The home computer is used for many different purposes, and they all need to be addressed before the new computer is bought.
Who is going to be using the computer?
What are they going to be using the computer for?
Should the computer be good value for money or should it be fast?
By sitting down and thinking through what the computer is going to be used for you can get a list of the things you want in a computer, and decide what features you are prepared to pay for, and what features you do not need/want.
Who is going to be using the computer?
By knowing who is going to be using the computer, you know what your computer is going to need to do.
A computer for a family with teenage children is going to need to be able to play the latest games, surf the web, run all the applications used in the work places of the family members, be robust and resilient, able to stand all the knocks and blows dealt out to it by constant use, and be able to switch between multiple different uses with the least amount of worries.
A computer for a university student must be able to write reports, handle the applications specific to the student's course and be cheap, but still able to handle the games and entertainment usages to which a student will require.
As you see, listing the people who are going to use the computer leads to the next step:
What is the computer going to be used for?
The use the computer is going to be put to determines what it needs to have. Remember to look ahead over the life of the computer when planning what to buy. Just because you have preteen kids now who are uninterested in games, remember that they are going to want to play the latest brightest games later. You have to decide whether it is better to buy the computer that caters for that now, or whether to replace a cheaper computer you bought now, with a more powerful computer then.
An example of how the use the computer is going to be put to decides the computer you want is if you are a handy cam buff and would like to edit your home movies, as well as play the latest games, write a local newsletter and have a fairly flexibly, but not inexhaustible budget, Apples video editing Power Mac 6500 would be nice, but if you're only going to do the odd wordprocessing, family budget planning and the occasional game of solitaire, the Video Editing Mac is a waste of money.
Similarly, if you plan to do graphics layouts for a magazine on your home computer using Photo Shop, you'll want a 604 powered computer, on the other hand if you just want to scan in the odd photo, and maybe do some simple web page designing, you'll be able to get away with a 603 processor. (Remember the mantra "603 cheap, 604 powerful").
This of course is a good lead-in to the next question:
Should I go for a value for money computer, or a powerful computer?
At the present time this breaks down into a question about whether you should get a 603 powered computer or a 604 powered computer.
Not only is the 604 processor of Mac's more powerful then 603 processors, the whole design of the computer is more powerful. 604 computers are designed for speed and power. 603 computers are designed for price and marketing (except for Powerbooks, which use the 603 processor to increase battery life). Little things such as choice of hard drive, type of RAM and size of L2 cache are all chosen for the 604's to make them faster, while for the 603 they are chosen price and marketing (yes marketing, computer manufacturers increase the RAM, hard drive and clock speed of computers because of marketing pressures). This means that the 604 computers are quite a lot dearer then 603 computers, as they receive speed innovations while they are innovations (and expensive) rather then standard (and cheap).
Also note that 604 computers usually come with just the computer and the operating system, maybe a keyboard and mouse if you are lucky (or talk your supplier into it) whereas the 603 computers normally come bundled with loads of applications, games, demos, keyboard, mouse, (usually) monitor and (sometimes) printers. This means you have to add the cost of purchasing all these things (if you need them) to the cost of purchasing the 604 computer.
From my personal opinion, value is of more importance than power in the purchase of home computers. The extra cash outlay of a 604 computer into the home is usually not advisable. Most of the speed gains between a 604 and 603 computer are not noticeable for general home computer use (the computers being so much faster then you need anyway). The technical differences between a 604 and 603 are mostly in the FPU (Floating Point Unit), this is a special part of the chip that does complicated maths, and is not used much in general household computer use. By all means if you are planning to use applications dependant on the FPU, such as mathematical applications, scientific programs, Photo Shop or really large, complicated spreadsheets and Data Bases on a regular (as in daily) basis, then the 604 is probably the right way to go, for the rest of us, the extra few seconds needed to do these tasks doesn't matter, as they are not going to be done on a regular basis by us, and the added advantage of having a complete computing system (applications, games and hardware) as well as extra money outweighs the speed increase.
Some situations and my recommended computer system.
These are examples only to give you a guide. Change it as necessary to suit yourselves.
I have listed the major components of the system and my recommendations in the following way for each computer system.
Processor The two types in use by Macintosh manufactures are the 603 (cheap) and the 604 (powerful). Processors are distinguished by speed in Mega Hertz (MHz) but should only be used to distinguish between processors in the same design (603 or 604) as the 604 processor is more powerful.
RAM Random Access Memory, measured in Mega Bytes (MB) or just megs. This is sometimes confused with Hard Drive space, also referred to as memory. An easy way to stop the confusion is to remember that RAM is measured in Megs while the Hard Drive is measured in Giga Bytes.
