Subject: RE: Mac G5 / Moving to OS X

From: Seth Lewin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Jul 22 20:00:01 2003

> Hi Seth,
> 
> I'm curious if you bought those upgrades new, and what they cost?
> 
> --tnx
> --tom

Tom..

The G3/800 was about $298. The Maxtor 200 was $199 after a rebate, the Acard
controller around $86 and the Radeon 7000 another $105 and the Lite-On 526
around $40 over the counter locally so around $725 or so total. I had done
this incrementally - I needed a larger faster drive long before I decided to
go to OS X. And yes, to respond to another poster, the machine would indeed
run OS X w/out all this and in fact it did for awhile but it wasn't as
responsive as I'd have liked. I bought the Radeon - it's the fastest non-AGP
one - with the idea that I would be able to move up at some point to a large
digital LCD display; my old FD Trinitron is showing signs of age and I don't
figure on buying any further CRT displays.  This is my mainstream machine,
the one I keep my digital life on so I pamper it; besides, I like it's blue
front panel  :-). Its FireWire ports are a little funky - all Blue G3's are
reputed to have flaky FireWire - so a few years ago I put an Adaptec PCI FW
card in there; found it on the discount table at the local Micro Center.

There's also the dozen or so assorted older 68000 and early PPC Macs I have
around here, most working and a handful of them online. My source of supply
is the local town disposal area; very fruitful. Need a  Iisi or two?  A
small to medium sized SCSI drive? I've got a few  tubs full of 'em..

Seth

> 
> At 04:30 PM 7/18/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>>>> 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