That's silly(though I grant people and companies have done silly things before.)
Look at an 'average' PC. It's system with, say, 32mb of memory. It plays mp3s. You can only store like half an hours worth of music on a PC then, at 128kbps quality. And that's not even taking into account that Windows will take up a good hefty chunk of operating space. Yet this is the device that mp3s were born for/from!
The secret? Removeable/fixed drives!
Why would not the Visor's mp3 cartridge either use something like IBM's 340mb MicroDrive(compactflash form factor I believe) or Iomega's 40mb Clik disk(for an unlimited amount of storage and swapping)
I mean granted that Winamp takes like 4mb of memory, I'm sure a much slimmed down mp3 player with a DSP on the cartridge could easily live on a 2mb system.
I'd imagine the mp3 module would have a DSP, or an mp3 accelerator on board, while mainly being a storage device-think 340mb IBM MicroDrive.
Then the Visor would be merely a controller and glue logic. Oh, and I'd imagine the add on would have a speaker/headphone jack if the Visor doesn't already.
I mean, how silly/nonsensical is it for the average PC with only 32mb of memory to play MP3s? You can only store 20 minutes worth at 128kbps, and we're not even taking into account them memory that Windows uses, right?
Come on, how revolutionary can you get? I guess I'd eat that statement, however, when someone *does* release something revolutionary.
Some noticable improvements: USB instead of serial for faster up/down loads and quite possibly lots of future expansion capabilities (USB printers, cameras, speakers, etc. Springboard expansion slot, a lot like the GameBoy's cartridge in a way. Imagine hooking up a tiny camera, a microdrive, flash memory, a flashlight, a barcode scanner, medical sensors, ethernet port, whatever, on there!
I don't know about battery life or screen size/resolution/clarity.
It would be nice if all of these were improved, however!
If you have an AT PC, you'd have to change the case, the motherboard, the CPU, and the ram. If you're unlucky enough to have a bunch of ISA/EISA cards, you may have to replace one or two of those as well.
If you're lucky enough to have an ATX PC, you may only need to change the motherboard, CPU, and ram.
If you're really lucky you only need to pop in a new CPU.
Only in the last case is it really affordable to upgrade.
For Pentium users, you'd probably need to change case, memory, CPU, and motherboard. For PPro users, the same. For PII users, you may be able to just upgrade the bios and CPU. But a PII user doesn't need to worry too much about upgrading...
On the mac side I've heard that one can upgrade all the way back to the 7100 Performa series to a G3 or maybe even a G4, with a daughtercard. That's unheard of in the Wintel world; it would be like upgrading a Pentium or Pentium Pro to a PII, Celeron, or PIII, none of which are possible.
What I meant was not removal of the bootrom, per se, so much as removal of OS dependent stuff from the rom, leaving, essentially, just the BIOS stuff.
Previously some part of the OS was stored in the bootrom, and from what I've heard Apple is migrating away from that model. That's what I've heard, at least.
I have to replace the motherboard. Mine has SCSI. That already places me into the $300 motherboard range. None are Celeron compatible, so minimally I need a slocket and PPGA Celeron, so I spend $400 or so already. Then I need to upgrade the ram, as I have the measly SIMM type, and no one supports it anymore. I have 96MB. Lets say I buy up, into 128MB. Last I checked, sdram prices have gone up. So now I'm spending almost $570 for an upgrade.
All Apple users, if I am not mistaken, of the G3 series can upgrade to the G4, with a minimal amount of hassle. B&W G3s need a bootrom patch(or something like that), but that's it.
Heck, I suspect all PowerPC users, 603, 604, 603e, etc, can upgrade to the G4... THough I can't be certain, not owning a PowerPC.
I'm not sure I believe that Apple has *ultimately* decided to disable G4 upgrades from B&W G3 machines. I hear rumors that they are going to fix it, especially after this uproar.
I'm not sure how Apple took this one step further than anyone else... Intel released the PPro socket8, then(ostensibly to cut costs) went to the PII Socket1, then(again, to cut costs) went to the Celeron PPGA Socket370, and will in the future migrate the PIII to the flipchip Socket370.