Hard Drive Sometimes referred to as disk drive. Measured in Giga Bytes.
Some Notes.
CDROM's are standard with all computers, but don't pay extra for faster ones. CDs have to be specially written by the publisher to take advantage of faster drive speeds, and publishers stopped doing this with the Quad (4x) speed drives as far as I am aware. So the difference between a 12x and 18x CDROM is nothing like it seems at face value.
Level 2 (L2) memory caches. Having one is nice, and does significantly improve computing speeds, but a faster chip usually beats any speed gains.
Always ask exactly what comes in the application package of the computers, and take the price of the package as reported by the computer dealer with a large grain of salt. If you get down to comparing computers by their packages, write down the applications you would buy that are in the packages, and find out their street price, then use that to compare the computers.
Always check the hardware that comes with the computer. After all, the computer is no good without a monitor and they are about $500 extra.
Modems Check the one that comes with your computer is at least 28.8 Kilo bits per second (Kbs), preferably 33Kbs. There are 56Kbs modems, but they all don't talk to each other yet, so there is no guarantee they will work with a given internet provider.
A simple computer setup
A computer that is going to be used for mainly word processing, simpler games (any game that says "PowerPC ONLY" "Recommended RAM 8 megs FREE" and the like is called COMPLEX, I'm talking about solitaire, Gun Shy maybe even Malestrom) the occasional bit of web surfing and simpler pleasures like this is obviously not in need of the fastest chips, latest gizmos and such.
A purchaser of this type of computer should be looking at the cheapest computer they can find. Any new Mac compatible computer on the market is more then capable of handling such modest goals, so you might as well save your money and go for the cheapest computer. Actually, these goals are so modest that a good secondhand computer should fit the bill.
What to look for when buying this computer (new)
ProcessorA 603 processor is more than powerful enough, the slowest speed available (presently 180MHz) is more than fast enough for your needs.
RAMThe minimum sold with the computer (presently 16Megs) is more than enough.
Hard Disk The minimum sold presently (about the 1 Gig) is again more than enough.
Note This user could save a lot of money by going secondhand. This computer setup is probably beyond the needs of this user, but it is the minimum sold.
Home business computer
for the basic computer applications of business, spreadsheet, wordprocessing and database, the same configuration as the above computer is fine. If you wish to use more than one application at a time you should have more RAM (around 32 Megs for the simple programs used in business) also note you will often need to buy separate applications rather then rely on the simple works programs that come with the computer.
A Family with young children
The children need no special consideration when buying the actual hardware, on the other hand some extra software needs to be considered for the children. My recommendations are some games appropriate to their age group and the program At Ease which will lock away the hard drive so the children can't accidentally delete any files, and also make the Mac interface more child friendly (It makes it very simple in terms of ease of use and complexity, its downside is that At Ease has all the useability of Windows 3.1 for a dedicated user.)
Games orientated computer
Just because it is games orientated doesn't mean that the computer can't do something useful, it is just that the games are what pushes the boundaries of a computer's performance.
I see no need to have a 604 in a games computer, the price is not worth it. A fast 603 chip is more than powerful enough for most of the games on the market, and the use of a graphics accelerator (comes bundled with a lot of computers these days) will make up the differences. Again the value in terms of extra applications and games coming with the computer outlay the need for power.
A good system
Processor The fastest 603 you can afford, bearing in mind that this will prolong the life of your computer.
RAM As much as possible, games really do eat up the RAM of a computer. The 32 Meg mark is a good point to aim at, but 16 is good enough for most games. Also you should be able to talk your dealer into getting you some more RAM at purchase time and installing it in your system at a reasonable price. Of course Apples Power Mac 6500 and 5500 systems have 32/64 Meg configurations already, and most clones are moving to match this, so the RAM requirement is usually met by the computers already.
Hard Drive Again as big as possible. 2 gigs or bigger would be nice. Remember that most games require hefty amounts of hard drive space for storage.
Notes Try and get one of the newer graphics accelerator equipped Macs, some of the latest games are requiring it, also some computers have games in their applications packages.
Words of wisdom to end
Buy the fastest computer you can afford, and start saving for the next computer right away. Computers have a useful life of about 3-5 years depending on what you need them to do. If you bought the greatest computer on the market it will last 3 years before it no longer does what you wish, if you bought the cheapest computer on the market, it'll probably last 5 years, maybe longer before it breaks down and no longer works. (Actually Mac computers 10 years old are still being used, even on the web.)
Expansion, especially of RAM, L2 caches and hard disk space can keep your computer working productively long beyond the 3-5 year life of the computer, so are good things to check out when buying a computer.
I welcome suggestions and critiques at [email protected] addressed to Jude Coughlin.
Macintosh - General Info
