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Apple Prevents G3 Owners From Upgrading to G4
sammy baby writes "Wired News is reporting that Apple deliberately wrote the firmware in the Apple G3 computers to prevent owners from upgrading them using the G4 CPU. Damn shame - I would have considered buying a G4, but I don't want to give my money to a company that resorts to tactics like this."
You don't care about anything but Linux (or, dare I say, DOS?) anyway, so why are you commenting?
I've used the MacOS almost my entire computing life and, true, a CLI is a useful thing, but I can get FAR more done with the MacOS GUI than I could with a CLI.
I've done many useful things without a CLI, you apparently don't know how to fully use a GUI. I'm not saying this as a flame or flame-bait, but seriously, if you can't do anything without a CLI, you don't have GUI-using skills and you're baised against them. You won't even acknowledge the usefulness of a GUI.
And as for the G3 vs P2, that's true. It was twice as fast, in integer benchmarks. But the G4 was tested using Intel's tests and came out twice as fast. The side by side demos during Jobs' keynote were quite impressive.
The Happy Blues Man
The Happy Blues Man
I accept on blind faith that Cincinatti exists.
Fuck Apple...fuck them right in the ear.
/. and swallow a lot of Anti-mac shit without comment. But I wanted to just pipe in and point out that A) All of us aren't into getting ass-rammed like a jailhouse bitch by Steve Jobs and B) most *pros* that *use* macs (web/design/graphics/science) as opposed to highschoolers that *brag* about them have learned to walk the thin line between Mac The Computer and Apple the Dicks that Make it.
Don't listen to this MacMoron...listen to me...
A different Mac Moron.
Points:
1) The present G4 works perfectly in the G3. Well, it *did* at one point.
2) These things (the cpus) were ready back in May. Apple was not. Apple asked Moto to hold off shipping the CPU's till Apple was ready, so that 3rd parties wouldn't get the jump on Apple. Moto Laughed.
3) many people (*many*) Knew the chips were ready and were complaining, so Apple A)changed the firmware in the Rev2 G3's and B) issued a firmware update trojan.
4) Anyone who didn't get sucked in to the initial round was sucked in when Apple issued and upgrade to OSX Server which "required" the firmware "patch".
5) As the final blow, OS9 will *not* install on a G3 without this firmware "upgrade". Fortunatly, this has gotten out, so that Rev1 G3 owners can be made aware of this latest trick.
The fact of the matter is, regardless of what the majority of you all believe, Apple makes good stuff. I use it, its alright. Runs Linux great.
But there is no way in hell *anyone* can justify or evangelize this predatory bullshit behavior on their part...and if you look around on Mac Sites, you'll find most aren't.
This is a Steve Jobs production, plain and simple, and he going to get his hand spanked quite hard for it. There are legions of folks pulling their G4 orders on General Principle until the block is reversed.
I spend a lot of my web time here on
We like our Macs but could do without Apple...especially *this* Apple.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
They're two different OSs (assuming you're comparing Mac OS with Linux or *BSD). There is Linux for the Apple platform too. Jesus Christ.
...because you head is so far up Steve's ass you can check for colon cancer...
/. and swallow a lot of Anti-mac shit without comment. But I wanted to just pipe in and point out that
OR
As I said in another post...
Fuck Apple...fuck them right in the ear.
Don't listen to this MacMoron...listen to me...
A different Mac Moron.
Points:
1) The present G4 works perfectly in the G3. Well, it *did* at one point.
2) These things (the cpus) were ready back in May. Apple was not. Apple asked Moto to hold off shipping the CPU's till Apple was ready, so that 3rd parties wouldn't get the jump on Apple. Moto Laughed.
3) many people (*many*) Knew the chips were ready and were complaining, so Apple A)changed the firmware in the Rev2 G3's and B) issued a firmware update trojan.
4) Anyone who didn't get sucked in to the initial round was sucked in when Apple issued and upgrade to OSX Server which "required" the firmware "patch".
5) As the final blow, OS9 will *not* install on a G3 without this firmware "upgrade". Fortunatly, this has gotten out, so that Rev1 G3 owners can be made aware of this latest trick.
The fact of the matter is, regardless of what the majority of you all believe, Apple makes good stuff. I use it, its alright. Runs Linux great.
But there is no way in hell *anyone* can justify or evangelize this predatory bullshit behavior on their part...and if you look around on Mac Sites, you'll find most aren't.
This is a Steve Jobs production, plain and simple, and he going to get his hand spanked quite hard for it. There are legions of folks pulling their G4 orders on General Principle until the block is reversed.
I spend a lot of my web time here on
A) All of us aren't into getting ass-rammed like a jailhouse bitch by Steve Jobs and B) most *pros* that *use* macs (web/design/graphics/science) as opposed to highschoolers that *brag* about them have learned to walk the thin line between Mac The Computer and Apple the Dicks that Make it.
We like our Macs but could do without Apple...especially *this* Apple.
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
The difference between Steve and Bill is:
Gates just wants the money.
Jobs wants to tell everyone that HE is _always_ right, and they're _always_ wrong; he also wants the money....
Then why is the fix an "easy work around?"
The same folks who claimed that Apple "broke" the G4 are also claiming that they found an easy fix for the problem. If Apple wanted the aftermarket G4s locked out, do you thing they would have done something simple, or something long and complicated?
Not to mention that, out of a number of ROM changes over the last couple of months, *one* (and only one) broke the G4 upgrades designed by *one* company...
When you sell a small amount of items it makes sense to only sell one type but when you make chips for desktops and servers it makes sense to segment the lines and make different types of chips. Consumers don't need a Xeon with 2 MB of cache and 128KB cache on a Celeron is insufficient for a server. You may as well argue that there should only be one kind of computer, you want similar infrastructures but you need some diffentiation. As for looking in the case before buying, of course you should! If you are the kind of person who gets upset about not being able to upgrade your G3 to a G4 then you damn well better not be afraid of opening a case so go ahead and check first!
>And the people complaining are not Mac users, they are Mac haters.
Really? How bizarre. I have an entire advertising department that uses nothing but G3 Macs. They've clutched them to their breast and given me evil stares everytime I've made half-hearted attempts to take them away. I was under the impression that they liked them, but since they are upset about this whole G4 thing, they must be secret Mac haters! Time for another talk on Tuesday!
Except Red Hat of course??? Red Hat just went public, sapsuckah... Expect shady tactics shortly.... In fact, aren't they suing someone right now? And you think Mac users are biased....
Uhhh X didn't exist before MacOS/Lisa (if my history is correct, if not, X wasn't exactly like it is now nor comparable to even the Xerox GUIs). If you want to complain about them "stealing" you can talk about the deal with Xerox . However, they didn't steal it though. They had permission, gave them money (and stocks too I think) in compensation for the use of certain ideas.
WARNING WARNING WARNING: Total flaming, fact-impoverished rant follows:
Oy, what a love/hate relationship with the Mac I have. For a tech writer who just wants to pound out a user manual, it's to die for.
OTOH, Jobs is the worst sort of arrogant control freak -- he looks on the "share your toys" philosophy with total contempt, plus he suffers from the "Not Invented Here" syndrome.
If he suffered clones to exist, his company would still be an industry leader and moneymaker because it would become more efficient, and the expanded market base would be more likely to spur innovation. It just might not all emerge from the labs of Apple.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
No that is not the reason. Intel was putting the L2 cache on the die (but not the chip which is why the chips were so much larger and more expensive)
.18 micron process it is once again possible to go back to putting the cache onto the processor. However with these smaller sizes the cache doesnt have to be stuck into another area on the die they can actually put it into the chip area of the die thus keeping sizes and costs down.
As Cache sizes grew it became impossible to fit them on the chip and the costs became prohibitive. Slot 1 came out as a way to keep the cache close to the chip and allow larger caches without putting them on the die itself and without having to put it on the motherboard which would have caused a bandwidth and speed bottleneck while accessing the cache.
Now that the die sizes are shrinking again and newer chips are using a
-sirket
The actual fact of the matter is the Mac aftermarket companies have already developed ways to deal with the G4 block. This is all a tempest in a teapot; no Apple owner is going to be prevented from upgrading his machine by this. IN addition there is scuttlebutt from insode Apple that the costomer reaction to this has been so hostile that theywill probably pull the block code from the next firmware update. The fact is that this is just not an issue.
Aside from the fact that there are third parties that have used/made G4 upgrades in those "tampered" Blue & Whites, this doesn't dismiss the fact that a G4 put on a Yosemite (Blue & White) motherboard does not give you much of a perceptible speed gain. In FPS's like Quake and Unreal, you get about 10% and that's it. The 400mhz G4 Apple is shipping now proves that (of course, there isn't much AltiVec-enabled software to test that yet.
To get the real power out of the G4, you need a Sawtooth motherboard, which takes advantage of all the G4's new features (increased memory bandwidth, etc.), and also gives AGP, btw. If I were to get a G4 upgrade and slap it into my Beige G3 system, I wouldn't get much of a difference than if I bought a similar-speed G3 upgrade.
Although, yes, I would still see a large speedup with AltiVec-enabled programs, but until I got some of those (Q3 probably isn't one of them, and I don't do much video editing right now) it's not much of a difference. You could see this as Apple making sure that the ones who want the best processor they can buy also get the system that will let them use it to the fullest. I would feel gipped if I have a hugely fast processor and find out that I'm not using a lot of what it can do because my older architecture is preventing the processor for really churning out numbers.
Before you all start smacking Apple for something, think about what it means in some other terms than your anti-corporation (they only want money), free-everything view.
The Happy Blues Man
The Happy Blues Man
I accept on blind faith that Cincinatti exists.
AHAHAHAHA CLASSIFIED AS A SUPERCOMPUTER BY THE GOVERNMENT AND THUS UNEXPORTABLE? You've got to be kidding me. Wait while I go get a brown bag to barf in.
I can picture some anti american terrorist group smuggling a Apple G4 computer out of the country so they can do dangerous things with it !
"Look, we just click on this pretty little icon here to destroy the entire United States!"
Whew! That was fun.
This is typical Zealot spew.
/. and swallow a lot of Anti-mac shit without comment. But I wanted to just pipe in and point out that
FIRST OFF, Comparing the various x86 processor jumps is PURE BS. The G4 is not the next step up, regardless of Apple marketing fu-fu...it's more akin to the +MMX step, just done a bit better.
Now, for some reality:
1) The present G4 works perfectly in the G3. Well, it *did* at one point.
2) These things (the cpus) were ready back in May. Apple was not. Apple asked Moto to hold off shipping the CPU's till Apple was ready, so that 3rd parties wouldn't get the jump on Apple. Moto Laughed.
3) many people (*many*) Knew the chips were ready and were complaining, so Apple A)changed the firmware in the Rev2 G3's and B) issued a firmware update trojan.
4) Anyone who didn't get sucked in to the initial round was sucked in when Apple issued and upgrade to OSX Server which "required" the firmware "patch".
5) As the final blow, OS9 will *not* install on a G3 without this firmware "upgrade". Fortunatly, this has gotten out, so that Rev1 G3 owners can be made aware of this latest trick.
The fact of the matter is, regardless of what the majority of you all believe, Apple makes good stuff. I use it, its alright. Runs Linux great.
But there is no way in hell *anyone* can justify or evangelize this predatory bullshit behavior on their part...and if you look around on Mac Sites, you'll find most aren't.
This is a Steve Jobs production, plain and simple, and he going to get his hand spanked quite hard for it. There are legions of folks pulling their G4 orders on General Principle until the block is reversed.
I spend a lot of my web time here on
A) All of us aren't into getting ass-rammed like a jailhouse bitch by Steve Jobs and B) most *pros* that *use* macs (web/design/graphics/science) as opposed to highschoolers that *brag* about them have learned to walk the thin line between Mac The Computer and Apple the Dicks that Make it.
We like our Macs but could do without Apple...especially *this* Apple.
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
have little stickers or warnings that if you open the case, any warranties you had with them are no longer valid. Seem fair? Not to me. Lesson of the day, all big corporations are about equal...they want more profits and customers and to please their stockholders. Everything else is done to increase those things.
I'm sure right next to the rom patch download there was a big warning message that said:
"WARNING, DOWNLOADING THIS PATCH WILL NO LONGER ALLOW YOU TO UPGRADE YOUR G3 CHIP TO A G4 WHEN THEY ARE RELEASED!"
The voodoo is a closed board with a closed API (glide).
Ben.
I agree. They stink like a Bangladesh cesspool full of curried human excrement.
>The market keeps intel *enough* honest, at least not to pull crap like this. This is like a car manufacturer saying I can't using the newest high octane gas w/o buying the year 2000 model.
Bullsh*t. It's more like your car maker saying you can't put the engine from a space shuttle in your Ford.
And you think a G3 fits in the processor "socket" in a Performa 6100?
There will always be companies like Evergreen who make socket-adapted upgrade products, and there's almost always an "Overdrive" processor. They suck compared to the real thing, and they cost more than replacing the motherboard, but the price points are about the same as G3 cards for lesser powermacs. So are the performance specs, for that matter.
Apple is just trying to make sure there's no such thing as a "G4" card you can slide into a 6100 you picked up for $100. If you want a G4, you buy the whole tamale.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
in the AIM (Apple IBM Motorala) Aliance and contributes.
They can still suck my ass, either way. I'm not amused by this crap AT ALL.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
If there is no good reason for that "little more work" other than delaying companies making upgrades for Mac users does that make it right? Of course not, AFAICS they intentionally downgraded the firmware as a protectionist measure. But lets say fine they have that legal right, albeit its still a lousy thing to do, for the new machines. Lets hear your rationalization on how its ok for them to remove the easy upgrade feature from the older G3 machines with a firmware patch, that might proove enlightening.
If there is no good reason for that "little more work" other than delaying companies making upgrades for Mac users does that make it right? Of course not, AFAICS they intentionally downgraded the firmware as a protectionist measure.
But lets say fine they have that legal right, albeit its still a lousy thing to do, for the new machines.
Lets hear your rationalization on how its ok for them to remove the easy upgrade feature from the older G3 machines with a firmware patch, that might proove enlightening.
And I might want to use it again, it's to bad you posted as AC so I can't credit you, however.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
What a horrible business tactic. I think a lot of people are going to realize this flaw and just not bother upgrading. Sort of reminds me of their brilliant closed-architecture policy back in the 80's.....
It is now a known fact that this was intentional.
What a maroon!
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
This is just more bitching and moaning by a bunch of immature people. The upgrade companies were able to find a way to upgrade "unupgradeable" Macintoshes that didn't have a ZIF slot and required the upgrade in the L2 cahce slot or a PDS slot. If they can figure that out, I'm sure that they can figrue out a simple ROM fix. However, like somebody said before, this will probably change.
I wish this soap opera would end sometime.
remy
http://www.mklinux.org
Apple finally die? Come one, who actually likes Apple's stuff? Closed hardware and Closed software is the jist of what i'm going to say. Their best product was the Newton, but guess what, they killed it off....
-Ellis of Geeknews.com
I have seen more ignorant BS so far from MacZombies over this than I thought was possible. These people just run off at the mouth without any attempt to check their facts. I think they're hoping the rest of the world knows so little about Macs that they can skate with whatever they say.
A G4 powermac can be had for under $1500. A stripped model from the Apple store is $1499. If you can wnagle an edu discount, less. Mail order and other outlets will probably have them less than $1500 too. This is not some low end Deceleron either.
Any public company (except Red Hat, of course) is populated by sheep shaggers and well poisoners. This move should surprise no-one.
The interesting this is now that the cat's out of the bag, will apple recant and release a firmware patch? My guess is... no.
Having said that, the unfortunate mac user quoted in the article over-reacted; "It's like a computer date rape by slipping a drug in my Mac!" Stupid similes like that do no-one any good.
>And the people complaining are not Mac users, they are Mac haters.
Could you be any more stupid? I believe as one of thefolks that bought one of those 750,000 1999 G3's I can hardly be classified as a 'Mac Hater'.
Apple, OTOH, can kiss my *entire* ass.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
You want something that runs MacOS?
It's called "emulation." Look into it sometime. It's slow, G*d knows it's unstable, but it's cheap and it mostly works.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Yup.
Look at Cartoon Maker Steve Jobs.
refused to pay child support. (Daughter Lisa)
Lied to friend to gain a few extra dollars (lied to Woz)
Consider:
The 'Reality Distortion Field'...what does that really mean? 'Reality Distortion' -> Lie.
