Monday, May 19, 2008

Apple to Apple

I finally purchased a new computer at home and I thought it might be interesting for a few folks to do an "Apple to Apple" comparison.

First, the picture. Can you pick out which one is the old computer?


Now, the specs.

G3 All In One: Purchased in late spring of 1998 (last all-in-one before the original iMac)
233 Mhz G3 processor (PowerPC 750), 66 MHz system bus, 32 MB PC66 SDRAM, 2 MB vram, 512k backside cache, 4 GB hard drive, 24x CD Rom drive. 13.8 inch screen, 1.44 MB floppy drive, 10Base-T Ethernet, ADB Mouse and Keyboard, OS 8.0, 60 lbs

Upgraded in Summer of 2001: 500 MHz G4 PPC chip, 448 MB RAM, 60 GB hard drive, 6 MB vram, 3 USB 1.0 ports via PCI slot, 2 Firewire 400 ports via PCI slot, OS 9.1

iMac: Purchased May 2008
Dual 2.8 GHz processor (Intel Core 2 Duo), 1066 MHz front side bus, 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 256 MB RAM on video card, 6 MB shared L2 cache, 500 GB Serial ATA 7200 rpm hard drive, Slot loading 8x SuperDrive (DVD-RW/CD-RW), 24 inch wide screen, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 mouse and keyboard, 5 USB 2.0 ports, one Firewire 400 port, one Firewire 800 port, 802.11 a/b/g/n-draft wireless, Bluetooth 2.1, built-in iSight camera, OS X v10.5, 25 lbs.

Yes, the old one still works, although there are times when I've had to hard reboot it three or four times in a row to get it to startup all the way. And I've been bringing a laptop (from grant money) home from school for the last year and a half or so as some things I just couldn't do in OS 9 anymore. But I think that's still pretty good - roughly 10 years of usable life with a little upgrade along the way. I doubt I'll make it 10 years with this new computer, but I'm trying to picture what the specs might look like in the spring of 2018 . . .

11 comments:

  1. re's one spec you forgot to mention on the new iMac: it's beautiful.

    Congrats on the new machine!

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  2. Hi, Mr. Fisch, I'm an AHS student and I bought the exact same iMac you have there back in November. It will serve you well, they are amazing! Enjoy.(Good to see another Mac user, as always :) )

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  3. Always keen to talk about Apple, specifically Macs.

    We had our first a 2C, late 80s. Had about 24 since then.

    Even arranged over the internet in 1996 to pick up a Mac laptop at LA airport from a fellow with only ID, he would be "wearing shoes with orange shoelaces". We actually did it!

    I have 20 inch G5 iMac at the moment and my tech guru, husband has a dual 1.8ghz PPC G5.

    We love our Macs.

    BTW, I enjoy your work.
    Elaine in Sydney

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  4. We still have more than a few of the machines on the left being used as the primary computer in some of our classrooms. I'm amazed at the longevity shown by some of these models but also by the reluctance of a few teachers to give them up.

    So, does it now become a fischbowl? :-)

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  5. Wow! That's amazing you got 10 years out of it. Congrats on the new iMac.

    We now have four Macs in the house: iMac (first-generation Intel), PowerBook, iBook and an old G4 (from 2000). I can't wait to get a new iMac like yours.

    The funniest thing about your specs was the floppy drive. That's like my old boombox with the eight-track tape player.

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  6. The first computer my wife and I purchased had a 2 gig hard drive. I remember telling her that 2 gigs was huge and we would never need more than that. Crazy

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  7. We still have around 8 of those machines in the district (and several G3 Desktops from the same era), and they are now set up as X clients to our Linux Terminal Server. They are great as X clients, and can run all the latest programs, including OpenOffice.org and Firefox (including Flash). I plan on getting at least another 5-10 years out of them!

    I haven't tried to get sound working yet though.

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  8. You might be able to run Ubuntu on your old Mac and still keep it around.

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  9. Thanks for the post. Makes me a little nostalgic for my old Mac LC2. I was thinking about it today as I downloaded the latest Leopard update - a whopping 420MB! The entire hard disk on my LC was only 40MB. How far we've come.

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  10. congrats on the new leopard iMac.

    so now we can look forward to the multimedia podcasts!?

    keynote is a must...the improvement in the 'ppt' makes the update well worthwhile.

    best regards
    gary bass
    melbourne,australia

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  11. Another Mac lover --- GREAT!! Our first Mac was the IIGS when our kids were little.

    I'm still using my G4 from 2001, but now have a new laptop. Once a Mac lover, always one.....

    Keep up the great work!

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