Now since there aren't any clones for any of these chips(barring Athlon's use of the socket1), I'd imagine Intel does the same thing to force purchases of new motherboards, memory, and CPUs all at once. So you're right in that this isn't a new tactic.
What's amazing is that even with this problem, there still exists the ability/possibility of B&W G3 owners upgrading to G4s and beige G3s upgrading to G4s.
Thats as if I had the chance/option to upgrade my PPro to a Celeron or PIII.
Why is it a blunder to get into a niche market as education? Their blunder was to not capitalize on their strength(education) and grow outwards as students moved up through the school system, into college, and into the business world.
And about firewire: as far as I can tell, they didn't make it proprietary, they just charged a $1 per port(it is now, I've heard, $0.25 per machine) fee for it's use. And it is far from dead, as Sony, a large, well entrenched, and savvy consumer products giant, has been putting firewire (called iLink) into every single product than can, from camcorders, VCRs, TVs, etc. Don't tell me that there is a smaller market for consumer electronics than PCs/iMacs! So firewire isn't dead and it isn't going to disappear, especially as lots of other consumer giants are using firewire for storage, consumer products, PC peripherals, etc.
And about backwards compatibility: they didn't do anything to make their CPUs non-backwards compatible. They released a patch to make their B&W G3s not-forward compatible, and there are rumors that they will be releasing a patch in the near future to fix that.
A lot of general hype, mis-information, and bad press is floating around.
Even I may be guilty of spreading some, so please correct me if I am wrong! But be careful of spreading more rumors and buzz or hype.
I've heard rumors on both sides; Apple disables G4 to prevent future upgradeability *or* to prevent 3rd party from introducing G4 to early.
We won't ever know which one is true if Apple has indeed decided to fix the B&W G3s in the near future.
Likewise this boot rom thing.
I had heard news/rumors that Apple has been designing their OS and PCs to not need the bootrom, with the advent of MacOS X. Is this true, can anyone confirm, acknowlege, or speculate? Anyhow, by moving the bootrom off the motherboard it means that future motherboards would not need to be changed if bootroms are unnecessary, reduced, or modified. Instead all Apple has to do is produce a new daughtercard at significantly less cost.
Yes, this may *become* an issue if they refuse to license out the bootrom to 3rd party upgrade manufacturers. It may also become a *boon* if, for example, someone wanted to convert G4s to Be boxes(and wrote/designed their own bootroms for BeOS), or Linux, or what have you.
Did I mess something up? It's possible. Please correct!
Anyway, how about (as distasteful as it is) inbreeding?
If two siblings bred then the sperm's mitochondria should, hypothetically, be identical to the egg's mitochondria, no? If so, would we still see the destruction of the sperm's mitochondria within the first cycle?
Or if not, how man degrees of separation(genetically) is necessary before the egg decides to reject the sperm's mitochondria? Cousin? Cousin once removed? Etc?
Calculator with better graphics costs more than gameboys.
Sega Game Gear has less games(are games still released for it? I didn't know it was still supported.)
A 486 laptop is of no use playing games. That is the only use a Gameboy has. It also weighs more and has less battery life. It could probably emulate a Gameboy okay, but not as long or as well.
Why buy a Gameboy? To play games, silly. Unless you don't play games, then no game machine will interest you.
I have a cell phone. I'd like one of these GameBoys. For games. I'd use something else for email, though being able to just finger myself and see who's sent me email is nice(just another fancy pager/beeper like device). Why would anyone waste their money on a Palm Pilot when you have pads of paper(gads, imagine how much paper $260 would get you!)
Considering 3com owns Palm and 3com also develops 802.13(or is it 802.11?) devices, it isn't inconcievable that future Palms will either carry or have as optional upgrades a wireless networking solution
But the MacOSRumors site says *not* to expect iMacII(or is it iiMac?) to be unveiled in France...
We'll see who has the better contacts, eh? Finally able to read the Japan Apple Watch article, it got slashdotted pretty bad.
