On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Joseph McAllister <[email protected]> wrote: > > I disagree with you on the reliability question. > > I've never, ever, had a Mac (after they got away from the original design, > which suffered from heat) that failed electronically or physically, other > than hard drives, none of which were Apple supplied drives. Never memory > failure, cpu failure, motherboard failure, CD or DVD ROM, monitors, > keyboards, cables, speakers, etc. Never. Much of that gear I still have, and > it still works just fine, including two PowerBook Duos, which were > originally a 210 and 230 models, that I upgraded to 2300c with a color LCD > screen on one, and left the 210 upgrade with it's original B&W LCD screen. > Both has Duo Docks which contained color monitors, hard drives, modems, and > external connectors for all available peripherals. I last used the 2300c as > a cash register and database for a yard sale in 2007, at which time it was > 15 years old. I can still purchase new battery packs for it, though I won't > for obvious reasons. > > When working as a consultant, or in an IT division, or personally, the only > problems I've encountered were software or networking errors caused by > either the users, or the wrong choice of peripheral equipment. In the early > days, 1984 to 1987, I had my share of sad Macs pop up on me, but they could > always be traced to such things as an over-clocked CPU coming loose in an > aftermarket crimp socket, a memory chip's legs oxidizing in their socket and > needing cleaning, or the connection coming loose for my "BackPack" 20 meg > hard drive that hooked on to the back of my Mac Plus and drew power from the > Mac's power supply. > > By the way, just so you know what an idiot I am, this fanaticism about > computers beginning in 1973 with Atari, Sinclair, Epson, then Apple and Mac, > with parallel interests in Porsches, a powerful audio video wall in the > family room, and racing, cost me the dream marriage to my second wife. Take > heed, you younger set. Never ever become so involved in your hobbies that > you forget what is really important in life. > > It's not that life is too short, it's that you're dead for so long...... > — Anon > > Joseph McAllister
I used to work at a Mac VAR, my experience is they fail at the same rate as anything else from a similar-level brand (HP, IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba, et al). That was late 68k/Early PPC era. I was a tech later at a retail joint (Future Shop) for a short period during the early iMac era and I've done a lot of other side-work supporting mac's and PC's. Performa's were notoriously unreliable, especially the later ones which were hackjob's design-wise. The low-end PPC 603(e) based Mac's were probably the worst for reliability, particularly the 4400, but the 6500 was pretty bad as well. iBooks remain notorious for graphics-related mainboard failures, which also plagued the eMac's as well. G3 towers (Beige and B&W) had lots of IDE problems and particularly with the first revision B&W, could self-corrupt a HDD due to a bad IDE controller firmware. Actually IDE reliability was a continuous problem for Mac's from the first IDE Performa's until the second revision B&W G3. Heat issues were the bane of the G4 towers. I could go on, but the Mac has had quite the record of reliability issues over the years, many design related, some (Performa's specifically) directly due to designed-in issues rather than hardware or software bugs. If you've never seen a dead Mac from hardware failure, you're just about the luckiest Mac consultant/IT guy in existence. I've replaced enough failed hardware in Macs over the years to see that. Good hardware overall, but nothing special on reliability. Right now I'm sitting in a room with a Mac II, PowerBook 170, PowerMac 8500(Dead for now due to the original drive failing) and a Centris 660AV. There's an eMac and a B&W G3 350 in my living room. I like Mac's overall. But more reliable than equivalent PC's? Nope, not a chance. Most reliable desktops? IBM PS/2 Model 55's. Damned things are nearly indestructible. Even if dropped. Saw them come out of Inco's North Mine filled with metalic dust, a vacuum later and they were usually good to go. -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
