Build an iMac?

Question

Build an iMac?

I am currently a Windows XP user (although I once had one of those teal iMacs with OS 8) and I want to know if it is possible to build a Mac from scratch as you can a PC. I've heard that you can refurbish an old one, but my old iMac is no longer available (washed away in Katrina's flood waters) and I'd prefer to start from scratch anyway. Any suggestions?

HP nc6230 Windows XP Pro

Posted on May 21, 2006 8:45 AM

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Answer 1

May 21, 2006 8:54 AM in response to Jack the Ripper

Welcome to the discussions!

No, you cannot buy the parts and assemble a Mac yourself.

The main reason for doing it in the PC world is so that you can hand pick parts as you really do not save a ton of money like you used to by building your own PC. Macs are different in that one company controls the hardware and software and as such, there are many fewer options on hardware, eliminating the advantage.

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Answer 2

Jul 1, 2006 2:13 AM in response to Eric Kracinski

You absolutely can build your own pseudo-mac. Legend to the contrary, many of the parts of Apple computers come from third parties: ATI, IBM, Intel, etc., etc. You can find some information at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/193183640X/desc.html.

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Answer 3

Jul 1, 2006 3:57 AM in response to shibboleth

You can not build a Mac because there are proprietary parts (like the boot roms) that can not be gotten without dismantling an existing mac. While Apple does use intels base motherboard design, I would assume there still are asic's used in the design, which would further prevent cloning or building or even running Mac OS X.

glor

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Answer 4

Jul 1, 2006 8:11 AM in response to shibboleth

An Apple I computer is a world different than an iMac.

Yes, you could likely roundup the parts, but as Glorfindeal notes, you cannot simply pull up Tiger Direct or New Egg and order all the parts you need to assemble any Mac.

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