The classic Mac OS may feel klunky for someone used to Unix or
Amiga, but to those who have worked with Macs for 5, 10, or 15
years, it's a comfortable old shoe. It's far from perfect, but
it's pretty stable, pretty fast, and very familiar to millions of
Mac users.
Yeh, but it's the hundreds of millions of Windows users that Apple
needs to win over, and they need those millions of Mac users onboard
to do that.
Mac OS X may feel slow and look full of "eye candy" to
longtime Mac users, but it's remarkably stable (one kernel panic
here - during an OS upgrade) and creates new types of
efficiencies (faster waking from sleep, less need to reboot and
wait for that, etc.).
The big one is, you don't have to stop when an
application's launching or otherwise busy. Even if your computer is a
slow piece of junk like mine, you can click on a doc and not care if
it launches an app or not - even if it takes a minute to open you
can keep working on other things while that's going on.
I don't see Apple porting to Wintel hardware, but I wouldn't
rule out OS X running on Itanium or AMD's x64
processors.
I wouldn't rule it out, but I would be utterly stunned if it were
to happen. I can't see the Apple that dropped out of CHRP doing
that.
I think Power4 is much more logical for an upgrade from OS X
Server.
Still, although I'm sold on OS X, not everyone has the
hardware for it, nor would every Mac user profit by upgrading
until there's a compelling reason (usually a program, sometimes
just the need for an up-to-date computer) to do so.
It's a pity they didn't follow through with their previous
attempts to upgrade the OS. While I really like having a real Unix
desktop, a baby step to a realtime kernel (rolling their own, or
buying Be or Amiga) would have left them in a far better place.
You make a good point: Apple needs to first win over classic
Mac users if they really want to win over Windows users. As long
as people who have the hardware for OS X are holding back or
complaining about it, the Mac community will not provide a united
front. Without that, Windows users must wonder why they should
switch if Apple's own user base won't.
Because of its BSD roots and Darwin open source components, a lot
of pieces are in place that Apple could use to support multiple
hardware platforms if they ever chose to do so. I agree that the
PowerPC 970 is probably Apple's best future, but porting OS X
to Power4, Itanium 2, and AMD could give Apple a real presence in
the server market, breaking down the resistance of IT
departments.
I agree that it's a pity that Apple declared OS 9 dead. They made
some great improvements in the core of the OS between System 7.5.x
and 9.2.2, but once they purchased NeXT, the future was carved in
stone. Mac OS X is probably more like the NeXT operating
systems than any traditional Mac OS - which isn't a bad thing.
After all, nobody really had anything bad to say about NeXT (or
BeOS or OS/2) except that there wasn't much software
available.
I'd still love to see Apple acquire Palm for their OS and all the
clever engineering that went into BeOS, which is now owned by
Palm, but that's another story for another time.
Why Power Mac Sales Are Down
After I commented that iBook
and PowerBook sales increases probably had something to do with the
decline in Power Mac sales, Tom Burke wrote:
In your last mailbag you suggest that one reason Power Mac sales
are down is because of the desirability and success of the portables
- PowerBook & iBook. That's probably so, but I think there's
another reason - the secondhand market.
The G4 Power Mac line is very desirable, and there are lot of
two-year-old models available. I bought a s/h [400
MHz] Power Mac last autumn for £400 (that's GB pounds);
this is the first model with AGP graphics. I'm not a professional
user, just an enthusiast, and this suits me fine.
Since buying it, I've added a 80 GB HD and a bit of RAM, but
that's all. I specifically didn't want an iMac because I have a
perfectly good Iiyama 19" monitor that I'm still using. I've bought a
(household) copy of Jaguar - my wife & I have a pair of
PowerBook G3s between us, as well as the Power Mac - and if I
eventually find that the Power Mac is a bit slow, I can buy a Sonnet
or PowerLogix upgrade CPU (800 MHz, perhaps) to double the speed.
All in all, much more cost-effective than a new Power Mac, which
last autumn would have set me back around £1,200.
