How to make a $300 MAC

[w1z4rd]

Hacker Turns $300 Apple TV into Cheapest Mac Ever
Posted by Zonk on Saturday April 07, @12:07PM
from the another-bite-at-the-buck dept.
The Almighty Buck Apple
An anonymous reader wrote with a link to a Wired story about a fun play-along-at-home project: Turning Apple TV into a very tiny workable computer. "Apple TV is dead, long live the Mac Nano. Sort of. Just two weeks after Apple released its streaming media box to the public, hackers successfully installed OS X, Apple's desktop operating system, on the $300 device, making it the cheapest PC Cupertino has ever sold. 'The breakthrough is done, OS X runs on Apple TV!' wrote Semthex, the anonymous hacker responsible for the mod, at his website. 'Now we got (the) low-budget Mac we ever wanted.'"

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/07/0621222

 

[bwana]

link to original article - http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2007/04/appletvhacks_0406

 

[PeterCH]

Except that it's a slow CPU, very little RAM and you can't buy OSX for Intel seperately, so you'd need to trash an iMac/Mac Mini/whatever for it, even so it would still be illegal as the OS is sold to use only on the hardware it was installed on, plus if you managed to explain it somehow, you'd still need to buy
the OS, which is what, about $130 or more?

 

[noosh]

I think 256MB of RAM won't cut it

 

[PeterCH]

The funny thing about Apple TV is that it does 1080P HD TV.
It's 1 GHz CPU and 256MB ram are fast enought to do that, while
with Vista you'd need a CORE 2 DUO Extreme with 2GB ram
and a dedicated 256MB graphics board (with HDTV capability
to boot).

 

[alma-tadema]

I think the TV has a dedicated decoding chip, still 1080p is not that high load, an old Core Duo should be able to do it. The problem is getting low cost low power dedicated set top boxes and stuff to do it cheaply.

 

[bwana]

I think the TV has a dedicated decoding chip, still 1080p is not that high load, an old Core Duo should be able to do it. The problem is getting low cost low power dedicated set top boxes and stuff to do it cheaply.

My mini's 1.66 Core Duo handles it easily with vga resolutions up to 1920 by 1080 and DVI up to 1920 by 1200.

 

[PeterCH]

My mini's 1.66 Core Duo handles it easily with vga resolutions up to 1920 by 1080 and DVI up to 1920 by 1200.

What do you play the video on? Do you have a 1900 by 1200 monitor?

On my Pentium M 2 GHz Sonoma laptop (centrino), 128MB DDR ATI Mobility X700 gfx card (PCIE)
and 1GB of DDR2 533 Memory - HD-DVD/BD decoding is impossible,
although my screen could do 720p easily (1680 by 1050 res).
AnyDVDHD disables the lack of HDCP.

Since the CD and C2D are based on the Pentium M line - which is based on the
Pentium III, a Pentium M 2Ghz performs about the same as a Core Solo at 2Ghz.

 

[bwana]

What do you play the video on? Do you have a 1900 by 1200 monitor?

On my Pentium M 2 GHz Sonoma laptop (centrino), 128MB DDR ATI Mobility X700 gfx card (PCIE)
and 1GB of DDR2 533 Memory - HD-DVD/BD decoding is impossible,
although my screen could do 720p easily (1680 by 1050 res).
AnyDVDHD disables the lack of HDCP.

Since the CD and C2D are based on the Pentium M line - which is based on the
Pentium III, a Pentium M 2Ghz performs about the same as a Core Solo at 2Ghz.

No - I've only got a 720p plasma. Those figures were from the Apple specs.

I did but the mini with the future in mind so I hope I'm not being too hopeful. Knowing my luck by the time the missus okays a new plasma I'll also have to get a new mini.

The one thing I'm not sure about after reading the reports of people who do use a mini is if its 1080p or i.

My MBP should also be able to handle the resolution but without a suitable screen I cant say for sure. The lcd resolution is also just shy with 1680 x 1050.

I'll have to bug my neighbour and get him to bring home one of the big screen he uses for work.

EDIT - to be frank I'm a bit confused. If the machine can play 1080p trailers is that any indication of potential performance?