>A colleague at the Smithsonian NMNH recently bought by mail a Mac
>clone from the biggest maker  of such clones, name I can't remember,
>and has had so much trouble with it he is planning to return it.
>Mac software loaded fine but won't open.  As a result of hearing
>this, I suspect real Apple Macs are safer to get, even tho they
>may cost more.  They last virtually forever and are very sturdy,
>in my experience.
>  Of course, I have a MacIIci with 105mg hard drive and have
>been advised to replace the hard drive because it probably will
>die any day.  Any advice on this?
>  Could be that the cheapest Mac price would be from a university
>with the student/faculty discount, if you can find someone who will
>buy it for you from their school.
>  Elaine
------------------
Elaine,

I would tend to agree that some one from South Africa should stick with a
true Apple Mac,  Servicing on a global scale is something the Clone makers
don't have much experience with.  Unless someone from N New York has a
suggestion of a local outlet with discount prices,  then I'd try the Mail
order places and get firm commitments on delivery schedules.  They usually
ship quickly with 2-3 day delivey transport.

A new hard drive:  If you are going to buy a new hard drive, buy an
external 2 gigabyte SCSI drive.  You can the just hook it up, no muss no
fuss, you can even copy every thing off you 105Mb drive as your back up
procedure; and keep your old drive internal until you don't trust it
anymore.  If it fails the Mac will automatically start up from you 2gig
external drive (if you copied your system over to it as part of your back
up routine.  By then it will be time for a new machine, and you can
transfer the 2 gig, with all your data, to the new machine, no muss no
fuss.

APS sells some nice Hard drives,  but you woun't be able to get one smaller
than 2 Gigs anymore from them  and you can expect to pay just under $400.
Does any one else have sources for cheaper Mac external drives?

Britt Griswold
Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA
Code 253,  Bldg. 8 Rm N15
Greenbelt, MD 20771
USA
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