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New Mac User

T

TheBicFlic

n00b
Joined
Oct 6, 2006
Messages
42
So, a friend recently gave me his old Mac because he had upgraded to a new one, and the one he gave me was actually the backup to his backup. I was pretty excited about it, as I am normally a PC user.

So I got it home, hooked it up to my KVM, looked around, and stopped. There's little on it. I don't have any easy way to hook it up to the intranet. It's got the old 350mzh PowerPC G4 chip and only 10 gigs in the hard drive. Does anyone have any idea on what to do with it other then donate it? I really do want to hold on to it (hopefully that doesn't sound to selfish).
 
OS X on a 350 mhz G4 blows chunks. Lots of ram might help.

Can't recommend you run OS 9, there's no point.

If you want to run OS X on it, you might consider a cpu upgrade - there's a newertech g4 1.6ghz cpu upgrade for $250. OS X on that would work reasonably well I imagine.
 
If you are going to keep it, you will definately need a CPU and mem upgrade. I can tell you though, you do not need a 1.6ghz G4 to run osx. That was the top of the line powerbook processor before the PBG4 died off (I have one, which I am posting from =D).

If you can grab a 1 Ghz processor, and get memory up to 512mb, you should be able to run OSX fine, just don't expect to be doing anything serious, just the basics, (web, email, word, etc.).
 
There was a thread going on here about how good the resell value of a Mac is. Why don't you see what you could sell it for?
 
heatlesssun said:
There was a thread going on here about how good the resell value of a Mac is. Why don't you see what you could sell it for?
Click to expand...

You're funny.

I was at work today and a used G4 400 was shipping out. Someone paid $399 for it.

Nobody said the people that spend that kinda money are smart shoppers, but there sure are a lot of people willing to spend a chunk of money on a 7 year old Mac.
 
felix88 said:
You're funny.

I was at work today and a used G4 400 was shipping out. Someone paid $399 for it.

Nobody said the people that spend that kinda money are smart shoppers, but there sure are a lot of people willing to spend a chunk of money on a 7 year old Mac.
Click to expand...

If I could get that kind of money for it then I'll sell it for sure. $399 for a seven year old machine that's in its factory condition (no upgrades)? I'm sorry Mac fans, that's STOOOOPID! You can almost get a new Windows laptop for that kind of money. Even a new cheapo Windows laptop is infinately more useful than a seven year old Mac. Maybe nostalgia?

What kind of real use can you get out that machine? Web surfing, I guess some office productivity apps. That's simply a waste of money, unless the guy is going to resell it!

I guess I'll never be a Mac head. I might try to deal in used ones though!
 
heatlesssun said:
If I could get that kind of money for it then I'll sell it for sure. $399 for a seven year old machine that's in its factory condition (no upgrades)? I'm sorry Mac fans, that's STOOOOPID! You can almost get a new Windows laptop for that kind of money. Even a new cheapo Windows laptop is infinately more useful than a seven year old Mac. Maybe nostalgia?

What kind of real use can you get out that machine? Web surfing, I guess some office productivity apps. That's simply a waste of money, unless the guy is going to resell it!

I guess I'll never be a Mac head. I might try to deal in used ones though!
Click to expand...

Honestly? I have no idea why someone would spend that much money on such an old machine.

My best guess is that they've got an identical model that is dying and they have a specific piece of software that requires a certain config. At least thats the story when we ship an old Beige hunk of junk out.

I never thought I'd like Macs. Early 2005, I picked up a used 12" G4 1.0GHz Powerbook for next to nothing so I could mess around with OSX. I found that it's easy to use once you play around with it. The GUI is just slick as hell. I eventually sold the Powerbook(for way more than I paid for it) and my dual core AMD/SLI gaming rig and bought a MacBook Pro. Now I can run windows if I want to play a game, but I mainly stick to OSX.
 
I might have to get a MacBook one of these days. I've been eying the ModBook, which is a slate form factor tablet converted MacBook that's made by a third party. I've been trying to find some reviews of the unit but I can't find any right now.

Though tablets aren't mainstream right now, I love my two, and won't buy a mobile computer that doesn't do ink.
 
heatlesssun said:
I might have to get a MacBook one of these days. I've been eying the ModBook, which is a slate form factor tablet converted MacBook that's made by a third party. I've been trying to find some reviews of the unit but I can't find any right now.

