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Cables. Cables everywhere.
Tuesday, June 25th, 2019 04:26 pmAt home I have an elderly* iMac.
In most ways it’s still more than serviceable and I love it. I mean that for writing emails, or the odd document or two, surfing the internet, listening to music, or streaming TV etc, it’s fine. It takes a little longer to get going in a morning, but then, so do I these days. It’s got to the point though, where it’s not so hot at supporting even the few games that I could play on a Mac. Where they do play, they are slow and I’ve had to turn the resolution down on the graphics to make them work even as well as they do.
So a couple of months back, having waited for months for Apple to issue a proper upgrade** I took the plunge and bought the best PC build I could afford simply to play games on. And it’s great – though suddenly I am back in a world where cables hang down the back of my desk in glorious profusion. All the games I like are faster and I can turn the graphics right up and all is well.
But I still love my iMac. It *just* works.
Recently, however, I have been looking at making use of the thunderbolt ports in the back of the machine. There are four over-used USB ports and two never-used thunderbolts. How hard can it be to buy an adaptor or two? Well nigh impossible as it transpires. 2012 thunderbolt ports are not the same as 2019 thunderbolt ports, which, physically at least, are indistinguishable from USB-c. No, 2012 thunderbolt ports are an entirely different kettle of fish. I have ‘legacy’ thunderbolt ports (and now, three not-legacy adaptors). They are a different shape. It’s times like this that I begin to understand people’s gripes against ‘Apple elitism’. No one told me that they’d changed the damn things and I can’t be arsed to go and find some legacy adaptors (I assume somewhere, they exist?) that switch Thunderbolt 1 to USB.
It’s bloody annoying. But I guess that when I eventually replace the iMac, at least I have some cables. Unless they too are out of date by then.
*2012 build.
**which they did almost immediately after I’d given up waiting.
In most ways it’s still more than serviceable and I love it. I mean that for writing emails, or the odd document or two, surfing the internet, listening to music, or streaming TV etc, it’s fine. It takes a little longer to get going in a morning, but then, so do I these days. It’s got to the point though, where it’s not so hot at supporting even the few games that I could play on a Mac. Where they do play, they are slow and I’ve had to turn the resolution down on the graphics to make them work even as well as they do.
So a couple of months back, having waited for months for Apple to issue a proper upgrade** I took the plunge and bought the best PC build I could afford simply to play games on. And it’s great – though suddenly I am back in a world where cables hang down the back of my desk in glorious profusion. All the games I like are faster and I can turn the graphics right up and all is well.
But I still love my iMac. It *just* works.
Recently, however, I have been looking at making use of the thunderbolt ports in the back of the machine. There are four over-used USB ports and two never-used thunderbolts. How hard can it be to buy an adaptor or two? Well nigh impossible as it transpires. 2012 thunderbolt ports are not the same as 2019 thunderbolt ports, which, physically at least, are indistinguishable from USB-c. No, 2012 thunderbolt ports are an entirely different kettle of fish. I have ‘legacy’ thunderbolt ports (and now, three not-legacy adaptors). They are a different shape. It’s times like this that I begin to understand people’s gripes against ‘Apple elitism’. No one told me that they’d changed the damn things and I can’t be arsed to go and find some legacy adaptors (I assume somewhere, they exist?) that switch Thunderbolt 1 to USB.
It’s bloody annoying. But I guess that when I eventually replace the iMac, at least I have some cables. Unless they too are out of date by then.
*2012 build.
**which they did almost immediately after I’d given up waiting.