It was DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY for the SCREEN YOU IDIOT!
Actually I am quite aware of its origins. However, most people seem to be typographically blind: and consequently Verdana is often seen on paper, with horrible results. Hence my remark.
Re:Pricing has been much the same for 20 years
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
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· Score: 1
Of course, you can spec a system for any price you like... But I know someone who just bought a dual G5 and 30" and the total system cost was US$10,000. I don't pluck these figures from thin air, you know.
Unfortunately I am separated from my shelf of Mac magazines from the 1980s, so I can't cite exact list prices, but I recall paying around A$3,500 for my Mac Plus in 1987. I am sure that a modest G5 system (more likely entry) would be exactly that today.
I've been involved in pricing and purchasing every single generation of Macintoshes, and on that basis I can vouch that the price points have been very consistent for the entire 20 year period.
Pricing has been much the same for 20 years
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Some outrageous prices during the '90s - This was where the Mac got its "overpriced" reputation. I recall that the list price for a Quadra 950 was close to $10,000
I'm not sure that's changed. Since 1985 or so, an entry level system has always been about A$3500 and a decent production system around $A5-7,000. Those benchmarks have lasted all 20 years, from 68000 through G5: if you want a dual G5 and big monitor, it's still about US$10,000.
(Don't tell anyone, but the Mac Mini isn't really an "entry" level system - it's meant to entice PC switchers who don't know any better; you could call it the basement entry, I suppose. It's not much more than the Cube specs at today's prices.)
We only benefit today if Google is improving. I don't see much sign of that. We gain nothing from a bunch of also-rans with small pieces of the "market" that are still inferior in technology, whether anyone switches or not.
Let's see what changed (and didn't change) in the intervening 4 years. In bold are the items where the Mac Mini is higher spec. In several areas, the Cube still has the higher spec (including upgradeability).
CPU family: Unchanged (G4)
Clock: 1.25/1.42GHz (Mini) vs 400/500MHz (Cube)
Bus: 167MHz (Mini) vs 100MHz (Cube)
Cache: 512KB L2 (Mini) vs 1MB L2+64K L1 (Cube)
Standard RAM: Unchanged (256MB)
Max RAM: 1GB (Mini) vs 1.5GB (Cube)
Video: AGP 4x, 32MB (Mini) vs AGP 2x, 32 MB (Cube)
Hard disk: 40GB (Mini) vs 60GB (Cube)
Optical drive: Combo (Mini) vs DVD/CDRW/SuperDrive (Cube)
Ethernet: Unchanged 10/100 (although Cube offered Gigabit as an option)
USB: Unchanged (2, Mini offers USB2.0)
FW: 1 (Mini) vs 2 (Cube)
Airport: Unchanged (option)
Modem: Unchanged (built in 56Kbps)
Power rating: 85W (Mini) vs 200W (Cube)
Plus, the Cube could be upgraded to at least 1.25GHz, 64MB VRAM, and dual processor. Try that with a Mini.
When he says, "Awww, who am I kiddin'!" and quits his job: Unless he's totally without conscience, it must be tough to fabricate such nonsense and sleep well at nights.
collectors aren't prone to being in their right minds, either
But they do keep prices up on ebay. The systems that I am generally into collecting are from the 1970s and 1980s, and they typically fetch multiples of the Cube price on ebay. Go figure.
they were overpriced and less powerful/expandible compared to the full-sized mini tower G4s of the day,... I've also heard that they were prone to overheating.
Well, this is something that I can comment on, since for the last 10 years I was in charge of specifying and purchasing systems for a medium sized Mac studio. We bought 3 Cubes, because they were the best value at that time. They are all still in full time production use and outlived their 17" CRTs, all now upgraded to the outstanding Apple LCDs. We never had an issue with overheating, expandability or reliability with any of the Cubes*. RAM and system software was upgraded over time, of course. (Or with any of the 30-40 other Macs we purchased, all of which from B&W G3s forward are still in useful service and all run the latest O/S release.)
(*Except one minor issue: several years after purchase, it would have been nice to upgrade to gigabit Ethernet. But on the upside, we had onboard 10/100 out of the box, for years before we installed gigabit. In fact we didn't upgrade most of the towers to gigabit either, because the cards were too expensive anyway.)
Current price is more like $600. Dual processor Cubes were selling for A$2000 last year. Remember that the Mini is the same processor and in almost all respects (including video card) not very much higher spec than the Cube. A dual processor Cube should match a Mini in speed.
