Slashdot Mirror
Mac mini Dissection
xbasque writes "Smash has a video showing the technique for cracking open a Mac mini safely. Upgrade the RAM and hard drive yourself and save a bundle (ain't that the point of the mini?)" And if you don't plan to take one apart yourself,
parvenu74 points out the pictures of exploratory Mac mini surgery on mini-itx.com, writing "From a post: 'The board itself is slightly smaller than Mini-ITX at about 160mm square by our estimations, and includes Ethernet, Modem, DVI/VGA, 2 x USB, Firewire and Audio connectors (sadly not optical).'"
Let's hope it's not hosted on a dissected mac mini. Unless it's overclocked. Then it's OK.
This was not ripped open. This mac mini was just one motherboard provided to the press for the purpose of looking at its motherboard. MacNews.de aren't the only site with images of that particular motherboard.
RST
To put one of these babies in my car.
Then put some wicked cool Red LED Lights in the front of the car, and whenever the car talks to me, the red lights act like a visualizer of sorts. Knight Rider here I come!
It would make a good brain for a robot
I don't understand how the MAC-mini works. If it's so small, how does it keep the rain out?
Is there an actual audio in on the board? Cause there's no socket for it. Apparently this is because there are superior USB devices that work with GarageBand so no-one would use an audio in jack if there was one. What I wanna know is what's the best way to use this as a PVR? Are there USB tv tuners? How about USB high definition receivers?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I've been teeter Tottering about getting a Mac for some time now, a bunch of my close friends have been putting pressure on me to get one (then again they also pressure me to drink)... cuz they all converted years ago. Now it seems like I might actually do it. Like I'm picking out stuff to do with it.
I also thanks to this article am considering doing a crazy Mini-ITX style case mod, and upgrade. as I would something more than a low end starter system.
Yaaay!
--
Ps, First post? maybe, not quite,
So does the Mac Mini use a laptop hard drive or what? It doesn't say anything about the HDD on that page nor the pages that I looked at on the day of the announcement. It would make sense, seeing how the Mac Mini is basically an iBook in a box, but it would kill performance.
Read as MiniMac. Don't blame me! I'm a lighting guy!
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
http://www.mini-itx.com/news/98490587/
On the same site..... WAAAAAAAY cooler, or hotter, depending.
Elgato systems sells a number of models of the EyeTV, they even have an HD model! I think it's the best best for PVR style capture. I believe it also comes with PVR kind of software.
Then you just need to hook it into some kind of IR blaster...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's mentioned in the article, but it probably bears repeating here: "Apple states that as long as you do not BREAK your Mac Mini while working on the inside, it is still covered under warranty."
Left unanswered is the obvious question: well then, if any hardware problems arise, how will Apple know I'm not to blame? Based on my experience getting Macs serviced (4 years in university), I'd say there's really not much to worry about. If you break the RAM slot, then tough luck. But if, say, the CPU dies through no fault of yours, Apple's not the sort of company to refuse to service your Mac on a technicality. There aren't a lot of assholes working for Apple customer service.
Nevertheless, I do wonder if there's some sort of sticker or seal on the inside to let Apple know you've opened the case.
If you're going on about size... why don't you go for PC/104 format? 96x96mm...
http://www.pc104.org/
I'll just spring for the extra 500 bucks and have apple do it for me.....or just buy two whole stinkin' computers for the same price. Hmm....
You can build two stinking x86 computers - or one very decent x86 computer, which would be my choice - for $500. If you know how to put parts together, you can easily make something that outperforms the mini. The problem is that 95% of the people out there don't build, but buy their machines from Dell, HP, etc. and $500 Dells suck badly. They come with Celerons and Intel Integrated graphics, they don't have Firewire or CD burners, and so the Mac mini looks reasonably competitive - especially if you value the aesthetics.
this is awesome! Think of the insane value you could get out of upgrading the ram and hard drive yourself! Cheap/powerful editing station here I come!
i have a mirror at http://www.forgottennewbies.com/~natef/macmini-sma sh.mp4
:)
just in case
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
Yes it does.
Can I guess Smash's method of opening the case or should I RTFA?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Supposedly the Elgato software has no kind of hardware acceleration at all, which really reduces the ability to playback stuff on low-end computers.
But it does output standard quicktime files that you can play back with Apple's player.
I read a report from someone with similar thoughts, he recorded an SDTV stream (I think it was SDTV, may have been HDTV) and tried playing it back on a 1.25GHz powermac. He first tried streaming from a mounted server (which was choppy) and then from the local HD - in the last case it was still somewhat choppy.
Unfortunatley I do not know how much RAM he had. It says to me though that if you want any chance of playing back HDTV video on one of these things the faster model (1.42GHz) would be the one to get... but that you might want to wait until reports are is as to performance. Of course if you do not already have one on order you are going to be waiting anyway at this point!
It would probably be fine for standard TV.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
or if you like OS X.
or if you want a silent computer that doesnt overheat.
for a good cheap comp though, nforce3 + athlon + ram + HD + cd/dvd + case probablly might end up coming out to around $500. But the computer definetly wont be the size of the mac mini, or as quiet.
I didn't think it would take long for someone to get instructions etc up, however I didn't think it would be this quick. The more these things get mentioned, the more I want one.
Is the slot for the WiFi\Bluetooth card any sort of standard connector? Apple carges $75 for 802.11* ($125 for 802 and Bluetooth), which seems sorta pricy, unless, of course, you need to get an Apple specifc part, at which point it is just a ripoff.
Yeah, you probably could just hook up a USB 802 adapter, but then you loose some "look how small it is" points.
#include <signature.h>
Nevertheless, I do wonder if theres some sort of sticker or seal on the inside to let Apple know youve opened the case.The stickers must be vapourware just like the Phantom because I've never seen one.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Images, audio, and video are generally static files. Modern web servers and networking stacks are more than capable of handling lots of simultaneous static file transfers, even on a low-end CPU. A server hosting lots of static files would run into either of the following bottlenecks long before the CPU gets taxed:
Just in case you're not: the slot at the top isn't a PCI slot, it's the DIMM slot...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
That's assuming that the size is an advantage for this crowd, when most users would rather have the slots and an accessible case.
Don't kid yourself, the size is more of a justifcation for a crippled low-end Mac than a feature.
here, in europe, in finland, for 70 euros less than the mac mini entry.. you would get amd sempron 2800+, 256mb, floppy drive, dvd drive, 40gb hd, gf4mx, nic, kb, mouse, 6 usb slots, on board sound....
but when you consider non-expandibility a plus then of course mac mini wins because it has no free agp slot, no free pci slots, no free hd slots, no free ddr slots.. the extra memory for the hp would be a lot cheaper.. and you could actually turn it into a gaming rig by buying a proper gfx card.
but the whole argument is moot.. BECAUSE the consumer that goes out into the local best buy equivalent won't ever even SEE a mac mini, won't ever see one advert for it and so for him it does not exist - and if he would know it to exist and would compare them side to side and wasn't looking for something that you can fit in a cars cd player slot... and for someone looking deliberetaly for a mac the pc isn't a real option anyways.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
But to a geek, small and quiet are generally "luxury" options. Given the extra $500, the geek isn't going to buy the computer equivalent of leather seats, he's going to get the turbos.
[evil]
... I can imagine the expressions on their face when they see the all the pieces laying there on the table ...
Dissecting a MiniMac is sort of like ripping the limbs off of your kid sister's Barbie dolls and glueing them back onto your GI Joe action figures
[/evil]
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
From the FA:
the rounded corners should help cramming it into unusual places
I know I'm going to regret asking, but just what are the usual "unusual places"?
yeah speed if your encoding video or playing games. For day to day computer use, the mac mini is beyond perfect.
Plus the noise of pcs is horrid, my friend just recently built an athlon 64 rig with a nforce 3, and it is loud... so loud he had to get an even louder fan because it was running too hot. My PC is also very very loud, a P4 2.53ghz. My ibook on the otherhand, is dead silent which I love.
Has anyone tried this combination as a small footprint HD video jukebox?
sulli
RTFJ.
I help design and develop digital set top boxes for a living and EyeTV's products are far too expensive. I've been considering a Mac Mini as a front room media centre but the sad fact is that I can actually get hold of a DVR for my digital satelite service cheaper than an EyeTV box. What I want is a USB2 or preferably Firewire full screen capture device and haven't been able to find one.
$399 Dell PC: "No Wireless"
$499 Minimac: "AirPort Extreme- and Bluetooth-ready"
So.... that'd be the "no wireless" option for the minimac too?
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
That is called "picking loud parts" and "not reading up on things before hand" and "bad design". Go find a Dell and listen to it, nothing is keeping you from having a computer which is just as quite or quieter. Granted you can't sue the .50c "extra powerful" fans you find on sale or any random power supply. Instead you need to use big and slow fans and a large heatsink designed for such fans (which do add a bit of cost). You also have to use quite hard drives and a power supply with a similar large and slow fan.
Don't blame the components for your own bad decisions.
Does anyone know if Apple's collection of case designs can be seen somewhere?
They have made quite a few cool ones, so I can hardly remember them all.
I understand your arguement. But isn't it funny that you never hear anyone say "Why $30K for a car. I can build 10 cheap ones for that price. Or I can build 2 great ones for that price."
That was soooo fun to do back then :)
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
Untill you get to thinking about the slots and what you need them for. Example, my PC sitting here has 5 PCI slots and 1 AGP slot.
The AGP slot is occupied by a video card, which I just recently replaced for the first time in 5 years. On the mac mini, that's already built onto the board with an ATI chipset.
1 PCI slot is used by my Soudblaster card, which I just recently upgraded, again for the first time in 5 years, and that was because the card never worked right in the first place and this happened to be the time I was upgrading things. On the mac mini, this is built into the system
1 PCI slot is occupied by an ethernet card, un upgraded in 5 years. Gigabit is built into the mac mini
1 slot contains a USB/Firewire card, again, un upgraded, and built into the mac mini.
The other two slots remain unused, and for the forseeable future, I have no use for them. In the end, they're actualy a waste.
So when I look at the mac mini, it has everything I would use PCI/AGP slots for built in.
So then the question becomes well what if you want to upgrade?
Well, when I did my mass upgrade for the first time in 5 years (until now, I had only added RAM), I bought a new motherboard, a new processor, new graphics card, new soundcard and new RAM. My total cost came out to about $600 after rebates.
After reflecting on this, it occurs to me, that if a mac mini suits my needs, by the time I would decide to upgrade it, I might as well just buy a new one for $500.
In fact, for the first time, my computer would actualy be a disposable product. Something that I could (theoreticaly) just discard and buy a new one when it no longer served my needs, and it would be roughly price equivilant to upgrading the system.
So in the end, having PCI slots and an accessable case on the mac mini would seem to be more of a waste than a benefit.
Of course, you can always argue that hard core gamers and power users have other things and upgrade more frequently, but I argue that no hardcore gamer/power user is buying a $500 computer.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
*Yes, it is. Your AMD Sempron system won't run OS X. That is the ultimate and unavoidable point of any argument about the Mac mini versus a cheap PC.
[ Reply to This ]*
no shit? "and for someone looking deliberetaly for a mac the pc isn't a real option anyways."
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I had this video for awhile because I am training to be a Apple Portable / Desktop Tech, If you purchuse the $299 Apple Service Training you get this and any other Take apart video for free. THe person that leaked this could be in some serious trouble..
keanmarine.com
What would you do with the PC Card slot though? While what I quote from another post of mine below applies to PCI slots, it's almost equaly applicable to PC Card slots as well:
Untill you get to thinking about the slots and what you need them for. Example, my PC sitting here has 5 PCI slots and 1 AGP slot.
The AGP slot is occupied by a video card, which I just recently replaced for the first time in 5 years. On the mac mini, that's already built onto the board with an ATI chipset.
1 PCI slot is used by my Soudblaster card, which I just recently upgraded, again for the first time in 5 years, and that was because the card never worked right in the first place and this happened to be the time I was upgrading things. On the mac mini, this is built into the system
1 PCI slot is occupied by an ethernet card, un upgraded in 5 years. Gigabit is built into the mac mini
1 slot contains a USB/Firewire card, again, un upgraded, and built into the mac mini.
The other two slots remain unused, and for the forseeable future, I have no use for them. In the end, they're actualy a waste.
So when I look at the mac mini, it has everything I would use PCI/AGP slots for built in.
So then the question becomes well what if you want to upgrade?
Well, when I did my mass upgrade for the first time in 5 years (until now, I had only added RAM), I bought a new motherboard, a new processor, new graphics card, new soundcard and new RAM. My total cost came out to about $600 after rebates.
After reflecting on this, it occurs to me, that if a mac mini suits my needs, by the time I would decide to upgrade it, I might as well just buy a new one for $500.
In fact, for the first time, my computer would actualy be a disposable product. Something that I could (theoreticaly) just discard and buy a new one when it no longer served my needs, and it would be roughly price equivilant to upgrading the system.
So in the end, having PCI slots and an accessable case on the mac mini would seem to be more of a waste than a benefit.
Of course, you can always argue that hard core gamers and power users have other things and upgrade more frequently, but I argue that no hardcore gamer/power user is buying a $500 computer.
And to end, I should note, I have a PC Card slot on my powerbook. In 5 years of ownership, I have used it ONCE, and that was to see if the new Nextel broadband wireless cards would work with a mac even without special drivers (it didn't BTW).
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Here's a crazy, mixed-up suggestion.
Howzabout you buy a computer instead of hand-carving your own microchips?
People love to talk about how you can build a top-flight desktop computer for $3.25 plus two subway tokens and some kind of weird-ass coin that you dug out of your sofa that's got "Røølï" written on it, but what they curiously omit is the fact that if you took all the time you'd spend gathering parts and assembling them and worked a minimum-wage job at some fast food place instead, you'd earn hundreds of dollars. So the real cost of this "It's Shake-n-Bake, and I helped!" special is, in fact, several times higher than the sum of the price tags on the hundreds of inscrutable parts that went into it.
People who say "I can build that for less" are either not bothering to account for their time or just flat-out lying, because the plain truth of the matter is that if they could, somebody already would have, and you'd be able to just go out to a 7-11 and buy the damn thing for half off with the purchase of a medium or large fountain drink.
Well, the e-PC-3 with similar configuration as the Mac mini (Combodrive and 40GB HD, windows home edition and Microsoft works) is about $1400. Quite pricey for a PC-card... Please compare the specs AND the price for the Apple products. Yes there are smaller, cheaper notebooks or ones with better prestanda. Are there any ones smaller, cheaper and with better prestanda? How well would the iBook sell if it wass $100 more expensive but with a PC-card? How many people percent-vise are using those slots? No, not "I do for my GPS", but percent vise?
People don't always use price as the purchasing argument. If they did no one would ever buy a new (BMW) Mini but would by a cheap Renault say instead.
Yes the Mac Mini isn't expandable. But I built my last PC. I built it to be as expandable as possible. Even so, if I were to upgrade it I would have to atleast buy a whole new motherboard, processor and memory because my current board wont take anything now available. Last time I upgraded I had to replace the power supply because it wasn't powerful enough for the new innards.
If I was buying a cheap pre built machine I would get some crap cheap and nasty monitor and probably keyboard. The build quality of PCs isn't good either, and they are noisy in operation. I would also be paying for Windows which I don't want anyway as I run Linux on PCs. You do get shed loads of software with the Mac.
Our local Apple store is right in the heart of the city by a major thoroughfare. There are always people in there and not just Apple fans. Admittedly many of them are looking at iPods but if the Mac Mini is on show there, I know they will look at it. Also, as far as I am aware, the UK's largest chain of PC wharehouse stores still sells Macs (although I would never buy there).
In the end I could update my PC which needs updating, or buy a Mac Mini to sit on top of my aged blue and white G3 (which I bought second hand just to have an OS-X machine). The latter sounds more appealing to me.
I call BS. You show me a a complete amd64 you can build for $500. I know I spent over 900 building mine last month.
mac mini wins because it has no free agp slot, no free pci slots, no free hd slots, no free ddr slots
The EMS USB2 adapter will add two slots for DDR to any machine with USB ports.
I call bullshit. You price me a top-spec Athlon 64 computer for $500.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Umm...
A composite video/svideo adapter for the mac mini costs $20 from apple.
