Quick Mac mini Update

[caprice_2nv]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
Originally Posted by Pelican
Originally Posted by KrisZ
Meh, for the price they are charging, they are just that, meh, IMO.
What they're doing well is shipping their stuff bloatware free, where windows is usually loaded by third party junk up the wazoo.
Get a clean win10 install on similar hardware and it will run just as well.


Made the change when W10 came out and screwed up my laptop and am I glad I did!
Apple hardware is 1st rate and that's one of the reasons why it's more expensive.


Yes, Windows 10 was the driving force for me to switch, had enough. I was ready for change. Priced into Apple is the whole experience and something I wanted to experience and now I wish I did it sooner in life. Also built into Apples price is they dont sell your information to the highest bidder, like anything related to google.

People think Android operating system is cheaper be it on a phone or computer, sure, its cheaper because you agree to let google sell the private information of you, your children and wife to third parties all over the world, highest bidder wins! Its a BIG business LOADED with HIGH paying jobs. So you are paying with your privacy. Google gives out free operating systems, puts you on a leash and studies you, your family and prostitutes your information.

Im in a position to pay with my wallet and dont need my or my family privacy to be sold so I can save a few hundred dollars. Geez! ) Of all the money we spend in life, the difference is nothing.
The price is a bargain compared to the cost difference between a Mazda SUV and a BMW SUV. (nothing against Mazda, we own one and love it, son works for BMW so has two SUVs) IN both cases, whether computers or cars, if you can afford it, the experience is worth it and in Apples case, we are talking mere pennies.


The difference is more like hundreds of dollars. I understand people that are concerned about privacy, but personally it doesn't matter to me because I have nothing to hide and the only thing I notice as a result is more relevant ads when I browse the internet.

 

[wander2039]

After reading this thread makes me feel bad neglecting my late 2012 Mini i7 16Gb .. I think it's a late 2012 anyways. It only really gets used for a iTunes server these days. The 10 year old Mac Pro with a SSD/ Xubuntu just seems like a better performer. It's time for the SSD upgrade I've been holding off on. Not even sure what OS is on it.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Originally Posted by alarmguy
Originally Posted by Pelican
Originally Posted by KrisZ
Meh, for the price they are charging, they are just that, meh, IMO.
What they're doing well is shipping their stuff bloatware free, where windows is usually loaded by third party junk up the wazoo.
Get a clean win10 install on similar hardware and it will run just as well.


Made the change when W10 came out and screwed up my laptop and am I glad I did!
Apple hardware is 1st rate and that's one of the reasons why it's more expensive.


Yes, Windows 10 was the driving force for me to switch, had enough. I was ready for change. Priced into Apple is the whole experience and something I wanted to experience and now I wish I did it sooner in life. Also built into Apples price is they dont sell your information to the highest bidder, like anything related to google.

People think Android operating system is cheaper be it on a phone or computer, sure, its cheaper because you agree to let google sell the private information of you, your children and wife to third parties all over the world, highest bidder wins! Its a BIG business LOADED with HIGH paying jobs. So you are paying with your privacy. Google gives out free operating systems, puts you on a leash and studies you, your family and prostitutes your information.

Im in a position to pay with my wallet and dont need my or my family privacy to be sold so I can save a few hundred dollars. Geez! ) Of all the money we spend in life, the difference is nothing.
The price is a bargain compared to the cost difference between a Mazda SUV and a BMW SUV. (nothing against Mazda, we own one and love it, son works for BMW so has two SUVs) IN both cases, whether computers or cars, if you can afford it, the experience is worth it and in Apples case, we are talking mere pennies.


The difference is more like hundreds of dollars. I understand people that are concerned about privacy, but personally it doesn't matter to me because I have nothing to hide and the only thing I notice as a result is more relevant ads when I browse the internet.


You know, I used to think so too but its not at all hundreds of dollars.
All premium cell phones are in the same price range as Apple and in many cases exceeding the price.

Example, in my quest to dump Google from my life, I just got my first iPhone for Christmas an XR... the price around $600+ is hundreds less then offerings from other cell phone makers that run on Googles cheap free operating system.


Same goes for premium computers.

Its all good, we all buy what makes us happy in life.

 

[caprice_2nv]

Made the change when W10 came out and screwed up my laptop and am I glad I did!
Apple hardware is 1st rate and that's one of the reasons why it's more expensive.[/quote]

Yes, Windows 10 was the driving force for me to switch, had enough. I was ready for change. Priced into Apple is the whole experience and something I wanted to experience and now I wish I did it sooner in life. Also built into Apples price is they dont sell your information to the highest bidder, like anything related to google.

People think Android operating system is cheaper be it on a phone or computer, sure, its cheaper because you agree to let google sell the private information of you, your children and wife to third parties all over the world, highest bidder wins! Its a BIG business LOADED with HIGH paying jobs. So you are paying with your privacy. Google gives out free operating systems, puts you on a leash and studies you, your family and prostitutes your information.

