I haven't used a Mac in about 10 years. However, I am currently doing some hardware development (USB) and want to do it on a Mac. So, my question is, what is the cheapest setup I can get that will work with OSX? The Mac Minis are really cheap and actractive, but is there something maybe a bit cheaper and almost as powerfull that I might be able to get used? I know nothing about the Mac product line. Is there like maybe a desktop system that would be a year or two old that I might find on Ebay or someplace for cheaper that would run OSX? Also, if a used system isn't running Tiger, would it be worth upgrading for this kind of simple development? Kind of a longshot but does anyone have expirience with hardware drivers on OSX and know anything about compatibility between versions?

I would attempt to find an older used Quicksilver G4 from somewhere like PowerMax. Try to stay away from G3 or lower systems, or machines that don't carry OS X.

I have an older PowerMac G3/233 with OS X 10.2 loaded and it's a humongous pain to deal with -- way too slow for anything other than terminal usage (which is effectively what I do use it for).

If you want to get involved, Darwin (the kernel behind OS X) is open-source (and available for x86) from Apple's developer website, and there are some projects (OpenDarwin) trying to make it better. You might want to just install OpenDarwin on a spare PC machine and develop USB gear from there -- it should be the same driver interface and guts although you will lose Apple's dev tools and pretty UI.

Tiger adds mostly usability/performance improvements and pre-installed GCC 4.0 -- you can install most of the dev tool crap yourself through Fink. However, I haven't attempted driver dev, and the newest version of Apple's Xcode tools only work on 10.4 (Tiger) so I would recommend getting the latest version of the OS regardless. Please ensure the machine you are about to buy is supported by OSX 10.4.

Just make sure it has enough memory. I would say 256 MB minimum, 512 MB if you can get it. Despite the claims of OS X 10.0 being able to run on 128 MB, trying it is a really bad idea.

Quote: Original post by SiCrane
Just make sure it has enough memory. I would say 256 MB minimum, 512 MB if you can get it. Despite the claims of OS X 10.0 being able to run on 128 MB, trying it is a really bad idea.

I would back that up -- I am running OS X 10.2 on 128MB and it is ridiculously painful. I am, however, also running OS X 10.4 rather comfortably on 256MB on an iMac 600 (slot-loader).

Shove as much RAM in the machine you buy as it can take.

Quote: Original post by Ravuya
I have an older PowerMac G3/233 with OS X 10.2 loaded and it's a humongous pain to deal with -- way too slow for anything other than terminal usage (which is effectively what I do use it for).

I have the same specs / OS version (128 megs of RAM) on an imac. While it works ok (and it actually seems more responsive than OS 9 was), I wouldn't recommend something like it - get at minimum a G4 with as much RAM as you can afford. The only thing I use the imac for is running apache/PHP/MySQL for testing some web dev work.

The Mac Mini is probably the best deal you'll find (next to a refurb/used Mini). Used Macs tend to depreciate very slowly. After two years a $2800 system will be $1200, give or take.

Thanks for all the help.

I did some reading/searching and found some models like this

ebay link

which from my standpoint seem fine. It has the 256mb ram. The hard drive space isn't really important since it's just for development/testing. It shouldn't need a lot of software or anything. Plus it comes with a monitor and is all for under $200.

Is there anything obviously lacking from that, which would cause problems? (Other than it running a little slow)?

Quote: Original post by DrjonesDW3d
Thanks for all the help.

I did some reading/searching and found some models like this

ebay link

which from my standpoint seem fine. It has the 256mb ram. The hard drive space isn't really important since it's just for development/testing. It shouldn't need a lot of software or anything. Plus it comes with a monitor and is all for under $200.

Is there anything obviously lacking from that, which would cause problems? (Other than it running a little slow)?

I have that same model, but with a 600MHz CPU. It's passable, but I can assure you that it's by no means fast. I'd recommend getting at least a G4 (CRT iMacs are all G3).

That iMac would be more than fine if you just ran sshd on it and connected to a shell over your network -- this is what I'd probably do for development anyway. For GUI stuff, it will probably be on the slow side.

I think that model would do fine for what you intend to use it for. I would stick with 10.3 on that thing. It's probably the fastest version of the operating system available. Earlier versions were a bit sluggish, and I have a feeling that the new features in 10.4 (Spotlight and Dashboard in particular) would slow a memory- and IO-bound system to a crawl.

As others pointed out, you also have the option of installing Darwin 8.x and running an X11-based development environment.

Quote: Original post by igni ferroque
I think that model would do fine for what you intend to use it for. I would stick with 10.3 on that thing. It's probably the fastest version of the operating system available. Earlier versions were a bit sluggish, and I have a feeling that the new features in 10.4 (Spotlight and Dashboard in particular) would slow a memory- and IO-bound system to a crawl.

As others pointed out, you also have the option of installing Darwin 8.x and running an X11-based development environment.

Actually, I've found that 10.4 is much faster on that hardware than 10.3 was -- I have no idea why. Being conservative with performance sapping options produces a great speedup compared to 10.3's piddly amount of options. I'd also use TinkerTool to limit a bunch of other stuff.