True, there's a very good secondhand market for the Power Mac
G4 (see our weekly price
tracker for examples), but I would guess that almost every G4
on the secondhand market has been replaced by a newer Power Mac
G4. Like you, the people who use them have good monitors and are
mostly looking for a speed upgrade.
Of course, for the low-end Mac user, this creates a wonderful
opportunity to buy G4s that are only a few years old for a
fraction of their original price....
Recasing Old Macs
Mark Hooker writes:
My project to re-can a Beige G3
was canceled this morning when I found a Beige
G3 Minitower (300 MHz/96 MB/4 GB/ethernet) at my local university
surplus sales store for $130. The price was too attractive to pass
up. It was a little more than my original budget to re-can the Beige
G3 in an ATX case, but not much. Now I will be selling off the parts
I had started to collect on eBay.
The purchase of the G3 Minitower is also a response - of sorts -
to the suggestion in today's mailbag that "the guy with the 7300/200"
(must be me) upgrade to a G3. The writer's budget for that was $155.
I am under that and get to use ATA drives as well, but I don't think
that I will rush right out and upgrade to OS X, though. I am
quite happy with OS 9.2 at home. I will wait until OS X has
matured a little, just like I did when Apple migrated to the PPC.
Maybe one day they will make Aqua an option that you can turn off to
speed things up. That would attract my attention.
Abandoning my G3 re-canning project does not mean that I am
completely out of the re-canning business. I have an iMac
333 MHz motherboard that will be going in a Power Computing DT
case.
The discussion on Slashdot about re-canning Mac motherboards was
interesting, but it did not look like it would be too productive. It
rightly points to the good write-ups on re-canning Apple motherboards
on xlr8yourmac, which is what made me want to give it a try in the
first place. The soft power on/off is the hard part, but there is a
good hack for that in the article on using an ATX power supply in an
8600 < http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/ATX_PS_in_8600_9600/ ATX_supply_in_8600_9600.html>.
You were right in mailbag about the quality control issues at
Apple. Sure it is "great" for me that I got a cheap iMac motherboard
from a machine with a failed display, but the display simply should
not have failed, especially in an all-in-one machine. Apples
are just supposed to work (period).
I really wish Steve Jobs would be so concerned that every Mac
user have the same Aqua look and feel on the desktop. I'm sure
Aqua is wonderfully fast with AGP 4x video cards, dual processor
G4 systems, and even iBooks with Quartz Extreme - but what about
the rest of us?
If Apple could do one thing to help convince old timers to buy
OS X for their older hardware, it would be to either offer a
simpler appearance (how about Platinum?) or a simplified version
of Aqua. At the very least, maybe some user controls such as
changing the drop shadow from something fuzzy to something the
computer could display more quickly.
I'm probably beating a dead horse, but if Apple wants current Mac
users to buy new Macs next time around, they should do their best
to get as many of us as possible used to OS X before we make
an investment in new hardware. Once we've become accustomed to
OS X, I think we'll be more likely to buy the hardware that
best supports it. Until then, the inability to boot into the
classic Mac OS remains an obstacle for a lot of old timers.
It took me about a day to get used to Jaguar. But then again, I
have used so many OSes over so many years I can easily drift from one
to the other without much effort. Jaguar is different, a little
obtuse in some areas (Printers are in Applications?), a little rough
in others, but overall quite nice. It's hard to rate the stability,
since I had no problems in 9.2.2 on my Bondi.
The iBook was definitely a good choice for me. The next best
choice would have been an iMac snow or graphite. Oddly, had an eMac
or an iMac FP been available at the same price, I doubt I would have
gone that route. Something is a bit off about the aesthetics; they
simply are not as attractive or organic to my eye.
Portability is a very nice feature in a computer. Just as I
don't think I could ever go back to the classic Mac OS as my full
time OS, I don't think I'd be happy with a computer I couldn't
take with me.
Yes, OS X is still rough around the edges. Everything seems to be
there, but everything hasn't been polished yet.
I saw your photo in today's article showing your LaserJet twice.
That is because of printer sharing. You have printer sharing on, and
the machine with it on is running Jaguar.
