Ruffin Bailey wrote:

> Something that's easy to overlook with OS X though is that though your
> computer might *run* OS X, that doesn't mean it'll be fun to run.
> I've got an iBook 500 right now, and though I use OS X daily, booting
> into OS 9 is like getting a brand new, roaring fast machine (tried
> Camino again for the first time since Safari came out and that, by
> itself, doubled my frustration with speed. Thank heavens for Safari).
> You almost have to upgrade two generations worth to get the kind of
> speed you're used to getting in OS 9-, which is why I can't wait to
> get a G5 tower. I think that's probably also why you don't remember
> this degree of complaints, though that's a bit strong, with older
> upgrades, where the perceived performance penalty wasn't nearly so
> high.

A 500 MHz G3 is a little slow, definitely. But a 700 MHz G3 or 500 MHz
G4 is perfectly adequate. It's a question of having enough memory,
really. Although there might be other limiting factors with an iBook --
I've never actually got to use one. :)

> And heck, if I'm a typical personal computing person (PCP?), I just
> want Internet, email, mp3s, and instant messaging. There are several
> good OS 9 IM clients, Mozilla 1.0 does okay and IE 5 still does quite
> well, and iTunes is available for OS 9. MS Word or AppleWorks work
> quite well as well. Outlook Express is a great email client, and
> there's been no better email client ever written than Em@iler. OS 9
> is a great system, in my horribly biased, Mac-loving opinion.

I totally agree... although I would definitely recommend OS X to anyone
entirely new to the Macintosh that has the hardware to run it.

Greg Weston wrote:

> I've run all releases of OS X on G3s slower than 500 MHz without a
> great deal of concern. A run through the archives of csm.portables and
> various web forae seems to indicate that there's a higher-than-average
> level of dissatisfaction with the iBook 500 in particular. People made
> specific claims about performance that I couldn't reproduce on a G3/300
> and didn't recall from my time using of a G3/233.

It might be a question of cache. Are iBooks as in-your-face about caches
cooking as Powerbooks?

In article <BB2102C1.6D58%nospamfrost@nuance.net>,
Bob Frost <nospamfrost@nuance.net> wrote:

> Hey daddy Warbucks, not everybody is rich like yourself and Steve jobs.

Translation: "I'm still working for Taco Hell and living off my parents."

> For
> a $1000 he can buy a dell with a monitor and still have a few hundred bucks
> left in his pocket.

And get a virus that crashes his system within 48 hours.

Meanwhile, new Macs start at $699. Old Macs (but way faster than a 7500)
start at about $200.

> In terms of real productivity, there is little OS X can do for him
> other than run his Classic applications more slowly.

Bull****. Classic runs OS 9 apps at 100% **or better** of their native
OS 9 speed. I run Quark and Photoshop in Classic all the time, among
other things. You're full of ****.

> To take full advantage
> of OS X, he would also have to buy all new software because the Classic
> emulator totally sucks.

1. It's not an emulator.

2. You're full of ****.

3. Typical lying PC Troll.

> Get your head out of Steve Job's ass!

After YOU get YOUR head out of Bill Gates', maybe we'll talk.
--
Cheers,
_Chas_
http://www.apple.com/switch
non-spammers can write to chasm at mac (dot com)

Charles Martin <rubbish@bollocks.org> wrote:

> Meanwhile, new Macs start at $699. Old Macs (but way faster than a 7500)
> start at about $200.

I recently bought a 266 MHz beige desktop G3 for a client on a limited
budget for $125 (including shipping) on eBay.

--
Mike Rosenberg

<http://www.macconsult.com>
<http://bogart-tribute.net>

In article <BB2102C1.6D58%nospamfrost@nuance.net>,
Bob Frost <nospamfrost@nuance.net> wrote:

> On 6/22/03 12:30 PM, in article
> gwestonREMOVE-BEB449.12304822062003@netnews.attbi.com, "Gregory Weston"
> <gwestonREMOVE@CAPSattbi.com> wrote:
> >> Because I'd have to buy a new computer. OS X won't run on a PM 7500.
> >
> > Interesting point. But you can get a new machine that blows the doors
> > off that 7500 for about US$1000. Not knowing what you use your machine
> > for, I can't make any serious projections, but I can caution you to be
> > aware of the potential opportunity cost of using a machine that was
> > discontinued over 7 years ago. Or you can buy a used but more recent one
> > for less than that.
> Snip
>
> Hey daddy Warbucks, not everybody is rich like yourself and Steve jobs.

You can leave me out of that list, because I'm not rich. But I _am_
smart, so I buy things that meet my needs and am willing to spend a
little extra up front for something that has returns down the line. Like
not needing to be replaced in 2 years. Call me kooky; I'd rather spend
$1200 every 6 years than $500 every two. It costs me less in pure
dollars, and the lower number of machine switches means less time lost
in the process of switching.


