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Technology (Apple) Businesses Apple Technology

Build a Macintosh From Scratch 443

Posted by pudge from the more-diy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "MacOpz has posted a great step-by-step tutorial on building your own G4-based Macintosh from scratch. This article includes where to get parts, what modifications must be performed, and tons of photographs. A must-read for anyone that wants a Mac but doesn't want to pay Apple prices."
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Build a Macintosh From Scratch More

Build a Macintosh From Scratch

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  • Price... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chrysalis ( 50680 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:38PM (#4261982) Homepage
    The problem is that when you sum up everything, you end up with something _more expensive_ than just buying it from Apple.

    Oh and of course you also have to purchase MacOS.
    • Well, the article specifically says you should just but stuff off eBay. So assuming you find somebody will to sell with no reserve and start the bidding low, and misspell some common words so nobody finds the auction and runs up the price, you could have a nice cheap system. But good luck finding all the parts you need in the first place.
    • Very true.

      This is by no means a new idea. Folks have been building macs for years, however due to the fact that you have to aquire a few used proprietary parts, prices can get quite high.

    • Re:Price... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by zaffir ( 546764 )
      Um... Case: $50. Logic Board: $125-$150 CPU: $200 PSU: $70 RAM: $50 Graphics Card: $90 Drives and stuff: $100-$150 OS X: $120 That doesn't add up to more than the $1000+ G4 systems Apple is selling. Sure it isn't cheap, but it beats buying one from the Apple monopoly. Of course, the speed probably doesn't compare unless you get a nice 1ghz CPU...
      • According to the website, the CPU is $400, not $200. Adding $200 to the above sum gives me $1080. So it is, in fact, more expensive than buying from Apple.

    • Re:Price... (Score:4, Informative)

      by perfessor multigeek ( 592291 ) <pmultigeek@@@earthlink...com> on Sunday September 15, 2002 @07:34PM (#4262728) Homepage Journal
      I wholeheartedly agree.
      Man oh man.
      In the old days /. just simply refused to acknowledge Macs at all so I guess that this sort of thing should be considered progress. Still no grasp of the obvious but better than the previous invisibility. Still . . .
      OK, children, gather round for today's bowl of clue.
      First of all, if you're gonna talk Apple mods, then start at applefritter [applefritter.com]. They've built Macs into everything from 1930's radios to LEGO people to ziplock bags.
      Next, (I can't believe that I'm doing this twice in one day!), let's get the vendors and refs out of the way:

      Mac of All Trades [macofalltrades.com] Getcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.

      MacResq [macreq.com] The best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.

      Powermax [www.powermax.com] Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.

      Shreve [shrevesystems.com] Expensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.

      Small Dog [smalldog.com] Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.

      Guide to Mac CPUs [apple.com]This is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.

      Focus of Mac Hardware [miningco.com] good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.

      Missoula Mac User Group [missoulamac.com], Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.

      ResExcellence [resexcellence.com] In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.

      Think Secret [thinksecret.com] The only rumor site I like that I forgot to mention yesterday.