The pink printers are Rendezvous printers. When it is rerouted
through Rendezvous, the OS cannot tell it is the same printer just
because it has the same name (lots of printers might have the same
name), so the printer appears twice. Either turn off the printer
sharing on the network or remove the black printer from your list
(you cannot remove the pink one). That is the only way to get it down
to one printer copy of the printer visible.
Thanks for the tip. I went to Applications > Utilities >
Print Center and selected Preferences. There was the option to
stop showing printers connected to other computers, and turning it
off got rid of the "pink" LaserJet listing.
The odd thing, of course, is that this is a networked printer that
isn't connected to another computer, nor did I ever enable the
option to show printers connected to other computers. Must be a
default behavior for Jaguar, but it's certainly an odd thing for
an operating system to show the same printer twice.
It's not clear from your letter, but were you using Personal
File Sharing on all of the Macs in your lab? I once worked in that
kind of setting with almost a dozen Macs on LocalTalk (this was
back in the IIci era), and it was horrid. Personal File Sharing is
okay for short-term use or for use on a single dedicated server;
it's never a good idea to have a lot of Macs running Personal File
Sharing on a network. Not only does it bog down the network, but
each Mac is also wasting CPU time keeping connections live,
broadcasting its presence on the network, and tracking shared
resources.
In our old set up we had file sharing just on the beige
G3, and it was killing it just keeping it on. However, there was
a larger department wide LAN with a lot of machines with file sharing
on. The performance was impacted whether there was actual file
sharing or not. But I get your point. In the new setup we can have
file sharing on every machine with 0 impact in performance even while
casually sharing with 1-3 users.
But how well OS X works depends on the user. Mail has got to
be the slowest email client I've ever used. It takes several
seconds to display the contents of a folder and a few seconds just
to open a single message. AppleWorks is less efficient, but for
the most part X apps hold their own against classic software.
I haven't found this but I imagine it is a size issue. On a white
iBook 800 I open a 1300 message mailbox in a little over a second.
Any message comes up instantly. You must have much more mail in a
mailbox than I. Or, perhaps you are using IMAP; I seem to remember
things being slower using that, but that would be true on any client
depending on how the interactions with the server were set up. I
agree that AppleWorks is less efficient, but to me this is more of a
version issue than just OS X.
I'll definitely have to consider putting OS X on our file
server here. It's an old SuperMac C600, and I've got an ancient
5-user copy of OS X Server v1.1 from 1999 that just might
work on it without all the workarounds people have had to come up
with to get 10.0 and later installed on unsupported hardware. The
more I read, the more I learn that OS X is much better at
sharing files than the classic Mac OS.
As for Mail, how long it takes to open a mailbox seems directly
related to the number of items in it. It can take 3-4 seconds to
open a mailbox with less than 100 emails (all stored on my hard
drive).
Well, it did until just now. Maybe it has to do with
caching, but all of a sudden I can switch between the five
mailboxes for the five accounts I use on Mail in a flash.
Then again, when I download new messages, it takes an awfully long
time before it shows them in their destination folders. I'm sure
it will get better as Apple tweaks the software.
Well, I tested the cache theory. That's it. If I quit Mail and
then launch it, it still takes several seconds to open a different
mailbox the first time.
More on the Doubled LaserJet
Zach Tuckwiller writes:
In response to "Third Tray on HP LaserJet," you wrote:
"Print Center has got to be the most counterintuitive part of
Mac OS X. It really makes me miss the good old Chooser. For
instance, right now Print Center on my Mac shows my LaserJet
twice: I have no idea why. "
One of the printers is in pink which means you are seeing it
shared on another computer in your house(on your network) or
OS X is treating the Jet Direct like it is a computer
. . . if you want to disable this, open Print Center, go to
Preferences and uncheck the box that says "Show printers connected to
other computers." That should clear up the duplicate printer
situation.
"And it has two listings for my Epson Stylus Photo 870 - one
using the Apple supplied drivers and the other tied to the latest
drivers from Epson."
Odd, and unfortunately I can't think of a solution for this one.
I've never had a situation where I couldn't delete a printer and
recreate it. Maybe if Printer Sharing is on in your Sharing
Preferences, you can't delete printers, but this is just an
assumption . . . just something for you to try.
