It's the Output That Counts
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Manuel Mejia Jr - 2002.05.09
Back on April 1, 2002, Low End Mac issued its annual April Fool's page. This page espoused the great virtues of several pre-PPC Macs. Based on my experience and my reading of the April Fool's articles, I came to a very basic conclusion. When purchasing a computer, the buyer needs to make an assessment of what the output will be.
What is the definition of output? Output is the end product of your work. Output can be a printed essay, a spreadsheet, a letter, or a brochure. Brochure types of output can be further subdivided into a black and white drawing, a grayscale drawing, a color graphic, or a photographic image. Output can also be a sent of CD-ROMs containing music, pictures, video clip movies, or other software that was downloaded from the Internet. Output can even be the adrenaline rush from playing a video game.
If you are just into fun and games, go get an Xbox or equivalent machine. Those machines are dedicated to the task.
If the output is more practical, then the decision becomes more complex. To ease the decision making process, figure out what are the peripherals that needed in addition to the computer. These peripherals often determine what type of computer you purchase.
If a user buys just a standard black toner laser printer, color
printing is probably not an issue. The user is interested in mostly
text printouts. For text only printouts, 
the end user can use a very low-end Mac. A
$17 Mac Plus connected to a
refurbished LaserWriter II can print out the most professional of
documents and even line drawings. There is no need to buy an iMac for this type of output.
In contrast, any type of graphical or audio work requires a state-of-the-art Mac. Given the advent of megabyte sized downloads and complex software and files, a low-end Mac can have a hard time generating that class of output. For example, many people who want to do video clips or download MP3s are going to be fortunate if they can find software that is compatible to a lower end Mac. Assuming this is not a problem, a slow processor will often negate any benefit of using a old Mac. Some end users may want their output in a few minutes rather than several hours.
In conclusion, choosing a Mac, be it is a Quadra or a flat panel iMac, depends more on output than on things like looks, the sales pitch, or the number of Ben Franklins that are being allocated for purchase.
And if the Mac selected is a low-end one, the Chinese environmental movement may even thank you.
Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the Mac Daniel index to see if we've already addressed your problem.
Recent Mac Daniel columns
- Bringing G3 iMacs and other G3 Macs into the Tiger Age, Dan Knight, 12.07. Tips on hard drives, memory, WiFi, and getting Mac OS X 10.4 installed on G3 iMacs and other older G3 Macs.
- Multiple users on the same Mac at work, Dan Knight, 11.15. How to set up a Mac so multiple users can log in and use it - and use the same pool of work files.
- 1 working eMac from 2 broken ones, Dan Knight, 11.14. A pair of matching eMacs, each with a different failure, results in one working eMac and lots of leftovers.
- More in the Mac Daniel index.
Recent Content on Low End Mac
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- Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 07.04. PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche.
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- July 6 in LEM history: 00: 3 user accelerators - 01: SCSI and FireWire Disk Mode - Stick with the Mac - Computers for college - 05: Optimizing OS X performance - Return of the bumper snicker - 06: Can consumer MacBook replace 2 PowerBooks and a ThinkPad? - Vintage Macs with System 6 run circles around 3 GHz Windows PC - Run Windows apps without Windows
- The Macintosh Portable started a notebook revolution, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 07.03. Before Apple introduced the Mac Portable, notebook computers were text-based and ran MS-DOS. Ever since, graphical interfaces have been the norm for laptops.
- More links in our archive.
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