Keep in mind that the G4 in the new iMac is the PowerPC 7410 - the "low power" G4 - the same G4 that's in the PowerBook G4.

If it was the PowerPC 7450 that's in the Power Mac G4, then it would set your desk on fire.

look at as a step way up, lacking fingers, the iBlob can stick its tongue out in contempt for the wintel hegemony (and folks like me who think it's fugly)... sounds like the power supply is internal where it belongs, and the fan's supposedly variable speed w/smarts.

iBlock had a lump on its rope that was bigger than it was and was forced to bite its lip as it shuffled meekly to its stylish doom...

Real iMacs went both ways and APPL skyrocketed until Steve added style and yanked the mezzanine slot... cross your fingers.

SLOTS RULE!

jt

Be patient,
work hard,
save your money,
wait 'til announcements at Macworld NY
and..

BUY SOMETHING WITH SLOTS IN IT!

jt ;-)

We've had an iMac for about 4 years now, and I am never going to buy another. Sure it was a great deal and it had very few things go wrong with it, but I could be using a firewire HD right now if I had PCI slots. Alternatively, I could have installed the new HD myself, but no, the user can't get at it! Argh!

Common misconseption: (dirty little secret) "FireWire is fast" (sorry, General SIR!) but native EIDE on the mobo is faster. Data format- translations on each end of the cable make a lot of folks wonder why their new FireWire drives aren't quite as fast as advertising and clueless MacWorld editorial copy led them to believe.

Take the General's advice, change the drive....

Then, be patie........

jt

A firewire drive is the speed of the native format of whatever is connected to the interface MINUS translation overhead. FW-PCI-mobo may or may not add more overhead than FW-mobo level translation back to the system's parallel i/o structure, that one's not any easy call.

The fruit analogy was exactly my point, dont let Steve's reality distortion field mislead you into thinking that FW or USB is an acceptable substitute for a slot. If he'd put even a mezzanine or a hackable L2 slot in the cube the new iMac might not look like a cowpie.

jt

When fab process limits hit a dead end, and the architecture of cpu's or multiprocessor arrays detour onto the serial path that may come to pass.

The next time you're in a B&N Tech Library (or its Australian equivalent), check out the origins of IDE in "Upgrading and Repairing PC's" to get some perspective on I/O strategies. Read the one page overview, or a portion of the in depth chapter, you'll learn a lot about the Mac either way.

jt

Found subject matter below, and was going to post to a new, easily ignored thread....
But the title of this one seemed appropriate, and its on topic too!

I apologize in advance for the length of this.....but this a serious suggestion for research.

From: Newsgroups: cmpnet.byte.chips

circa: first half of 2001, drat lost the .txt on exact date!

Subject matter might seem off topic for 68k pursuits, but trust me, read on, this kinda stuff is platform/interface independent!
________________________________

Arrgh: MCA/EISA all over again!
________________________________

> Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what percentage of desktop systems,
> and therefore roughly what percentage of all systems, are
> PCI-bottlenecked?
________________________________

It looks from here like Intel are making a mistake. The market
will not support 2 buses, and will not care that what is available
now will not be the same bus in 5 years time. Who now is still
buying expansion cards for a computer they bought 5 years ago?
And how can they be reasonably sure that what they design now will
be the best thing in 5 years?
________________________________

Not many. But bandwidth isn't most of the problem with PCI. Most of the
problem with PCI is the hardware/OS architecture disaster that requires
so-called PCI IRQ placeholders, IRQ re-use concerns, care with PCI card/slot
order, and so much other bizarre nearly undocumented garbage in BIOS
configuration. A decent serial bus routes around all of these problems:
notice how there is no IRQ consideration whatsoever for USB and FireWire
devices, unless DOS compatibility driverlets are involved!

And also, just think about what a really good super-serial-bus video system
could do...and a serial-bus sound system would be nice too.

And perhaps most of all, an entirely serial-bus-based motherboard, entirely
sans ISA, PCI, AGP, and all other parallel connexions save CPU<-->RAM, could
be immensely easier to design and manufacture. Far fewer traces. Most
vital traces larger, and insulated thickly, or just invent some interesting
new form of the "wire". Everything far more bufferable, with far fewer
timing concerns. Run all of the items on the bus each with their own
clocks, desynchronized!!! Synchronize only at the data-transception level.
Don't even use a motherboard for higher-end machines; build simply with
modules. CPU/RAM module, video module, four USB modules, four FireWire
modules...even a PCI module, an ISA module, and a general-legacy (RS-232,
printer port) module. An IDE module. A SCSI-1/2/3/4 module. A clock
module, for reference time data delivery to whatever needs it.

Also remember how much easier it would be to prototype something like this.
With good usage of serial bus technology, there's no need to simulate and
prototype a huge complex multilayer motherboard. Just simulate each module
if necessary, build and assemble using special well-insulated wire-wrap, and
test. Far more reusability, far more modularization of hardware, far easier
to add capacity to the whole system. Multiple CPU/RAM modules make
relatively cheap MP, or use several 32-gang super-serial connections between
multiple CPU-only modules and one CPU/RAM module to make a super-duper SMP.

I am very happy to see that Intel and AMD are both studying super-serial,
because I would hate to be stuck with super-AGP everywhere. AGP is just too
fragile, and super-serial has so much more potential.
________________________________

Now head over to byte or your favorite search engine and try to find a link to the web equivalent of a magazine article/issue reprint:
________________________________

specs:

Special Byte Anniversary Issue

(start with History of BYTE.........20th rings what passes for a bell in the fuzzy reces........

I'm really still serious here (if not entirely self-restrained ;-)

Subject: commentary on the design/cost/current/technology/future expansion concerns/ tradeoffs by of one of the guys who survived the wirewrap prototyping development of the PC at IBM. w/photos!

TRUST ME! This article is K.A.10/F.Awsome, laser shap focus even for 68k I/O mavens! Post the link, you'll be a hero.

Overall this BYTE issue is the highest density, bound-paper format repository of useful computer info and trivia known to man........well.......this one anyway, IMANQHEO.

This issue makes a DROOLWORTHY addition to any collection of anything computer related ON ANY PLATFORM! Nobody who has laid eyes, much less hands upon this scroll has EVER disputed this "assertion", which is hereby, declared to be the Public Beta release of a FACT, (ship date of rev 1.0 yet to be determined) the validity of this rev.0.9 fact will not again be slurred as mere opinion in my presence........... unless you post a link to something better that I just gotta have!

FIND ONE! Pay more for this issue of BYTE than you would for a.............

The last coupl'a notions started life as a challenge/troll/trawl/whatever and ended up hyperbole.
________________________________

*decides to be a little less serious/coherent*

OOPSGuy just delivered the tranny & motor mounts for the the '76 (oblique reference to one of the search parameters) GMC Sierra 25, ( LONG BED! which ain't droolworthy in some forums, but imagine how many Macs you could liberate on a dumpster diving mission in that......) 2x2 rustbucket.....AKA:deathtrap76

*sighs.......really envious of 'coxy's restrained eloquence by now......shakes wrists in defiance of the RSI demons.....and the diabolical cleverness of the creator a user id that makes the assumption that keycaps/copy/paste is a requirement for input so fiendishly inviting............ that you had never even bothered to look on the keyboard................got me!*

good hunting cameraden!

ttfn

jt

*expels breath forcefully....stares 1k yards through the back of his monitor.....decides nobody would'a started up if they'd really bothered to look anyway......sighs again......restraint might just be an achievable goal.............and resolves to sally forth into broad daylight to play with a really big toy......................with.............*

p.s. there's a photo of & historical (almost unbelievable) source reference to the origins of the: definitive, much sought after, techno/cool-dweeby/kitschy, silver boxed, monitor not included, low production, almost limited edition really, oft rumored to be a hoax, first rev. Trash80!

