Well, if you count Macs as cars.
^.^
Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. No, I did not need a second computer.
I wanted one.
After the hard drive on my iBook died this summer and I was computerless for two weeks, the advice I’d always given people came back to haunt me.
“Never be totally dependent on one computer.”
I had been, and it bit me in the ass in the worst kind of way. I have a feeling that all the downloading I’d been doing contributed to the drives demise, but it’s not like I could just give up downloading, could I? Also, using my iBook as a download machine meant it had to stay tethered at home. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a portable computer.
Even before I got to Japan, I knew I’d wanted to pick up a second system to handle downloading and other sundry tasks that I don’t need to tie up my primary machine for. I didn’t want to get a brand new computer for what would amount to a downloading slave, and I knew I wanted to stay with a Mac, so what to get?I thought about what would be suitable as far as price, power, functionality and how much space I’d have for a machine that would do little else than sit there. (Yes, I know most home systems aren’t moved around a lot, but apartments are small here and I didn’t want too much space taken up by this thing.) In the end there was only one choice:
An iMac DV/SE
It’s a model from 5 years ago, but it’s still a great little workhorse. I wanted the DV instead of a regular iMac, as I’d need the firewire ports. I can plug my FW hard drives into them to transfer downloaded stuff to my iBook, and they’re handy for hooking my iPod up and playing tunes. The speakers sound better than I’d expected, and they’re much better than what’s in my iBook.
It’s not as fast as today’s machines. It’s only got a 400Mhz G3, 128 megs of RAM and a 13 GB hard drive, but that seems to be more than enough. I loaded up OSX last night (it’d had OS9 on it when I bought it), and got everything updated to 10.3.6 without a hitch. Right now it’s running two Torrent downloads, playing music in iTunes and doing one other special task. (I’ll say what that is in the next post. Be patient.) And doing all that quite happily.
The price for the latest addition to my family? $350
Not bad at all, considering what it can do. And I even got a 3-year warranty from Sofmap. If you’re in Tokyo and in the market for a used Mac, you owe it to yourself to check out Sofmap Mac Collection store in Akihabara. They’ve got nearly every model ever made, and the older ones are dirt cheap. You can get a first-generation iMac (the fruity colored ones) for just over $100. They’ve got ones older than that as well, and the place is practically a Mac museum. Great fun to look around in even if you’re not in a buying mood.
You never know though, your mood might change while you’re in the store. ^.^