My iPhone SE is approaching its second anniversary next week, and that’s old for a smartphone. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one when I read the announcement about the new device.
Monthly Archives: March 2018
I was shocked to learn that Apple has introduced an update to its full-sized 9.7″ iPad line, giving it an A10 processor running at 2.34 GHz (vs. an A9 clocked at 1.84 GHz in the 2017 model) – and offering it at a retail price of just $329!
The Macintosh Quadra 700. This was always a Mac that interested me; essentially the same old beige tower, but with a twist. Sitting on molded plastic legs, the tower has a vertically placed 3 1/2” floppy drive at the top center of the computer. This Macintosh has a 25 MHz Motorola 68040 processor, can take […]
Most of the visitors to Low End Mac work comfortably in English, whether they grew up speaking it or learned it along the way. We think Low End Mac is a wonderful resource, one of many on the Mac Web, which has a wealth of wonderful English-language resources.
Macs have had networking since the “Fat Mac” shipped in late 1984, but over the years Apple has changed the file sharing system, so not all Macs can share files with each other. This article provides a brief overview of which Macs can share files based on the system software they are running.
We’ve all heard the saying “less is more” — but can a smartphone that does less offer more in terms of personal productivity?
I have been using my PowerBook G4 as a writing and e-mail tool for a while now, and I thought I may be able to make it a complete daily driver. I work as an IT manager for a small design firm, and I oversee a network of Windows and Linux servers and Windows workstations. […]
When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iMac, he shocked the tech community by jettisoning the 3.5″ floppy drive and Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) port in favor of new technologies like the Universal Serial Bus (USB). He was perfectly willing to kick to the curb technologies that had been cultivated at Apple, such as the little-understood […]
Adding broadband to Macs used to be a hit-and-miss affair in the 1990s before ethernet and WiFi became standard features during the second Steve Jobs era.
Patience is a virtue, or so it is said. It came in handy with a local seller who was selling a 1991 Apple “for parts” (as the ad stated). It was a small nostalgia and collectibles store that seemed to specialize in music, bikes, and anything else that caught the owner’s eye.
Life was simple when the iMac came in only one color, Bondi blue. The computer, keyboard, and mouse were all trimmed in Bondi blue and looked great together. Third party manufacturers could come close enough to Apple’s color to look good as well. And then Apple changed everything with Macs in different colors.
It was 20 years ago this month when the very first computer I ever bought was released. It was the Spring of 1998 and I was 19 years old, just months away from the end of my teenage years, when I made the big decision. What was the impetus for the purchase? I don’t quite […]
Facebook is really good at providing all sorts of information about groups. For instance, our group has 5,317 members, but only 3,356 have been active in the past 28 days. Men make up 89% of the group; women, 10%; and “other” or unidentified, 1%.
We had a good-natured discussion in our Facebook group on Thursday when I laughingly posted that Low End Mac’s new motto was Nerds Helping Nerds. And that led to a discussion of the meaning and negativity sometimes associated with the words geek and nerd. And the dangers inherent in calling ourselves geniuses.
It irks me every time someone refers to Low End Mac as a blog instead of a website, and that really begs the question: What is a blog? That’s a simple question without a simple answer.
Camino is a port of Netscape specifically to Mac OS X. It began in late 2001 when Mike Pinkerton and Vidur Apparao launched a proof-of-concept project to embed Netscape’s Gecko rendering engine in a Cocoa application. Cocoa is Apple’s native object-oriented application programming interface (API) for Mac OS X and is rooted in NeXTstep, which […]
The eve of the Ides of March this year marks 2 decades since the inglorious end of a year-long failed experiment by Apple Computer (among many at the time). Nevertheless, the 20th Anniversary Mac would become a bellwether of the groundbreaking products to come under the guidance of newly-returned “interim CEO” Steve Jobs.
Did you know that Apple once released a Macintosh with the Mac System in its ROMs? Did you know that Apple released an 8 MHz model in October 1990, so it was available at the same time as the “wicked fast” 40 MHz 68030-based Mac IIfx? Do you know how much Apple left out to […]
Certain Apple computers are harder to find than others. The Macintosh Portable, the 128K, the G4 Cube, TAM, etc. My find was just as rare, due to it only being available to the educational market. Some call it the Molar Mac.
The Growing Windows Threat: Jean Louis Gassée, now the head of product development at Apple, predicted that Apple would maintain its lead in the personal computing world indefinitely. He oversaw the introduction of the critically acclaimed Mac IIci and System 7 (and also several flops) and felt that no company would be able to wrest […]
1986 marked the replacement of Mike Murray as head of marketing with Jean-Louis Gassée. Gassée started Apple’s French division and drove it in a few years to become one of the most successful divisions in Apple. Unlike Steve Jobs’ vision of an information appliance, Gassée hoped that the Macintosh would turn into an open platform […]
Even with the fabulous press reception given to the Macintosh upon its release (see my previous article), it did not sell well. There were a number of reasons for that.
Greetings to all of you readers in the Low End Mac web-isphere! As one of the newest writers on this site, I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I have been a reader of the Low End Mac website for many years now and am also a member of its Facebook group. Now […]
About a week ago, someone in the Low End Mac Facebook group posted the following question: Obviously we’re all used to the horizontal drive orientation, and the externals tend to have vertical orientation, but is the vertical really a safe orientation? Obviously there’s the chance of it being tipped/knocked over, but even a mild tilt […]
Except for its earliest models (see Acorn 8-bit Computers), Acorn had built its computers around the 6502 microprocessor, which was also used by Apple, Atari, Commodore, and others. Seeing the end of the 8-bit era approaching, Acorn knew that it was time to move to a new architecture
Except for its earliest models, Acorn had built its computers around the 6502 microprocessor, which was also used by Apple, Atari, Commodore, and others. Seeing the end of the 8-bit era approaching, Acorn knew that it was time to move to a new architecture. However, the cost of existing 16-bit CPUs was prohibitive, and quite […]
One of the early “home computers” was hardly known outside of the United Kingdom, but in its home country, Acorn owned the education market. Launched by Cambridge Processor Unit Ltd. (CPU) in January 1979, a little over a year after the Apple II, Commodore PET, and Radio Shack TRS-80 came to market, the Acorn System […]
The Intel 80186 is based on the earlier 8086 CPU with the same 20-bit address bus as the 8086, allowing it to access up to 1 MB of memory. Introduced in 1982, the 80186 and 80188 are fully code compatible with the 8086 and 8088, but they also introduced 10 new instruction types.
There are noticeably few articles, if any, about the 2006 and 2007 Mac Pros, that help you diagnose memory issues. I am changing this by documenting my own experiences with my primary computer, a Mac Pro 2,1. This article should help you recognize any memory symptoms with your Mac Pro and resolve them quickly.
Although the World Wide Web had been created many years earlier, it was in 1995 that it rocketed into public view. Window 95 shipped in August, and Intel unveiled the Pentium Pro in November. Apple used the new PowerPC 603 CPU in its Performa 5200 and 6200 models, both running at 75 MHz. The 603 […]