Im in a position to pay with my wallet and dont need my or my family privacy to be sold so I can save a few hundred dollars. Geez! ) Of all the money we spend in life, the difference is nothing.
The price is a bargain compared to the cost difference between a Mazda SUV and a BMW SUV. (nothing against Mazda, we own one and love it, son works for BMW so has two SUVs) IN both cases, whether computers or cars, if you can afford it, the experience is worth it and in Apples case, we are talking mere pennies.[/quote]

The difference is more like hundreds of dollars. I understand people that are concerned about privacy, but personally it doesn't matter to me because I have nothing to hide and the only thing I notice as a result is more relevant ads when I browse the internet. [/quote]

You know, I used to think so too but its not at all hundreds of dollars.
All premium cell phones are in the same price range as Apple and in many cases exceeding the price.

Example, in my quest to dump Google from my life, I just got my first iPhone for Christmas an XR... the price around $600+ is hundreds less then offerings from other cell phone makers that run on Googles cheap free operating system.


Same goes for premium computers.

Its all good, we all buy what makes us happy in life.
[/quote]

My girlfriend has the iPhone xr. She loves it but somehow my $200 used OnePlus 5 gets all the camera duty because it gets better pictures (especially the selfies for our couples pictures) than her iPhone. This phone was like $500 brand new 2.5 years ago.

She can't figure out my phone and I can't figure out hers. I'm not saying $600 is a bad price but it has a lower resolution screen than my 1080p AMOLED OnePlus (my girlfriend won't notice the difference) and for that price I would pick one of many other Android options. Pricing will be different here than where you are but Samsung or apple both price way above other manufacturers so I'm probably not buying either of them anytime soon. I've owned both and prefer stock Android phones.

People I know that will only use an iPhone (my girlfriend) still won't spend the price premium to have an iPad or a Mac. Once again I'm not saying they are bad but they are definitely more money whether you want to admit or not.

Right now I could afford to buy a 7 year old Thinkpad (like the one I got free from work) or a 10+ year old MacBook. I will be getting an older machine with lower specs if I choose the Mac. I've spent lots of time browsing the local ads and looking at pricing just out of interest.

Sorry this is getting off topic but what some people on here think is like chump change is a significant amount of money for some of us.

 

[alarmguy]

^^^^
Yeah, you are off subject and that's ok.
Like I said throughout this thread, we all spend money on things important to us, anything in life, not just computers and phones so do not mistake my posts as anything but, yet for some reason you are coming in here commenting on a product because you think is too expensive but you are wrong on that, even if it was true, do you go to the automotive part of BITOG and down talk cars that are more expensive then what you own?

Most of all, you are off base on the cost of Apple vs Samsung Android Devices and whatever brand you have.
Many models of Samsung Android phones using the free Android operating system are far more expensive then a new iPhone XR.
Same goes for the phone you speak off, your One Plus cost $500 new, iPhone XR is $600 new and far better operating system that respects privacy.

You state you bought a 2.5 old used model for $200 yet you can buy a brand new 2.5 or 3 year old iPhone 6s+ for $100.

Like I say, we buy what makes us happy.
Im thrilled, just popped the SIM card from my Huawei cell phone into my new iPhone XR, and now Im completely on the IOS platform, from home computer to cell phone.
My wife just popped her SIM card into the Huawei I just abandoned, It was the Mate SE model and is a FANTASTIC Android device that I paid $200 new and now in possession of my wife who is now upgraded from her $99 Huawei.

)

 

[dogememe]

I started with Apple products (rich uncle) but started working in the computer industry in high school. First I switched to PCs (Windows) and then I stopped with the iPhones... Switched to Android, then Windows Phone, then back to Android.

I won a free iPad last year. The really expensive one. Beautiful piece of hardware but I sold it to my coworker because iOS or iPad OS or whatever they call it this week is so, so bad. In a quest to be simple they make everything 6x more complicated than it needs to be.

You won't find any Apple products in my life. Now I primarily use my computers for gaming, web development, etc. And I never go "I wish I had a Mac!"

I prefer to use my desktop workstation but most of the time I'm using one of my laptops. I have a ThinkPad T430 (yes, it's old but it works fine) and a Getac rugged laptop (think Panasonic Toughbook but cheaper) and Apple makes nothing this durable or reliable.

Plus, ThinkPads can be upgraded and repaired. I bought three broken ThinkPad T430 on eBay, and now I've got the one I use, I gave my mother one, and I sold the third one on eBay for parts. It took me like two hours from start to finish to completely disassemble and rebuild three laptops and install the OS.

Sure, most new ultra-thin Windows laptops that compete with Apple laptops are not easily serviceable but generally they are still more repairable and upgradeable than a similarly specced Mac, for hundreds of dollars less!

Other reasons people buy Apple computers... "Security" well yes 15 years ago they were more secure because why bother trying to write malware for a system that had tiny marketshare and was hardly ever used by enterprise, while now Macs are used by more people and more businesses and they aren't any more secure. Sure the Unix core of Mac OS is technically more secure but Apple hasn't invested anywhere near as much into securing the final product as Microsoft.