If you are willing to flame Bill Gates for being unethical, then Jobs should get the same treatment.
Your comparing hardware incompatibilities. According to this they're simply saying Apple put in a software block in the firmware to block people from using G4 chips in their Mac G3 systems. I'm assuming the socket is the same and all the voltages are compatible. That is simply a sign of greed on their part to get people to buy an entirely new system rather than just a new chip and drop it in. If I bought a Dell with a P5-100 chip in it years ago I would most likely be able to drop in a P5-200 chip in it later. This is like Dell saying your system is only limited to the Pentium 100 you bought and if you want a faster system you need to buy a new one from them.
Jobs killed it as a simple ego soothing move.
You know Jack.
Yup, Apple has such a hardware monopoly. Then you talk about other PPC boards and x86 borads. Guess those are non existent since Apple has a personal computer hardware monopoly. I can only buy Apple RAM, Apple modems, Apple video cards, Apple chips, Apple monitor, Apple mouse, Apple keyboard, Apple scanner and Apple printers. They're the only ones who make these things and get all of the money that is made from their purchases. RUn in terror, they have 11% of "the market"! Theyre an out of control monopoly!!
How stupid of them, and how even more stupid of them who keep buying these computers. At least in the x86 world they don't limit your upgrade choices by firmware.
ever heard of slotket?
> Once again G4's _ARE_ G4 upgradble.... I would certainly hope so....It would sorta suck if G4 couldn't use their own chips...
Also, 3rd party upgrade manufacuters are already creating workarounds for the blocking.
-aust
Your case idea sounds like you are drunk. I hate sharp edges, and knobs are obsolete. Cars were MEANT to be visually pleasing, as well as comfortable. But what happens with the iCrack is that you get a nice case, with curves and a rainbow of colors is a total loss of performance, and ability, and requires totally proprietary designs. My beige box can run circles around the iCrack. But if i could do nice things with my case, I would. But it had better fit standard designs. The G3 case is sorta what we should be able to get for PCs.
It would run, it would just be very, very hot. (I had a frend *melt* his fan beacuse his CPU voltage was configured wrong.)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Isn't all of this speculation about the release of firmware to support G4's on Yosemite (the motherboard in Blue and White Macs) a little bit premature? I'm nowhere near being able to understand the detailes of firmware and processors but...
The low-end G4 that was just announced is a Yosemite motherboard (the Yikes! project, right?). Won't this mean that Apple will have to release firmware to support G4 on Yosemite?
This may be a little bit simplistic, but can't the firmware from the G4 Yosemite (grey) be pushed back to Blue and White Yosemite?
Apple was upfront with these machines calling them 'transitional' and the last Nubus machines. You have plain got your facts screwed up. There are also plenty of G3 upgrades you can buy for the x100 powremacs. I don't know where you heard this, but it is so off the wall it's crazy.
From friday:
PC's have 16 irq's: 0-15
of them about 6 are free on the modern pc (maybe one or two more)
So I was repairing some grad student's generic pc, installed the ethernet card and his sound stopped working.
Started by disabling LPT1 saving the needed irq, but PnP wouldn't rearrange the IRQ's properly. I finally noticed an option deep in the bios to disable the AGP IRQ, so no APG graphics for that grad student.
Sucky huh?
Ah yes, and the graphic designers and publishers really do require 'Supercomputers' to run Quark, Photoshop4, Illustrator, etc. Perhaps G4 'Supercomputers' to add to that Apple-addled sense of computing superiority that the advocates incessantly flatulate.
No, what graphic designers and publishers require are simple-to-use, basic, idiot-proof boxes, which Apple currently delivers. Apple users wouldn't know what to do with extreme FPU performance and wide memory bandwidth (or even a reliable, efficient OS).
Otherwise they'd require SGI (MIPS+Irix), Compaq (Alpha+DEC Unix/Linux/NetBSD), HP (PA-RISC+HP-UX), Sun (USparc+Solaris). Note the high-end vendors don't even call their workstations/servers 'Supercomputers'?
Go back home and try to create an error-free Postscript file.
They'll also love the nice price won't they?Call xlr8 and ask them...they will tell you that they were mistaken.
Apple did it. Period. They did it intentionally. Period. It was underhanded, anticompetitive and just plain wrong.
Deal with it.
The fact the the G4 400 uses the Yose Mobo minus ADB should make it *real obvious*
The fact the Yose MB supports the G4, on the board via a re-jumpering should make it fairly obvious as well.
The fact that the G4 cpus were reeady before Apple was ready to sell them back in May should bring it all to gether for ya'
But the fact that OS9 has now been fiddled with to disallow installation on unflashed Yose G3s (this is a *recent* development, and one that has cause the accell companies great concern) should be the icing on the cake for you.
It's REAL OBVIOUS at this point. Any company that put R&D into jiggering around this latest bump in the road knows that Apple can easily render their method, and products moot.
So they have all pulled back and revised their original "we can get around it" PRs because in reality, they cannot.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Some of you (other) Mac Users should be ashamed of yourselves for moderating the 'pro Apple' posts on this story up.
This is wrong, wrong, WRONG.
As much as folks are predjudiced against mac hardware, and Apple in general, they are even *more* predjudiced against doe-eyed Mac users and Apologists for these EXACT REASONS.
Face it. Apple pulled a fast on, and it STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN.
Y'all might feel it is your personal duty to be unpaid employees for a Multi-Billion Dollar Multi-National Corporation, but it does NOT change the fact that this is singlehandedly the WORSE thing Apple has *ever* done.
I hope that some reasonable folks moderate this trash DOWN, because it really casts a shameful dull yellow glow on reasonable and thinking mac persons everywhere.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
The G4 400s are Yose G3s w/ No ADB and new skin. Nothing new has been added...not even AGP
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
I've read all the whitepapers, all press releases from xlr8.com --the only company to my knowledge working on a "workaround" I've read all the test reports of people trying to make this work with various models of G3 and OS iterations. All of them, Rafi. I haven't seen one claim that there will be any easy fix, on the contrary:
From thurs.
That info never surfaces, even if it had it is mooted by what follows:
From Fri
You can draw your own conclusions. I think you should think hard about what Apple is trying to do here and what their stonewall of silence before and after the fact means. Do you want your next Apple to be a dead-end machine? Right now that's what the Yosemite is, regardless of rom revision --but that's not how it was sold.
Or c1992 Sparc Classic and SparStation 10 running RedHat 6.0. Damn sight cheaper than a new G4 :)
Many of those cards can be used with G4s in the very near future (I hate talking about the near future, i rather talk about the now, but whatever). The companies just need to write the drivers.
Oh yeah buying a new Mac in australia is sooooooooooo cheap!
Everyone has a spare $5000 to $7000 spare... oh no forget the upgrade card for $1000... nah cant be as fast even tho the G4 machines use the same
motherboard....
LAMER!!!!!!!!!!!
new machines are never worth it unless your old one is >3years old.
No tiresome IRQ or compatibility messes.
.plan update about starting to program the macs? He didn't like the interface ether. Many people find it ugly
:)) Getting it to work over a modem, generally requires you to enter a phone number, an L/P, and nothing else. I know, I've done it.
/. like to mention how much 98 and NT crash. I don't know about NT, but 98 doesn't crash that often (the original 95 was pretty bad though)
That's true, but it's getting better
That's why it's a lot easier to get video editing stuff working on the Mac, and it keeps on working once installed.
I didn't have any trouble, and I don't know anyone who has (granted I only know one other person with video stuf, but on the other hand, I used to love it when Premiere would crash the Macs at school and I would loose a couple hours worth of work)
A Mac is still a lot more fun to use than a PC, because it has a far more aesthetically pleasing look and feel.
maybe for you, but I hate it. what you just said was not a fact but an oppinion. You like the mac, beacuse you're used to it. I've used both macs and PCs, and I prefer the PC. I actualy started out using macs, and switched over, so it can't be *that* great.
Did you ever read John Carmack's
The Windows(tm) interface is both ugly and byzantine
Again, an unqualified opinion, I think the Mac interface is ugly, windows 3.1 was ugly, but the 95 shell looks pretty nice to me (not as cool as E or something on linux, though). An appropriate thing to say would be "many Mac zealots find The Windows(tm)interface both ugly and Byzantine"
(compare what it takes to get TCP/IP networking work on each platform, for instance).
Hrm, lets see...
1) Plug in Ethernet card
2) plug in cable
3) turn on computer
that's all it took to get *me* on the net (DHCP is nice
Whenever I need to use mainstream software such as Photoshop, I go gladly to my Mac. I'm glad it's there - and I have Irix, Linux, BeOS and Windows systems.
That's fantastic, I will not, and if software isn't available for windows (or linux) I won't use it.
Remember, Macs may have nice hardware setups, but they are by far overpriced (an Imac for $1200 when at the the time you could get an equivalent PC for $600 or less).
a lot of people on
In Mac OS is the most unstable Operating System I have ever used. If given a choice, I wouldn't run anything like photoshop, given that I might loose all my work in a system crash.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Yeah, that's the point. Why would you want to reboot after every minor change.
Mac OS --> Control panels-TCP/IP then
either manual enter ip, gateway etc,
or DHCP
less steps and no reboot like in your precious windows
.
The point was how much easier the Mac is to config for TCP/IP. If you don't know anything about it please stop spreading your pro windows FUD
Actually, if you had a clue about computer architectures, you would realize very little is different between chips such as the G3 and the G4. Nothing on board the motherboard deals with "sending ... instructions", only reading memory. I assume speed is a real issue because of different clock speeds that may not be supported on the motherboard. The data and address bus widths have reamined the same.
Similarly, very little is different between a Pentium and PII the the pin level. However, Intel purposefully redesigned the connection to fight AMD and the like. By patenting the Slot 1, they prevented other companies from making chips that could work in Intel compatible motherboards.
Don't be fooled by the marketing. The capability is in there.
I don't own a Mac, nor ever owned an Apple computer.
Also, what do you mean by "evil"? Is this some religious thing? Satan controls Apple? As opposed to other saintly big corps like say...IBM, MS, AT&T, GE, Nike, McDonalds, Oil companies...yup? This petty shit going on with these computer companies isn't even a grain of salt compared to what some of these big transnational corporations do...unethical (or "evil") practices...not on it's US customers, but on people in other countries and the resources in other countries.
you don't know what you are talking about. you can update the firmware just like any other piece of software. it is software not hardware. please do your research before you assume.
They DO exist for the Macintosh too. The good thing about the open source OSs is they don't have to remain on one platform...even if a majority of it's users are fanatical to a particular platform.
It's more reasonable to compare Windows with MacOS since you can't go out and buy a PC with Linux installed at major retailers, nor a Mac with linux installed on it. So, is there really any useful purpose of DOS in Windows anymore? Does this matter to 90% of computer users?
It's more reasonable to compare Windows with MacOS since you can't go out and buy a PC with Linux installed at major retailers,
does Dell count?
also, windows *does* have a very usefull CLI, it's called command.com. you can't do much network stuf, but you can pipe output from one app to another, use command line options, and interface with programs in text mode. I'ts not as cool as Bash though
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Apple is alive and kicking.
The only people pissed off are the people who
have a need for the speed. They bought the G3, now
they cant upgrade. WAWAWAWAW! It is brilliant, Apple is going to hold out on making a patch for an upgrade as long as possible. If they can sell
100 more G4's because of this, it will be worth it. And the people complaining are not Mac users, they are Mac haters.
And that's why I wouldn't buy any computer from a large company. But with the PC (and Alpha) architecture, I at least have the option of bypassing Dell/Compaq et al and either buying from a clone-shop or rolling my own.
:)
Maybe when the LinuxPPC and BeOS guys start doing useful things with those IBM boards, I'll be able to get my hands on a customized, affordable PPC based system.
BTW, best tool for what job? Sometimes I run things which want to see memory protection and preemptive multitasking
Superior ?? Who told you that ? Mac bigots, perhaps.
You forgot that the G4 machines have the same motherboard as a G3 machine...
So explain if its fair now, moron
what apple did is as if you couldnt upgrade a PII box to a PIII
get the drift.
oh and at least you can buy mothersboards for PCs for $99
Now, for those of you still spouting the rhetoric about apple's prices, I'd like to remind you that the new G4, classified as a supercomputer by the government, thus a weapon (and as of yet, unexportable to other countries), is available for a starting price of 1599. If anyone out there tells me that is too much money to pay for a computer with a top of the line processor, Modem, Ethernet, Firewire, USB, 128-bit video card, and more, plus the wonderful support of Apple (rated very highly every year) and the ease of use and increase in productivity it brings, well, then they really don't know a good deal when they see one.
Pentium IIs aren't exportable either (to the 7 countries, mind you. Same as the G4.) Non-exportability does not a supercomputer make.
You can get an Intel-based system with similar hardware for about $800, so yes, $1599 is way too
much, Especially if you're planning to run Linux on it anyway. Knock off a hundred or so if you really don't need the Firewire. Granted, the G4 looks like it will have better CPU performance than the $800 PC, but if you're really worried about that, spend another $200 and add a second CPU.
I used to support Macs. Apple support sucks. Their software is no easier for support people to support than any other. People who say that haven't spend an entire day troubleshooting incompatible inits, rebooting in between each combination. Why should I have to blow away the PRAM periodically for an unknown reason? How is that better than Windows?
A slotket works the OTHER WAY around ie it allows a 370 chip to be inserted in a slot , it will not allow a PIII to be inserted in a 370 socket. reading the messages before answering them is not a bad idea in general
Your full of it, a friend of mine bought a cheepass Celron333 box and its bios can do 100 FSB.
So go get a brain clueless wanker.
You don't get it: Apple impaired the ability of G3's already bought and paid for to upgrade. Say you had the first PII that required the BX chipset the 350mhz. You can put a 450 in there and someday you want to. Then Intel says hey got somthin for ya: a nice bios update that'll make your pci bus all groovy. You download it and find out that as a consequence you cannot upgrade your cpu. Wouldn't you be angry with Intel? That was your property and they just diminished the value of it without so much as a by your leave. Pretty scummy company.
if PIIs are made in a factory in Malasyia then how can they not be exported from there to the 7 banned countries?
Its already outside USA juristiction.
DO you think some small Malaysian computer shop wont sell to some iraqi? he puts the chip in his pocket and flies to iraq
Wow! You certainly proved me wrong! Nothing like intellectual superiority flames.
Your point has nothing to do with the overall. You instead try to make another point...that I'm stupid because my use of the term is not EXACTLY the same word for word as the dictionary you are using...and therefore everything else should be ignored. Correct? And again you use another tactic of intellectual smearing popular here, which is referring to the fact I posted Anonymously. Perhaps I like my privacy? Could we get any cheaper?
You know exactly what I meant and that intellectual smearing is petty. I don't say this in a way to throw mud back at you, but for you to try to keep these things in mind when you're arguing. Arguing has a bad connotation...rather sharing differences in ideas and opinions. Hopefully achieving something in the process and bettering yourself. When two or more people argue and lock themselves in battle mode (Black vs White...Kill or be killed), nothing at all is achieved. Both come out thinking they're superior to the other and have won usually, unless they're arguing a topic they aren't famaliar with.
Forgive my grammar and spelling mistakes. I would hope you wouldn't use them as evidence for yourself that I am inferior to you.
Wired can be counted on to make overgeneralizations and not fill in all details, but what's really misleading here is Apple marketing the g3 as the most expandable upgradable Mac ever and then slipping users a Trojan to prevent them from upgrading.
That kind of makes me not want to buy a G-anything from them. I can't trust them to leave it alone after it becomes my property!
Uh, no. Why would I keep my computer on that long?
It never ceases to amaze me how Linux people find pleasure in bragging about how long their computer has been on. Unless you're running a web server or something mission critical, I have no idea why you would want to leave your computer on all day; especially with a terrible (I'm talking about energy saving here, people) OS like Linux. My computer goes to sleep after an hour and the screen shuts off after 15 minutes. Today's computers use so much power, I find it disgusting that people would waste that much energy and then have the nerve to brag about it.
So, no, I haven't had the computer on the entire time, but I've used it intensively (i.e. Photoshop, Netscape, GoLive, IE, Word, Acrobat, MacAmp all open at the same time) for 12+ hours at a time and STILL have never had a crash.
