In article <106303186wnr at genesys.demon.co.uk>, Duncan at genesys.demon.co.uk wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>> I'd like to use NIH image but have only 486 PC's. I therefore need a
> Mac. I already capture images to the PC and can output an image in a
> format readable by NIH Image. The Mac would be used solely for NIH
> Image and will be used relatively infrequently and processing speed
> isn't high on priorities. Use would be by one or two people only. So
> which Mac? What is the minimum configuration that Image requires
> without taking O/N to do the simplest of tasks?
>> many thanks
>> Duncan
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Duncan Clark | Internet: duncan at genesys.demon.co.uk> G4ELJ | Compuserve: 100015.1406 at compuserve.com> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would suggest any Mac as fast, or faster, than a Mac IIci (25Mhz 68030
with math chip (68882) included). I don't think that the currect version
of NIH Image has been recompiled for the PowerPC chip so there is little
point in buying one. Used Macs can be pretty expensive - a used Mac IIci
or Quadra 610/650 or 700 or 800 or Centris 650 (all good machines for
Image) might cost nearly as much as a new low end model, even though the
newer models are generally faster, with better on board video.
The new Quadra 630 would be a good choice (again, get the one with the
built-in math chip, the 33Mhz 68040, not the 68LC040 (the 680LC40 is like
the 486SX chips - math dead). This machine would be very nice for Image,
the base model has 4MB of RAM, you would probably want to bring this up to
8MB. The video is built in on this machine (like all Macs) and would
probably suffice for your needs. Monitors up to 19 inches supported, 256
colors are standard for 14-16 inch monitors, more if additional VRAM is
put on the mother board - Apple's monitors are nice, so are Sony's and
those by NEC.
There are also several file translation software packages available that
make it easy to feed PC disks into a Mac and/or have the Mac write to PC
disks (and format them as well). After a while, of course, you will want
to get other software as more and more people will be thinking up excuses
to work on the Mac rather than the PCs ;)
Good luck,
David Allard
Graduate School of Oceanography
Universtiy of Rhode Island
Narragansett, RI 02881
USA
dallard at gsosun1.gso.uri.edu