> For a $1000 he can buy a dell with a monitor and still have a few
> hundred bucks left in his pocket.

You can do that in the Mac world as well. I recommended the $1000
machine because it'd probably serve a typical user better. And it has
far more functionality than the Dell's you've alluded to.


> Plus he gets to work with the rest of the computing world.

You can do that in the Mac world as well. "Work with the rest of the
computing world" requires two things: a common file transfer mechanism
and a set of common data formats. Got 'em. Has _nothing_ to do with the
CPU or the OS. That can easily be observed by noting that Macs _can_
interoperate with Windows, while Windows is not guaranteed to
interoperate with itself (and ditto Macs, for that matter).


> In terms of real productivity, there is little OS X can do for him
> other than run his Classic applications more slowly.

Untrue. It could _also_ run them more quickly. (And that's aside from
the fact that the $1000 machine I cited is more than an order of
magnitude faster than the 7500.) It could come with some apps that
replace or update some things he currently uses. It could - and will -
give him a foundation to run new software which might be interesting or
necessary.


> To take full advantage
> of OS X, he would also have to buy all new software because the Classic
> emulator totally sucks.

a) Opinion.
b) Not especially borne out by common experience. The vast majority of
applications work correctly and reliably under Classic. Some legacy
software works in Classic that does not work in a real 9.x boot, in fact.


> Get your head out of Steve Job's ass!

Never been there. It might amuse you to know that I'm far from Apple
exclusive (I write software for more platforms than most people use...or
maybe even are aware exist) and the duration of my involvement with
Apple is longer than the sum of SJ's tenures.

Given the amount of dogma and flat incorrect statements in your post,
one wonders where _your_ head is at.

G

In article <gwestonREMOVE-97A3DB.08375127062003@netnews.attbi.com>,
Gregory Weston <gwestonREMOVE@CAPSattbi.com> wrote:

> You can do that in the Mac world as well. "Work with the rest of the
> computing world" requires two things: a common file transfer mechanism
> and a set of common data formats. Got 'em. Has _nothing_ to do with the
> CPU or the OS. That can easily be observed by noting that Macs _can_
> interoperate with Windows, while Windows is not guaranteed to
> interoperate with itself (and ditto Macs, for that matter).

I'm a computer tech at a college. Once or twice a week I see students
that have floppies or zips that crash the PC's on insertion, or get a
media not formatted message - or it does open and the document won't
open or crashes the app or computer. Given the number of students we
have one could argue that the percentage of problems is low (unless
it's finals week when the number rises exponentially - Murphy's Law),
but it's still a common occurrence from my point of view. ScanDisk will
repair about 10% of these issues. When ScanDisk fails I take the disks
to an old beige G3 we have which will recover the data intact about 90%
of the time (the other 10% is Word 'recover text from any file' which
screws up the formatting but at least the text is intact). Saved plenty
of students asses this way (Back-up? What's a back-up?). Nothing gives
me greater satisfaction than seeing a Mac do Windows better than
Windows does Windows.

--
Christopher S. Moore

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 08:16:23 GMT, Charles Martin
<rubbish@bollocks.org> wrote:

>> In terms of real productivity, there is little OS X can do for him
>> other than run his Classic applications more slowly.
>
>Bull****. Classic runs OS 9 apps at 100% **or better** of their native
>OS 9 speed. I run Quark and Photoshop in Classic all the time, among
>other things. You're full of ****.

Some apps. Some apps are significantly slower or do not work at all.

>> To take full advantage
>> of OS X, he would also have to buy all new software because the Classic
>> emulator totally sucks.
>
>1. It's not an emulator.

What would you call it?

In article <JENKa.300111$ro6.7428082@news2.calgary.shaw.ca> ,
Steven Fisher <sdfisher@spamcop.net> wrote:

> Greg Weston wrote:
>
> > I've run all releases of OS X on G3s slower than 500 MHz without a
> > great deal of concern. A run through the archives of csm.portables and
> > various web forae seems to indicate that there's a higher-than-average
> > level of dissatisfaction with the iBook 500 in particular. People made
> > specific claims about performance that I couldn't reproduce on a G3/300
> > and didn't recall from my time using of a G3/233.
>
> It might be a question of cache.

Unlikely. The G3/233 I mentioned was an original (cacheless) Wall Street
(with, for the record, 160MB RAM). There should be no slower OS X
machine, but iBook 500 owners were regularly telling me not simply that
OS X was subjectively too slow but that specific features routinely took
specific, overlong amounts of time to invoke.

