I've Got This Overwhelming Urge...

[Lindley]

It has backwards compatibility

10.5 eliminated Classic support; little choice in the matter, keeping it would have required emulation within emulation, not pretty. But I still occasionally play Lemmings or Prince of Persia 2 on my TiBook G4 running 10.4, and 10.5 supports 98% of all OSX-era programs.

, my PC was cheap,

Refurb Macs can be inexpensive, as this thread shows. If you want a new one you'll have to shell out, though.

and I can upgrade components as I wish.

The biggest challenge to upgrading the components in a Mac is getting into the case. For some models this is very difficult; for others it's easy. The towers just open right up without even a screwdriver. (Or they did----haven't used one in a while.)

Finding new components for them is slightly harder than for a PC, simply due to limited availability, but they're out there. And installation isn't particularly different once you have the box open. A few years back I upgraded the CPU on an old G3 Blue&White tower from 400MHz to 900Mhz. (That was a bigger change then than it would be now.) It was fairly simple. That was the same machine, incidentally, that I stuck a Voodoo2 card in years ago even though the box claimed it was Windows-only, and it worked fine once I downloaded the Mac drivers from 3Dfx's website.

 

[Amaris]

For me, getting parts has never been a problem, and I usually know my way around a computer, regardless of it's make and model, so if that's all people have to keep me from switching, well I'm afraid it's not good enough.

I'm hoping to sell my PC by this weekend. That would be a nice Christmas present for someone, and much cheaper than what they'd pay for the same rig with these specs on the market, even refurbished.

J.

 

[BCI]

Another issue is that the mouse on a Mac just isn't precise. My dear brothers, who play Quake and Warcraft for endless hours refused to work on a Mac for this very reason. I had to look for some shareware to somewhat emulate the feel of Windows for them to accept it. For me too, it was a real letdown how jumpy it felt (with several different mice).

 

[Amaris]

Another issue is that the mouse on a Mac just isn't precise. My dear brothers, who play Quake and Warcraft for endless hours refused to work on a Mac for this very reason. I had to look for some shareware to somewhat emulate the feel of Windows for them to accept it. For me too, it was a real letdown how jumpy it felt (with several different mice).

Really? When I've used a Mac I've never had a problem with the mouse.

Anyhoo, I just put my PC up on Craigslist and our local paper.
Hopefully someone around here will buy it within the next week or so, maybe as a Christmas present. Once that's done, I'll save up my money for a couple of weeks (I'll browse the web with my PSP), and then get my Mac!

It's actually a little hard for me to believe I took such a jump so quickly, but this is my chance to actually own one, and for me, that would be very nice indeed.

J.

 

[BCI]

The only Mac I'd buy is a Mini. But since I have software that needs Windows I wouldn't switch. Why should I use bootcamp when I already have the original?

 

[Amaris]

The only Mac I'd buy is a Mini. But since I have software that needs Windows I wouldn't switch. Why should I use bootcamp when I already have the original?

True. However, I have always liked Mac (give or take the annoying commercial), but they had always been way outside of my price range. Now, however, they're falling within that price range, and I can finally get one, throw OSX Leopard on it and put my Windows XP OS on there and I'm in like Flynn.

J.

 

[Lindley]

I've never noticed a significant difference between Mac and Windows mouse tracking. Well, obviously the tracking speed is fully configurable on both, but I mean beyond that.

I play FPSes with a trackpad, actually, so it couldn't be too bad.

 

[Amaris]

I've never noticed a significant difference between Mac and Windows mouse tracking. Well, obviously the tracking speed is fully configurable on both, but I mean beyond that.

I play FPSes with a trackpad, actually, so it couldn't be too bad.

Well, I just sold the PC. Tomorrow I order the Mac.

A question: How important is RAM to a Mac? Is 1 GB enough to smoothly run Leopard?

J.

 

[Lindley]

Probably, but I'd go with 2GB anyway if I were you. Remember, you'll have XP on the machine as well; and if you decide to go with Paralells rather than Boot Camp (slower, but no restart required) for running Windows, they'll be side-by-side. Put any gaming capability on top of that, and 1GB starts to seem a bit thin.

I have a Macbook Pro sitting here running Leopard and not much else; it's claiming about 400Mb of "active" memory and another 200 of "wired", whatever that means.

 

[Amaris]

Ah, okay. Between the 2 I'm looking at, one has a 20" screen but only 1 GB RAM. The other is 17" but has 1.5 GB.

J.

 

[BCI]

While you say goodbye to it the British Navy just has just equipped twelve nuclear submarines with Windows. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me...

 

[Amaris]

While you say goodbye to it the British Navy just has just equipped twelve nuclear submarines with Windows. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me...

Pixar uses Macs, and that's good enough for me.

I ordered my Mac today. Had to get a different one but it's better.

Apple iMac Intel Core Duo 1.83 Ghz
1 Gb RAM
160 GB HD
DVD Superdrive
17" Monitor (built in)
OSX Leopard

I got it brand new for $600!

I can't wait!

J.

 

[Lindley]

Good deal for that price. If the RAM turns out to be an issue, you should be able to buy more and install it yourself. Some models make that easier than others, though.

 

[Amaris]

Good deal for that price. If the RAM turns out to be an issue, you should be able to buy more and install it yourself. Some models make that easier than others, though.

Yep. RAM will be a snap to install. Literally!

The Intel Macs have the easiest access of any Mac. I also found 2 GB of DDR667 3200 (Mac) for $29, so I'm all set!

J.

 

[BCI]

Actually the render farms are using Linux... I'm in favor of different systems. And there are good things to be said about OSX - that it is not installed on my PC, for example. But there are rumors in that in the future, Apple will release it for every computer. Another real downside is how annoying and complicated it is to share files between Mac and Windows on a network. I couldn't make it work.

 

[Lindley]

I haven't had much chance to fool around with the Windows Sharing option in OSX, but with an entire section of a control panel devoted to it, I can't imagine it being *that* hard.

I doubt Apple will open OSX to all machines. They're a hardware company first, and the business model would have to change dramatically to make that practical.

 

[Amaris]

When I get my Mac, I'll let you know, since my network has a Win PC on it.

J.

 

[BCI]

Hi John, have your Mac already? I'd like to know whether you made it work...

 

[Amaris]

Hi John, have your Mac already? I'd like to know whether you made it work...

I've got 7 more days until it gets here. If I knew it was coming from Washington state I'd have sprung for the extra cash to get it here by air instead of ground.

J.

 

[richpit]

I've tried, over the last few months, to exclusively use a Mac laptop that I got from work. There are some things I like about it, but many more that I don't. We all have things we don't like about Windows / Micro$oft, but I say Windows (XP) is the way to go.

Keep in mind that Boot Camp is a deal where you need to reboot the machine to switch between operating systems. If you want to pay for the ability to switch between on the fly, you'll have to buy something like Parallels or VMWare Fusion.