Anyway, I only mentioned that point to head off the losers who start coming down on MacOS when they realize that the hardware is superior.
rooooar
The PII and the PIII are the same chip, retard. That's why it was so easy.
Oh, all you have to do is get a new Motherboard and CPU??? Gee, isn't that basically like getting a new computer? All you have to do to upgrade from G3 to G4 is get a G4 motherboard, then, which apparently IBM has released.
Just out of curiosity, how much $ IS a quality PIII motherboard?
rooooar
The side by side demos during Jobs' keynote were quite impressive.
wow, the side by side benchmarks at *my* keynote, proved that the G4, 8 times slower then a athlon.
I was comparing winzip to stuffit.
it's not to hard to make somthign 'impressive' when real benchmarks come out, from reputible sources, I'll buy it. so far, just about every benchmark to come out of apple has been bogus
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
And the people complaining are not Mac users, they are Mac haters.
True, I don't use a Mac but I actually kinda of like them (except for the stupid one mouse button). I keep hearing good things about PPC Linux, which makes me wish I could afford one!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
So that all the "What's the Big Deal?/3rd Parties" mac folk in denial will be up to speed and stop looking like complete boobs to those in the know, let me tell you what this 3rd Party Upgrade maker did, and why they are now saying "Ooops! heheh...sorry"
They basically figured out how to roll the firmware revision back, hence allowing the G4 ZIF cards to function, pretty much proving there is a processor check.
Now, the problem w/ this is, well, this: OS9 has quite suddenly *required* that the Firmware update be in place or it won't install.
There is no way around this.
Since OS9 will be out in about a month and new releases of MacOS are always hot sellers, there is no way they can back up their claim the said ZIF upgrade will work, because it effectivly means freezing the machine at 8.6
This has, BTW, been verified by many people who are supposed to be keeping their mouth shut about such things (NDA) but are frankly too pissed to care.
So, would you people please do the right thing and fall in line now? If you keep up this "Who's to say it was intentional" nonsense there will be nothing us sane Mac using persons can do to save you.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Okay, you're right, I agree completely, the victims are the people who now don't have any alternatives to MacOS besides linux. Be's move to x86 was probably the best move they could've made.
And I can't blame them for not wanting to reverse engineer. It isn't worth their time when they could move all their focus to x86 architecture.
At the center of this blowup are those people who had a v1.0 Yosemite and TRUSTED Apple and installed the boot rom "update". Their Yosemites are now blocked from receiving a G4 upgrade.
Even those with the early boot rom who didn't get suckered by the rom "update" have a gripe: If they upgrade their cpu to G4, immminent MacOS upgrades apparently will not install on their machine. They must update the boot rom to the "blocked" versions to install OS-9, or OSX. Then their cpu won't boot. They're being Steved. Get it? You buy everything all over again or you're out.
Please read this week's G3/G4 articles at xlr8yourmac.com and the most recent press releases at newertech.com and xlr8.com to bring yourself up to speed.
The fact that there is a G4 with a Yose motherboard should make it obvious that a ROM update already exists (or will by the time they start shipping, which wasn't really the day they were announced). And if they don't make that update available to everyone, what will they do when it's time to upgrade the G4 Yose ROMs to stop a G3 owner from using it? Any roadblocks they would put up could be circumvented.
As for the OS 9 ROM requirement, it is not uncommon for Apple to ensure that firmware updates are in place when making an upgrade. This frees them from testing with every single ROM version ever made. G4 issues aside, there's no reason not to have the latest ROMs.
Judging by your user info, I would venture a guess that you're really pissed off at the problem. I will be too - if it isn't fixed. But for now, I'd suggest you calm down.
Btw, Apple _can't_ say that any of their machines are upgradable due to a fiasco involving Performa upgrades a while ago that led to a class action suit.
-Rafi
-Rafi Remove the Spanish to email me.
While I would never touch a mac with a ten foot pole I do know several people who own macs and upgraded their firmware for the exact reason Apple released the patch. These people were having pci problems (or what seemed like pci issue) and the patch did in fact repair this problem. The fact that it also took away g3 upgradeability was not published and wasnot discovered until after they had applied the patch.
-sirket
True..but I could rip out the 430TX board from the Pentium box at work, and drop in a "Super-7" or certain PII boards (as long as I can find an AT one). Serious question: can that be done with Apple boxes? Can someone owning, say, a 9500 drop in a G4 and mobo to go with it?
This is old news...when people started getting their hands on g4s somehow (motorola ones, no altivec I think?) they worked fine, until people did the mac equiv of bios flashing, and found OPS no boot. Thanks to apple, new revisions said "Hey! you're breaking one of the ten commandments, 'thou shalt not modifieth thine hardware beyond apple approved *cough*overpriced*cough stuff' no soup for you!" ;)
:)
This is months old. I know this, and I'm not even a mac guy!
Ok, now I'll read the posts.
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Not bad spelling, bad typing
Maybe you should just worry about yourself. okay? Is it going to hurt you if I buy an Apple computer? I want one, the art college and program I plan on going to (after I finish my time at this college) requires I buy a Macintosh anyway. I've also researched this (the graphic design profession) quite awhile, and whether you like it or not, for what I plan on doing, it's best i get a Macintosh.
If this current Apple business move is as bad as everyone on Slashdot is exaggeratting, they'll end up bowing down to public demands. Unlike rather large corporations, they have to please their audience. If people are threatening to not buy new G4s, cancel their orders, write complaints on the company's own messageboard, they'll get the picture. They have before. Also, a third party company (surprise surprise, the same one who created this big stink that has Slashdot readers foaming at the mouths) that sells upgrade cards, has already announced they have got around it.
People just get way too worked up about petty shit. People who could care fucking less what Apple does none the less. Instead of actually voicing complaints directly to the company (if they really did care) they spew about how evil the company is on a messageboard for a website that is more geared towards Linux users anyway. People on here just over react to every Apple related article and find ways to it being the end of the world, or Apple having some sort of monopoly that'll destroy the personal computer business, or how Steve Jobs is the devil. Who cares? If you REALLY do care, rather just wanting more fuel to flame with, you'd voice your complaints with others. Democracy doesn't work by people sitting in their houses screaming at their TVs. Although corporations aren't democratic, they can respond to public pressure.
If you really do care the least bit, rather then trying to play the "I am smarter than group x!" game, you could spen maybe 2 hours of your
life reading up on it a bit. Understanding the world and people in it is actually a good thing.
Yah, but I find blind hatred so much more rewarding than being nice and understanding. Where would this world be without hate? No guns, no holocaust, no denial of service attacks. Hate makes the world go round.
Plus veg[etari]ans suck at driving, and don't know the different between the fast lane and the slow lane... and lanes all together.
Kill 'em all!
SuPz.orG
no, but it would help if feature X was documented in the changes file...
The feds classify it as a supercomputer, but they're the only ones.
Of course, in the age of beowulf clusters, the idea of supercomputers is obsolete.
(And clusters have been possible for as long as computers have been around.)
Yup. It makes as much sense as the crypto export laws.
My bet is that the Mac OS 8.6 CD that ships with the G4s will install an "Enabler" to allow it to run. They always do that with brand-new hardware.
PCM2
Breakfast served all day!
I already read what you CP'ed, and it is no indication that Apple will not fix the problem. And, as I pointed out to MrKai, Apple has nothing to gain by doing this. Nobody who just bought a G3 computer will replace it so quickly! Instead, they would only cause the anger that is being displayed now. Apple could figure that out easily.
-Rafi
-Rafi Remove the Spanish to email me.
Nobody is saying Jobs didn't do those things.. because he did.. more than 10 years ago. He was booted out of Apple, and has since returned. Lots of people had really questioned the move when they asked him back, but he has proven to have turned over a new leaf.. gotten Apple's stock from a 10 year low to an all-time high. What you wrote is only a half-truth, like the fact that the G3's aren't upgradeable. They are. Check out:
http://www.xlr8.com/
XlR8 antipated releasing G4 upgrades to G3 machines shortly. They just have to do a little more software tweeking to get them to work than previous models needed. This does not mean that Apple will not modify the existing ROMs to make it simpler to upgrade.. they respond well to user feeback.. just look at their Open Source Darwin license, which they modified within the first few weeks due to feedback from users.
because the personal choices of others differs from your all superior ones. I suppose you think all vegans/vegetarians are hippies? Stupid ass stereotypes believed by even stupidier people.
There are many different reasons why various people choose to become vegetarian or vegan. Some it's because they believe animals shouldn't suffer (and if you believe somehow the humans are superior...that is plain specieism. The only other justifiable reason would be religious beliefs. I believe we're all humans and human suffering isn't any different than animal. Therefore I'm not exactly so supportive of animal rights. People are born and die. Big deal, nothing special.) Other reasons include political, ecologicial, health, and so on. There are good reasons behind all of these. If you really do care the least bit, rather then trying to play the "I am smarter than group x!" game, you could spen maybe 2 hours of your life reading up on it a bit. Understanding the world and people in it is actually a good thing.
upgrading my PC to the next CPU standard is only a motherboard and CPU, which is far far less them buying a damn mac, IE a WHOLE new computer. In fact the only thing i needed to do to get my PC from a PII to a PIII was upgrade the bios (free), plus the chip.
you do'nt need to replace a 9500 mb because you can just stick a g4 in the processor slot.
Please send me, FedEx overnight, at least one ounce of whatever you're smoking.
The products that made 3d graphics take off on the PC are most definately based on closed, proprietary API's like Glide and Direct3D - OpenGL, for that matter, isn't exactly open either. See the disclaimer in the Mesa docs where it explains that they can not legally make the statement that it is "OpenGL Compatible" as that would require having run the OpenGL compatibility tests, which you can only do after having signed a pricey license agreement with SGI.
Even so, while Quake uses OpenGL, the vast majority of games use D3D, or, when taking for instance Descent 3, they support both, but the D3D support is far superior.
Why? Because Microsoft goes out of their way to make sure people can and do use D3D effectively, and SGI has neither the money nor the pull to do the same with OpenGL. At least not on the Windows platform.
The 3D graphics industry has taken off due to intense competition and price wars. Openness had little to nothing to do with it.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
gee, a computer thats not upgradeable?
sounds like a c-64.
hell, why not sell it with no dimm slots at all.
strike one of the * (advantages of a mac)
the so called, still usefull after 7 years crap and upgradeable...
what ajoke,.
Ummm... 'Cuse me. But, umm... When hasn't Linux had this. I'd hardly call this "new ground".
Don't get me wrong. I love BeOS, but there is very little truly new in them. SGI's have had journaling file systems, pervasive multithreading, and such for a long time. Now the rest of the world gets to play with it.
Not so much a technology, but a result of starting from scratch, the BeOS API is the most beautiful API on the planet. They had a well defined design from the beginning that allowed them to implement everything really, realy well.
No your being stupid, its a whole leap in design/change.
The g4 is not much diff to a g3, its still pin compatible. Image if in 1990, you couldnt upgrade a 486-25 to a 486-33
The way i see it , if its techicly possible, do it, if its done only to increase sales, then I smell a rat.
I'm not defending apple here, but Intel is far from guilty in this arena. Anyone heard of slot1, slot 7, slot foo? They changed it so that people couldn't just stick an AMD or Cyrix into their old machine to make it a much faster machine. They crippled the x86 upgrade market to make more $$$. If apple does the same thing, then that makes the just as guilty.
moral of the story : companies _will_ do whatever they feel is necessary to survive. period
BTW, my stupid winmodem won't work with linux. I love all these wonderful "innovations" in the x86 market.
the g3 was sold as "the most upgradable machine ever..."
the g4, unlike your argument for 486/pentium or p2/pentium... fits in the same slot. uses the same bus speed. etc... there is NO engineeering reason for it not being upgradable.
Apple has turned evil, and as much as I would like to have one... no thanks. I will wait and buy one from an oem instead. I will never give apple a dime after seeing this.
Ex Libris Veritas
No there is a different key combination.
> You said that they did it to be anticompetitive, but you have yet to mention what Apple has to gain by doing it.
No, what I said was they did and it *is* anticompetitive.
The reason is simple: To get folks to put money in Apple's pocket, not anyone elses.
And quite frankly, I do not feel morally oblicated to swell AAPL's bottom line.
Why would I pay $1600 now to upgrade to a G4 400, when I can pop one in my machine (or rather could) for half the price in 6 months?
>The fact that there is a G4 with a Yose motherboard should make it obvious that a ROM update already exists.
No, what it makes obvious is that fact that the machines Apple *wants* to have G4s in them do. These would be ones you buy from them, as opposed to getting the G4 from another vendor.
>As for the OS 9 ROM requirement, it is not uncommon for Apple to ensure that firmware updates are in place when making an upgrade.
ROTFLMAO...
Please point to Flashable bios firmware havin' Pro Macs before 1999. What's this? They don't exist? Do tell.
>This frees them from testing with every single ROM version ever made. G4 issues aside, there's no reason not to have the latest ROMs.
Riiiight...are you aware that Apple presently make 4 machines, not 24? This assertion is no longer relevant.
> Judging by your user info, I would venture a guess that you're really pissed off at the problem. I will be too - if it isn't fixed. But for now, I'd suggest you calm down.
And I'd like to suggest that you wake up and smell the coffee? BTW...Do *you* have a Yose G3, or some old assed Mac? Have you recently contributed to the large amount of cash that Apple has sitting in the bank, or are you just blowin' smoke?
>Btw, Apple _can't_ say that any of their machines are upgradable due to a fiasco involving Performa upgrades a while ago that led to a class action suit.
For the Love of God, man...
Apple can say any machine is upgradable providing that it is. *That* particular case had to do with them not providing an upgrade they said they would, or that upgrade not working.
I was THERE...I bought one of those machines, and when I found out that the upgrade wouldn't work in a machine they said it would, without bloking the slots and reducing the functionality, they took it back and gave me a 6100.
Those were the days...but this crap...oh hell no.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
The chips weren't ready (not in volume, anyway). AltiVec issues, mainly. Second, didn't you hear what I said? The block doesn't function on a new OS.
So, it's either a block against upgrading a processor, or it's to force people to upgrade their OS. Which one is more likely to generate money?
best to you.
Using the holy grail of OSes...
Whatever comes off as ethical to the consumer most likely ties into marketing of some kind.
Unfortunatly, that is all too often exactly what is going on. It does not relieve big corperations of their obligations to society (even if society's stewards (legislators and courts) are also shirking their duty)
I have no problem with a company giving me what I want (a great product) in return for what they want (some of my money) as long as they stay within ethical bounds. It IS possable to do that. It is the basis of ALL trade since before there was money (barter).
Reasons why corperations need to be concerned about ethics:
Note that for corperations, the last item can include boycotting your product and cheering as some politition who needs votes (or your competition's dollars) goes after you.
Personally, I believe that if corperations want to enjoy the legal fiction of personhood, they should also face the same consequences as a person. Forget fines for criminal acts (which often don't add up to the profits from those acts). Substitute forced closure of the company for jail time, and forced disolution of charter for the death penalty.
They fucked with users machines, and they owe an apology as well as a fix. i don't feel like paying a 3rd party a premium to undo damage to my ROM done by Apple. As it happens my rom is virgin, but that means I have to choose between a G4 processor and OSX. That's not the capability I had at the time I bought my Mac and it's not the deal I signed up for. Apple had better unfuck things real soon, or at least pledge to, if they want me to remain a customer. Think about that. Because of this I may not buy OS-9, OSX server, a G4 or any future Apple product. There plenty of others who feel the same way.
While a bit off topic, there are a couple of points I'd like to bring up in response to some of the Apple criticism here on Slashdot:
Apple was not being evil when they killed clones. At one point, Apple probably could have transitioned themselves out of the hardware market and licensed the OS to great success. Unfortunately, this did not happen. When they finally did license the OS, they allowed quicker, more nimble hardware manufacturers to outpace them and deliver machines for less money. Since Apple was (and is) making a large chunk of their money from hardware sales, this was doing NOTHING but eating away at their bottom line. While it sucks that lots of people are left stranded with nonsupported machines, it had to be done. The whole idea was flawed from the start and never should've been implemented. It was yet another stunning Apple fuckup from the Amelio years.
