Just for comparison, a mac Mini fully spec’d out:
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
160GB hard drive (largest you can get - it’s a 2.5”)
is $949. The case is 1/10th the size.
On my intel based MacBookPro I run a program called Parallels. It allows me to run the mac OS and Windows XP at the same time. I understand that I can lso run Linux if I want but since I have no use for it I’ve never looked into it. I a few pieces of software that require XP to run otherwise I’d never would’ve worried about it.