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Build Your Own Mac With CoreCrib Kit
Mark Dobie writes "I just put up a quick review of the CoreCrib kit I purchased. It is an inexpensive solution to building your own Mac." See our previous Core coverage.
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A Do It Yourself Mac seems tantamount to a Do It Yourself Mercedes..
These will be popular among the geeks, but the Mac masses will stick to boxes from Cupertino.
Trolling is a art,
So, it's a G4/800 tower, for $775 plus extra hardware (hard drive, etc.) plus software (Mac OS X, applications). In contrast, the eMac is a G4/800 for $799 and includes a 17" monitor, 40GB hard drive, CD-ROM, Mac OS X, and a handful of software (AppleWorks, Quicken, World Book Encyclopedia, etc.). Oh, and a full 1-yr warranty from Apple.
Of course, the eMac isn't expandable (you can upgrade the RAM and add an AirPort card; everything else has to be external, and you can't run a split desktop on dual monitors). Still, compare to eBay...
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The reason this kits are gaining in popularity is that you build the system. You don't go out and buy an eMac, or buy a tower, but you put exactly what you want in it. It's something that PC users have been doing for years, and some Mac users as well. It's not about "better bang for the buck," it's just to say that you custom built your Mac.
take off every sig for great justice
I have an aging B&W G3 and a bunch of old PC parts. I don't need a monitor. I already own Jaguar, and I'll still utilize the single user license by not running it on my G3 anymore. This looks like a good solution for me until the second generation Powermacs with the IBM 970's are available. (I doubt I'll be able to afford the first gen ones.)
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
Let's analyze the requirements:
1. Build it myself
2. Stable Unix-based OS
3. Very very few games to play on it
Save yourself some money and build a blazing Linux box!
That's the bottom line here ... hardly anybody I know who owns a Mac is gonna want a case that looks like a PC. A fair amount of the fun of having a Mac is the wow factor when people come over and look at it. Superficial, yeah, but if you're gonna plunk down bucks to get a Mac you want it to LOOK like a Mac. My suggestion to whomever makes these cases: make it look cool and Mac like. Don't make it look like PC. Even them AlienWare designs ... not good enough. Make it a big globe or a cylinder ... anything but a copy of a PC case.
You don't go out and buy an eMac, or buy a tower, but you put exactly what you want in it. It's something that PC users have been doing for years
Yes, but in contrast, the typical custom PC is built to accomplish three goals as opposed to buying a prebuilt desktop:
1. Look better
2. Higher performance
3. Cheaper
These mac clone kits accomplish none of these things.
It's not about "better bang for the buck," it's just to say that you custom built your Mac.
:) )
I agree completely. FWIW, if you're looking for better bang for the buck, would you really be use Macintosh in the first place? (That is NOT troll or flamebait...keep reading
Apple's own Mac systems aren't pitched as 'best bang for the buck' - these are highly integrated, highly specialized computers, designed to 'rise above the masses' of wintel machines. The concept behind the 'build your own' PC follows a different set of rules when its applied to a Mac, because the Mac itself follows a different set of rules. Its great that more companies are offering customizable Mac systems - there is a market for this sort of thing!
How upgradeable is your eMac? How important is that to you?
The CoreCrib will only interest ./ build-your-own-PC types.
First off, anybody who uses a Mac uses it because they don't want the agg of PCs and all of the various config problems with hardware.
Anybody who "switched" sure as heck isn't going to suddenly decide they want to experiment by building a Mac. Heck, the whole reason they switched was to just use their damn computer!
I just don't see this ever going any further than the techno inclined... and only to those who really want to run OS X. And let's face it, a Mac capble of running OS X nicely can be had for 500 bucks now! Anybody who runs *nix is going to build a blow-em-away x86 box for the same price as the Core and not deal with the "finding compatible hardware problem". Besides that, at least for Linux, you basically have a choice between YDL, Mandrake (and Suse?)... you got four times the distros for x86!
I think this is a great idea, but for the price and maybe more importantly the warranty offered, I'd rather buy a used Mac from say Macofalltrades.com. I may not get a brand new machine, but I can get a system that is equal or better than the Core machine with a 30 day warranty (and an option of a one year warranty).
I hope it catches on though and I hope Apple maybe throws these guys a little help!
this is not a flame thing. these are some points about apples that informed my decision to switch.
1. there are people that are still comfortably using older mac hardware.
2. (I can't recall the exact numbers but...) a IBM compat laptop goes for half what an apple laptop goes for after 2 years.
-
a 300mHz 604e PPC chip is a reasonable performer, but you are running OS 9 (possibly lower). If you would like to get into NT is better than OS 9 then I counter that Beta is superior to VHS.
OS 9 had is good points, especially where the deisgner was concerned (back in the day when Win95/98fe were the alternative). And also, back in that day, Macs were sometimes marginally faster than PC's (meaning x86).
Today, macs lag in performance, and are more expensive (initial cost). That looks to change soon with the next round this fall. Besides, when you spend all day working in BBEdit, Vi, Emacs, or Notepad, do you really need the fastest machine you can buy?
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
First of all, Macs tend to be usable for longer than PCs, so a slower upgrade cycle mitigates the higher upfront cost somewhat. Two, resale values of Macs are much better than PCs (check eBay, for example). Now, what you don't get is a new toy as often as you used to, but upgrade cycles can be terribly time consuming and tedious, and occasionally risky. It's also better for the environment to use your computer longer.