On a side note, I don't believe there will be an LCD. Just *too* expensive for the home user/consumer right now. It'd be cheaper to go from a 15" to 19" CRT than from a 15"CRT to a 15"LCD!
So I'm more likely to believe the conservative 400MHz G3 with Rage128 on board an a 16"/17" monitor and Airport built in...
IIANM Aiport uses the IEEE 802.11 Wavelan industry standard. PC compatible devices should be out this month or next month from Lucent or 3com. I'm not sure that wiring a building is all that great, anyway. It means one has to rewire when configurations change, when you go from 10 to 100, from 100 to gigabit, etc. Wireless(though slightly more expensive) offers flexibility and convenience at all levels-but I guess some people don't need/care for it.
Why would a PC lab be cheaper? iBook + Airport Card = $1699 or iMac + Airport Card = $1100(hypothetical) and G4 with Station = $1599 + $200 + $500(monitor) so 64 iMacs = $70,400 64 Dells(with networking and monitor) = $56,768 Assume the PC server is priced similarly(it does need more memory, HD, networking, etc!) Apple = $72,609 PC = $59,067 Now, how much does it cost to wire a building for 64(min) connections? How long? How much effort? Also, how much does it cost to hire a sysadmin for the NT/9x network? For the Apple network(with Airport?) If the difference is less than $13,542 the PC networks are cheaper. I don't know that it is... but I suspect not.
Lucent(and everyone else, btw) is releasing this fall(probably Sept, when iBooks ship) something called Wavelan(???), and industry standard extension to IEEE 802.11 which scales to 64nodes per station and 200ft away from the node. Apple, to cut costs, only does 10/11 nodes per station and 150ft from the node for the iBook. G4s and iMacs may support the full 64 node 200 ft thing, btw.
Lucent will sell PC Card and ISA adaptors for Wavelan, with 11Mbit(same as Airport) bandwidth. THey can be hooked into peer networks(if small), hubs(around a station), or LANs(stations connected to convnetional ethernet).
I heard on the Seybold floor from an Apple rep that(via software???) the G4s could either talk to each other without an Airport card or they could serve a handful of computers without an Airport bay, one of those(or maybe both) options. I couldn't quite figure out what they meant... Would the G4 run special calculations on the Velocity engine and 'transmit' on RF that way? I thought all the G4 had was a pair of antennas?
I dunno, could US$100M get Samsung to build an entire factory entirely for Apple? Just because PCs are experience a screen shortage doesn't mean Apple has to!
Anyhow, it isn't all that absurd that the iMac use a LCD screen. If I am not mistaken, it's internals are very much similar to the iBook... I think Apple is(internally) using the UMA, unified motherboard architecture, to cut costs. Besides, the iMac/iBook/Powerbook are very similar, actually. Small form factor. Limited upgradeability. Low Power. I mean, how much motherboard, memory, hard disk, speakers, and CPU can one fit inside an iMac shell, with a 15" monitor(and heat source!) in the way? With an LCD they could add larger speakers, remove all fans entirely, and add glowing flashing neon lights inside the case(ugh)
I myself don't believe there will be an LCD with iMacII (or is it iiMac?) but it isn't unfeasible or impossible by a long shot.
You get: 64MB ram 20 GB HD Zip internal Rage 128 Pro w Digital output(not Rage 128) DVD drive
plus
2 Airport wireless networking antennas the ability to use 1.5GB memory(up from 1.0GB) Three times the memory throughput(so Apple claims) 133MHz AGP 2x An additional Firewire port(how many PCs have a firewire port anyhow?) MacOS 9
As well as the price for speed boost from 400 to 450 MHz
I dunno, they don't seem to occupy that radically different markets...
Apple *is* planning to replace MacOS on the Mac, with OS X, which rests atop a (hopefully) stable underpinning of BSD with a MacOS/NeXT hybrid UI. Likewise the G4 seems to be pretty powerful, so I don't see why Apple wouldn't try to market it as a deskstop workstation...
iMacs for the consumer desktop, and G4s for the professional desktop, no? Including researchers, scientists, desktop publications, animation, visualization, etc. Why wouldn't Apple want this market? It's not as if Apple can't compete...