It has a v.92 56k modem built in
It is Airport Extreme Ready(ie 802.11g capable)
I've seen lots and lots of PowerBooks in my line of work. Practically everybody I encounter, professionally, has one.
Know how many PC cards I've seen? Zero. Nary a one.
Since you're going to put the necessary ports on the machine anyway, and since you're going to build wireless antennas in anyway, what possible use is there for a PC card slot? Leave it out and keep costs down.
Gigabit is built into the mac mini
Oh? That's not what Apple says.
All you fan bois need to get over it. You can easily spend the same amount on a PC and get a far superior computer in terms of expandibility, speed, value, capability. Coming up with lame examples that 'prove' it isn't possible (not what this parent poster did, but many others did) just makes you look like pissy whiners who don't let reality get in your way.
Face it, the Mac mini is nice in a lot of ways, and I plan to get one, but it is nice for reasons other than expandibility, speed, and yes, value as most would see it.
If you want something (hopefully) quiet and small and reasonably capable then this makes lots of sense. Hopefully it doesn't use too much power. I just wish it had gigabit ethernet, I could use it.
"they have the same weight and size as the iMAc mini. Only the videocard is better in the iMac mini, otherwise ePC-2-3 are better, more ports (e-PC3-2 firewire, 4Highspeed USB, serial, parallel,video out AND A PC CARD SLOT. IN ADDITION USERS ARE ALLOWED TO OPEN THE BOX"
Well, that's all well and good if you only want ports, but lets look at the facts.
EZ-GO ePC-2 (Base System)
Processor: 1.1Ghz intel celeron
memory: 128 MB SDRAM
video: integrated video (11.8MB max shared)
HD: 40GB
Optical Drive: 24x CD-ROM
Price: $589
mac mini (Base System)
Processor 1.25Ghz Power PC G4
memory: 256 MB
Video: Radeon 9200 w/ 32MB memory
HD: 40GB
Optical Drive: DVD ROM/CD-RW
Price: $499
It looks to me like the mac mini is a superior system in almost every way, and costs $90 less.
I have been thinking of picking up one of these mostly for it's size. And the fact I miss having a mac in my pc room.
Once you start having 4 or 5+ pc's they start to take up a lot of space. And as far as upgrading things goes once your on a giga bit lan and have a TB+ disk storage you tend to slow down how much you open cases on anything other than a gaming rig.
Let's see there is the Gamming rig, 2nd pc (as in your upgrading fast enough that your leftovers tend to make a PC), Server 1 (Mostly web stuff but it can handle games for lan party's now and then.), Sever 2 Disk Space (5x 250gig in rad 5 for storage and a 60 gig drive for the OS), Old SUN box from ebay, iMac for MP3's in the living room, Laptop, and then the old junk that's now powered up but still takes up space...
Starting to wonder if I am ever going to go under 200$ electric bill again... probably not.
There are firewire adapters for composite video in, the mini can take an airport card internaly and the modem is v.92.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I find there is more mac software I would like to run on windows than the other way around but that's just me.
I actually have a ReplayTV, that I've not activated and can't use just as a VCR (which I would be happy with).
I really want a PVR that does not cost extra per month and lets me do what I like with the video, so that's the appeal of a more expensive Mac soltution for me - plus I would really like being able to use it as a hub to act as my primary iTunes store and as a way to display shared iPhoto libraries on the TV more easily.
I agree that a firewire full screen capture device would be nice. The EyeTV 200 does that (has a composite & S-Video input along with stero jacks) , and I think the EyeTV 500 also would have the same inputs in addition to the HD stuff. The wierd thing is that I thought the EyeTV 200 was cheaper, but at the moment it's the same price on the page. Last week it was $50 cheaper as a MacWorld show special.
I haven't really seen any other video->firewire converters that were that much less sadly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A composite video/svideo adapter for the mac mini costs $20 from apple.
Is that in and out or just out?
Please build me an X86 machine with the same general specs as the Mac Mini for US$500 and fit it in a case thats 6" X 6" X 2.5".
OK....?
OK?
Hello?
You still there?
Hello?
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Could it possibly have occurred to you to look at the mac mini's tech specs before you say that? Let's see, in reverse order:
3. v.93 modem: built-in on all models
2. wireless networking: can order with it installed, or buy the card later and either have Apple install it for you, or do it yourself.
1. Firewire is meant for moving video around. Yeah, the adapters to hook analog video up to firewire can be a little expensive. But it's not like it's not an option.
Please actually look at the computer you're panning before you pan it. Thanks.
You can build two stinking x86 computers
You said it yourself. You could build two x86 computers, which will stink compared to the Mac mini.
It had to be said...
'The board itself is slightly smaller than Mini-ITX at about 160mm square by our estimations, and includes Ethernet, Modem, DVI/VGA, 2 x USB, Firewire and Audio connectors (sadly not optical).'
They mean 160 cm^2 = 16,000mm^2. Smaller than a CD case.
160mm^2 is a coin's surface.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Deal with it, while you are running a glorified 386, and a minix v2 kernel, the rest of us are going to get RISC workstations, with the latest & greatest from NeXT.
Hope you enjoy those Apples.
You're right, I forgot apple stopped putting gigabit in all the G4s. That said, the point still stands, for the purpose the mini serves, it's an excelent computer. And I will argue that while you may be able to get a superior computer in some respects for the same price point, you can't get a FAR superior computer in all of those areas for the same price point.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The Mac mini HAS a traditional v.92 modem. Go here, and look right next to the ethernet port.
I'm actually considering getting one of these (If enough suckers^W^W^W^W^W^W^Wpeople sign up with my sig!). I normally hate Macs, but since I've wanted just an extra machine to store stuff and occasionally mess around with, this suits my needs perfectly, plus it hides well, and It's cheap!
Ah crap, I said I hate Macs... there goes my karma!
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
This little guy is going to sneak in all over.... But it's still early.
In what way? Sure there aren't tons of free half done MMORPGS for it, but I can't think of anything (practical) that a PC has that a mac doesn't have. They have games, office tools, graphics progs, audio editing, video editing, p2p, chat. What do you want? Since mac is BSD there is tons of OS stuff that has become available to them as well: Openoffice, Blender, Gimp, etc. I think someones just jealous.
Get me a meat pie floater!
You can get composite video in via external USB/Firewire converters, of course most people getting video in would be loading it via Firewire from the camcorder.
But then not many PC's I know of come with composite video in either.
Other people covered the rest of the things you got wrong. Basically, instead of slots you can expand this via firewire/USB. To me it's worth it for the small form factor that results.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
its out only.
In would require a $130 USB2.0 TV tuner
The DDR part is the best ;)
The SCSI adapter you would have me on, but G wireless is already supported by the mac mini, just drop in an airport card.
Really it's a matter of whether your application can be handled another way. For example, I'm almost positive you can get a SCSI to firewire adapter for roughly the same price as a PC card.
There are other ways to add technologies that don't involve PC card slots, and though I can't say for certain I would imagine for the average consumer, the throughput of firewire is more than sufficient.
That isn't to say that some people couldn't benefit from the PC card slot, but I wonder whether that number of people is greater than those who would benefit from not having it.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The Apple page does not indicate the size of the drive or RPM, just that it's an Ultra-ATA.
Probably a 4200 laptop drive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Mac Mini already has a built-in V92 modem, built-in video out (VGA, DVI, composite, and S-Video), built-in wireless, and built-in bluetooth (the latter two are options, but I'd certainly recommend them). As for video-in, as many others have pointed out El Gato systems makes a whole series of USB 2.0-based video-in solutions for not much money.
So, you can have everything you just mentioned, and be using just one of your USB ports.
Check the specs - Macs have traditionally put a LOT of functionality on the motherboard. Sometimes for better (ethernet for the last 15 years, recently firewire, USB2, DVI), sometimes for the worse (ADC, subpar sound output until quite recently).
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
This may be just the thing to get me to buy a new mac for the first time in 8 years.
I'm thinking about Mandrake 10.1 PPC, a power inverter and a kick ass car computer.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
You are stuck for a while with the proprietary OS from Apple.
Which happens to come with a full set of GNU tools and an X11 server.
There are far worse things on this earth to be "stuck" with, given that a lot of Linux programs have Mac ports now to at least run in X11.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The mac mini is a "decent" game system. Maybe a bit underpowered for what you could get from the PC side of things, but if my experience in upgrading this PC is any indication, you're not getting any powerhouses for $600
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Not to Mention Im sure your 'top of the line' AMD fits in a 6" x 6" x 2.5" case right?
I call BS on this one.
I dont think the mac mini is targeted at those wanting the cheapest, most expandable pc they can get, and don't care what OS it runs.
I think it's geared towards a couple niche markets: someone who's pissed off with windows to the point of junking their PC and replacing it with a mac (perhaps by the advice of a relative/friend who's sick of dealing with their windows problems for them). Also, for those wanting a net appliance (think cobalt qube). Lastly, for those curious about OS X and/or macs in general, but not ready to make the full switch to the platform. Training wheels for a real mac, could run side by side with their existing PC (KVM switch or control it over network).
Apple's a premium brand and will be for the forseeable future. I can get just as drunk on miller high life as I can on newcastle, but I still prefer the newcastle and will pay the extra money for it. Can you dig it?
120GB harddisk
case and power supply
512 MB RAM
video card
The satisfaction of having built your own computer ... priceless
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
Does it have a cooling fan?
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Check the barebones systems at MWAVE.COM, you can configure a barebones with an Athlon 64 2800+ on a KM800 motherboard with 256 MB RAM in a cheap case with enough $ left for a cheap hard drive and maybe even a copy of Windows XP Home. (OEM, but you ARE building the machine.) Granted, you are taking the minimums on everything, but it can make it under $500. Use a downloaded Linux distro instead of XP and it's under $400.
But what if you want to get composite video in and out of the machine? Or what if you have a wireless home network? Or what if you live in a geographic area where anything faster than 33.6K dial-up is not affordable, and you need a traditional v.92 modem? Would it be wise to depend on USB 2 based adapters for those?
Composite video in: You just need a Firewire device like EyeTV.
Composite video out: get one of the cheap DVI->Composite adaptors.
Wireless home network: Get an Airport card installed. They are available as build to order.
V92 modem: Built in. And all modems will negotiate with the ISP modems on a speed. So the 56K modems in the miniMac will automatically drop down to 33.6K as appropriate.
So again what do u really need PCI for ? Between USB2 and Firewire and BTO options they seem to cover most things.
Funtage Factor: Purple
There is a builtin modem and internal apple-made adapters for 802.11X and bluetooth.
The modem is in the base system, the wireless options are seperate (802.11x and bluetooth adapters are $125 total).
Unless, like me, he's already got the turbos in another car.
Oh, wait, I guess if I don't conform to your stereotype, I must not be a geek.
My bad.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Sorry, missed the grandparent -- this system is NOT top spec.
From Newegg:
Case- $ 52 (Antec SLK2600AMB)
MB $ 99 (EPoX EP-9NDA3J nf3 ultra)
AMD 2800 $128 (retail)
512 mb $ 59 (wintec pc2700)
40gb HD $ 46
Optical $ 31 (DVD-Rom with CDRW)
Video $ 32 (MX4000 64 MB)
---
$418. Plus shipping and assembly (and windows) not included. (Apple is offering free shipping).
But I wouldn't call this "top spec".
Right, because most people are really interested in perusing AnandTech to find quiet parts that won't melt your processor.
Don't blame the people who buy Mac minis for having a different set of criteria for what makes a good computer than you do.
Apple has designed a small, quiet, CHEAP computer, and you're whining that it's not small quiet and cheap enough. I really would like to see you do better.
Oh yeah, and don't forget to include a decent consumer-level video editing app in the price. (oooh, that means no Linux. Damn. There goes your budget.)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Enjoy your 386, caveman.
Yeah right, maybe if you're sitting around and counting the time it takes to ship it...
I can order all the necessary parts for a computer in about 15 minutes, and build the entire thing in well under an hour. That includes everything, from opening the packaging, to spreading the heatsink grease, to tightening the last screw. I know this, because I personally built hundreds of computers at a former job.
Unless they are seriously crippled, anyone can put together a computer in very little time. You'd have to work at a fast food place for about 40 hours (a full week) to make $200.
First of all, since putting a computer together is likely to save you more than $200, it's a good deal even if it takes you that long to put it together.
Second, who in the hell takes 40 hours to put a computer together? You're likely going to spend 2 hours (at max) to put it together, or about $10.
The time it take to comparison shop for the individual parts should not be included, for the very simple reason that you'd be using at least as much time to compare between different models of PCs anyhow. Besides, pricewatch is a nice site, which allows you to do all the necessary comparisons in just a few minutes.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
At http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/mi niapplesandoranges/index.php I read this:
"""
But it was only a matter of time before someone would argue, "It's still not price-competitive with the cheapest Dell." And within days we've got our first such columns and articles, all of which leave me scratching my head, wondering if these guys are as bad at comparing products when they shop for themselves as they apparently are when comparing products for their columns.
"""
I agree. I'm a really recent switcher. I had a second hand mac kicking around years ago (and despised the OS - I ran Be on it), but bought an iBook laptop last Friday. It's my first mac and my first laptop. My justification was that it was cheap, runs unix, has full driver support, especially for wireless networking. I've held off for about two years waiting for a laptop that can deliver that for less than two grand Australian. That's a really compelling formula, and a far better geek computer than a PC.
To get a happy unix experience on a PC laptop you either pay a lot more money or roll the dice on linux drivers and winmodems. Or you can try and run Windows and put up with the limitations of cygwin or the speed hit of vmware. Yuck.
Not that it's always been this way. Until recently, Apples sucked. But OS X has become usable and the hardware has a better reputation than it used to - laptops in particular.
If I were Apple I'd be a bit concerned at the powerbook line - the iBooks deliver so much for so little now the powerbooks don't look very attractive.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Er, well, yeah, because I can walk to any number of local commodity shops and buy 100% of what I need to put a PC together in a couple of hours. I can do the actual work with nothing more than the parts, a screwdriver, and a couple power outlets.
Should I decide "I'm going to build myself a car today!" I've got decidedly more work laid out ahead of me. And I'd better be damned good with that screwdriver...
Read my stuff.
The goal in designing the Mini was never to make the cheapest possible machine, it was to make a low-cost Macintosh that Apple wouldn't have to be ashamed of.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"sempron 2800+, 256mb, floppy drive, dvd drive, 40gb hd, gf4mx, nic, kb, mouse, 6 usb slots, on board sound...."
So you get a slightly faster processor, that also works as a space heater. Woo. My trousers are totally moist. Not.
"the extra memory for the hp would be a lot cheaper"
WTF? DDR 2700. It comes free in boxes of Cheerios. What are you talking about?
Wait a tick. Are you seriously wanting people to buy an Hewlett Packard PC? Now I KNOW you're high.
Repeat after me. Most users never upgrade their computers. They want to take it out of the box and have it work. If you have a different agenda, buy a different computer.
But you won't get iMovie, which kicks ass. My dad asked me about how to upgrade his PC to do video editing. I told him to go to the Apple store and give them $500. Upgrade complete.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The little s-video/composite output dongle is $20 from apple's store.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It would have been a good idea to try to boot a recent linux on this thing. So we'd have known if it'll require some kernel work to make it run, or not.
blah
Then again, neither is the baby Mac being discussed here :)
Read my stuff.
Maybe you could build a PC for that kind of money, but not at the size of the mini. Build a shuttle for $500? I think not. Also, when your PC manages to die, will it have one-stop shopping for a warranty? Apple may not be the greatest thing in the world for qc *coughibookcough* but you're not going to be building a comperable machine that will have tech support of any kind.
it's 6.5" x 6.5" x 2"
Anyways if you let me go 7" x 7" x 2.5" then you can build a mini-itx system for about $50 cheaper. (the really small cases are quite expensive, the rest of the parts are really cheap).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Why not compare Mac Mini to PowerMac G5 instead? Maybe one cluster of two or three cheap Mac Mini can outperform one PowerMac G5? If so, it would be a cheap solution for computing intensive tasks. Anybody wants to try it? Run Maya's distributed renderer on it?
