[jld]

Why are cubes worth so much more than comparable Powermac systems?

[Lateralus]

Because they are awesome.

[djohnson]

They are the headless Mac everyone wants! Seriously, you can add bigger HD, more ram, faster, even dual G4's, better AGP card... Makes one nice SMALL system! If I could get one, I would just to say I have one!!!

[fulmer]

I'd pay a premium for one.

[Kenneth]

I want to be one of the Cubist.

[PowerCube]

Not to mention we are (Lucky) owners of a relatively rare and Oh So Cool machine. I don't think anyone could ever pry my Cube from even my cold, dead hands. Place one in your office, and then be prepared for the ensuing expicative(s).

[starman]

I had one. It's a great machine, but the problem is that by today's standards it's hideously slow, and upgrading it defeats its own purpose of being quiet since you have to put a fan in it.

I loved mine, but I had to sell it. It was impractical. The cost of upgrading it was ridiculous. I wound up getting a 15" iMac instead. It's very quiet and does what I want it to do which is run Panther Server, which is what the Cube did but VERY slowly.

I sold the Cube for $860 and bought the iMac for $1200. I got a much better performing machine, a 15" displat to boot, and it's very quiet.

Mike

[ryju]

I would have liked one back when it was released, but now it's just impractical.

[Ambassadeur]

Originally posted by ryju:
I would have liked one back when it was released, but now it's just impractical.

Oh come on, it's not THAT bad
With a fast harddrive and lots of ram it's ok for normal use (internet, mail, office and stuff). No big jumps anymore, but I would not change its looks for a lot of perfomance improvement. Call me nostalgic, but I still think that machine is awesome - and it gets marvelled at all the time!

[driven]

It's hip to be square!

[joe]

The Cube is a beautiful sculpture that also happens to be an upgradeable, nearly silent computer that takes almost no desk space. It hits that perfect middle ground for those that want to at least upgrade their cpu and graphics card (drives, memory, etc) - but don't need extra drive bays or PCI slots......joe

[CIA]

It's a great example of Apple being WAY ahead of it's time. When it was released it was a tough product to place in Apple's line up though. Too bad it died. Regardless of it's shortcommings, those who got one know they still fetch a pretty penny on eBay! And yes, for email, web browsing, and word processing, they are still perfect. I'm suprised more universities didn't grab them as their sizes makes them great general computer lab machines.

OR Silent 10,000 cube cluster anyone? 8-)

[driven]

Originally posted by CIA:
It's a great example of Apple being WAY ahead of it's time. When it was released it was a tough product to place in Apple's line up though. Too bad it died. Regardless of it's shortcommings, those who got one know they still fetch a pretty penny on eBay! And yes, for email, web browsing, and word processing, they are still perfect. I'm suprised more universities didn't grab them as their sizes makes them great general computer lab machines.

OR Silent 10,000 cube cluster anyone? 8-)

I think they used to cluster cubes on the set of Star Trek Voyager for the set's numerous video displays. (All those screens on the bridge were Cube powered ... behind the set was racks of Cubes to power them.)

[TimmyDee51]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
Because they are awesome.

Nicely put! You took the words right out of my mouth. The exact words!

[voodoo]

Originally posted by driven:
It's hip to be square!

ah I almost had forgotten we share the same taste in music

[Azzgunther]

Originally posted by driven:
I think they used to cluster cubes on the set of Star Trek Voyager for the set's numerous video displays. (All those screens on the bridge were Cube powered ... behind the set was racks of Cubes to power them.)

Now THAT'S interesting.

OT: The reason cubes are so expensive is simply because there is a demand for a product that hasn't been made in three years.

[ryju]

Originally posted by Ambassadeur:
Oh come on, it's not THAT bad
With a fast harddrive and lots of ram it's ok for normal use (internet, mail, office and stuff). No big jumps anymore, but I would not change its looks for a lot of perfomance improvement. Call me nostalgic, but I still think that machine is awesome - and it gets marvelled at all the time!