Secondly, Macs are not expensive. I use both Macs and PCs in my business and I'm intimately familiar with pricing for both platforms. This situation is this: there's fierce competition in the PC component market, which means that you can shop wisely and build your own box for quite a bit less than even normal retail. (savings of 20-25% here) Since Apple is the only vendor of Macintosh parts, this puts you at a disadvantage. But I ask you to go to a first-tier manufacturer (which Apple is) like Dell and build a machine comparable to one of Apple's offerings. I think you'll find that the two machines cost roughly the same. It's the premium you pay for getting a cohesive package from a manufacturer with an all-inclusive warranty and support.
Oh, and one last thing... how many buttons did your mouse have in 1983?
Appple has 30% ownership of G3 cpus, they invested 1/3rd like MOT/IBM did in 93 or whatever to make em.
SO apple DOES own the PPC.
Where, exactly, was the FUD in his post?
Can I plug an Athlon into the P100 I am using?
no, but you could plug a 400mhz k6-3, if your using a socket 7 board. if you're using a socket 5 board, you can get a super7 for less then $60
Did Intell release an official PI-PII upgrade
Yes they did. it's call a P-Pro overdrive, I belive.
the thing is, g3's and g4 use the same socket, so while you can't upgrade your 386 to an Athlon, do to physical restrictions. you Can take a celeron 266 up to a pIII 600, a p66 up to a k6-3 450 and so on. If a PC chip uses the same interface it *can* be used. there are no software locks
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
When was the last time you saw a 486 motherboard that was upgradeable to a pentium?
Well, a few years ago on my first job as computer technician, I had upgraded a few 486 to Pentium. These where equipped with the very latest 486 mobo before the Pentium come out and where labelled "Pentium Ready". Basically, they where PCI-based motherboard, with the 486 soldered on board and equiped with an empty Socket 7. You dropped a low-end Pentium (60, 66 Mhz), set a few jumper and tada! you got a Pentium machine.
I highly doubt the upgrade was significant (from 486 DX4/100 to Pentium 60 ?), but we had a few customer who asked for it. If my memory is correct, only mobo from Intel had this feature.
Beside that Evergreen, Intel and a few other manufacture CPU upgrade that could be used as drop-in replacement. Yes, you're stuck with the limitation of bus, chipset, etc. but so are you with the different Mac CPU upgrade.
And how much a CPU upgrade for Mac cost ? A few hundreds $, last time I check. For 200$, I can buy a brand new mobo and AMD K6-2 processor and upgrade those aging 486/Pentium, while getting all the benefit of newer chipset and speedier bus. Is this possible on Apple hardware?
:wq
I note that no one is defending the above claims.
An attempt to deflect attention with the vegan 'issue'.....
But no one is saying that Jobs DID NOT Do that which has been charged.
what the fuck is that? a supercomputer with just one CPU? hahaha! that's a joke. if your just talking about performance, then the Pentum 75 I got in 1995 was as fast as a supercomputer from a few years ago. The only conclusion I can come to from your post is that you are brainless mac luser. sorry.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
For you, yes.
You're also almost comparing apples and oranges. I can't go up to the local best Buy and buy an overclocked Celeron with the best products in it.
Apple is also like these OEMs. You can buy a stripped won core system and buy third party products much cheaper for the Mac too. Apple isn't the only company selling hardware products for their platform.
Celerons are also slowly getting outdated. Their prime time is over. The prime time being they were so much cheaper than the PIIs and you could overclock them so much.
And again, this is about buying the best tool for the job. If the comparable system for the Apple platform was tremendously more expensive, I can see it ridiculous buying one, even if it happens to be faster for something you use (PS). The truth is, even buying a full system directly from Apple isn't all that more expensive than a comparable PC system. $300-$600. If you can't afford this for a tool you use for your job, something is wrong. I also doubt so many Slashdot users are as ghetto as they pretend. "Any system over $500 is a rip off!!! I can't afford anything more with my food stamps."
(compare what it takes to get TCP/IP networking work on each platForm, for instance).
Control Panel/Network/Add/TCP-IP/
enter ip#,sUbnet,Dns/reboot (ok thats the pathedic step).
>The reason is simple: To get folks to put money in Apple's pocket, not anyone elses.
And to this I keep asking: Would anyone who bought a computer no more than 9 months ago just go out and replace it??? I don't think so. And a few years down the road, it will probably pay to buy a new one as opposed to upgrading anyway.
>No, what it makes obvious is that fact that the machines Apple *wants* to have G4s in them do. These would be ones you buy from them, as opposed to getting the G4 from another vendor.
But if they're the same motherboard, then once the next ROM update comes out for Yose, G3 owners will get the same ROMs are Yose G4 owners!
>And I'd like to suggest that you wake up and smell the coffee? BTW...Do *you* have a Yose G3, or some old assed Mac? Have you recently contributed to the large amount of cash that Apple has sitting in the bank, or are you just blowin' smoke?
Actually, I have a Rev.A iMac, not to mention that I'm a shareholder in the company. So while the issue doesn't effect me directly, I am concerned by it.
>Apple can say any machine is upgradable providing that it is. *That* particular case had to do with them not providing an upgrade they said they would, or that upgrade not working.
But they have to cover their behinds. If some some strange reason nobody makes an upgrade for a particular model computer (VERY unlikely I know) and they say it can be upgraded, they can be sued. The only way it would work is if they say "Well it could theoretically be upgraded if someone made an upgrade" - and that's not a good idea either b/c if some roadblock is encountered (not a ROM thing, some technical glitch) that can't be fixed, the upgrade makers could sue Apple.
-Rafi
-Rafi Remove the Spanish to email me.
When was the last time you saw a 486 motherboard that was upgradeable to a pentium? Or even a pentium motherboard that was upgradeable to a pentium 2?
I upgraded my old 486-33 to a Cyrix 5x86-120, which offered "pentium level performance", I'm currently using an AMD K6-2 300 on a super 7 motherboard - upgradable to a k6-3, which can beat a P3-500 in interger perfromance - and yes, you can plug in a pentium 166mmx into this motherboard if you feel like it, thus making it a pentium motherboard.
available for a starting price of 1599. If anyone out there tells me that is too much money to pay for a computer with a top of the line processor, Modem, Ethernet, Firewire, USB, 128-bit video card, and more
For $1599, you can also buy a top of the line DELL computer with a P3-500, more memory, more hard drive space, all those features except the firewire, and a better video card... oh wait, it comes with a MONITOR too! what about that G4? I don't see a monitor anywhere...
_______________________________________________
There is no statute of limitation on stupidity.
Install network card. Get prompted for driver disk on powerup. Insert driver disk. Reboot system. System boots, configures itself over DHCP, and you're done. Pretty easy.
AMD locked theirs too. Unless you don't mind opening the cover on the chip and moving surface-mount resistors when you feel like changing clock speeds.
Ok, news flash.
;) I know they're not cheap at all, I still get mac catalogs from olden days. (once you're on a catalog list, you stay on for 10-15 years ;)
:) and ATX has a good 3-5 years in it at least. A good AT tower lasted a looooonnnnggggg time from day one.
:)
Sure, you can't bump a pentium to a p6 core chip (pii piii celeron)
HOWEVER, lets take a closer look at this.
SURE, you can even take all the way back to an old 6100 up to a g3. 'Bump' a 601 to a 750. BUT WHY? You are taking a brand new chip, and running it on ooooollllllddddddd motherboard, ram, video and HD! Not super cheap either.
Even taking a PCI mac and sticking a g3 or g4 into it is going to have bottlenecks. The cpu tends to be the LAST bottleneck. The HD is the first, then the motherboard/ram.
Someone get me a price on all those g3 upgrades
A BX board (say, BE6 or BP6, $100-$125) plus a nice celeron or two (wonderful upgrade.
ATX case? If yes, then good. (also common in mid-late 97) If not, $50-150 depending how nice you want it (I recommend high end
Even taking the g3 to a g4 is going to have bottlenecks! Apple was a dick for putting in the temporary disable, but I'd rather have the new motherboard, that actually supports all the features of the g4. Too bad though, have to chuck out $1600+ for a new system. Instead of $200-500 for a comparable speed upgrade. Apple lets you swaps cpus, but not mobos. Without the new mobo, you can't get nice new ram, new/betetr slots etc etc.
Before you come back and yak about how great it is that apple n 3rd party cpu boosters are available, take a closer look at reality.
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Not bad spelling, bad typing
Only enough to know that you couldn't put the kernel into it (nowhere near enough space; even the floppy-based distro kernels are probably too large). Besides which, that would mean yet another rewrite of the kernel into portable fcode (the bright side of this is that the same kernel would then be able to run on any OF-based machine without ever being compiled on any of them).
Problem is, there's nowhere near enough room in OF to do that. There are some other pretty cool things you can do with it, though. One guy even wrote a playable version of Pong for OF.
What if I want the cooler faster OTHER stuff on the mobo? I can do that with a nx86, at least.
They weren't talking about chip upgrading. Seeing as how that's completly unpredictable, and most likely not a good idea considering what is going on with the following processor (G4).
When was the last time you saw a 486 motherboard that was upgradeable to a pentium? Or even a pentium motherboard that was upgradeable to a pentium 2?
Yeah, and I'm sure it's real easy to swap out the motherboard in a PowerPC from, say, two years ago for a new G4 motherboard, and count on having all your components work with it.
Due to the commodity market (and mostly open architecture) on the x86 platform, it is trivial to replace almost any component with another from a different vendor. Don't like the motherboard? Swap it out get another one. Don't like Intel? Get an AMD motherboard/CPU combo.
Apple's schizophrenic and closed hardware platform decisions, on the other hand, leave a lot of people out in the cold as far as upgrades go. Nor is this a recent change in policy: Apple has been treating customers with indifference since the earliest days of the Macintosh, when they left IIGS owners high and dry.
I'd like to remind you that the new G4, classified as a supercomputer by the government, thus a weapon (and as of yet, unexportable to other countries), is available for a starting price of 1599.
Yes, that's the 400MHz version with a measly 64 MB of RAM and no monitor. It is too much to pay, despite your pontificating. This link will tell you how to build an SMP x86 system with 128 MB RAM, a better video card (Ultra TNT2 AGP), a hard drive twice as big, a CD-RW instead of a CD-ROM, and a high-quality 17" trinitron monitor for less than that cost, from brand-name commodity components, all of which you can upgrade or replace anytime you want.
And if you want John Carmack's opinion on the real-world impact of the G4's so-called "supercomputer" performance, read his finger update on that subject. According to him, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I doubt anyone at Apple, or indeed on the planet, knows more about fast 3D rendering on microcomputers than John Carmack. And I can't think of any common application your average home user's going to need that's going to be affected more by AltiVec than 3D rendering.
For anyone complaining about the OS: Install LinuxPPC. Or, realize that the OS is getting better with every revision, and the OS X is going to put Microsoft, and particularly NT, to shame.
That it is. Unfortunately, the stories I have heard about LinuxPPC, Yellow Dog Linux, and MkLinux ease of install, general stability and hardware compatibility, tend to make me believe that those distributions don't measure up to Red Hat or Debian. And why? Not due to any weaknesses in the platform-- it's because Apple, in its arrogance, believes it can completely own both the hardware and the OS on PowerPC platforms, and therefore refuses to release specs for its best and brightest hardware. [0]
OS X will probably be excellent. Unfortunately, the history of OS X merely presents another example of how Apple's roadmap for the future spins on a dime and leaves everyone else in the lurch. Remember Rhapsody? Apple shipped out developer's kits for Rhapsody to all Apple developers and told everyone to learn it, because Rhapsody Was The Future. Soon after they brought Steve Jobs back, Rhapsody was promptly gunned and MacOS became the order of the day once more.
~AC (not takin' cookies today)
[0] Fortunately, PowerPC lovers won't have to put up with Apple's idiocy much longer, if IBM manages to get widespread industry adoption for their new motherboard specification.
"A BX board (say, BE6 or BP6, $100-$125) plus a nice celeron or two (~$100 or less) is dirt cheap. And fast. If you happen to have, say a Pentium on a TX with first gen sdram (very common in ~97) this is a wonderful upgrade."
:)
:)
This paragraph got nixed somehow. I think because I had a less than symbol in there OOPS
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Not bad spelling, bad typing
> Nobody is saying Jobs didn't do those things.. because he did.. more than 10 years ago
Ok, lets pick an item after he has returned.
He goes into Motorola and tells them:
"It'll be great in 2 years when we don't need you."
Smooth move. Walk into your vendor and say you don't need them anymore.
Sounds like the same Jobs.....
Given this, why are Mac users whining about Motorola dumping all Macs for NT?
is full of Grade A shite...nobody in there ight minds takes their speculative 'insider investor' crap seriously.
Those who *know* and not guess KNOW for a fact that OS9 will not install on a G3 w/o the firmware upgrade. Those who *know* also are aware that G4s function fine in these unaltered machines.
And RFI is not among those who know.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Is it not easily circumvented? I may have read the article hastefully, but i thought it was a BIOS thing. So if enough people complain, maybe Apple will fix it on their own, or someone else will.
Actaly, the price of dual CPU systems is going to come down a lot, probably due to the fact that games using the quake3 engen will be able to take advantage of them.
A dual celeron motherboard costs about $120, and the chips are $70 each. that dosn't sound to exspensive. certanly cheaper then a g4 'supercomputer'. Photoshop under NT supports multiple CPUs. You might not like multiple CPUs since mac's can have 'em. but they are there, and they are cheap
BTW, athlon is about 20% faster then a pIII at the same speed. given that you can get one at 800Mhz, I think it's pretty silly to call them compareable
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
you can upgrade the G3's to G4's there was a big thing about it when they first came out with the G3's. everyone was asking if you could upgrade, apple didnt really say much. apple did make it a bit harder to upgrade but it can be done there are already 3rd party comp's out there with G4 upgrades
Hardly. Maybe to YOU, but who the hell are you to say what every computer should do?
iMacs are the right computer for a whole lot of people. That's why Apple's selling a ton of them.
If you don't think computers should be easy to use, you're part of the problem.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
oh boo hoo, i miss my CLI... yeah it would be totally impossible to do anything involving a CLI on a mac, there's only MPW which is freely available from apple, been around for a hella long time and has an easy to use CLI. dammit and i could never ever use MacPERL along with applescript and MPW to do any real work.
Apple might have been worried about having enough G4s to go around. I read somewhere that it was done to prevent shortages, and that when they became more available Apple would fix the problem. It's still very evil of them.
really? I'm a mac hater, And I *love* this, whatever's bad for apple is good for me :) on the other hand, I think a mac user might be pretty pissed off.
100 more G4's because of this, it will be worth it.
not if they piss off 101 potential customers....
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
hehe. i don't like intel either. i'm all about amd. check out that k7, hmmmm? g4 my arse, athlon is what i'm talking about....we all know intel is corrupt anyway. hehe. now watch this get moderated to -1 in 10 minutes.
The only trouble if finding the right disk in the :) some people (like me) have
big pile of networkcardsdriversdisks
Moral: Fix the G3 BIOS yourself and get on with life. Apple will always try to fuck with you. The answer is to fuck Apple back.
You don't get it: Apple impaired the ability of G3's already bought and paid for to upgrade.
Apple never said these machines would be upgradable. So peevishness agains Apple is perfectly fine, but hatred is not.
He's not joking. It is currently classified as a supercomputer, as are all computers with a clock above a certain speed. Anyone got the number?
Apple is using Microsoft tactics even though they are not nearly in a Microsoft (== monopoly) position. I don't want to image the things they'd pull had they won the desktop war. Not that I like Microsoft or their tactics...
bye
schani
This story makes me recall NCR
Back around 197x, when NCR tried to enter the end user (not personal, business) computer market, they put out two models the 3 and the 5. The three could be upgraded to the 5 (which was much faster). According to the reports that I got the upgrade worked like this: A repaiman came into the computer room carrying a short cable, installed it, and walked out carrying a long cable.
NCR shortly left the general purpose computer business (or at least I stopped noticing them).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Seems like the supposedly superior mac is after all (like I said) not as good and quite frankly not as upgradeable as a PC. This statement is fact based upon the news story and hence not mere subjective opinion. If I had worked for my hard earned money I would not want to spend more then I had to at all.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
like what? USB, firewire, Permedia3? get em as PCI cards.
And speaking of 1984, remember when fattening a Mac meant going from 128K to 512K? Apple tried to stop that by releasing jiggered Macs back then, because they wanted to sell enhanced Macs at a premium.
