Old Macs Last and Last
From Gary Jackson continuing the discussion in G3 iMac to the Max:
That's great. It reminds me of a wonderful story...
About 10 years ago, when I was in high school in the tech club (we
basically built and rebuilt PCs), I stumbled upon an SE/30 and demanded my parents buy me
one.
I thought it would be a fun project to gut it and maybe regut it
with PC parts, as that was what I knew. My father finally found one and
brought it home sometime the following summer. It was cute.
I set it up on my desk later that day and decided to test fire it.
It was so easy to set up. Just a mouse and a keyboard. I flipped the
switch and fell in love.
I used that computer for reports all through high school
. . . I didn't touch a thing inside the case. It was 15 when
it died. Still with a happy face.
Before I could afford the iMac I have now, I had an all-in-one
Performa with OS 8.6 (don't remember the model no.), also
unmodified.
It ran Cubase. I smiled. Another $60 well spent.
Now the iMac I have now. Which I already discussed.
The funny thing is people all through art school would still bring
me their PCs to look at when they were sick. I could never fix them
with all the IRC and whatever settings. The technology eats itself.
The last PC that was brought to me, I gutted the tower and filled it
with G3 tower parts that I was going to use myself but had no need for.
I slapped an Apple sticker on the side of the tower case and handed it
back to him.
I hear that, 6 years later, he uses it everyday still.
Gary
Gary,
That's a great story indeed. It's a shame that old
Macs eventually die. My SE/30 hasn't worked in a few years, but I
refuse to part with it. Someday I'll probably get it fixed. It was a
wonderful machine in its day.
Dan
Removing Mac OS 9
From Kevin DeMers:
Hi Dan:
G4 1.0 GHz 14" iBook. Running OS X 10.4.11. I do not use OS 9 - I am
interested in removing it - can you think of any good reason why I
should not ?
How to remove it "correctly" - can you refer me to an article or do
you have any advice ?
Thank You!
Kevin DeMers
Kevin,
If you never need to use Classic Mode, you can
safely remove Mac OS 9 by putting System Folder in the Trash and
deleting it.
If there's any chance you may ever need Classic Mode,
it doesn't take that much space on the hard drive. Another idea would
be to copy System Folder to CD-R just in case you need to reinstall it
someday.
Dan
Disposable Notebooks
Dear Dan Knight:
How about a computer that is not internally upgradeable (i.e. you
can't upgrade RAM) that is cheap enough to be disposable, thus when the
average user finds it too slow, he will throw it away and buy a new
one. A larger version of the MacBook Air with more ports and
lower prices would be a good example. I doubt Apple will take it, but
still....
Yuhong Bao
Yuhong Bao,
Apple already makes a thicker version of the MacBook
Air with more ports and lower prices - it's the MacBook, which uses the same sized
screen and the same keyboard. Better yet, at up to $700 less than the
MBA, the MacBook is faster (2.1-2.4 GHz vs. 1.6-1.8 GHz), accepts
memory upgrades, and supports standard 2.5" hard drives, so owners can
choose faster and/or higher capacity drives, which helps keep them from
being "disposable" notebooks.
Despite the few unupgradable computers, such as the
MBA and XO laptop, I think the future belongs to computers that accept
upgrades, making it easy to upgrade RAM or hard drive as you need to
rather than replacing the whole computer.
Dan
Indeed, I know that the MacBook is not a good example. What I mean
is that the MacBook Air would be a good disposable computer, except
that it is too expensive to be one.
I would target this kind of disposable computer to the nontechnical
user who don't know anything about RAM, for example. That is why I said
"average user".
Yuhong Bao,
The idea of a "disposable" computer doesn't sit well
with me, but if they make it cheap enough, it could work. The keys
would include a Migration Assistant for moving everything to your new
computer when you upgrade, which Apple already has, and a trade-in
program that would assure that the old computer is repurposed (perhaps
donated to a school, distributed in a developing nation, etc.) or
properly recycled.
The tricky part would be finding the balancing point
where features, performance, and price are all optimized. Too little
RAM or too small a hard drive would seriously hinder sales, but too
much would put the price too high. I could definitely see Apple doing
something along these lines with a MacBook Lite (based on the MacBook):
remove the optical drive, solder 2 GB of RAM to the logic board,
put in a 160 GB hard drive, use a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and integrated
graphics, include a high power USB port for an external SuperDrive,
slim it down below 1" thick (should be easy without an internal optical
drive), and sell it for $699.
Mac users with no notebook or outdated notebook
computers would line up in droves, use it for 2-3 years, and then
migrate to a newer version. FireWire and USB 2.0 provide easy access to
more storage with external hard drives and flash drives. Schools would
go nuts for them as well.
Dan
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.