*sighs....pushes intense feelings of jealousy back under the roiling surface (pounding surf actually) of the wetware, and wonders if he'll ever get over his mad and congratulate MacScuzzy on his actual ownership of a Trash80!....grinds teeth......decides he's still not talking to MacSc.....*

P.P.S. If I can find mine I'm gonna drive the GMC (after fixing it) out to Robert Moses Beach and bask in the winter (possibly spring) sun as I flip the pages.

*...LOL....REALLY LOUD!.........AND LONG................kinda like a nazgul cry...............................
and wonders if he'll ever find an early 10MB Winchester Disk for that open expansion bay on the back of the GMC..........wonders if an HDD array (we're talkin' clothes washer form factor drives here) will fit.....................and what other certifiable lunatic will help him liberate it/them..........................*

=8-}

p.p.p.s. extending considerable effort to regain minimal levels of coherence, see footnotes*

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 17 Jan 2002 07:03:56

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 17 Jan 2002 07:11:25

Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 17 Jan 2002 07:20:20

nah! most of it I snatched (harvested) from the newsgroup guys.
too good not to see, but you'd have to be a loon to go look where I tell ya!

'nhyhoo, don't count, was just a brain teaser...I thought it was too good to pass up.....on-topic too!

search the article/scrounge the mag, "trust me"

jt

ok, i'll stop.........

clueless again here, but if i understand the process you just described sounds suspiciously like it might entail work.......

constructive criticism and suggestions always welcome at this end
figured i'd share what passes for thought processes.......

not being defensive here at all, requesting feedback:

the long stuff was the content that I thought was right on topic, and was supposed to entice those interested to explore for themselves things that i thought were important enough to put in boxes (somewhere) and post the links so i don't have to look........

and to entice more troops to.........

rambling on about war stories from campaigns "back in the day" are why grizzled veterans (not me of course) hang out with the troopers........and buying them beers and listening to ALL of the rambling, repetitive......yadda.....yadda...... is price the young troopers pay for the opportunity to sift the............

and i tried to break up stories and random observations at the end into........

thanks cine'
you too FW!

the ....... aren't ment to be funny, the thoughts really aren't fully formed yet..........

jt

btw: if i'm pushing the military metaphor, let me know, but the more i check out the threads here and elswhere, i'm thinkin' you guys came up with a better idea here than..............

serendipity....synergy............teamwork..................hmmmmmm?

figured that, was honestly asking for feedback, an my attenti........

Thank you, footnotes in concurrent thread indicate th......

=8-}

*cries out in frustration, "i can't do this any......*

*sincere flattery is way too much like work....probably got my warped (multidirectionally oblique?) references already..........*

love it!
teach needs to see the thread where the legend began as example of:
economy of word, subtle nuance, mastery of *what i'm doing now between the atsterisks, ask your lit teacher if there's a technical term for this particular weblit form*...yadda.....yadda...............

Hey cine' when you work out the battle language shorthand, make sure it's typeitforme compatible.........

*something like that........where was I...................!*

very cool, ~coxy....*!!!!!!!!IT'S NOT THE FREA********************* .......i haven't really attempted to communicate in the .txt format since since "first class" was a revolutionary.........

jt

i really did just "been had" on a second level!..........if that was intentional, that really should have been a 21 gun salute over ther.......

you diabolically clever lit...........

;-)

back again just to sa:.....ASSUMED IT WASN'T ON THE KEYBOARD.......DISCOVERED IT REALLY WAS ON THE KEYBOARD.......TRIED TO USE IT IN A POST......DIDN'T LOOK LIKE IT WAS REALLY THERE IN THE TEXT EDITOR.......FESSED UP TO BEING DIM.......POSTED IT ANYWAY........WENT BACK TO EDIT........IT WAS REALLY ON THE KEYBOARD!!!!!!!!!!!.........

AIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!I'M LEAVING AND COMING BACK UNDER AN ALIAS SO NOBODY WILL KNO.........