Hi, I just bought an 8500/120 for my dad. He's never had a Mac before and I left it at his house saying it was too expensive to ship back home. With the 17" monitor, that probably wasn't far from the truth. He's never had a Mac before and gave up on the PC's about two years ago (coincedentally, about the same time as his second heart attack) after having 3 identical machines with identically defective mobos.
Well, I got dad to start using the machine (he always was a sucker for Frogger) and showed him that Macs can use the internet just like his Windows machines. I knew I had him when I asked him if it would be alright to leave it there and after some jibeerish about just unplug it when I leave, he asked "How do I turn this thing on, just in case?" At any rate, I'm not writing this to pat myself on the back for buying my dad a used $100ish machine. If this little seedling takes off, he's going to outgrow it rather quickly. It'll probably be about 6 months before I get down to see him again, and I want to have a bag of tricks on hand to make the machine better (faster) for him. I've only had the machine open once, and that was to put in a new PRAM battery and up the RAM from 16 to 80M. I'm guessing my opinion on this model's case design is widely documented. Let's just say I'm no fan of it. While putting in the RAM, I darned near went back and got a 7600 to give to dad. I digress... The machine now has (and maybe more, I bought it, added RAM, added OS 8.1, a bunch of programs, and showed him some basics) this stuff: 120 MHZ 604e according to system profiler 80M RAM 2 Gig HD 4x CD ROM (600i, this has gotta go!) floppy, never tested It had a "chip" in the cache slot, I don't know what size. System Profiler didn't identify it, and I didn't bring any type of diagnostic utilities with me. As for VRAM, the machine is hooked up to a 17" multiscan monitor and displays millions @ 832x624 and thousands @ 1024x768. All the PCI slots are empty, it does have the A/V RCA jacks on the rear of the machine. Right now, dad has no idea about this machine. It's not going to take long and he's going to want to run something on it and the machine isn't going to be up to snuff for it. The hard drive was well less than half full when I left and don't foresee capacity being a problem. Him and I both agree the CD-ROM is too slow. I'd like to add USB to it so he can get a printer. Will USB work with 8.1 or do I need to update the OS? If so, to what version? I've never owned a PCI Mac before (jumped from a 7100 to a G4) and a lot of the upgrades the members of this list take for granted I'm totally unfamiliar with. So the bottom line is this: A "Switcher" gets an old PCI PMac. What are the best things to upgrade for a user (user: someone who will never open the case, and probably never open the system folder directly) Any constructive input will be most appreciated, J White Buy American S.O.S. Save Our Steel -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
