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Apple Prevents G3 Owners From Upgrading to G4

Posted by Roblimo on from the keeping-it-proprietary dept.

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."

4 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. The firmware was broken for a reason... by base2_celtic · · Score: 4

    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...
  2. Good links by crayz · · Score: 4

    http://discuss.info.apple.com/boards/powermac.nsf/ ccb088a1de6aac738525631c0067846b/79720ab 376a518ed862567e00068b29d?OpenDocument

    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.ns f/by+Topic?OpenView

    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.

  3. People should finish their research before posting by Cameroon · · Score: 4

    It'd help a lot of those both on /. and those that post to /. would research what they are talking about.

    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 /. to proliferate half-truths.

    Cameroon

  4. Please folks! by Laurion · · Score: 4
    • 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,