Re: And you thought Apple II users were screwed by Apple...

[shack@southwind.net (Randy Shackelford)]

In article <7qpuvq$l04$1@chakotay.ncc74656.org>,
Scott Alfter <salfter@chakotay.ncc74656.org> wrote:
>It seems that Apple has taken "planned obsolescence" to a new level.  Check
>out this article from Wired, "Think Different About Upgrading":
>
>http://www.wired.com/news/news/news/technology/story/21583.html

That URL won't load so can't see the details. 

>It seems that the latest G3 Power Macs have a BIOS tweak to keep them from
>accepting the G4 upgrade cards that Apple had to know third-party
>manufacturers were going to produce.  Older G3s and other older systems will
>still be upgradable.

It is unfortunate that Apple did away with the swappable processor card setup
in the first PCI Pmacs, but people found ways to upgrade G3s just the same.
The obvious one was to move the speed jumpers around, and there were also ZIF
socket upgrades. Even if there is something in the "BIOS" there will be a way
around it. Supposedly Macs don't have ROM chips any more so a software patch
would take care of that most likely. You should know from Apple IIs what
lengths people will go to to accelerate boxes.

>Makes me glad I went with x86 boxen instead...at least I'm not under Intel's
>or Microsoft's thumb.  (Only one of my five x86 boxen uses an Intel
>microprocessor, and I didn't pay anything for it (the others use AMD and
>Cyrix).  Only two of 'em run Microsoft operating systems (the other three
>run Linux, NetWare, and DR DOS, and the Win98 box can boot into Linux as
>well).)  A manufacturer in this field, such as IBM or Compaq, would never be
>able to get away with this kind of nonsense because buyers would avoid them
>like the plague if word ever got out about something like this.)

I was hanging with an old school buddy at MIT yesterday. He's a very happy 
Apple shareholder since Apple stock closed at 73.5 yesterday, a record high.
He mentioned how Apple has been running with 15 hours of inventory, and how
Dell brags about having five days of inventory. So people are buying the stuff.
The performance of the G4s looks frightening. My buddy kept going on about
the billion floating point ops/second, basically supercomputer performance.
It even looks like they tried to make the case a little less ugly, with a 
toned down version of the recycled ice cube tray look.
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