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Pictures of New iMac
webslacker writes "Those snoops over at Apple Insider have gotten their hands on some blueprints of the new iMac. Not a drastic change, but it now uses a short-neck CRT and the new trayless DVD drive is very very cool. Check it out."
G4 has been running into production problems... this is why Motorola recently entered into a deal with AMD to manufacture its chips. Those G4's have to be saved for the ultra powerful new desktops, which are in short enough supply as it is.
- A.P.
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"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?"
- A.P.
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"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?"
However, if you don't like the Rage Pro that comes with the box you can always run out and buy a 3Dfx Voodoo card
Not for an iMac, you can't. So it'll lag well behind the fastest PCs at 3-D graphics, with no possibility of fixing that problem. You'll have to move up to a Blue&White or G4 for Voodoo3 speed.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Hopefully around January, realistically probably a bit later.
The sad thing about OS X is that Apple has finally also got the MacOS to a useable state w/ 8.5/8.6/9.0
Back at 7.5.3 it crashed many, many times a day. Now, it can stay up for days at a time(mine does). OS X is actually less necessary now that Apple finally fixed MacOS.
But I'm still looking forward to it. And there are a lot of people who wouldn't consider getting a Mac until it's out, so Apple should get it out ASAP.
err, disassemble for yourself :)
:)
The only mac that I've ever had that I haven't disassembles was my original 128k--and if it hadn't gone off to my little brother years ago, I would have upgraded it by hand.
And I lost track of how many times I've replaced fuses in my 180, or resoldered the power receptacle in my backlit portable. Hmm, and how many macs I've owned
But then I found LyX, and traded my macs for linux. I'll certainly take another look at a mac for the kids if and when macos/X client is out--at least if it can run my collection of darkside 3.1 cd's with kid stuff.
>the high-end "best" model described seems to
:)
>conflict with the low end G4s
Recall the SE/30? It was a IIx in an SE box--which happened to make it the fastest machine apple built at the time, since it didn't pay the overhead for nuBus by the simple expedient ofnot having one
It's a strategy that apple *should* have used several times since: heavy horsepower in a basic box.
I have seen almost a dozen comments asking "Why not a flat screen?" or "What about more powerful graphics systems?" or commenting "I would buy one if it had a G4 at 500mHz". That is completely missing the point. The iMac is Apple's cheaper computer. Adding these things would add on to the cost. At prices between $1099 and $1599 (predicted), Apple cannot add these things.
I want these types of things and I know that I will have to buy a G4/Sawtooth to get them.
As for the Apple-bashing/Linux-loving, it is a given that any non-Linux, non-*BSD OS is bound to get bashed by the Slashdot community (except maybe PalmOS). I have commented in the past that Slashdot is "News about Linux, Stuff that is GPLed." The Linux exclusiveness around here bothers me often.
The most ironic part of it all is that you can run Linux on a Mac (I have my LinuxPPC partition, do you?)
In response to keeping the hardware closed, remember which company brought you CD-ROM drives, SCSI, USB and FireWire. While these technologies may have been developed by other companies, it was Apple that made them (semi-) popular by putting them on all of their machines.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
It'll be years before the Wintel manufacturers can copy this Earth Shattering new technology.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The reason your CD gets hot in your car stereo is because they are cramming in a hundred or so watts of power amplification in with the CD mechanism, just to power the speakers. Try it out on a PC with a slot-load CD/DVD drive, it's cool, man.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
But while an alternative is good, I personally don't like this particular alternative: I don't like the look, I don't like the pointing device or keyboard, and I don't like the software. Imagine Apple would take over the market and all computers would come in semi-transparent rounded lumps with trim in various colors. I'd find it pretty awful.
If they would
- Forget about the "5 flavors" and sell 'em in the same smokey grey as the new G4 minitowers
- Lose the DVD and use a cheap CD-ROM instead
Then this would be an excellent office machine and could go head-to-head with Wintel. Why doesn't Apple try to do this?!!? Don't they want the money?OTOH, at least now that they are selling 'em with Rage-128 and DVD, they should be good machines for home use.
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Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Has it's bonuses. If everyone is so contrary, then being reasonable gets you some karma points because, well, you're reasonable.
Not to abuse the system, but if the system encourages us to be reasonable, hey, that's good right?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Well yeah, in that case, the iMac has a USB port.
Not much tinkering, I think, as much as utility.
I concede your point, but just a little. If someone knows how to make and debug USB devices, they'd be able to play with the iMac as well.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
And rumors at that!
Oh well.
I'd imagine, if I were Steve Jobs, which I am not, that the iiMac would include:
Video camera + mic for video conferencing, if we're going to try to push the internet concept.
Airport of course. Imagine video conferencing without the hassle of networking, wires, or setup?
Touch screen, of course! It's as natural as voice recognition, which will come with OS9. Point, tap, speak!
Voice recognition with OS9. Voice passwords and such.
People recognition. Not just powering up when you touch the keyboard or mouse, but when you move or sit down in front of the computer. Like those new men's urinals that require no hands to operate? It'd be nifty.
Anything else? There must be other people here who have ideas!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Just because you don't like iMacs?
What Apple seems to be doing is offering a *reasonable* configuration in an (my opinion) an attractive case with a useable OS.
The point is not configurability, which is what the B&W G4/G3s offer, but single-minded ease of use. Like a playstation or dreamcast. Unlike a home stereo system made of any number of components, wires, and boxes. Which can also be used to describe the modern PC.
Apple is targeting a market which doesn't value the tinker factor as much as it values the use and 'feel' factor.
