Upgrade Your G4 Cube to a Pentium M Processor 214
reklusband writes "This report tells of a company that has released a processor upgrade for G4 cubes; this upgrade is in the form of a Pentium M. The cube becomes Windows + Linux, x86-blah compatible."
I don't care. (Score:1, Redundant)
Faster Linux?
Whatever (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whatever (Score:2, Interesting)
Upgrade? (Score:2)
Re:Upgrade? (Score:2)
My processor is still better then yours. Get use to it!
Dude. It is G4 (an early one) vs. a Pentium M. There are many years difference. The Pentium M, will kick the G4s but in all spece.
Re:Upgrade? (Score:2)
Any way you look at it it's a step down. Running crap faster does not make crap more useful or palatable
Re:Whatever (Score:2)
why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
and the case of g4 cube is cool - which is why you would do this upgrade(when you've deemed that it's too slow to act as your desktop anyways and would like a linux/windows box with some beef)..
Re:why bother? (Score:5, Interesting)
It may be a nice case mod , but have you seen how much the g4 cubes cost , they are still regularly being sold at around the same price of the MacMini
Re:why bother? (Score:2)
Re:why bother? (Score:5, Funny)
For instance, you can upgrade the G4 cube to a candy dish. I haven't finished the website and powerpoint presentation but in the meantime just follow the article's directions to the point where you remove the old motherboard. Then remove anything else and fill with candy.
Next week I'll share my procedure for turning an old full tower case into a phone stand.
G4 CubeQuarium (Score:2, Interesting)
http://home.comcast.net/~jleblanc77/cube/ [comcast.net]
Re:why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:why bother? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, Apple hasn't decided yet [apple.com]. It sounds to me like the front-runner is EFI.
(The devkits will be BIOS, but that's apparently not the final word.)
Re:why bother? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:why bother? (Score:2)
Re:why bother? (Score:3, Informative)
Source: Apple, Universal Binary Guidelines.
Re:why bother? (Score:2)
So maybe in '09 a Dell Dimension will have the pieces necessary to boot OSXi given some OpenDarwin drivers slipstreamed in but that will give Apple a good head start and practically most people won't bother if a Mini is slightly more expensive.
Re:why bother? (Score:2)
Stage 5 of the switch? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stage 5 of the switch? (Score:5, Funny)
Speechless...
Re:Stage 5 of the switch? (Score:2)
Re:Stage 5 of the switch? (Score:3, Informative)
I went there again as I don't care IRC serious but it turns out to be, its not a joke at all.
Its "toby" at irc.freenode.net which is said to be from Apple itself being chanop on excellent open source projects not-so-excellent official support channels.
Its a normal thing which is a problem for any opensource projects IRC channel.
Re:Stage 5 of the switch? (Score:2)
What a waste of $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right (Score:2, Funny)
Upgrade.... (Score:5, Insightful)
So in other words you take your Mac, that in G4 form probably still works fine with OSX, put in a new motherboard and processor. And now you can use the same BOX as a PC and run Linux.
Not so much an upgrade as using a G4 case, and in terms of an upgrade... So sort of like taking a PDP-11 box, keeping the disc controller and network controller, putting in a Pentium processor, rolling your own Linux and saying "I've upgraded a PDP-11".
NO YOU HAVEN'T because it DOESN'T WORK with the old software.
I would dare try and get my Wife to switch from a Mac onto Linux, that would hugely downgrade my quality of life.
Re:Upgrade.... (Score:1)
K.
Re:Upgrade.... (Score:2)
Well this thing doesn't have Apple-signed DRM firmware so it is never going to run Mac OS, Intel processor or no.
Re:Upgrade.... (Score:2)
If I only I had the space in my house. I can probably get my hands on a few dozen 11/84's
Re:Upgrade.... (Score:2)
ttyl
Farrell
Re:Upgrade.... (Score:3, Insightful)
An air conditioner appears to chuck out more watts of heat from the discharge pipe {if you can measure it; it's actually quite difficult} than you are feeding it in electricity. The difference is how much heat the air conditioner is extracting from the room. Small air conditioners aren't terribly efficient: I hav
Re:Upgrade.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell yes! (Score:2)
So ****ing what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So ****ing what? (Score:1)
Linux is only for PPC, silly...
Re:So ****ing what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So ****ing what? (Score:3, Informative)
Just wait a year... (Score:2)
Re:So ****ing what? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So ****ing what? (Score:2)
Re:So ****ing what? (Score:2)
That doesn't sound like one user to me...
Re:So ****ing what? (Score:2)
I've hated the cult of Mac as long as I've used one, the smug attitude that any one who uses a computer other than a Mac is an idio
But (Score:4, Funny)
Did they give it a fruit name?
Guess they dont teach you fancy pants marketing people like they used to.
Re:But (Score:5, Funny)
You mean like "lemon".
I, for one, call bullshit on that one... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's old news, look at the post date: Monday, February 28 2005 @ 10:27 AM EST.
Bullshit...
Re:I, for one, call bullshit on that one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Old, fake news too, from the same Dana as has done various Visual Hacks [google.co.uk] on assorted Macintoshes.
The site's somewhat dead at the moment, but it's a great read when it's up and running - so long as one's tongue is kept firmly in cheek...
(Off-topic: there's a spider currently walking across my iBook's screen. It started near the bottom and now it's sat at the top, just under the 'Window' menu. Oooer!)
Re:I, for one, call bullshit on that one... (Score:5, Funny)
To discourage spiders, make sure you have a proper robots.txt file.
Re:I, for one, call bullshit on that one... (Score:2)
I've put a robots.txt in Apache's root directory, but I think that only works against actively crawling spiders.
This one appears to have got stuck, and yes, it's still there...
Re:I, for one, call bullshit on that one... (Score:2)
Re:I, for one, call bullshit on that one... (Score:3, Interesting)
The aforementioned spider has since moved away from my iBook, and is currently sat on a wound-up ethernet patch cable that's also on my desk. It's been there for the last hour or so.
Ooh! It just wiggled its pedipalps around, and it's on the move again!
(I can't believe I'm writing a spider-blog, but it's already got more factual content than The Fabled Article...
Pentium M an excellent choice (Score:1, Interesting)
The Pentium M processor is an excellent choice for a desktop system, because having been designed for laptop computers, the power consumption is astonishingly low (around 20W), and it performs at low frequences (~2 Ghz) better than a Pentium 4 clocked much higher (I believe at 3.4 Ghz). As a plus, it operates at a low temperature and with the Asus Pentium M motherboard, the heat automatically kicks in at a user-defined threshold so the computer is silent for most of its operation.
On the downside though, th
But does it run OS X? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But does it run OS X? (Score:1)
or maybe if you find the 'leaked' dev release.
Uhhh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uhhh... (Score:2)
Re:Uhhh... (Score:2)
Thanks for the info, I really was born yesterday you know.
> I would even argue you could have a generally more responsive system by getting rid of a lot of bloat.
Wtf does that have to do with anything?
What site down?? (Score:1)
What I don't understand is... (Score:5, Insightful)
We've seen lots in the last few days about Apple and Intel and some blurring of the lines, but in all this I haven't seen much related to drivers. Think about it for a second. Whether you install Windows on a Mac or OS X on an x86 system, is anything (besides the very basics maybe) going to work?
In order to get OS X as popular on x86 as Windows or Linux it's going to require a LOT of driver writing by both Apple and other vendors. Unless Apple comes up with a way to get Windows-native drivers to work (or Linux I suppose, but Windows has a better full-support native driver base) OS X is going to suffer many of the same problems Linux does with hardware support, specifically products that are not mainstream.
Or am I wrong and is there a quick and easy way to build a native "plug-'n-pray" driver base such as Windows XP has? Love it or hate it, you have to admit that XP really does have great native support for tons of stuff, a feature which is a huge plus for a lot of people. Usually, it really does Just Work (TM)
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Jan
It's about peripherals (Score:2)
Things like external audio interfaces wont "just work"
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:5, Insightful)
This actually is not TOO huge of a problem.
Since Apple switched over to PCI and AGP ports quite some time ago, there already exists a large hardware base designed around those two industry standards.
Next, since the actual OSX kernel compiles against both the PowerPC and x86 platforms, any kernel calls in the drivers will not have to be rewritten.
Indeed depending on how Apple handles their BIOS calls, very little may need to be rewritten at all. Many hardware devices now days are CPU assisted, (sound cards, network cards, modems, and so on) which may help Apple a great deal as the heart of these types of devices drivers essentially boils down to Kernel calls and a basic software app, both of which should port over easily.
Basically anything that already has an OSX driver on the PowerPC platform should, with not too much work, and often times maybe with no work at all, have an equivilent driver on an OSX release on x86.
A dream goal for Apple of course would be drivers needing no porting at all, since it is very unlikely that venders will put even the slightest effort in porting over drivers for older hardware. Heck even in the world of Windows, hardware support often times falls to the wayside after only 3 or 4 years! (In other words a lot of hardware that was released for 98, ME, and Windows 2000 ended up without Windows XP support! Ouch!)
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most companies who haven't released their specs to Apple, on the other hand, will be out in the dark when it comes to writing new device drivers. Apple's gone out of their way to make it easy two switch between the platforms, device drivers are not going to be something to slow them down.
That's one of the advantages of running a microkernel like Mach; *everything* plugs in to it, so making a driver work shouldn't take much mucking around inside of the kernel wondering why something completely doesn't work.
WTF 5 Insightful!? (Score:2)
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, device drivers for your generic Intel hardware --WONT BE MADE-- *shock and amazement*.
But, that probably won't stop the hackers from trying their best to boot it on Whiteboxen. And I'm sure they'll succeed, but the lengths they go at to succeed won't be worth it to the average user.
