[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Quadmac Schmadmac. How about an Octamac!

I must say, this is not the Apple I used to know. The Apple I used to know would do something to the BIOS to purposely lock it out. Like for example, how they locked out quite a few later G4 machines so they would not boot OS9.

This is a step in the right direction if they "let this slide".

[whatexit]

Or they'll start soldering the chips in as they do on the MacBook Pros. Can't upgrade them (Mini's ya can)

[Uri’el-2012]

bttt

[Echo Talon]

It would be nice if Apple made it easier to change CPU's, also if they got rid of that horribly slow FB-DIMM memory!

[Swordmaker]

Put a Quad Core in your Mac Pro? PING!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[mhx]

Well my new Mac Pro just arrived and was still sitting in a box by the front door when I heard about this. So now I'm anxious to try it out (what? start swapping parts out on my new machine already? Luckily I can't actually get my hands on the Quad Core cpu's yet, not to mention that the price will probably be prohibitive as an upgrade)

But anyway, I need an ADC-DVI cable first for the new machine or I can't use it! I'm so sad. My old machine gets one more night to live.

[dennisw]

btttt

[Question_Assumptions]

Usually when Apple locks something out, it seems to mean that they've found a reliability issue and can't trust it to work. That goes back to the Apple ///s (3s) that had a clock chip that wasn't supported because it only worked on some of them.

[HAL9000]

The Apple I used to know would do something to the BIOS to purposely lock it out. Like for example, how they locked out quite a few later G4 machines so they would not boot OS9.

They did not intentionally lock out OS 9 - they just didn't update the Open Firmware to support OS 9 on certain new models when they were released. However, Apple did continue to sell some models that could boot OS 9 until Quark was updated to run Mac OS X. And Mac OS X always contained OS 9 Classic Mode for running old applications. The PowerPC Macs included 68000 emulation for really old apps, but the Intel Macs do not.

The new Intel Macs do not contain BIOS out of the box - they boot with Intel's EFI system. But EFI can include a "legacy BIOS" system, and Apple's Boot Camp software installs that BIOS which can boot Windows, Linux or other PC type operating systems.