On another note, I'm sure hear this a lot, but I cannot express to
you my appreciation of all the hard work you and your contributors
have put into Low End Mac. In a
school system that uses many, many different models of Macs (from
Macintosh LC 575s to Power
Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Door 867s and almost everything in
between), I have found your site to be my one-stop place for specs on
all of the computers I support. I'd most definitely be lost sometimes
without this resource. Thank you.
Have a nice day!
Thanks for the additional insight into the LaserJet. It must
be that Rendezvous sees the ethernet interface in the LaserJet
2100TN as a computer.
As for the Epson, I don't have Printer Sharing enabled, since I've
read it doesn't work across operating systems and everyone else in
the house is using the classic Mac OS. Besides, everyone can print
to the LaserJet, and inkjet printing is expensive.
LEM got its start when I worked as a book designer/IS Manager for
a local publisher. (I was hired as a book designer, but as we
added more Macs, I became more and more an IS Manager, eventually
leaving book design completely behind.) I created the site because
I had to support Macs as old as a Plus
and Mac II; I figured my knowledge
and research could benefit others as well - especially in
situations where there's little or no money to upgrade or replace
existing hardware.
Putting CD-RW in a Slot-Loading iMac
Julian O'Connor writes:
I have read that you are not familiar with the insides of the slot
loading iMac, so I was hoping that you could throw this one out to
the good people of the web for me!
I can get hold of a CD writer as an upgrade, and I know that with
some modification it can be made to physically fit. The slot loading
iMac has a single connector for both the hard disk and the CD-ROM on
its logic board. It is about the length of an old SCSI connector and
requires that Apple fit a special cable.
At the far end of the chain is the hard disk. It has a standard
IDE connector and ribbon cable leading to connector for the CD-ROM.
It is powered by a standard hard disk power connector. So far so
good.
But the CD-ROM has a connector similar in width to the old SCSI
type, and the ribbon cable that emerges is just as wide. The cable
then connects to the SCSI-like connector on the logic board. The
CD-ROM has no power cable, so I assume that power is being fed along
the extra lines in the ribbon cable. Also, there is no connector for
the sound signal, so presumably that is being carried by the extra
cable lines, too.
Apple's special ribbon cable will not reach to the new CD writer,
so I am asking if any kind soul out there knows whether a standard
IDE cable can be attached to the CD writer and hard disk and then be
plugged into the relevant portion of the logic board connector. I can
use a splitter on the hard disk power cable to power both drives. I
realize that I won't get sound out of the CD writer this way, but
it's a start, and I can always run wires to the relevant pins if
someone has a diagram of the logic board drive connector.
I'd just love it if a low end solution like this worked!
Clever engineering to eliminate the sound and power cables by
combining them with the data cable. Too bad it makes things so
difficult for anyone who wants to replace the CD-ROM and doesn't
want to spring for one designed for the iMac.
I'll post this in the Mailbag, but you might want to join
the iMac email list and ask
for help there. With a community of 600 iMac users, someone is
bound to have some answers for you.
Gigabit Ethernet Cards
David Klaus writes:
In response to Ed Hurtley's
request for gigabit ethernet cards, I just wanted to pass on to
you that I saw an add in MacTech magazine from Asante
for gigabit cards for the Mac. Didn't check any further, but they do
exist.
Thanks for the tip. I popped over to Asante's website and
found the GigaNIX
1000TA card, which supports 10, 100, and 1000 Mbps
ethernet using copper instead of fiber optics. The card retails
for US$259 and supports Jaguar.
Vampire Video on the Dark Side
Tim Harness writes:
I recently bought a HP Pavilion at Wal*Mart, with dead power
supply, cheap. A few observations:
1.99 GHz doesn't guarantee a speedy desktop.
Intel extreme graphics, aren't very.
256 megs of DDR RAM isn't enough for WinXP.
Don't expect to enjoy watching DVD movies on such a system
(They play great on a friend's 128 meg iBook
700).
Windows XP is "less worse" than Win98.
