[OT] cost effectiveness - was YDL FAQ for Old world Macs

[Norberto Quintanar]

Geert Janssens wrote:

---snipped---
There's no way to revive the poor old G3. Tried everything from
changing RAM, starting form MacOS BootDisk, even replacing the boot
ROM, zapping the PRAM and any combination of these. I always get a
bus error before the OS fully loads. I believe 8 years of service
(and that means heavy duty in this camp), has put it over the top.
But I consider dying of age to be a wonderful end for a computer.
Much better than being dumped :-)

I ordered a Mac Mini as a replacement the very same day. So as soon
as it arrives, I'll be a happy YDL'er again (at least, if YDL
installs already on it).

--- Daniel Gimpelevich <daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us>
wrote:

> I find it curious that you had a spare boot ROM to swap into your
> beige
> G3, but not a spare CPU, which can also be pulled from a B&W G3 or
> a
> Yikes! G4. Granted, the symptom you describe doesn't sound like a
> CPU
> problem, but you never know. Incidentally, if MacOS (< 10) says
> "bus
> error" during boot, that's not a PowerPC bus error, but the
> emulation of a
> 68000 one, likely indicating a problem with the boot drive or SCSI
> or ATA
> bus. It sounds like you have given up on diagnosis simply because
> you
> can't fully boot MacOS. To that, I must say that you can't know
> anything
> about what's wrong until you have seen what the Linux kernel has to
> say
> about it. So try a Linux boot floppy and spare the best OldWorld
> model for
> Linux from the scrap heap. You can find OldWorld Linux boot
> floppies at:
>
http://people.debian.org/~luther/d-i/images/daily/powerpc/floppy-2.4/


At what point does diagnosing an old world mac cost too much to fix? 
Cost of hardware and software aside, what value does one put on their
time to accomplish such an undertaking?  Plus he's already ordered a
mac mini @ 499 + S/H.  Depending on the market, that's one to two
days of work for me.  Getting an old world mac to work with 4.0 could
easily take that much time if not more.  Terrasoft's decision not to
support OWM's was cost effective.  And to top it off, 3.0 runs better
on OWM's anyway.  I applaud Geert's decision to buy a new machine and
retire his 8 year old work horse.  

Just my ($0.02)

Norberto Quintanar

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com