Working with Vintage Macs
Vintage Mac Video and Monitor Mania
Adam Rosen - 2007.12.17 - Tip Jar
Low End Mac Reader Specials
Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com
LA Computer Company: LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, Apple Displays, MacBooks, iMac's, MacBook Pros, Laptop and iPod accessories and more. Apple A/C Adapters for laptops starting at $25.00 Call 1-800-941-7654 or Click Here.
OWC: OWC Mercury On-The-Go FW400/800/USB2/eSATA Portables High Performance A/V Rated, **Bus Powered** **Up to 500GB in the Palm of your Hand** Macworld Editor's Choice, CNET 'Very Good' - from $75.99!
Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.
Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you.
New MacPro Memory 800Mhz With Apple Spec Heat Sink 2GB $104 / 4GB $172 / 8GB $338. Click to Maximize your Macs...
I deal with older (pre-G3) systems regularly, both through my consulting work and my personal collection, the Vintage Mac Museum. Here are some tips I've found for keeping the old beasts running and working with modern monitors.
Proprietary Video & Monitor Mania
Old CRT monitors are a dime a dozen (literally in some cases), but they're bulky and heavy; unless you have lots of space, it's hard to keep more than a few around. I make due around the Mac Museum primarily with two monitors for older systems: a 15" VGA LCD (1024 x 768 resolution) and a 17" multisync CRT.
Nearly every Mac that has a video out port or dedicated video card supports 1024 x 768 - what's needed is an adapter to convert the Mac's DB15 connector to a VGA (HD15) style output. These are cheap and readily available; a few different ones may be needed due to quirks between machines. The 15" LCD monitor is small and can work with nearly any old or new Macintosh.
The other useful item is a multisync CRT. 17" models are dirt cheap (often free) and can support 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, and sometimes up to 1280 x 1024 resolutions. Older Apple monitors come with the DB15 style video connector; newer Apple monitors and other brands use a VGA plug, so a DB15-to-VGA adapter is needed with older Macs.
More Tips and Suggestions?
I'm sure there are many other tips and suggestions on the topic of
working with old and vintage Macs; write in to the Low
End Mac Mailbag or contact me with your suggestions and we may do a
follow-up to this column with additional ideas.
This article was originally published on Adam's Oakbog website. It has been adapted and reprinted here with his permission.
If you find Adam's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Recent Adam's Apple Columns
- Tales of old Mac data retrieval, 06.13. Getting apps and documents off 400K floppies, old disk images, and a Mac running System 5.
- Mac remote control options built into Leopard, 02.29. Apple has four tools for Macintosh remote control built right into the Mac OS X 10.5 'Leopard' operating system.
- Software to remotely control and reboot your Mac, 02.15. Commercial software to control your Mac over a network or the Internet. Also how to restart a remote Mac.
- More in the Adam's Apple index.
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Mac Pro overclocking, Windependence with Darwine, Blu-ray for Macs, and more, Mac News Review, 07.04. Also more on running Leopard on non-Apple hardware, Ubuntu on a Mac mini, the first autofocus webcam with Zeiss optics for Macs, and more.
- Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 07.04. PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche.
- Mac of the Day: 'WallStreet' PowerBook G3, May 1998 - WallStreet offered 3 screen sizes and CPU speeds from 233 to 292 MHz.
- List of the Day: System 6 is the email list for those who choose System 6.
- The Macintosh Portable started a notebook revolution, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 07.03. Before Apple introduced the Mac Portable, notebook computers were text-based and ran MS-DOS. Ever since, graphical interfaces have been the norm for laptops.
- More links in our archive.
About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts


