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Hacker Turns $300 Apple TV into Cheapest Mac Ever
An anonymous reader wrote with a link to a Wired story about a fun play-along-at-home project: Turning Apple TV into a very tiny workable computer. "Apple TV is dead, long live the Mac Nano. Sort of. Just two weeks after Apple released its streaming media box to the public, hackers successfully installed OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, on the $300 device, making it the cheapest PC Cupertino has ever sold. 'The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!' wrote Semthex, the anonymous hacker responsible for the mod, at his website. 'Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted.'"
This pricepoint is pretty much based on pirating a copy of OS X.
in same week... first mentioned here
The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!'
Wow, Slashdot is losing its mind. Usually stories that make it to the front page start with "The breakthrough is done: Linux runs on ". But Apple's OSX (which is essentially BSD, which has been dead or dying too for decades incidentally)? and running on Apple hardware? really...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"Without video acceleration, games can't floor the graphic chip's throttle. There's no audio or ethernet support either[...]"
Which means it's of fairly limited use, atleast for now. I'm guessing that'll improve over the next couple of months though.
And if it's possible to clock the CPU up to 1 GHz (it's underclocked to 350 MHz?), maybe put in some more RAM and upgrade the HD, $300 ain't so bad for a HTPC with a design that your wife can accept in the living room. It having HDMI, DVI and WLAN isn't a bad thing either if they can get that working.
I just don't see people going out to buy this for a new (even secondary) Mac.
Open Source Sushi
Was a whole $80 off eBay. With a $200 upgrade it's dual 1Ghz G4 now, but honestly it ran OSX fine without the upgrade so I could have skipped the big upgrade and saved some cash.
I won't be impressed until someone shows me a programmable/extendable device for under $40 (for new, not used). The $300 price point is not really an exciting price point when you consider PCs have been under this for a while.
I recently spent like $65 on an Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane cpu. a few other parts and it's a whole computer. Granted an Apple TV is a really tiny computer, and it hooks up to a TV in a very convenient way (but doesn't hook up to a CRT/LCD without some effort). For a tiny computer it's not a bad deal, but if smallness is not a priority then there are better bargains out there to be sure.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Is VMWare Player with OSX loaded: $0.
Isnt that the low end Mini?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I bought a Dell Dimension 4600 from a pawn shop for $20, "as is" because someone said it wouldn't boot. When I brought it home, I discovered there was nothing wrong with it. I slapped an old Radeon inside, installed OS X, and that's what I call the cheapest Mac ever.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Blue and White G3s esentially cost nothing now beyond the cost of the RAM and HD inside (and the cost of shipping), and they run Tiger quite decently. They also take the same CPU upgrades as the early G4 systems. The only problem is they don't take 512M or larger DIMMs, and they don't take 8-chip 256M DIMMs (the 16-chip versions have been a bit hard for me to find as salvage). I've got two of them working quite well next to my (purchased new) MDD/Windtunnel dual 1G G4 (which is awesome for having four HD bays and two optical bays).
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
You might already own a license that allows for installing OS X on more than one Apple machine.
With three Macs in the house, the most economical way for me to legally upgrade is Apple's household bundles that come with five licenses. Meaning that at any given time, I've usually got one or two licenses that I'm not using. I doubt that I'm the only person in this situation.
If a new Mac can cost $300 like a cheap new PC, how come these new little embedded devices still cost $100? The embedded ones don't have HDs, much RAM, displays or even power supplies. They run Linux or other $free OS. And they're supposed to sell many more units to the general public than do Macs, so their scale economy should be better. Why do they cost about 50% their much bigger, more complex cousins?
--
make install -not war
Count in OSX license and it is not so cheap. Apple TV - $300, MacOSX - $150. It means that it costs you $450. For $600 you can get Mac Mini which is far more capable.
:)
But I would love to see Linux running on Apple TV - for ultimate unix/linux hacker minibox Apple TV looks nice.
Why? I want to velcro the ATV behind my LCD TV or on the ceiling with my projector (haven't decided which yet) and only have to deal with a single power cord. I don't want to put my 2TB mythbackend in the same room as my TV. I want it in my rack in the far corner of the basement where it can happily whine away.
Once we have consumer devices that can inconspicuously tuck in behind a TV and speak some standard protocol from the household media server, I'd say we're done. Apple's "household media server" is not quite there. ie: it doesn't have DVR functionality yet, and the iTunes TV model doesn't have the content I want at the prices I'm currently paying.
The AppleTV is cheap but it also has a spec too low to be very effective running OSX.