But the main reason why they'll hold their price - apart from being competitive in performance - is scarcity: they're not being made any more. They're one of the most collectable Mac models.
all that scary talk about being arrested and jailed for your opinions (or for even visiting web sites where you can read someone else's opinions) was just Republicans trying to make socialists look bad
Ah no, that "scary talk" you heard was progressives trying to make conservative Republicans look like the ignorant hypocrites they are: for slowly converting a society that, by some great irony, still considers itself "freer" than anyone else, into a totalitarian state, by stealth and deception.
The OP said nothing about sales volume - it referred to industry leading innovation. So I would still stand by my point, that both products were years ahead in terms of accurately indicating future directions.
Jobs' record as a visionary in this regard is impeccable, all the way back to the first Apples. NeXT was also such a product; 10+ years ahead of when its ideas, as manifested in products like OS X, became acceptable to volume markets.
Just what was "wrong" about the Newton and Cube? Don't mistake cancelled products for flaws. I am familiar with both - and there's nothing wrong with either product. In fact, both were long ahead of their time - the Newton by 10-15 years, and the Cube by several years: the powerful, compact, fanless mini unit.
Cubes hold their value better than probably any other Power Mac model - how's that for "wrong"? Nobody I know ever thought of a good explanation for the cancellation of the Cube; it certainly wasn't technical failings - the most likely reason was low margins. The Mini is another low margin product but the engineering is much less ambitious I suspect.
I compared all the major ISPs. The plans were very similar. (The stealth "port access" charge didn't become properly evident until the first bills arrived - pays to read the fine print, eh?) bonezed's "budget ISP" is considerably cheaper, but TANSTAAFL - where's the catch?
That's by far the best deal I've heard of in Oz. You're still paying twice the price for half the speed of my current connection in Canada though.
At one point about 6 months ago, it was costing me as a Melbourne CBD residential customer well over A$200 per month for about 6 or 7GB total download at 1.5Mbit. (The base rate was something like A$80 but only 5GB was included.)
Then I switched to the $170 "business" 512kbit plan because I needed a static IP, wanted to save money by downgrading speed, and hopefully get a larger download inclusion. (That plan was advertised as an $89/month plan; the extra $80 is a "hidden" port access charge, not shown in their online schedule and carefully hidden in their application form, that blindsided my budgeting.)
This is particularly ironic because I was one of the first to sign up to ADSL in Melbourne - back when the offered product was 1.5Mbit and unlimited data for something like $100-$110/month. In a few months, the ISP (same one) realised they were losing money hand over fist (presumably thanks to Telstra) and abruptly changed the contract terms on us early adopters.
Where 512kbit with a <10GB quota will set you back A$170 or so per month, if you need a static IP. Also, some ports are blocked, including HTTP. (1.5Mbit was the highest offered speed for residential ADSL last time I checked.)
Contrast that with Canada: CD$50/month for 3Mbit, effectively unlimited (up to 8-10Mbit available).
MPEG is the first format that comes to mind, if QT is not acceptable (no native QT for Linux...yet); but there is also QuickTime for Java which might solve portability problems.
I'm not normally into tattoos - it's hard for me to think of anything so signficant that I would commit it to flesh - but I liked the concept of yours a great deal. I bet there are 1000/. readers muttering now, "Damn! I wish I'd thought of that":-)
I suppose I could get a saying of Chairman Knuth tattooed on my buttocks - something about premature optimisation, perhaps. Actually there are so many great computer science quotes I'd never be able to decide.
Slashdot Mirror
It looks much like the "old" trailer. Nothing to see here, move along...
Or look out your window, or turn on the TV.
C'mon! Does every story on /. have to be about Micro$oft?
Sorry to get all pedantic.
Actually I am quite aware of its origins. However, most people seem to be typographically blind: and consequently Verdana is often seen on paper, with horrible results. Hence my remark.
Verdana does suck. Especially on paper - it should never, ever, be seen off the screen.
Came early this year?
These applets are quite beautiful.
Of course, you can spec a system for any price you like... But I know someone who just bought a dual G5 and 30" and the total system cost was US$10,000. I don't pluck these figures from thin air, you know.
Unfortunately I am separated from my shelf of Mac magazines from the 1980s, so I can't cite exact list prices, but I recall paying around A$3,500 for my Mac Plus in 1987. I am sure that a modest G5 system (more likely entry) would be exactly that today.
I've been involved in pricing and purchasing every single generation of Macintoshes, and on that basis I can vouch that the price points have been very consistent for the entire 20 year period.
(Don't tell anyone, but the Mac Mini isn't really an "entry" level system - it's meant to entice PC switchers who don't know any better; you could call it the basement entry, I suppose. It's not much more than the Cube specs at today's prices.)
We only benefit today if Google is improving. I don't see much sign of that. We gain nothing from a bunch of also-rans with small pieces of the "market" that are still inferior in technology, whether anyone switches or not.