What's the price difference between buying it with the smallest hard-drive and buying another one later. It seemed to only be $99 to buy it with the bigger drive originally. 1.) Did anyone have luck with a bigger hard drive? 120gb or something 7200 rpm? Do you need cooling? 2.) Shame about no dolby digital output. It would have made a nice dvd player in the media center.
Just had to point out its nearly impossible to accidentally kill a mac. Tried firing one up with a paperclip in the memory slot and it still worked. Had to run a USB death cable (USB cable spliced into a 19.5V 6A sony notebook adapter) to it before it would die... apple fixed it under warranty. As long as you don't snap anything off or leave non-apple stuff (RAM, hard drives) inside when shipping it they're pretty good about repairs.
Do not EVER put a Fram oil filter into any car. They are the worst of the worst:
t ml
http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.h
Read the above break down. I have also personally had a Fram ruin one of my turbo chargers, and have a friend who actually got Fram to replace a motor because the check valve in one of their filters backed out and lodged itself in the oil galley.
ft
Not if you want processing power without noise in a small formfactor... then you have to go the Pentium-M route and aPentium-M combined with a fitting motherboard is more expensive than the whole Apple... The only way you can be cheaper than the apple is if you go the C3 self building route, but the C3 is slow. If you go for an Effizeon with a decent mobo you are still slower than Apple but you reach the same pricerange (I am not counting the soft in, because you can use Linux)
Oh snap! That took me five minutes dude, you've got to come up with a better argument.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I disagree. My brother in law bought a Dell just before Christmas on special and for around 500$ it came with a cheap monitor, a dvd+r recorder (probably getting rid of these), an AIO printer and the computer came with a 2.4 GHz proc with 256 megs of ram.
It didn't have firewire, but we found a via based one down at a computer shop for 20$ and it works just fine.
Ok, you have OS X which is a serious Unix flavour, well supported, best GUI on any Unix(Linux included) - and you want to install Linux.
Aside from the fact most stuff has an OS X port, why would you run Linux ?
Everybody making comparisons seems to forget the fact that you get loads of *useful* software out of the box with *all* Macs.
OS X Panther and iLife '05 allows you to do useful things with your machine out of the box. Not only that, but the software is *good* and it all works together.
There is nothing comparable to a Mac in the PC world. Apple build the machine from the ground up, including the operating system and utilities. It all works nicely.
I only realised that when I bought my iBook, so I don't expect people who haven't owned a Mac to understand.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
blah blah but anyway the performance is impressive
Dude, if it's so great why are you in here arguing the toss about the new Mac?
wow! you can put the mobo in (3 mintues) and the CPU (1 mintue) and the RAM (30 seconds) and expansion cards (2-5 minutes) and HD/Optical Drive (5-7 minutes) *AND INSTALL AN OS AND APPS* (3 hours) in 15 minutes?! please tell me what timewarp you use. i'd love to show my boss.
(don't forget about my mirror of the video that has dropped off to the second page...)
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
You must be kidding. It would come out under $200 to get something comparable to the Mac mini (256MB RAM, 40GB HDD, etc.)
For well-under $500 I certainly could put together a nice fanless mini-ATX PC.
I don't understand why so many people have gotten selective amnesia all of a sudden (and get modded up for it).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
2.5 x 8.5 x 10.25
2 x 6.5 x 6.5
Same size my ass.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
I know it's not so convenient as having digital out built in, but look at this:
e /index.php
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/firewav
I'm happy that Apple have left the choice of whether to spend on digital audio out up to the buyer, rather than ramp the price of the mini.
is can install any linux distros on this sucker....
Anyone and ideas?
Speak for yourself. "Most people" are not Slashdot techies who spend hours faffing around with their machines.
I have a car and I certainly do not spend half of my life messing around with the engine to squeeze 5% out of the thing. I use it to drive around. Same for most people and computers.
Besides, I am by this time sick and tired of having to maintain a lot of half-assed home-built computers. The waste of time is not really worth it.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Or your board is just 5 years old. Most boards these days have:
-Onboard 10/100 Ethernet, sometimes gigabit, sometimes even two ethernet ports
-Onboard sound
-Onboard USB2.0 and Firewire if you want it
-Onboard video if you want.
An example is the low-end Asrock boards. I just picked one up for my daughter's computer upgrade before Christmas for $60 CDN. It has onboard sound, LAN and video. I paired it with a half GB of RAM and an Athlon 2400 CPU, and the total price tag was still under $250 CDN including tax. If I was building a whole system from scratch I could add a an 80 GB drive for under $100 CDN, a DVD burner for $80 CDN and a nice case for $60CDN and still be considerably less than a mini-mac ($625CDN plus taxes). Plus I'd have more memory, a larger hard drive, and a DVD burner. Bottom line: Macs are still more expensive than PCs, and probably always will be.
One thing you cannot buy for the Mac Mini is dual head video. That is sadly a major showstopper for me.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
I would say that depends, firstly I am a geek and yet I value the aesthetics of Apple, plus it helps to 'sell the idea' to the wife (no obv jokes please - I am not self delusional) in this case small and quiet are good points.
If the box is in your bedroom then quiet is certaibnly a good point as no doubt it will be on 24/7 either searching for ET or folding or rendering or whatever. Plus it is the perfect size for a media centre another plus point and if you want to get ubergeeky it is the perfect size to make a damn big cluster without needing an airplane hangar to house all the nodes in. Imagine 16 Dell boxes stacked up on top of each other - urrghh sorry bad mental imagine, my brain now needs a clean.
'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes'
So you get a slightly faster processor, that also works as a space heater. Woo. My trousers are totally moist. Not.
When was the last time you used an ~60W space heater? Oh right, never.
Agreed. What is the point of a PCMCIA slot when you already have 802.11g, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, FireWire 800 (400 on 12" models), gigabit ethernet (10/100 on 12" models), and a dedicated graphics chip with DVI/VGA out and dual-screen support? PCMCIA on a modern Mac laptop is pretty useless for most people.
Rome wasn't built in a day...but I wasn't on that job.
Well, for composite video out, Apple offers a $20 adapter that goes on the DVI port, and provides composite and S-Video outputs.
For composite video *in*, you'll need one of the third-party USB or firewire video digitizers. Most of the cameras worth buying today are firewire anyway, so a special-purpose video-in port on the Mini wouldn't make any sense.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"unlike something like Linux, most people have actually used macs and still choose to use something else" Maybe true in america, but in the UK Macs are like hens teeth, no one uses them, no one wants them, and if you do have one, it's impossible to buy software, as no one sells them here.
Mini-Atx is a lot bigger than a Mini Mac. Try again please.
Yeah Steve tried to limit the Apple II to 3 slots (it had 8 i believe), and he was against expansion ports in the original Mac because it was supposed to be a cuisinart (not anything related to being hacker proof, don't know what ass you pulled that from).
.5% of the market is interested, and they should consider a laptop, iMac or a G5 instead.
But Steve's NeXT had plenty of NuBus + slots in it, as do the plastic G3/G4s and the G5s, all of which were designed under Steve's watch. So its hard to fathom what your point is about Steve, slots and the mini.
Its an appliance, it has USB and Firewire, and RAM/Wireless slots, why does it need a PCI or PC Card slot? What would you put in it, a card reader?
So, you claim that we will basically require Gigabit Ethernet in just few yeas? Funny, this workstation I'm currently on is hooked to a 10MB hub, and I can use it just fine. Yes, that includes accessing files on the server. Are you one of those who think that "Gigabit Ehternet makes my internet faster"?
100BaseT is more than enough for intended uses of the Mini. You can find gigabit in higher-end models and on servers. Mini has no real need for it.
Seriously: have you even looked at the specs of the Mini? it says in plain English: "One FireWire 400 port; two USB 2.0 ports"!. Yes, the Firewire is only 400. But how many PC's have 800? How many low-end PC's have Firewire at all? How many devices/apps require Firewire 800?
If the Mini had those two slots, you would just find some other flaw in it. Seriously, you cannot satisfy everyone.
Instead of upgrading your machine every two years, you can simply buy a new Mini every two years. End-result is more or less the same, as is the expense.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
AMD64 3500+ 2.2 GHz
Abit AV8 mb (Via-based), gigabit, sound, S/PDIF, 1394, USB2, etc.
nVidia 6800GT AGP
512 MB RAM, Fry's house brand
Seagate serial ATA 80 GB HD
Pioneer DVR-107 DVD-R
Aspire X-Dreamer case
Fedora Core 3 and Win98
$950. I think I'll pass on the Mac Mini for now.
People who say "I can build that for less" are either not bothering to account for their time or just flat-out lying
Really? I can build it for less, and I can do it in an hour. Including the time it takes me to go and get the parts from the computer shop 3 miles from my house. Perhaps your construction abilities are taxed to the point of exhaustion over acquiring parts and assembling them, but don't make that generalization for everyone.
Shitty Mobo... shitty HD... really, really shitty case... no firewire... no modem... you need a case fan... and OOPS, no power supply.
Good luck running Windows and/or Linux on that thing. Most PC's need electricity.
That system, with a good $40 power supply and a copy of Windows XP (not the home crapola... actual XP), will cost you well over $600.
Then again, this is Slashdot, so let's pretend it's a Linux-only box (while installing a stolen copy of Windows from the office on the second partition), and say it's a mere $458 plus shipping for that steaming brown clumpy nutty pile of moist crap.
I think I'll stick with the mini, thanks.
I can hear it now..
"Macintalk Pro English, Bruce."
It's not K.I.T.T., but it's close enough.
Sure I would waste 7 hours finding my parts, coming home putting them together etc... but ITS FUN!!! and a learning experience.
If you want to be a dull dumb boy and just BUY everything in this world, do it, become a robot consumer slave where in your view, NO ONE should have any skills apart from the job you do and be 100% a clueless idiot for anything else.
Dude, people love to spend 5 hours preparing a super uber dinner too, sure they could work for 5 hrs, then go to a resteraunt and get the same, but why?? To support your macro economic consumer engine? So more people spend and buy , more money rotates and makes more taxes? Screw the banking money elite system, do it your self, reduce the govts taxes, become a better person for it.
Simply 'outsourcing' everything might create more jobs, but you become a duller useless human being.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
And is loud as hell and sucks energy like a motor
There's nothing really wrong witht he Linux-kernel. OS X might have some uber-leet whiz-bang microkernel, but that alone doesn't make it somehow "better". And come to think of it, Minix has a microkernel, as does OS X. Linux is a monolithic kernel. So it would be more accurate to say that OS X is the one with "Minix v2 kernel", and not Linux
And being RISC doesn't automatically make the system better either. I remember just few years ago Apple was having it's ass handed in a platter by Intel/AMD, even though they were just "glofied 386's", while Apple used RISC. How is that possible? I mean, Apple used RISC, so surely they must be better? Today Apple is competetive again, but they are not mopping the floor with those "glorified 386's". Besides, I can run Linux just fine on that uber-leet RISC-hardware
FWIW: I'm planning to buy the Mini. To give OS X a try. And if it's not for me, I could use another box to play around with.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I kept debating on spending the $75 on the 512MB upgrade. I placed my order on the day of the annoucement (FedEx says it'll be here Friday) and couldn't decide. I spent the $75 because we didn't know how hard the box would be to get into or if it would be sealed. I'm glad I only blew $75 on the RAM but I still feel like a dork. I *knew* this would happen... *sigh*
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
wow! you can put the mobo in (3 mintues) and the CPU (1 mintue) and the RAM (30 seconds) and expansion cards (2-5 minutes) and HD/Optical Drive (5-7 minutes) *AND INSTALL AN OS AND APPS* (3 hours)
Installing the hardware in 15 minutes is a little tight, but doable.
As for the OS, XP practically installs itself, so start the install and walk away. Come back later, answer a half dozen dialogs, and you're done. Apps are apps no matter what computer you buy. Unless of course Apple is bundling Photoshop and Office these days for $499...
But if speedy installs are important to your boss, indicating it may be something you folks need to do on a regular basis, may I suggest you introduce him/her to Ghost? It lets us re-image a workstation in under 20 minutes from a portable hard drive.
Gigabit would have been nice, sure. But consider the target audience. I don't think they're going to be moving huge files around locally often enough that 100baseT is much of an inconvenience. And would someone in the market for a $500 box pay for a connection that would come close to saturating 100bT, even if it were available to them?
As to component failure, you have a valid point. I've personally had luck with the hardware Apple uses... a 13 year old LC-II, a Quadra 650 (maybe 8 years? I bought it used), one of the first dual-500MHz G4's, and a 400MHz G3 Powerbook (4+ years). The first two were simply retired after many years of use without anything failing; The G4 is also fine except that one of 3 SCSI disk drives died after 3 years of 24/7 use, and the PowerBook died through my own fault*. The dual G4 is still my primary machine.
Whether they cut corners on the quality of the components in the Mini to save money is an open question, though.
*After dropping the removable DVD/CD drive, I used it without checking it carefully enough for damage; it shed springs and small screws onto the motherboard which made it very unhappy. That machine had been through airline Hell as well, though.
I believe that the parent was trying to simply state that for the AVERAGE user, a $500 computer replaced every two years is still more convienent than a computer that they have to upgrade. Yes, power users who want to run on Windows will inevitably say that they can upgrade for cheap b/c they can do it themselves, but the target audience isn't those power users, but rather the person who knows little about computers and would thus have to take it in to get upgraded in a computer shop for an extra $100 plus parts, which will be more than they really need, but they will get scammed into getting it. Considering I still don't have an internet connection that I can download from at 10-baseT, I don't see the need for a HOME computer needing anything more than 100 baseT within the estimated product lifetime. True there are some bad points to the mini, but to the target audience, this computer will be ideal! I work phone tech support for Cox communications, and guess what, we almost NEVER get a call about internet not working on a mac. The only mac calls we get are people setting up their accounts for the first time (which has actualluy been increasing). This computer is targeted to those who don't want ot worry about virii, spy ware, etc (I know they exist for the mac, but on a much smaller scale) and don't want to worry abotu driver conflicts b/c they now have an OS that is designed around/with the hardware.
just my two cents.
I came, I saw, She conquered.
I wish they'd release a followup with the same, squarish dimensions as the mini, that'd sit under it.
:/ As the man said.... BULLSHIT!
macs really target a different audience. they cater to sleekness and ease-of-use, while PCs cater to power and control. i wish people would stop comparing them.
Heh. Just because you can plug in a GbE or FW800 into a PC doesn't mean you should. Try doing that on a PC with 32-bit PCI slots and see your bandwidth disappear once you use your GbE, FW, and sound (if you have a card) together. Do it only if you have 66MHz, PCI-X, or PCIe. And if you get a cheap mobo where its GbE is run through the PCI bus, you'd really be crying for more bandwidth. The mini has USB 2.0 high speed (or was that full speed, well, it's the faster speed) ports.
I've been using PC's since the 80286 (my first one actually had a 8088 in it, but it was old by then). I don't even want to start counting how many PC's I've owned since then. Suffice to say that currently I have six Windows machines and a dual G4 Mac.
FWIW, with the exception of hard disks, never ever have I had only one component fail on me. And believe me, after 20 years and god-knows how many systems later I've had my fair share of failures. Last time some broke, I lost a mobo, a processor, two network cards, a hard drive and a video card. I have no idea which one went first, they were all fried.
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
Here's two words for you.
UNATTENDED INSTALL.
Set up, point it at the answer file, and walk away.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If today you can edit on a uber $2000 mac, and its 'professional quality' then if in 18months time, the same spec mac comes out for $500, will you stupidly claim that its "cheap junk, good for web/email only" ????
You want fast DV editing? plug a FIREWIRE 400gig drive into it, then you cannot claim its a hookey pooky cheapass mac.
Todays $300 PC was $1000 in the year 2000, ie with the same specs if it was available. I could edit fine in the year 2000, though not as fast as a $5000 RAID scsi PC of today, its not as bad as a 1995 AVID system.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The mac mini is a "decent" game system.
Sorry, you're wrong here - Macs are just not gaming machines, unfortunately. Many games are never ported to the Mac platform (e.g. Halflife), most are ported months or years after the initial x86 release, new games require faster Macs than what us mortals can afford, and old games aren't Mac OS X native so they run (poorly) under emulation.