The main problem is going to be the RAM; only 256MB and not upgradable. The Intel Macs seem to use more memory and I often find Safari using more than 256MB of physical memory on its own. Soldering on new TSOP memory chips is something I'd pay quite a bit to avoid having to do...
Aside from the small memory, there a stack of other aspects that are missing or diminished compared to the Mac mini. At the top level, the CPU is 60% of the speed of the entry-level Mac mini and the disk is half the size. There's no audio input at all, the ethernet is 100Mb/s rather than 1Gb/s, no bluetooth, only one USB (so you end up needing an external hub for most activities). Most people will cope with the missing FireWire, not least because with only 256MB of RAM none of the Universal versions of video editing code are going to cope very well.
It's sort of neat that you can run "full" OS X on the AppleTV but given the spec of the machine I think that the utility is somewhat limited. About the only thing it's good for would be as some sort of stand-alone appliance running a single application. Hey, hold on, that's what they designed it for!
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
Still too expensive for a Mac
Not if you've bought the family pack, and you have licenses left.
You sir are correct. We are "pirating Mac OS X anyway" and we are enjoying your spirited discussion.
Ocean is land, covered with water.
I think everyone is missing the point of hacking this device. What we really need from it is the ability to stream anything we want out the hdmi port - for example things that have been captured from a cable company's DVR firewire output. Getting vlc running would be a good start.
A dupe of this April Fools post. Did it need to be posted again for people to believe it?
This same article came out on April 2 on slashdot as an April Fools joke. http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/02/ 1017242&from=rss . Now it is being listed here as a non-april fools joke.
Is this or is this not an April Fools Joke? If not; then why did Slashdot list it? Mistake or Apples crew of super ninja moneky lawyers?
Be doing really well, producing cool stuff, and then do something monumentally boneheaded like not allow current owners to upgrade.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How's free for a pricepoint?
Given we had OSX running on the AppleTV back on March 30, I'm not surprised that the article missed Linux is running with full nvidia hardware acceleration. After 5+ years, the journaled HFS support in the kernel is basically worthless though (FIXME).
As usual, AwkwardTV has the scoop--
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Linux_on_Apple_TV
thanks gimli!
Then where can I lawfully[1] buy such a new[2] underpowered PC with USB and Ethernet ports and a TV output, running GNU/Linux, for 289.99 USD or less?
[1] A modded Xbox doesn't count. Modders have been prosecuted in the United Kingdom and some other countries. Are you willing to include emigration in the price?
[2] Or does eBay provide a consistent supply of one model?
Is there a torrent like this already available? I think if there were, this hack would suddenly look a whole lot less intimidating.
i think this whole thing is meant to show that they can actually run OS X on Apple TV. not that it is actually useful for anything.
On the other hand it's got a real GPU with real VRAM, not the apalling GMA950 integrated video that eats 64M of RAM, so it's more like the equivalent of a 320MB Intel mini. So long as you don't fire up Rosetta it's going to beat the original PPC minis, and those are still eBaying for more than the AppleTV costs.
Phenomenal graphics power... itty bitty memory space.
I didn't know this thing existed, but it looks like it's out-to-TV only.
It's not difficult to cheez together a MythBox for ~$500.00, but it'd sure be nice to have some of that slick apple hardware running Myth.
It's got a USB port, and a 40G HDD, so you'd still be at about $500.00 if you added an external USB video encoder (There are has some supported by Myth--Plextor makes 'em IIRC) and boxed up a spare HDD from another computer.
Still, I'd buy one instead of the MicroATX setup I'm eyeballing today.
Which is just an overly verbose way of saying...
Nice...but will it run linux?
(Sorry, had to do it).
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Just use a copy of a dead Mac; it's not like they're hard to find.
TWW
That was a very sneaky troll/flamebait attempt. I almost missed it.Its as if thousands of I-Openers cried out in terror and suddenly stopped...
$599+a USB keyboard lying around at home+a USB mouse lying around at home+a PC monitor you have lying around at home = a real Mac with Tiger on it.
If you value the many hours it takes to hack an AppleTV at <$170.00, then maybe your argument flies. If you think your time is worth more, maybe this is a project that isn't worth the hack value.
I wouldn't run such a Mac with only 512MB of RAM...I would advocate maxing it out to 2GB to make Tiger chuff happily. But it will run and it is a real Mac.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Designed by Apple in California0 7/03/100_0966.JPG
Computer assembled in China
See unboxing picture at http://www.applegazette.com/wp-content/uploads/20
I certainly didn't because I don't.
Putting full OS X on this is uninteresting...
