Is there any hope for Macs?

[Olive]

I use a PC with IE at home and a iMac with IE at work. I have incredible problems with the iMac. And not just with the boards (although I don't have the failure to refresh problem like I did at other places I've worked with macs), but with one loading webpage causeing the entire machine to freeze until it's over. On my home PC I can multitask to my eharts content, but the work mac is slow as all hell...

And it's not jsut the iMac, it's every OS9 mac I've ever used... absolute crap for web browsing.

Am I the only one?

 

[barsoomcore]

My Mac at work is four years old. You're saying that it is too old. I'll give you that. It most definitely is. On the other hand, most of my PC is also 4 years old. It is FAR from too old. I spend about $150 a year (sometimes more, sometimes less) upgrading it.

I'm not saying your Mac is too old. It isn't. Spending $150 a year on your Mac would pay easily for Mac OS X, which would (as many have noted) solve your problem. And leave you with $450 to upgrade both your memory and your CPU.

My iMac could only run OS 10 by the intervention of deities. As such, I do not have access to any current Mac software, and no option of improving what I have.

Well, I'm sorry that you're in this situation, but you ARE using four-year-old technology. You shouldn't be surprised that it doesn't handle modern content. Switch to a four-year-old version of Windows with a four-year-old browser and run it on four-year-old hardware and see how many modern sites break. A goodly few, I'll reckon.

So please, forego the smug, "well, you don't even know enough to know that your machine is a dinosaur" attitude.

I'm not trying to be smug. And your problem is not that your Mac is four years old. It's that your technology is four years old, and you're trying to make use of modern content. The fact is that the Web changes quickly, and new content needs new user clients. Four years old is pretty darn old.

Now, I'm running on a beige G3 266 that is substantially older than your iMac, and it peps along just fine, OS X, EN World, the whole shebang. So your iMac is plenty new enough. Sorry if I'm coming across as smug, or giving the impression that I think you don't know stuff. Neither is intentional, I assure you. I just don't think you're making a fair comparision.

Browsing modern content on OS 9 is an exercise in frustration. Javascript support and CSS support are shaky, rendering is slow and clunky and the browsers are error-prone. Browsing on OS X is a dream. I work on Windows and at home I'm on OS X and there's no question in my mind that I get better results on my Mac.

So to recap: I'm not saying your Mac is too old. I'm saying your technology is too old. If you were able to spend one-fourth what you've spent on your PC on your Mac, your problems would be solved.

 

[buzz]

Naturally, I want to chime in with Barsoomcore, here. My Mac is four years old, and it's running the latest version of MacOS X with absolutely no problems. The only thing I've ever upgraded is RAM.

I'd be curious to know how much the four-year-old PC that can still run XP originally cost, and what kind of components it's been upgraded with. My wife's PC was one of the "affordable" machines Apple is often berated for not producing, and it can barely run Win98 at an acceptable pace. It'd puke completely if I installed XP on it. So, now we have to replace it, while my Mac (which admittedly cost a lot more than her PC back then) is basically good to go. Granted, that could probably be said if she'd bought a really nice Dell back then, but then the affordability argument goes out the window.

Ditto my old machine at work; it was one of the original iPaqs, and after a couple of months trying to do Web work on it, it needed to be ditched and the company bought me a brand new box. Doing anything beyond email and Word on that machine was Ctrl-Alt-Del city.

:Looks at thread:

Man, we've derailed. Sorry, folks. All I can say is, yeah, OS9 can be a PITA. Odds are, any Mac built since 1999 can handle MacOS X, so I advise upgrading. The $129 will do wonders.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'm not saying your Mac is too old. It isn't. Spending $150 a year on your Mac would pay easily for Mac OS X, which would (as many have noted) solve your problem. And leave you with $450 to upgrade both your memory and your CPU.

1) This is my work computer. I'm not willing to sink my personal money into it.

2) As far as our resident Mac experts have told me, there's no worthwhile way to upgrade the iMac beyond RAM, which I've done. Twice.

Well, I'm sorry that you're in this situation, but you ARE using four-year-old technology. You shouldn't be surprised that it doesn't handle modern content. Switch to a four-year-old version of Windows with a four-year-old browser and run it on four-year-old hardware and see how many modern sites break. A goodly few, I'll reckon.

Nope. My girlfriend's 6 year old Dell handles the world just fine. This, however, is not the result of any superiority in PCs, but the result of the world being invested in IE on PCs.

Now, I'm running on a beige G3 266 that is substantially older than your iMac, and it peps along just fine, OS X, EN World, the whole shebang. So your iMac is plenty new enough. Sorry if I'm coming across as smug, or giving the impression that I think you don't know stuff. Neither is intentional, I assure you. I just don't think you're making a fair comparision.

The beige G3s are more upgradable than iMacs. Not as upgradable as the modern Mac boxes, which are actually quite nice that way. I was bowled over the first time I opened a blue G3 case and saw that they had made working on your machine user-friendly. Something Mac was not previously known for.

Browsing on OS X is a dream. I work on Windows and at home I'm on OS X and there's no question in my mind that I get better results on my Mac.

Eh. When I've browsed on OS 10 machines, I've not noticed any significant difference from PCs. Outside of the sites, like most PC and console gaming sites, which only work properly on PCs. But again, that's probably a design issue.

I'd be curious to know how much the four-year-old PC that can still run XP originally cost, and what kind of components it's been upgraded with.

Original outlay: $530 I did swap in my current drives and network card at that time, so that's for the case/power supply, motherboard, DDR RAM, and processor. I have since installed a new hard drive. New CD/RW. One processor upgrade. New heat sink. Doubled the RAM. I also updated to Win 2000, in order to address all that RAM properly. Though that wasn't included in the $1000, because it didn't cost me anything. Everything but the CD/RW is a quality component I picked up when it went on sale. The CD/RW is pretty clunky, but it gets the job done and cost me $30. The only thing it needs is a new graphics card. So I'll probably exceed my projected costs this year, since I'm eyeing the Radeon 9600 XT, which will run me $250 by itself.

Oh, and your iPaq experience is typical. Compaq made the worst machines on the market. You can get better performance out of a stripped down eMachine than out of the best Compaq ever built. :shudders:

At any rate, I appreciate the advice, guys, but I've seen OS 10 running on these first generation iMacs, and I don't want it. Eventually I'll replace my box at home, and I'll be able to bring the old one to the lab and toss the iMac. Or maybe I can attach some funds for new computers to our next grant proposal.

 

[Mirth]

...and toss the iMac...

If you're gonna chuck it anyway, I'll pay for the shipping and you can throw it this way

 

[buzz]

Oh, and your iPaq experience is typical. Compaq made the worst machines on the market. You can get better performance out of a stripped down eMachine than out of the best Compaq ever built. :shudders:

True. How the non-profit I work for got conned into buying a couple hundred of them (much less contracting with Compaq, as opposed to a company that doesn't suck, like Dell), I'll never know.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

If you're gonna chuck it anyway, I'll pay for the shipping and you can throw it this way

If and when it comes up, I'll remember that.

 

[barsoomcore]

I've seen OS 10 running on these first generation iMacs, and I don't want it.

Well, fair enough, then. I think people have been clear that installing OS X will solve your problem. If you don't want to, of course, nobody can force you to. But like I say, I'm running it on a machine that is older and less powerful than your iMac and it works great for me, so there's no reason not to -- it wil IMPROVE things, I guarantee it.

Things may still suck, of course. But they'll suck less, is what I'm saying.