Since every Power Mac ships with a video card that not only includes the proprietary ADC port, but a standard VGA port, Apple isn't "forcing" you to buy their monitors at all. If you want to use a third-party LCD, you can get a ADC to DVI adapter from Dr. Bott for about US$40.
I wouldn't call Apple's current display lineup "overpriced", either. The 17" Studio Display is easily one of the best 17" LCDs out there, and it sells for $999 where competitive models (with DVI input, not just crappy analog VGA) from Sony and NEC start around $1,200.
Nothing else comes close to the 22" Cinema Display at $2,500, though you'll need to add a couple hundred dollars to get a DVIator box if you don't have an ADC-ported Mac.
If you've only got Mac OS 9.x on that G4, what in blue blazes are you waiting for!? Get OS X on there ASAP! If you have an old app (or apps) on there you still need to use, they're more than likely to run well under Classic. If not, you can always reboot back into 9. Once you start working with X, maybe your FreeBSD box will be the one that tends to "rot."
Classic memory management may have been bass ackward, but I hardly felt I ever had to reboot between Illustrator projects (even with Illustrator 9, which was always a buggy piece of junk). It's really not that hard to build a stable 9.X system.
There actually was at least one ADB modem available: the original 2400bps Global Village TelePort fax/modem. Plugged into your ADB chain, worked great (mostly because GV's fax software was the best you could get for many, many years). Since it didn't take up a serial port, I could use a faster modem through my serial port and leave the GV modem installed just for sending and receiving faxes.
Because January is the month of Macworld Expo San Francisco. Apple usually announces its big hardware changes at MWSF (January) or MWNY (July). Besides, the G4/G5 models are targetted at professionals, not consumers. For Xmas, ask Santa for a new LCD-based iMac, if the economics make sense for Apple to roll it out.
Pretty good post for the most part, but a few corrections and observations:
- Yes, memory for the older PCI (pre-G3) PowerMacs is more expensive than PC66/100/133, but it's not nearly as dear as you suggest. 128 meg 5.5v FPM DIMMs are about $42 now, not $140.
- Older Powerbooks (such as the Wallstreet and Lombard) have plenty of options for CPU upgrades. I believe Sonnet and PowerLogix are both in that space. You can add Firewire and/or USB through the Cardbus slots for fairly cheap.
- NewerTech (formerly the best manufacturer of Mac CPU upgrades, now sadly defunct) made some nice upgrades for the older iMacs, including a 466MHz G3 for the Rev A-B iMacs, IIRC. They can still be purchased here and there, and don't require any additional software to function. Someone also made a Voodoo 2 video card for the Rev A iMac's Mezzanine slot.
- There are slight differences in the mobos on the 9500 and 9600; I think the bus speed is increased slightly from the older to the newer. Also, the 9600's case is light years better than the 9500 -- Apple went from its most difficult case to open up and work on to one of its easiest.
- 9500s and 9600s are a royal pain WRT adding G3 upgrades because the Level 2 cache is soldered to the mobo and can't be removed. If your software allows you to turn off L3 cache (which is what the mobo cache becomes after installing a G3 card), turn it off. XLR8 software lets you do this. In fact, XLR8's software lets me disable the L3 cache on a client's 9500 running a Sonnet G3 card, thus making it 100% stable.
- I would agree that anyone buying a used Mac should get at least a Beige G3 so they can take advantage of cheaper RAM and IDE drives right out of the box, and won't have to worry about "unsupported" installs of OS X. If you really need 6 PCI slots, track down a 9600. Current G4s ship with 4 PCI slots and an AGP4x slot.
- I bought a G4/400 last year, hoping that CPU upgrades would come down the pike soon enough. The only one available is a fairly overpriced dual 500MHz G4 for $800 or so IIRC. It would be nice to get a single 800MHz G4 upgrade, but I'm going to save my money for January or whenever the new boxen come out.
- A stock used 9500 should only fetch ~ $200 these days; nowhere near the $600-800 you state. You could get a well-equipped Blue & White G3/450 for that kind of money.
- http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ is essential reading for any potential Mac upgrader. You can also find plenty of suggestions there for troubleshooting your G3 upgrade on your 9500... Good luck!
> The specs for the G4 are irrelevant while you can't buy a system board for the thing for under $2,500.
Brand new PowerMac G4s start at $1,699. If you want the G4e the article discusses, then I think you have to go up to the 733MHz or Dual 533MHz models.
All this will change at Macworld New York in a couple of weeks. The 733MHz model will become the low-end system.
I am the former co-editor/co-publisher of a magazine called Bunnyhop. We featured an anti-Barney article published in print in 1994, then re-posted to our Web site in 1996 (most of which hasn't been changed to this day). There it sat in virtual limbo generating maybe 5 hits a month for a number of years, until a few months ago when we got a similar "cease and desist" letter from the Lyons Group lawyers. We did a *lot* of visual parodies of things back in those days, so we received a few such letters or threats before. It took me a few days to remember the old acct/pass to our FTP site so I could get on and unlink the "offending" graphics. (Yes, we always find Barney offensive!)
The irony about our Barney situation is that we went through the Lyons Group's legitimate PR channels to get the Barney promo materials back in 1993 - that stuff was pure gold! Creepy!
I made a few dozen t-shirts and posters back then with Barney inside one of those red "Do Not Enter" slashed-circles, a la the "Ghostbusters" logo. Good thing the Lyons Group didn't get wind of those.
As for Bunnyhop: the print version is still alive and worth checking out, but the Web site is laughably outdated and largely forgotten, except for some regular poster around here who links to the Girl's Guide to Geek Guys in his.sig - that article will never die, for better or worse, and I'm still amazed by how much response it gets.
The//e didn't have a built-in clock: you needed to buy a third-party expansion card in order to give it the ability to tell time. So perhaps that clock card vendor has an EPROM update or something. Hah.
Man, back when I was cobbling together BBSs and all manners of fun Apple ][ projects, I couldn't live without GPLE and Double-Take. Beagle Bros made the dope tools! Their print ads were very funny too, with all the small-point minutae like they were from some 1900's broadsheet.
Whenever I see Tux, I think of Penguin Software - another old Apple ][ software developer.
Why would anyone in their right mind pick a Technics SL1200MKII for home listening!? These things are good for DJs because they're built like tanks and will take tons of punishment and you can scratch on 'em like a banshee. The direct drive motor guarantees rumble a'plenty delivered directly to the platter.
Spend a little extra money on a quality belt-drive turntable. Rega makes some nice ones, in, IIRC the $800 range.
Non-standard h/w for 2x the cost? Old news!
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OSX/Win2K Deathmatch
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· Score: 2
Yes, Mac OS only runs on Apple hardware, but "non-standard" and "costs twice as much" are better suited to describe Apple's offerings from 3-4 years ago. With PCI/AGP, ATA, USB, Firewire, PC133, you can do a lot of inexpensive upgrading to a G4, even if the add-ons you buy don't have the smily "Mac" logo on the box. And as for the cost of the computers themselves: I dare you to find a better price/performance value for a laptop than the new iBook. Apple is so far ahead of everyone else with the iBook and Powerbook G4 it's mind-boggling. And compare the prices of high-end G4s with high-end Dells: the price gap for similarly configured systems is not as great as you'd think -- only around $500-600 (The Dell would have a 1.7GHz P4 and the Mac would have a 733MHz G4, to bring up another thread that's been beaten to death). A BYO PC would cost less, but Apple hardware is competing against Dell hardware.
Apple's CRTs were more expensive because a) they use very high quality picture tubes, typically Misubishi Diamondtrons; b) they have built-in powered USB hubs, c) the USB connections also allow the ColorSync software to keep the monitor calibrated - it's not the most robust color calibration in the world, but it helps a lot. The old 21" Studio Displays, though they looked like some hideous alien egg, had wonderful control and calibration capabilities that could be completely controlled through software.
G4s don't come with SCSI standard. You have to buy a PCI card to add that capability (about US$50 for, say, an Adaptec 2906 with basic 10MB/sec capability). Technically, you do need a small phillips screwdriver to secure the card to the back of the case, but it really is just a 1 minute install.
There's no reason to really buy a SCSI card unless you're hooking up high-end scanners, which have been slow to move to Firewire. I've junked all my old SCSI peripherals through the natural upgrade process - the SCSI card in my G4 goes unused.
Firewire is so freakin' awesome. It's amazing the kind of cool things it has enabled, from my little 14 gig bus-powered Firewire drive that's scarcely bigger than my Handspring to the FireNet software which lets you build fast, cheap SANs that run TCP/IP over Firewire.
Definitely agree in principal, but a ~$1,500 budget for a home theatre setup (as opposed to an audio-only system) makes the argument against a good AV receiver less realistic. One can really get into serious bucks with outboard decoders, etc.
I agree with the post above about Yamaha's receivers: they do a real good job in the $300-500 price range. I have the 5240, which I've very happy with. The 5250 mentioned above has more power (100 watts @ 8 ohms as opposed to 70x5@8 for the 5240). Spend the rest of your budget on good speakers. I haven't been in the speaker market for a long time (my main pair is a real nice set of old AR's that should last me a good long time).