And I say this as a long-time Mac lover, typing this on my iBook G4 which I love dearly, but on which Warcraft 3 is slow, UT runs in Classic (which doesn't seem to support multiple mouse buttons), Quake 3 also runs in Classic because the native port is even worse, and the UT2k4 demo doesn't even render the title screen correctly. Granted, this machine is nearly a year old now; perhaps a Mac mini would fare better with newer games (and the Classic issue should now be moot). Even still, Counterstrike isn't going to happen. I've been using Macs seriously since System 6, but I can't recommend them as a gaming platform until more game developers take the platform seriously, doing side-by-side development and releasing dual-platform hybrid CDs (a few do this already, of course).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
i run a cheapo $25 350watt power supply, always on. my hard drive actually makes more noise, and i can barely hear that. and ive had the same "totally unreliable" $15 case for several years, and everything always fits perfectly. and it really doesnt need a case fan at all, but to each their own.
You're overly optimistic. What kind of time have you spent deciding what parts you want? i.e. what kind of DVD burner should I get? Where should I get the RAM? What kind of power supply? Case? Mobo? etc? After you slap together all your parts, what do you do to ensure that all the parts are working? I can guarantee you that it will take you a lot longer than an hour. Don't forget to include the OS installation time. If you like to overclock, you would also need to do many iterations of bumping up the clock speed, reboot, run Prime95, etc.
Using Pricewatch is interesting because you have to go to resellerratings or some other site to make sure the vendor is reputable. You'd also have to factor in many lowball entries' shipping charges so you know the price of the item is worth it. You basically have to do more work. If you like to do that and normally earn less than $10/hour, that's not a problem, but if someone earns $50/hour or more, it's not worth it.
I've built systems before, but when I could buy a Dell 400sc (i875-based P4 2.8GHz) for less than $300, it was time to reconsider building an equivalent.
It's a great deal...
Guess the only thing I could add... is even if you could do something simular.. it would still be 3rd party devices, and with windows not have any idea how solid it would work. With the Mac Mini (even if you consider the upgradability a problem) you have to admit... what comes with it, was designed for it at the OS level, and everything would work rock solid. Can you do that with an equivalent Wintel box? (Even with custom upgrades)
Well, if you always do a "mass upgrade" like that then it may well be easier for you to get the mac mini. But I'd have thought that for most people, spending $100 each year for 5 years is a lot easier than spending $500 once every 5 years. On year 4, the person who did the incremental upgrade will have a much better PC. And what if there's only a few things that need upgrading? My PC was far from top-of-the-range when I got it about 3 years ago. The processor is still enough to play Doom 3. The 8MB 2D-only graphics card certainly isn't. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any stretch, but if I hadn't been able to separately upgrade my graphics card I'd have spent at least 5x as much as I have on my PC. Or, more likely, not have been able to play games I wanted to. Now granted with apple's reputation they're probably going to make the components more balanced, it won't be as top-heavy as what you'd get from Dell (3GHz processor + 64mb RAM anyone?), but still, everyone's needs are different and I would be willing to bet that for what *you* use it for, you will find there is at least one major bottleneck on your mac mini where upgrading that one component will give you a 20%+ performance increase.
I am trolling
No, its a USB2.0 version, the USB2.0 version of the Ati Wonder for PCs cost $99, but it doesnt come with the same quality software as the mac version(the mac one has better software)
I guess 7200rpm drives will produce significantly more heat. This might be a problem.
-silence
Dyslectics of the world, untie!
Just FYI: I hope you do know that there are a bunch of online shops which will let you configure the extra RAM far cheaper than Apple's web site. You know, Apple's own online store isn't the alpha and the omega.
So there you go. 1GB RAM without opening the case yourself, and without paying a ludicrious 500 bucks for it either.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Because Linux is Open Spource, whereas OS X is not? Because with OS X you are stuck with Aqua, whereas on Linux you can choose from several different GUI's (yes, you say that OS X has "the best GUI of any UNIX", but that is really just a matter of taste)? Because OS X always behaves in certain ways (which you may not like), whereas Linux-distros offer more choice? Because Linux runs on several different architecture, whereas OS X does not?
Seriously: I find it rather surprising that some MAc-users think that "Linux-users have ZERO reason to run Linux, they will surely switch to OS X!". In reality it's not as simple as that. While OS X is nice, it's just another proprietary OS like Windows is. It may have more eye-candy that Windows does, but eye-candy is not the reason why people use Linux.
Yes, I'm buying the Mini and I am going to try our OS X.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
The replies there also apply, but what about if you want internet via your mobile phone company? What about if in a couple of years you want to connect with broadband over power lines? What if someone invents something new?
I am trolling
This isn't a machine that's designed for battery power, though it's probably not bad, since it's pretty similar to some of their laptops. It's designed to be inexpensive and small for minimal impact on your desktop, with an AC power supply plugged into the wall. If you don't mind having robots plugged into the wall, you can go for bigger boxes with more CPU if you need them; if you don't need the fast CPU, the embedded systems market offers a lot more choices, many of which don't waste power on things like a high-end DVI video system, and which offer much more flexible choices of data I/O for controlling peripherals.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What concerns me is the MAC Mini Power supply. As a European my wall plugs give me 220V at 50Hz. I have some American contacts who will be travelling here shortly and can bring me a mac mini. Mac mini sells here at about EUR 500, which is about 25-30% more expensive than $500.
7 50 99 doesn't give me any info. (yet?)
Does anyone know whether
- The power supply sold with the Mac Mini's in the US support 220V
- The power cable is easily replacable with one that fits European wall outlets?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=
People who say "I can build that for less" are either not bothering to account for their time or just flat-out lying, because the plain truth of the matter is that if they could, somebody already would have, and you'd be able to just go out to a 7-11 and buy the damn thing for half off with the purchase of a medium or large fountain drink.
Bullshit.
When I say "I can build it for less", I am counting for my time. Building a computer isn't rocket science: the main timesink is researching components, and that's necessary for the prebuilt route as well.
Once that is done, hop over to Newegg and order the parts up. When they arrive, spend an hour assembling them. Find a test suite and let it run overnight. Done.
Advantages:
I'm not sure about you, but I want _quality_ parts. Decent, fast, reliable drives. A modem that isn't a misguided sound card. A network card that doesn't offload its calculations to the main CPU. A motherboard with a decent chipset. A certain revision of processor. A decent sound card (dual DSP, please so I can sacrifice one to the the esound gods!). A case with the cables routed for airflow.
Why are a lot of mass market PCs slower than a homebuild PC with the same processor speed and amount of memory? Because mass market PCs tend to skimp where most customers won't notice.
as posted before
Unless they are seriously crippled, anyone can put together a computer in very little time.
You mean, "anyone with a boatload of knowledge can put..."
Not everyone has "personally built hundreds of computers at a former job".
Putting a computer together, and knowing which components to get in the first place, is a decidedly nontrivial task.
If you put your own systems together, more power to you. But only a tiny minority of computer users do this. The rest spend the extra $ 100 and buy a complete system instead.
I have had very few components fail. Most that have have been within the warrenty period. Others times, I've already upgraded long before the component failed, so it didn't matter anyway.
Basicly, I've never been in the position of being screwed because of a component failure.
I laugh at people who go on about how PCs are so upgradeable. If I wanted to upgrade the CPU on my current PC, I'd have to upgrade my motherboard first, and also my RAM. And my old ISA card will probably no longer be supported by any new motherboard. It would just be easier to buy a whole new system.
Sure, some people make use of the upgradability of PCs, but most don't. So for most people--and more importantly, the target aduience of the Mac mini--The lack of upgradability doesn't matter, as the whole thing is more likely to need replacing when upgrade time comes.
Nope, for $1400 you get a 1.8GHZ P4. The 2.8GHZ would be $170 more.
>That took me five minutes dude, you've got to come up with a better argument.
Really? I though he was talking about TV TURNERS and not just video capture. There're a few more features in the ATi
---- Take the Space Quiz!
1. The only way to get a better computer with than a Dell at the same 500$, is... to pirate Windows. Even an OEM or upgrade version of XP Pro or Windows 2000 Pro will put quite a dent in that 500$ budget.
;)
Build _two_ computers at that price? Well, gee, just two OEM Windows licenses will take up most of that money. So if you're trying to tell me that you can build computers for less than 100$ each, I'm damn interested to see what goes into them. I want one of those too.
So the comparison is... what? "Stealing is cheaper than buying"? Well, gee, ain't that a surprise
And yeah, you could put Linux on them, but other than terminal nerds noone actually wants Linux on their computer. Joe Average will want Windows on their machine, one way or another, and Dell's price already includes that. (And Apple's includes MacOS/X.)
2. Plus, since I _do_ build my own computers, I can tell you that over the years it's been just a pain in the butt. I've had my CPU overheating and crashing due to a bad heatsink. I've had data loss, repeatedly, due to hard drives overheating in a bad case. I've had such duds as buying two different hard drives in a row that were dead on arrival and had to be RMA-ed. Or like a third-party 9800 XT which mysteriously died for no obvious reason after a couple of months. Etc.
Now for some people all this hassle counts as fun. You have to also realize that for most people it _isn't_. Anyone who isn't already into building their computers as a _hobby_, is very much better off paying to have it assembled by Dell.
3. Noise. By and large this is a sub-case of 2: crap components designed by the cheapest unqualified monkeys. Or by the marketting department.
Except in this case it's not a component that dies suddenly, it's one which works badly by design. And badly in an annoying way.
About 99% of the OEM computer cases are designed by clueless idiots, with _zero_ clue of or consideration for airflow or noise. They put a lot of fans, but have them sucking at sheet metal and not achieving anything except to make that metal vibrate. Or in other creative ways not being able to move more than 5-10% of the fan's rated airflow. They're just designed to make a lot of noise and look funky, nothing more.
(And a big "fuck you" goes to ThermalTake, while I'm at it. That's an elite among the elite, as retarded case design goes.)
By comparison, Dell's cases (and IBM's and Apple's too, and a few others) are actually designed by engineers, not by graphics designers. They actually achieve better cooling with _far_ less noise.
Etc.
Just a thought: Maybe that's why people buy from Dell or Apple? 'Cause that price includes a usable OS, and a warranty, and it's all put together and tested by someone else?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Actually OSX is a LOT different from Windows and a lot less proprietary. In fact only the "eye candy" is proprietary. All the stuff we used to call "the operating system" is open source. You can download it right here: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.3. 7/
Err, I _really_ dig the Mac Mini, and I'm _not_ one of the "Oh come on, for that price I can get a bitchin' x86 box!" because it's not about the performance specs, but I should note that my last Dell cost me $299 (after a $100 rebate), and for that price I got a real (lame) graphics card and a 2.8GHz P4-HT. Oh, and *four* DIMM slots :)
Comes with a motherboard (try reading a bit first).
video card ... $120 (I refuse to buy $400 video cards, sorry)
Drop that card to $99 an you have the $20 you need for a cheapo CD-ROM.
Of course this all assumes you have the OS already, but the point is that it is doable using the amounts provided.
But all the really cool stuff is closed (like Quartz and Quartz Extreme). Fact is that while the absolute core of the OS might be open, in reality the OS is closed-source.
Yes, Apple is better than MS on this respect. But no, it's still not open source like Linux is. Linux is open from top to bottom.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Because Linux is open source, whereas Darwin um is open source. Because with OS X you are stuck with Aqua, as long as you aren't prepared to tinker and run rooted or rootless X11 and choose a different window manager other than the one Apple supplies. Because OS X behaves in certain ways which tend to be very consistent but if you don't like them you can certainly start using native X11 apps to get back the inconsistency that you love. Linux distros offer more choice but really they are just a parallel to the many forms of BSD of which Mac OS is one that you can run on a Mac. Because Linux runs on several different architectures and um so does Darwin.
Seriously I get the point you are trying to make, I just disagree with all the examples you give. But I can see 2 reasons for a Mac owner to put Linux on their machine. First if they specifically want to learn how to use Linux, second if you dig the spirit of the GPL and want to involve yourself in it from the system level to user level.
Don't blame me - this
Apparently the modem is a separate board, similar to the PowerMacs and iMacs. I wonder if Griffin will release a new version of the gPort to support Midi on the Mini.
http://griffintechnology.com/products/gport/
"Aside from the fact most stuff has an OS X port, why would you run Linux ?"
I don't want to run Linux, but would like to contest this remark. Most stuff doesn't have an OS X port. Not native anyway, and if it has, more likely than not it's more sort of a Proof of Concept port. The Read Me always reads like this: "Don't compare this to the Windows or Linux port. There are still many problems to solve. But We Did IT!
Which is nice of course, but that's it then. No follow up, no bug fixing.
Not giving critique, but that's pretty much the state of things as far as native OS X FOSS porting goes.
Of course, on Fink/X11 you'll find most anything your heart desires...
I think, therefore I am...I think.
*WTF? DDR 2700. It comes free in boxes of Cheerios. What are you talking about?*
yes. it's practically free in pc world, but not when you tick it when you're ordering an apple mini.
if you're never intending to upgrade the mac mini down the line and don't want to be disappointed with mac osx doing real work you're going to need to pay the for the memory upgrade.
the whole point is that mac mini is NOT 'affordable' if you compare it to other COMPUTERS in general - if you just compare it to other macs, then sure, it's a 'cheap' entry. an entry that was previously catered for by second hand market. it's only cheap if your only alternatives in the world are other macs.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Hokay...
First, let's set the hardware spec target:
Mac Mini:
CPU: 1.25ghz G4 RAM: 256MB of PC2700
Video: ATI Radeon 9200, 32mb DDR, 4x AGP
Drive: 40GB Ultra ATA Drive: DVD/CD-RW
1394: 1 USB2: 2 Ethernet: 10/100
Modem: v.92 Audio: yes
amd64 system:
CPU: 1.8ghz amd64 - $114
Heatsink/Fan: Zalman 7000 - $39.99
RAM: 256MB of PC2700 - $30.75
Video: ATI Radeon 9200, 64mb DDR, 8x AGP - $47.50
Drive: Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM - $45.89
Drive: DVD/CD-RW - $30.50
FOXCONN "755A01-6EKRS" SiS755 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL - $77.00
1394: 2 USB2: 8
Ethernet: 10/100/1000 Audio: yes
Modem: v.92 - $11.49
Case: Antec mid tower, 300w PS - $52.00
Total: 449.12
You have ~$50 to blow on better parts if you like. That $50 can go a long way. Keep in mind most of the hardware spec'd (video, drive, ethernet, audio, etc) is already superior to the mac mini.
Also, the amd64 system is 64 bit. The mac mini isn't.
For over $900 you can build a totally killer amd64 pc.
Perhaps the usage you seek is not that what this machine is intended for, it's a Mac for J.6pack and not for industrial design or that sort of work.
Heck, you don't want to setup a CAD guy/girl with a $500 dell, so why do the same with a mini-mac?
Is it so hard to get used to do things with the product that are designed for that purpose?
Sure searching the limit can be fun but don't complain if it isn't perfect for it.
Compare the Mac Mini with Hoojum products. Coincidence? Engaged made made the same comparison.
Heh - you must be a G5...
...I need sleep, okay?
Does this make my brain look big?
I have a PowerBook with a PC-Card slot. I use it to grab photos from a compact-flash card that I put in an adaptor. This saves me from the crappy download software that came with the camera and it means one less cable to worry about. As a bonus this is way faster that USB 1.1 transfers.
However if I did not have the PC-Card slot, everything would still work... So this is not stricktly required for me.
A friend of mine needed a PC-Card slot for some data over GSM services, but again this is a limited use.
et les Shadoks pompaient...
FWIW, I ripped the 4200 RPM 60 GB HD out
...)
of my 15" PowerBook about 1 year ago, and
replaced it with a 7200 RPM 60 GB Hitachi
(HK7K series). It was pretty expensive
(nearly $200 USD), but the computer has
been quite a bit more responsive. And BTW,
neither the battery power drain nor the
heat have been appreciably affected -- the
same power saving technology works with the
HK7K disk.
From other posts here, there is a large, slow
moving (quiet) fan in the Mini. Use of an
adapter to put a 10K RPM 3.5 inch disk in
should not require a new fan - it may run more
frequently and at a somewhat higher speed (more
noise). I might be somewhat more concerned
about the output of the power brick, as well
as any internal terminal for supplying the
power a 3.5 inch disk would require. Perhaps
just another mod to make, while we're at it?