Which I prefer to call DeActivation, since it can only take away.
CPU family: Unchanged (G4)
Clock: 1.25/1.42GHz (Mini) vs 400/500MHz (Cube)
Bus: 167MHz (Mini) vs 100MHz (Cube)
Cache: 512KB L2 (Mini) vs 1MB L2+64K L1 (Cube)
Standard RAM: Unchanged (256MB)
Max RAM: 1GB (Mini) vs 1.5GB (Cube)
Video: AGP 4x, 32MB (Mini) vs AGP 2x, 32 MB (Cube)
Hard disk: 40GB (Mini) vs 60GB (Cube)
Optical drive: Combo (Mini) vs DVD/CDRW/SuperDrive (Cube)
Ethernet: Unchanged 10/100 (although Cube offered Gigabit as an option)
USB: Unchanged (2, Mini offers USB2.0)
FW: 1 (Mini) vs 2 (Cube)
Airport: Unchanged (option)
Modem: Unchanged (built in 56Kbps)
Power rating: 85W (Mini) vs 200W (Cube)
Plus, the Cube could be upgraded to at least 1.25GHz, 64MB VRAM, and dual processor. Try that with a Mini.
When he says, "Awww, who am I kiddin'!" and quits his job: Unless he's totally without conscience, it must be tough to fabricate such nonsense and sleep well at nights.
But they do keep prices up on ebay. The systems that I am generally into collecting are from the 1970s and 1980s, and they typically fetch multiples of the Cube price on ebay. Go figure.
Well, this is something that I can comment on, since for the last 10 years I was in charge of specifying and purchasing systems for a medium sized Mac studio. We bought 3 Cubes, because they were the best value at that time. They are all still in full time production use and outlived their 17" CRTs, all now upgraded to the outstanding Apple LCDs. We never had an issue with overheating, expandability or reliability with any of the Cubes*. RAM and system software was upgraded over time, of course. (Or with any of the 30-40 other Macs we purchased, all of which from B&W G3s forward are still in useful service and all run the latest O/S release.)
(*Except one minor issue: several years after purchase, it would have been nice to upgrade to gigabit Ethernet. But on the upside, we had onboard 10/100 out of the box, for years before we installed gigabit. In fact we didn't upgrade most of the towers to gigabit either, because the cards were too expensive anyway.)
Check ebay to be proved wrong any time.
Current price is more like $600. Dual processor Cubes were selling for A$2000 last year. Remember that the Mini is the same processor and in almost all respects (including video card) not very much higher spec than the Cube. A dual processor Cube should match a Mini in speed.
But the main reason why they'll hold their price - apart from being competitive in performance - is scarcity: they're not being made any more. They're one of the most collectable Mac models.
Jobs' record as a visionary in this regard is impeccable, all the way back to the first Apples. NeXT was also such a product; 10+ years ahead of when its ideas, as manifested in products like OS X, became acceptable to volume markets.
Cubes hold their value better than probably any other Power Mac model - how's that for "wrong"? Nobody I know ever thought of a good explanation for the cancellation of the Cube; it certainly wasn't technical failings - the most likely reason was low margins. The Mini is another low margin product but the engineering is much less ambitious I suspect.
I compared all the major ISPs. The plans were very similar. (The stealth "port access" charge didn't become properly evident until the first bills arrived - pays to read the fine print, eh?) bonezed's "budget ISP" is considerably cheaper, but TANSTAAFL - where's the catch?
At one point about 6 months ago, it was costing me as a Melbourne CBD residential customer well over A$200 per month for about 6 or 7GB total download at 1.5Mbit. (The base rate was something like A$80 but only 5GB was included.)
Then I switched to the $170 "business" 512kbit plan because I needed a static IP, wanted to save money by downgrading speed, and hopefully get a larger download inclusion. (That plan was advertised as an $89/month plan; the extra $80 is a "hidden" port access charge, not shown in their online schedule and carefully hidden in their application form, that blindsided my budgeting.)
This is particularly ironic because I was one of the first to sign up to ADSL in Melbourne - back when the offered product was 1.5Mbit and unlimited data for something like $100-$110/month. In a few months, the ISP (same one) realised they were losing money hand over fist (presumably thanks to Telstra) and abruptly changed the contract terms on us early adopters.
Contrast that with Canada: CD$50/month for 3Mbit, effectively unlimited (up to 8-10Mbit available).
MPEG is the first format that comes to mind, if QT is not acceptable (no native QT for Linux...yet); but there is also QuickTime for Java which might solve portability problems.
I suppose I could get a saying of Chairman Knuth tattooed on my buttocks - something about premature optimisation, perhaps. Actually there are so many great computer science quotes I'd never be able to decide.