New to Apple & OS X.....Have questions

[Montano]

I've been building PC's for years and decided to see what Apple was all about. So I got a G4 that has a 8x CDRW, and no Zip drive or sound card. It did come with an ATI 8500 Radeon MAC Edition card though My questions are: Are there MAC specific CDRW's, or will any IDE CDRW work?? Same with the Zip drive?? As for sound, my G4 has the 'mini-jack', and is considered a 'Digital Audio' MAC. Not sure what that's all about, but can I slap a SB Audigy in it??

If these things require MAC specific hardware, can you recommend some?? And maybe a website with lots of MAC hardware info.

Thanks !!

PS. Can I put a DVD-ROM in it, and will it work out of the box with the ATI 8500. Or will I need a decoder card??

 

[mikecel79]

This doesn't really belong in this forums but....You can use any IDE or SCSI (if you have a SCSI card in your Mac) CD/DVD drive. They use the same ones as PCs. Same goes for Zip drives. You also shouldn't need a decoder card if you put in a DVD drive. I don't know about the sound card though.

 

[drag]

I don't know about the sound, but traditionally Mac has always had high quality sound built-in compared to their PC counterparts.

 

[DeadMilkman]

Sound cards are more picky *( mainly due to lack of drivers *) but Zip/DVD drives should be no problem

IF Apple's DVD player will not recognize the drive use video lan client (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)

I'll go on and list while I'm here

Standard parts you should have no trouble switching between Macs and PCs

Memory (just know what your board uses)
Hard Drives (just need to format them correctly)
IDE Drives (Zip, CD, CDRW, DVD, DVDR* DVDRW*) *= iDVD is picky but the OS isn't.
almost anything USB
almost anything firewire IEEE1394
Cables

NonStandards or things you can IF you payattention and know what your doing
#1 VideoCards (mainly do to the flash rom bios...) there are several cross platform cards though (GF-MX2)
#2 Ethernet cards- many will work but not everything will...just double check on what it supports.
#3 Sound Cards - not used as much since apple usually does a decent job with onboard sound...you really need to watch out on driver support.
#4 Internal modems ( headache )
#5 Cases- apple MBs tend to have interesting holes, shapes, and sizes...but many modders have done them both ways.
#6 Power Supplies (headache) on the plus side its very rare to hear of Apple PS. They usually use decent ones that'll last a while.

 

[Montano]

Thanks for the info DeadMilkman

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

#2 Ethernet cards- many will work but not everything will...just double check on what it supports.

D-Link DFE 530tx works fine. G4 should have onboard ethernet though.

#3 Sound Cards - not used as much since apple usually does a decent job with onboard sound...you really need to watch out on driver support.

Near impossible. At least for something affordable. Only one I ever found was the SBLive! mac edition and even that was $100.:Q

#5 Cases- apple MBs tend to have interesting holes, shapes, and sizes...but many modders have done them both ways.

Agreed...Uber-proprietary there.

#6 Power Supplies (headache) on the plus side its very rare to hear of Apple PS. They usually use decent ones that'll last a while.

Standard ATX ones can be used, but they need a seperate convertor. The pinouts are different. Here is an excellent article on this subject.

IDE Drives (Zip, CD, CDRW, DVD, DVDR* DVDRW*) *= iDVD is picky but the OS isn't.

iTunes is also picky about what devices it will use for recording.

 

[gsaldivar]

This website has 3rd-party (non-Apple) CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive compatibility info.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

me love apple ...

 

[DeadMilkman]

Originally posted by: GonzoDaGr8

#2 Ethernet cards- many will work but not everything will...just double check on what it supports.

D-Link DFE 530tx works fine. G4 should have onboard ethernet though.

Just about anything in the last three-five years has onboard ether....I just have one server with three nics on three different subnets...(Took me an hour to dig through my pile of nics to find 2 that were happy... it just did not like my older stock 3com cards...)

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Originally posted by: DeadMilkman

Originally posted by: GonzoDaGr8

#2 Ethernet cards- many will work but not everything will...just double check on what it supports.

D-Link DFE 530tx works fine. G4 should have onboard ethernet though.

Just about anything in the last three-five years has onboard ether....I just have one server with three nics on three different subnets...(Took me an hour to dig through my pile of nics to find 2 that were happy... it just did not like my older stock 3com cards...)

Beige G3 and below have 10Mbps nic onboard. B/W G3-up Have 10/100Mbps onboard.