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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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the popularity of these systems. I can get a emac 800Mgz/256MB/40GB for $849, and it comes with a monitor and better graphics, and the operating system. If I was going to build a linux system, you get better bang for the buck from x86 hardware. I don't understand. FP?
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;
isn't endorsing this one. I don't think it'll do that well.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
And we just put it down.
For a good time call www.sawkie.com
Before it went KABAM, I made a quicky mirror
here
--sig fault--
Personally I'm waiting to switch for the release of the PPC 970 to switch from my Windows box to a OSX box.
Can't wait to get away from x86 micro-ops translation to RISC and into the world of straight RISC.
Where the Music Matters
You can build your own Ford by ordering all the parts from Ford and assembling them yourself.
Hey.. maybe you could convince the people out of the earlier story to build you a cardboard case for your mac? =)
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
Here is a mirror: Click here I couldnt get all of the images though.
There is no god
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.
But I'm very impressed by the website designer(desginer?) getting the spelling to 'Designed' wrong.
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.
http://www.sadistech.com/newbox/
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
as for: Pass that pipe my way dude!
As for me, I own four Macs and one PC. My newest mac is 3 years old, and the oldest is 5. All the macs just keep chugging away, and while more speed would be swell, Its nice to not have to replace 30% of the machine every 6-8 months, as has been my experience with all PC's.
Unlike Dell or HP??? Them are some rock solid components you find inside those branded PC's huh?
and you're saying that the backwards-compatible-with-DOS operating system is a better option?
Well, yes, that's worth a few extra bucks
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
I mean, really, look at some of these responses.
/. of all places we see people crying "Why would you want to do this?". Or, "What's wrong with the eMac?"
On
This is only the first (or one of the first) homebuilt Macs. If enough people jump on the bandwagon prices will eventually drop. As it is now, the price is competitive with a brand new eMac, the comparable version of which was only introduced days ago.
I want to see PowerPC chips on PriceWatch. I want to see different people competing to do motherboards that will run these chips. I want to see more and different case designs. Competition is good. Choice is good. Apple doesn't want us to have either of these things.
And then, there's the thrill of building your own PC. I'm a former Mac person who is now running on my first homebuilt -- which dual-boots XP and Linux -- and the level of satisfaction I have with this machine surpasses anything I've ever owned from Apple (save, perhaps my Pismo PowerBook.)
This can only be a good thing. And if Apple were smart, they'd put the resources in place up front to help them deal with the complexity of supporting what is sure to be the thousand different configurations or more of Macs that are yet to come. Turn your back on these people and you risk making the same mistake that Microsoft made and that is driving so many people to Linux.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
But then i found out about this site: www.purchaseprogram.com. I haven't bought a system from there yet, but even after you pay the $250 fee, and tax, and shipping, you can still get a kick ass dual 1.25ghz powermac for less than the spare parts that corecrib offers.
- tristan
from the /. page:
My first Mac was a Beige G3 junked from work. I upgraded it to the max, but found it lacking the speed needed to run OS X. I started looking into buying a Power Mac but I was turned off by the inflated prices. $1500 for a box w/ no monitor? Insane. I like Apple's constant innovation but their prices are way too high. I finally came across this story about John Fraser, and his idea to sell a Mac kit aimed at do-it-yourselfers. I've built quite a few PC's but never a Mac. I decided this was the route for me.
My core crib arrived on Sat. May 3, 2003.
As you can see, it arrives in a non-descript brown box from USPS.
The packaging was done well. The CoreCrib was secure in the box and was not damaged. Contents include, power cable, tower case, Apple Gigabit Ethernet motherboard, Apple Power Supply and blue/pink LED case fan. This is a very barebones kit. Provide your own IDE cables, drives, processesor, memory, video card etc....
I had an old Beige G3 I decided I'd rob parts out of. Most of what was in that box was old PC hardware I had laying around. At first, I could not get the Crib to boot, I checked the support forums and noticed that the only other person who had received a CoreCrib kit said you "HAD" to update the firmware on the motherboard. I assumed this was my problem. So I put the Crib aside and tried to track down an older G4 processor.
On Tues. May 6 another post arrived in the forums that the firmware was not needed to run newer CPUs. I then decided to investigate on my own. After an hour of testing, my problem was solved. The PC100 memory I tried to use from the Beige G3 did not like the faster G4 800 Giga Designs processor. I put a stick of PC133 memory in and the Crib instantly booted.
Here are some pictures of the box itself.
Here are some photos after my parts were installed:
Back plane is missing. Personally I don't care, I push it under a desk.