 

[caprice_2nv]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
^^^^
Yeah, you are off subject and that's ok.
Like I said throughout this thread, we all spend money on things important to us, anything in life, not just computers and phones so do not mistake my posts as anything but, yet for some reason you are coming in here commenting on a product because you think is too expensive but you are wrong on that, even if it was true, do you go to the automotive part of BITOG and down talk cars that are more expensive then what you own?

Most of all, you are off base on the cost of Apple vs Samsung Android Devices and whatever brand you have.
Many models of Samsung Android phones using the free Android operating system are far more expensive then a new iPhone XR.
Same goes for the phone you speak off, your One Plus cost $500 new, iPhone XR is $600 new and far better operating system that respects privacy.

You state you bought a 2.5 old used model for $200 yet you can buy a brand new 2.5 or 3 year old iPhone 6s+ for $100.

Like I say, we buy what makes us happy.
Im thrilled, just popped the SIM card from my Huawei cell phone into my new iPhone XR, and now Im completely on the IOS platform, from home computer to cell phone.
My wife just popped her SIM card into the Huawei I just abandoned, It was the Mate SE model and is a FANTASTIC Android device that I paid $200 new and now in possession of my wife who is now upgraded from her $99 Huawei.

)


My OnePlus 5 was actually $220 Canadian, so well under $200 US in like new condition. 128gb 8gb of RAM. My girlfriend bought the iPhone xr 64gb to replace her iPhone 6s 32gb. I could have replaced the screen on her old phone and used a slow, laggy, iPhone that lasts half a day on battery and has no storage space (I've used half of my 128gb) if I was really hard up, but I want to use a phone that is useful for me. I drag and drop a ton of files onto my phone as a flash drive to transfer to the laptop and I like that my battery lasts all day long. I use my headphone jack almost every day and don't want to carry another adaptor.

Also when my OnePlus was new 2.5 years ago the only cheaper iPhones were I believe the iPhone se. My mother in law has it and it's not great. She complains about the camera, she ran out of storage space and the battery is always dead.

I'm still not trying to say you're wrong to like apple products but your comparisons were a bit off base. If I was to get an iPhone I'd want one of the top of the line ones with at least a 1080p AMOLED screen and that's nowhere near my price range.

Would I try an older MacBook if I got a good deal on it? Sure, I'd like to. But it wouldn't make a lot of sense for me because of the software we use at work that probably only runs on Windows. That and the old Thinkpad t530 is working awesome on Windows 10. The only issue I had was the edge browser froze up so I installed chrome and never tried edge again.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by dogememe
I started with Apple products (rich uncle) but started working in the computer industry in high school. First I switched to PCs (Windows) and then I stopped with the iPhones... Switched to Android, then Windows Phone, then back to Android.

I won a free iPad last year. The really expensive one. Beautiful piece of hardware but I sold it to my coworker because iOS or iPad OS or whatever they call it this week is so, so bad. In a quest to be simple they make everything 6x more complicated than it needs to be.

You won't find any Apple products in my life. Now I primarily use my computers for gaming, web development, etc. And I never go "I wish I had a Mac!"

I prefer to use my desktop workstation but most of the time I'm using one of my laptops. I have a ThinkPad T430 (yes, it's old but it works fine) and a Getac rugged laptop (think Panasonic Toughbook but cheaper) and Apple makes nothing this durable or reliable.

Plus, ThinkPads can be upgraded and repaired. I bought three broken ThinkPad T430 on eBay, and now I've got the one I use, I gave my mother one, and I sold the third one on eBay for parts. It took me like two hours from start to finish to completely disassemble and rebuild three laptops and install the OS.

Sure, most new ultra-thin Windows laptops that compete with Apple laptops are not easily serviceable but generally they are still more repairable and upgradeable than a similarly specced Mac, for hundreds of dollars less!

Other reasons people buy Apple computers... "Security" well yes 15 years ago they were more secure because why bother trying to write malware for a system that had tiny marketshare and was hardly ever used by enterprise, while now Macs are used by more people and more businesses and they aren't any more secure. Sure the Unix core of Mac OS is technically more secure but Apple hasn't invested anywhere near as much into securing the final product as Microsoft.


i went the opposite direction

First computer I ever used was a Commodore my mom brought home from the school board. They switched to Macs and later I was playing with the IIe and eventually the first gen Powerbook. During this period my dad bought an 8088, so that was my first real computer (still have it). I went through numerous PC's after that, was building gaming rigs for friends and was a user of Linux and BSD in the mid 90's, downloading it on dial-up for days at a time. I had previous cut my teeth on Unix in the early 90's while in Grade 9, attending the local University, experimenting with DEC Alpha Unix but also VAX, OS/2...etc.