      Okay, moving right along. CPUs. Those yahoos think that the only option is to start from scratch. Get a clue. The last pre-Jobs big boxes kicked almighty ass. Amelio may not have been a gifted businessman but he was a much better heavy gear guy. As far as I'm concerned your best bet for DIY is to buy an 8600. It'll be $230, tops. You get a great case, big power supply, floppy drive, cables, and so on. Probably also a Zip, for which I will pity you as that model of Zip just LOVED to come down with the Click o' Death. Even if you flat throw out all the electronics you're still way ahead of starting from a place like Tom's.
      Next, processor speed. When will those yahoos figure it out? Before you get obsessed with latest and greatest ask yourself, "what exactly will I be DOING with this machine?" If you're running stuff like BBEdit (ah, my one true love!) or Photoshop for still work then any 400MHz box with fast drives and plenty of RAM will be, for all intents and purposes, instantanteous. Buying anything faster just means that you're acting like the small-donged dimwits who buy $20K stereos to get fidelity five times better then they can hear.
      Drives. I'm always amazed at how terrified Windoze-damaged (let alone *nix) folks are at the thought of external drives. Get over it, already. On a Mac all that driver clash claptrap is a distant and not very credible folktale. Get a basic little 6 Gig internal and invest your money in external Firewire devices. You think this LAN party stuff is cool? On a Mac pretty much any well configured boot drive will boot any similar recent Mac. Stop carrying your entire box with you; stick to drives. Even better, get two or three smaller ones instead of one big one and, short of FBI seizures and vast fires, you become crash proof. Mac dies? Plug your drive (you did remember to back up your core data, right?) into another Mac and you're up and running again in minutes.
      The future. If you're such an almighty techie that you just *need* to build a new cooler world every year or so, then remember, Mach kernel plus gigabit ethernet equals mongo shared resources. Even if you're too lazy to set up a formal Beowolf system, it's pretty damned easy to just keep adding machines and splitting the jobs between them. Instead of buying a whole new box, maybe you should just buy a second one and start spreading load to it.
      OSes. Yup. No question, Jaguar is pretty spiffy. But almost every vendor site above (as well as eBay and co.) will sell you older legit disks and serial num.s for about fifty bucks. If you buy from a place like Small Dog you'll even be clearing out some of that famed Apple back inventory.
      That's it. You want more? Then go to my site [reedandwright.com] already (though best to wait a few weeks for my next redesign). Want more then that? Then pay me and I'll think about it.
      Promising to not ever again use up time posting tutorials on /.,
      Rustin

      • Re:Price... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Master Bait ( 115103 )
        Okay, moving right along. CPUs. Those yahoos think that the only option is to start from scratch. Get a clue. The last pre-Jobs big boxes kicked almighty ass. Amelio may not have been a gifted businessman but he was a much better heavy gear guy. As far as I'm concerned your best bet for DIY is to buy an 8600. It'll be $230, tops. You get a great case, big power supply, floppy drive, cables, and so on.

        It is a BIG problem that the older Macs run a 50, 45 or even a 40 mhz bus. That just doesn't carry the day for me anymore. I speak from experience because I'm running an ancient PowerCurve at 350mhz G3 with a 50 mhz (overclocked) bus. When I went from a 266mhz to a 350, I hardly noticed the difference. These machines are starved for data. My girlfriend bought a 466mhz G4 running a 133mhz bus and that makes all the difference in the world. Her machine spanks another friend's 450 G4 running a 100mhz bus.

        I agree with you about not bothering doing it from scratch. Just get a G4 running with a 133mhz bus and a G4 7410 CPU and you're set for a couple of years.

        Overall, the high price of used Apple parts and complete equipment tells us there is a much larger market demand that Apple's stupid, thumbhead, prima-dona, ignorant, ego-puffed leaders aren't able to supply. I believe they could easily take their market share up to 15% if they could get their manufacturing act together.

  • If you add up the costs listed, it ends up cheaper than pre-built boxes from apple...

    Really.. I swear..

  • This is from a thread on Arstechnica... (Score:5, Informative)

    by juuri ( 7678 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:41PM (#4262003) Homepage
    You can follow other people's progress here:

    http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tp c&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=4820959925 [infopop.net]

  • How To Make An Apple (Score:4, Funny)

    by RomSteady ( 533144 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:41PM (#4262007) Homepage Journal
    Get required components: fertile ground, apple seed, water, fertilizer

    Plant apple seed in ground.
    Add water and fertilizer at regular intervals.
    Remove weeds at regular intervals.

    Eventually, you'll have an Apple.

    • No way ! These days, vegetables are like software: the mainstream ones are proprietary, owned by big firms (Monsanto, etc.) and you don't have the right nor the possibility to grow them. Yes, they are patented, copyrighted etc. Yes, there are anti-piracy measures inside to prevent them to be "pirated" (i.e. naturally reproduced).
    • Obligatory Sagan quote... well two if you count my sig

      "In order to make apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

  • EULA violation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BitwizeGHC ( 145393 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:42PM (#4262008) Homepage
    It is a violation of the EULA for Mac OS to run it on any non-Apple-branded hardware. This goes for things like MOL too.