The Crib has changed colors and price. It is now available as Pro model and comes in a nice gmono white case. http://www.2khappyware.com/corecrib.html
My current expense list:
CoreCrib kit: $379, Gigadesigns G4 800 cpu, $275, 256mb pc133 $20, ATI Radeon PCI 7000, $100 The other parts I installed were extras from upgrading PC's. I've spent $775 on this machine and it runs OS X smoothly and without problems. I did purchase OS 10.2. I forgot to include that in the price. 2khappyware also sells complete and custom systems, you can add whatever parts you want if you don't want to buy them on your own. This case is expandable, you can add up to 5 hard-drives and multiple optical drives. Which is much different than the new Mirrored Power Macs. My next stop is to add the Radeon 8500 AGP card, the PCI card doesn't do Quartz Graphics.
Overall I'm extremely happy with the Crib. The noise level is very low. No windtunnel noise going on here. It is upgradable to dual CPU's if you want to spend the cash. A new Support Forum has started flourishing, so help is available. I highly recommend buying this kit.
Parts purchasing:
http://www.macsales.com
Information:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
- Permalink
Posted by Mark Dobie on 5/7/03; 11:36:45 AM
It's silly to compare these kits to a brand new Mac when Apple themselves sell refurbished products.Keep in mind that the refurb'ed PowerMacs already come with ram, an hd, graphics, a superdrive, an os, etc. Oh yeah, they also have a one year warranty from Apple and are still eligible for their AppleCare Protection Plan. Two things that I doubt these kits have.
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!
I'm the admin of the server in question, it's running Manila from Userland as the web server/weblog product. Everything is dynamic on there, even the pictures are served out of the database, and it's basically running out of CPU horsepower in this case, Frontier.exe is using about 90% of my CPU time. :)
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Posted by smudge on Fri 09, 14:17
from the apple-lawyers-strike-again dept
Mark Dobie writes "I just put up a quick protest page against Apple's lawyers who demanded that the CoreCrib kit website be taken down. It's too bad that a company that makes such good products has such a fear of open hardware. [ed: see this story for more information.]
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Step 1: Put the eMac under your desk or wherever.
Step 2: Plug the monitor you have and like into the video out plug (yes, it takes standard VGA connections).
Step 3: There's no step three.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I dont understand, the home page has a cool looking slim machine pictured, but it just says its a "concept drawing".
Then, when you go to click "purchase", it looks like any old clunky PC box.
Whats the deal?
CoreCrib Dual 1200 Computer for $1799.99
.05 ghz of speed (like you'll notice) but gaining ram and hd space for $200 cheaper
CoreCrib Fully Assebled System
G4 Dual 1200Mhz 2MB cache
1024MB Memory
52x CD-RW
120GB Harddrive
Geforce4MX 32MB ADC DVI and DVI-> VGA Adapter
2 Firewire, 2 USB Ports, 10/10/1000 Ethernet, Audio in/out
Front Firewire, 2xUSB and Audio OUT
Just Add keyboard, mouse, and OS
ATA, Power Cable and Fans/Heatsink are included.
Just plug in, add keyboard/mouse, boot from OS Install CD and install your OS. No hardware Installation!
you're losing
Using the prices the author posts in the review, adding in $120 for Mac OS X and $50 for labor the real cost for hardware for this machine comes to $944, and that doesn't include shipping. Let's assume $5 per item and that's another $20 for a total of $964 for this "low cost Mac"
Okay, but Apple sells a spiffy new machine for $1,500. That's a difference of $536. Now the question is this:
Are the "extras" you get with the new Apple Mac worth the extra $536? Lets look at the "extras":
(numbers in parenthesis are estimated upgrade costs)
1. Support and warranty. You have someone to point the finger at with hardware failures (priceless??)
2. 200Mhz faster CPU speed ($225 assumes purchasing 1Ghz instead of 800)
3. 33Mhz?? faster bus speed (can't upgrade)
4. 2x faster memory (can't upgrade)
5. 32MB more Video RAM ( $65 more than the 7000 for the Radeon 8500)
6. GPU is about 2x more powerful
7. FireWire 800 ($100 includes USB2)
8. USB 2.0
9. Built-in AirPort antenna
10. AGP port is 2x faster (can't upgrade)
11. A better looking case
The things that can be upgraded will cost $390 to do so, and a total build-it-yourself cost of $1,356.
And this machine still doesn't perform as well as the new system will, and would cost only $140 less than the new Apple PowerMac.
I'll take the Apple eqipment for the extra $140.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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!