When my T420 work notebook motherboard failed I ended up getting a MBP to replace it. I'm still using this computer now, years later. I ended up selling off my home gaming rig and use an old Mac Pro desktop at present, as I had both but simply preferred using the Mac for day-to-day activities. CLI work on Cisco IOS doesn't care what OS you are doing it from and I have a Parallels copy of Windows 10 on both systems for those rarely used Windows-only applications.

Phone-wise, I started with Blackberry, went to an iPhone, then Android, then Windows phone, then Android again and then back to iPhone where I've been for the last several years. The device experience, while it lacks a lot of the customizability of Android, is less buggy and with the rest of my stuff in the Apple ecosystem, sticking with Apple is decidedly more convenient. Recent privacy concerns with Google as well as the Android phone manufacturers like Huawei has resulted in me transitioning all my kids off of Android devices as well. We've had several iPads here too, and while expensive, have greatly outlasted the useful life of comparable Android units purchased around the same timeframe. I was one of the people that ended up with the Lenovo Think Android tablets, which received no future support or subsequent OS releases, and thus becoming completely useless in quite short order. An iPad of the same generation is still usable today. Setting aside the privacy issues, that's probably my biggest gripe with Android: unless you have a Google-branded device that runs unadulterated Android, the phone or tablet manufacturers tend to EOS the devices very quickly. So while you may pay more for an iPad initially, it is useful for a much longer period of time, as Apple's product support cycle spans several generations of products.

 

[bunnspecial]

I was a die-hard IBM user for many years.

I'm a bit over 30, but when I was very young I had my dad's hand-me-down Tandy 1000. As I got a bit older, I REALLY started hitting computers hard with a 386 running DOS/Windows 3.1 and kept using Windows up until my time in graduate school.

My only significant exposure to Macs along the way was in high school, where we had a room full of tray-loader iMacs. They were several years old even then, were most likely still running the OS they shipped with(either OS 8.1 or 8.5.5). I hated the things-especially typing on the awful little keyboards and using the "puck" mice.

Fast forward quite a few years and through an Apple architecture change, and I found myself working on my literature seminar in graduate school in Windows 7 on a Toshiba laptop. I found myself a bit up a creek when the computer suddenly shut off with a windows install so corrupted that it wouldn't boot.

I pulled the hard drive and dug my relevant files off of it. My then-room mate offered to let me borrow his "old" MacBook, a 2008 unibody aluminum. I used that for 2 weeks, passed my literature seminar, then went out the next day and bought a new late 2011 13" MacBook Pro which served me for a long time(a few years later I "upgraded" to the 2012 15"(HR-AG display), which wasn't out yet when bought my first computer but was what I wanted when I saw it. That is a computer that has continued to serve me well. The 2012 models were the last with an optical drive(mine is long gone-I have a 1tb SSD as my boot drive and a 2tb spinner for storage), don't have any known GPU issues, have USB 3.0, plenty of other ports built in(ethernet, FW800), the integrate GPU is much better than the 2011 models, and they were the last models available with the optional matte anti-glare screen. That's supplemented with a Mac Pro 5,1(2012) with dual hex core processors and a lot of other nice upgrades including PCIe storage. Most recently, I came to the hard decision that the 15" was too much for traveling(specifically flying) so picked up a 13" Retina MBP(last pre-toucbar model) which I've really enjoyed. It's crazy fast for light use(my quad core i7 15"-even with a CPU a few gens older-is still faster for heavy crunching). I saved a few bucks on it by buying it with the base amount of storage and upgrading it myself to 512gb-those computers have a removable "blade" SSD that is easy to change.

I've REALLY drank the Kool-aide, though, and have become a Mac collector. I have things stretching back to an original 1984 Macintosh(one early enough to just be marked "Macintosh" even though it was retroactively called the 128K) along with bunches of high end(and not so high end) 68K and PowerPC hardware. I have multiple examples of every "G" era PowerPC computer and even have had fun with the aftermarket upgrades building some really hot G3 and G4 towers(I like G5s, but you can't do as much to upgrade them). I'm even working on a few oddball other projects, like a clamshell G4 that I will hopefully also upgrade with a high resolution XGA panel(I have a friend in England who is also an enthusiast and he does BGA work for me-I usually pay him by buying overage of parts I need for my projects so that he has extras to play with for himself). I unfortunately haven't done much lately for a couple of reasons, but the G4s in particular are a lot of fun to upgrade and make do things they were never intended to do.

I'm not totally free of Windows. My MBPs have Windows(either Win XP or Win 7) VMs on them. Some are to run specific programs-they are mostly lightweight stuff that do fine when virtualized. As an example, my Mac Pro at work has a Win 7 VM that runs Agilent MSD Chemstation so that I can do offline GC-MS data processing in my office. I need to use Windows a LOT for the scientific instruments I maintain at work, almost all of which are Windows, but I have a strict off-line rule.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
I was a die-hard IBM user for many years.