Though tablets aren't mainstream right now, I love my two, and won't buy a mobile computer that doesn't do ink.
Click to expand...

http://www.macworld.com/2007/01/firstlooks/modbook_fl/index.php

I think we've taken this thread far enough off topic though. ;)
 
heatlesssun said:
If I could get that kind of money for it then I'll sell it for sure. $399 for a seven year old machine that's in its factory condition (no upgrades)? I'm sorry Mac fans, that's STOOOOPID!
Click to expand...
Nobody said it wasn't. Macs have an insane resale value, but not because we're buying them for crazy amounts of money. There are a lot of idiots out there who like Macs, I suppose.
 
So, no ideas other then sell? I'm not going to sell it, I don't really like making money off other peoples kindness. I guess I'll give it back and let my friend sell it or donate for a tax return.
 
Linux box maybe?

I imagine you could spend a little money on it and upgrade the CPU, RAM, HD and video card and then run OSX decent enough.
 
heatlesssun said:
If I could get that kind of money for it then I'll sell it for sure. $399 for a seven year old machine that's in its factory condition (no upgrades)? I'm sorry Mac fans, that's STOOOOPID! You can almost get a new Windows laptop for that kind of money. Even a new cheapo Windows laptop is infinately more useful than a seven year old Mac. Maybe nostalgia?

What kind of real use can you get out that machine? Web surfing, I guess some office productivity apps. That's simply a waste of money, unless the guy is going to resell it!

I guess I'll never be a Mac head. I might try to deal in used ones though!
Click to expand...
Stop trolling. Second time around and you still haven't learned.
 
Any G4 Mac is sufficiently powerful for written communication (email/IM/IRC), light browsing (Flash sites are a killer, though) and media playback (as long as you stay away from H.264 and high-def content). It won't be speedy by any definition of the word, but it does the job. Just stick enough RAM in it, and it will be fine.
 
Black Morty Rackham said:
Any G4 Mac is sufficiently powerful for written communication (email/IM/IRC), light browsing (Flash sites are a killer, though) and media playback (as long as you stay away from H.264 and high-def content). It won't be speedy by any definition of the word, but it does the job. Just stick enough RAM in it, and it will be fine.
Click to expand...

QFT. I used a 400MHz G4 Sawtooth with 768MB of RAM as my primary machine for about 2 months after my PC blew up and before I'd gotten my MBP. It was just fine for 90% of the stuff I use a computer for.
 
B. W. said:
Stop trolling. Second time around and you still haven't learned.
Click to expand...

Would YOU have paid that kind of money for the machine in question?

I think not.

When I buy something and find it else where for a substantially lower price, I know feel STOOOOPID!

And is it wrong to want to make some money if the used Mac market is that profitable? That's legal, easy money.

Lastly, when I said that I guess that I'll never be a Mac head, I was simply stating that I simply CANNOT understand why anyone would pay such exorbitant prices for such useless hardware when it CAN be had for less.

I did not in any way shape or form say anything negative about Macs.

If I was trolling, you'll have to tell what is your definition of the term because I don't see it.
 
mac os 9 looks pretty in screenshots.
i would install software that was top-of-the-line when this mac was new.
upgrading the harddrive should be cheap i think.
and more memory is cheap too, for pc it is.
upgrading the cpu for something more powerful and newer, would be fun.
i think ill get one of those cheap macs some day for myself.
 
heatlesssun said:
And is it wrong to want to make some money if the used Mac market is that profitable? That's legal, easy money.
Click to expand...
To be perfectly honest, it's not exactly easy money. First you have to find a used Mac for a low price. Then you have to find some schmuck willing to pay a fortune for it. It is possible, but we're still talking several weeks per machine. Not several weeks of active work (mostly it's just Ebay or whatever doing the work), but, I mean, it's still a bit of a hassle.
 
Shrug. He's got a free but seriously old mac. With OS X it would be a useful "give it to Mom" kinda machine - web browsing, email, iTunes, etc and or a good way to experience OS X - though at 350 mhz it would be a bit of a glacial way to experience it.

Upgrading the ram would be an exercise in scrounging some old PC100 ram.

I posted the info on the Newertech cpu 1.6ghz cpu upgrade because it was the cheapest one they sell at the moment, at $250. It's possible that a cheaper one can be found. I still think that even with a pile of ram in there, that OS X would be an exercise in waiting.

The HD would be any old ATA drive, though it's probably going to max out at 32GB.
 
Black Morty Rackham said:
To be perfectly honest, it's not exactly easy money. First you have to find a used Mac for a low price. Then you have to find some schmuck willing to pay a fortune for it. It is possible, but we're still talking several weeks per machine. Not several weeks of active work (mostly it's just Ebay or whatever doing the work), but, I mean, it's still a bit of a hassle.
Click to expand...