What is wrong with Photoshop benchmarks? Apple unveiled the G4 at Seybold, a desktop publishing, web, and media convention... Photoshop breeding grounds if ever I saw it. As the web grows, so too does the Photoshop niche, btw.
Regardless, I actually did see the Apple G4s at Seybold, hooked up to gorgeous 22" Cinema Displays playing Q3.
Full resolution, highest detail, flawless framerate. Not that I can claim the G4 is faster, but if I do Photoshop for a living and play Q3 on the side, *nothing* can beat a G4. Likewise anything that does raw number crunching I suspect nothing beats a G4(for now)
$1507 vs $1599 is the difference in price of a USB mouse and keyboard vs non USB, or name brand over cheap, or the difference in price due to hard disk manufacturers.
A $200 difference is cheaper; $1307. A $92 difference is not big enough for me to put up with making a system from scratch when Apple has already done it for me.
$1509 vs $1599 is within the same order of magnitude; it depends on the mouse and keyboard you buy, for example(USB or otherwise, name brand or not, etc).
Why NT? Because NT can do the same things, mostly, that Mac can do; desktop publishing, prepress, color correction, etc. If we are targetting different markets, then sure, throw in Linux or BeOS. For Seybold, I think NT would be appropriate.
But how much will it cost for the Linux machine to do color correction, proofing, pre-production, graphics arts, and desktop publishing?
For those fields(under which the G4 was released, at Seybold) there is no comparable machine in the market. DIYers can cobble together the above/previously mentioned SMP PIII, but not at a significantly lower price point.
Slashdot Mirror
People keep talking about a 2mb mp3 player.
That's silly(though I grant people and companies have done silly things before.)
Look at an 'average' PC. It's system with, say, 32mb of memory. It plays mp3s. You can only store like half an hours worth of music on a PC then, at 128kbps quality. And that's not even taking into account that Windows will take up a good hefty chunk of operating space. Yet this is the device that mp3s were born for/from!
The secret? Removeable/fixed drives!
Why would not the Visor's mp3 cartridge either use something like IBM's 340mb MicroDrive(compactflash form factor I believe) or Iomega's 40mb Clik disk(for an unlimited amount of storage and swapping)
I mean granted that Winamp takes like 4mb of memory, I'm sure a much slimmed down mp3 player with a DSP on the cartridge could easily live on a 2mb system.
-AS
I'd imagine the mp3 module would have a DSP, or an mp3 accelerator on board, while mainly being a storage device-think 340mb IBM MicroDrive.
Then the Visor would be merely a controller and glue logic. Oh, and I'd imagine the add on would have a speaker/headphone jack if the Visor doesn't already.
I mean, how silly/nonsensical is it for the average PC with only 32mb of memory to play MP3s? You can only store 20 minutes worth at 128kbps, and we're not even taking into account them memory that Windows uses, right?
-AS
Come on, how revolutionary can you get? I guess I'd eat that statement, however, when someone *does* release something revolutionary.
Some noticable improvements:
USB instead of serial for faster up/down loads and quite possibly lots of future expansion capabilities (USB printers, cameras, speakers, etc.
Springboard expansion slot, a lot like the GameBoy's cartridge in a way. Imagine hooking up a tiny camera, a microdrive, flash memory, a flashlight, a barcode scanner, medical sensors, ethernet port, whatever, on there!
I don't know about battery life or screen size/resolution/clarity.
It would be nice if all of these were improved, however!
-AS
If you have an AT PC, you'd have to change the case, the motherboard, the CPU, and the ram. If you're unlucky enough to have a bunch of ISA/EISA cards, you may have to replace one or two of those as well.
If you're lucky enough to have an ATX PC, you may only need to change the motherboard, CPU, and ram.
If you're really lucky you only need to pop in a new CPU.
Only in the last case is it really affordable to upgrade.
For Pentium users, you'd probably need to change case, memory, CPU, and motherboard. For PPro users, the same. For PII users, you may be able to just upgrade the bios and CPU. But a PII user doesn't need to worry too much about upgrading...