I'm a bit over 30, but when I was very young I had my dad's hand-me-down Tandy 1000. As I got a bit older, I REALLY started hitting computers hard with a 386 running DOS/Windows 3.1 and kept using Windows up until my time in graduate school.

My only significant exposure to Macs along the way was in high school, where we had a room full of tray-loader iMacs. They were several years old even then, were most likely still running the OS they shipped with(either OS 8.1 or 8.5.5). I hated the things-especially typing on the awful little keyboards and using the "puck" mice.

Fast forward quite a few years and through an Apple architecture change, and I found myself working on my literature seminar in graduate school in Windows 7 on a Toshiba laptop. I found myself a bit up a creek when the computer suddenly shut off with a windows install so corrupted that it wouldn't boot.

I pulled the hard drive and dug my relevant files off of it. My then-room mate offered to let me borrow his "old" MacBook, a 2008 unibody aluminum. I used that for 2 weeks, passed my literature seminar, then went out the next day and bought a new late 2011 13" MacBook Pro which served me for a long time(a few years later I "upgraded" to the 2012 15"(HR-AG display), which wasn't out yet when bought my first computer but was what I wanted when I saw it. That is a computer that has continued to serve me well. The 2012 models were the last with an optical drive(mine is long gone-I have a 1tb SSD as my boot drive and a 2tb spinner for storage), don't have any known GPU issues, have USB 3.0, plenty of other ports built in(ethernet, FW800), the integrate GPU is much better than the 2011 models, and they were the last models available with the optional matte anti-glare screen. That's supplemented with a Mac Pro 5,1(2012) with dual hex core processors and a lot of other nice upgrades including PCIe storage. Most recently, I came to the hard decision that the 15" was too much for traveling(specifically flying) so picked up a 13" Retina MBP(last pre-toucbar model) which I've really enjoyed. It's crazy fast for light use(my quad core i7 15"-even with a CPU a few gens older-is still faster for heavy crunching). I saved a few bucks on it by buying it with the base amount of storage and upgrading it myself to 512gb-those computers have a removable "blade" SSD that is easy to change.

I've REALLY drank the Kool-aide, though, and have become a Mac collector. I have things stretching back to an original 1984 Macintosh(one early enough to just be marked "Macintosh" even though it was retroactively called the 128K) along with bunches of high end(and not so high end) 68K and PowerPC hardware. I have multiple examples of every "G" era PowerPC computer and even have had fun with the aftermarket upgrades building some really hot G3 and G4 towers(I like G5s, but you can't do as much to upgrade them). I'm even working on a few oddball other projects, like a clamshell G4 that I will hopefully also upgrade with a high resolution XGA panel(I have a friend in England who is also an enthusiast and he does BGA work for me-I usually pay him by buying overage of parts I need for my projects so that he has extras to play with for himself). I unfortunately haven't done much lately for a couple of reasons, but the G4s in particular are a lot of fun to upgrade and make do things they were never intended to do.

I'm not totally free of Windows. My MBPs have Windows(either Win XP or Win 7) VMs on them. Some are to run specific programs-they are mostly lightweight stuff that do fine when virtualized. As an example, my Mac Pro at work has a Win 7 VM that runs Agilent MSD Chemstation so that I can do offline GC-MS data processing in my office. I need to use Windows a LOT for the scientific instruments I maintain at work, almost all of which are Windows, but I have a strict off-line rule.

I don't have anywhere near the collection you do (sweet Jesus!) but I certainly have some old Mac hardware: Mac Plus, first gen iMac (red), Powerbook G3, 2nd gen iMac, I also had a couple of early ones like a IIcx and 6300 but don't know if they survived our last move, as I haven't dug them out. The little "plus" is probably the most amusing.

 

[caprice_2nv]

Originally Posted by alarmguy
^^^^
Yeah, you are off subject and that's ok.
Like I said throughout this thread, we all spend money on things important to us, anything in life, not just computers and phones so do not mistake my posts as anything but, yet for some reason you are coming in here commenting on a product because you think is too expensive but you are wrong on that, even if it was true, do you go to the automotive part of BITOG and down talk cars that are more expensive then what you own?

Most of all, you are off base on the cost of Apple vs Samsung Android Devices and whatever brand you have.
Many models of Samsung Android phones using the free Android operating system are far more expensive then a new iPhone XR.
Same goes for the phone you speak off, your One Plus cost $500 new, iPhone XR is $600 new and far better operating system that respects privacy.

You state you bought a 2.5 old used model for $200 yet you can buy a brand new 2.5 or 3 year old iPhone 6s+ for $100.

Like I say, we buy what makes us happy.
Im thrilled, just popped the SIM card from my Huawei cell phone into my new iPhone XR, and now Im completely on the IOS platform, from home computer to cell phone.
My wife just popped her SIM card into the Huawei I just abandoned, It was the Mate SE model and is a FANTASTIC Android device that I paid $200 new and now in possession of my wife who is now upgraded from her $99 Huawei.