Moral: Fix the G3 BIOS yourself and get on with life. Apple will always try to fuck with you. The answer is to fuck Apple back.
And now, for Serge's rant of the day. I'm not annoyed with Apple, at least not to the extent that you think I am (and I've been reading Slashdot for almost a year now). Personally, I heard about this a few weeks ago, and even then I knew it wasn't going to be that big of a deal. And in case you haven't realized it, Mac users really dig that ease of use thing that you say isn't really all that important. Yeah, I'll admit that the iMac isn't really worth it, but you'll never convince me that a G4 isn't worth it's weight in gold.
The chips are manufactured by US companies, which are under US jurisdiction wherever they go. See the recent discussion about developing crypto over ssh.
If anything, Be was another victim of their closed architecture.
The reason that Be doesn't exist for the Mac anymore is because apple wouldn't give the information they needed, they could have reverse engineered, but they didn't think that it would be *worth* it. Be is happily selling there PC version. who's a victim here? Mac users who like the OS, that's who. (and lets not forget all the BeOS fans who switched to Intel boxes...)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You know, I like Apple. I like their computers. What I don't like is being jipped out of my hard earned money. I was looking for a computer some time ago for my parents and myself when I was still with them, and we finally decided on an Apple Performa 6220CD, thinking we had gotten a good machine...yeah right. Go to the Low End Mac website and look under "Road Apples." (For those who don't know, a Road Apple is a machine that was severely crippled by Apple itself) Low and behold, there was my illustrious 6220. I had lost faith in Apple until recently. With this new development, I really hope that the release of IBM's PPC mobo specs starts picking up steam and Apple just fades away. People shouldn't have to take this kind of crap from any company...not just MS and Apple. Until Apple cleans up its act FOR REAL, I am not going to spend one dime on them, and I hope nobody else does either. I truly hope that this isn't true...as I said, I like(d) Apple. McKinley, where are you??!?!?
As far as cost-benefit analysis goes: who made you the warden of my finances? Who is Apple to constrict --actually subtract from-- the choice of people to do what they want with their income and property? If Kai wants to put a G4 in his Yosemite tomorrow, that should be his right, as the only preventing him now is malicious code inserted by Apple after he bought it. This is still true 12 months-- 24 months-- from now. You can question his wisdom in so doing, but, no, you go further and excuse what might be described as criminal trespass or computer vandalism by saying it seems illogical to you for him to act like he owns his property. Kinda lame, Rafi.
You bought a computer that was all it was ever going to be when you bought it. That was pretty obvious from its design and I'm not criticizing your decision. OTOH, when you pay way over commodity PC prices for a Mac workstation billed as the most upgradable expandable Mac ever, that kind of assumption doesn't apply. If this is the future of Mac computers then I will bidding y'all adieu, adieu, adieu.
That's not the point. People are not pissed because it's apparently not possible to upgrade the G3 to a G4. People are pissed because there are allegedly no technological (hardware) reasons why you shouldn't be able to just swap out an old processor and put in a new one. Apple has seemingly used deception to get people to upgrade their firmware which then arbitrarily refuses to let a G3-G4 upgrade take place.
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Sorry, Mr. mazpaz, but I'm afraid the G4 doesn't really qualify as a supercomputer these days. 10 years ago, yes, but today, no. Hey, my HP48 outperforms an ENIAC easily. Is it a supercomputer now?
Don't get me wrong: The G4 is certainly a superb CPU and I love AltiVec. I wish a had a G4, I just don't want one from Apple.
Just for the record: I'm an Alpha user.
bye
schani
Non-exportability does not a supercomputer make. No, but being a supercomputer makes non-exportability. It's a stupid classification, agreed, because it is very out of date, but the US Government laws do classify it as a supercomputer, and hence it cannot be exported without a special licence from the fedgov.
Sorry, the Alpha was there 1st.
And the Alpha runing Unix is just as personal as a g4 running Unix.
...plus the wonderful support of Apple (rated very highly every year)...
/.'ers don't need no stinking support! :->
SUPPORT?!? For your information,
If Apple didn't kill the clones, the clones would have killed Apple...
Clones did not kill IBM, in fact they led to a competitive marketplace where new companies like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, etc. sprang up to compete with IBM. Competition is good for the consumer as more suppliers == lower prices. Apparently Steve Jobs must have failed Economics 101...
A man who wants nothing is invincible
It's more like programming the microcontroller on your escort to not accept the motor form a Mustang, even though it would work perfectly (to make you by a mustang, instead of just a motor)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
considering how little you know about CPU arcitectures, you should probably not be spouting off. it was not under apples 'supervision' that the Chips were created, although they probably had quite a bit of input, seeing how there the number one customer.
btw, the PPC is a RISC (reduced instruction set computing), and x86 is a CISC, (complex instruction set computing). RISC, in theory will be faster all around, but that's only in theory. an 800mhz athlon will be faster then a 60mhz PPC 601. Also, newer chips from intel and AMD convert CISC instructions into RISC before they are exicuted(I think the origional pentium was the last that did not)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I am not sure why there is such a hype over this guys. Apple has made a career of taking truely stupid users, providing them with an imagemap user interface, and taking top dollar on stuff as idiotic as color of the case. Apple has a large following of stupid people that will do nearly everything to say that Apple is the best and MacOS will beat any OS. Such people can hardly think on their own and will do whatever Apple suggests. Rational people will refuse to pay for it, Apple will be forced to release some kind of patch lateron and will gain more money even as G4's are becoming unattractive. Its not a big deal.
Hmmph. You must think it horrible that Apple continues to use PCI, USB, and Firewire instead of going back to NuBus, which should be so much more reliable, being more closed.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
I believe that it it not the clock rate, but rather the fact that the machine can sustain 1 Gigaflop (4 Gigaflops peak) that makes it non-exportable.
Also, I believe that it IS exportable to most countries, but there are a few which it is not exportable to (iraq or cuba possibly?)
Actually, Mac OS 9 requires the firmware upgrade.
I still believe it was not intentional, though.
Apple at WWDC 1997 PROMISED that Rhapsody would run on ANY MACHINE SOLD BY APPLE IN 1997.
That they did, and AFAIK RDR2 runs on all computers made in 97. However, since OS X isn't Rhapsody, they aren't breaking any promises.
If you could upgrade a mac just like a pc IE motherboard CPU bang! new system, i would leave intel in a flash!! those g3 cases are so damn nice and would be easy to work on modify, etc however coz there is no way you can upgrade the MB and cpu stuff them im not going to be stuck using a door step puter.
Robert Morgan of RFI has seen Firmware 1.1 machines running with G4 chips. They were running Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X Client. These two OSes contain code to allow a machine to use a G4. The firmware was implemented to make sure that no non-OS 9/X G3 uses a G4 chip, because the machine will die... in a big way. The G4 does things really differently to the G3, and OS 8 of any version just cannot handle it. So it's not a block. It's a bug fix. Get a copy of Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X Client, and you'll be sweet. all the best, base2_celtic (pipeline 256)
Using the holy grail of OSes...
The Blue and White Macs only came out this spring. Apple knew that the G4's would be comming out this year, so if they really wanted to prevent cpu upgrading they would have put the damned processor on the motherboard and not on a zif socket.
I've heard two reasons why Apple did this:
1. To make sure they were the only source of G4 systems for their big rollout in Seybold.
2. G4's are going to be in high demand, so they ensured that they would have enough until supply caught up.
I would bet money that Apple will release another firmware update to allow G4 upgrading, probably early next year, once the G4 hype has faded and there is a good supply of the chips. Even if that doesn't happen, Apple never said these systems would be upgradable.
If you want a G4 chip, you have to buy it in a G4 Mac. How is this any different than the requirement that you have to buy a G4 system to get that 22" Apple Cinema Display? I didn't see any mass flaming on that discussion.
It is unfortunate that so many readers here are intolerant and so quick to bark at any company that doesn't bow down to the Almighty Penguin. I'll probably get scored down for saying this, but I just can't hold it in any longer. There - much better. :-)
-Rafi
-Rafi Remove the Spanish to email me.
http://discuss.info.apple.com/boards/powermac.nsf/ ccb088a1de6aac738525631c0067846b/79720ab 376a518ed862567e00068b29d?OpenDocument
s f/by+Topic?OpenView
is a thread on an Apple message board, where supposedly Apple will post the info about whether they'll fix the ROM.
http://discuss.info.apple.com/boards/powermac.n
That's a more general link to the PowerMac forum, where lots of people are complaining
http://www.maccentral.com/forum/
Is a forum on MacCentral.com, where I have put up lots of comments about this problem, and other users have also been talking about it.
http://www.macintouch.com/bg3upgrade.html
Is a link to a Macintouch area where user e-mails are posted.
What it comes down to is that Blue G3 owners(like me) are extremely mad. We have been hearing daily about the amazing things some developers are going to be doing w/ the G4 and AltiVec and we want in.
Apple got a lot of the early buyers(like me) to install a ROM update that was advertised as improving PCI performance(and probably did) that disabled G4 support. Apple did not tell us this and still has not admitted it.
Many Blue G3 owners have already said they will never buy a Mac again, others are looking at legal alternatives(class action suit because Apple removed a feature that was in our machines when we bought them w/o our knowledge).
Basically, Apple is in deep shit. If they don't know it by now, they've gotta be brain dead.
Apple had better put out an explanation and a fix real fast.
Using an overdrive processor.
It's expensive, but it works.
Witch intel also does, there is a big diffrence between locking a chip from running out of spec, and writing software that prevents the new chips from working.
btw, its still easyer to rip off some resistors then it is to reprogram a bios
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It's a tired refrain: anyone who criticizes Apple must be an Intel apologist, as if PPC and x86 are the only two processors on the planet. I'm an old NeXT user, and a large part of my customer loyalty transfered freely to the Apple Enterprise division. I'm eager to see the consumer fruits of that effort. But I'm also eager to reap the benefits of the fancy, easy-to-open door on this Blue&White sitting next to me. If Apple did, in fact, intentionally cripple this machine's upgradability they've done a very bad thing. Shame, shame, shame...
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
wow, I'll never read them again, now that some random person named "FalseConsciousness" has criticsed them without giving any reasons...
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Try to relax. Calm, deep breaths. BTW, Apple is a business. Can you say that? B-u-s-i-n-e-s-s. They sell things.
Look, all businesses make bad decisions. People do too. Find me the perfect person/company, and I'll show you Starfleet.
all the best,
p SuDuVi
Using the holy grail of OSes...
First post.
Maybe you should consider puting about $300 into upgrading your system. a mother board with SDRAM slots, and some SDRAM like 64megs if would run you about $110. Snag a faster CPU with the rest. you could get like a 400mhz k6-2, if you wanted. instaid of buying a rediculisly overpriced Apple hardware "in a few years"
I got a p75 with 8 megs of ram 5 years ago, and now it's running at 200mhz, with 96 megs, and I havn't spent more then $200 in those 5 years (not counting the $150 I paid for 16megs a few months after I got windows 95)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
you're right - mac stuff in australia is ridiculously expensive: AU$9000 for a big monitor. that's approx US$6000+
bleargh.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Hey.. It's not like I've bothered to do any research, so before I do I'll ask on slashdot :) Does anyone know what, if anything, linux can do with g3/4 firmware? Kernel in the firmware? Super fast bootup? We could see the same thing on x86 machines but I guess no-one really cares. Can ANYONE update the firmware on a g3? or do you have to have some special apple thing? (yer.. like I couldn't just reverse engineer that). Getting around this would be pretty simple I assume, but I guess that's not the point.. anyways.. off to altavista, +linux +apple +firmware :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
You're also almost comparing apples and oranges. I can't go up to the local best Buy and buy an overclocked Celeron with the best products in it.
no, but you can buy one with a regular Celeron in it and over clock it. and even with a real pIII you'd still be *much* cheaper then a Mac. I can't even *find* PCs more expensive then $1,500 nowadays
Celerons are also slowly getting outdated. Their prime time is over. The prime time being they were so much cheaper than the PIIs and you could overclock them so much.
Intel is continuing to update the Celerons, and the newer 366's can run at 550, or even 600mhz. pIIIs are still relatively expensive.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Socket 370 for Celerons prevents a P2 or P3 upgrade. Was there a technical reason? Nope.
Kind of a silly idea to get OS 9 when it's not going to ship until mid-October and that the G4's start shipping next week. The G4's will ship with OS 8.6 and I have a hunch that 8.6 will run just fine on a G4. "The G4 does things really differently to the G3" is really kind of a weak argument seeing how the 400Mhz G4 is basically a G3 Box with AGP and a G4 processor.
I think you misunderstood me. I never meant to be the "warden of [your] finances." But the fact is that in the majority of cases, people might upgrade during their computer's "mid-life crisis" and get a new computer when it's time. The fact that someone upgraded does not extend the period between new computer purchases by much. This is in my experiance and in the experiance of pretty much every comptuer user I know. Therefore, any gains by Apple eliminating upgrades are minimal and are far outweighed by the bad PR they must've known they'd get.
Here's an idea, why don't we just see what happens, ok? Like I said originally, there's really no point in this bickering without knowing what is going to happen in the long run. Don't get me wrong, if they don't fix it or provide a damn good explanation why not (unlikely that there is one), then I'll be really angry. But, I'm not at all convinced that is the case. It just doesn't make sense.
-Rafi
-Rafi Remove the Spanish to email me.
yer.. I remember looking into this now.. any first hand experiences out there with PPC Open Firmware?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Did any of you actually read the story? A simple firmware update solves the problem. Hell, they've put out a few of those already, to fix problems with the iMac cd-roms. Look people, just because you see the Apple logo, doesn't mean in you need to type some half assed tirade that Jobs is evil, Apple is the same as *insert company name here*, or complain about Apple being "closed".
p.s. No one *cares* if you think color cases are ugly. They were not designed for you.
The PC is an open platform, BIOS updates come from motherboard makers, and there are dozens. I get mine from Amptron, others from Abit, some from Dell or Compaq. Only if you cold get several companies that *compete* with one another to conspire to do something that they know would piss off there customers, and benefit only one of them, would you be able to do something like this.
If dell fucks with there BIOS you can just buy a Compaq (or even physically switch the BIOS chip, I've actually done this, just to see what would happen. It worked (although I didn't leave it like that))
Unlike apple who can leisurely fuck it's users whenever it feels like
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
...sheesh!
~AC
I thought that the G3 was the followup to the PowerPC 603 and the G4 was the follow up to the 604. So, it doesn't surprise me that there would be difficulty with upgrades since you couldn't readily upgrade a 603 based computer with a 604 add-on.
Correct me if i'm wrong.
Anyway, Apple is a proprietary shop. That means they control everything and try to charge as much as they can for their products since they don't have to go head to head with anyone directly. That's why linux rules.
All of your posts seem to forget that apple is a business who must protect their market interests. The issue is a simple and reversible software roadblock to prevent upgrade manufacturers from beating apple to market with G4's. I challenge you to name a comparable mainstream PC manufacturer who advertises their desktop CPU's to be upgradable. PC's are disposable. Don't even compare their service life to that of a macintosh. There are circa 1994 macintoshs all over running on G3 upgrades. Think about the intel offerings at that time and consider adding a Pentium II or III to that motherboard.....
What I meant by 'pervasive multi-threading' is the integration of threading in the GUI. Under BeOS, if I have two browser windows open and one is loading a page, I can concurrently type into the other window and/or bring up a new window entirely. I've seen this in other Be programs, so I think it's a feature of the OS.
I don't see that in Netscape for any platform, SGI and Linux included.
D
----
No tiresome IRQ or compatibility messes.
That's why it's a lot easier to get video editing stuff working on the Mac, and it keeps on working once installed.
Both of those issues are probematical with the PC.
A Mac is still a lot more fun to use than a PC, because it has a far more aesthetically pleasing look and feel. The Windows(tm) interface is both ugly and byzantine (compare what it takes to get TCP/IP networking work on each platform, for instance).
Whenever I need to use mainstream software such as Photoshop, I go gladly to my Mac. I'm glad it's there - and I have Irix, Linux, BeOS and Windows systems.
D
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well there's no real 'reason' to upgrade from a Celeron to a pIII, seeing how there performance per-clock is exactly the same.
