Re: Buying a MAC

Lance Eggleston (legglest@buffnet.net)
Thu, 25 Jan 1996 01:08:24 EST

>>For about 2000 $ and to use to access the www and word processing with or
>>to be suplemented with a 28.8 modem which mac sould I buy?? Do I need the
>>DOS card now if my school all macs.
>
>Buy the following components:
>*preferrably 16 MEGS of RAM - Minimum of 8 MEGS of RAM
>*preferrably 1 Gig Hard Drive - Minimum of 750 MEGS of Hard Drive
>*preferrably a 4X (quad) speed CD ROM Drive - Minimum a 2X (quad) speed CD
>ROM Drive
>*preferrably a 100 or more MHzs processor speed - Minimum 75 MHz processor
>speed.
>*Power PC minimum with preferrably a 603e processor chip - Minimum a 601
>processor chip
>*14 or 15 inch monitor with speakers preferred
>*single modular design or separate CPU and monitor are your choice
>
>Yes, on the WP'er (ClarisWorks 4.0, for the price and product quality is
>hard to beat)
>Yes, on 28.8 modem (no less!)
>No, on the DOS card. In a Mac environment you probably won't ever need it.
>If you do, you can always add it later.
>

=46or my 2=A2 : I don't feel the CPU speed needs to be that high (75 MHz or
more). Your apps are not that CPU intensive. Also, the 603 should have at
least 256K L2 cache. The specs I've seen indicate that the 603 w/o cache is
slower than the 601. For the price and your needs, look at PowerMac 6100/60
or the PowerComputing clone equivalent.

I agree with all the other RAM and HD specs. Make sure the modem is V.34
and not V.fast. The on-line speed of the V.34 is much faster. I can
routinely connect my Mac at 115200 bps with my InfoTel 28.8 V.34. On my HP
Omnibook running the new Trumpet V2x dialler I connect at 230000 bps. It
screams, same modem.

Bottom line, for on-line work, modem and connect line speed (quality) are
critical factors. If you have a dirty dial up phone line, the auto fall
back modems may only connect at 14.4 or lower. For modem speeds over 14.4
kbps, make sure you use a hardware handshake cable to the CPU.

You can never have too much RAM, HD space or too fast a modem.

Lance Eggleston
Director of Instructional Technology
Hamburg Central Schools
5305 Abbott Road
Hamburg NY 14075 USA
legglest@buffnet.net