)


Here is a local example of a used 2012 MacBook pro $700. When I searched, I didn't find any older MacBooks that were only a few hundred dollars. On the upside the resale value is great.

Please view this ad:

MacBook Pro (Mid 2012),
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-laptops/kin...ocialbuttons&utm_content=app_android



Download the application from the Google Play Store.
https://tinyurl.com/9x9f4jd

 

[bunnspecial]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
I don't have anywhere near the collection you do (sweet Jesus!) but I certainly have some old Mac hardware: Mac Plus, first gen iMac (red), Powerbook G3, 2nd gen iMac, I also had a couple of early ones like a IIcx and 6300 but don't know if they survived our last move, as I haven't dug them out. The little "plus" is probably the most amusing.


Collecting can be a dangerous path, and I'm a collector at heart. I'm going to have to make some SERIOUS decisions as to what I'm going to keep and get rid of in 2020, as I'm getting married in October and I think the car and a few other "collections" are enough for my fiancée(she does like the MG at least

) . Chances are the Macs are going to get slimmed down to the best examples of each tower and some of my favorite projects, although the laptops don't take up as much space and I might get away with a few more of those.

The last time I counted, I have over 100 Macs, which is too many.

Fortunately, though, I've also had the foresight over the last several years to pick up and stash away quite a few high end 90s PCs. Those are red hot now-particularly the good PPro/PII/PIII era stuff. A lot of what I've held on to are things like HP Vectras along with a handful of Pentium DECs. Aside from that, I have some lesser known brands that are still high end dual PII and PIII systems.

I have to make a real decision too on some of my lingering Mac projects. A few years ago, I was buying high end PC AGP cards for a little of nothing. I bought known models/references that I knew could flash into good Mac cards. With some tweaking, many of those could be better cards than the "official" Apple models. I even did a few EPROM swaps(on cards that I did flash)-PC cards are usually 64K and Mac 128K. The so-called "reduced" Mac ROMs are sometimes buggy, whereas if you put a 128K EPROM chip on them you could put the full size Mac ROM in and get rid of the problems. In any case, I had a few on indefinite hiatus that now bring serious money to retro PC gamers-the Radeon X850XT Platinum is one I'm eying.

 

[bunnspecial]

Originally Posted by caprice_2nv

Here is a local example of a used 2012 MacBook pro $700. When I searched, I didn't find any older MacBooks that were only a few hundred dollars. On the upside the resale value is great.

Please view this ad:

MacBook Pro (Mid 2012),
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-laptops/kin...ocialbuttons&utm_content=app_android



Download the application from the Google Play Store.
https://tinyurl.com/9x9f4jd


Macs tend to crater in value after they lose support in the current version of OS X.

Right now pretty much anything 2012 and newer is holding its own, although there are still bargains out there.

Get much older than that and you get really inexpensive.

I did just do a package deal with someone where I really wanted 2x 2011 11" Airs(I've never owned that size Air), but he had a bunch to move and wanted to deal. I ended up with a 2007 17" w/HR display, 1 each first and second generation MacBook Air(the first gen is terrible, the second is okay), 2x 11" 2011 Air, a 2010 15" Pro HR-AG, and a boxed/complete 2010 Mini Server for $300. Of course, that was a package deal price and none support Catalina.

Before that, the 13" 2015 Pro I mentioned above was $500.

 

[caprice_2nv]

Do you think there is much of a security risk if you were to keep running a non supported version from say 2010 or older? Would there be low risk since hackers aren't working on trying to hack something that old? Obviously windows is a different ball game and I wouldn't want to run a non supported/updated version of windows.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Do you think there is much of a security risk if you were to keep running a non supported version from say 2010 or older? Would there be low risk since hackers aren't working on trying to hack something that old? Obviously windows is a different ball game and I wouldn't want to run a non supported/updated version of windows.

If it will run Mojave it's still "current" in that it will still get security and performance updates for a good while yet. That's my plan for my Mac Pro currently, which won't run Catalina without some "modifications" which may result in it eventually running Linux.

 

[bunnspecial]

Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Do you think there is much of a security risk if you were to keep running a non supported version from say 2010 or older? Would there be low risk since hackers aren't working on trying to hack something that old? Obviously windows is a different ball game and I wouldn't want to run a non supported/updated version of windows.


Macs have always had a small market share relative to Windows(even though it's grown in recent years) so OS X/macOS has always been a small target. With Apple no longer charging for OS upgrades, they also manage fairly widespread adoption of the newest/most current OS. So, on one hand, you do have security through obscurity.

In addition, Apple generally follows the rule of pushing security updates for the current version and the two previous versions. That means that Mojave and High Sierra are still getting security updates, and the latter will probably get its last in August or September of 2020.

On the other hand, though, if you're going to connect to the internet you run into a bunch of other problems. If a developer is developing on the most current version of macOS, Xcode(Apple's software compiler) will only build software that's compatible with the previous couple of versions. I think now 10.11 is still supported. This can be a real problem as even the major 3rd party developers will quit supporting older operating systems, and things on the internet will start to "break."