Oh if I saw it for a decent price, less than $1000 I would maybe consider it. But then upgrading is another cost factor to consider. I'd think it costs a lot to bring it up near 1GHz. Then I'd have to use my ugly CRT monitor..

[driven]

Originally posted by voodoo:


ah I almost had forgotten we share the same taste in music

I spent my formative years in the 80s.

[driven]

Originally posted by Azzgunther:
Now THAT'S interesting.

OT: The reason cubes are so expensive is simply because there is a demand for a product that hasn't been made in three years.

The photos are now offline, but here is the article about the G4 Cube cluster on Voyager.
(Now I wish I saved the photos, they were impressive)

http://www.treknation.com/articles/e...et_visit.shtml

[freakboy2]

Originally posted by starman:
I had one. It's a great machine, but the problem is that by today's standards it's hideously slow, and upgrading it defeats its own purpose of being quiet since you have to put a fan in it.

I loved mine, but I had to sell it. It was impractical. The cost of upgrading it was ridiculous. I wound up getting a 15" iMac instead. It's very quiet and does what I want it to do which is run Panther Server, which is what the Cube did but VERY slowly.

I sold the Cube for $860 and bought the iMac for $1200. I got a much better performing machine, a 15" displat to boot, and it's very quiet.

Mike

trading a cube for an imac. you suck.

cubes rock. who cares how impractical they are. And for the 400$ extra you spent, you could have put in a 1.25 g4 which would be faster than the imac.

fb2

[JCT]

I think one of the Manhattan art museums has a Cube in their collection.

As for me, I'm a new (partial) switcher, fell for OS X after configuring an iBook at work and bought myself a 12" PB soon afterward.

Soon after that I decided I wanted a desktop Mac, but everyone said wait until the Rev B G5s arrived (I want to replace my 3.0 GHz P4 with a fast dual G5 ... and say goodbye to Windows at home).

My husband took pity on me (pining for a desktop Mac) and bought me a Cube for Valentine's Day! So I spent last weekend doing some upgrades and I'm having a *great * time with it. It will hold me until this fall without a problem and it is a joy to behold.

A lovely piece of computing history.

JT

Ack! Gotta fix my sig!

[starman]

Originally posted by freakboy2:
trading a cube for an imac. you suck.

cubes rock. who cares how impractical they are. And for the 400$ extra you spent, you could have put in a 1.25 g4 which would be faster than the imac.

fb2

Uh, I had to have the thing on a KVM switch to save a space on my desk for a monitor. An iMac with the 15" LCD solved that problem. Cubes don't have displays.

The extra $400 I spent went towards my G5. Also, I now have a DVD-ROM/CD-RW in my iMac, which would have been ANOTHER cost for the Cube.

And oooooh..... 0.25GHz faster.

You forget that I would have had to install a fan which would have defeated the purpose of the Cube in the first place.

Also, the Cube has no Line In which made it COMPLETELY useless for my radio show.

Mike

[Azzgunther]

Originally posted by driven:
The photos are now offline, but here is the article about the G4 Cube cluster on Voyager.
(Now I wish I saved the photos, they were impressive)

http://www.treknation.com/articles/e...et_visit.shtml

Interesting. Too bad idrivex requires a password to view his .Mac site. He claims to have pictures of the 16 cubes.

[PowerCube]

Originally posted by starman:
You forget that I would have had to install a fan which would have defeated the purpose of the Cube in the first place.

Believe it or not, there are some quiet fans out there nowadays. I built a custom base for my Cube from stainless steel(think shoebox lid, but with 3 sides, about 9 x 9, open side down, big hole in the middle with 120mm slow speed fan)This enabled a processor upgrade AND a fanless GF3 video card (custom heat sink). You can only hear the fan if it is dead silent in the house.

Also, the Cube has no Line In which made it COMPLETELY useless for my radio show.

