Mac G5 / moving to OS X

From: Seth Lewin <sml49_at_comcast.net>
Date: Mon Jul 21 13:13:59 2003

>> If your a current mac user the g5 WILL be alot faster then what you
> have,
>> if your an Intel user I dont see a rush to buy anything made by apple.
> If
>> your a unix geek you might want a G5 just to say you own one and make
>> fellow geeks unworthy of your presence.
>
>> The funny thing is mac users who laugh at PC guys upgrading their
> hardware
>> every year are now doing the same thing, except its alot more costly
> for
>> them buying complete new machines while PC users just chuck the
>> motherboard/ram/video card in their old rig. This upgrade cycle of
>> hardware will eventually kill the mac market because only the very
> rich
>> can keep up. What percentage of mac owners are using OSX? What
> percentage
>> will upgrade to a current OSX running machine anytime soon?

That's not quite the case. Macs have a considerably longer useful life than
PCs, generally, and are indeed upgradeable. I just took my January 1999
model Blue G3/400 desktop, swapped the 8.5 GB Ultra2Wide SCSI disk subsystem
for a fast 200 gig Maxtor and an ATA 133 card, slipped in an 800 mhz G3 CPU
daughtercard and installed a Radeon 7000 instead of the OEM Rage 128 and a
LiteOn 52x CDROM instead of the old Matushita 24x (I already have an
external 1394 burner) and a Kensington 3-button Studio Mouse. Runs OS 10.26
like a charm. Sure a G5 would be faster but this setup handles a heavy duty
OS10.26 without any strain, web pages render in a flash etc. Plus this one
will still boot OS9 directly and I can use my old ADB keyboard of which I'm
fond. I figure on getting a year or two more out of this machine by which
time I may just buy a laptop and use the G3 for a file and web server. I
would've LIKED a new machine, but didn't NEED one. Of the four households
in this immediate family 3 are on OS X; only my 87 year old father in law
doesn't want to upgrade his 1998 rev A iMac and install it. That's 75%
penetration. Also the G3/400 daughtercard I removed is now installed in what
was formerly a Beige G3/266 I keep at work as a scanning station. That
leaves me with a spare ZIF G3/266 daughtercard. Anybody need one?

Seth Lewin
Received on Mon Jul 21 2003 - 13:13:59 BST