Intel is making Socket 370 pIIIs now, so lighten up.
besides, if you don't like Intel, buy AMD. it's not that hard.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
new borg icon with Jobs in the center. I agree with your "troll" - Jobs /is/ just as bad as Gates.
Robert Morgan is so full of shit his eyes turned brown. I can't even describe how bad that guy is, but it's so easy to tell just by reading the BS he puts out on MacWeek.com.
:)
He always tries to make people think he's cool. He'll say something like: "something big is coming at MacWorld, unfortunetely I can't tell you what it is, but you'll like it".
His predictions are like the ones from Nostradamus. The only times he makes something you can check, it's wrong.
He's been saying how there's gonna be a big Apple-Disney merger of partnership or something. You know what it culminated in? There's a Disney channel on QT TV. What a fucking loser.
BTW, there are illegal copies of Mac OS 9 circulating in EfNet #macfilez. Just don't get b6
Hmm.. all this imac talk is tempting me to role over to the old computer science building and grab one of the 40+ they got over there. Here in the new building we use nothing but solaris/linux/bsd/win95/win98/winnt/.. well just about everything.. I want an imac for my collection!
How we know is more important than what we know.
Every time intel sells a CPU in a slot, it looses money. the PIIIs are exspensive enough that it dosn't mater. however, intel only makes about $10 profit on a celeron. $5 more would reduce there profits by half.
people who don't know the diffrence between slot 1 and socket 370 arn't going to be upgrading there CPUs anyway.
Everytime you upgrade you make intel money, so they like it. infact they are selling socket 370 pentium III's now, I belive
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It'd help a lot of those both on /. and those that post to /. would research what they are talking about.
/. to proliferate half-truths.
The G3s are upgradeable. If Apple or a 3rd party company wishes to offer G4 upgrade cards they can, just a little more work. In fact, there is one company that already has working cards (can't remember the name right now). I'm not saying that the firmware decision was a good one, but they never said you could upgrade a G3 to a G4 in the first place. This "story" was out months ago in a number of places. Too bad it took wired.com and
Cameroon
- open standards.. but the AGP slot is still open hardware.
How we know is more important than what we know.
From the original "128K should be enough for anyone, right?" Mac onwards...
Just Another Apple Suicide Attempt. Probably this time it won't be fatal either; Mac afficionados will put up with damn near any sort of sodomy from Apple - the ones that remain, that is. The ones with more brain have already learned this lesson.
Apple hates you. Your only purpose in life is to help Apple remain solvent. Think different, sheep.
well, abit mobos will probably work, since they were designed with overclockign in mind :)
but were not talking about $90 motherboards with these Macs, were talking about $1500 computers
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I think what hapined is that when Apple was testing this rom update, since they didn't ever claim that the machines would be G4 upgradable, they simply didn't test it with a G4 chip.
Consider that it is XLR8, not Apple, that is saying that it was intentional. Now when XLR8 comes out with their upgrade that gets around this, they will have that added 'cool' factor of having beaten the big evil Apple. Therefore I find anything that XLR8 says on this issue to be suspect.
That being said, it is certainly possible that Apple did this intentionally, but I think that the scenerio described above is more likely. In any case, there will be a fix that will get around this, with or without Apple's help.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
The PPGA (plastic pin grid array) packaging of Socket 370 Celerons is much cheaper to produce than the PCB/edge connector that is Slot 1. I'm not even sure what your argument is. Socket 370 and Slot 1 are *physically* different, smart people buy Slot 1 boards with "slocket" converter cards that let you put a Socket 370 CPU on a PCB that then goes into Slot 1 allowing you to upgrade to a Slot 1 CPU if you want to later but Slot 1 will be going away too. Regardless, this is completely unrelated to what Apple has done. Apple has crippled their machine through *software* not a physically incompatible package. If you bought a Pentium II 233 and wanted to upgrade to a P-III 600 and your board supported all the correct voltages and multipliers and then your motherboard manufacturer releases a BIOS update that disables this support wouldn't you be pissed? That's what Apple has done.
Avoid insulting people without merit. They are exploiting people because people don't care what is inside the case because they are ignorant. FUD isn't the only way to market unethically. If you offer an equivilent product that is astetically pleasing, like intel is desperately trying to do with those crappy designs they are pumping out, then you are providing a product that better suits your market without exploiting them.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The basic point is once again that people are willing to be exploited. If you don't like the way a company behaves, don't buy from them and hopefully they'll go away. The problem with that argument is that someone like Apple supplies a product that you want and no-one else supplies (pretty computers for dummies) so you pretty much have to put up with whatever they say.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yeah right. Compared to the total market out there mebbe .001% (probably too high).
Yes you are right. Steve gets to rape a few more of his customers and live to see another day. He wins another little atrocity but totally looses the war.
Steve Jobs is the Slobodan Milosevic of the PC business. It's horribly tragic considering his brilliance.
Just wondering. Stupid vegetarians.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Right now, as in, the past few years, since the Celeron 'A's came out, it's posible to build a faster system then one you could buy in a store. stick an overclockable celeron in a BH6.
Going from AT to ATX formfactor can be prohibative, but Could go out and buy a super 7 mobo for $60, and a k6-2 400 for cheap to, if I wanted. Gradual upgrading of a PC is much cheaper. There's no reason to throw away all my old ram, hard drives, flopy's Case, etc, etc
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
is mostly controled by the bios nowadays. so there probably could be a BIOS fix :)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
A PC motherboard is cheap. An Apple macintosh is not
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
As far as this upgrade issue goes... It does not surprise me. I first got started way back in 1983 with an Apple //e. Then got a IIgs when they hit the streets. There was a lot of programs and software back then that were way ahead of their time. Then when apple killed the Apple //'s and said "Well we don't give a damn about you anymore" that pissed a lot of people off. Myself included. I told myself and told thousands of others don't fall into Apple's trap like we did back in the 80's. I will not give a dime to that company. They were sooo close to closing the doors. I still plan oh holding a hug party when they finally go under. They had a loyal following and pissed them all off. And for that they will never forgive you Apple. I see Apple is still up to their old tricks. Don't fall for their business tacktics like so many in the past have. I'll keep putting my money in other technologies. I don't care if I have to scrap the machine for the latest and greatest... As long as Apple didn't build it and they didn't get any of my cash I could care less.... I would like to hear from others that feel the same way.
I don't know about you, but for the most part I find that upgrades are not cost-effective - you won't spend much more if you buy a whole new machine and sell your old one.
I think Mac users got into the habit of doing upgrades during Apple's darkest days, when they were just not responsive to consumer demand. Based on the reaction of people to the new G4, I don't think we can accuse them of that now.
I'm not inclined to think of Apple's action as a good thing - I think it's a mildly bad one. But I'm not sure it warrants the extreme negative reaction it's received so far.
D
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E-T-H-I-C-S.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Would a Piper Cub take a jet turbine? Does a Ferrari in Manhattan make sense? Isn't running Windoze on a Mac a downgrade? How would a G3 handle the processing power of a G4? I'm getting the REAL MacToy!
Promising, or not promising, something will be compatible & upgradable is one thing. Actually screwing with people's computers to make the compatible incompatible so upgrading will not work is quite another.
Illogical Mac apologist. Who gives a fuck that apple is a company trying to make money..hell I don't care if apple was a 3 eyed zombie from planet moron. This apple entity has done serious EVIL!! There is no justifcation for evil. "Oh, it alright, Apple is a corporation, therefore we can forgive them..." Stooooopid!! Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway. Only Mac users will be affected by this and hey..they *like* the abuse! Is there any other rational explanation as to how someone would ever purchase more than one Mac in a lifetime? ps: I *seriously* question the performance claims of the G4. After all they have come from Apple, a proven unethical company.
I can't imagine why ths FW 1.1 was attempted. You can't compare G4 -> G4 to 486->Pentium, as PPCs all ride the same type of bus, even if it might be a pin rearrangement. G4 isn't really a fourth generation, with G3 being the thirdm anyways, as G4 is a 604 with the same tweaks it took to make a 603 a G3. And any arch should be backward compatible, so you can't say that 'Oh, a G4 just works totally differently'. It'll work, just not as powerfully as it could.
Uhhhhh, hello! "Intense competition and price wars" is exactly what openness is all about, at least as far as hardware is concerned. When people say that the Mac is closed, they lament lack of competition. Now for software openness means sharing, but for hardware openness exactly equals cutthroat.
If you really believe what you wrote, I have a huge space-chicken farm I'd like to sell you...
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
....so you'll notice I resubmited.
Now, for those of you still spouting the rhetoric about apple's prices, I'd like to remind you that the new G4, classified as a supercomputer by the government, thus a weapon (and as of yet, unexportable to other countries), is available for a starting price of 1599.
:( ) and it's only worth about $200. what your proposing is a terrible deal
so is a $300 playstation, so?
Also, it's not a hardware issue, the g4's use the same motherboard for christ sake! you can upgrade a PII to a PIII, if you want. Why? beacuse they use the same physical interface. So does a g3 and a g4. you can't upgrade beacuse put in software lock. theres a pretty big diffrence there.
If anyone out there tells me that [$1599] is too much money to pay for a computer with a top of the line processor, Modem, Ethernet, Firewire, USB, 128-bit video card, and more, plus the wonderful support of Apple.
Considering I could get that in a PC for $800, I'd say its a pretty shitty deal My computer has everything on that list exsept Firewire, (and a top of the line procsesor
For anyone complaining about the OS: Install LinuxPPC. Or, realize that the OS is getting better with every revision, and the OS X is going to put Microsoft, and particularly NT, to shame.
yeh, go out and buy overpriced hardware that runs linux slower then dual celeron, that sounds like a good idea...
and sure the OS is getting better with every revision, but it still sucks ass. I mean christ no protected memory!??!!? WTF?!??!!? no premtive multitasking?!?!? no multithreading!?!??!
even windows 95 suports all of this, the mac dosn't. even windows 3.1 had protected memory, to prevent single applications from crashing everything else.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Yes.. Apple never gave you permission to open the case did they?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Can you say speculation? Maybe somebody just goofed up? It was the last firware update that - allegedly - caused this issue. It affects other upgrades, too, so I expect it was an accident and will be fixed under a free warranty extension. A hassle, but hardly big, nasty baddies at Apple. I mean, they're doing a pretty good job at being open and releasing a whole bunch of interesting stuff to the open source community, and more is coming. If you haven't checked out Darwin yet, wow, some _great_ code in there.
Are you ALSO going to fight for the rest of us?
Apple at WWDC 1997 PROMISED that Rhapsody would run on ANY MACHINE SOLD BY APPLE IN 1997.
So, are you going to bat for *ALL* of us?
Remember how Apple lost their shorts over the Powerbook 540 (possibly more) fiasco? They advertised the systems as "upgradeable" and then never provided an upgrade, opening themselves up to a class-action lawsuit, which they lost.
.02$
Therefore, my take on this whole situation is, is that Apple just went ahead and put the block in there partly to keep the market for G4 processors constrained, and their current weirdly legal-ese reaction to the complaints ("We never said it was upgradeable") is a straight-up liability dodge.
It wouldn't surprise me if they removed the block with a future rom upgrade.
Just my
Regards,
JFB
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Apple did it to prevent peoople getting g4's beffore their g4's were out. Kinda like preventing piracy (but just making sure theirs are the first g4's) This will be changed. Don't worry. Dear gawd, its not some big evil plot/conspiracy, they just wanted the official g4's first. Anyways it all has to do with the ROM's and XLR8 (www.xlr8yourmac.com) has access to those so they can already make them, while others have to wait for the firmware change. Big Fat Hairy Deal.
The vMac people have been doing ROM patching for quite some time, and BasiliskII is practically built apon it.
How hard could it be to write a G4 enabler via an OF-based bootloader?
has a hell of a lot more compition then Apple does. I mean, they don't even have a *majority* of the sub-$1000 PC market!!
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
cannot be exsported to china, eventhough it is going to be made in china.
acutaly there is a law going through right now to lift those numbers
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
This is fairly slimy, but less slimy than it first seems.
Jobs had been concerned about G4 upgrades making it to market before the G4-system announcement. It was essentially a PR issue; he didn't want Newer and such stealing his thunder, and making the actual G4 systems a footnote to the new cpu itself.
The reason this is good is that it means that this is temporary. Even aside from the ability of the upgrade makers to patch around this in software, Apple is expected to release another firmware patch that reverses this issue, shortly after the G4 systems start shipping.
Apple has always known in the past that the upgradeability of their machines is a significant selling point, and has worked to maintain it. I doubt that they'll change that now.
So yes, this was an underhanded, selfish technique, and is designed to cause some people to buy full new systems rather than upgrade. However, it's not as extreme as it first sounds, given that they're likely to play fair and allow people the choice, once the full systems are actually available.
big moitors are nice :)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I was actually planning on buying a G4 in rOcktober, until is saw this. I don't pay for M$ prodcuts because of they way M$ does business, and there is NO WAY I can support a company that does something just as heinous as the things M$ does....
crApple has been a better word for a long time, seems it will stay that way....
Even if that is true, Apple could have made it impossible (or at least extremely difficult) hardware wise to upgrade the chip, instead of doing it with Firmware.
All the Apple haters here need to cool down before they hyperventalate themselves out of their chairs.
So we divert the discussion from Apple's wrong doing to a "better definition of evil". The use of evil in this context is perfectly clear. Bzzt! Peddle your sophistry elsewhere.
Hmm... I could have sworn Rhapsody was merely a code-name for their next OS. Indeed, the specs for MacOS X Server were very similar to those of Rhapsody.
Their diversion from Gil Amelio's road map was the pending Intel port of the OS. And their time-tables were thrown a little out of whack. After all, Apple has to find some-way to enforce a rigid control over their hardware sales.
So you're mention of the demise of Rhapsody isn't entirely correct. The forthcoming Mac OS X isn't Rhapsody, nor is MacOS 9. MacOS X Server is the closest thing we have to the former Rhapsody OS, and remember, Rhapsody was a CODE NAME.
that's all.The video editing card for my beige G3 is a third-party card. The only thing closed about the hardware is that Apple's the only company that can make it.
Open hardware tends to drive down prices very fast, but it doesn't seem to lead to innovation. I think this is because consumer demand is not for innovation, but lower prices above all.
You know, it's interesting that the most intriguing hardware comes from closed or partially closed systems. We hear more "cools" and "awesome" when we talk about vendors of closed systems like Apple or SGI. When's the last time we featured an article like "HP comes out with new Pavilion line of PCs"?
Granted, we may not be able to afford some of these "cool" systems. But I have yet to see proof that openness can create something "insanely great" like the Mac or BeOS. And - before you ask - I consider Linux "great". But not insanely so, because it's just an excellent copy of something that already existed. MacOS and BeOS both broke new ground in some way - Mac with the GUI and BeOS with the pervasive multi-threading.
D
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Sure they're a monopoly, just like Harley Davidson is a monopoly. You want an American motorcycle? You want something that runs MacOS? For the moment you have one choice.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Apple's intentions aside the Blue And White G3's _ARE_ upgradable to G4's. It's a simple ROM fix. Other G3's aren't affected by this so the headline is misleading. Speculate all you want on why this happened but it's moot because it has little real world impact. Once again G4's _ARE_ G4 upgradble.
Apple's intentions aside the Blue And White G3's _ARE_ upgradable to G4's. It's a simple ROM fix. Other G3's aren't affected by this so the headline is misleading. Speculate all you want on why this happened but it's moot because it has little real world impact. Once again G3's _ARE_ G4 upgradble.
Only if you ignore the Alphas, Sparcs and the multi-CPU P6's, PII's and Xeons. That's not even including the Athlon that they were too cowardly to go up against.
This isn't an issue because Intel has no control over the rest of the computer's hardware. I could go out and purchase a motherboard and a CPU as soon as both were available on the market and be up and running as soon as they arrived in the mail. It's a shame Apple users have to get permission from Mr. Jobs to do anything to their machines' hardware, it would seem.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Rob was debunking Apple/Disney rumors. And what he knows, he don't tell for damned good reasons.
You'd read AppleInsider, then? ROFL.
p 256
Using the holy grail of OSes...
Animals are still fun to eat, though.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Yeah, okay, but all I meant was that Apple's hardly alone in trying to make money. And, like I said, no-one's perfect, and most people are greedy (even when they don't want to be).
best to ya,
p 256
Using the holy grail of OSes...