    • Re:EULA violation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:48PM (#4262040) Journal
      Just because it is in the EULA does not mean it legally enforceable. I would suggest everyone talk to their lawyers before doing so.

      • Re:EULA violation (Score:4, Insightful)

        by GauteL ( 29207 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:53PM (#4262283)
        Yes. Apart from the USA after the DMCA, I do not know about other countries where EULAs are enforcable.

        They certainly are not in Norway. If you buy a copy of MacOS X you can do whatever you want with it as long as you do not distribute it. This is also how it should be. After buying a product it just opposes all common sense of right and wrong to not be able to use the product as you see fit. Wether that is destroying it publically, running it on your elite G4-based toaster or just putting it in the refrigerator.

      • Re:EULA violation (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Technicly, you have to use an Apple Branded MoBo. The thing they are worried most about probably are the ROMs, but since it is a real apple board, they are real Apple ROMs on there.
      • I would suggest everyone talk to their lawyers before doing so.

        Well, so much for saving money...

    • Slashdot readers will probably want to run Linux on their G4's anyway. So here you go ---> GPL :)
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Why? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Sgt_Bush ( 606058 )
    Paying to build a Mac from scratch? That's like buying parts and building a Fiat.

  • Fun to read, but impractical (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marcsiry ( 38594 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:46PM (#4262028) Homepage
    As a professional who relies on my Macintosh to generate income, the supposed "price premium" of Apple hardware over a build-it-yourself amounts to a half day's billing.

    Add the time to build eating into billable hours, and it would come out as an expensive proposition.

    There are lots of reasons to build a machine yourself- better control over the parts, getting a custom config that you can't easily buy, and saving money. I wager that most people's reason to buy a Mac- it works, out of the box, to make us money- is not really compatible with those ideals.

    I do agree with one sentiment addressed in the story, and that's avoiding the outlandish prices Apple charges for standard parts such as RAM and hard disks. Most savvy Mac users buy base configs and then load up the RAM and HD's via cheaper, third party suppliers.
    • Yes, but for a home "computer enthusiatst" who has a PC, and thinks this new OSX thing looks pretty cool, the prices apple charges are outlandish. I just put together a sweet Athlon MP based system for about $1600. I looked at what a G4 that I would consider and "acceptable substitute" would be and it costs about $2700, plus about $300 to get a nice monitor and replace the keyboard and mouse. Plus, that is with me being very generous about an equivelent machine. There is no way that a 1GHz G4 competes with an Athlon MP 2000, and most of the other components are comparable.

      Now, I primarily got the machine to play Windows only games, so Apple wasn't even in the running, but if it had been a general purpose computer upgrade, I might have considered the Mac, if it only had a $100-$200 price premium. But $1400 is way too much.

      So this would be interesting to me, except that it turned out to be "scavenge parts to make an older generation Mac for cheap" rather than making a machine equivelent to what Apple sells now, just with a price comprable to a home-built PC, or even a Dell.
      • Couple notes on your comment. I'm not specificaly sure about the Athon MPs but if it's anything like my XP 20000 the G4 is definately competative. At least from my experience. Granted the PC was cheaper, but it also feels cheaper.

        Secondly, you can plug any monitor into the mac, as they all come with a DVI - VGA adapter. SO there's no need to pay for a new monitor, unless you don't have one, in which case you would be buying one anyway. The keyboards that come with macs are fine, I wouldn't bother replacing it. As for the mouse, well, yeah I suppose you would want to replace that, but honestly, you can live on one button.
        • The Atlhon MP 2000 is the same as the Athlon XP 2000. My impression, based on talking to several Mac users, and some small experience using them myself was that the Athlon was definately faster than the G4 (in real world use, if not in photoshop benchmarks), but not enough that it would be a big problem. I have also heard (though not used any dual G4s) that the bus is a shared SDR bus, rather than a point-to-point DDR bus, which makes the G4 really bandwidth starved in a dual processor configuration. I don't know if that applies to the new G4s that use DDR memory or not.

          The price I quoted for the PC included a monitor, which is why I added that on to the Apple price. The mouse definately needs to be replaced, the whole design pisses me off, not just the lack of buttons 2 and 3. The keyboard I could live with, but it isn't really ideal.

