computer for daddio.

[nicco]

Hey im thinking of building a computer for my dad and step mum. My step mum is a writer and my dad is a musician and they both use their curretn cumputer for writing/grants and email/net.

Right now they have an Imac that is like 3 or 4 years old, and recently it has been having problems with its software and that is moderately fixable but the screen/picture tube has been dyeing too. So they are gonna need a new computer soon. I have my own computer and overclock it and all that fluff.

I am a windows person myself. I have quite a few extra parts and i do volunterr werk at a computer recycling center near where i live in oakland california. The way they pay you is that if you see something you like then you get to keep it. So i have means to get more parts. :) great eh?

Well my plan is to build them a windows based PC somtime soon when theirr imac bites the dust. Well for operating systems i have win98 first edition and w2k.
It doesnt have to be super fast since its just going to be mainly for typing and email, but it has to be uber-stable. Im hoping to convert them by showing the superiority of the Pc over mac.

I need help on what parts would be most stable and what is a good word processing proggy. jsut general help is asked for. suggestings

[minoukat]

Maybe an older Duron or Celeron would do, 500-600MHz ? as for the word processor, personally I have Corel WordPerfect Office and Microsoft Office (I use WordPerfect, my parents use MS Office). Again, for the word processor, I don't think they'll need the "newest, best, highest" program there is, as a software from last year will still be excellent.

EDIT : for stability, go with Win2k SP2, or SP3 when the official version is released.

[Yodums]

For a computer recommendation, AMD Duron 1.2gig and DDR and Epox or Asus motherboard.

It might sound overated but if your planning to use it for the next 3.5 years or something this will last and it'll do more things in the future rather than having the iMac.

As for operating system go with the Win2K for stablity and safety issues as its more efficent.

Remember to download all the SP2 or 3 depending if it comes out fast enough and all secruity patches.

[jw50]

There is more that you need to consider in replacing their mac with a pc. What software are they currently using on the imac? Are the file formats importable into one of the windows programs? As far as what is a good word processing program the basic answer is that they are all good, which one you like is personal preference (personally I prefer WordPerfect but there are some things that Word does better than WordPerfect and vice versa). As far as a minimum system goes basically a PII 300 or better with 128meg of memory should do all they need it to do.

If you are going to switch them over to a pc you should do it before the imac dies so you can ensure that you have plenty of time to work out any transition issues.