I think my flower power
iMac will continue to be my primary computer, since working with
Windows can stress me out enough that I sound like the late Sam
Kinison.
Thanks for writing. A lot of cheap Windows PCs don't have
dedicated video memory - they share it with the rest of the
computer. (See The
Power of Kawaii: How a Dot-Bomb Casualty Won My Heart on Low
End PC for more on that.) At my last job we had a Compaq PC with
"vampire video" - it really sucks.
If you have to use a Windows PC, at least get one with dedicated
video RAM. The only real fix for your Pavilion is a real video
card.
On the other hand, the iBook has dedicated video circuitry with
16-32 MB of VRAM, and if your friend is running OS X, Quartz
Extreme is fully supported. Macs may cost a bit more, but even the
least expensive ones aren't cheap.
Letters sent may be published at our discretion. Email addresses will
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not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be
edited for length, context, and to match house
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Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
Mac of the Day: iMac Core2, Sep. 2006 - Apple introduced the biggest screen ever in an iMac with a 24" Core2 Duo model at 2.16 GHz.
List of the Day: Old Mac MP covers 604-based multiprocessor Macs and clones.
September 6 in LEM history: 99: G4 vs. Pentium III - 00: Setting up a server - 02: Norton Utilities warning - 10 greatest computer annoyances - 06: iMac Core2 Duo - Mac mini Core Duo - The iMac Core2 value equation - 07: Apple seduction - Why I really want an iPod touch - iPod history, 2005 to present - Upgrading a Power Mac G - Apple intros iPod touch, classic, and video nano
Listen to Just the Music with the V-Moda Vibe Earbuds, Tommy Thomas, Welcome to Macintosh, 09.05.
Well built, the noise canceling earbuds will let you hear all the nuances of your music without letting through background noise.
Best iPod touch Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.05.
Refurb 8 GB, $199; new, $284; refurb 16 GB, $299; new, $370; refurb 32 GB, $399; new, $453.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.05.
Used 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $999; 2.16, $1,125; new, 2.2, $1,450 after rebate; refurb 2.4, $1,699; 2.5, $1,999; 2.6 Santa Rosa, $1,849; rebates on new.
Best iMac G4 Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.05.
Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $279; 800 Combo, $300; 1 GHz $390; 17" 800 MHz SD, $439; 1.25 GHz, $449; 20", $569.
Tomorrow's Solid State Drives and Notebooks, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 09.04.
Flash drives are great but have some shortcomings. Some thoughts on building better SSDs and notebooks to use them.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.04.
Used 867 MHz Combo, no APX, $490; 1 GHz, $550; SuperDrive, $625; 1.5 GHz w/o APX, $660; w/APX, $675.
Best Mac mini Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.04.
Used 1.25 GHz G4 SD, $549; 1.42 Combo, $409; new 1.83 Core2 Combo, $569 after rebate; 2.0 SD, $769 after rebate.
Best 17" PowerBook G4 Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.04.
Used 1 GHz, $779; 1.33 GHz, $799; 1.5 GHz, $859; 1.67 GHz, $910.
11 Mac Browsers Compared, Simon Royal, Mac Spectrum, 09.03.
The latest versions of Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Shiira, iCab, Radon, Firefox, Netscape Navigator, SeaMonkey, Flock, and Camino tested in Leopard.
Best eMac Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.03.
Used 700 MHz Combo, $120; 1.25 GHz SuperDrive, $150; 1.42 GHz, $349.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard' Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.03.
Mac OS X 10.5, single user, $99; 5 users, $140; 10.5 Server, 10 users, $395; unlimited, $850.
Best MacBook Air Deals, Low End Mac Deals, 09.03.
Refurb 1.6 HD, $1,499; new, $1,690 after rebate; refurb 1.8, $1,699; new, $1,919 a/r; refurb 1.6 SSD, $2,099; new, $2,294 a/r; refurb 1.8, $2,299; new, $2,400 a/r.
Psystar Strikes Back, Countersues Apple, Frank Fox, Stop the Noiz, 09.03.
Psystar is trying to paint Apple as a monopoly and force it to license the Mac OS.
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