Mac G5 / moving to OS X

From: TeoZ <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Mon Jul 21 14:19:00 2003

----- Original Message -----
From: "Seth Lewin" <sml49_at_comcast.net>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 4:30 PM
Subject: Re: Mac G5 / moving to OS X


> >> 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

That machine was already OSX compatible and is still supported. My much
older PM8500 with 448mb ram, G3-400/1mb, usb card, acard 66 with 40x IDE
cdrom and 60gb 7200 rpm HD , ultimaterez 8mb video card can run OSX via
xpostfacto and is much older then your machine. I use it for OS 9.1 which it
runs very fast and have no plans on getting an OSX supported machine. Most
of the people I know who collect macs collect the 68k machines and have a
few PCI era machines also, and they all run either A/UX, linux, or macos.
Old PC's have a decent user life if you want to run the older dos/windows
3.x/win95 apps. While I think a G5 would be interesting to mess with (and
alot of people think the same) I dont see anybody I talk to even thinking
about buying one anytime soon. These same people upgrade their PC's every
year or 2.

I see alot of people trying to run Windows XP on real old hardware where it
runs like crap, just like alot of people trying to run OSX on hardware where
it runs very slow. I like to run the OS that is most productive for the
hardware.
Received on Mon Jul 21 2003 - 14:19:00 BST