I'm a HUGE fan of OS X Snow Leopard, which in a lot of ways was the Windows 7 of OS X. It will run on all Intel Macs made in 2011 and earlier, and received security updates until 2013. I actually have a bunch of computers still running Snow Leopard. From a UI perspective, a lot of Mac users like it because it was the last version that did not show a lot of iOS influence . It was also the last version released while Steve Jobs was still alive. I keep it around because it was the last version to include Rosetta, which is the PowerPC emulator. Firefox was the last major browser to continue to support Snow Leopard, and their last release was in the summer of 2017. I'm finding more and more sites that just don't work on Firefox 52 ESR, so my internet usage of Snow Leopard is very much decreasing.

There are also some big security vulnerabilities in that programs like Flash haven't been updated in ages. If you do want to browse, you are better off disabling Flash.

Even with more recent OSs, things are starting to break. I loved Mavericks(10.9) but have mostly discontinued using it. Much of the iCloud feature integration no longer works. I've also run into issues at work in that Apple Mail in 10.9 will no longer work with our email client.

Suprisingly enough, OS X Tiger and Leopard, particularly on PowerPC, are actually somewhat better supported with browsers like TenFourFox and Leopard Webkit. Unfortunately, TFF in particular is getting increasingly "broken" with the amount of stuff that just gets turned off because the OS doesn't have the backbone to support it. Also,the web continues to unecessarily bloat, and it's getting more difficult for older computers to even render web pages in a reasonable amount of time.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
I don't have anywhere near the collection you do (sweet Jesus!) but I certainly have some old Mac hardware: Mac Plus, first gen iMac (red), Powerbook G3, 2nd gen iMac, I also had a couple of early ones like a IIcx and 6300 but don't know if they survived our last move, as I haven't dug them out. The little "plus" is probably the most amusing.


Collecting can be a dangerous path, and I'm a collector at heart. I'm going to have to make some SERIOUS decisions as to what I'm going to keep and get rid of in 2020, as I'm getting married in October and I think the car and a few other "collections" are enough for my fiancée(she does like the MG at least

) . Chances are the Macs are going to get slimmed down to the best examples of each tower and some of my favorite projects, although the laptops don't take up as much space and I might get away with a few more of those.

The last time I counted, I have over 100 Macs, which is too many.

Fortunately, though, I've also had the foresight over the last several years to pick up and stash away quite a few high end 90s PCs. Those are red hot now-particularly the good PPro/PII/PIII era stuff. A lot of what I've held on to are things like HP Vectras along with a handful of Pentium DECs. Aside from that, I have some lesser known brands that are still high end dual PII and PIII systems.

I have to make a real decision too on some of my lingering Mac projects. A few years ago, I was buying high end PC AGP cards for a little of nothing. I bought known models/references that I knew could flash into good Mac cards. With some tweaking, many of those could be better cards than the "official" Apple models. I even did a few EPROM swaps(on cards that I did flash)-PC cards are usually 64K and Mac 128K. The so-called "reduced" Mac ROMs are sometimes buggy, whereas if you put a 128K EPROM chip on them you could put the full size Mac ROM in and get rid of the problems. In any case, I had a few on indefinite hiatus that now bring serious money to retro PC gamers-the Radeon X850XT Platinum is one I'm eying.


I just e-recycled about 100 PC's LOL. I may pick up an older SGI workstation (I loved IRIX) and/or maybe a DEC Alpha workstation if I can find one. First one of those I used in the early 90's had a huge greyscale Trinitron screen (like 24"?) and I recall using Mosaic to look at other EDU sites and information from NASA, which was pretty much all the "internet" consisted of at that time.

Sounds like you have a pretty nice vintage PC collection in addition to your Mac stuff!

I'm familiar with, but only have limited experience with, the video card modding, having flashed the Mac ROM on a reference GTX 680 for my Mac Pro. I have the old Radeon 5770 here still, figuring I might fetch a few bucks for it on E-bay. I do have a pretty decent collection of DI-specific cards though

A lot of them are like the old Voodoo cards, requiring another card that supports VESA for the primary display.

 

[caprice_2nv]

I wish I knew which version my sister had years ago on her old plastic white MacBook. She got it when she went to college for video production stuff. Her first one failed just under the 1 year warranty but the next one I think she had it for like 7 years until her ex boyfriend spilled his beer on it and killed it.

I remember visiting her in Toronto and wanting to check something online before we headed somewhere, I used her mac which i had never had any experience with. It was confusing but it was cool to see something different than my windows XP which I had on my desktop at the time. This was probably around 2005 if I'm doing the math in my head right.

I'm trying Ubuntu on my older laptop right now. The interface kind of reminds me of the old Mac os I remember seeing on my sister's old Mac.