I agree with what you are saying, but as you said it's more of a waiting game than actual work. To me that easier money than a job or other time intensive activity.

Buy, wait, sell. That's not a big deal unless you're heavily invested. It's something I really need to look into!
 
heatlesssun said:
There was a thread going on here about how good the resell value of a Mac is. Why don't you see what you could sell it for?
Click to expand...

heatlesssun said:
If I could get that kind of money for it then I'll sell it for sure. $399 for a seven year old machine that's in its factory condition (no upgrades)? I'm sorry Mac fans, that's STOOOOPID!
Click to expand...
You went off topic (on both threads), and made an unnecessary comment. You're trolling for responses.
 
B. W. said:
You went off topic (on both threads), and made an unnecessary comment. You're trolling for responses.
Click to expand...

Trolling: Posting derogatory messages about sensitive subjects on newsgroups and chat rooms to bait users into responding.
Click to expand...


TheBicFlic was asking what he could do with an old Mac. I suggested that he sell it because I had read in other posts about the great resell value of used Macs. How in the world is that off topic? If I had an old piece of equipment that I could sell for good money I wouldn't mind someone informing of that.

Then someelse bought up the fact that they had seen an old Mac go for a lot of money and the conversation went from there.

So if the thread went off topic, sorry. But suggesting that maybe he sell it was NOT trolling. It's a perfectly legitimate way to deal with used equipment and was in no way deragotory.
 
Given the current pricing on an entry level Mac Mini, anyone who's buying used G4s had better have one heck of a good reason for doing so.
 
B. W. said:
You went off topic (on both threads), and made an unnecessary comment. You're trolling for responses.
Click to expand...

If anything I commented on his reply and took the thread off topic. I'm pretty sure bringing that up, you and I are simply taking it off topic again.

Sorry about that to the OP, but it was a good discussion none the less.
 
When you can get a Lacie Porche external USB2 500GB HD for $169, I don't think internal drive space is really an issue, and the entry level Mini shows up with a 60GB drive, especially when you consider that a used G4 is probably arriving with a 7 year old 10GB drive.

Not to mention that pre-2002 G4s could only natively support drives up to 128GB in size - so if you want larger than that, you're into third-party controllers.

And if you wanna push pixels at a 7 year old ATI Rage128 PCI graphics card in a Yikes or a Rage 128 Pro AGP 2X in a Sawtooth - fill your boots. I've been there, done that. Wouldn't bother doing that again. Not saying that if you got it for free it woudn't make a good "Mom" machine. Discrete graphics here ain't saying anything at all. Srsly.

Want dual graphics? Spend the $150 on the Matrox DualHead2Go - it works.

But anyone who's gonna fork out $399 for a 400mhz G4 needs their head examined. The value you get in even the entry level Mac Mini for $599 is much better.

The 1.83Ghz Core Duo cpu compared to a 350/400/450/500mhz G4;
512MB base ram compared to the 64/128/256 PC100 that was standard for the Yikes/Sawtooth;
A Combo drive compared to the DVD drive in a G4;
60GB HD compared to 10/20/27GB 7 year old HD? Grindy much?
I think the Intel 950 graphics should hold up very well compared to ATI Rage 128 PCI / 128 Pro AGP 2X;
USB2 vs USB1;
Built in Airport 802.11g + Bluetooth EDR compared to an empty airport slot;
Optical audio in and out;
A remote for Front Row;
The latest iLife Suite;
OX 10.4.x install media versus OS 9.2.x if you're lucky.
 
The Lacie Porche external drives are awful.

Multiple internal drives means less clutter, and it's easier to RAID them. Also, how the hell would you connect three external hard drives to a mini? And don't tell me "USB," because that's fucking slow.

The G4s support larger drives with third party ATA (or SATA, I assume) cards. They're not very expensive, either.

The slightly less ancient G4s can take Radeon 9800 Pros. That's a shitload more powerful than the dinky GMA950.


Want dual graphics? Spend the $150 on the Matrox DualHead2Go - it works.
Click to expand...
What about three+ displays? Or dual high-resolution displays? It only supports up to dual 1280x1024.



I'm not saying an old Power Mac G4 is a better buy than a mini, but seriously, there are plenty of reasons why a mini might not satisfy your needs, when a PMG4 would.
 
There's also a Matrox Triple display adapter as well.

Not to mention the Mini does 1920x1200 res via DVI and 2048 x 1536 on analog vga.