>look at the real facts all you intel disco
>bunnies- apple has built the first personal
>supercomputer. people
Kid, grow up. I don't need a supercomputer
with 256MRAM to generate "Type 1 error"
and "Type2 error" super fast. Indeed, a workable
OS is comparatively important than supercomputing
power.
>knew about the G4 much before this, and they
>could have waited to get it if they wanted it
>that badly over the G3... and i dont see any
What a great way to treat customer.
Customer wants to buy a product that is good,
powerful, and long-lasting in value by
perodical, yet reasonable re-investment.
(easy/cheap to upgrade, if you can't understand)
Some Apple advocates have the following
pattern of thinking:
(1)When problem occurs,
(2)Apple is always right,
(3)If in doubt, go backs (2).
It is funny to see how apple advocates downgrade
to such degree. To Apple, this is going to do much more harm than good.
- I have found them to be more or less reliable in their reporting.
- Wired News cited its sources in the article I referenced.
- I actually read the story in Wired News.
It is my opinion that reading a news article, then copying the article's sources and passing the information on without credit, is essentially plagurism. Citing the Wired News article documented my submission to my satisfaction, to Roblimo's satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of a couple hundred respondents to this topic.On any Intel motherboard (that is, one assembled by Intel, not an Asus board with an Intel chipset), the BIOS will lock up unless the CPU IDs itself as "GenuineIntel". To upgrade that old Endeavor board to a K6-333, you first need to buy a BIOS upgrade from http://www.unicore.com.
Intel is getting smarter about this. They now solder all their BIOS chips to the motherboard, making them much more difficult to replace.
As for Apple G3 users, can't they just downgrade to the old Version 1.0 ROM?
I'm sure that apple knows what its doing...
The firmware we are all so upset about can be removed in a download and is in place so that 3rd party manufacturers won't be able to take some of the potency of apples pre-release and early release sales. The Blue and White G3 is designed for easy upgrades i.e. the processor pops out. This Firmware garbage sucks, but its not permanant.
Not that Apple doesn't use cutthroat business techniques, (as do most other Big Money Corps) but I have to defend them here. They didn't 'Disable' anything. Can you upgrade a Pentium (586) to a Pentium II? Not really... not directly anyway. Sure, you can stick an 'upgrade' CPU in A PCI slot or retrofit it into the socket7(?), but there needs to be new hardware surrounding the 'upgrade' chip that makes it look like the OLD CPU to the motherboard's chip set. This has been done for years. In reality, it's usually a waste of money. No matter how fast your 'upgrade' CPU is, you're limited by the bus and by the chipset(s) that funnel data to and from the CPU. This is just common sense.
:-)
The G4 has a different Architecture compared to the G3. And yes, you CAN upgrade a blue G3 with 1.1 firmware to a G4. But why? it will make the machine go a little faster, but you won't get the performance of the new G4, since the support chipset won't know that it can send 4 simultaneous instruction streams at the thing anyway. So what's the big deal. If you *really* want the G4 machine's performance, sell your G3, and buy a G4. The resale value on the G3's won't be much lower than what you paid, and the price difference would probably cost less than an upgrade card (Since you aren't wasting a G3 in the process)
OR, save your pennies, and wait for the G5
To some extent. However, I'm typing this on a no-name PC running Linux. I like it much better than what the competition was offering. Want a good computer w/ a pretty package? Buy a good motherboard w/ Athelon and hire an air-brush artist to make it pretty.
Apple's entire business is focused on selling you hardware (not software). So why is it suprising that since they have a monoply on the hardware, they can go and force you to buy more of it? Look at Microsoft. They have a software monoply. How do they make people upgrade? Word 97 won't read Word 95 documents, and can't save in that format. They even tricked the RTF format to use an existing bug in Word 95 so people would have to upgrade.
Or the Word HTML saving capability. It sticks in all those IE-specific code-page entities, even for things like quotation marks, and other punctuation. *Normal* browsers display these as question marks, and the author looks stupid.
All I can say is, when Steve killed the clones, he killed their platform. If you want to use the hardware, use an Open motherboard (like those IBM ones) with LinuxPPC, or use a good x86 board + hardware (although I'd like to see something like embeded LILO in motherboards as an extension to the BIOS bootloader from 1979, that would rock).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Rumors say that Intel had some of their motherboards outfitted with a special BIOS to prevent using AMD CPUs on them. This was back in the Socket7 era. They also have dual BX motherboards that are purposedly incompatible with Celerons via firmware.
The market keeps intel *enough* honest, at least not to pull crap like this. This is like a car manufacturer saying I can't using the newest high octane gas w/o buying the year 2000 model. Bull-crap. Intel disco bunnies, whatever... I use what will makes Quake 3 (And Homeworld, and ReVolt and Final Fantasy 8) dance like a friggin john travolta disco inferno, thats the only groove I worry about. OTOH, I'd be amazed if we're not missing out on part of the puzzle here. Okay, this is _only_ something that will piss off apple customers, there really (I hope) has to be something we're missing. Apple has always been a company to dangle happy making carrots in front of their... Scions of Church Apple. (Ie, BeOS, clone powerpcs, helping linux porting). The scions were so happy with the G3, iMac, the return of gaming & thoeretically the iBook, that Apple probably feels they can be bastards for a bit. Intel/x86 stuff is not perfect, but it follows the ideals of open source closer than apple, where competition makes cool stuff availiable for all, not when the Church Pope (Jobs) decides to grant it.
http://www.somethingpositive.net Funny + bitter = comedy gold
Hey all,
So, Apple is basically copying Intel over the whole socket 7 issue (well, not entirely but you get my drift).
So what ? It's a sound business plan, a bit like MS's brilliant 'two-fingers-to-the-open-souce-community' stance.
OK I'm getting a little bit silly here... the fact remains that Apple is being out of order because it doesn't have the consumers best interests at heart... a bit like Microsoft.
This is what is wrong with the software industry.
For example, if one goes shopping in a supermarket and buys a large roast chicken, only sparing a quick thought to it's not-so-large weight, takes it home and discovers that the reason for it's weight is that the chicken has been hollowed out from the inside only to leave a thin layer of edible chicken, then we would go back to the supermarket and no doubt they would appologise furiously to try and stop the relevant person from taking them to court... d'ya see what I'm saying kids ?
Someone please point out to me quite WHY we as consumers appear to have no rights in the software / hardware industry ?
(Have I gone off-topic ? Sorry!)
don't get me wrong, the iMac isn't really a piece of crap, it's just not the best solution for someone who is very savvy. I think that the iMac is a great solution for an individual or family that wants something cheap that is easy to use. I only meant that if every poweruser made a big issue over the G4 and decided not to buy one, it wouldn't affect Apple very much at all because we're not their target market.
You are taking my words a bit out of context. Apple has always been focused on selling complete personal computers to people, and selling Apple (tm) upgrades to such computers.
:-)
:-)
They also killed the clone business, and have some fairly effective barriers to other people comming in and producing Apple-compatible systems (I can get an IBM-compatible anywhere, but not an Apple-compatible).
I would *love* to be able to whip up a computer with a PPC mobo and chip and just *play*!!! I love using cool technology, and the PPC stuff is definitely very interesting/compelling. Although, I'd love to have a K7 (Athlon still sounds wrong).
You mention 11% market share. This is all "personal computers," not hardware that runs MacOS only (ie: Apple hardware).
Now to play with some Digital VT terminals
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I don't like Apple's move here...(and haven't read the Wired article, but have read about this issue before). My question first is "Has anyone proved that the firmware was a deliberate block?"
People Condemn M$ for their Tactics
Do the same to Steve Jobs and Apple...
And yet they pirate software, run Hotline servers etc... Just gotta wonder where it starts and ends don't ya?
And Apple is only barely an American company. Most of the stuff comes out of Mexico and the Far East.
Macintosh - the computer of choice of deadbeat dads. The treehuggers I have to work with just love to hear that.
Hey, your Mac crashed? Just hit ctr-alt-f3, login as root, and stop the program. Can't do it? Oh, that's right, you chose a Mac instead of a computer. Betcha don't have this cool Calvin and Hobbes background on your desktop either. hahahahaha
My understanding is that Apple messed w/ the firmware to prevent people from creating their own G4s w/ an upgrade card before Apple had released their own machines. Now that they've done that, a workaround will be posted sometime within the next couple of months. If Apple doesn't do it someone else will figure out how to do it. After all, the bottom end version of the G4 (the one going for $1599) has a Yosemite motherboard w/ the G4 chip on it. Obviously upgrading at least the Yosemite G3s won't be a problem.
Straight from MacOS Rumors:
Working closely with our friends at Appleinsider, MOSR has confirmed two very positive developments in the ongoing effort to discern Apple's willingness to keep its professional computers upgradable:
Very importantly, it has been confirmed by reliable Apple sources that the company is planning to include fix for the G4 upgrade block installed with the latest Blue G3 Firmware. Apparently, the decision to develop the block code was extremely controversial within Apple, and even its proponents generally stated that their intentions were only to provide insurance that Apple was not "surprise attacked" by third parties shipping G4 upgrades before Apple was able to ship their own G4 machine.
Secondly, MOSR has confirmed that the recent confusion over whether the new Sawtooth-based G4s were processor-upgradable was caused by outdated diagrams of the board. Once more recent versions were uncovered, it was clear that the Boot ROM continues to reside on the main board, and there are no obvious barriers in hardware nor software for the new G4s to be upgraded for years to come. In a related note, we were surprised to hear from several third party developers that not only had they succesfully used prototype multiple-G4 upgrade boards on Beige and Blue G3s...at least one has also completed a proof-of-concept test for a multi-G4 card that would support the use of the 128-bit, enhanced-performance MaxBus as a "backplane" bus for the processors and cache chips to use for incredibly efficient inter-processor communication -- but would still be compatible with all upgradable PowerPC Macs and their 64-bit "60x" bus protocol. MaxBus, which many insiders had previously not expected to be applied to the Mac until mid to late 2000, could offer dramatic benefits even in this only partial implementation.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Motorola made RS6k PCI systems. Groupe Bull still does. IIRC PreP systems can handle AIX, since you can run AIX on the IBM POWER series PCs
The thing you are all missing is that companies still can make G4 upgrade cards. There are ways around this, and it is very likely that Apple could post a firmware patch to remove the limitation. All I'm saying is that it's not a big deal and Apple's not trying to be the big bully like Microsoft would do in the same situation.
As for the G4 upgrades, Apple is trying to stop them because of the same reasons they killed the Mac clones: they want the third-party vendors to provide the low-end solutions, not the cutting edge stuff where the best profit margins are.
This policy is obviously questionable, but you have to remember that Apple is not just yet-another-computer-maker, they are a systems company. There isn't any free competition in the RS/6000 or HP/UX markets either.
Marko Karppinen
no one was _FORCED_ by apple to upgrade their firmware. people act as though there was no choice. i maintain several macs in a publishing prepress house, and i _RESIST_ the urge to upgrade just because someone says to. there must be _TANGIBLE_ benefit to upgrading before i commit one production mac to it. if you are just going to upgrade whenever youre told- you need to go join the windows world- where all uprgades are forced- so youll never notice. i have several B/W macs that WILL be uprgradable to g4's. the motral of the story is to _DO YOUR HOMEWORK_ -- find out what the upgrades you are installing actually do. You can be a goat- or a sheep-the choice is yours, and knowledge is the key. (Sheep are led- Goats are Followed.)
- Ok, for starters, I am here to defend Apple. If you don't like that, go somewhere else. I've seen a lot of people complaining about Apple starting to use business tactics that they don't like. Well, let's see here. When was the last time you saw a 486 motherboard that was upgradeable to a pentium? Or even a pentium motherboard that was upgradeable to a pentium 2? On top of this, Apple has never ever said their G3 systems would be upgradeable to G4. For that matter, they never said any of their prior systems would be upgradeable to G3, but lots of third party companies made those upgrades, and believe me, there are companies that are making G4 upgrades, even for those G3 users who installed the ROM which purportedly makes them unupgradeable. No one really knows this for sure, as no one has tried AFAIK. All this hype is about mere rumor, and every last one of you fell into the media pitfall.
- Now, for those of you still spouting the rhetoric about apple's prices, I'd like to remind you that the new G4, classified as a supercomputer by the government, thus a weapon (and as of yet, unexportable to other countries), is available for a starting price of 1599. If anyone out there tells me that is too much money to pay for a computer with a top of the line processor, Modem, Ethernet, Firewire, USB, 128-bit video card, and more, plus the wonderful support of Apple (rated very highly every year) and the ease of use and increase in productivity it brings, well, then they really don't know a good deal when they see one.
- Those of you complaining about the death of clones: The clone idea was initially to help spread the Mac platform. It didn't. All it did was cut into Apple's own user base far deeper than they could have handled. If Apple didn't kill the clones, the clones would have killed Apple, and we wouldn't be having this debate.
- For anyone complaining about the OS: Install LinuxPPC. Or, realize that the OS is getting better with every revision, and the OS X is going to put Microsoft, and particularly NT, to shame.
Myself, I'm looking forward to purchasing a new G4, and selling my old Beige G3, as soon as I have the disposible income to do so. The price is right, the hardware offering more than tempting, and the OS better than ever."Is this not a rare fellow, my lord? He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool." -from "As You Like It", Act 5,
Seriously, he looks like the guy that played the early Lex Luthor on the Lois & Clark series:
http://www.apple.com/pr/profiles.html
If I were him, I'd tell Apple to quit being so dodgy about the subject or else he will be considered like the said evil person!
One company has already figured out a way around the G4 lockout. Either others will follow, or that company will share its info with the upgrade companies (I hope it does this; while I'll never switch away from my Mac I'm quite pissed off at Apple right now, and certainly won't be buying a new one for some time).
I have an IBM PC 350(or something like that, it has 350 in it) at work, and it's running NT 4 and boy does that thing suck. What speed is that? BTW, it has 144MB of RAM.
Many of those you listed are not platforms for Joe Average and graphic designers. Sorry. Plus they're a bit pricey, even compared to Apple.
The multiple CPU thing is going a bit far now, don;t you think? For one it costs more and it's not something that you can go out and buy at CompUSA or Best Buy. Maybe you should mention your supreme overclocked Celeron...assuming of course the G3s and G4s aren't overclockable (which they are and there's a technical Mac related site with plenty of details on how) and that the G4 isn't capable of SMP.
Looking realistically, not at multiple CPUs and overclocking, and platforms normal people can't use or afford, the only comparable and probably better choice (price:performance) is the Athlon. But it's too soon to comare the two. Apple needs to release the new MoBos and so does AMD...then some third party testing needs to be done. Don't believe marketing hype from any company, also don't believe the slant of websites that favor one platform over another (as most of the technical sites out there are strongly pro-PC...the people who make up those sites). Benchmarks are also not the ultimate deciding factor of the best product. Other things need to be taken into consideration such as the best product to get the job done. If PS is really so much faster on the Apple platform, even on SSE enhanced PS on a 600 Mhz PIII (or comparable Athlon), and you use PS a great deal for your job, well...the choice is obvious.
Also like the gaming community...there's sort of a compatability thing among graphic and publishing "professionals." Meaning, if a great deal of the "community" of people doing this type of work use Platform X, then it's wise to also use Platform X. It just makes things easier in the long run.
Apple isn't even shipping the G4s yet. In fact, even though they say they will ship soon, something tells me it's going to be very hard to find a G4 for the next few months. This is especially true of the "advanced" Sawtooth-G4s, as the 400Mhz version is really just a Yosemite-G3 motherboard with a few tweaks (the G4 is pin-compatible with the G3, and no additional hardware is required for its operation- that "extra hardware for 4 streams of data" is just a recompile for AltiVec). Anyway, my guess is Apple disabled the G4 in the BWG3s so that they would be the only effective buyer of G4s until it was being produced in enough quantity to not matter. As an upgrade company, if the G4 won't work in the G3, why would I buy any G4s? It's a defensive maneuvre on Apple's part to make sure that they have enough of a supply of the chip to make the real deal.
everything you know is wrong
I am of two minds about this. One mind, the good mind, says this is probably just an oversight, and that it will be corrected with the next firmware update, after they realise the mistake that this is. Imagine their poor users, who've just bought a Mac. They won't want another one for a few years, so an upgrade is a good interim solution
Of course, the other mind, the evil mind, thinks this is a deliberate corparate move. Consider, how much money does Apple make off an upgrade? Well in the short term, basically nothing. Being able to upgrade *might* make them money with happy ocnsumers wanting to buy their product again, but it doesn't pay off as quickly. Apple's unenviable position as both a hardware and software company means they have to make money off both of these things. If they're only selling a $90 OS to someone every few years, instead of a $1599 CPU, what's the benefit to them?
