Hi.

I may come under fire for this one....but I think the ferver in recent posts dealing with trading/selling older Mac gear for new is a little silly.

True. Apple would love us all to join the bandwagon and embrace the new tech. But the fact is that Apple is to computers as Honda is to the auto-world. Reliable, easy to troubleshoot and long-lasting.

I just grabbed a used PowerBook Titanium 400MHZ G4 for my work and home use, and although slower than the newer models, it runs X well...and meets my needs.

That's the key isn't it? Needs.

My home machine is an iMac 400MHZ G3 and thankfully for a fast 60 GIG it runs all my apps quite well. Plus, it's quiet, and stable. Kids love it too.

The other machines in my arsenal include:

PowerMac 6500/200 for audio work
PowerMac 8150/110 - acting as a FileServer at work
PowerMac 6400/180 for my kids to hack around with downstairs.
...and a bunch of 68040 machines which won't die. I gave one to my sister in law and she loves it. Running OS 8.1, it boots faster than any G4 and has rarely, if ever, had an app crash or freeze.

Sure. If I had the cash, I may be tempted to sell off my gear in an eBay frenzy, but I simply don't have the need. My main machine for a while was a PowerMac 7500 with a 500MHZ G3 ZIF and two 10 gig SCSI drives. I sold it off eventually because I was doing a lot of video and audio work....making a "real" G3/4 a better option. Still a great machine for the money.

I wonder how many of you still use older Macs and find them as awesome as I do?

My students gawk at the pizza boxes and LC 575s still chugging away in my computer lab at school....but they are reliable and work. They never make eye-contact with me when they endeavour to print something and fail on our Novell/PC network....and end up using one of "those Macs" to get the job done.

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I have a mix of old and new machines, and like you, I find that the old ones run very well, particularly in OS 9. Among my oldies: a G3 beige upgraded to G4/450 in my lab; an iMac G3/400 set up as a second home machine with a wireless connection and used mostly by my daughter, and a PowerBook Pismo G3/400 that has a great screen and never lets me down on the road or for presentations. Finally, I still have in my lab a iiSI, used occasionally with a digital caliper. The iMac is running Jaguar and the Pismo OS X 10.1. This slows them down, but the speed is acceptable. My newest machine is a Quicksilver 867, bought a few months ago on a trade-up. I bought this with the intent of keeping for about a year and then trading it up for a low-end G5 when the bugs are worked out of them and the price comes down. For everything I do, the 867 is quite snappy and the other machines are good enough.

One of the things that keeps me from trading up from old machines are the great design features of older models. I have a cube, which is attractive and noiseless - perfect for home use. I'd like to upgrade the processor to a faster model, but the upgrades all have fans, which would take away the noiseless feature. The iMac G3 also has no fan and is virtually noiseless. The lack of noise and the attractive, compact design (and colour = indigo) cannot be replaced with a newer model other than a faster iMac G3. In the case of the Pismo; it's the last PowerBook with replaceable modules. I still use zip drives, and I have an inexpensive zip module for it. I do wish it was faster and lighter, and I will consider an AI book (12 or 15) when the new ones come out, if Apple figures out how to keep them cool.

It is kind of silly... but then again, there are those who trade in their car on a regular basis for the next hot item (PT Cruiser anyone? ;) ). Technically, it still runs the same as any other car, but generally speaking, it's more about aesthetics than anything.

I know I was one of those who are seriously thinking about upgrading... but not "just because". smile.gif I'm a power-user that does a lot of graphic-intensive work like 3d modeling, animation, motion graphics, video editing as well as graphic design and some multimedia. My 800 mhz G4 iMac is good... but it's just not fast enough (especially for games, like Medal of Honor). :D

That's why I'm pinning my hopes that the dual 2 ghz G5 will help alleviate some of my speed frustrations. ;) But I'll be waiting at least a year before I truly commit to purchasing a new Mac -- Apple benchmarks aside, I'll wait until the consumers voice their opinion once the G5 has been circulated. Who knows... by then the price will have dropped a little more.

Having said that... if I had the money now, I'd probably pre-order one.

As an afterthought, who knows... maybe Panther will help my speed issues in the long run?

I upgrade when I can afford it - I just replaced a 333 MHz beige G3 that I've had for 3 years with a Sawtooth G4 450. I spent the $$ I got from selling the G3 on a Radeon 8500 card for the G4.

Well, the G4 is a huge advance on the beige G3. It is substantially faster, and works better with OS X. Its video performance is infinitely better. It actually has a functional sleep feature. It has a DVD player and an internal modem. It can have a slave drive installation. And, it's beautiful.

This wasn't an upgrade for the sake of upgrading - it was an upgrade for the sake of getting a vastly superior computer. It was money well spent. If I'd had more, I would have spent more.

Cheers :-> Bill