On the mac side I've heard that one can upgrade all the way back to the 7100 Performa series to a G3 or maybe even a G4, with a daughtercard. That's unheard of in the Wintel world; it would be like upgrading a Pentium or Pentium Pro to a PII, Celeron, or PIII, none of which are possible.
-AS
Oops, I misspoke.
What I meant was not removal of the bootrom, per se, so much as removal of OS dependent stuff from the rom, leaving, essentially, just the BIOS stuff.
Previously some part of the OS was stored in the bootrom, and from what I've heard Apple is migrating away from that model. That's what I've heard, at least.
-AS
But I'll humor you =)
So lets say I upgrade my PPro...
I have to replace the motherboard. Mine has SCSI. That already places me into the $300 motherboard range. None are Celeron compatible, so minimally I need a slocket and PPGA Celeron, so I spend $400 or so already. Then I need to upgrade the ram, as I have the measly SIMM type, and no one supports it anymore. I have 96MB. Lets say I buy up, into 128MB. Last I checked, sdram prices have gone up. So now I'm spending almost $570 for an upgrade.
All Apple users, if I am not mistaken, of the G3 series can upgrade to the G4, with a minimal amount of hassle. B&W G3s need a bootrom patch(or something like that), but that's it.
Heck, I suspect all PowerPC users, 603, 604, 603e, etc, can upgrade to the G4... THough I can't be certain, not owning a PowerPC.
-AS
I'm not sure I believe that Apple has *ultimately* decided to disable G4 upgrades from B&W G3 machines. I hear rumors that they are going to fix it, especially after this uproar.
I'm not sure how Apple took this one step further than anyone else... Intel released the PPro socket8, then(ostensibly to cut costs) went to the PII Socket1, then(again, to cut costs) went to the Celeron PPGA Socket370, and will in the future migrate the PIII to the flipchip Socket370.
Now since there aren't any clones for any of these chips(barring Athlon's use of the socket1), I'd imagine Intel does the same thing to force purchases of new motherboards, memory, and CPUs all at once. So you're right in that this isn't a new tactic.
What's amazing is that even with this problem, there still exists the ability/possibility of B&W G3 owners upgrading to G4s and beige G3s upgrading to G4s.
Thats as if I had the chance/option to upgrade my PPro to a Celeron or PIII.
So Apple still wins, I think.
-AS
Why is it a blunder to get into a niche market as education? Their blunder was to not capitalize on their strength(education) and grow outwards as students moved up through the school system, into college, and into the business world.
And about firewire: as far as I can tell, they didn't make it proprietary, they just charged a $1 per port(it is now, I've heard, $0.25 per machine) fee for it's use. And it is far from dead, as Sony, a large, well entrenched, and savvy consumer products giant, has been putting firewire (called iLink) into every single product than can, from camcorders, VCRs, TVs, etc. Don't tell me that there is a smaller market for consumer electronics than PCs/iMacs! So firewire isn't dead and it isn't going to disappear, especially as lots of other consumer giants are using firewire for storage, consumer products, PC peripherals, etc.
And about backwards compatibility: they didn't do anything to make their CPUs non-backwards compatible. They released a patch to make their B&W G3s not-forward compatible, and there are rumors that they will be releasing a patch in the near future to fix that.
A lot of general hype, mis-information, and bad press is floating around.
Even I may be guilty of spreading some, so please correct me if I am wrong! But be careful of spreading more rumors and buzz or hype.
-AS
Geez. All this rumor mongering and negativity!
I've heard rumors on both sides; Apple disables G4 to prevent future upgradeability *or* to prevent 3rd party from introducing G4 to early.
We won't ever know which one is true if Apple has indeed decided to fix the B&W G3s in the near future.
Likewise this boot rom thing.
I had heard news/rumors that Apple has been designing their OS and PCs to not need the bootrom, with the advent of MacOS X. Is this true, can anyone confirm, acknowlege, or speculate? Anyhow, by moving the bootrom off the motherboard it means that future motherboards would not need to be changed if bootroms are unnecessary, reduced, or modified. Instead all Apple has to do is produce a new daughtercard at significantly less cost.