It definitely sped up my cheap 10 year old Lenovo g550 Pentium laptop some, but the internal graphics are so bad on this laptop that even playing 720p YouTube videos lately is causing screen tearing (weird ripples in the video) even on Ubuntu and windows 10 has slowed down badly on it this past couple weeks. It could be something starting to fail in the hardware, but the specs are getting pretty bad for running today's software. I bought it when I was poor and going back to college 10 years ago. I could have bought a better spec machine than I got at the time but it would have been an Acer or hp or something less reputable. I wanted to go with the Lenovo so I got a Pentium t4400 dual core 2.2ghz and 4gb of RAM. 220gb HDD. Not the greatest machine but it did last 10 years and one major drop onto concrete without any hardware failures and it ran fairly fast and could handle AutoCAD 3D for a good few years. The battery also lasted almost 7 years. At the time $699 Canadian was a lot of money for me to spend on a laptop so I couldn't get much really.

 

[bunnspecial]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL

I just e-recycled about 100 PC's LOL. I may pick up an older SGI workstation (I loved IRIX) and/or maybe a DEC Alpha workstation if I can find one. First one of those I used in the early 90's had a huge greyscale Trinitron screen (like 24"?) and I recall using Mosaic to look at other EDU sites and information from NASA, which was pretty much all the "internet" consisted of at that time.

Sounds like you have a pretty nice vintage PC collection in addition to your Mac stuff!

I'm familiar with, but only have limited experience with, the video card modding, having flashed the Mac ROM on a reference GTX 680 for my Mac Pro. I have the old Radeon 5770 here still, figuring I might fetch a few bucks for it on E-bay. I do have a pretty decent collection of DI-specific cards though

A lot of them are like the old Voodoo cards, requiring another card that supports VESA for the primary display.


I do enjoy my old PCs, even though Macs are my focus.

I've been trying to build up a little representative RISC collection, and have been able to snag a lot through work. I've managed to get a couple of SGIs-an Iris Indigo that I need to find a mouse for then fit a hard drive an an OS-plus a dead O2 and a nice, fully functional Octane. The SGIs were beasts in their day, and you have to love how great/quirky their design is. I unfortunately junked one dim and off color SGI-branded Trinitron, but do have a 21"(VGA and 13W3 in) that goes with the Octane. The guy who gave the the Iris Indigo HAD a 24" widescreen Trinitron at one time, but it's long gone.

Back earlier this year, I grabbed a Sun UltraSparc 5, which is a nice little computer even though I've not done a ton with it.

I have a bunch of DECs, as I mentioned, but they're all IBM compatible. I don't know of any Alphas around work, and they still bring eye-popping prices on Ebay just to have one to satisfy my curiosity.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
Originally Posted by OVERKILL

I just e-recycled about 100 PC's LOL. I may pick up an older SGI workstation (I loved IRIX) and/or maybe a DEC Alpha workstation if I can find one. First one of those I used in the early 90's had a huge greyscale Trinitron screen (like 24"?) and I recall using Mosaic to look at other EDU sites and information from NASA, which was pretty much all the "internet" consisted of at that time.

Sounds like you have a pretty nice vintage PC collection in addition to your Mac stuff!

I'm familiar with, but only have limited experience with, the video card modding, having flashed the Mac ROM on a reference GTX 680 for my Mac Pro. I have the old Radeon 5770 here still, figuring I might fetch a few bucks for it on E-bay. I do have a pretty decent collection of DI-specific cards though

A lot of them are like the old Voodoo cards, requiring another card that supports VESA for the primary display.


I do enjoy my old PCs, even though Macs are my focus.

I've been trying to build up a little representative RISC collection, and have been able to snag a lot through work. I've managed to get a couple of SGIs-an Iris Indigo that I need to find a mouse for then fit a hard drive an an OS-plus a dead O2 and a nice, fully functional Octane. The SGIs were beasts in their day, and you have to love how great/quirky their design is. I unfortunately junked one dim and off color SGI-branded Trinitron, but do have a 21"(VGA and 13W3 in) that goes with the Octane. The guy who gave the the Iris Indigo HAD a 24" widescreen Trinitron at one time, but it's long gone.

Back earlier this year, I grabbed a Sun UltraSparc 5, which is a nice little computer even though I've not done a ton with it.

I have a bunch of DECs, as I mentioned, but they're all IBM compatible. I don't know of any Alphas around work, and they still bring eye-popping prices on Ebay just to have one to satisfy my curiosity.


So you have some SGI boxes, I am jealous!

Regarding the old DEC's, yes the university my father teaches at used to have piles of them, but they were all x86 boxes, none of them Alpha's, much like your situation. It was much earlier when I lived in Ontario (where I am presently) that the local uni here, where he was previously teaching, that the CS department had a pretty solid number of Alpha boxes. They truly were amazing machines at the time.

I've played on, but never owned a Sun box for whatever reason.

It was primarily O2's that I played with back in the late 90's when I was in school. Did some fresh installs of IRIX (was the only guy that had any *nix knowledge in my class) and then spent a fair bit of time playing around on them. They had the 21" SGI-branded Trinitron screens.