Cheapest Way to Experience OS-X?

[nageov3t]

any suggestions?

I'm thinking about buying a Mac, but I've never used the operating system, and if I don't like it, it looks like I'll have to pay a restocking fee in order to return it (10%-15% depending on where I buy it).

 

[n0cmonkey]

Steal a Mac or use PearPC.

 

[pitupepito2000]

go to your local library and/or local university, see if they have macs for the general public to use. they also may have books on Mac OS X

 

[drag]

I know that some stores will let you do a trial period. I think it's encoreged by apple. I've heard of it a couple times, but I never tried it or anything.

Other then that the cheapest that'd I do personally is head on down to www.apple.com and go to the store and check out the "special" section. They'll have a refurbished versions of their hardware aviable. Usually 100-200 dollars cheaper then new. 1year warrentee by default or you can get the extended period support for another couple hundred dollars.

I'm saving up for one myself. But money has a way of getting spent anyways.

 

[NewBlackDak]

If you're a wintel wimp(stuck on windows) you probably won't like OS X. If you like UNIX, and it's derivatives then you'll probably love OS X. It's a supported commercially available OS that you can run your purchased programs on, and still install opensource tools to use those too.

 

[sciencewhiz]

go to an apple store and play around and ask questions for a few hours.

 

[Ionizer86]

Hop on ebay and buy an older G3 or something at a good price. If you don't like the mac that much, resell for a similar or higher price. Comes out to free trial or trial + make slight profit.

 

[Yanagi]

isnt there a MAc oS X for PC?

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: Yanagi
isnt there a MAc oS X for PC?

No - but the underlying source code is available

http://developer.apple.com/darwin/

 

[drag]

Their is a PearPC emulator to run full OS X on PC. But it's going to be slow and you need your own copy of the installation CD's for OS X.

There is Darwin, which is the underlyning Unix layer to OS X. It's mostly BSD and your not going to be able to run the OS X aqua GUI on top of it. So it would be the same as any other Unix OS from a user perspective.

 

[Yanagi]

Originally posted by: spherrod

Originally posted by: Yanagi
isnt there a MAc oS X for PC?

No - but the underlying source code is available

http://developer.apple.com/darwin/

Aah ok. My bad then. I was almost sure i had heard of a PC version of OS X coming out.. :/ Would be kind of neat tho

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: Yanagi

Originally posted by: spherrod

Originally posted by: Yanagi
isnt there a MAc oS X for PC?

No - but the underlying source code is available

http://developer.apple.com/darwin/

Aah ok. My bad then. I was almost sure i had heard of a PC version of OS X coming out.. :/ Would be kind of neat tho

There are 'rumours' that Apple has a PC version running at their headquarters but I can't see them ever releasing it

 

[drag]

If apple wanted to run OS X on x86 they could. But they aren't and don't want to.

Their whole business model is from them selling computers. They are more like a HP then a Microsoft.

HP makes operating systems and they sell computers. Apple makes operating systems and sells computers. MS just makes OSes, and Dell just sells computers. Each business has a different angle, they couldn't survive any other way.

 

[The Green Bean]

HP makes OSes? ;o

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: hatim
HP makes OSes? ;o

Oh sure. HP makes a lot of stuff.
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/prodserv/software.html

You have to remember that desktop arena is the just one part, just a fraction of what goes on in the computer land.

In fact it's actually pretty small when you considure things like embedded computers and stuff like that. Hell most people own a desktop. Maybe a new desktop comptuer and a old one. A few personal servers here and their.

But I'd bet you that you own maybe 20 different computers, maybe you operate or come in contact with hundreds. Coffee makers, phones, security systems. Fancy TV's, the stoplights, etc etc etc. Each with a little CPU, some small amount of RAM, and a operating system.

But what HP makes OS's for is the big iron. Used to do VMS and such but now is Unix, moving onward to Linux eventually, maybe. (who knows the future? Things change so fast) Many people don't considure Windows up to snuff for a lot of things.

HP's OSes: HP-UX, Tru64, OpenVMS and some other stuff. Hell a lot of programmers from VMS went to go work for MS when VMS stuff got closed and incorporated a lot of the technology they learned/figured out into NT.

Think about it, take the letters of the alphabet and look at VMS. Now move one letter to the right. Then put them back into the order of VMS. What does it spell?
W N T.
Windows NT.

Now you know.