[SATLUG] I Mac and Me

[Brad Knowles]

On 5/5/07, Robert J Hewitt wrote:

>  I ran acrossa deal for a iMac 500mhz processor and I think the latest
>  version of OSX  for under $200.  it is the one with the CRT screen and all
>  in one except the keyboard and mouse of course and was wandering if it was
>  really worth it to get a iMax that is not intel duo core processor.

Well, LowEndMac has a deals page on the G3 iMacs at 
<http://www.lowendmac.com/imac/ideals.html>.  For the class of 
hardware you're talking about, the best price they show is $269 
(500MHz PowerPC G3 w/ DVD), and with enough RAM this would actually 
officially be supported by Apple for running Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", 
although it wouldn't run very fast.  The 450MHz G3 with DVD is $97, 
while the 600MHz G3 with CD-RW is $130.

So, what then is the price of Mac OS X "Tiger"?  The Apple Store 
lists it for $129.00 retail, single-user.


All together, that would be $398 if you bought exactly the same 
models.  That would be from reputable businesses with a long history 
in the community and a retail presence.  Of course, you might have to 
pay shipping on the computer (since there are local stores where you 
can go buy Mac OS X in person), but that's probably not going to cost 
enough to make up the difference.

Personally, if I was buying from a private individual locally, I'd 
want to either get more for my money, or a better deal.  Is the 
seller going to throw in a lot more software "for free"?  Is there 
anything else included in the package that would help make it 
worthwhile?

>  I want to look into the Mac without spending a lot of cash on initial
>  system.  And after watching the youtube on windows Vista I want to see
>  if the Mac is worth the playing with.

Check the LowEndMac "deals" pages.

If you're fine spending that amount of money, then I think you can 
get better hardware that would do a better job of running the OS and 
giving you a more proper look at Mac OS X, before you make up your 
mine.

Otherwise, I think you can get the same hardware for less money.


Myself, I've got at least two or three old machines that I'm going to 
be selling soon, including a PowerBook G3 "Pismo" with 400MHz PowerPC 
G4 processor and 1GB of RAM, and a PowerBook G4 "TiBook" with 867MHz 
PowerPC G4 processor and 1GB of RAM.  The disk configuration on both 
of these has yet to be determined, because I've got a lot of older 
"bare" drives that have been pulled out of machines after I upgraded 
to higher capacity models, so I could pick and choose which drive(s) 
I wanted to put in which machines.

I'll probably also be getting rid of an iBook G4 with 1.33-1.42GHz 
PowerPC G4 processor (I don't know exactly what speed), and a more 
normal RAM & disk configuration.  This is the machine my wife is 
currently using as her primary computer, and I need to get everything 
copied over to my old PowerBook G4 "AlBook", which used to be my 
primary computer before I got this MacBook Pro C2D a couple of weeks 
ago.

-- 
Brad Knowles <brad at shub-internet.org>, Consultant & Author
LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>
Slides from Invited Talks: <http://tinyurl.com/tj6q4>

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