          Still, the G4 is way out of the price range I would consider acceptable competition for a PC. Now, if I were using it for work, where the Mac had a substantial advantage over a PC for me, I wouldn't hesitate to pay the extra $1200, but as a home user, it costs way too much.
          • Ok, I see where you're comming from. Well, now you can add this one to your list of impressions of the Athlon XP computers. They work, they play games nice, but they bug out when opening many apps, or when you have multiple apps open and you want to add another. Definately not a great improvement over a mac, unless you're buying for games.

            As for the price, if you really want a mac, but don't like paying premiums, you should buy their laptops. The laptops are very competative in pricing and really make nice computers. And the battery life is really good.
            • Well, now you can add this one to your list of impressions of the Athlon XP computers. They work, they play games nice, but they bug out when opening many apps, or when you have multiple apps open and you want to add another. Definately not a great improvement over a mac, unless you're buying for games.

              Uhh, *what*?! I have an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ machine. I am currently running XP on it and have mirc, mozilla, winamp and outlook open. I just "added another" by opening kali and it loaded in 2 seconds. Opening Word after that loaded in an impressive 1.5 seconds.

              What is your definition of "bug out" exactly?

              -- iCEBaLM
              • When I have 8 IE windows open (often do), WinAmp, AIM, KDX Server, KDX Client,Proximatron (web crap filter), open office open and then when I go to open Outlook, the computer stops responding for about 15 seconds.
    • Add the time to build eating into billable hours, and it would come out as an expensive proposition.


      Ah but one hand washes the other! ..or some other meaningless idiom- the person with billable hours can purchase a real mac, whereas the person with no billable hours must make the cheap version himself. Quid pro quo, semper fi, one hand washes the other, wheaties, the breakfast of champions.

    • The price difference started out as a silly urban folktale, but it actually makes more sense now. People used to compare Mac and PC prices back when low-end PCs came with crappy video cards, no sound I/O, 1/4 the memory, etc. The comparison was silly, but it became enshrined in legend.

      These days there's at least some truth to it. I can get a no-OS Intel box for $300 at Fry's and put Linux on it for free. (That's the system I'm posting on.) There isn't any Mac that's that cheap. My Linux box is about comparable to an iMac, which you can't get for less than about $900. (This is all assuming you already have a monitor you can reuse.)

    • Dead on. If I could, I would buy the motherboard and processors from Apple. Everything else I can get cheaper somewhere else, and put it together in an hour or so.

      ~LoudMusic
  • The /. headline for this article was highly misleading. This article does NOT tell how to build a Mac from scratch. It tells how to cannibalize a Mac to build a new Mac. What a stupid idea. Just throw a processor upgrade in an old Mac, you get the same thing. Except it's not in a beige case like the PC 1Am3Rz insist on.
    • No more than from scratch than building a PC on your own. You still have to get a logic board, power supply, CPU, RAM, cooling systems, etc.

      The main problem with building a Mac from scratch has less to do with the parts, but it has to do with the fact that Apple is the only supplier of logic boards, and they only sell seperate logic boards (and cases, for that matter) to Apple Certified repair-people who can only install them into Macs, not re-sell them. The CPU, RAM, cooling, etc. are all pretty much stock parts or slight differences from readily available parts.

  • Wow! This is great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:50PM (#4262057) Homepage Journal
    Since my time is worth absolutely nothing, I'll save tens of dollars cobbling together a machine from parts scraped together at the local swapmeet.

    Sounds like a great deal to me. At least I won't have to spend time on the phone with tech support, since there won't be any.

    • You're missing the point of these things. It's not cool to have a hacked together Mac or SuSE on your Xbox or to serve webpages off your newton|C-64|other small, obsolete device because it's the easiest thing to do or themost economical. It's cool because it can be done!
      • You're missing the point of these things. It's not cool to have a hacked together Mac or SuSE on your Xbox or to serve webpages off your newton|C-64|other small, obsolete device because it's the easiest thing to do or themost economical. It's cool because it can be done!
        I saw a Ford Excursion with 20" wide tires on it the other day. I didn't think that was cool either.

