I just want one thing for belated Christmas. Reflection-mapped Goldfish. Then we'd have an actual real GOLDfish with reflective gold scales.

I know I am a PC user, but I've been inside the Apple store quite a few times. I love the Mac Studio Displays :) and I like the look of the OS X. Maybe one day I buy a Mac when I have more money to spend.

I agree with Morgan, the scales having some type of reflective coating would be better to work on than shadows if you had to choose. Moving pebbles and such with the Goldfish randomly picking up and spitting them out would probably require using the "half Life 2" engine for the Goldfish tank.

Thanks. Keep it coming.

Did you see the announcements today?
Mac Mini Starting at $499. :eek:

Well, we already knew the rumors were true... Wow, I think I want one... :heart:

Oooooooowee!
 

I feel like a teenager again:heart:

I feel a bit like betting on the wrong horse with my Cube... Still there are advantages of mine as well.

Upgradeability seems like next to none on the McMini (ie Happy Meal?) and 256 MB doesn't really make Max OS X happy, neh?

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif

Don't feel bad about it Tiny, you have a Cube, a freakin' Cube! Besides, you didn't pay $500 for it...

I am seriously tempted by a $575 (upgraded to 512MB) Mac though (that's less than I mentioned I would pay before)... It's even got a Radeon 9200 built in, so it'll run the aquariums just fine... :) And I've always wanted to know how well Macs fold... Though, I don't fold on laptops because of heat issues, I'd probably skip folding on this new toy as well...

Edit: Make that $610... OMG! Someone stop me, I'm starting to plan!

They want $425 to put 1GB of RAM in there and state on the website that you have to have an Apple dealer put in the RAM. I don't get it. It's a PC333 SDRAM DIMM (according to their specs). A 1GB stick can be had for $220 and I can't imagine it's that hard to install.

Morg,
Me neither – but the warranty is busted if they have some sort of seal on it...

Doc,
I paid more than $500 (dollar is dropping compared to the Krona plus our market is smaller than yours).

Really? I couold have sworn you said how much somewhere and that it was less... Maybe after your upgrades? At any rate, it's still a freakin Cube... :D

You know Steve ...
 

Steve Jobs company Next Step sold a cube computer - a black one, but the company stopped producing the hardware and wisely focused on highly innovative software instead. Ultimately Apple purchased Next Step and used Next OS as its next generation Mac OS and dubbed it Mac OS X. Steve came along with the sale of Next to Apple, and next thing you know he's in charge again. And shortly after that Apple introduced the G4 Cube. My wife still has hers and it folds for SereneScreen as we speak. The G4 cube was not sold for long - overpriced and not cool enough to carry it along. Fast forward to 2005 and ?eheeee? Now we have a 1/3 cube! Steve Jobs just won't let it go!

Personally I think I'll get one and put it upstairs next to the TV , DVD player, and 5.1 speakers and work out a way to use it for a personal media center. Bring my EyeTV and USB infrared remote control and I should be able to get some things to work. The Mac mini is a nice enough looking box so it will fit into the decor upstairs.

Next ... a 23-40-inch DVI screen, HDTV set top box from Comcast (which has a DVI and a firewire interface), maybe shell out for a Delgato EyeTV500 (which supports HDTV) and I think I'll have spent myself into the ground but I'll have an open solution I can live with.

My understanding is that there are small plastic "clips" that hold the shell on, and they are hard to remove without special tools...
http://images.apple.com/macmini/imag...es20050111.jpg
I'm guessing someone out there will sell a Mini Mac RAM upgrade "kit" for those willing to void their waranty.. Like the company that offers an iPod battery upgrade, complete with a custom tool to crack open the case.

Hmm... This thread has been hijacked.. Sorry bout that.

Apple ALWAYS charges a high fee for their memory, and it always annoys me (don't sell a machine with less than 512MB of RAM!!!). However, RAM prices are relatively volatile, and Apple doesn't update its prices every other day like the RAM only stores do. Places like MacWareHouse are always much higher than "spot" RAM, too.

Apple is USUALLY pretty reasonable about the warranty. It is a large company run by an EGO which has consumed whole planets, though, so your mileage may vary.

Tell him about it
 

Hey Jim, I don't know how big or bad a guy you are :cowboy: but do you really want to tell it to this tough guy's face ??

Sure, why not. I could probably lift that box too. :)

Re: You know Steve ...
 

(Ben from Short Circuit faux Indian voice) You are not knowing your Mac history...

Apple decided NOT to acquire NextStep or the UNIX variant they developed and instead based OS X on FreeBSD.

Re: Re: You know Steve ...
 

Hmmm...
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/history.html

Mkay. So where does FreeBSD come in?

Peanuts:

Linus: I just bought a Mini Mac today

Charlie Brown: The Mini Mac is no good.

Linus: Why?

Charlie Brown: Because you can't turn it into a fishtank!! :)

Ehem!
 

Here's a picture showing what old IBM PCs are good for. (The site I got it from is http://www.techquarium.com/aquaria/oldsite/

:) I think that picture is great. I still always try to fix my old computers though but I'll consider it for my old 286 once it dies. I'll make sure I unplug it so it doesn't zap the cat when he has to go. The Macintosh family here does seem a lot nicer than my best friends Saturn car company cult which are always inviting him to picnics:).

