Prepackaged compu-lust
Apple Computer has, to break their routine of selling everything except computers, just introduced a teeny tiny powermac. Teeny as in 7" by 7" by 2", which is smaller than I can do with my mini-itx cases. And Apple advertises that you can plug any USB keyboard (or, presumably, any real keyboard run through a PS/2 to USB converter.)
What's not to love about it (well, aside from getting MacOS X instead of Mastodon Linux, but Mastodon doesn't tend to run on powerpcs)? It's probably got a fan in it (it eats 85 watts, which doesn't compare favorably with the 20 watts the oggOmatic uses), so it would be kind of loud, but if I was going to use it as a server it wouldn't really matter about the fans (it wouldn't work quite yet as a terminal, because we run framemaker and photoshop at home and our copies are for windows -- we're not likely to toss $1200 worth of software down a hole for a cheap and gorgeous teeny-tiny computer. )
But it sure is pretty. Sigh. Perhaps it's time to buy some lottery tickets.
Comments
I don't think it has a fan because it's powersupply is external. Check out the picture at the bottom of this page: http://www.apple.com/macmini/design.html. I really don't see room for a fan, but it could be in the back.
Taking the powersupply out does get rid of some of the heat, but the G4 is still a fairly hot processor. I've got a iMac processor board (which I think is only 266 mhz) and many of the third party references I've seen state that it gets quite hot and needs either a fan or ducting; from what I've read, the G4 is a more efficient chip than the G3, but it's still running a whole bunch faster.
I'd like to think the pretty picture of the ttpm set up with monitor and keyboard, where the ttpm is set away from everything else, means that it's purely passively cooled through the chassis (like the hush pc, but without the industrial heatsink look), but that's still a lot of processor to not have a fan.
Perhaps it's got a laptop-style variable-speed fan?
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