  • "Open Source is free if your time is worth nothing." [corporate-ir.net]

    Glad to see someone is extending this brilliant principle to the Mac world.

  • What about the case? (Score:3, Funny)

    by DBordello ( 596751 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @04:56PM (#4262082)
    Isn't the whole point of a mac the shinny case?

  • Why not a clone? (Score:5, Informative)

    by stew77 ( 412272 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:01PM (#4262094)
    OS X is a chance for the clones to come back: This [newsell.de] German vendor is selling OS X compatible Umax clones with G4 CPUs for EUR 729+.
    • Jesus! That web page is sick!

      It's got twice the goat but none of the se.cx that we all crave. ..Leave it to the Germans to mix doule-mint twin farm animals, bad puns, and frankenstien electronics with Unix.

  • The PC Case is just ugly. I'm considering to buy an iMac, partly because of it look, seriously. I'm a hardcore programmer. But Mac's look is just irresistible. I think the Unix core make it a partical machine for coding (besides web browsing, etc).

  • case mod not 'building a g4' (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spasm ( 79260 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:09PM (#4262123) Homepage
    uh.. read the article. it's not 'building a g4 from scratch' so much as 'getting an apple mobo & other random g4 parts off ebay and mounting them in a pc case with some noisy fans', primarily because "it's impossible to use a Zip drive, CD-ROM, and DVD-ROM together in the same machine with any G4 that Apple has ever shipped".

    this is a glorified case-mod project for a specific end use, not 'building a g4 from scratch'.
    • I have a feeling that someone creating a case like this (with the overall high quality, slick look, built in handles, and swing-open side where the motherboard winds up laying on the table) that's ATX will effectively destroy any market for this.

      All you would need to use a standard ATX power supply would be an ATX power extension cable, I presume those exist in some form or another.

  • cheaper education systems (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mbaudis ( 585035 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:09PM (#4262124) Homepage
    apple frequently dumps older systems at the education stores. about 5 monthes ago, stanford had G4/533/CD-RW/40GB + 17 inch LCD for 1249 (that is 350 added to the screen). other examples are 899 (same time) for iBook 600/DVD. all new machines.

  • Not wanting to pay Apple prices (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Galvatron ( 115029 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:33PM (#4262210)
    From page 2 of the instructions: New processors start at around $400 regardless of vendor.

    Ouch, given that an Athlon XP 2000+ can be had for under $100, it sounds like you're still paying Apple prices.

    • What the hell?

      Who keeps moderating everything in this story as a troll? Stop giving this man mod points!
    • You might as well buy a used Apple G4. I considered the article interesting, but I just build myself a dual-proc rig for Linux a couple of months ago.

      The point is, is anyone willing to sell a stripped down 400Mhz-based G4? Or even better: Can anyone find one?

      We all know that Apple is not going to bring OSX to x86, so why not create a PCI imac daughter card Apple? That way we can run OSX too!(don't know how fast that would be though).

  • Intel chip on logic board? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by foonf ( 447461 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:35PM (#4262219) Homepage
    I was looking at this picture of the backside of the logic board [macopz.com] with some interest, having never seen the insides of a modern Mac before. I couldn't help but notice that one of the chips on this board, the middle of the three largish square ICs, appears to be made by Intel (there is a very distinctive large, lowercase i to the left of some other illegible text, which is one of Intel's trademarks). Its impossible to tell what it is from the picture. Is it a PCI bridge? The ethernet controller? You would think Apple would not be keen on using Intel components whenever possible, but then I guess any corporation is going to put profit first. Does anyone know what it is?
    • I'm sure it's a chip that is cheapest by far when purchased from Intel. Sure they could make their own or get it from another vendor, but at what price? Business is business, right? Besides, Apple is more in competition with MS, not Intel.

      --Mike
    • Yeah, I just opened my G4/466 and checked it out (nice how we mac users can do this with one hand and keep typing with the other). It is the PCI chip. Apple isn't in competition with Intel, and there is more than one part on this motherboard made by Intel ...

