Power Macintosh G4 (Gigabit Ethernet)
Dual 500MHz PPC 7400 CPU's
768 megs RAM
200 gigs of storage (3 HDD's: Original 40 gig, added 100 gig, added 60 gig)
Upgraded to a CD/DVD+RW Optical Drive
Mac OS X 10.4.9 / Mac OS 9.2.2 (Dual Boot)
iLife '06
Microsoft Office X
1 Rage 128 Pro 16 meg AGP Video Card (1440x900 19" Widescreen LCD)
1 Rage 128 16 meg PCI Video Card (1024x768 Sucky 15" CRT)
1 5-port USB 2.0 PCI Card (4 external ports, 1 internal port)
1 Cooling fan to help move some more air in there
1 imation external floppy drive
Apple Pro Keyboard
Logitech Cordless Optical Mouse (for notebooks)
Cheap Radio Shack Microphone

I love my G4 to death. It's probably gonna be my main grinder for years to come. I've already upgraded the poopie (seriously, is c-r-a-p bad enough to be blocked out?) out of it. The next upgrade is gonna be the CPU's. I wanna get a pair of like 1.25 GHz G4's for it. Maybe when I have some money...

The B&W G4 is there as some extra support for the main G4. It provides some extra storage and such.

The 6500/225 gets used a lot for printing things, since it's my only computer with a printer attatched (Color Stylewriter 1500). Silly G4's with no localtalk...

My Classic II is used for keeping my journal and playing old games

I use both my 366mhz iBook G3 SE with Jaguar and my Macintosh LC III with Mac OS 7.6.1 every day. I use the LC III for everything but drawing and web browsing, which I use the iBook for.

Where's the Windows love in here, OS X is winning by miles at the moment!

My main computer:
*Acer Aspire 1714 Laptop (2.5 years old)
*Intel Pentium 4 HT 3.4 GHz
*1 GB Ram
*17" 1280x1024 screen
*nVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700 128 MB graphics
*120 GB 7,200 RPM HD (+ 0.5 TB 7,200 RPM USB2 external HD)
*Integrated DVD-RW, 2x card readers, 4x USB ports, 1x parallel, 1x serial, 1x PS/2, FireWire, modem, ethernet, WiFi
*Microsoft Windows XP Professional (soon to be dual-booting with (legit) Windows Vista Business), Office 2007 Enterprise etc
*Weight: 7.1 kg, battery life ~1h15m


My main Mac:
*Beige G3MT (8.5 years old)
*PowerPC G3 400 MHz CPU
*640 MB Ram
*8 GB, 12 GB and 20 GB HDs
*Sony DVD-RW drive
*4-port USB 1.1 card
*Apple 100baseT ethernet card
*ATI Radeon Mac Edition 32 MB graphics card
*Apple Studio Display (original dark-blue model) 15" 1024x768 LCD screen
*Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS X 10.4.9 (dual-boot), iLife '05, iWork '06 etc
*Apple Extended Keyboard II and Apple ADB Mouse II





PS you forgot the "PC running Mac OS X" option

You also forgot the Mac running 'nix and Mac running Windows options!

Peace,
Drew

my main machine is a g4 mdd

2x1.25 ghz cpu
2g ram
200g internal hd
500g external hd
radeon 9800 pro graphics
m-audio revolution 7.1 soundcard
5-port usb 2.0
2xdual-layer dvd burners
2x acer AL1703 17" displays
m-audio oxygene 8 usb/midi keybord
apple pro keybord
logitech mx310 mouse

i use it mainly for playing games and making music using reason 3.0.

if apple brings out a new midrange computer that fills the gap between the imacs and the mac pro i think i´m going to buy one of these and sell my old g4.

This one is a toughy.

My main computers is my 2 GHz iMac G5 17" running 10.4.9. It will also be running Ubuntu/Kubuntu (haven't decided which one yet) 7.04 "Feisty Fawn".


However, I also now have Ubuntu Feisty running on my work laptop (HP nx9010) with Compiz enabled and I'm very happy with it.

So even though I voted for the Mac running OS X, I have to also include "Mac running *nix" and "PC running *nix".

I have two "main" computers.

1) Sleeper G4

- Dual 1 GHz G4 CPU from a QuickSilver
- Digital Audio Motherboard
- Radeon 9600 Pro (128 MB VRAM) 8x AGP from a G5 modified to work in a 4x AGP slot
- MDD power supply
- PowerMac 8600 case
- 512 MB RAM
- Sonnet Tempo Trio ATA/FireWire/USB 2 card
- 2x 200 GB Maxtors, 1x 250 GB Wester Digital
- Pioneer DVR-109

2) Pismo

- 500 MHz Pismo
- 1 GB RAM
- 40 GB 5400rpm IBM TravelStar HD

My wife is also a Mac user (not because she would be on her own but because she lives with me and I won't buy a PC)

3) The Wife's Hybrid DA G4

- 933 MHz G4 CPU from QuickSilver
- 512 MB RAM
- DA Motherboard in a QuickSilver case

That about sums it up. We're thinking about adding a 12" PowerBook G4 to the list, though. The Pismo is getting old, and the wife really wants a small portable Mac.

Peace,
Drew

I'm just going to present my four most used machines out of all of them.

Main PeeCee:

Home built Core 2 Duo
2gb ram, 2 500gb SATA drives RAID
2 dual layer DVD-RW drives
ATI PCI-X 256mb video card (can't remember exactly which one)
D-Link Bluetooth dongle
Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse
Winblows XP Pro SP2
2 19" LCD monitors
HP LaserJet 2300D

Main Mac:

G4 Cube 450mhz
1.5gb ram
NVidia 32mb with ADC
120gb drives
10.4.9
200gb USB external drive
Firewire dual layer DVD-RW drive
7 port D-Link USB hub
D-Link Bluetooth dongle
Apple bluetooth cordleaa keyboard
Apple bluetooth Mighty Mouse
Studio display 17"
Epson R200 Photo printer

Main Classic Mac:

Performa 631CD
68040-33 processor (in place of stock 68LC40)
76mb ram
DOS Processor board 486DX2-66
32mb ram DOS board
10gb IDE hard drive
Apple TV/Video system with remote
Apple CS1 Ethernet card
Mac OS 7.6/DOS 6.22/Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (separate partitions)
Performa Plus Display
Apple Design ADB keyboard
Apple ADB mouse II
Color StyleWriter 2500
Apple LaserWriter Select 360

Main Unix box (non-Apple)

NeXT Turbo Dimension Cube
68040-33
Dimension board
128mb ram
64mb Dimension ram
2 2.1gb SCSI hard drives
Internal 2.88mb floppy
NeXTStep 3.3
External CD-ROM drive
External CD-R drive
External SCSI zip drive
NeXT Laser Printer
NeXT Color Printer
NeXT non-ADB mouse
NeXT non-ADB keyboard
NeXT N4000a monochrome monitor
NeXT N4005 21" color monitor

What does "main computer" mean anyway? I have several computers and use them all regularly. My work machine is a PC because I have no choice, but I'm not considering that. My Beige G3 acts as a primary mac for me, linking the old and the new (since it has a floppy, a CDRW, SCSI etc) but last weekend I spent more time on the PM 6100 than any other machine, and there have been many weeks where my Replica 1 (Apple 1 clone) has been my main computer - but I didn't notice that in your options!

I've just reorganised my entire collection and set it all up very nicely. I've been waiting for the 68kmla to come back up to post descriptions and pictures etc (since it's mostly Apples and 68K macs). Amazing really, I actually have more machines connected and running than before (15 now - Replica 1, Apple IIe, Apple IIc, 128K, Plus, Mac II, LC III, PB 140, PB 170, PB 180c, Q650, PM 6100, PB 1400c, G3 MT, iMac 350), but it seems like my office is almost empty! The trick was to move our old dining table into the room - the computers fit nicely on top and all the previous mess packs up neatly underneath.

Ken

Nice collection of macs you've got there Ken

As for what I mean by "main computer": I mean the computer that you use most often when you sit down at your computer desk at home to do whatever you do on your computer

I didn't realize multiple computers was such a popular choice for typical use, the only computers I really use are my intel mac mini for day to day use and my G4 PowerBook for travel

Some people are using multiple computers because work demands it, others are using it for different OS's which is something I at least would've done via partitioning and multibooting or virtualization, which ever worked best for the OS's I wanted to run (from what I've observed from the posts)

It's too bad that at least to my knowledge phpbb doesn't support allowing people to choose multiple options when voting like vbulletin does and as such people will unfortunately have to vote based on the definition of "main computer" as I typed above

Why am I so interested in this? Me and a friend were debating whether or not it's still important to keep things in sit/hqx format when archiving old software, I say that 99% of mac users have a Mac OS X mac along with their vintage mac's running some version of classic Mac OS, he says that there are still people who use classic Mac OS on their main computers and thus I decided to create this poll to try and see who is right. So far it does seem like everyone has at least one Mac OS X mac along with their vintage mac...

You would be mad to use anything but .sit.hqx in my opinion. I keep my archived programs and data stuffed using StuffitLite 3.6 since it's a format that pretty much all my macs can handle. Binhexing just makes it a little safer and easier to transfer, but it is not crucial I guess.

My Apple collection is primarily built around System coverage - I can run all versions of the MacOS with those machines up to OS X 10.3 (excluding A/UX 1.0 because I don't have it and I don't think it supports any of my NuBus video cards anyway...) I can also do all the Apple II OS versions except for GSOS, but since I never used an Apple II gs, and it arrived after Macs, I haven't got much attachment to it.

Mac running Windows? You've got to be joking; that's like going to Belgium and drinking Tennant's!

what about PC running Mac OS X? I now have a MacBook, but I feel calling that Mac is treachery!

Main is a mutable conception, but I answered on the criterion of most use, and that still means at least two iMacs, but realistically includes a 9600 and a third iMac. A PB 1400/G3/400 does very nicely for travel, and can still (barely) creak its way through some of the more demanding websites over dial-up. In a sort of order, the active Macs are:

Indigo iMac/500 (8/2001) OS 10.4.9 (business, Web, research)
Snow iMac/500 (7/2000) OS 10.3.9 (Web, software experiments)
Indigo iMac/500 (3/2002) OS 10.2.8 (wave editing)
9600/G3/400 OS 9.1 (server to all 68K/60x Macs)
Beige G3/400 MT OS 9.2.2
Beige G3/400 DT OS 9.2.2 (wave editing)
7300/G3/400 OS 9.1
Quadra 950 OS 8.1
Quadra 700 OS 8.1
Quadra 605 OS 8.1
Colour Classics OSs 7.6.1, 7.5.5, 7.5 (IIe emulator), 7.5
IIci/50 System 7.6.1, 7.5.5
SE/30s System 7.5.5, 7.5
Classic IIs System 7.5.5, 7.5
512Ke System 6.0.8

There are several 60x Macs in the course of resuscitation/upgrade, and some resting, as well as a heap of 68K/60x PowerBooks (160 to 1400/400). Most of the older Macs are getting at least sporadic attention, but to list all would be otiose.

de

2 main computers for me, a desktop and a laptop:

DESKTOP:

Power Macintosh G3 Blue and White
400mhz G3
512mb RAM
120gb seagate HDD
Mac OS X 10.4.9
ATI Rage 128 16mb VRAM
17" Dell ES-17 CRT
4 port USB 2.0 PCI card
Samsung SM-308B DVD-ROM/CD-RW
NEC brand Zip 100 (compaq part)

LAPTOP:

Powerbook Pismo
400mhz G3
384mb RAM
40gb Hitachi Tavelstar HDD
Mac OS X 10.4.9
ATI Rage Pro 8mb VRAM
14" LCD built in
stock DVD-ROM
stock battery, about 2.5 hours of life off full charge
Genuine Airport card (original)

both are hooked to a HP Deskjet 842c, the Power Mac over USB, and the Powerbook over wifi, shared off the PMG3.

-digital

Main Mac Dekstop:

iMac G5 iSight, 17"
1.9GHz G5
1GB RAM
450GB total storage
Mac OS 10.4.9
ATI Radeon X600 Pro
Logitech Wireless Keyboard
Logitech Wired Mouse (very old and beat up)

Main Mac Laptop:

Powerbook G3 Lombard
333MHz G3
384MB RAM
10GB HDD
Mac OS 10.4.9
CD-ROM
~2hr battery
WaveLAN Silver

Main PC Desktop:

Dell Dimension 3000
2.9GHz (?) PIV
256MB RAM
Win XP Pro
10GB HDD
(this thing runs BOINC 24/7, I don't pay attention to it...)

Main PC Laptop:

IBM ThinkPad 755c
75MHz 486dx (w/ FPU)
36MB RAM (maxed)
Boots off a 1GB CF card
MS-DOS 6.22, wfw3.11
(I use this mainly for writing, as it has an awesome keyboard)

My main computer is an IBM ThinkPad T42p.

1.8GHz Centrino
2 GB RAM
100 GB and 60 GB Hard drive
DVD+- RW and supports DVD-RAM
Wifi and Bluetooth.
Windows XP Pro
Now for my favorite part
15" 1600x1200 LCD.

I just got it last week actually after my T41p died. Oh well the screen is a nice upgrade.

After December I will not need a laptop anymore and my requirement for windows will mostly go away. So I plan to sell the ThinkPad and buy a Mac. I can't decide if I want an iMac or a Mac Pro. A Mac Pro with the 30" Screen is very tempting.

Yep I just checked. A base config is $4200. It would take a while to save for it and would be a rather silly purchase.

I wish Apple would release an inexpensive tower for under $1000. The 30" display is about $1700 and I could see buying that. It is a lot of money to spend but the display could easily last 10 years. To spend $2500 on a system that I would want to replace in 3-5 years is the silly part.

I don't really have a main computer...for me its whichever is the closest at any time. Anyway:

Main Mac:

iMac 333 (tray loading)

256MB RAM
40GB 5400rpm internal HDD as Master
80GB 7200prm "internal" HDD as slave
No internal CD-ROM at the moment
Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar)
DEC PS/2 keyboard
Microsoft wireless Wheel Mouse

Main PC

Dell Dimension 2350
2 Ghz P4 Northwood (socket 478)
1GB RAM
200GB 7200rpm internal HDD
16x DVD-ROM
52x32x52 CD-RW
nVidia GeForce2 connected to 17" Dell e772p
Microsoft Internet Keyboard
Logitech "Dell by Logitech" optical mouse

My main mac right now is the iMac C2D.

It's 17", 2.16GHz with 2 gigs of ram, and a 160gig hard drive.

I got the smaller hard drive and smaller screen so that I could get a faster processor and more memory. Sometime next week (or tomorrow) I plan on getting the VGA adaptor for it, so I can do the whole dual-display thing, either have a manual or chat windows up at the same time as my work.

It's definitely my main computer - I also have my PowerBook G3 here, which is running OS X 10.3 (soon 9.2 probably, we'll see what my needs are next year, I may make it run 9.2 as a purely-office98 machine, to avoid buying office2008 for the iMac.)

I don't know yet what i'll do over the summer, I could very well have one of the SurplusDells or my B/W G3/450 set up as an auxiliary machine, or as a machine for "location 2" depending on what's happening.

Next year, I plan on bringing the iMac and Pismo, and maybe a 68k mac, but we'll see - it may just be the iMac and Pismo, or maybe only the iMac, depending on whether or not the Pismo kicks the bucket.

Like most, I have a few - but they're pretty much separated into uses. The main machine I spend hours in front of is my 1GHz/1GB/200GB/Superdrive eMac with 10.4.9

Second up is the server, a 300MHz/128MB/10GB black 5500 running Debian Sarge, and lastly is the iMac as a backup server for keeping a copy of the core important stuff - it's 400MHz/128MB/80GB and running 10.3.9. Mostly, it's used for backups of my photos & graphics.

Everything else cycles in & out of use all over the place

Dana

Main Workstation:

Cube G4/450MHz with 20" LCD Studio Display
OSX.4.9 / OS9.1.1 / YDL Linux 4.0

Main Laptop:

Pismo G3/400MHz
OSX.4.9

Main Server:

XServe G4/1GHz (headless)
OSX.4.9 Server

Backup server (sadly turned off due to power consumption!):

ANS 500/200MHz (headless)
YDL Linux 2.3

Kind regards,

Macdownunder

I use my two main machines at the same time. On the right I have my Acer Aspire 1691WLMi.
512MB RAM
128MB Shared Intel Extreme Integrated graphics
80GB HDD in two 40GB partitions
DVD+/-R slotloading drive
1.6GHz Pentium M
Windows XP Home Edition
15.4" widescreen glossy LCD, 1280x800

On the left I have my Beige G3 DT:
256MB RAM
6MB VRAM
40GB HDD
DVD-R
266MHz PPC 750
Mac OS 9.22
17" CRT, 1280x1024

I use the Acer for internet, games, and skype. I use the G3 for iTunes and IRC usually. And occasionally a few web pages.