Yes, this may *become* an issue if they refuse to license out the bootrom to 3rd party upgrade manufacturers. It may also become a *boon* if, for example, someone wanted to convert G4s to Be boxes(and wrote/designed their own bootroms for BeOS), or Linux, or what have you.
Did I mess something up? It's possible. Please correct!
-AS
Anyway, how about (as distasteful as it is) inbreeding?
If two siblings bred then the sperm's mitochondria should, hypothetically, be identical to the egg's mitochondria, no? If so, would we still see the destruction of the sperm's mitochondria within the first cycle?
Or if not, how man degrees of separation(genetically) is necessary before the egg decides to reject the sperm's mitochondria? Cousin? Cousin once removed? Etc?
-AS
Calculator with better graphics costs more than gameboys.
Sega Game Gear has less games(are games still released for it? I didn't know it was still supported.)
A 486 laptop is of no use playing games. That is the only use a Gameboy has. It also weighs more and has less battery life. It could probably emulate a Gameboy okay, but not as long or as well.
Why buy a Gameboy? To play games, silly. Unless you don't play games, then no game machine will interest you.
I have a cell phone. I'd like one of these GameBoys. For games. I'd use something else for email, though being able to just finger myself and see who's sent me email is nice(just another fancy pager/beeper like device). Why would anyone waste their money on a Palm Pilot when you have pads of paper(gads, imagine how much paper $260 would get you!)
-AS
Considering 3com owns Palm and 3com also develops 802.13(or is it 802.11?) devices, it isn't inconcievable that future Palms will either carry or have as optional upgrades a wireless networking solution
-AS
But the MacOSRumors site says *not* to expect iMacII(or is it iiMac?) to be unveiled in France...
We'll see who has the better contacts, eh? Finally able to read the Japan Apple Watch article, it got slashdotted pretty bad.
On a side note, I don't believe there will be an LCD. Just *too* expensive for the home user/consumer right now. It'd be cheaper to go from a 15" to 19" CRT than from a 15"CRT to a 15"LCD!
So I'm more likely to believe the conservative 400MHz G3 with Rage128 on board an a 16"/17" monitor and Airport built in...
My 2 cents
-AS
IIANM Aiport uses the IEEE 802.11 Wavelan industry standard. PC compatible devices should be out this month or next month from Lucent or 3com. I'm not sure that wiring a building is all that great, anyway. It means one has to rewire when configurations change, when you go from 10 to 100, from 100 to gigabit, etc. Wireless(though slightly more expensive) offers flexibility and convenience at all levels-but I guess some people don't need/care for it.
-AS
Why would a PC lab be cheaper? iBook + Airport Card = $1699 or iMac + Airport Card = $1100(hypothetical) and G4 with Station = $1599 + $200 + $500(monitor) so 64 iMacs = $70,400 64 Dells(with networking and monitor) = $56,768 Assume the PC server is priced similarly(it does need more memory, HD, networking, etc!) Apple = $72,609 PC = $59,067 Now, how much does it cost to wire a building for 64(min) connections? How long? How much effort? Also, how much does it cost to hire a sysadmin for the NT/9x network? For the Apple network(with Airport?) If the difference is less than $13,542 the PC networks are cheaper. I don't know that it is... but I suspect not.
-AS
So I looked into this because of the iBook.
Lucent(and everyone else, btw) is releasing this fall(probably Sept, when iBooks ship) something called Wavelan(???), and industry standard extension to IEEE 802.11 which scales to 64nodes per station and 200ft away from the node. Apple, to cut costs, only does 10/11 nodes per station and 150ft from the node for the iBook. G4s and iMacs may support the full 64 node 200 ft thing, btw.
Lucent will sell PC Card and ISA adaptors for Wavelan, with 11Mbit(same as Airport) bandwidth. THey can be hooked into peer networks(if small), hubs(around a station), or LANs(stations connected to convnetional ethernet).
See! Lucent and 3Com both talk about it!