(Damn, I want one of these Mac Minis
...a higher wattage CPU...
/. here so why do you use wattage? Of course you mean power
consumption. To any half clued techie, Wattage sounds just as silly
as Ampereage, Faradage, Ohmage and Voltage. (current, capacitance,
resistance and potential)
We're om
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
It's not revolutionary, but it IS a big deal. The price for an OS X-capable computer has just been halved. And Mac users no longer stuck with the choice between an all-in-one or a workstation-class machine.
You are wrong. The Morex case doesn't have an internal power supply. It has an internal DC-DC power supply, which means that it has an external wall-wart to convert AC to DC.
This seems like the kind of basic mistake that geeks make. Optical connectors cost more and putting two kinds of connectors which is common when optical are made available costs even more than that and takes up additional space. This unit is not intended to be a machine to please extreme hardware enthusiasts, but a cheap machine that ordinary folks can use. Most people have little if any equipment with optical connectors and would much rather save some money to get a computer that mostly suits their needs. Putting optical connectors on this product would without question be a mistake, raise the cost, and foul the marketing.
For what it's worth - I currently run Warcraft III, Quake III: Arena in native and Unreal Tournament 2004 on an emac 1.25 which is virtually identical to the mac mini. With a gig of RAM loaded up, the emac handles all 3 superbly. I would recommend upgrading your UT2004 demo to the latest (there were several major ATI bugs in the first release which caused those terrible screen renders you are referring to). Also, stuff as much RAM into your ibook as possible. I swear, the jump from 256 to 1 gig is like doing a CPU upgrade in UT2004
The Morex case doesn't have an internal power supply. It has an internal DC-DC power supply, which means that it has an external wall-wart to convert AC to DC.
I stand corrected.
# ssh -l neo the_matrix; killall -9 agent_smith
I can't seem to disassemble the web site to get the video out. I better leave the upgrading to teenagers.
They're not trying to prove that Macs are cheaper than shitty PCs - they simply released a Mac that is cheaper than other Macs.
From the outset it was clear that you could build/buy a PC for less money than a Mac mini, but that's just not the point.
It's a Mac, in a box the size of a few CD cases, with a full OS, CD burning, DVD playing, wireless etc.
Just outta curiousity, was there *any* left over screws?
Dosen't matter how many things I've taken apart, there always seems to be atleast one extra screw!
/. is good for you.
laptops are usualy very quite, no many movieng parts (thou i have hear some really loud ones)
macs always have been quite. But you can alsp get quite PCs.
My computer is nearly dead silent, its a athlon 2500+ with 2 HDs and geforce 4. alls you hear is a faint wind noise.
built a computer for a friend, same thing, really damn quite. If you know what your doing its easy to make a quite PC.
the reason i build my own copmuters is i get to pick each component, Good stuff instead of the crap alot of computers come with nowadays. When i build myself a server (home use) i research each part and then buy and build it. Everyone is amazed when they hear my computers, they are quite, stable, and fast. And i enjoy doing it:) plenty of reasons to roll out your own.
But if i'm building one for a friend as a favor, I get decent parts, no expensive but still good. it takes me about 2 hours, includeing basic OS install. Putting the parts togeather taks less then 30 min. Usualy cheaper then pre built. The hardware lasts. They have no problems.
Also computers i build are pretty dman quite like the macs. Pre built PCs are never quite
Used to be prebuilt computers REALLY sucked. might not be true nowadays thou. times have definity changed in the last 5-10 years.
when I put a 7200rpm 3.5" external hd to my PowerBook it got much faster even on OS 9. 4200rpm 2.5" drives are freakin slow.
My glorified 386 is faster than your RISC "workstation", and way cheaper.
Who told ya that I run a minix kernel? Even Tanenbaum, the Minix creator, acknowledges that Linux IS NOT A MINIX DERIVATIVE (seen at Tanenbaum's home page); even if it was, what is wrong with it? It runs great on many many kinds of hardware (including your beloved RISC "workstations").
Deal with it, while you are running a wanna-be RISC workstation, and a wanna-be UNIX kernel, the rest of us are going to get the fastest CISC workstations, with the latest and greatest from the best developers all around the world.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
No gigabit ethernet, so according to this, the mini won't be able to function as a Logic processing node.
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
you're not getting any powerhouses for $600
How much does a Pentium 4 cost? Ah, yeah, you have to account for industrial-strength cooling for the smallest heater in the world
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
It is a shame that the mac's use is less prevalent in third world countries. For example, in the city I live, there is not even ONE mac reseller that I know of. No ads in newspapers and magazines to be seen at all.
Infact if the mac mini is introduced in third world countries at the price stated (after taxes) , Apple can really make a dent in the market share of Microsoft and break their monopoly.
Ravee
--
http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
Speaking of RAM, does anyone know whether I can upgrade the memory using standar PC DDR memory?
I will second the post claiming major perceivable changes when going from 4200 to 7200rpm. OSX is heavily disk dependent -- for example most menu operation require going to the disk and reading some file or worse like enumerating some files, or even worse like running some code that needs to read in from the disk. Think contextual menus for example. History menu in Safari. Sick of it already?
4200 is barely acceptable.
some considerations when upgrading hard drives.
Power - little change when going from 4200 to 7200, within 10% most. No problem here.
Latency - typically 7ms, 5.5ms amd 4.2 for 4200/5400/7200 rpm respectively. 7200 is almost twice as good as 4200.
Seek time - 12ms for 4200/5400, 10ms for the lone 7200 available. Nice but not earth shattering.
Buffers - 8GB in better drives. Unrelated to rpm.
Noise - slower is better. 7200RPM is roughly 2 time louder.
Reliability - who knows, specs are unhelpful here.
I call BS...
t h/ 29/products_id/114
You can use this link to price out that enclosure, when configured the same with 1.2Ghz proc, winXp home, 40G drive, CD-RW/DVD drive + 35 for assembly. Total cost for comparable PC mini is then over $700 and the mac has much more included SW, better OS, and is still a nicer HW package for $200 less.
http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/cPa
did anyone else read smash's 'Mac Mini vs. Airport Extreme/Express?' article. is it just me or was that article really stupid?
One movies show the use of a putty knife to open the case, then some pics of the naked circuit board. I would like some real dissection pics of how it all fits together. Also I would like to see things like the CPU cooler and fan...
Good point on the hardware, but I'd say leaving out the cost of the OS and the software is a serious omission. That is, unless you are going to claim Linux and Free Software are a match for OS X and iLife?
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
It's a computer the size of a smallish CD case that you can take home, plug in, turn on, and be surfing the web two minutes later, with no fear of viruses or spyware. It's a half-toaster computer that Just Works. That's revolutionary to me.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Well, this is going to be modded as redundant, but, please, remember that you get an amazing operating system (XP and Linux do not come close wrt usability, despite progress) and a lot of software bundled with it. And great software, that really increases your productivity. Coming from Linux, I used Thunderbird and its address book for some time on the mac. But then I saw the sinergy of the OS X Address Book with Mail.app and other apps (like Adium), because friends used those. It was simply astounding. You cannot come close to that on XP unless you do everything INSIDE Office, and still there's a big gap. I miss only NNTP in Mail... Note that Office does not come bundled with the under-$500 cheapo Dells.
Of course the mac mini does not have 5 PCI slots. Of course it does not have an AGP 8x slot. Of course thereì's no room in it for two 10000 rpm 160Gb S-ATA Hard drives. Of course it does not come with 2 2.5Ghz IBM PowerPC 970fx processors. That would be a completely different machine (which in fact, except for the number of PCI slots, Apple also offers).
Wow!
I didn't know Cartman was a Mac-version naming snob!
He even posts on slashdot!
.
"You have liberated me from thought."
I'm no Mac fanboy; I've got plenty of x86 machines running Linux and XP (it does have its uses) all over the place at work and at home. But, the very next machine on my list to buy is the Mac Mini. Seems to me that the whole point of the Mac Mini (and indeed of all Macs in general) is this:
1. You bring it home.
2. You turn it on.
3. It just fucking works.
Constrast with the proceedure for x86 machines:
1. You bring it home.
2. You install all your expansion cards.
3. You install the operating system. We all do that ourselves, right?
4. You configure the operating system for the devices you have installed
5. You shut down and rearrange the expansion devices and pray that it clears up interrupt conflicts.
6. Probably go to step 4. Eventually fall out of this loop.
7. Tweek. Repeat.
8. Futz. Repeat.
I've wasted many, many hours of my precious life installing, configuring, tweeking, twiddling, rearranging, futzing, prodding, farting around with, etc., all these x86 machines. I want at least one computer that I don't have to dick with. Here's my checklist for justifying my buying one:
1. Runs Quicken? Check.
2. Runs TurboTax? Check.
3. Mozilla products? Check.
4. Runs MS Office (sorry, gotta use it)? Check.
5. Runs Photoshop? Check.
6. Runs iTunes? Check.
7. Unix-based? Check. X11? Check. ('tho I'm no big fan of BSD-ish installations, I'll get used to it).
8. Upgradable? Who gives a shit?
What this means for me is that I can dump two machines that I have at home (one Linux, one XP), and replace it with a smaller, no-muss-no-fuss, machine.
Geeze, how can I resist?
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
2. Usually more expensive, and for the new technologies USB is not always fast enough. Did you ever see a Firewire modem?
I am trolling
I dont think 99% of mac mini buyers need dual monitors. That's Power Mac territory.
we all learned back in elementary school that the Romans used letters instead of numbers
And they had no zero. That's why when the Romans wanted to get some math done, they kidnapped an Arab.
Or at least, that's what my high school calc teacher told me.
Plus of course you're also losing sight of the fact that this machine you're building is not going to be tiny, is not going to be neer silent and is not going to consume almost no power.
Um, you appear to have forgotten the motherboard, sound card and operating system. And what advantage do you think having a 64 bit system gives you when you just bought a mere 256MB of RAM?
No, the problem is that 45% (I was going to say 95% just so I could directly contradict your statement, but 45% is more accurate) of the people out there buy cobbled together piece-of-shit computers from ghetto shops that still install win98 on them. Coincidentally, these are the same people are the least likely to understand that it's not a problem with their DSL but rather with their computer, and I take 35-55 phone calls a night from them.
For these people, getting the minimac is ideal. No longer can they claim price is what's keeping them from getting a computer that won't screw up on them.
And no, buying a new Dell with XP isn't the answer either... why?
Because the other 50%, those that do buy new Dells, they have the same troubles, though not nearly to the same degree. If you have to pay $500, do you chuck the old win98 box that craps out twice a day for A) A new XP Dell that craps out twice a month or B) the Mini, that won't ever give you problems until the HD dies?
Of either of these two categories of people, do you believe that the answer is putting together their own graybox machine?
Off-topic: Speaking of firewire, does anyone know if the Toshiba Satellite A75-s209 can be firewire upgraded? I'm not opening it up while under warranty, but it's got a cutout for the stuff, in an area not near the mainlogic board. Was wondering if it was a seperate module..
For what it's worth - I currently run Warcraft III, Quake III: Arena in native and Unreal Tournament 2004 on an emac 1.25 which is virtually identical to the mac mini. With a gig of RAM loaded up, the emac handles all 3 superbly.
I played Warcraft III, Quake III: Arena, Halo, Diablo II, and Civ III with no problems on my 800MHz Flat Panel iMac. I think I had to tone down some of the screen effects in Halo, but otherwise everything worked suprisingly well.
Agreed, 1GB ram is necessary. It shocks me that Apple sells machines with less than 512 preloaded. Fortunately ram is somewhat cheap, just don't buy it from Apple.
Finkployd
You are either grossly overestimating minimum wage or the amount of time it takes to get the parts and build a computer. You'd make about 50 bucks at a minimum wage job in the time it would take to build a system.
Regardless whether it does or does not fit Mac mini's marketing profile, I think it's a shame that there's no digital audio output, because otherwise the Mini would have been an awesome for use as a media player driving a video projector in a home theater. It's got it all; it's small, pretty, quiet, reasonably powerful and it's got a high-quality video output. Imagine it coupled with a projector, cordless desktop and a Linux-based fileserver in another room... (There probably are USB-addon solutions to this problem though, haven't checked yet)
Well, you didn't specify, but at 6.5x6.5 inches, it would be a rather smallish ass you have.
I pity you!
I was pretty disappointed that it didn't come with a 16 port 232 serial card myself. I mean, come on Apple, you didn't even include and 8" floppy - who's gonna buy one of these?
That was classic intercourse!
I'm not sure you're representative of the "budget computer purchaser". Most of them see their machines as disposable. Rather than upgrade the video card, they just buy a brand new system.
If these mini macs just had even just 2 PCI slots, I'd be willing to buy one. Even if I knew I would need to put the system in a larger case to use those slots... The ability to change devices is the difference between a computer anyone can continue using for years, and a computer that becomes useless after 2 years because one minor component fails and there's no way to replace it.
Again, is the typical buyer of a cheap PC constantly upgrading components? If the demographic for this market are people who are looking for a cheap computer because they need something that just works, I don' t think they'll avail themselves of PCI slots or any other form of internal expansion.
coz you know it will be GBP600 when it goes on sale in the UK just like it usually is with electronics :)
I mean, after the 79p itunes (vs 99 euro cent) we know Apple is capable of doing it to you...
Ummm...he did include the motherboard. It also has onboard audio which in most situtations works just fine. You are correct on one point though, he did forget the operating system.
Not only did you forget any software costs, (OK use Linux, whatever), but you figure your time as free. Basically your $50 covers building the system, and installing linux and and anyother software. I think you have just proved our point, not yours.
However, while you speak of working extra time at a menial crap job, I'll speak of the enjoyment and experience one could get out of building a mini-itx machine that is comparable. I know, for me at least, that I enjoy fiddling with hardware, assembling a machine for personal use, and reaping the benefits of that effort. For me, it is at times how I choose to spend my free time. It doesn't matter if I could pay for the machine twice over if I'd get a crappy job instead. I don't enjoy making grease-logged food for others, and I do enjoy assembling the one off computer.
No, people who say they can build it for less are discounting their time to "all the joy I can wring out of it per hour". Nobody's speaking of doing this en masse, just as a one off thing for themselves, parents, maybe a clueless friend.
If not now, when?
On your URL, it states that the size of that thing is "2.5" (H) x 8.25" (W) x 10.25" (D)". That is, the volume is 3464 cm^2.
The Mac Mini, on the other hand, is 5.08cm x 16.51cm x 16.51cm, that is, 1384 cm^2.
Put another way, the Mac Mini is less than half the size (40% in fact) of the case you asked us to check out.
Sorry, but that case is ugly. And the system you can put there (VIA Epia) sucks ass when it comes to performance. And you can't run OS X on it.
Of course Mini is ntohign revolutionary. Small and silent PC's have been around for a while. But it is first small and silent Mac that also happens to be extremely affordable! And it offers better performance than those Epias do. If you want small size with better performance, you have to get some kind of Dothan Mini-ITX-system, but those are hard to find and they cost quite alot.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
OS: Windows XP Pro (No cheaping out on the crappy home version) - $135.99
That alone brings you up to $585.11 and that's without adding in a few cheapo games, some stipped-down office that's equivalent to Appleworks, and a suite of video and audio editing software equivalent to iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand and the rest of the iLife '05 stuff...
If we're going to compare costs here, you can't forget the software, and using your pirated XP cd doesn't count.
- sig? who is this sig of which you speak?
that is why I got a gamecube and playstation. My mac is for my music, and other projects I have. I switched when OS X came out and have never regreted it one bit.
The Mini-Mac is the successor to the Apple Cube, which was about 5 years ahead of the curve.
Steve Jobs is simply refining the old standard- Small is beautiful.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Secondly, the Athlon system has a 300W PSU, while the Mac uses 85W (almost the power consumption of the CPU alone in an Athlon system). This equates to around 0.6/hour more to operate the Athlon than the Mac Mini. Not much, but assuming the system is on for 10 hours a day this is over $20/year. Again, not a huge amount, but worth considering. Not to mention the fact that the Mac Mini will be much quieter as a result.
Thirdly, you didn't include the cost of software. Perhaps you are going to run Linux/BSD/ReactOS on the system. Perhaps you can find some open source equivalents of iMovie, and friends.