  • "from scratch" - get real (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:36PM (#4262222) Homepage
    The guy put a Mac motherboard in a PC case. That's hardly "from scratch". It's just a case mod.

    Now if he'd started from some non-Apple PPC motherboard, that would be more impressive.

    • Amen. I was disappointed when I saw that a Mac motherboard was one of the recipe ingredients (and astonished that anyone would use the term "from scratch" to describe it).

      It's like saying you made raisin bread "from scratch" because you added raisins to the bread machine mix instead of buying readymade raisin bread.

      Of course, I build a six-bit binary multiplier out of relays when I was a kid... to me, using a processor on a chip is not making a computer "from scratch." And I'm sure there are people that feel that since I didn't wind the relay coils myself, _I_ was cheating...
    • Ahh, but putting a PC motherboard into a PC case IS building a PC from scratch?

  • who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jchristopher ( 198929 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @05:42PM (#4262241)
    Cramming an Apple motherboard into an ATX case is hardly "building a Mac from scratch".

    Now, if they had used some generic PowerPC motherboard and got it to boot OS X, that would be news. This isn't.

  • From what I see of it, apparently he drilled his board in order to mount it. BAD IDEA!!! I'm willing to bet that there are solder traces that are under the board that you can't see. Cut one, and you can kiss the board goodbye - and if you're unlucky, you might've even killed other components in your system.

    And uh - not to troll, but where does the "cool" part come in? From what I see, he eBayed for parts, spent more than you would've direct from Apple, and loaded it in an ATX case. Uh, yay?

    --pi

  • And why hasn't anyone linked to my (Score:4, Funny)

    by multiplexo ( 27356 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @06:06PM (#4262333) Journal
    How to Build a Porsche From Scratch article in which I describe how to build your own Porsche 911T by purchasing all of the Porsche parts off of E-bay and out of wrecking yards and then mounting them on a frame made of MDX plywood and 2x4s stolen from local construction projects. It's pretty bitching and I'm working on the sequel which is How to Build a Porsche From Scratch So It Looks Like a Landspeeder From Star Wars .

  • What next? A Mac logic board in a Mac case? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @06:38PM (#4262475) Homepage
    Wow, this is so exciting... first a PC board in a Mac case, [slashdot.org] now a Mac board in a PC case.

    How long before someone takes a G4 Mac, removes the logic board from it, puts it back, and put up detailed step-by-step photos on a Web site showing what he or she has accomplished?
  • Note: This article is for information only. Neither the author nor MacOpz.com offer any warranty, implied, expressed, or otherwise, that the information here is 100% accurate, and, hereby disclaim any liability which may arise from your reading this article and attempting to construct what is shown here. The reader should possess the minimal skills technical skills necessary in dealing with computer parts prior to beginning any "do it yourself" project of this nature.
    The fact that someone would try to sue over some potentially misguided information they found on the web and Tried This At Home is a little depressing.

  • How To Build A Buck From Scratch (Score:4, Funny)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Sunday September 15, 2002 @07:45PM (#4262775)
    Step One: Buy 3 Used Buicks ....
  • From the article:

    Furthermore, water cooling projects for the overclockers become more of a reality.

    Aren't PowerPC chips basically un-overclockable? From what I understand, something about the chip design makes it either impossible to overclock it, or makes the speed gained from overclocking it negligble.
  • When I saw this article, I was expecting that it would say something about getting OS X to run on a non-Apple, non-clone motherboard. In other words, a Hackintosh [jargon.net]. False adversiting.

    Not only is it only about upgrading old Mac motherboards, but even the linked page says it's about building your own G4 from scratch. The only part of this that's not a simple "upgrade your old Mac to run OS X" is that it mentions using regular ATX cases. I can't see why you would want to do that unless you were doing a cool case mod.

    Pardon me for yawning, but been there done that about to replace a Linux box with one. And the only reason I did it is I already had an old Power Computing Mac that was already sufficiently upgraded. I'm now debating whether it's worth upgrading my $60 thrift store Power Wave.

  • Just to check, we all noticed that they're still using a fair number of apple aprts, right? Its not like its parts made by somebody else, he's just scavangeing parts from other sources than apple for apple stuff.

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