I hope the good mind is right, I really hope they haven't delibrately crippled their hardware. As for that "We never said it was upgradeable" crap, it's not really endearing when you consider it *was* upgradable, but then they *fixed* that.
If the article had read "Microsoft deliberately prevent..." instead of Apple would you still feel the same? Come on! Be consistent. Why do you make exception for Apple?
What apple did was release a firmware patch which makes the computer check to see if its using a G3 cpu before allowing startup (it's not a patch to the normal ROM - if it had been, any idiot would have been able to reverse the patch, as the MacOS ROM is a file on the disk on recent Macs).
It was known before this batch of G3s even shipped that they'd be G4 upgradeable, but apple released a software patch which seems to prevent g4 upgrades. OH NO!! Not a software patch! The treachery! They'll never get around THAT! Apple knows the futility of this.
Apple has not (in recent history) even marketed CPU upgrades for their computers. They've always been third party. XLR8 was quoted on MacInTouch on September 1: "A special fix will be needed to run G4 with the 1.1 firmware in a Blue and White. Users get 5 tones, like the emergency weather warning. We have a fix in hand, using DayStar magic." XLR8's press release on August 31 (the SAME DAY apple announced G4 products) says: "Additional AltiVec(TM) performance software with blue & white compatibility is being readied in our labs now." -Gary Dailey, Director of Marketing for XLR8.Lets look at what Apple actually has done for their customers, upgrade-wise. The long lived family of PCI powermacs, the [789][356]00 series, all have processor daughterboards, which are replaceable, all the way up to G3 or even potentially G4 CPUs. Earlier powermacs can be upgraded to G3s with "L2-cache" upgrades (a CPU on a card fits in where the L2 cache normally goes, and overrides the existing CPU). Apple's G3 desktops all have zif sockets for easy and cheap upgradability. Apple's entire line of desktops uses one type of socket. I think that's pretty good. How many different sockets do you get across the pentium/ppro/p2/p3/celeron/k6/k7-athlon? How many such cpus can be used as an upgrade for one of the other cpus?
I own one of the first PowerMac G3/400s (Blue & White). I remain quite confident that by the time I want to upgrade it, G4 upgrades from third party companies like XLR8, newertech, and powerlogix will be waiting for me.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
A Pentium 66 still runs linux, NetBSD, win95 and, nt4 nicely.
Sure, all of us who just read this on /. are probably pretty anoyed with Apple. But this makes no difference to them whatsoever because we're not the market that they cater to. Apple's main demographic are those who buy them because of their ease of use. Just look at the iMac for instance: it's a piece of crap, yet at the same time Apple's made millions off of them because people buy them because "they're pretty" and not because they're good computers. Those Apple customers who are planning on buying a G4 (most of which won't know about the G4 until it hits the market or something like "Mac World") won't know nor care whther or not they can upgrade. They see a newer machine from Apple and decide they want it (of course it must look pretty). I really don't think this will make much difference.
neccessary? Anyone who doesn't buy the best computer for the job they do is dumb. Okay? Whether you buy a PC because you think Apple sucks so much, or buy an Apple because you want to be loyal to your cult...it's the same thing. The only difference is average buyers who just need a computer to check email and browse webpages with. In which case, it really doesn't matter if they can overclock a super cheap CPU to 200Ghz...they just need an easy to use, fairly cheap computer. They may choose a PC or an Apple computer for whatever reasons...but don't forget companies that make up the PC platform also advertise, and they advertise much more than Apple does. So don't pretend like Apple buyers are victims of brainwashing and somehow superior PC users are above that. 1 commercial a month on ABC doesn't exactly create consuming zombies.
If you want to get political about it, you must remember they're all corporations. There's no such thing as a caring, loving, we care ONLY about the customer corporation. Whether their marketing slogan is "It makes the Internet faster" or "Think DIfferent" they're still the same and have the same goals. more profits and growth.
People really ought to calm down here. As people have pointed out, Apple never promised that the G3s would be upgradable.
I didn't erupt in righteous rage when I found out that my Pentium 100 couldn't be directly upgraded to an OEM MMX because of the change to split voltage. You have to get an Overdrive-type affair to do it. How is this shockingly different from requiring an upgrade card?
Can I plug an Athlon into the P100 I am using? Did Intell release an official PI-PII upgrade (for a P100 more speicifcally)?
,etc.) and therefore everyone must run in panic in the fact everything they do isn't completly open. "Oh no, they dropped clones because it was putting them out of business! Now they'll take over the world because there are no Apple platform clones!!!" Bah! the stupidity.
I think Apple did the same thing when they moved to G3s, but of course they were a "Dead" company then so no one cared. Of course third parties made cards...although they could only upgrade so much, and some was lost that you would have gotten with the whole G3 purchase. Who knows why they're doing this...maybe it's just a cruel business move. maybe it's a bit more complex. Of course I'm sure most of the hate filled posters here could care less about the truth, as long as they have fuel to spew vile from their mouths/fingers about some company (that is just like all corporations, surprise surprise. They want profits and growth!)
I wish people would stop being so naive. As if the big corporations behind the PC platform are somehow good guys, and Apple is the big bad evil dork. Good vs. Evil! Black vs. White. Go Intel go! Go AMD go! We know YOU'RE the true good guy! You're on the GOOD side! Destroy the evil competetion! Who needs it?
People seem to act as if Apple is capable of taking over the entire personal computer market (home users, education, design, publishing, video, games, small servers, business
At least not big ones. Whatever comes off as ethical to the consumer most likely ties into marketing of some kind. They make the consumer believe they're shaking their hand and giving them what they want, but what they're doing is being done in hopes of increased profits.
Give me some reasons why a big corporation needs to be concerned about ethics? (This of course does not count pseudo-ethics which I mentioned above). Despite what libertarians may want you to think, corporations aren't the same as humans. They're made up of humans, but so are fascist governments and massive militaries. How ethical are they? Even our own (US) government.
the uglier a computer is the more powerful it is... seriously though you really are an idiot. If you look at any product on the market, some time and effort went into making it look nice, and because apple is better at this than any other computer company does not mean they are exploiting people. Maybe some people really would like their computer to look nice? does that necessarily make them stupid?
But look at these systems. There are not clones of these systems.. Apple didn't alow this becuase they wanted the cash. Think about how much it actaully cost to make a G3 system... The customer is getting screwed. What if you want to upgrade your sound card? What if you want to do an upgrade, you have to buy a new system.. With me, I don't have $1,500 to toss around each time I want I want something better.
Also you have to note that by apple doing this it's a complete trust, so there is no competition to them. If they were to allow this I think that apple would start actaully building better crap at a resonable price.
All I have to say is this, I like to only spend only a couple hundred dollars on a system that blows aways what Apple sells.
-Ellis of Geeknews.com
The answer is rather simple. Every product must pay for itself otherwise the company goes kaput and there are no products at all. It then stands to reason that in a low volume market (ie exotic hardware, specialised features) they can't afford to let anyone else copy it otherwise they will be completely undercut. Hence the use of patents and obfustation to hide trade secrets.
On the other hand, in a commodity driven market which the wider PC is, volume and market share is key to enforcing the desired price/time curve and maximising total revenue. In this situation you want your products to be used as widely as possible and therefore, open specifications are necessary. The trick (as the top players have found) is to define the specifications ahead of time then release them after your products are on the shelf. Oh, and play games with upstream/downstream suppliers (if necessary, fob off market regulators by calling it quality control so you can eyeball profitable areas of expansion) to make yourself indispensible in your place on the value chain.
One of these days, someone should write a book on PC pricing strategams. It would make very interesting reading to see how the consumer has been milked.
LL
Ok, correct me if I'm mistaken, but Apple doesn't make the G4 chip ... Motorola(AltiVec) and IBM (G4 in the next Nintendo console) do ... What Apple does is bundle the chip with all the extra components and package it. Therefore, Apple _DID NOT_ create the "first personal supercomputer", they meerly packaged the fast CPU.
Dickwad..
This is one of those times I'm ashamed to be a Mac defender. Simply put, Apple has gone too far. This is a dirty trick, and Apple knows it.
Still, there's hope. Several possible scenarios exist:
1) This really is a dirty trick by Apple. I hope this isn't the case, but it sure looks that way at the moment.
2) This is some sort of bug, which Apple is for some stupid reason not fixing (this is how I would approach Apple with the subject if you write them about it; don't be accusatory or you'll just piss them off).
3) It's well-known that Apple asked Motorola to hold off on releasing the G4 until Apple had a system to put it in. Perhaps this was insurance against that policy, and once Apple has a ready supply of G4-based machines they'll undo the lock.
Anyway, all is not lost; one company (XLR8, if I'm not mistaken) has already found a way around the bug, and may well be sharing it with the other upgrade companies.
I certainly won't be buying a new G4 box. My Beige G3 is still upgradable to the G4, and I have no intention of letting that go. Hopefully by that time Apple will have seen the error of its ways.
One other thought I had: something isn't right about this. Consider that Apple has been lowering its prices, opening parts of its system (and even its QuickTime Streaming Server), and all sorts of other trends towards a more open company. This would seem counterproductive. I never said Steve Jobs wasn't a jerk, but he isn't stupid either, and this doesn't seem to make much in the way of sense. I think he's up to something.
Oh, and one other thing: what exactly is the nature of this lock? I've heard that it's in the Mac OS ROM file; if this is the case, then perhaps it is still possible to upgrade a Linux-only G4 box (anyone tried it?) If it's in OpenFirmware (the only other place it could be on the machine, since it has no hardware-based ROM that can be flashed), then it must be in the form of an OF patch, which means that getting the source to the lock ispossible.
I can't afford a new PC or Mac. I'm still using a P100 I bought several years ago. 16 mb ram, shitty monitor. All in all, a piece of shit. I have to run Opera because even NS 3 and IE 3 are too heavy on my computer. My next purchase is going to be, guess...a PowerMac. Just may be a year or two. I'm buying one because I'm buying the best tool for the job, which I think should be what motivates everyone's purchases...rather than blind loyality and petty hatred.
If you want to rant about evil Apple being closed and whatever, please remember this is capitalism and all big corporations are the same. Have we learned NOTHING from history? "No no no...Apple is the real bad guy. They have 11% of the market and $3 billion dollars...even MS is better than them!"
Unless you make all of your own computer parts yourself, and only use an open/free OS, it's a bit hypocritical to be complaing about one smaller corporation while handing money over to other larger ones because through some twisted reasoning you think the smaller one is more of a threat to the world than the others.
You can upgrade a beige G3 or older Powermac. If you bought a Blue and White, you may be able to upgrade if you bought one from early production with v1.0 ROM and didn't fall for the ROM update from Apple. If you bought late you're completely out of luck. If you have an early b&w G3 but you trusted Apple to update your ROM, you have a G3 that was capable of G4 upgrade, but now is not. Thank you Steve Jobs!
What? BeOS was not a 'happy making carrot' for Apple users. It was created by a former Apple executive (JLG) and it was suspected that Apple might buy it back to use as its next generation OS but things didn't work out, BeOS got turned down, Steve Jobs came back, revoked the clone licenses, released the G3, and then refused to help Be get the specs for the G3 chips. If anything, Be was another victim of their closed architecture.
Rather than say, buying the best tool for the job? Sell all of your Apple stuff because the major companies behind the PC platform are all angels who worship their customers!
Do you think Intel is going to make it possible to upgrade your Pentium XVI to a Merced or a McKinley? Unless Apple specifically said that the computer would be upgradable to a G4, they have done nothing wrong. Sure, it sucks for the G3 owners. But Apples' upgradability isn't one of the more touted features. It has been known for a while by those "in the know" that the B&W G3s were not upgradable to G4. If anybody wanted a G4 that bad, they would have waited. I don't think anybody said "let me buy this G3 so that I can upgrade to a G4 later."
I'm not trying to say Apple can do no wrong, I'm saying that all the hypocrites out there need to go take a jump. The recurring theme I see on any Apple story posted to Slashdot is this inbred hatred of anything Apple does, with those who hate Apple saying "One more reason not to buy Apple's crap" or, my personal favorite, "When will Apple die?"
Y'all just can't cope with the fact that the system you were sure would die and were taught to hate from such a young age is now simply better. That's right, it's BETTER, and you can't deal with that fact. Say whatever you want about the OS; I've had my PowerBook for over a month and it hasn't crashed yet. But in the hardware arena, you simply can't beat Apple. Maybe you gamers who need voodoo whatever graphics cards will poo-poo that, but for serious work, the design of the system as a whole is much better than, say, Dell. And while I'm not a fan of the new plastics for the G3s, They look infinitely better than the disgusting Dell boxes.
Face it; Apple is here to stay. They may not make the right choices sometimes (see floppy drive, iMac mouse, etc.) but they're not going anywhere.
rooooar
Im not a shareholder Im a computer user. I care not whats good for them I care whats good for me, and if the two conflict I prefer the second and if they dont see it that way... pity for them but I have a choice.
That's right in the x86 world they don't limit you by frimware. Instead They change the socket so the new CPU wont even fit.
Last time I priced out a Powermac it was a lot more than what I could get a very nice PC for.. heck, I could build a very fast Celeron based system for $800. What kind of a Powermac can I get for under $1500?
I have an older "Beige" G3 and they will upgrade just fine.
Now for all you Apple bashers out there I offer this, a few monthes ago Apple released a new version of AppleShare IP that fixed a nasty little memory leak. Well when ASIP 6.2 first came out they told everyone you had to pay to upgrade. Basicly it was like this ROM issue...everyone flamed and flamed and flamed. That was on Monday...thursday night they changed things around and released it for free because of public pressure.
Now the ROM issue that blocks the G4 isn't in the physical ROM...it's in Firmware that can be upgraded. I think Apple will change issue an update that fixes the problem.
But even if they do people will still find reason to flame em.
I found this a while ago before the G4 even came out. It seems that MacOS Rumors got it to work with little problems. Check it out for yourself.
The Yosemite G4 question
Yes, Motorola and IBM did create the chip, but with Apple's supervision. Apple did help construct the chip. Even though Apple did help create it, I'm still saying it didn't create the first supercomputer. The OS sucks. Every time Apple has come out with a new OS they claim it's five times faster than anything else. Considering it's a RISC (at least I think it is) chip, those boasts can't hold up. If you look at Apple's webpage, it says the speeds are in Photoshop. Photoshop may benefit from RISC chips, but I can tell you, other things won't. Intel/AMD use SISC chips with more instructions therefore giving better performance for more applications.
Maybe you forgot how large of a company IBM is. Considering Apple's line of products and market is extremely small, they can't exactly get away with losing the revenue they get from hardware sales.
If Apple had more software products, they may stand to survive off of those, but that's really risky for them.
Those are computers for REAL people. I am so hardcore I want my case covered in human vomit and razor blades. I want it to be so visually disgusting people will run in terror when they see it!
Damn, what's up with Sony making TVs that are more visuall pleasing? I prefer a box with sharp edges and a circular dial to turn channels with.
What about those cars? What are they thinking...trying to make them visually pleasing. Give me a boxy beige colored car with sharp edges any day!
Seriously though...computers are NOT invisibile. Therefore, they are visible. They take up space. They exist. Now, is it not all right to make them more visually appealing? Even plain beige cases have many different visually appealing designs. They aren't all perfect boxes. If you really dislike visually appealing appliances and electronics (and think the manufacturers are exploiting you by making them look better), then to not appear hypocritical, you should equally complain about all other recent appliances, electronics, vehicles, etc.
Well talking about him stealing X, don't you think how funny it is that they are whining all time about people stealing their crap.. They tried to sue MS for taking "thier" look and feel when they themselfs stole it from the creators of X... Then they whined about the iMac look alike from eMachines... Well didn't Compaq have clear models of their one piece computer.. What about terminals, one piece once again.. This is what you get when one of the owners is a major coke head, or used to be back in the 80's...
I think I speak for a majority of us out there, they need to bend over and take it like a man and shut the heck up....
-Ellis of Geeknews.com