Finally, the AMD system is a lot larger in terms of physical space. I have recently got rid of all of the desktop systems I own because their noise and space requirements were too irritating. I may invest in a Mac Mini once Tiger is released, because it has none of these disadvantages.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
linux works for me, it might not for everyone else though. but why dictate what os the end user must use (xp, osx, or linux)?
i don't pirate software. i dont even use 'doze. so that argument is empty and baseless.
i was addressing the parent poster's question ("impossible to build a sub $500 amd64").
There are many dangerous stuff in these computers, no matter it is intel/AMD based or a Mac. So please recycle them. If there is no such a requirement at your place, please have this idea in our mind. Maybe 5 years later, it will become a law.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Why on earth would you need a PC card for this? I can access the Internet over my 'phone using GPRS and bluetooth from my existing PowerBook and telephone without any additional hardware. I have a PC card slot, but I've never found a use for it (the FireWire ports, however, often have things plugged into them).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I won't get mine until Friday, dammit.
Chip H.
i was addressing the parent post, which claimed it was impossible to build a sub $500 amd64 pc. it isn't.
Does anyone know the brand and model HD the Mac mini ships with?
Sam
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I will buy one, or two, ah..., maybe twenty. By the way, I have a Powermac G3 blue and white on my desk, we only upgraded hard drive and RAM. And it works great with Panther. I really don't think you need to upgrade video card and sound card if you are not a gamer.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
"And I say this as a long-time Mac lover, typing this on my iBook G4 which I love dearly, but on which Warcraft 3 is slow, UT runs in Classic (which doesn't seem to support multiple mouse buttons), Quake 3 also runs in Classic because the native port is even worse, and the UT2k4 demo doesn't even render the title screen correctly."
I honestly don't know where you're coming from. I don't have any of these problems on my system. Quake 3 looks the same as the PC version to me. UT2004 is mind-blowing, and even RTCW is still fun. It's true that some games don't get ported.
To me, the Mac is more game system than I need.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
I see it in the store as a custom option when building a mini.
But is the card itself available? IMHO I'd like the option to upgrade to it. Won't need it initially, but I can see neededing it in the near future.
Considering it's both bluetooth and airport... it would be pretty sweet.
I just hope Apple makes it available like the Airport Extreme card.... so we can upgrade ourselves.
Put 1GB RAM in, and a 7200 RPM ATA/100 HD... and that box is kicking ass.
About 12 times more than a Gamecube. Mind you you don't have the fun of spending half an hour of installation and configuring before actually getting it to work. Windows gamers are people who waste a fortune on a computer and then realise that playing sub-standard games is the only thing it will actually do!
Three points of dispute:
And yes, this is the main thing that needs to be upgraded in MiniMac v2 (hopefully by August).
Or just download linux.
Or if you must have MS Windows just download XP x64
They go through windows all the time, and they can NOT believe doors are easier for people to get in and out.
I hate to repeat, but I still have a PowerMac G3 blue and white, 350MHz, feeling groovy.
And I also have a G4 1G, looks even slower than the Mac mini.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
What the fuck is up with (anti)fanboyism anyway? Do you get a check every week based on your amount of brand loyalty? Do you get kickbacks from Dell for infultrating and spreading the name? Discount airfare? A $1 off coupon for your chicken McNuggets? A cheap rate at Chuck-E-Cheese for your upcoming 13th birthday?
Seriously.
Also, never mind any of these details.
(Yes, there're more then two paragraphs in that link, but you can take some asprin later and feel better.)
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
That's assuming that the size is an advantage for this crowd, when most users would rather have the slots and an accessible case.
Don't kid yourself, the size is more of a justifcation for a crippled low-end Mac than a feature.
And indeed, if you merely scan through the other posts, you will find a lot of people who see the small size as an advantage.
IN ADDITION USERS ARE ALLOWED TO OPEN THE BOX
Of course, if you stopped shouting long enough to RTFA, you'd have seen how to pop the box open in 30 seconds with a putty knife.
Would I tolerate a refridgerator that was cold enough to make liquid nitrogen if it also kicked out a 90dB whine? No. Would I ever use a toaster that was 5x larger than it needed to be and so ugly that I had to hide it under a desk? No. Do I want my toilet to blue-screen-of-death on me? Not particularly.
Deliberately fry your Mac and have them repair it under warranty. Seems like pretty obnoxious action on your part.
It's VERY important that those of you who need PCI slots and super fast processors DO NOT BUY a mac mini.
You are ABSOLUTELY right. The DELLs come WITH PCI slots, a SUPER FAST intel processor, and BEST OF ALL.....WINDOWS!!!
If you start MESING WITH WINTEL SUCCESS by thinking of trying a mac now you will only DELAY the arrival of MY mac-mini which I will be ordering soon.
It is OBVIOUS that any computer that doesn't sound like a 707 when you turn it on is NO COMPUTER at all.
There is CLEARLY NO VALUE in reducing the size and audible noise of a PC. In fact, if anything, telling the world you have a little cabinet is BAD BAD BAD!!!
The mac-mini is NOT for you. Please continue to purchase DELLs and whatnot so you have something to show off to your friends while you drone on about expandability, oh, and stop picking your nose.
FireWire media readers are the thing. And I use GPRS (data over GSM) all the time via my mobile phone, to which I connect my Mac with Bluetooth.
This is one of those situations where Apple is parting with custom. Unlike every other Mac model that's been produced Airport or Bluetooth "ready", the antennas are NOT built into the box for the standard price. The wireless upgrade kit, available only to authorized service providers, includes both the actual wireless boards and the antennas to be installed. It's a fairly obvious cost-saving measure.
1. Produce an iPod that runs Keynote and outputs video to a projector.
2. Incorporate an integrated reference/bibliography manager into Pages.
Dell Business has this Dimension 3000 Desktop with 17 in E173FP Flat Panel Display $599 - $100 rebate = $499 with free shipping.
P4 2.80GHz , 256MB DDR, Dell Keyboard/Mouse, 40GB Drive
DVD8x/48x CDRW, Integrated Audio/Video, 10/100 Ethernet, Free ISP, 2-Yr Warranty
2 year warranty, 17 lcd, keyboard mouse. The rebate actually come. Check bens or fatwallet to know that dell is good for it.
It seems to me that the Mac Mini is not a superior system and any way. (well video maybe).
re 1 PCI slot is occupied by an ethernet card, un upgraded in 5 years. Gigabit is built into the mac mini
:
Actually NO.
The Mac mini has 10/100 according to Apple's own web site
Built-in 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet and a 56K v.92 fax modem give
Not to say anything against the mini. I actually want one and will probably get one myself soon. It's kind of like the drugs that first get FDA approval. Let's wait till the masses have these and see what kind of symptoms and side-effects sprout. I've usually gotten Macs as 2nd generation items (nisei?) not as first generation items. Except for that Newton..., couldn't wait on that or on the original 128k and the 512k Palm Pilot when the logo on it was still US Robotics. m....
For well-under $500 I certainly could put together a nice fanless mini-ATX PC.
Care to try? Make sure it is at least comparable to the G4 (i.e. Intel or AMD processor, none of that VIA crap). Also, be sure to include 256 megs of DDR RAM, a hard drive, a DVD/CD-RW drive, and a case that is roughly the same size as the Mini. I am pretty sure you won't even be able to build one for under $500, much less make it fanless or the same size as the Mac.
Macmall is giving you a free keyboard and mouse if you order from them... Free shipping as well. http://www.macmall.com/macmall/families/macmini/ Much Love!
in regards to grandparent's
The ability to change devices is the difference between a computer anyone can continue using for years, and a computer that becomes useless after 2 years because one minor component fails and there's no way to replace it.
and parent's statement
Instead of upgrading your machine every two years, you can simply buy a new Mini every two years. End-result is more or less the same, as is the expense.
The bonus with macs is that they stay usable for longer periods of time. You may not need to upgrade every two years; you might want to or lust for the newest things though.
Let me say that for some simpler things, my Powerbook G3-233 was doing just fine 'til its power supply went up in smoke (literally, LITERALLY!) and is being replaced by an iMac-333 (green) which I picked up for less than 90 bucks U.S.ian . It's got enough horsepower to run old matlab scripts on system 8.6, though I may have to up it to 9.x for the stupid Brother laserprinter driver which does a stupid system check and refuses to run under 8.x systems. This is one point where linux wins out: running gimp-print with the HL-1250 works fine for the 1250, 1650, 1440, and the 5040 under linux.
I would suggest the Formac TVR, it's about $30 less and does analog out. I've looked and there are a bit more complaints about Elgato's quality. I know it doesn't encode directly to MPEG, but when you have a chip do it for you, that sort limits your editing capability.
I run MacMAME on my old PowerMac G4 Dual-533 with Nvidia GeForce 2 MX. It runs great, and MacMAME does not get any benefit from multiple processors, so it's a single 533 to it. I can play all but the very most modern games in MacMAME very well on this system. The Mac mini blows away my system in all but hard drive speed so it should handle it all with aplomb. If I actually gave a crap about UT 23 or Doom 12, maybe I'd look at a faster, more expensive system or even a PC just for games, but I don't. Probably if I wanted a game-only system I'd get a PS/2 anyway. To me the old games are more reliably fun, and still more original and they don't take up nearly as much time either.
--- What?
Difference is that with some cascaded USB hubs, you could make your own multi-port RS-232 serial card. Graphics, on the other hand, probably won't work over USB or FireWire. It might work over Ethernet, but what firm makes X11 terminals anymore?
This is the size of a fingernail! It must be a Micro Mac Mini...
No, 64 bit programs don't take more RAM, 64 bit programs also run no faster than 32 bit programs - the only advantage you get from a 64 bit processor is that it can address more RAM.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of minis. Ha ha ... hmmmm
Actually the lack of Firewire 800 is a deal-breaker for me. Without it, there is no way to get any kind of high-speed mass storage connected to the thing. It uses a laptop-grade (ie; slow) HD and has no gigabit for connecting to a shared RAID.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
Now it may take 3 hours to install an OS and apps if you're sitting there watching everything churn (Oooohh... blue bars moving across a screen...). But I (and I guess most here), will click on the Install button, and once we see blue bars start moving, go work and play on another machine while the blue bars move.
It also depends on what apps you're installing. Installing and patching the games is what takes the longest time for me to setup a new machine...
Nephilium
Simony's eyes gleamed with the gleam of a man who had seen the future and found it covered with armour plating. -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
It's one of those things where I just thought I was mis-hearing the lyrics and never tried to check what they really were. Now I know a Mac is a Raincoat, though I have heard of them being called macintoshes but noone I know actually calls them that.
Hear, hear. I've been building my own machines for years, not just for the ability to select the exact parts, but also for the challenge and experience. I don't consider cost to be a motivating factor at all, in fact most of my self-built units end up costing more than the comparable Dell or whatever, simply because I insist on quality components (and sometimes buy parts retail, having little patience for shipping)
That said, the Mac Mini is quite attractive. I've been considering building a Mini-ITX machine for server duty, but this seems to have everything I need, in the right formfactor, with low noise and heat production. My only conundrum is whether to keep OS X or put Debian on it. ;)
Sorry, you're wrong here - Macs are just not gaming machines, unfortunately.
Sorry, but I think you're wrong here. I think Macs make fine gaming machines. I have a PowerBook G4 with a 128 MB video card and 512 MB of RAM. I play World of Warcraft and Warcraft III all the time. It looks and runs better (graphics are smoother) on my computer than on my friends' who are running similar systems.
Granted, I could probably use a little more RAM, but who couldn't?
quake3 runs fine in OSX on my 800mhz G4 w/ RADEON 9000 AGP...
Although, I have to agree, warcraft3 (and C&C Generals) runs like crap on my 1ghz powerbook, and I haven't run any incarnation of UT since the original back before the dev previews of OSX were even out (like 99), so I can't comment on that...
I wouldn't really call say "macs are just not gaming machines" but rather "the mac platform doesn't have a decent amount of good games"
anyway, I agree with your last point about more developers embracing the MacOS... It's completely feasible to have comparable performance in a mac port of a PC game.
i just wish things were like the old days where you could attach a PC videocard to a mac and use it with little to no hacking (maybe just a bios flash). I understand the companies' arguments about justifying funding the development for drivers for alternate platforms, but sheeeit... c'mon. when a card costs 180$ for a PC and 400$ for the mac version, that's just not fair...
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
If we're talking about someone who's putting a system together themselves, we're definitely NOT just talking about home users. Or at least not the "what's a computer?" variety of home users.
And yes, it takes a really huge set of cojones to call someone a "fucking idiot" when you're posting AC you flaming fucktard.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I am very curious if there will be cooling issues with the mini. The G4 cube (although fanless) had problems shutting down because the computers heat would activate the power button. I had to install an external fan over the top vent of my cube.
Lol. a "Radeon 95-something". Yeah. With that spec you might get 30 fps (if that) at 640x480 in doom 3 at medium detail. I had a 9800pro with 256MB of DDR2 and it crawled in doom3. I upgraded to a Geforce 6800 Ultra with 256MB DDR3(the machine proc is an A64-3400+) Now it runs fine (at damn near any resolution with the detail maxed out) On the other hand, the rest of my games perform about the same or in some cases (such as HL2 which is optimized for Radeons) slower than my 9800. Certain games are optimized for certain cards. Nvidia tends to lean towards fancy (NV40 and the like) pixel shading and massive textures while ATI tends to lead in raw geometry. Doom 3 Was developed on GF6 series cards and uses CG shaders (a notoriously nvidia optimized technology) You play your Doom3 on that card. Before you compare raw megaherts across completely different architechtures consider the vector processing ability of the PowerPC G4. Consider that on my mac (Powerbook 17" w/ 128MB Radeon9700 Pro) photoshop is faster than on my A64. It flat out blows my A64 out of the water when running wings3d (modeling software). Like my a64, i can compile and run all my *nix apps. If MacOS was not unix based i would have not bothered buying a mac. I am very impressed with it so far. Yes some things are slower (mainly badly ported games) but i have my Win/Lin dual boot A64 for that. Yes i aggree that Doom3 will probably run like crap on a Mini, as it will on most ATI based cards (i haven't tried the X800 series yet), but for many applications it will perform as fast, or faster than a pc.
It has firewire 400 - is that not high speed enough for you?
I would agree with you but a few things seem to indicate the 500 also has the 200 features, mainly a like to 200 features within the 500 page. I was going to send them an email asking.
Unfortunate if so, as I would mainly be using the S-Video capture since Denver has no broadcast HDTV yet (well, none that I can receive - they are building the main towers now).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Quake III native is slow? In what universe?
What settings do you have? We play Quake III a lot at work, including Team Arena, and assorted mods (Urban Terror, Alternate Fire). An iBook G4 is more than capable of this. Hell, it's even playable on the old Rage 128 in the Sawtooth machine.
U2k4 works perfectly on my machine (admitedly a 15" PB, so better graphics card than your iBook) but the differences really just boil down to the amount of RAM. Apart from long load times for levels, UT2k4 is excellent.
Original UT is also great in OS X, although there is a bug when drawing the grenades that come out of the RL's alternate fire mode (this seems to be the only error though).
I agree that letting you choose a compression of your own is a more flexible, the only downside is you'll need a lot more space to store the DV. It would be nicer for archiving of shows, less nice for just recording something to dispose of later.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I remember the old DEC Multia that had a pair of PC slots in the back of it. Guess what? No one used them. This machine has pretty much everything one could want built in, and if it doesn't, the device that you want to plug into it probably comes in a USB/firewire flavor. It is pointless and costly to put something like PC card compatibility into something that very few people will ever use.
Plus, if you REALLY need that PC Card compatibility, you can always go for something like this:
http://www.arstech.com/usbpcmcia.htm
Yesterday it was an iPod Shuffle being pulled apart, today it's the Mac Mini being disemboweled. While I definately RTFA and enjoyed TFA for both, where did they get these units so early? The Apple store in town says they won't get any till the beginning of next month and I haven't heard of anyone getting either from Apple's online store yet.
Maybe they're the leftovers from the promos?
Well, my thoughts on this were...at this price...it is pretty much a disposable computer....
At the end of a couple years...figured I'd sell it on eBay...and so far, most any Apple I've seen on there keeps its resale value pretty well..just unload it, and get a new one...difference would only be like about $200 or so for an upgrade.
