OCTOBER 22, 1999
musings by thejunkie
vancouver, canada
http://www.thejunkie.com

Apple's Cheap Trick

Apple produced a great G3 known as the B&W G3, a fast inexpensive PowerMac. Among it's features was an upgradeable processor. I got the 400, and one day planned to upgrade to a G4 when they came out. I bought it with this intention so I could take the G3 in my G3 400 and put it into my 9600/300 and take that card and give it to the highest bidder on ebay. Now, one day Apple introduced a update that was going to update my B&W G3 to a new ROM that contained bug fixes and a speed improvement to my PCI bus. I excitedly installed this update to my machine in hope of a faster more stable machine, only to render my future upgrade plans useless. Why? Because that updater had a piece of code in it that prevented the machine form using a G4. Now I have a 400MHz machine that I can only upgrade to faster G3 currently only a 100Mhz possible speed gain without Velocity Engine. Now Apple gives no comment but dances around the question. They did introduce a new G4 based on the Yikes! Project, using a Yosemite logic board. That's the same motherboard as my G3. If Apple can get a G4 to run on a nearly identical logic board, why will the G4 not work in my machine? Because they want me to buy a G4. Now I will buy a G4 in about 6 months (funds permiting), but I want more speed now. Apple has made leaps and bounds from the Mac of yesteryear, but at what coast? Business ethics?