I'm using the Lacie 500GB external as an example. 500GB in an external is fine cost effective way to get storage. I've had about six external Lacies, no problems. I've cracked a couple open to upgrade the HDs inside. I have a pair with a combined storage space of 1.2TB doing tertiary backup on my XRAID. They can run hot, and if they're in sustained use then I'd recommend not using them in an enclosed space. They're also very often dual USB2 and Firewire 400 (and sometimes 800). There are even Lacie externals that are designed to stack with the Mini. YMMV.

The sustained throughput on the G4 ATA controller ain't all that. On the stock G4 HDs, you're going to get about 18 - 24MB/sec sustained (remember the Yikes is ATA33 and the Sawtooth is still only ATA66) - which compares to the slow stock notebook drive in the Mini. Going to a Sonnet Tempo ATA133 third party controller and ATA133 HDs you get 30 - 38MB/sec in return for spending an additional $149 for the controller (I've bought three, and had one fail - and drives connected to these are seen as "SCSI" so you can't just plug em back into another stock controller).

Let's not forget that some of those G4s aren't as much fun to mount drives in either - two drives are no problem on the G4 400s, but there are no mounting hardware for more on the baseplate - so I've had G4s in quasi-server configs with loose drives. Not to mention that the cooling kinda sucks in those cases as the primary airmover is the psu fan, and the passive cpu heatsink dumps out a fair bit of heat into the case. So I've had G4s with internal drives that got just as toasty as an external Lacie.

On an external USB2 drive, sustained throughput runs about 18 - 22MB/sec depending on the bridge controller. If it's a Lacie with a Firewire 400 port then sustained throughput rises to about 24-28 to 35-38MB/sec depending on the Firewire controller being used. Raiding the drives in a 0 or 1 config is not a problem for a pair of drives, in a FW400 chain works as you're not yet saturating the bus. Using multiple USB2 connectors might help, if there are independant controllers.

The stock 5400 rpm 2.5" sata Mac Mini drive ain't great - its a notebook drive. It's about an 20-24MB/sec sustained drive. Want better? Upgrade it to a 7200rpm 100GB HD or a 5200rpm 160GB parallel drive. A Seagate 100GB Momentus 7K100 drive kicks out a very respectable 46-48MB/s sustained.

And let's face it - you either need lots of storage on a Mac cuz you're pushing alot of data in graphic ops - rendering, video edits, photochops, media serving, etc, or as a quasi-server.

And if you're buying an old G4 350/400/450 for that, with it's limitations in cpu, it's 10/100T ethernet - that's just silly. Well, okay - some models of the 450 had gigabit. At least with the Mini you get a 10/100/1000 interface too.

Yes, for about $129 - $169 you could score a 9800Pro Mac ROM'd edition card off ebay. Sticking that in an old G4 for gaming? Okay. Have fun. Maybe in a Dual 1Ghz+ G4 or a G5. There are better ways to play Quake3. The GMA950 in the Mini can kick out 50 - 86fps in Quake3 at 1024 res. Doom 3 however averages about 11 - 13fps. I played Doom 3 on a G4 1.5Ghz with a 9700Pro mobile and it was freaking painful. The final boss battle was 10fps. Ick. Can't imagine that even with a regular 9800Pro bottlenecked by a slower G4 would be playable.

Your average "Just wanted to try out a Mac for a change" Joe would not be well served by buying an old G4. The nice OS X experience would be hampered by a seriously sucky hardware experience.

I stand by my "The Mini would be a better entry point" stance.
 
markintosh13 said:
Your average "Just wanted to try out a Mac for a change" Joe would not be well served by buying an old G4. The nice OS X experience would be hampered by a seriously sucky hardware experience.

I stand by my "The Mini would be a better entry point" stance.
Click to expand...
Well, I agree that the mini is a much better entry point. I'm just saying that you're not necessarily a crazy person for wanting a PMG4 instead.
 
Jomanscool2 said:
If you are going to keep it, you will definately need a CPU and mem upgrade. I can tell you though, you do not need a 1.6ghz G4 to run osx. That was the top of the line powerbook processor before the PBG4 died off (I have one, which I am posting from =D).

If you can grab a 1 Ghz processor, and get memory up to 512mb, you should be able to run OSX fine, just don't expect to be doing anything serious, just the basics, (web, email, word, etc.).
Click to expand...

In my photography class at school we run IMacs with illustrator cs they have 1.6ghz processors. We run OSX tiger on those so yeah. alls you need is 1ghz and 256/512 ram.
 
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