The company is Magma (or at least the only one I'm aware of). I
actually use their products on a regular basis; (mostly with Toshiba
laptops).

They don't work with either the iMac or Mac Mini. Essentially you need
access to the bus in the first place in order to expand it. They have
products to bridge PCI, PCI-Express, Expresscard, and CardBus, to
external PCI expansion chassis, but the lower end macs have no
expansion capabilities at all.

That, aside, while the Magma systems are a great solution, they are
not cheap, often costing more than the laptop we're attaching them
too. The price of portability I guess; although I'd be all over a
"laptop" with a half-length full height PCI slot. Such a thing would
be great for trade shows.

Also, Magma systems amount to a 'bridge', and add electronics between
the expansion bus, and the internal bus which affects signal timing
and so forth; which can wreak havoc with some less robust device
drivers. So it doesn't work reliably with all devices.

-cheers,
Dave

On Apr 21, 12:28 am, Helpful Harry <helpful_ha... (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com>
wrote:
Right but you wouldn't need to, because without parallels, half the
RAM in the mac is sufficient.
Not that it really matters, given how cheap RAM is.

Bootcamp? Not likely. I'm not going to spend a small fortune on a dual
xeon based mac just to reboot it everytime I want to use windows apps.
Especially, when the alternative is a discrete Mac and PC which would
be running simultaneously and rebooted independantly.

Bootcamp is great, for what it is, but if all Macs had was bootcamp,
I'd buy a Mac + PC just to avoid constantly rebooting.

Yes. And its a requirement that effectively disqualifies Macs.
That is the entire reason I'm annoyed; as I would prefer to buy a Mac.
But a Mac Pro doesn't make sense for me, and everything else they make
won't work for me.

Absolutely. If you happen to be running an application that actually
benefits from multiple dual core or quad core xeon processors. I,
unfortunately, happen not to be.

For my purposes, the Mac Pro is only more expensive, not more
powerful.

cheers,
Dave

In article <1177400071.484647.220570 (AT) u32g2000prd (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
d-42 <db.porsche (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

No amount of RAM is ever sufficient, same goes for the amount of hard
drive space. ;o)



Cheap is relative. It's not cheap for me since I earn very little. )




But your personal requirement doesn't invalidate the "rule" for
everyone else, just you. )



Well, you can always buy an older second-hand Mac Pro (or occasionally
brand new left-over old stock) with less poerwful chips and a cheaper
price.


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

On Apr 24, 5:04 pm, Helpful Harry <helpful_ha... (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com>
wrote:
True enough.

But in that case I end up with a computer that actually performs worse
than a modern core 2 duo -in the applications I use-.

Still the advantage of having one computer, and all 3 OSes might be
enough to make it worthwhile... except that slightly older Mac Pros
aren't significantly cheaper. It might be an option down the road; but
right now you end up in a G5 at the price point where it makes sense.
And *that* of course doesn't run windows.

cheers
-Dave

In article <1177570321.912969.52410 (AT) n15g2000prd (DOT) googlegroups.com>, d-42
<db.porsche (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

As long as you don't go too far back down the Mac Pro product family
you shouldn't end up with "worse" than the current iMac. The Mac Pro
also has better BUS speed, graphics card, etc. than the iMac, so you
may still work out with a better Mac.

Of course, depending on where you get it you may end up with a badly
treated Mac (or even no Mac at all from some scum "sellers"). (

Plus you have to add a screen to that, although you can probably use
the one you've already got.

Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

In article <1177570321.912969.52410 (AT) n15g2000prd (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
d-42 <db.porsche (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Much has been said already in this long-running thread and I hesitate to
put in my 2 cents, but I'm going to.

Early on, the iMac was mentioned and dismissed almost in passing as not
being user-upgradeable or fixable.

That may have been true of the G4 iMac (round base with computer inside)
and the eMac, both of which were mentioned. However, the current iMac
with the computer on the back of the display (either G5 or Intel) is
easy to get inside and change out components. Obviously it is nowhere
nearly as "upgradeable" as the Mac Pro, but it is much more so than Mac
Mini or MacBook or MacBook Pro.

It is also worth noting that it is easy to add hard drive space to any
of these machines, simply by use of an external Firewire drive (or two
or three or so) (and likewise external burner or other external
hardware).

Enough from me on this.

--
For email, change <fake> to <earthlink>
Bill Collins

In article
<bbcollins-C26F06.07450126042007 (AT) customer-201-125-217-207 (DOT) uninet.net.mx>,
Bill <bbcollins (AT) fake (DOT) net> wrote:

The "first" generation of the current iMac design (I'm not certain if
it was the G5 or first Intel iMaac) definitely was easy to get into -
you could pull the entire back off without any problem.

BUT then Apple changed the design "slightly". You can now open up a
small panel under the bottom of the screen to add a RAM card, but
that's it. Anything else has to be done (officially) by an Apple
Centre. Technically you can open up the iMac yourself if you're brave
enough, but just like the Mac Mini and the old CRT iMac it requires
using a flat long tool and the chance of snapping some of the
connectors that hold the case together. (



The problem is that Mr Fussy ;o) wants PCI slots as well, so the
iMac is no go ... until someone designs an external PCI case that
connects via FireWire.



Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)