G

In article <BB2102C1.6D58%nospamfrost@nuance.net>,
Bob Frost <nospamfrost@nuance.net> wrote:


> Hey daddy Warbucks, not everybody is rich like yourself and Steve jobs. For
> a $1000 he can buy a dell with a monitor and still have a few hundred bucks
> left in his pocket. Plus he gets to work with the rest of the computing
> world.

What you mean running an OS that disseminates viruses, allows spyware
into the system and also provides restrictive licensing that locks the
user in to more and more expensive upgrades while forcing the user to
agree to terms and conditions of licensing that are detrimental
to privacy? No thanks. Just say NO to Microsoft.

There's a fundamental difference when you give the money to Steve Jobs:
His computers and OS work and he's not Bill Gates.


rachel

--
Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove@zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security,
deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759

> From: Steven Fisher <sdfisher@spamcop.net>
> Organization: Shaw Residential Internet
> Newsgroups:
> comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.mac.system ,comp.sys.mac.apps
> Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 04:04:25 GMT
> Subject: Re: No IE 6 -- Is this Good or Bad???
>
> In article <BB1E3DF5.13B9E%don.romero@verizon.net>,
> Don Romero <don.romero@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> I've got $200 in a 7600/G3/256MB, 17" sony monitor and HP870cse printer.
>> Shipping included. Basically I'm the low end Apple blatantly doesn't give a
>> rodent's rear about.
>
> That machine was discontinued six years ago. That's the last time they
> saw any of your hardware money.

Performa 550.. advertised as PPC upgradeable.. paid $1300 and by the time I
got it into the trunk of the car the market value was about $600. Got it
home and only half the bungled software would run under the 5M RAM it
shipped with.. RAM being very expensive at that time.. I paid $685 for a
32MB or 64MB RAM upgrade (I fergit) .. still ran like crap.. (comparison to
an Amiga 4000/040 Mac software emulator) AND PPC upgrade never materialized
until years later under court order.. by which time it wasn't worth spit let
alone the $399 they were asking.

Yeah.. THAT was my first and last experience with brand new Apple hardware..

I looked really hard at several new MAC systems since -- 7100, a couple of
Mac clones, 7600 -- but saw nothing I could justify pulling the trigger on
given the price tags. None of them as base machines would have suited my
needs at that time, so I was looking at extra costs for immediate expan$ion
as well.

> Do you really blame them?

Who else? I don't run Apple.. only support a small array of High margins
and low performance hardware..? that would not be MY recipe for growing the
Mac user family. Pretty doesn't go very far in my book. Neither does
planned obsolescence or obsolete on delivery. And one-shot one-piece
appliances simply don't go anywhere.

Were Apple MINE, you wouldn't have a motherboard form-of-the-month club..
you drop your new g4/5 MB into your 7600 or whatever and motor on. Existing
users deserve those kinds of breaks.. not having to plop $500, $1000+ per
just for the case styling on a new desktop -- or for software bungles you
don't need, etc.

Apple can drop kick low income low system requirement Mac users all they
want.. They been doing it for a long long time and it shows in the direction
of their market share over 20 years. Schedule a Jobs keynote, call it
'progress' and make everything peachy a little while longer.

Not to worry.. Microsoft won't let Apple collapse.. their antitrust lawyers
need two other OSs out there they can call "major". :-)

As I said before, I like the MacOS better than Windows. But as long as
there are multi-GHz PCs out there for around $400, or I can build my own for
even less, I won't seriously consider another brand new under-featured Apple
"entry level" upgrade-bait machine..

I'll pay Apple for the OS X someday, but no-thank you for the hardware.
I'll keep shopping eBay as you guys upgrade.. or as other Mac user moves on
to the PC.. whatever.

d.

In article <9mlpfvscvdfi8lue2uobbh5j713bkbg4bm@4ax.com>,
foo <foo@bar.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 21:42:31 GMT, Gregory Weston
> <gwestonREMOVE@CAPSattbi.com> wrote:
>
> >> >> To take full advantage
> >> >> of OS X, he would also have to buy all new software because the Classic
> >> >> emulator totally sucks.
> >> >
> >> >1. It's not an emulator.
> >>
> >> What would you call it?
> >
> >A compatibity environment. Let me turn the question around: What aspect
> >of Classic do you think qualifies it as an emulation. The machine is
> >real, the OS is real and the processes are real. What's emulated?
>
> The API. Classic can't directly hit hardware - it has to go through
> the OS X -emulation- layer to hit hardware and any OS services.
> Hence, it's emulated.

Ah. I see. You've misread something. It's not a hardware emulation
layer. It's a hardware abstraction layer. It effects relatively little
of the body of legacy Mac OS software and doesn't mean that the API is
"emulated" in any reasonable sense.


