mac vs. pc (building)

CraigK · October 2nd, 2003, 03:11 AM

Why is it that you cannot buy the parts to build a mac computer like you can a windows system? this seem to be one of the biggest things holding back macs. I know that if I could build a mac I would. I actually plan on buying mac when I finally shell out the paper for a lappy.

Any answers given would be very grateful.

DemonKnight · October 2nd, 2003, 05:55 PM

Cause apple owns the Mac hardware, PC hardware is fair game to any one that wants to make some, buck Apple has the rights to the Mac name, system, and every thing else. (and they dont want other companies to take over what they own I gusse.) I'd like to build a mac my self, but I dont see it happening any time soon.

daveleau · October 2nd, 2003, 06:21 PM

Macintosh parts can not be manufactured by any other company than Apple and Apple does not sell OEM PC manufacturers. If Macintosh parts were able to be licensed by other companies for manufacture, I think you would see a bunch of Macs made. They have some great ideas and great technology. I love the way the Mac cases come apart.

omalleytrading · October 2nd, 2003, 06:28 PM

I don't think you're 100% correct, Craig.

I believe you CAN build your own Mac if you're dilligent enough. Resellers can probably get you any replacement part you need for a Mac, be it hard drive, motherboard or power supply. If you just order all the replacement parts, you can build one from scratch.

That said, my guess is that it would be more expensive than just buying a new one, but if you're in it for the adventure, that does seem to be an option.

The Screen Savers also did a bit on this a while back. Take a look at:

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/m...411914,00.html

Eraserhead · October 2nd, 2003, 06:32 PM

This is the whole reason why PC's are ubiquitous and Mac's are in the minority.
When the original IBM PC was made, there was no one manufacturer or group of manufacturers that had an exclusive license to provide the components, so the field was wide open for a whole host of manufacturers to design their own systems built upon the "IBM-compatible" architecture.

As DemonKnight says, Apple went the other way and secured exclusive rights to the build and architecture of Apple machines.

The downside for PC owners, however, is that there are major compatability issues with hardware and software (hence forums like these) because there are so many possible configurations of PC's.
Writing software, for example, is fairly straightforward on a Mac - they're all pretty much the same, but for PC's compatability has to be checked against different CPU's, operating systems, memory, video cards etc. etc.
Still, it keeps techies in business...

Tomteriffic · October 2nd, 2003, 06:46 PM

Yep, it "can" be done and some folks have even modded ATX cases to get a G4 to go in there. And, items like hard drives and RAM have finally gotten to be compatible with their PC counterparts and therefore, not too pricey. Having said that, if you want the Mac to truly behave like a Mac, stuff like DVD drives and such will have to be Apple compatible at the very least in order to be bootable, have the drive accessible from the desktop and that kind of stuff.

Just for funzies, I'm doing a project I'm calling "The Hemi Project", which involves taking a 10 year old "donation" PowerMac 6100 with a 60 Mhz processor and 16 megs and turning it into a 500 Mhz G3 with 136 megs, a 10K RPM ultrawide SCSI HDD, CD-RW, Networking, Modem, and passable, if not gamer quality, graphics. Oh, and my self imposed rules say I still have to be able to close it's little bitty pizza-box case

I've done a fair amount of horse-trading, eBaying and just plain scrounging and I'm almost done. So far it's into me for about $300, and if I hadn't done the scrounging and horse-trading, as well as already having a few parts, the number would be closer to $500. I could build a pretty good, and faster, PC for that amount, but it's the challenge of the thing and the fun involved. It'll look like a sad little 10-year old Mac but still be able to run anything that isn't OS-X-only. And pretty darn quickly, too, since Mac code is so much more compact.

ArcticFox · October 2nd, 2003, 07:17 PM

Tom, that's pretty cool! I would suggest writing a website detailing your project - it would make for a great read!

Tomteriffic · October 2nd, 2003, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ArcticFox
Tom, that's pretty cool! I would suggest writing a website detailing your project - it would make for a great read!

Funny you should mention it. I came by some free webspace and I want to try to do some stuff in Perl. The webmaster (my coach in the Perl thing) is a Mac kinda guy, so, assuming I can get the Hemi Project on the web, I wanna do it on that machine so we don't have a bunch of platform translation headaches on top of learning a new language

(as if learning Mac wasn't trying enough )

DemonKnight · October 2nd, 2003, 09:15 PM

I'm not understanding the name... oh wait I just got it

Good luck. (I think I got it)

Tomteriffic · October 2nd, 2003, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DemonKnight
I'm not understanding the name... oh wait I just got it Good luck. (I think I got it)

Sort of analagous to trying to shove a Hemi into a VW Beetle

If that's what you were thinking, you're right!