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:3, Insightful)
The same way the big auto makers get people to buy SUVs. Put huge premiums on them, making them expensive so they become a status symbol.
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:3, Interesting)
In short part of the strength of the Mac is that developers, including Apple, can assume that it will only be run on a very small set of hardware, and thus anything that is not within that set will no
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:2)
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:2)
Apple probably will support a thin subset of the avaliable Intel ChipSets. They'll not going to support every chipset, and commodity hardware out there.
Actually I think this is how they'll prevent MacOSX from running on other hardware, by not providing ChipsetDrivers. Of course there is OpenDarwin, and there will be lots of hackers out there providing drivers to support their favorite Mother Board and processor... And Apple will gladly use all those contribuitions in the future if they sw
Apple is not going to support OS X on any ... (Score:2)
That it will get there is a given. Hackers are inventive and resourceful.
But Apple is once bitten and twice shy about the entire cloning thing. Been there, done the slow bleed, thank you.
With weekly software updates, your box 'phones home' to the mothership and can download stuff that can 'investigate' the downlolader's geshtalt and report any non-standard chipset usage.
Apple has realized what Microsoft never knew because of how Microsoft acquired their market, and w
Re:Apple is not going to support OS X on any ... (Score:2)
And as I said, Apple has a lot to gain from these hackers... if they figure out how to put OSX working on AMD boxes it means free research made for Apple.
Building MacOSX atop of a OpenSource kernel was a incredible smart move... now every driver created, every bug squached, every software ported will mean less research costs. In a matter of months App
Re:Apple is not going to support OS X on any ... (Score:2)
Re:What I don't understand is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Darwin's an interesting animal. It's a hybrid of FreeBSD and the Mach micro-kernel. I'd almost go as far as saying FreeBSD is a module *within* Mach, but that's not entirely true.
Darwin drivers, as they exist, should work for Mac OS X, but not many exist. And I wouldn't look for this to change as time goes on either.
Re:XP plug and play (Score:3, Informative)
Unless people are willing to download hundreds of megabytes of driver additions via Windows Update the OS is just not going to have the modules to talk to the newest hardware out of the box.
Re:XP plug and play (Score:2)
Generally, that would be every device that is not of a "standard class" (mass storage, generally) released after the OS was shipped.
And lots of devices that were released before the OS was shipped as well; XP's builtin driver database is pretty skimpy when it comes to older hardware. And, even more irritating, lots of devices for which XP actually has a functional driver but won't use, just because the device identifies itself in a different way (different mfg., same chipset).
The second most annoyi
Re:XP plug and play (Score:2)
Err.. (Score:1)
I can see applications for this (Score:3, Funny)
Mirror... (Score:3, Informative)
I see the steps! (Score:5, Funny)
2. Watch the Mac zealots go apeshit.
3. Profit from ad revenue!
it's all about the functionality... (Score:2, Insightful)
FAKE (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FAKE (Score:2)
One COULD make a custom chipset to connect to the G4 Cube's chipset (I've heard that Acorn did something just like that for their 486 card), but I HIGHLY doubt that someone would do that nowadays...
Re:FAKE (Score:2)
Applied Engineering even sold a 8086 compatibility card for the
OTOH, this is just dumb, especially in light of the recently posted article on sub-$300 PCs.
Re:FAKE (Score:2)
Re:FAKE (Score:2)
IIRC the Mac->PC cards didn't even use the onboard video. They had a loopback cable between the system video and the PC card, and a built-in analog MUX would switch the video out lines between the Mac and the PC's raster.
Friend of a friend? (Score:2)
Oh right, like we should believe these "friend of a friend" anecdotes?
....in the form of ..... (Score:2, Funny)
Be more credible if it was a casemod. (Score:3, Insightful)
But it would be a lot easier to replace the whole cube motherboard, not just the ZIF.
The upgrade makes lots of sense (Score:2)
Hoax (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, they are claiming to make a CPU board that plugs into the Cube's main board. With a few BIOS tweaks they can run x86 software.
This is, of course, bullshit. It will take much more than plugging a board in, and some BIOS mods, to get a Mac/PowerPC system to be able to use an x86 processor.
what's so wrong with the upgrade? (Score:2, Insightful)
Physician, heal thyself (Score:2)
I didn't see a single post about the evils of Pentiums. Violent?
Huh?
This is a FAKE (Score:2)
If it was real (or even possible), it would't be marketed as a Cube upgrade, it'd be marketed as an upgrade for G4's, not just the Cube. That's because the Cube uses the same CPU module as the first few Powermac G4's, and there are a lot more of those than there are Cubes.
It's interesting to speculate whether such a thing could be done;
Re:Yes, but.. (Score:1)
Re:Yes, but.. (Score:1)
Yes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Many people do not realize that Ap
Re:Yes! (Score:2)
Aroused what who? Are you talking about one of those cases where Apple sicced their lega
Re:Okay (Score:2)