This unit to me seems to really getting near the commodity hardware paradigm.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Deal with it, while you are running a wanna-be RISC workstation, and a wanna-be UNIX kernel, the rest of us are going to get the fastest CISC workstations,
You do realize that in hardware, intel does the implementation with RISC, I hope...it translates the CISC instructions to RISC, then executes the RISC ones.
Because RISC is faster most of the time, due to pipelining and all that jazz.
I have a 15" AlBook that has a card slot. I never use it personally, but I know why Apple still includes it:
Final Cut Pro users that need dual-channel FW800 RAID to their DV editing storage.
Also, any number of high end RAID adapters that allow power users to connect into high speed storage.
It's there for a reason. The PowerBook is used by a lot of Apple's high-end creative market and you wouldn't believe the furor that they would cause if Apple tried to take it out.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I'm hoping that mine is going to cost $589 less... :-)
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I can order all the necessary parts for a computer in about 15 minutes, and build the entire thing in well under an hour. That includes everything, from opening the packaging, to spreading the heatsink grease, to tightening the last screw. I know this, because I personally built hundreds of computers at a former job. Unless they are seriously crippled, anyone can put together a computer in very little time.
Hey, can you build a computer for my neighbor then?
He'll pay you $10. ($10/hr is good for a computer assembler right? I mean ANYONE can do it unless they're seriously crippled). You'll throw in a year of tech support right?
I had to spend an hour teaching him about popups and blockers. He couldn't understand why the popups he wanted weren't appearing. Even holding down shift, or control. Turns out he had 3 toolbars and SP2 all protecting him. I don't think he could build a computer himself... let alone in an hour.
What do you mean "much higher specs".
I have the pleasure to have a 866MHz Powerbook G4, AND a 1Ghz Via Nehemiah C3 desktop computer.
I can tell the C3 is not superior to the G4. The Mac Mini comes with a faster G4 than my Powerbook has. The G4 has MUCH HIGHER specs!
I don't know if anyone else has tried this, but an nmap -O ###.###.###.###/22 scan of my cable subnet indicated that only two out of the 500 or so hosts I found were actually Macs, and only one was OS X. The bulk of the hosts were Win9x, second most prevalent being WinXP/2k. My box was the only NetBSD system turned up.
I'm not bashing Macs, but it could just be that there still aren't a lot of home users out there with them. Coming from a fellow tech support agent, I can guarantee that once you get a bunch of any system on your cable network, you will have more and more people calling in for support on them. Maybe the people who have/are getting Macs right now are the people who somewhat know what they're doing, still.
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
I'm guessing WWDC will see pbg5's. They recently improved every product line significantly - either by improved specs or a new product - except the powerbooks, which got a modest (and due) speed bump. iPod got the shuffle, desktop got the mini, iMac gout the whole new (and really cool) redesign, etc.
I don't know if they're wanting to clear inventory and parts on the powerbook or what, but it really smells like they're planning something grand with the pbook. Like a lot of people have noticed, the iBook is WAY too close in performance to the pbook now to justify the extra price, and that can't last. It won't last.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
with an extra $99, you can have it for 3 years with warranty.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Really? Here in the US it's easy to buy software for my hens teeth.
I'll assume that you not only made the shirt on your back, but you also planted, cultivated, picked, ginned, spun and wove the cotton fabric, too.
Or are you one of those dull dumb boys who can't even be bothered to make his own clothing?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I know I'm feeding a troll somewhat here, but still, that comment -- just like Taco's "No wireless... less space... lame" comment -- shows how clueless some people are, even intelligent geeks.
The iPod holds >90% of the global MP3 market, probably 95% of HDD-based players, which is HUGE. The iPod Shuffle will probably do the same in the flash-based market, completing the clean-up for Apple. "Nothing revolutionary", WTF? the market-share really does beg to differ!
If the Mac Mini is to PCs what the iPod is to MP3 players -- and chances are pretty good that it will be, capitalizing on the failure of MS to curb the spyware/virus problems with browser+mail that >90% of people (many solely) use their computer for, by providing a reasonably-priced alternative (well, using the cheap "base-price" + extras sales tactic) -- then Apple will do VERY well indeed.
I myself have investigated the small-form-factor PC. I bought the first Shuttle bare-bones case when it came out. It was much more expensive than the Mac Mini (though better specified), it was VERY noisy, poorly designed (PSU inside at the front of the case with a tiny fan venting at the side, but most of the heat staying inside) so ran very hot -- so hot that, when suspended, it practically fried the (full-size) HDD. It sucked. So I bought a Gigabyte TA-1 (around the same price as a base Mac Mini), which is much, much better, pre-built with a VIA Eden, requiring a simple memory and laptop HDD install. But performance isn't great at all and the laptop component upgrades (e.g. DVD-R or HDD) cost a small fortune. Price was around the same as a Mac Mini costs.
Sure, designs have improved and you can now get a decent mini-ITX machine for the same price as a Mac Mini, and it will be much better specified, but you're missing the point with all of this. The average person is never going to buy a bare-bones and fit even the CPU or memory, nevermind the drives. Then they have to install the OS and all the drivers? Please! Time, funnily enough, isn't cheap, and researching, specifying, then building a machine like that will realistically take you hours, and is well beyond most people's capabilities or interest. The average person simply wants *a computer that works*. Take it out of the box. Plug it into the components you have already (monitor, keyboard, mouse, network/phone). Turn it on. It WORKS. Sure you can get this from Dell too, but the real potential for success is that it runs Mac OS X, which is practically immune to viruses and spyware (this is the current situation, regardless of whether OS X is actually more secure than XP; there have been a few critical alerts for OS X and some core apps, but very few remote root holes, and a lot less problems than Windows).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with a lot of what you say, but you really are missing the point. A lot of the people on Slashdot (read: computer geeks) would be tempted by a Neuros or iRiver over an iPod -- they're both better spec'ed, after all -- and by a mini-ITX over a Mac Mini. But the point is, the Mac Mini isn't really targeted at us: it's targeted at people who don't really know about computers and don't really care; people who've got a PC already and are thoroughly sick of it slowing down & crashing due to spyware & viruses, and sick of having to get the family "computer expert" to fix it. There are many, many more of these people than there are geeks. These people want something that simply works, is reasonably priced, looks good and is easy to use. The Mac Mini fulfils all of these criteria. It's not really a hardware revolution, it's an alternative-OS-to-Windows & marketing revolution riding on the back of the iPod revolution. And it'll sell by the millions.
We were buying hp d330's - 2.x ghz, 800mhz FSB, etc, etc. We were happy. We didn't have to pay stupid money for a "workstation" class machine, because after all, we were dropping an extra 1GB of crucial into them.
They got discontinued.
HP is now offering the dc5000. Identical case, identical mobo... wait! It is a "v" edition of the intel chipset, v for value, because apparently there is value add in AGP less computers. Same 3 pci slots, no agp.
The only think I can think of is that Dell and HP wanted a way to (&$$ people to try to push them towards 1200-1500ish desktops^H^H^H^H WORKSTATIONS as opposed to 800-1000ish desktops.
That said, paying for ram from the factory generally brutal.
ostiguy
And even though all those pieces are integrated into the same kernel, there is still a very clear delineation between the different parts of the kernel. You can have a KEXT that depends on only the I/O Kit, only Mach, only BSD, or any combination thereof, and each choise brings a distinct set of symbols. BSD pieces and I/O Kit pieces are compartmentalized in the code as well. Thus, it is very much -not- as monolithic as Linux....
So while it is true that Mac OS X isn't a pure microkernel architecutre, it is still based on the Mach microkernel. The xnu kernel was derived from MkLinux's OSFMK (which was essentially a pure MK except for optional colocation and the presence of a few basic BSD drivers grafted into the Mach MK), which was derived from OSF-1, IIRC, which was derived from CMU Mach version 3).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
For $500 you can get a propriatory system that is half the power of a system for half the money.
Show me a $250 SFF system which is twice as powerful as the Mac Mini. Heck, show me a $500 SFF system which is substantially more powerful than the Mac Mini. Remember that the Mini has graphics with dedicated video RAM and laptop components to get down to size. I'll bet the Nanode will cost at least $500, and it won't be any smaller.
I built a SFF machine for just under $400 last year. It's still 5 times bigger than the mini (it's a Mini-ITX tower), it has a shitty VIA processor and no graphics card. Same LAN. Bigger HD, but that's because I didn't mind the size of a 3.5" drive. Better sound and more ports. Homebuilt wooden case, looks nice, but cost me in labor. DVD burner, but those are expensive in slimline (available on the Mini, but not the $500 version). More RAM, but RAM is cheap. Didn't get an OS with it, it runs FreeBSD right now, might switch to Linux eventually. Works real nice as a file/web/print/backup server, sucks for anything else.
Had the Mac Mini existed then, I wouldn't have bothered.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
What are you doing again?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This one sentance solidifies it for sure:
A: EyeTV 500 is a fully digital product. It does not have connectors for analog video. EyeTV USB has a composite video input port, EyeTV 200 has both S-Video and composite video inputs. Both EyeTV USB and EyeTV 200 can be used to digitize and record analog video.
Doesn't get much clearer than that!! Thanks for finding the info.
I wonder if they work in conjuction at all, if you could have a 200 and 500 and have them work well together. I guess I'd rather wait for the mythical "700", a joining of the two devices (at hopefully somewhat less than twice the price).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I HAVE seen onboard video fail.
It wasn't inadequate cooling - I've seen other i810s in worse heat situations work fine. I actually did TWO (of the same mobo) in. I THINK plugging a KHyperMedia CD burner into the secondary IDE channel started it, and then putting the resolution to anything other than 320x200, 320x240, 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768 royally screwed it up. I'd had weird mouse problems with RH8.0 and W2K on this machine, and I've used other machines with the same chipset with those OSes no problem, so I'm going to blame the mobo, but I still have one of the two mobos in my possession that did this.
No, he mentioned a $130 TV TUNER as the only alternative for composite video-input. The original poster (now marked "Troll -1") said:
But what if you want to get composite video in and out of the machine?
So, the point is that there are cheap alternatives for composite video input -- USB.
Why don't you tell us exactly what you need to do with a PCI slot that you cannot do with a USB peripheral? Links to ATI's website won't cut it, you need to make your argument yourself.
I swear that some people are so blind to sarcasm that they could trip and fall into a large vat of it and not even notice.
Flamebait, indeed.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Looking at the specs for this, the Mac Mini seems almost perfect for the powerpc port of OpenBSD.
Firewire 400 has about 50mb/s throughput. Firewire 800 a theoretical 100mb/s throughput, realistically it's closer to 40mb/s and 80mb/s. Are you thinking of hooking up an XServe RAID to one of these things? You'd need two modern hard drives in a RAID 0 enclosure to 'need' Firewire 800.
It's bizarre talking about a $500 computing device alongside gigabit and RAID. The RAID setup alone costs more than the Mac mini, doesn't it?
GPL Deconstructed
Apple is introducing the Mac mini as a secondary CPU to the Windows user that has been interested in seeing what the buzz is about OS X and the Mac in general. The cost is very close to the lowest cost Dell once you match up the features. The processor are pretty close in speed The Windows Gamer can get a Mac mini and a KVM and while online playing games can switch over and do the things that the mac does with out the threat of Virus, sypware ect Its more like a test drive. If you like it you'll have no problem spending more money on a higher end Power Mac Apple is just teasing all the windows users to try before you buy the big toy Apple is answering Wintel users biggest complaint YOUR TO EXPENSIVE!!!! I want a HUMMER (original) but they cant afford one so I drive a Kia Jus my 2 cents
The Quadra 650 came out in '93. I still use mine as a scanning station for a 11x17 scanner. WTF, it works and lets me keep wasting time on Slashdot and Fark.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Yeah, it makes a hell of a shitty server. I imagine that'll keep the grandparents away from it in droves. Besides, how'll you'll fit it in a rack? It'll just drop down until it lands on something else.
I drank what? -- Socrates
UT 2004 runs in OS X. I can vouch for this as an avid UT2k4 player with a 15" powerbook. As of 10.3.7, Apple has finally straightened out their OpenGL drivers for the laptops, so I get good FPS. (35-45) Warcraft is also opengl-driven, and should be performing the same now.
True, some games are not ported or are ported some time after the PC-versions release, but then again you could say the same thing comparing game consoles with PCs.
One factor not often mentioned in gaming is stability. Of the group I play with, I am the only mac user. I'm also the only one that has not had to reinstall the game at least twice in the last six months. Two of the PC gamers have overheat problems, and two more have issues with their games just quitting or disconnecting from the server for no apparent reason. All of the PCs except one (the laptop) make almost as much noise as my hair dryer. (one ties it) Having seen all this first-hand, there's no way I'd consider a PC for a game system unless I had a few thousand dollars to throw away and a lot of maintenance time to throw at it. (but why bother?)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
But firewire drives are very expensive, which kind of defeats the point of the Mac Mini.
As for the CD-ROM issue, drop that $120 video card to $35 for a cheapo Geforce 2 MX from a smaller computer store, and use the remaining $85 to pickup a DVD+/-RW.
Not everyone has the same hardware requirements some may not care about the graphics for games, some may, point is that again, it is still possible to build that Athlon 64 system for around $500 USD.
I'd find it useful to stick a memory card reader in; the external USB ones are annoying to use in comparison.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=14164588
:)
Yup yup... it's from the same Free iPod company so it will work if you get enough referals.
The offers are pretty good. Theres one for buying printer ink! Sheesh... I think just about anyone can do that
I went for the blockbuster offer of sending movies directly to your house from a selected list. It's like Netflix, only cheaper.
I'm just sending this out here because I figured someone might be interested to know about it. I decided to sign up for it because I've always had a difficult time with Macs and I thought this would give me a chance to learn more about them.
The Mac Mini may help to improve this situation. I know what you mean, because I've done it myself: I don't have a modern Mac (my latest is an SE/30), but I've built stuff on the SourceForge compile farm for Mac OS X users -- and that's about all I can do. But now I'm planning to get a Mac Mini, so I'll see how it really works, not just how it looks over an SSH session. I'm thinking other developers will follow suit.
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
The Mac OS X version of Yahoo Messenger supports voice chat fine, I use it well, not all the time, but now and again. It supports video too. So go for it...
To the contrary. If you use a USB one, you can just plug it into your keyboard. If you want to plug it directly into Obscure And Useless Slot Type #7 on the computer itself, you have to get up and go to wherever you keep your computer.
Pain in the ass.
So would a Cray. If you made a really big robot.
No no no! Don't you know anything about how big robots are controlled? If they form from 5 vehicles uniting you need 5 people inside to shout the name of the attack you are using. Single piece giant robots need whiny teenagers with psychological problems in them.
Not to interrupt your rant & I'm seriously thinking of getting a mac mini, but I believe it only has 100, not gigabit ethernet. Please, someone let me know if I'm mistaken.
That's the whole point of PCI slots... You can't forsee what's going to happen in the future, making an open PCI slot necessary.
It's one of those things you don't really appreciate until it's gone.
If these mini macs just had even just 2 PCI slots, I'd be willing to buy one.
A. What, exactly, do you think you would ever need to put in a PCI slot in the Mac mini? It has everything normal people (non-hardcore-gamers) need, or will need for the next several years. That includes Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 ports.
B. How do you know the PCI slot isn't going to fall out of favor in the next couple of years, thus making your extra PCI slots worthless? Last time I checked, most video cards require AGP, and isn't there already a newer, better type of PCI slot?
If you look at the actual cost of most upgrades over the life of the unit, it usually works out to being more expensive than just buying a new computer, unless you have all the requisite knowledge to pick out the right parts and install them yourself. And if you can do that, you aren't really part of the target market.
Seriously, if you think you need some PCI slots or extra drives, get a PowerMac, but unless you're a gamer or other power user you simply don't need anything more than what's in that little box. The target audience for this thing doesn't need all that shit. They are tired of it, they don't want to do upgrades, they hate the huge, noisy boxes with fans that typically start growling after about 18 months. They just want a little box that's quiet and works. Apple is going to sell millions of these things to the target market.
Most people I know have considerably more time on their hands than money. Or in other words, they can spend some time getting the computer they want, rather than what they can get the fastest.
