pakopako wrote:They're not. The worst part about building a PC is after the deal hunting, finding out if your parts are compatible (video card, motherboard, optical drives) with each other. (This can take a few extra days after waiting for all the parts to arrive.)
why.... would you buy parts not knowing if they work together.... i mean oh my god.
You wouldn't.. but it's not as if a retailer is going to say that optical-drive "X" won't work with motherboard "Y". I've system freezes at OS startup and a little after POST when the motherboard, for one reason or another, just doesn't like some component despite all the technical specifications fitting. (IDE cables are fine, AGP 4x card in 4x capable slot, RAM are at uniform speeds... It takes a large chunk of the day to figure out which combination of elements is causing the lock.)
isiolia wrote:It wasn't true then. They sold add-in boards that were a PC on a card to allow for that, or you could run a PC emulator.
Even more recently the main difference hardware-wise is that Macs didn't use the standard PC BIOS. They swapped to Open Firmware on PPC, then EFI when they moved to Intel. However, limits on the BIOS are (finally) seeing PCs shifting to UEFI en masse, so it might get even easier to make a Hackintosh.
My fault. Totally forgot that Macintosh computers ran on Motorolla chipsets; when they created the RISC-based PPC architecture with IBM is when you could put DOS on an Apple. (Did not know it was the PC BIOS that was incongruent.)
My scheduling skills have died of dysentery; I hope to visit at least on a monthly basis. Still, don't forget to tip your waitress.
isiolia wrote:It wasn't true then. They sold add-in boards that were a PC on a card to allow for that, or you could run a PC emulator.
Even more recently the main difference hardware-wise is that Macs didn't use the standard PC BIOS. They swapped to Open Firmware on PPC, then EFI when they moved to Intel. However, limits on the BIOS are (finally) seeing PCs shifting to UEFI en masse, so it might get even easier to make a Hackintosh.
My fault. Totally forgot that Macintosh computers ran on Motorolla chipsets; when they created the RISC-based PPC architecture with IBM is when you could put DOS on an Apple. (Did not know it was the PC BIOS that was incongruent.)
IBM sold their own PPC based systems, and there were even PowerPC versions of Windows NT, but I never recall being able to straight install them on a Mac.
Like I mentioned though, there were add-in PC cards (OrangePC being the major aftermarket vendor) that allowed you do run both. Apple even shipped a handful of models that included one from the factory (the ones with (PC) by the model here). If you're remembering being able to install DOS programs on a Power Mac, that may be why.