Mike

Think iMic. (not sure about the latency factor for your use) Worked well for me, until I discovered mAudio Sonica Theater. Now my Cube also serves as jukebox to my home theater system.(all my cd's are now flac files on an external 250g firewire drive)

All in all, for true Cube enthusiasts, money is no object. Hey, we bought the dam% overpriced things in the first place, did we not? Yeah, if I took all the money I spent on this thing (including purchase) I would be well on my way to a G5 dual. But it's not about pure speed. It's all about the experience.

[joe]

Originally posted by driven:
The photos are now offline, but here is the article about the G4 Cube cluster on Voyager.
(Now I wish I saved the photos, they were impressive)

I saved one of them. It shows about a dozen Cubes in a lower cabinet with 2 NEC flat panels and Apple keyboards above. It's an 800x600 jpeg about 300KB in size. Not sure if this is too large to post. If so, PM me and I'll email you the photo............joe

[michaelb]

It's not Voyager, it's Enterprise. You know, the one with Jolene. Since Enterprise is still in production (despite falling ratings - obviously you guys don't watch it or you'd know the difference), the Cubes are probably still part of the set.

Anyway, here they are:



And if you watch Wednesday night at 8 pm on UPN, you can see the PowerMac G4 Cubes in use!

(C'mon people, get the ratings up or Enterprise will be cancelled and the Cubes will die...)

[DeathToWindows]

Originally posted by JCT:
[B]

My husband took pity on me (pining for a desktop Mac) and bought me a Cube for Valentine's Day! So I spent last weekend doing some upgrades and I'm having a *great * time with it. It will hold me until this fall without a problem and it is a joy to behold.
/B]

better than roses for a geek

[joe]

Originally posted by michaelb:
It's not Voyager, it's Enterprise. You know, the one with Jolene. Since Enterprise is still in production (despite falling ratings - obviously you guys don't watch it or you'd know the difference....

Yeah, I tried watching Enterprise several times. The reason noone is watching is because it <edit> isn't up to the level of previous ST series. For me it's uncomfortable and irritating to watch. There are just too many problems. To start off: probably the worst casting I've ever seen in a ST series - especially Archer. Jolene is great and one of the best acted parts on the set. But the 7 or 9 outfits don't make sense. Vulcans never wore that type of garb, so it comes across as cheesy and manipulative regardless of how terrific she looks. And it just goes downhill from there.

But you just gave me one more reason to avoid this show. With any luck, those Cubes will end up on eBay sooner than later. And I need a backup ...............joe

[michaelb]

Originally posted by joe:
Yeah, I tried watching Enterprise several times. The reason noone is watching is because it <edit> isn't up to the level of previous ST series. ... Vulcans never wore that type of garb, so it comes across as cheesy and manipulative regardless of how terrific she looks. ... With any luck, those Cubes will end up on eBay sooner than later. And I need a backup ...............joe

LOL! I dunno, Voyager was pretty bad most of the time too. But you're right, they are getting a bit desperate with the ratings and sexing it up a bit: showing Jolene half naked never happened with Spock <shudder>.

Anyway, I'm doing something similar with my old Cube: it runs a "photo wall" in the lounge.



The photo wall is the Cube with an LCD screen on a mantelpiece loaded with my father's 20,000+ scanned photos taken over the last 40 years.

It cycles and cross-fades between them every few seconds, and I can make "smart albums" in iPhoto which show specific countries or other themes. It's quite a talking point for visitors.

[starman]

How did you scan in so many slides? I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do that as fast as possible.

And I hate Enterprise. Bad show. Bad writing. Bad inconsitencies.

Mike

[olePigeon]

What I is the software or whatever they use for the displays. Those would make some seriously kickass Mac-Only screensavers.

[Link]

It's because of people like This who "have no use for a g4 cube" but like to keep one in their closet just for bragging rights.

[jcadam]

I don't undersand why the cubes didn't catch on.

I buy PowerMacs, but they are a bit overkill for me.

All I need is a headless iMac with a dang AGP slot so I could change out the video card!
Until Apple produces such a thing (again) I'll continue to buy the towers.