I'm sorry, I misunderstood what you where saying. I thought you were saying Aqua was just "eye candy" but you are actually saying that's the "cool stuff". The truth of the matter is you can run Darwin without Aqua and still have a fully functioning machine including X11 and a Window Manager. All open source. If this doesn't constitute a full open source operating system I'm not sure what you call Linux.
It does. I was mistaken.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Kee-ripes. Everyone keeps pretending like this is not an entry-level computer! Stop it. Wake up! If you're shoppin' for a graphics workstation (the most common user of gigabit-shared RAID that I'm aware of) and you can't fork out $1500, you're not doing the 'what's my time worth' math right.
<Me>Squirms, struggling to resist a lame math vs. Decimal Dave joke/pun
One word:
Size.
Ok - I use multiple OSs so I won't flame the Windows tech sux0rs MacOS teh r0x0rs line. The oboard video is pretty lame on the Dell's but they are fine for office work. Personally I would drop another 256MB in there - the same as I would for the Mac Mini.
Both Dells and Macs have one similar problem. Non standard components you need to source from the vendor directly to replace. Dell's have non standard cases, motherboards and power supplies. You can't just swap in normal PC parts if stuff breaks. Same deal on the Mac.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Uh, they are? A firewire case can be had for as cheap as $20 that I know of, maybe cheaper. Then you add a full size hard drive. I've got 7 or 8 of various sizes that aren't being used. The largest is 60 GB, I think. I wouldn't be suprised if most of us have a spare ATA drive lying around not being used.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Besides, how'll you'll fit it in a rack? It'll just drop down until it lands on something else.
Priceless. I nearly laughed out loud in the office. That would be a bad thing for me...
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Okay, this computer isn't designed for /. regulars. It designed for people like my parents. If you told, say, my mom she could spend 100 bucks on a computer (but she has to put it together) or 600 bucks on the SAME computer (that came assembled), it wouldn't be a contest. 600, just to avoid headache. They don't know the diff between Firewire 400 and 800, if they even know what firewire is period (or if they care, which of course they don't). I'm assuming this is the point of the mini-mac. No, I KNOW this is the point of the mini-mac, just as Jobs said in his keynote. Debating about what this doesn't have is like bitching that the KIA you drive doesn't have DVD navigation.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
Hmmm...I have built more than 30 machines. I have never been able to hold one to less than $500 once shipping for the parts is incorporated. Not realistically anyhow.....just built a couple shuttle boxes, but they both cost more than 500.
:
Maybe I am just spendy.
It has only become cheap enough to build a reasonable computer for sub 500 within the last couple years.
The biggest differences
1. Mini is for the most part smaller than anything in the pc world other than pc-105 computers.
2. Case is stylish.
3. Mac OS-X is sleek for those who need idiot proof computing (my mom, my grandma, my wife's aunts and uncle, and my sister.)
4. I won't have to spend hours fixing broken stuff on the machines of those mentioned above. Currently, every time I go to someones house I have to fix new stuff.
5. Linux programs run right on the Mac Desktop without reboot. (don't need a dedicated or dual boot system)
Sounds like a solution to keep me from maintaining a buttload of crappy window's boxes.
The Daystar one seems to capture 1/4 screen only.
The Belkin one ("Interview") only has drivers for OS 8 and 9. IIRC drivers for for OS X and Interview are available, but then you have to buy them as well.
El Gato, Canopus or some other Firewire DV converter would be your best bet, but they're starting to get into pricey territory (relatively speaking).
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Yes. Backups via the network are quite common, and there is nothing else on the horizon that looks to replace it. Even with the 40GB drive in this low-end workstation I'm on, it takes hours to backup over the network...
Yes, incrimental backups are okay, but not to many or restore will get confused, and you'll lose the whole series. RSync (assuming you are backing up to another hard drive) can reduce the bandwidth required, but it has plenty of limitations of it's own.
Always good to stick an insult in there...
I'm getting real damn sick hearing about "intended uses" and "target audience" as an excuse for the problems Macs have...
That's the nice thing about PCI cards... Your PC doesn't have to come with certain functionality, you can just spend a few dollars and get a card if/when you need it. The sheer number doesn't matter at all, the question is, of those that need it, how many CAN'T get it?
Nice wording there... At what point does a speed increase become a "requirement"?
How many people require a 56K modem? None, they could always just wait several times longer for a file to download... How many devices require USB2? None. At some point though, it's a big enough speed jump that it might as well be a requirement.
Speak for yourself, I'm perfectly capable of speaking on my own.
Now that's just blatantly wrong. The expense is vastly different. If a videocard dies after a couple years, buying a new videocard for $40 is a huge jump away from buying a new Mac mini for $500.
Even if the price was even remotely the same, the vast wastefulness of throwing away a computer that is 99% functional, just because it doesn't have a single PCI slot, is ridiculous.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Composite-in would be useful for people who have old VHS videotapes, and want to put them on their Mac.
Some may not have a camera, let alone a DV one. I could see someone new to the Mac and video editing wanting to make an iMovie of, say, an old wedding video, as a trial run, before going out to spend the money on a video camera.
It'd be handy if that could be done by just hooking up a VCR, without spending $100 or more on a USB-in. But I'm not sure how many customers would potentially fit this profile.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
People really over-estimate the ammount of knowledge needed to put a system together. Anyone can put screws in, plug-in AGP/PCI devices, etc. The only difficult part is putting the CPU/Heatsink on, and that's actually gotten quite easy now.
Knowing that screws need to be turned clockwise to tighten them, is that the boatload of knowledge you are referring to?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Because I can still go out and buy ISA devices.
Even if the whole world suddenly upgrades to PCI-e overnight, PCI devices will be sold for at least a decade to come.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Why don't you tell us exactly what you need to do with a PCI slot that you cannot do with a USB peripheral?
Other than display Aqua on a second display perhaps? Or can Mac OS X connect to an X11 terminal on its Ethernet port?
You seem to have forgotten where you are Mr. Bombshell. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Bah! I plan to do real time modeling if global weather systems, fold complex proteins for my side gig in pharmagenetics, beat international chess champions, render 3d objects with billions of polygons, and email my mom. And you're telling me this thing has only firewire 400? Next you'll be telling me it uses an older cpu. I repeat, sir: Bah!
=)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I also have a PCMCIA adapter for my microdrive. I can use the USB 2 on my camera but when you have a GB or so of images to transfer, the extra speed of the PC Card slot would be nice.
www.clarke.ca
Let me make this simple for you with the well loved car analogy.
If you need a dump truck, buy a dump truck. Don't buy a Volkswagon Bug.
Conversely, if you're in the market for a VW or other small car, don't buy a dump truck.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I fail to see how this analogy relates to anything at all...
Unless a "Volkswagon Bug" has the rims welded to the axle and the hood welded shut, and I'm supposed to buy a dump truck to get a vehicle that hasn't been crippled in this way.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Let's explore your version of the analogy. If a mac mini is a VW Bug, then what parts of it would correspond to the axle and hood?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Nice :-)
I think, therefore I am...I think.
I'm not sure how many customers would potentially fit this profile.
I'm quite sure that someone in Apple product marketing got the numbers on that, and that's why the Mini doesn't have a video input.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I have yet to see any user-submitted pathces in OS X( Although I haven't really studied the matter). Now have I seen improvements from Darwin trickle down to other projects. And just about everyhting on my Linux-machine IS open-soure The kernel, the GUI (which is closed in the MAc), the apps (Apple-apps are closed, with few exceptions). Only thing that's closed-source (to my knowledge) is few games and the NVIDIA-drivers.
Sure you can run Darwin just fine. And it's open. But the key technologies that the user sees (and that could be used in other projects as well) are closed. If Apple is such a big supporter of Open Source, why is Quartz and Quartz Extreme closed? Why aren't they offering some of that tech to X.org, or KDE or Gnome? Or how about Spotlight?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
And we all know home-users have some kind of SAN or server with RAID that they use for backups, therefore Mini needs Gigabit Ethernet. Or maybe not. Maybe most home-users do their backups by burning their important files on a CD. And the Mini is perfectly capable of doing just that.
This workstation that I'm using gets backed up regurarly. Hell, it's backed up via WAN that has a speed of *drum roll*.... 2Mb/sec (and that bandwidth is shared with about 60 other people who also back up (and surf the web, and check their email) via that WAN. Oh the horror!)! And there are zero problems with it! It backs up in the background, and it never ever disrupts me or my work. So why do I (or the Mini) need Gigabit Ethernet again? you are saying that we absolutely need 1000Mb/sec network for backups, when I do just fine with 2Mb/sec?
Of couse, you can't do anything with the computer while it backs up. You have to stop everything and just stare at the screen. I guess I have some kind of hi-end computer that allows me to do this thing called "multitasking".
But that PC wouldn't be that cheap anymore, now would it?
Considering that most devices don't even come close to saturating Firewire 400, I fail to see how Firewire 800 is anywhere close of being an "requirement".
Then don't throw it away! Buy an expandable Mac instead and find some other use for the Mini! Or *shock and horror* sell it to someone else!
But seriously: If expandability is a requirement for you, then obviously the Mini is not for you.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
When I'm talking about OS X I'm NOT talking about Darwin. I'm talking about the Kernel, Darwin, Aqua, Quartz, Quartz Extreme, Spotlight, iMovie, iPhoto etc. etc. Darwin does not equal OS X. Or are you saying that if I run Darwin, I will have an OS that is identical to OS X, all the bells and whistles included?
I wasn't talking about how apps behave, I was talking about how the OS as a whole behaves. And that includes apps, the GUI the administration-tasks, software-installation and the like.
And like I said, Darwin is not Mac OS X. Does OS X run on x86? If it does, why are there so many people insiting that Apple should port OS X to x86?
I'm talking about OS X as a whole, you are talking about Darwin, which is only a part of OS X. we are talking about two different things!
Or maybe, just maybe, because they actually *shock and horror* like Linux more than they like OS X? Or is such a thing completely impossible?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Oh, sorry about that -- I was talking about a Powerbook, not the Mac Mini. The Mini doesn't need a PCMCIA slot.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Most of the problem is knowing which components to get. Will motherboard XYZ work with processor ABC? How big a PSU do I need? And it goes on and on. ./-ers will consider this trivial, since they spend the whole day absorbing this kind of information anyway. But Joe Public without a CS/EE background will have to spend weeks before he's confident he's picked the right components.
Most
Once you have all this knowledge, putting the system together isn't that difficult, though the first time is rather daunting: after all, one mistake and hundreds of dollars go up in smoke.
I played ... Civ III with no problems on my 800MHz Flat Panel iMac
Hey thanks for the comment! I ws flip flopping on whether or not to get one of these. I've been running linux exclusively for ~3 months now and am really really missing my civ 3 fix, but if I can run it on a mac that's yet another reason to get it.
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
>Why don't you tell us exactly what you need to do with a PCI slot that you cannot do with a USB peripheral?
Nice try, but no. The reply was "My PC's entry-level PCI video input card (ATI TV Wonder VE) cost me $50 new in box at Best Buy". I don't have to tell you if you can or cannot do the same with a USB device, rather that with 50 bucks you get a PCI device with shitloads more functionality. And if you go for a bit more you can even buy one you can use to plug in a second monitor and have a second display.
Of course, if you're buying apple products you won't mind paying almost a hundred bucks more for the same functionality.
> Links to ATI's website won't cut it, you need to make your argument yourself.
Funny you say that to me and not to the guy I was replying to. Funnier even that you obviously missed the argument.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
If you haven't studied the matter then I guess you wouldn't see any user-submitted patches.
For improvements that have "trickled down" from Darwin check http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/
There you will find things like streaming server, open directory, rendezvous and a bunch of other stuff that some people find "cool" and "useful".
Whether technologies are "key" or not depends on the user. If you want a stable OS to run as a streaming video server then quartz and quartz extreme are indeed "eye candy".
I do take your point - Linux is open source top-to-bottom but I really do think Apple have made huge strides in their open source efforts and are a valuable member of the open source community.
yes they are, and I'm not disputing that. They have made some excellent contributions to GCC, KHTML and the like, and their contributions are more than welcome. And they have in general behaved very well when it comes to open source. That said, their OS is not open source as such. IBM has done alot for open source, yet they too have closed-source OS's.
OS X is built on open source, but it's not open source as a whole
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Thank You! I'm glad SOMEONE got the joke. (Obviously not the moderators)
A 1.25GHz G4 isn't too shabby. Or 1.42GHz.
Think of all the iBook and PowerBook owners out there with 1GHz machines.
Or PowerMac owners with 1.25GHz machines.
It's cheap. It's small. It's not underpowered.
It should do great folding complex proteins, modeling, and chess. The only drawback is the FSB, at 133MHz. As long as it's compute bound and not memory bound, the mini is pretty good.
GPL Deconstructed
The Register has an article on this - apparently UK mac minis are GBP22 more expensive even excluding VAT.
The modem is in the base system
Oddly. Apple has this on the main mini pages, but some of their knowledge base articles say it's not included on all systems. Perhaps they included it everywhere at the last minute?
It's actually a 167 Mhz bus on the system. That's a whopping extra 34 MHZ of juicy data moving goodness.
And you're completely correct in my case. I've got a PB 800, and a gigabit G4 tower with the CPU upgraded to 1 Ghz. So in terms of CPU power, the mini outguns my machines.
(I also have a 7100 I keep around for playing that one game I love that I haven't gotten to run on anything non-beige, and because it has nubus slots, and I spent a huge amount of money on this one nu bus card that I'll probably never get around to using ever again.)
I was sarcastically suggesting that I needed something in the range between a workstation and a supercomputer. I'll probably have to wait for Steve's head-in-a-jar to give that keynote.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Pricewatch even has a section where you can buy a Mobo with CPU (and usually thermal pad/heatsink/fan too). So anyone can handle that.
As for power supply, I'm not sure it's possible to get one that's too small these days (unless you've building a quad-processor box with a RAID array, etc). And thanks to the cheap Chinese knock-off brands, the highest-rated PS you can find (500W+), are only $25 or so. So whether they go low or high, they can't really shovery much.
However, I wasn't suggesting that people build their first computer... They should have someone else do so, or buy a retail PC. After that, they can just look inside the case and see what they have, and the minimum of what they presumably need.
I worked at a school for about 3 years, so I've come across hundreds of young people building their first computers. I've never seen them screw anything up, other than maybe not ordering a component they needed, and having to wait a week before they could finish everything.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Turns out 40GB/7200RPM is now available in US for $143.
5 Fid=211&pf%5Fid=CO02HDD0758BM
5 Fid=214&pf%5Fid=CO07HDD0745USBA
_ ov.htm
http://www.lookforpc.com/product_detail.php? pid=H4014R9200
cheapest 60GB is not much higher $153
http://www.gogocity.com/product_details.asp?dept%
which is roughly what you will pay for 5400/80
you will need a case to put your original drive in, so consider buying this $178 (plus powered usb2 hub, needless to say)
http://www.gogocity.com/product_details.asp?dept%
Note that both drives are designed for 24/7 operations, so they should be reliable.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/e7k60/e7k60
I just ordered one the 1.42ghz version with the smallest drive they let me pick. The price for a 7200rpm drive at 160gb was $150. I also ordered ram through Kingston. It's more than a little bit annoying though that Apple wants to rape you on the upgrades.
And, suprise suprise, I've got a cheap home-built PC that has Ethernet, stereo and USB built on the board. And for not much more money I could have bought a mainboard like my brothers which has Gigabit and FireWire built in. Price difference? About £15 - £20 ($30 - $40).
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
You completely missed the point. The point wasn't which computer has more toys, the point was that in this day and age, on the mac, and now on the PC, PCI slots are fast becoming useless. Remember 7 or 8 years ago, when having less than 5 PCI slots was stupid? That was because motherboards didn't come with good equipment on them, on board sound sucked, video sucked worse (and for the most part still does), on board NICs were hit or miss and the only ports on board were PS/2 and legacy.
These days, you could reasonably get by with 3 PCI slots or 2 + 1 AGP. And most people who would buy a mini or a $500 computer could get by with 0-1 PCI slots.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
So my Mac mini arrived Friday (January 21) and I already dissected it... Enjoy! http://www.kithology.org/images/macmini/index.html
I'm a boy. Just like flat screens, a flat ass is hot.
(Fuck, I wish my ass was that small. Stupid desk jobs.)
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)