The Low End in Low End Mac

Dan Knight - 2001.08.21

Yesterday afternoon Stephen, my #3 son, and I picked up about 45 old Macs (LC, LC II, LC 630 - some with DOS cards, LC 575) and a bunch of monitors from a local school. They saved the cost of having them hauled, and we have some old Macs, including my first with an Apple IIe card, to play with, set up, and give away or sell cheap.

I firmly believe that low-end computers are better than nothing. I'm hoping to find a good source for inexpensive mice and keyboards, set as many of these as work to run System 7.5.5, and find people who would be just thrilled to have a seven-year-old Quadra.

Which raises the question, where is the low end these days?

It's a question people as me a lot. If I don't publish enough about pre-Quadra or pre-PowerPC computers, I get emails, "Dan, where's the Low End in Low End Mac?"

Answer: It's a moving target. I've been analyzing site traffic over the past year and comparing it with earlier results. I figure the computer profiles that get the most hits show me what my visitors are using, setting up, or thinking about buying on the used market.

July 1997

We only covered Macs from the Mac Plus through the Quadras and pre-PPC PowerBooks. Here are the top 10 profiles:

1. Plus (158)
2. SE/30 (148)
3. IIci (139)
4. SE (137)
5. Classic (113)
6. IIsi (106)
7. Color Classic (101)
8. Quadra 700 (88)
9. Quadra 605 (79)
10. IIcx (77)

July 1998

By July 1998, we covered pretty much everything Macintosh. The top computer profiles:

1. iMac (1,381)
2. Beige G3 (869)
3. SE/30 (868)
4. 6100 (695)
5. IIci (679)
6. Quadra 605 (666)
7. Quadra 630 (592)
8. Plus (576)
9. LC III (550)
10. SE (540)

The Plus and SE dropped toward the bottom of the list, the Classic dropped off the Top 10, and the SE/30 moved to #2. The iMac didn't ship until August, but we had a profile based on information Apple had announced.

Between July 1997 and July 1998, we moved from 25 MHz '040s as the fastest among the Top 10 to 233 MHz G3 machines. The Quadras are now the middle of the pack, not the top end. And among the Top 5, the slowest is the 16 MHz SE/30.

July 1999

1. iBook, 3,139
2. SE/30, 3,118
3. IIci, 2,059
4. 6100, 1,744
5. SE, 1,462
6. 7100, 1,353
7. Plus, 1,318
8. IIcx, 1,215
9. Quadra 605, 1,087
10. Quadra 630, 1,084

The then-new iBook topped the list, with the SE/30 still holding on strong. (Many of us still consider it one of the finest Macs ever.) The Top 10 list really isn't much different from a year earlier.

July 2000

1. 6100, 2,411
2. SE/30, 2.090
3. 7100, 2,018
4. 7200, 1,585
5. SE, 1,528
6. 9500, 1,501
7. Quadra 605, 1,498
8. G3 (beige), 1,486
9. Quadra 630, 1,428
10. Cube, 1,422

By July 2000, the Power Mac 6100 had become the most popular profile on the site, edging out the perennial #2 SE/30. Six of the Top 10 machines ran PowerPC processors. The Cube was new in July; it probably wouldn't have made the Top 10 list otherwise.

July 2001

1. G3 (beige), 2,699
2. 7500, 2,548
3. 6100, 2,136
4. SE/30, 2,020
5. 7200, 1,906
6. PB 5300, 1,859
7. PB 1400, 1,811
8. Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver), 1,809
9. 7100, 1,750
10. 4400, 1,688

The beige Power Mac G3 has now displaced the Power Mac 6100 as the most popular profile on the site. Only one computer on the Top 10 list, the SE/30, doesn't run a PowerPC processor.

Again, we have one new model on the Top 10 list; this year it's the Quicksilver G4.

Last Four Months

Monthly figures get spiked with new models, so let's look at the totals for the last four months to even things out:

1. G3 (beige), 9,657
2. 6100, 9,452
3. 5200, 7,422
4. 7200, 7,252
5. 7100, 7,182
6. PB 1400, 7,075
7. 7500, 6,920
8. PB 5300, 6,709
9. SE/30, 6,519
10. PowerBook G3 (Pismo), 6,124

That amazing SE/30 is still hanging in there. The list includes three PowerBooks and two G3-based models. Only two NuBus Power Macs made the list, but not a single Quadra made the Top 10.

The low end has definitely moved.

The Older Macs

That's not to say our readers aren't still interested in older Macs; only that the profiles for more recent models are more popular. The middle of the Top 10 would be the Power Mac 7200 and 7500, machines introduced in 1995. The beige G3 is a year newer, and only the Pismo is less than three years old.

But there's another way to look at the numbers for some popular models.

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
SE/30	148	868	3118	2090	2020
IIci	139	679	2059	836	790
Q605	79	666	1087	1498	1171
6100	n/a	695	1744	2411	2136
G3/233	n/a	869	853	1486	2699

Looking at historical trends, we see that interest in the '030-based Macs peaked in 1999, Quadras in 2000, and first generation Power Macs are giving way to PCI-based models.

That said, the SE/30 profile gets 2-1/2 times as many hits as it did in 1998, the IIci is still ahead of 1998 levels, and the Quadras receive about twice as much traffic as they did four years ago. (For the record, the Mac Plus still gets over 1,000 hits per month - not bad for a 1986 machine.)

Looking at traffic patterns, I'd have to say the low end in Low End Mac still exists. The newest desktop Mac in the Top 10 list came out in November 1997 and the oldest model on that list, the SE/30, harks back to January 1989.

And the other thing to keep in mind is that sooner or later, every Mac becomes low-end.