-AS
I heard on the Seybold floor from an Apple rep that(via software???) the G4s could either talk to each other without an Airport card or they could serve a handful of computers without an Airport bay, one of those(or maybe both) options. I couldn't quite figure out what they meant... Would the G4 run special calculations on the Velocity engine and 'transmit' on RF that way? I thought all the G4 had was a pair of antennas?
-AS
I dunno, could US$100M get Samsung to build an entire factory entirely for Apple? Just because PCs are experience a screen shortage doesn't mean Apple has to!
Anyhow, it isn't all that absurd that the iMac use a LCD screen. If I am not mistaken, it's internals are very much similar to the iBook... I think Apple is(internally) using the UMA, unified motherboard architecture, to cut costs. Besides, the iMac/iBook/Powerbook are very similar, actually. Small form factor. Limited upgradeability. Low Power. I mean, how much motherboard, memory, hard disk, speakers, and CPU can one fit inside an iMac shell, with a 15" monitor(and heat source!) in the way? With an LCD they could add larger speakers, remove all fans entirely, and add glowing flashing neon lights inside the case(ugh)
I myself don't believe there will be an LCD with iMacII (or is it iiMac?) but it isn't unfeasible or impossible by a long shot.
-AS
You forgot some other stuff.
You get:
64MB ram
20 GB HD
Zip internal
Rage 128 Pro w Digital output(not Rage 128)
DVD drive
plus
2 Airport wireless networking antennas
the ability to use 1.5GB memory(up from 1.0GB)
Three times the memory throughput(so Apple claims)
133MHz AGP 2x
An additional Firewire port(how many PCs have a firewire port anyhow?)
MacOS 9
As well as the price for speed boost from 400 to 450 MHz
I may have forgotten a few items as well.
-AS
I dunno, they don't seem to occupy that radically different markets...
Apple *is* planning to replace MacOS on the Mac, with OS X, which rests atop a (hopefully) stable underpinning of BSD with a MacOS/NeXT hybrid UI. Likewise the G4 seems to be pretty powerful, so I don't see why Apple wouldn't try to market it as a deskstop workstation...
iMacs for the consumer desktop, and G4s for the professional desktop, no? Including researchers, scientists, desktop publications, animation, visualization, etc. Why wouldn't Apple want this market? It's not as if Apple can't compete...
-AS
What is wrong with Photoshop benchmarks? Apple unveiled the G4 at Seybold, a desktop publishing, web, and media convention... Photoshop breeding grounds if ever I saw it. As the web grows, so too does the Photoshop niche, btw.
Regardless, I actually did see the Apple G4s at Seybold, hooked up to gorgeous 22" Cinema Displays playing Q3.
Full resolution, highest detail, flawless framerate. Not that I can claim the G4 is faster, but if I do Photoshop for a living and play Q3 on the side, *nothing* can beat a G4. Likewise anything that does raw number crunching I suspect nothing beats a G4(for now)
-AS
Not significantly.
$1507 vs $1599 is the difference in price of a USB mouse and keyboard vs non USB, or name brand over cheap, or the difference in price due to hard disk manufacturers.
A $200 difference is cheaper; $1307.
A $92 difference is not big enough for me to put up with making a system from scratch when Apple has already done it for me.
-AS
$1509 vs $1599 is within the same order of magnitude; it depends on the mouse and keyboard you buy, for example(USB or otherwise, name brand or not, etc).
Why NT? Because NT can do the same things, mostly, that Mac can do; desktop publishing, prepress, color correction, etc. If we are targetting different markets, then sure, throw in Linux or BeOS. For Seybold, I think NT would be appropriate.
-AS
But how much will it cost for the Linux machine to do color correction, proofing, pre-production, graphics arts, and desktop publishing?
For those fields(under which the G4 was released, at Seybold) there is no comparable machine in the market. DIYers can cobble together the above/previously mentioned SMP PIII, but not at a significantly lower price point.
-AS
NT is thrown in for the desktop publishing/graphics arts/proofing software, which doesn't exist for Linux yet.
Darn but I wished formatting was kept.
But subtract the $309 for NT and you do get a cheaper SMP system, Be or Linux.
Be *might* be able to function in a similar manner to a G4 in terms of graphics and multimedia.
-AS