PC hardware Mac OS?

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ikickpigeons

Senior member
Jun 17, 2004
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this probably seems like a stupid question, but my sister only uses macs sadly and i cant convince her of using PC. So my dad HAS to by her a mac becuase she says she wont and cant use a PC. So the other night an idea popped into my head. Macs are overpriced pieces of shit, but my sister likes the OS, so could i build a custom pc, then load OS X instead of windows? Will this work?
 
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addragyn

Golden Member
Sep 21, 2000
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No you can't do that.

You can run OS X on top of an emulator. Google PearPC. It's slow.
 
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silent tone

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,571
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76
Originally posted by: addragyn
If you think they're such a rip and have so much time why not grab her a $549 eMac and overclock and upgrade it. Learn some new tricks.
Click to expand...

I didn't know emacs were so expensive.

Compare Dell

Dimension 3000 Desktop P4 2.8GHz, 256MB, 80GB, 48x CD-RW, XP Home, Floppy, 17" LCD, dell 720 Color Printer, 2 Year Basic Service » only $498.00

and Apple

eMac 1GHz G4/ 256MB/ 40GB/ CD-ROM/ NO MODEM/ 1 year warranty 17" CRT $549


The Dell is new, and the Apple is a refurb.
 
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thirdlegstump

Banned
Feb 12, 2001
8,713
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Just get a new Mac. You won't regret it. They may appear overpriced compared to PC's but their processors are MUCH faster per MHz and also the software are so well written, you rarely will have problems. Let's not forget absolute ease of use, beautiful asthetics, smooth workflow and lower cost of ownership that will pay you back over time. Also no BIOS to tweak, no viruses and no spyware to worry about either. They simply work and get the job DONE. It's worth the extra few hundred $ over a PC if her work calls for it. There's no point in trying to convert her into using PC's.
 
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thirdlegstump

Banned
Feb 12, 2001
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Originally posted by: istallion
Originally posted by: addragyn
If you think they're such a rip and have so much time why not grab her a $549 eMac and overclock and upgrade it. Learn some new tricks.
Click to expand...

I didn't know emacs were so expensive.

Compare Dell

Dimension 3000 Desktop P4 2.8GHz, 256MB, 80GB, 48x CD-RW, XP Home, Floppy, 17" LCD, dell 720 Color Printer, 2 Year Basic Service » only $498.00

and Apple

eMac 1GHz G4/ 256MB/ 40GB/ CD-ROM/ NO MODEM/ 1 year warranty 17" CRT $549


The Dell is new, and the Apple is a refurb.
Click to expand...


The eMacs DO come with a modem. The price ain't that much different.
 
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Corporate Thug

Lifer
Apr 17, 2003
37,622
0
76
Originally posted by: ikickpigeons
this probably seems like a stupid question, but my sister only uses macs sadly and i cant convince her of using PC. So my dad HAS to by her a mac becuase she says she wont and cant use a PC. So the other night an idea popped into my head. Macs are overpriced pieces of shit, but my sister likes the OS, so could i build a custom pc, then load OS X instead of windows? Will this work?
Click to expand...

i think the only thing that was worse than the question is the idea that macs are a piece of $Hit
 
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halfadder

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2004
1,190
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There are rumors that Apple builds Mac OS X for x86/PC hardware internally, in the event that IBM and Motorola/Freescale quit making G4 and G5 chips.

I know this isn't what you're asking for, but if you just want the unix underpinnings and not the GUI, you can get it here:
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
The core OS, drivers, and all of the unix bits of Mac OS X are opensource under the "Darwin" name. The GUI (Carbon and Cocoa) are closed source, but X11 is available. There's even a full Darwin based unix distro:
http://www.opendarwin.org/

Handy for software developers and driver writers, but not too useful for the rest of us.
 
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halfadder

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2004
1,190
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For what it's worth, I use both Mac and Windows. I have several PCs for home and work use, and I have a PowerBook G4 I use mostly for presentations with PowerPoint 2004 (it's OK) and Keynote (it ROCKS!). More recently I've been using iPhoto and iMovie to manage my digital photos and digital camcorder videos. There are good and bad points about Mac OS X and Apple hardware... just as there are with Windows and PC hardware. I like both.
 
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ikickpigeons

Senior member
Jun 17, 2004
393
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0
WOW. this is a lot of replies. Didnt expect that with this thread. Well i guess my dad will buy her a mac computer because we should probably make it easy for her. Thank you all for the replies.
 
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footbal07

Senior member
Apr 3, 2004
270
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0
at school we used to have to work on old imacs and i absolutely hated them, but lately i have been using a g4 with a gig of ram and tri moniters running osx at school and i have to say that they have a pretty nice setup. i even admit that i have caught myself pricing out g5s a number of times but i just dont have enough for a dual 2.5s right now. if your sister just wants something simple thats clean and easy to work on i would go ahead and get her a mac.
 
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halfadder

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2004
1,190
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CRT iMacs are really miserable to use, except maybe for the last generation of 500 - 700 MHz slot-loat CRT iMacs. The rest came out in 1998 using 1997 Apple parts. Ugh. Couple that with Mac OS 8 or 9 and it's even worse. Not even a good web browser to use on the dang things (Mac MSIE sucks, and there's no modern Mozilla based browsers for OS 9). Most schools never even put enough RAM in their iMacs.

But I really do like Mac OS X on modern Apple hardware. Version 10.3 really improved things a great deal, but heck, even the original 10.0 was lightyears ahead of Mac OS 9 (totally different architecture, totally new OS). I bought a PowerBook G4 last year to experiment with and now I use it for all of my presentations using Keynote (and sometimes Mac PowerPoint 2004). I'm also starting to use it for my photos and home movies with iPhoto and iMovie+iDVD.

ikickpigeons, was your sister used to Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X? OS X is totally different from OS 9. If she was used to the older OS 9, then Windows XP would be just as easy for her to learn as OS X. Besides, if you do make the upgrade to OS X, you will not want to run your old OS 9 programs... you want to go pure OS 9 or pure OS X. Any mix of the two is a mess, and sometimes unstable.

I recommend that OS 9 users make the leap to a pure Win XP or a pure OS X environment. There's no such thing as a smooth transition from 9 to X (although you can obviously move over all of your data files from AppleWorks, Mac MS Office, iMovie, iTunes, etc etc etc). Running old "Classic" OS 9 apps on Mac OS X is like running 16 bit Windows 3.1 programs on Windows XP.
 
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halfadder

Golden Member
Dec 5, 2004
1,190
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It's no bargain, but the $1300 ($1200 if you're a student) iMac G5 is pretty slick. The back pops off for easy access to components for future upgrades too.

But you still have to factor in the cost of another stick of ram from newegg, though, as 256 MB isn't really enough for any modern system. The machine can do dual channel if you match two DIMMs. One thing I don't like about the iMac is the low FSB speed. The iMacs only have 533 and 600 MHz FSB, while the G5 towers have independent 1.25 GHz FSB for each CPU on the big model.

I love my PowerBook, but I kinda wish they made an iMac with the same brushed aluminum finish and maybe a better GPU. But I think I'm going to build an A64 + 6600 GT system before I look for another Mac.
 
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hopejr

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
841
0
0
I had a look at an iMac G5 today. It was really nice, but I think they're a bit expensive. If I had the money, I'd get one.
 
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