WIRED Staff
Gear

Slideshow: Create a Hoax, Earn Damnation

A harmless little joke about turning a shiny new Power Mac G5 into a PC unleashed a torrent of bad tidings, including death threats. By Leander Kahney.
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Andy's final photos in the hoax show his newly "converted" G5 in the dark with the green glow coming through the perforated case.Courtesy of Andy

See related story: Create a Hoax, Earn Damnation

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A hoax created by "Andy" on the Overclockers website claimed that after receiving a dual-processor Power Mac G5 for Christmas, he swapped out the insides of the $3,000 machine for the guts of a cheap PC.

Courtesy of Andy
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Andy's e-mail inbox quickly filled with hate mail regarding his alleged treatment of the G5. In this photo, the hoaxer claimed he had to cut out a section of the case for the ATX panel before installing a PC motherboard.

Courtesy of Andy
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Andy went on to claim that the choice to use "a Micro ATX board" was due to Apple's design of the G5 and the location of the slots.

Courtesy of Andy
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Andy, a PC technician in his 20s, said he was given an empty G5 case by a buddy and filled it with PC components to fool another friend. For further kicks, he invented the Christmas story and submitted it to Overclockers.

Courtesy of Andy