One of the best things about the vintage and quadra macs is the fact they are still very useful, as OSX becomes more mature software is slowly drying up for the classic OS, I spend much more time in the internet archieve than I do on real sites now which I think is a real shame, the fact the archieve has a very small amount of sit files compared to hqx is also a limiting factor.
Software has been drying up for the 68k long before OS X appeared, just like software for DOS dried up. What is your problem with .hqx files? Even my IIci running system 6.08 can handle those.
People need to stand back and ask themselves do I really need to "upgrade"?
No arguement there but you can't tell me the Mac is not on the same path now and has been for some time.
The Mac has been on this path ever since its conception. The 8 Mhz 68000 was considered a fast processor when it came out. The next step, competing with the 286, was the Mac II. The upgrading fury has been a part of the Mac world ever since, just like it was part of the pc world.
If you check the headers you'll see I mainly post from a 3 year old pc, there is no processor envy here although a cpu swap is almost due as I bearly meet the min requirements needed for new games and software now. It was the latest at one it and still does its job. Trouble with buying the latest and greatest is it doesn't last very long any more and costs a fortune, one month or 2 something is just around the corner, bigger and better.
The new pc is 18 months away, with luck things will have settled on new standards to see me through another 5 years.
Gamers have different needs altogether, you cannot compare them to the average user. The average user should be just fine with any computer that can handle java fast enough to have a satisfying webbrowsing experience. Most other applications like spreadsheets, word processors, databases and even drawing programs or phothoshop are very usable on old computers, as long as you avoid the latest versions.
It will take another digital revolution like the Internet to make upgrading necessary for the average user. The new technologies people are getting into lately, mainly digital photography, can be handled by any pc or mac with pci slots or in built usb ports. That is any computer from the last 7 years.
$2000 on parts is more than I'd pay, if its US$ its twice as much as what I'd build a system for, he should have a screamer for that kind of money. You couldn't talk him into the G5?
If he is a fanatic pc user/gamer, he would feel lost with a G5, because he wouldn't be able to run the latest version of many games. G5's are meant for high end graphic designers that have invested way to much time and money in mac programs, fonts and applescripts to ever justify a switch to pc's. And lets not forget the people who do lowend professional movie-editing, they are more or less condemned to use a Mac. Besides if the kind of people that buy G5's would ever buy a pc to do the same things, they would end up with a HP or Dell that would cost about the same. These people do not build systems themselves or buy an al cheapo clone, they buy computers from A brands with a reputation to defend.
I guess we are both happy with our 68k macs for what they can do and how well they still do it, I'm still finding new ways to use them and programs to run. Its just becoming harder. :(
I use 68k macs because I just feel more at home with them. I am used to them. They same simple to troubleshoot, are dependable, and when one uses the modular Macs of the II-series that are the pride and joy, the king and queen of this list, very fast, pretty easy to repair and with a whole world of nubus cards to explore. Besides they are able to run a number of operating systems, ranging from system 6 to bsd and aux.
I have an OS X machine. I use it for browsing the web and playing dvd's. I never used it for actual production. I hate the classic environment in which Quark needs to run and I don't like any of the word processors for OS X, although it is kind of cool to experiment with OpenOffice. I do my quark stuff on machines running OS 9 (the imac dv in my office and a powerbook g3 at home). I do most of my word processing and all of my database and spreadsheet stuff on my IIci, running simple old fashioned software that will work just as fine on a Mac Plus, only a tad slower. Software you don't need a manual for.
Marten
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