Anybody got a spare Mac?

[fury]

I'd like to develop stuff for Mac OS X and iPhone

Been trying to throw Hackintosh on a dormant computer here, but no luck so far (tried two different distros with a dozen combinations of different settings). Just need some kind of Intel-based Mac, luckily I've already got the developer license. Savings account for buying one has, um, $72 in it so far

In other news, been fluffing up my resume to get it ready to be put out there. Still at the old job for now, but the company recently announced a loss in the conference call, which they are going to try to curb by cutting more jobs, so my days may be numbered. Don't know whether I have a short hand or a long hand to count em on either. Just trying to go for a decent living doing what I love... programming, user interface design, online community stuff... even if I have to roll up my sleeves and dig down in the dirt for a couple years before it becomes profitable. I have so many ideas I want to put on the Mac and iPhone, just no way to develop for those platforms.

 

[chcr]

Got a Mini but I'm pretty sure my wife will be pissed if it disappears. I thuoght about trying the hackintosh thing a while back. I think the hardware it'll run on is pretty narrow.

 

[fury]

I had 10.5.2 running on my Lenovo X60 tablet, but never had luck with the newer versions - and i need 10.5.5 to run the SDK

 

[chcr]

BTW, are you married to the idea of an intel mac? G4 Imacs are usually pretty reasonable. Emacs too.

 

[chcr]

Oops, typed before your response. I don't think a G4 will run 10.5, will it?

Might keep an eye open for a core solo Imac or Mini though.

 

[fury]

Nope, SDK requires an Intel running 10.5.5. Yeah, narrows down the possibilities quite a bit. These damn things hold their value like nothing I've ever seen... still going on eBay for near retail after being used for 2 years.

 

[chcr]

Mac folk are barking mad. What about making a list of what osx would run on and acquiring the parts that don't match?

 

[fury]

Would pretty much cost me as much as the Mac itself. I don't have any Intel-base parts around here, so I'd be going around and getting the whole shebang - motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card, etc...

That, and then it usually needs a format and reinstall whenever the SDK is updated to require a newer version of OS X. That's what broke my stride the last time I had a successful Hackintosh setup.

 

[BeardofPants]

I actually do have a spare mac, but it's pre-intel.

 

[pc_builder]

Speaking of spare macs, I just got a free imac tonight.

It was given to a friend of mine who turned it on to see if it worked. But since he doesn't use macs and didn't care to learn how, he said I could have it. I need to get a mouse for it though.

 

[Inkara1]

Which version of the iMac? There have been a lot.

 

[pc_builder]

I don't know yet. I didn't look it over too well. I left it at my house and am at a friend's right now. All I know for now is that it's running macos 8.6

Edit: I'll let you know more tomorrow. But it is one of those all-in-one jobs. With the translucent sides.

 

[pc_builder]

It's one of these.
Well... as far as looks on the outside anyway.

 

[Inkara1]

First-generation with the court-ordered-punishment mouse and the laptop CD-ROM drive that you push the button to pop open instead of the slot-loading drive?

There will be a sticker on it somewhere that will tell you the specs. The RAM might have been upgraded (it takes laptop memory) but the hard drive probably hasn't been (pain to get to) and it would have a G3 processor. You CAN run OS X on a G3... but you also CAN run Vista with just 512 megs of RAM. Doesn't mean you'd really want to try either one. I ran OS X 10.4 on a G3 server at 400 MHz and it took forever to do anything.

 

[Inkara1]

I see where you say you need a mouse. Any USB mouse will do, even an el cheapo $5 job. But if you plug in a two-button mouse in OS 8 or OS 9, it will see it as a one-button mouse, so it doesn't make a difference which of the two buttons you click. It also won't regognize the scroll wheel. Apple didn't support the second button or scroll wheels until OS X.

 

[Inkara1]

Also... if it's a slightly newer iMac that looks liek that but has a slot-loading CD drive, you're luckier in finding RAM for it because those ones take regular PC100 RAM instead of laptop memory.

 

[pc_builder]

It has 64mb of ram and a G3 cpu at 333mhz

 

[Inkara1]

Oh... yeah, you'll want to up the RAM just to make OS X even close to useable on it.

 

[fury]

10.2 is the latest it'll run. I have a few of those, too, all of them had Mac OS 9 on them. One of the tray loading and two of the slot loading. Two of the machines are dead, and the other one is in pieces

 

[pc_builder]

If only I could find one of these I'd be happy.

But I am definitely going to up the ram and harddrive at least. I think it has the 6gb hdd