G

Steven Fisher <sdfisher@spamcop.net> wrote in message news:<JENKa.300111$ro6.7428082@news2.calgary.shaw. ca>...
> Greg Weston wrote:
>
> > I've run all releases of OS X on G3s slower than 500 MHz without a
> > great deal of concern. A run through the archives of csm.portables and
> > various web forae seems to indicate that there's a higher-than-average
> > level of dissatisfaction with the iBook 500 in particular. People made
> > specific claims about performance that I couldn't reproduce on a G3/300
> > and didn't recall from my time using of a G3/233.

Just fwiw, I did try out Netbeans (from Netbeans.org), a Java IDE
written in Java, and a very complicated Java client-app, in an Apple
retail store a while back. The 800 MHz iMac and G4 laptop I tried ran
noticibly slowly, to the point that I'd compare them on par with my
533 MHz Celeron box (hang on, not Mac bashing!). Furthermore, only
the DP Powermac gave me what I'd feel was an acceptable level of
performance for iPhoto on those three machines. The 700 (iirc) MHz G3
iBook was not anywhere close to an order of maganitude faster than my
500 MHz iBook (here, I didn't try Netbeans). And with iTunes
routinuely taking 25% of my processor power, my machine just can't
keep up like I'd like when I'm doing anything development-related in
OS X.

Here I was told that the iMac's poor performance was a cache issue,
which I'll believe. The consumer models just aren't going to have the
same performance as the Powermacs. Still, the Powerbook was awful
slow (Java & iPhoto) for the price.

But this is just to say that I can't imagine an iMac 233 not being
slower than my iBook 500 from what I saw in the store that day. That
said, I'm a Java developer, so I'm imagining I'm a little biased on
what constituents good, fast performance. Move to OS 9, though, and
all those problems go away (but Java drops to 1.1.8, which is no good
for me).

I wonder why people with "slower" iMacs wouldn't be as put off a iBook
owners. That is strange, but for some reason I don't doubt it. Was
your 300 MHz Mac QE compatible (though, still, that didn't make a
large difference when I tried out the iBook 700)?

And any way you slice it, I can't wait to try out a G5. I think
performance issues for Macs in X are beginning to become a thing of
the past (and already are in the towers). Still, I do miss Em@iler.

In article <BB22F821.13D90%don.romero@verizon.net>,
Don Romero <don.romero@verizon.net> wrote:

> > Do you really blame them?
>
> Who else? I don't run Apple.. only support a small array of High margins
> and low performance hardware..?

Only support machines for seven years, you mean?

> that would not be MY recipe for growing the
> Mac user family. Pretty doesn't go very far in my book. Neither does
> planned obsolescence or obsolete on delivery.

That's called "the computer industry." Macs devalue less on the way to
the car than other options.


> Were Apple MINE, you wouldn't have a motherboard form-of-the-month club..
> you drop your new g4/5 MB into your 7600 or whatever and motor on.

That's fascinating. What would you do about the cooling? How about the
different set of ports that aren't the same shape? Or should we all
still be using DB-9 serial ports or support USB but only with an adapter
that lets the standard USB connector mate with something that fits
through the RJ-11 keyboard jack?

G

In article <1asofv0rrhmc97dve7kclqkhac0r22mpur@4ax.com>,
foo <foo@bar.com> wrote:

> What would you call it?

I think maybe this thread died out, but I thought I might chime in here..

The "Classic" layer in OS X is not an emulator at all. "Emulator"
implies software that translates machine level instructions into native
code. For instance, "NES Emulator" decodes NES machine code instructions
and turns them in to PPC code.

Classic, on the other hand, is running PPC code on a PPC machine. There
is small overhead: for one, you're running 2 OS'es, which means less
RAM, more pageouts in X, also, OS X has to patch certain Carbon calls in
order allow communication between OS 9 and OS X.

The first problem is remedied by cheap RAM. I paid 90 bucks two years
ago for a 512 MB DIMM which put my G4 at 640 MB total.

The second problem is offset by the fact that OS X only runs on systems
which are faster than the machines that were available at the time when
all of the old classic applications were written.

--
|\/| /-| |2 |<
mehaase at sas dot upenn dot edu

Mark Haase wrote:

> Classic, on the other hand, is running PPC code on a PPC machine. There
> is small overhead: for one, you're running 2 OS'es, which means less
> RAM, more pageouts in X, also, OS X has to patch certain Carbon calls in
> order allow communication between OS 9 and OS X.

Sort of yes, sort of no. In many cases, the underlying code is faster
(and always more reliable) than Mac OS 9. There are several applications
that used to choke on Mac OS 9 that run fine under Classic, and
certainly things like the memory management system and file system get a
huge break from being OS X code.