[TriLUG] why run open source OS on oddball old hardware?

al johson alfjon at mindspring.com
Fri Jun 21 22:31:38 EDT 2002


Well, just to throw my two cents in this discussion, I vividly remember a
"home-brew" construction article (i.e. build your own Macintosh computer),
which I seem to remember  was constructed by using an X86 motherboard, a
standard PC case,  and BIOS chips taken from an old macintosh. I still have
the article, but it wouldn't be worth the trouble for me to find it among
all my other computer magazines and books.
In addition, there have definitely been reported experiments at Apple
converting the Macintosh OS software for X86 processors. When Steve Jobs
returned as Apple's CEO he squelched all those who were developing these Mac
"clones", because he thought that they would constitute hardware competition
which would only lead to a Macintosh becoming a "commodity computer", which
as we know is what killed the IBM PC market. So it is indeed possible that
X86 macs exist, but probably only if they were homebrewed and they would
definitely be very rare antiques--and something that might bring a lot of
money on PBS's Antique Show Program :-))  -- AL Johnson.
=====================

----- Original Message -----
From: Thunder Bear <thunderbear at yonderway.com>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] why run open source OS on oddball old hardware?


> On Fri, 2002-06-21 at 12:14, John Franklin wrote:
>
> > Yup.  The 128k Macintosh had an 8MHz 68000.  There were a handful of
> > machines in the early '90s that had a PPC chip for a main processor, but
> > a "PC Compatibility Card" (read: an x86 on an expansion board) to run
> > DOS apps (and maybe Windows 3.x).
>
> Considering I have a basement full of Macs from the early to mid 90's,
> I'm curious about what models might have had these x86 cards.  I've got
> everything down there from LC to PowerMac 5400 and lots of models in
> between.
>
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