Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: New Macs

Author:Bruce Hoult
Posted:1/6/1999; 12:48:04 PM
Topic:How Frontier Changed My Life
Msg #:1862 (In response to 1855)
Prev/Next:1861 / 1863

>It was bad enough the original had such limited expansion >options, but now Apple took out the Mezzanine slot, which >was the only thing that gave any hope of upgrading.

I've had a Mac II, IIcx, Quadra 700, PowerMac 6100 and PowerMac 8500. All have had some number of expansion slots, but the only things I've ever put in them have been ethernet in the early ones and an extra video card. Most people never even need to do that.

Apart from that I've only ever increased RAM and hard disk and added things via SCSI or serial ports. The iMac has those covered if 12 Mbps is good enough for you, and the new G3's have the additional 400 Mbps ports.

nuBus and PCI sockets aren't free and neither are the chassis space or power supply to drive the worst case thing you might put there -- or the fan to cool it. If you want them, buy a bottom end G3 tower instead of the iMac. It's not *that* much more expensive -- under two grand including the 17" monitor.

>Am I supposed to throw away my old Zip drive & SCSI scanner?

I've got plenty of SCSI peripherals too -- including the external disk that I've carried everywhere for many years (at first with a 300 MB disk inside and now with a 3 GB one). I guess I'll buy the $49 SCSI card. Big deal, and a heck of a lot of people *won't* need it.

I'm *really* looking forward to that pocket sized FireWire hard disk for the times when I don't want to lug my G3 PowerBook there. Cooool.

Most of us are, by definition, people who didn't mind buying boxes when they were beige. Will being coloured and curvy *stop* you from buying a machine? I don't think so, but if it helps induce others to buy a Mac then that's got to be good for the platform. I wouldn't have made them look the way they do myself, but it doesn't seem to have hurt iMac sales so what do I know?

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:47:05 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.