Another question to ask yourself is, honestly, what do you use your computer for that you need all the power you can afford? What do you do that "last year's computer" (and Macs are not as far behind as many people think) really really won't do? Is the speed difference so crucial that it overrides all the other benefits you notice with Macs?
Now, I'm not trying to conceal the raw speed problem with Macs. I'm just trying to promote a task-oriented view of computers. To give a fictitious example, if your PC is 10% faster, but crashes often and costs you about 50 minutes of productivity a day, then it's no faster than another computer that is more stable. The numbers are obviously made up, but try to think in that direction rather than just put specs up side by side.
this looks like the scam that was running not that long ago (name rings a bell) and they are using the same tactics. I don't remember if it was on slashdot but it was all over the mac rumors sites -- you sign up you can kiss your $250 good bye
All in one systems are shit. What if the monitor dies in your eMac? What if you want to upgrade the CPU or videocard? After all, not everyone wants to run with a shitty soldered-on radeon 7500 when you can get an 8500 for $20 or $30. The system may very well be fine, but you will have to junk it or perform an expensive repair job.
I know several people with all-in-one iMacs that have a dead monitor. As a result, the systems are worthless -- unless you want to pay somebody to try to fix the monitor piece. Besides, the monitor that's built in is tiny by modern standards. Today, 17 inches is the absolute minimum, and 19 inches is the only truly acceptable configuration. 15 inch monitors are really passé.
But when you already have a Keyboard, mouse, OS, extra RAM/HD/etc lying around the savings become more apparent.
There's two things people always overlook when talking about what Apple should do. The biggest strengths of the Mac Operating system have always been the limited hardware. If you control all of the hardware, and only have to worry about dealing with one or maybe two chipsets, you can make sure everything works pretty damn well. If the mac user base is comprised of people with custom machines (and there may be some now, but nowhere near a substantial amount), then their main advantage will be lost. Secondly, Mac is a hardware company. They also sell software, but that is not their bread and butter. Microsoft is a software company. They make money off of software (and some pieces of hardware, like mice and keyboards). But, and this is the important thing, while it might be better for Mac users if mac hardware were an open market, it would be worse for Apple. And it won't happen anytime soon. The world does need for there to be some actual competition for MS, but Mac is never going to be it. Linux might be, if any distribution could try to compete with Windows and not be labelled a sell out. BeOS would have been nice, but sadly, they are gone. Something needs to fill the niche, but it isn't Apple.
I'm more on the graphics side of things than most posters here, but I did start to play around with Solaris and LinuxPPC before Mac OS X, and I've noticed since the release of OS X that Apple has a growing contingent of people who want to be users but can't deal with their hardware restrictions. My thoughts on how they might feasibly begin to encroach on Windows/Intel/AMD/Linux.
.edu (losing battle) and home users
The need to address a new market. Currently their hardware appeals mainly to:
1. Professional graphics dorks
2.
3. Some small business professionals - music, a few lawyers, etc.
3. Servers meant for Pro use, but too pricey for pro-sumer or consumer use.
But their new OS appeals to computer professionals, higher end educational and scientific professionals, and anybody else who wants to experiment with and learn about an OS from the ground up. The robustness of the OS is going to be fairly transparent to their current hardware purchasers, manifested by the fact that it doesn't crash and is easy to use (two things which should be expected). But the people who are attracted to the OS by its capability and flexibility expect the same from the hardware and Apple doesn't currently offer that.
I say reconfigure the product line and the store. Keep the beautiful professional and entry level laptops. Keep the readymade economic and powerful desktop options. But give us one more category. The Tinker-Mac.
-Appealing yet super-functional case. Easy to open. Designed more to the aesthetic of the Xserve than a desktop. Sleek, basic, tough looking.
-"Apple" processors in several grades.
-The option to add another processor.
-Optional HD's. Space for 2-3.
-Optional optical media.
-Optional video board.
-One Enet card + slot for at least one more.
-As many open PCI slots as possible
-Firewire, USB, etc (optional?) preferably on the front
-Feel free to contribute what I'm forgetting.
~$400-500
Apple needs to capitalize on the fact that many people who like to tinker with the OS and box love their OS, and want a box that's affordable enough to truly personalize. And I think they'd make a ton of dough by offering this option. They give us the option of an empty case with that's capable of running their OS on their processor spec, and accept that the people buying it are capable of researching compatible components on their own will not only sell a boatload of boxes, but persuade more HW developers to write drivers for OS X. Or the open source community will.
Screw all this "port to Intel" crapola. Apple needs to accept that there are people who want to run their OS in a build-your-own manner, and they can build the bare bones machines for that crowd, make it a unique selling point, and still make their margins.
I do magazine design work, which involves mostly working at home but then visiting client's offices. The imac is surprisingly well adapted to this lifestyle. LCD is right out, because the colors are too inaccurate, especially when you have 2-4 people looking at the screen at once from different angles.. Anything bigger than 15" would be tough to carry in one hand while you carry everything else in the other one. Anyway, don't be so snooty. Plenty of people who use their computers all the time are perfectly satisfied with 15".. or even 13" *gasp* monitors!