Would you complain similarly of the Palm or Visor in how limited they are?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
As the first comment sort of pointed out, yes, Yellow Dog Linux should run on these. It runs on current iMacs just fine. I don't know why one would believe it wouldn't... after all, USB keyboard and mouse support has been working for quite some time now. So, you're question is null, Yellow Dog Linux is an option.
I'm writing a database and a functional language, and I just bought a Powerbook G3. So there. I'd never owned (or even used extensively) a Mac before, but I'm pleasantly surprised how far they've come on recently.
It's a pretty damn good machine at a reasonable price. It's now got an X server and GNU Emacs, so I'm happy. Once OS X comes out, we'll see a few more non-Mac users moving over.
Now iMacs are even more attractive to newbies: they won't make the embarrassing mistake of confusing the CD-ROM tray with a cupholder.
Tech-support professionals, rejoice!
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
First of all, why is five flavours (am I the only one that thinks of ice cream?) when it comes to the Better configuration, and only one for the others? I mean, you'd think the Best configuration would sport the most colours and such (is there actually any real difference in shape, etc. to make it so the Good and Best ones can't just use the other colours? I mean, a switch between DVD to CD or more RAM and what not isn't gonna change the chassis...)
Which brings me to another point, why for Good change the DVD to CD? I dunno about the States, but here in Canada (as a retailer) a good 6x/40x DVD is only $100 and a 48x CD is $80... What's 20 bucks when it comes to showcasing a great (?) computer? I mean, having a DVD and video-mirroring, albeit both not very useful at this moment for most normal folks, will more then luckily catch people... Ah well, maybe that's just me...
Being Canadian, I'm proud that ATI is the video card company for Apple (although I don't use any Apple computers), but the thing is, yes, ATI is a good company, but ATI Rage 128 is, I'm sorry to say, pretty behind the times now... Looking at the Mac Products on ATI's website, are we talking about the Nexus, Rage Orion or XCLAIM VR? I just hope its similar to ATI's Rage 128 Pro for the PC... *shrug*
Ah well, as it were, my opinion is that although they are cute, the iMacs and G*'s just don't seem like great computers (although they are, I know, but the looks make them seem otherwise)... And although they are great computers, I can still buy a comparable IBM PC and still get to use Photoshop and games for Windows and load up Linux whenever I feel like it... Until Apple comes out with something different (like they did oh so many years ago), changing the looks just doesn't cut it for me... FireWire, yes, was good.. but its obvious (good or bad) that USB is here to stay.. Anything else?
IIRC, the reason the lens is in the tray is because the CDROM drive itself (along with the SODIMM RAM form factor, and much of the motherboard) in the original and current iMacs is basically the same as that of the PowerBook G3 series as a cost-saving measure. Of course, that still doesn't make an exposed-lens CDROM a good idea...
Didn't the previous I-Mac have the lens in the tray, similar to many laptop cd drives? If so, a trayless drive would be great improvement. I'm sure there is nothing worse than scratching the hell out of the lens on your shiny new computer's dvd drive.
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I don't really mind double posts on
After being beaten about for years, Apple transitions much of its hardware over to PC specs in order to be more compatible and drive down user costs. Now the complaints come that Apple is doing what users have demanded of them. Frankly, I'm glad that Apple was sensible enough to adopt decent technical standards that don't compromise the user experience that Apple promises (think ISA and MFM that Apple stayed away from). If only Intel would show the same sense and adopt Firewire support on their motherboards. After all, they are in the patent pool but noooo! Intel is pushing USB 2.0 which might, after several years, achieve the throughput that Firewire has today. TML
You can also run Darwin on the little beasties. http://www.apple.com/darwin
Yup, open source mac software, who woulda thunk it.
TML
Well, imagine the belly laugh I got watching a local newscast one day: The police dept. of a town was giving away free copies of content filtering software for concerned parents (I don't remember if it was NetNanny, CyberSitter, whatever.)
After giving the obligatory "Protecting the Children" spiel, the not-so-tech-savvy officer proceeded to insert the CD-ROM into the 5" *floppy* slot on the ancient IBM clone in their office. He starts to flip the lever to lock down the "disk", but the scene cut just as you could see the first signs of resistance.
Made my whole day. Just wish I could see the out takes, though...
AppleInsider is running a photo of what appears to be the graphite "Best" model.
http://www.appleinsider .com/articles/9909/kihei-photo.shtml
"As rumored in previous reports, the entire custom system software pack is indeed code-named "Borg." "
Do I really have to explain why I think this is funny..?
To take on a more "conventional" definition.. I always thought those pesky iMacs looked like they were built by space aliens..
~ Kish
Graphite...hmm...I never knew the name for that color until now.
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I find it amusing that the only color with the odor problem is the only color not named after fruit...I guess they didn't want any "Rotting Apple" nicknames...
I suppose it's okay for minerals to stink, but if that is how grey Graphite smells, I'm gonna run like hell if I ever see a bright-yellow iMac sitting on someone's desk...=\
My $1.00 - $0.98, not necessarily yours.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Um, if you think user's confusing CD-ROM trays for cupholders is a bad...wait until you start getting calls from people who think Apple is finally putting floppy drives in iMacs.
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I work in an all-Compaq shop and a couple years ago, Compaq used tray-less CD-ROMs in all their Deskpro 2000 models. I loved them because finally I could orient my computer in any position and not have to fiddle with tabs or grooves.
But then I started getting calls from users who would stick pretty much any removable media made after 1982 into the blank, label-less slot and the cost to continually swap out damaged drives just wasn't worth it.
I mean, trays are annoying to some, but to the target audience of the iMac, only a CD/DVD will fit in the 5" depression on a CD/DVD-ROM tray so you only have to worry about it being right side up and the user education is over.
Again, my $1.00 - $0.98 and not necessarily yours...
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing