PC Magazine Says That the Mac Mini is as Important as the First Personal Computer

April 21, 2005 by bruceeisner
Filed under: Apple Comptuers, Budget System, Computers, Systems

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In a column in PC Magazine: “Why the Mac Mini is the New Altair” Alice Hill and Bill O’Brien compare the advent of the Mac Mini to the release of the first personal computer — the Altair (even I didn’t remember what the Altair was right out of the shoot). Here is an excerpt from their article:

On the many tech Web sites I visit each day, I started noting a lot of playful discussion on how Microsoft is the new IBM and Google is the new Microsoft, which got me thinking about Apple and more particularly, the new Mac Mini. What was it about the fever spreading through the blogs and Web sites that seemed so different, even for a hype machine like Apple? And that’s when the light bulb went off: The Mac mini is the new Altair.

For those of you who don’t remember the odd little machine that kick-started the PC revolution and caused a young Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard to write programs for a box that did little more than light up, the MITS Altair sparked a frenzy few personal computers have matched. Until now…

Consider this: There have been many Apple products that were oohed and ahhed over, but what makes the Mini different is that hard-core PC users are seriously looking it over, car nuts are busy finding ways to jam one into a car’s dashboard, home-media enthusiasts are lusting over a sleek Mini home-media server—and the product has been out only a week. When the tinkerers and hobbyists light up, that’s what I call Altair fever. Unlike the other Mac products that looked great or were useful for listening to music or making a home DVD, the Mini is sparking hackers’ curiosity to crack it open, make adjustments, and find new ways to use it. It’s a computer hobbyist’s delight this time, not the glee felt by an art director or budding novelist or amateur filmmaker.

You can visit Apple and custom configure your own little Mac Mini to tinker with here. I would recommend you get the Apple Mac mini 1.42GHz Just click here to visit the Apple Store!

The Mini will take just about any digital flat display and PC keyboard and two button mouse. So you will have a nice second or third machine around and you can learn the ins-and-outs of the Mac and get a sense if you might want to eventually get one of the like I have (I bought one without ever trying one of the these little guys.