What I'd like to see is putting Linux on it and turning it into a full-blown living room appliance. In terms of hacking the Apple TV has much potential, it could easily replace the XBox as most useful hackable livingroom hardware. It has more powerful hardware, has an HDMI port, and appears to require less messing around with the hardware.
The only thing that sucks is lack of RCA and S-Video outputs, for those of us who don't give a flying shit about HDTV. My existing TV set works fine, thank you very much. What the hell was Apple thinking?!
I agree for the most part. That is why I bought my Macbook (which this post is written on)- no better laptop for the money. Problem is Apple just doesn't offer the two most popular kinds of systems in the regular computer market- a 15 inch non professional notebook, or a computer tower that is capable of being upgraded at a non professional price. You can talk all day about how the Mac Mini or the iMac works great for most people, but don't tell that to my mom (who likes using Media Center to record TV) or me (who wants to use my two very nice LCD monitors at the same time). Or many other people that want the expandability that made the PC market what it is.
Open Source Sushi
For about $20 on eBay anyone can buy those "virtual 5.1" USB audio cards that are the size of a thumbdrive. In reality they are a USB_Audio to stereo input and output chip wrapped in plastic, and "just work" with OSX (and are supported by ALSA). I've seen $40 versions of the same basic chip that do optical in and out too. The aTV has a USB 2.0 "diagnostic" port.
'Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted.'
Duuuude! Come on! This almost sentence (even without the parenthetical 'the') is ridiculous!
Who says that?
And they lived happily all after...
I read at 4 and all I see is a bunch of Apple fanboies spouting self-rightous crap and knocking someone for doing something interesting.
And the moderators modding them up, well, it seems to me I'll have to find the password for my account so I can supply some much needed sanity.
Shame on you all. You get yourself an Apple story and you crap all over it.
far from the cheapest mac ever though because first you need a mac to load it from don't you?
It's the most expensive media player out there too because one could slap together a Linux media player to do the same thing. If a person wants to spend a bit more they can get XP MCE '05 and be able to do far more at the same price or just a smidge more than the apple tv.
If Apple really wants to make money they'll contract out a chipset to cable tv dvr makers so that one's cablebox/dvr has the ability built in it. If they don't, they'll turn to Amazon.com like Tivo has and Apple will find themselves priced out of the market again.
It's a week after april fools day and people are still falling.
l etvhacks_0406
u nning-on-apple-tv/
;-)
the wired article:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2007/04/app
links to:
http://www.semthex.com/
-look at the date that semthex posted 'OSX on AppleTV'.
and
http://www.appletvhacks.net/2007/04/01/mac-os-x-r
-check post date for the linked 'laborious 13-step procedure'.
I've not researched this story any further because I don't need to.
When are people going to understand the width and scope of april 1st on the internet?
I don't even read anything on the net that day...just wait a few days
and catch the 'best of'.
it already runs linux.
http://www.mactel-linux.org/wiki/AppleTV
With the Mac mini you get: Mac OS 10.4, iLife 06, Comic Life and Big Bang Board Games. That's ~$260.
I recently bought my first Macbook pro 17", and am pleased. Happy to have new and different bugs to annoy me and slightly better interface than XP with the taskbar (horray for the Dock), and dont feel Im missing out of all the XP balloons in the tray popping up..
HOWEVER, I am NOT a Mac-fan. OS X has many bugs and missing features all on its own. I can count the number of times my Mac has frozen / kernel-paniced on TWO hands during the last half-year since my purchase, probably mostly due to parallells-beta, but it STILL is a user-program and shouldnt make my Mac unworkable. The Intel Mac does not have decent support for sleep, hibernate / resume either. Sometimes it just dies, wont wake up properly. I had to put certain hacks in to prevent latch-sensors to wake up the Mac and perform the China Syndrome in my bag etc., so Mac are not so perfect that enthusiasts wants us to believe. Maybe much of these are intel problems, but OS X also lacks in many usability regards (dare I mention the Finder?)
However, I love the PDF-capabilities, iWork/Pages is bliss and really do bring quick & outstanding results compared to other programs. So there are slight benefits I am getting with this Mac, that Im not getting with XP, though I am always contemplating when/if I will go back to XP (I dont see why, and have a few why-nots).
The argument that you get zillions of programs with Mac is ridiculous though. I never use any of those programs, have no use for either. Can I buy a Mac without them?
One reason for Windows: It is possible to NOT be a pirate on XP. On Mac, you either have to shell out more than you did on the Mac, for simple shareware programs that you later find out are missing features, or just have to turn pirate. Freeware/Free Software on Mac is a sad affairs.
Another thing you should know about is the real story behind Hacker Turns $300 Apple TV into Cheapest Mac Ever