I might just get one of these new Mac-mini's as a present for my fiance for her birthday. You could hook up the mac-mini to a TV and run screensavers on it. Also play DVD's, or TV-shows in HD and so forth. And when you run out of room, you can buy an external hard drive (which would be around the same size) and get a stack of them going filling them up with the HD movies/tv-shows or backups of DVD's. I wonder if you can get surround sound out of it?

And Tiny, don't feel bad about getting a cube. I would prefer one of those because I'm sure it probably has a better cooling system which I read is by convection which will grant it longer life. And it is much more impressive looking in my opinion.

I'm getting a Macmini
 

My wife said I can get a Mac mini! A few hours ago I told her I needed to get another gig to pay for it. And luck was with me. Kaplan Univeristy emailed me urgently to ask if I would teach one of their IT190 courses starting next week - Computer Hardware and Operating Systems. "Thank you Lucky Angel!"

Woohooooo that made my day :TU:

Awesome :) and Congratulations

I found this link for Tiny on upgrading the cube to 800mhz.

http://www.macsonly.com/pl800.html

I don't know if it will be usefull.

It looks like a fun project or something I would try and do just for fun when I had the time.

Kona,
Thanks – I like the design of the Cube better than the McMini as well. Since the Mini has a fan I must conclude I have the only fanless (modern) Mac.

I'm seriously considering getting a new harddrive as the old 20GB Maxtor clunker is ridiculously (sp?) loud. I will most likely get a Samsung 2.5" laptop drive which should lower the noise quite a lot further than even the most silent of 3.5" drives.

As for CPU – I already have my eyes set on a 1.3GHz upgrade which I still can use without a fan. A little to costly right now, but eventually...

John,
Too bad they forgot to add a digital sound output (quite stupid really). That would've made it so much more useful as a entertainment hub. Perhaps there will be an additional McMini-sized 5.1 amp which hooks up to the Mini by USB/1394...

The Next Cube was so darn ugly. No like!

Congrats on getting allowance to get a Mini of your own.

/Tiny Braque

P.S.
Where can I get a matching mouse pad?

NeXt cube burning

Hehehe...

Congrats John, I mentioned it to Jennifer and she seemed much more ok with it than she is with my typical geeky purchases, it'll till have to wait awhile though, maybe until v2.0 comes out or something...

BTW, be should really split this thread...

I would split the thread as well, I'm sure many more people want to give enhancement requests still :)

It is indeed in the mix...
I find this diagram completely fascinating..
http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html#11

That IS fascinating!
 

Dang this Levenez fellow is quite the Unix historian. There is also a nice PDF version of that chart.

Now to make some time and actually study it!

I have a request for higher resolution graphics for MA so I can use it as my desktop. The coral and bottom are really quite grainy but the background and fish look pretty good. I don't suppose I'm running out of video card if I'm getting 256fps @ 2560 x 1600 full screen while folding and 262fps when not. I guess this GeForce 6800 Ultra from nVIDIA needed to to drive my 30" Cinema Diplay has enough resources to "get 'er done."

DAMN!
 

Hey congratulations on the purchase of that 30-incher. I've been asking for higher res textures also, even my 22-incher shows jagged textures.

You read it here first folks, we got a folder here that was folding before his first post in the forum! And he has a 30" screen! I like it! :D

So, are you folding for SereneScreen then? Or do you fold elsewhere? I'm asuming for SS...

Hi Stalwart,

Are you with Microsoft, or co-existing with them?

:bigdrink:

I have no choice but to tolerate MS, even my neighbor is one of 'em. I do my part to convert the ignorant from the dark side and back into the light. My current conversion is at least 10 and only one falling back to Dull, and even he has seen his ignorant ways.

As for folding, I'm not with any team at the moment. I'm considering wether or not I like my 2-2.5 GHz G5 processors running at 185 F. I'm sure the liquid cooling works well, the fans are quiet but I can't help thinking that it might shorten the life of my 'puter.

Stuart

185ºF? Yow! That's 85ºC! Either G5s run hot and aren't cooled well or you've got your computer in a drawer or something... Even my AlthonXP rigs rarely run over 60ºC (140ºF) when folding 24/7 in a warm room... :eek:

Regardless, it's nice to meet a fellow folder in these forums, I should direct you to the largest thread in the forum (correct me if I'm wrong guys), Got any spare CPU cycles, buddy? where there's always something going on... :D

WOW, check the temps on those machines and then join the SereneScreen team, number 2630. We will be more than glad to have you on our team. :)

You temperature may vary
 

Hey Stalwart,

I'm the proud owner of a dual CPU 2Ghz G5 driving an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Macintosh Special Edition video card. MA 2.0.6 gives me 300-350fps at 1600x1024 depending on how many and what kinds of fish fill the tank.

Here is a screen shot of the various temperatures in my computer. Note that I am running two FAH cllients all the time.

Hi John,

Attached is my info:

http://homepage.mac.com/stalwart/PSMVCCsite/Sensor.jpg

I know the limiting speed factor of these G5's is heat that's probably why they have stalled at the moment at 2.5 GHz. I'm running two clients via InCrease 2.0. I don't know if this is the fastest way or not . . .

My G5 is still quiet and it is sitting less than2 feet from me.

S.

How come all the folding stuff starts in the Mac forum? ;)