The Sony S560D (the player referred to in the original post) actually does have a digital coax out, as well as the optical toslink connector. I just got that player myself, so I think I'll heed your advice and get a digital coax cable to hookup to my receiver. Thanks.
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Don't ask Jonathan that question. He didn't make that decision.
Ask Apple's VP of Hardware, Jon Rubenstein.
Since every Power Mac ships with a video card that not only includes the proprietary ADC port, but a standard VGA port, Apple isn't "forcing" you to buy their monitors at all. If you want to use a third-party LCD, you can get a ADC to DVI adapter from Dr. Bott for about US$40.
I wouldn't call Apple's current display lineup "overpriced", either. The 17" Studio Display is easily one of the best 17" LCDs out there, and it sells for $999 where competitive models (with DVI input, not just crappy analog VGA) from Sony and NEC start around $1,200.
Nothing else comes close to the 22" Cinema Display at $2,500, though you'll need to add a couple hundred dollars to get a DVIator box if you don't have an ADC-ported Mac.
If you've only got Mac OS 9.x on that G4, what in blue blazes are you waiting for!? Get OS X on there ASAP! If you have an old app (or apps) on there you still need to use, they're more than likely to run well under Classic. If not, you can always reboot back into 9. Once you start working with X, maybe your FreeBSD box will be the one that tends to "rot."
Classic memory management may have been bass ackward, but I hardly felt I ever had to reboot between Illustrator projects (even with Illustrator 9, which was always a buggy piece of junk). It's really not that hard to build a stable 9.X system.
But I like the sign idea. Very clever.
There actually was at least one ADB modem available: the original 2400bps Global Village TelePort fax/modem. Plugged into your ADB chain, worked great (mostly because GV's fax software was the best you could get for many, many years). Since it didn't take up a serial port, I could use a faster modem through my serial port and leave the GV modem installed just for sending and receiving faxes.
FireNet 2.0 is a third party software package that support AFP over TCP/IP through Firewire. So yes, it's been done.
Because January is the month of Macworld Expo San Francisco. Apple usually announces its big hardware changes at MWSF (January) or MWNY (July). Besides, the G4/G5 models are targetted at professionals, not consumers. For Xmas, ask Santa for a new LCD-based iMac, if the economics make sense for Apple to roll it out.
Pretty good post for the most part, but a few corrections and observations:
- Yes, memory for the older PCI (pre-G3) PowerMacs is more expensive than PC66/100/133, but it's not nearly as dear as you suggest. 128 meg 5.5v FPM DIMMs are about $42 now, not $140.
- Older Powerbooks (such as the Wallstreet and Lombard) have plenty of options for CPU upgrades. I believe Sonnet and PowerLogix are both in that space. You can add Firewire and/or USB through the Cardbus slots for fairly cheap.
- NewerTech (formerly the best manufacturer of Mac CPU upgrades, now sadly defunct) made some nice upgrades for the older iMacs, including a 466MHz G3 for the Rev A-B iMacs, IIRC. They can still be purchased here and there, and don't require any additional software to function. Someone also made a Voodoo 2 video card for the Rev A iMac's Mezzanine slot.
- There are slight differences in the mobos on the 9500 and 9600; I think the bus speed is increased slightly from the older to the newer. Also, the 9600's case is light years better than the 9500 -- Apple went from its most difficult case to open up and work on to one of its easiest.
- 9500s and 9600s are a royal pain WRT adding G3 upgrades because the Level 2 cache is soldered to the mobo and can't be removed. If your software allows you to turn off L3 cache (which is what the mobo cache becomes after installing a G3 card), turn it off. XLR8 software lets you do this. In fact, XLR8's software lets me disable the L3 cache on a client's 9500 running a Sonnet G3 card, thus making it 100% stable.
- I would agree that anyone buying a used Mac should get at least a Beige G3 so they can take advantage of cheaper RAM and IDE drives right out of the box, and won't have to worry about "unsupported" installs of OS X. If you really need 6 PCI slots, track down a 9600. Current G4s ship with 4 PCI slots and an AGP4x slot.
- I bought a G4/400 last year, hoping that CPU upgrades would come down the pike soon enough. The only one available is a fairly overpriced dual 500MHz G4 for $800 or so IIRC. It would be nice to get a single 800MHz G4 upgrade, but I'm going to save my money for January or whenever the new boxen come out.
- A stock used 9500 should only fetch ~ $200 these days; nowhere near the $600-800 you state. You could get a well-equipped Blue & White G3/450 for that kind of money.
