same time.
Apple's aren't THAT hard to service folks, time for a new argument.
"Full sources for linux currently runs to about 200kB compressed" --Linus Torvalds 31-Jan-1992
Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need , not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.
Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.
Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.
There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.
Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 10 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)
Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.
I've seen plenty of postings on this topic. No vendor can do well when going head-to-head with Microsoft, especially when it relies on Microsoft products (MS Office, MSIE, etc.). Also, if Apple ever made an intel-powered machine, it would probably still be based on propriety technology.