- http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ is essential reading for any potential Mac upgrader. You can also find plenty of suggestions there for troubleshooting your G3 upgrade on your 9500... Good luck!
Time to dust off my old copy of Gang of Four's "Solid Gold" now. A forgotten gem, that record.
> The specs for the G4 are irrelevant while you can't buy a system board for the thing for under $2,500. Brand new PowerMac G4s start at $1,699. If you want the G4e the article discusses, then I think you have to go up to the 733MHz or Dual 533MHz models. All this will change at Macworld New York in a couple of weeks. The 733MHz model will become the low-end system.
The irony about our Barney situation is that we went through the Lyons Group's legitimate PR channels to get the Barney promo materials back in 1993 - that stuff was pure gold! Creepy!
I made a few dozen t-shirts and posters back then with Barney inside one of those red "Do Not Enter" slashed-circles, a la the "Ghostbusters" logo. Good thing the Lyons Group didn't get wind of those.
As for Bunnyhop: the print version is still alive and worth checking out, but the Web site is laughably outdated and largely forgotten, except for some regular poster around here who links to the Girl's Guide to Geek Guys in his .sig - that article will never die, for better or worse, and I'm still amazed by how much response it gets.
The //e didn't have a built-in clock: you needed to buy a third-party expansion card in order to give it the ability to tell time. So perhaps that clock card vendor has an EPROM update or something. Hah.
Man, back when I was cobbling together BBSs and all manners of fun Apple ][ projects, I couldn't live without GPLE and Double-Take. Beagle Bros made the dope tools! Their print ads were very funny too, with all the small-point minutae like they were from some 1900's broadsheet. Whenever I see Tux, I think of Penguin Software - another old Apple ][ software developer.
Spend a little extra money on a quality belt-drive turntable. Rega makes some nice ones, in, IIRC the $800 range.
Yes, Mac OS only runs on Apple hardware, but "non-standard" and "costs twice as much" are better suited to describe Apple's offerings from 3-4 years ago. With PCI/AGP, ATA, USB, Firewire, PC133, you can do a lot of inexpensive upgrading to a G4, even if the add-ons you buy don't have the smily "Mac" logo on the box. And as for the cost of the computers themselves: I dare you to find a better price/performance value for a laptop than the new iBook. Apple is so far ahead of everyone else with the iBook and Powerbook G4 it's mind-boggling. And compare the prices of high-end G4s with high-end Dells: the price gap for similarly configured systems is not as great as you'd think -- only around $500-600 (The Dell would have a 1.7GHz P4 and the Mac would have a 733MHz G4, to bring up another thread that's been beaten to death). A BYO PC would cost less, but Apple hardware is competing against Dell hardware.
Apple's CRTs were more expensive because a) they use very high quality picture tubes, typically Misubishi Diamondtrons; b) they have built-in powered USB hubs, c) the USB connections also allow the ColorSync software to keep the monitor calibrated - it's not the most robust color calibration in the world, but it helps a lot. The old 21" Studio Displays, though they looked like some hideous alien egg, had wonderful control and calibration capabilities that could be completely controlled through software.
G4s don't come with SCSI standard. You have to buy a PCI card to add that capability (about US$50 for, say, an Adaptec 2906 with basic 10MB/sec capability). Technically, you do need a small phillips screwdriver to secure the card to the back of the case, but it really is just a 1 minute install. There's no reason to really buy a SCSI card unless you're hooking up high-end scanners, which have been slow to move to Firewire. I've junked all my old SCSI peripherals through the natural upgrade process - the SCSI card in my G4 goes unused. Firewire is so freakin' awesome. It's amazing the kind of cool things it has enabled, from my little 14 gig bus-powered Firewire drive that's scarcely bigger than my Handspring to the FireNet software which lets you build fast, cheap SANs that run TCP/IP over Firewire.
Definitely agree in principal, but a ~$1,500 budget for a home theatre setup (as opposed to an audio-only system) makes the argument against a good AV receiver less realistic. One can really get into serious bucks with outboard decoders, etc. I agree with the post above about Yamaha's receivers: they do a real good job in the $300-500 price range. I have the 5240, which I've very happy with. The 5250 mentioned above has more power (100 watts @ 8 ohms as opposed to 70x5@8 for the 5240). Spend the rest of your budget on good speakers. I haven't been in the speaker market for a long time (my main pair is a real nice set of old AR's that should last me a good long time).
The Sony S560D (the player referred to in the original post) actually does have a digital coax out, as well as the optical toslink connector. I just got that player myself, so I think I'll heed your advice and get a digital coax cable to hookup to my receiver. Thanks.