Power Mac G5: Cheap Power, Easy Upgrades

Apple did a very nice thing when it introduced the Power Mac G5 in June 2003 – it introduced a line that would use the same upgrade options across the board. Well, until the dual-core models shipped in October 2005, which we will mostly ignore in this article.

The Long and Short of Keyboard Cables

The earliest Macs with their all-in-one design used a simple coiled keyboard cable similar to what telephones used to use – and the perfect length for use on the desktop. But in 1987, we got the Mac II, a powerhouse computer that could sit on your desk or be set vertically on the floor beneath […]

Low End Communities on Facebook

In addition to lowendmac.com and our communities on Google Groups, Low End Mac has had a presence on Facebook since December 2008 – and we’ve had requests to create new Facebook groups for similarly low-end interests.

Forward Into the Past

Most of my computers were older when I got them – and much older when I moved on to something newer. I got my first Mac, a Mac Plus, in early 1990, over 4 years after Apple had introduced it. I earned enough Apple points during the holiday sales promotion to get it and a […]

21 Years of Low End Mac

When I started adding some profiles of Macs to my personal web space in April 1997, who would have thought that it would grow into something enduring? We used Macs at work, I had a Mac at home, and I was teaching myself how to make web pages using Claris Home Page. So I put […]

Will Macs Switch to an Apple Branded CPU?

After years of barely growing the number of Macs sold, in 2006 Apple moved to Intel CPUs – and sales took off immediately. Prior to 2005, Macs had peaked at 4.5 million units in 1995, dropped to 2.7 million in 1998, and hit a new high of 4.7 million in 2005.

Our Facebook Group by the Numbers

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%.

Nerds Helping Nerds?

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.

The Mac Classic: Apple Does Cheap

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 […]

Apple IIe Card: A Tool for Getting Macs into Schools

If anything, Apple’s success in getting the Apple II family of computers into elementary schools was a mixed blessing. The education market kept the Apple II line going, prevented DOS PCs from getting a foothold in most elementary schools, but it also kept schools from buying Apple Macs because they couldn’t run all that Apple […]

The 3 Laws of Low End Computing

The best thing about Macs is how long they can remain useful. I am typing this on an Early 2008 iMac. The 20″ model with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. And it’s running macOS 10.11 El Capitan quite nicely since upgrading from the 3 GB this used iMac came with to its maximum, […]

Apple’s Tendency to Short Users of Enough USB Ports

Apple did a wonderful thing when it introduced the all-in-one iMac in 1998. It gave the world a fresh new colorful look at what an all-in-one computer could be with no floppy drive on the front. It included a built-in 100Base-T ethernet port and a 56k modem. And it forced the industry to recon with […]

2008: The Beginning of the End for Low End Macs

The first Mac with memory expansion and a hard drive bus was the Mac Plus, introduced way back in January 1986. It came with an impressive 1 MB of RAM, and memory could be expanded to a mind boggling 4 MB. The SCSI port on the back let you add up to 7 devices, including […]

Net Neutrality: Who Wins?

Under the Trump regime, there’s a move afoot to end Net Neutrality, something the Obama administration championed. Everything supported by Obama seems to be subject to reversal in the current political climate. Net Neutrality should not be one of them.

Moving Forward

Friends, it’s been quite a year so far, and I’m ready to make some big changes. My divorce will be finalized soon, and I’m looking for a position as a technical writer or editor in either the US or Canada. I am willing to relocate.

‘Low End’ Means Good Enough

Low End Mac began 20 years ago as a way to share my knowledge of the earliest useful Macs with other Mac users. At that point I considered the Mac Plus – the first Mac with SCSI for adding a hard drive and expandable memory – to be the oldest practical Mac. Interesting thing is, […]

The Next Mac Pro

The current Mac Pro was introduced in December 2013 to mixed reactions. Yes, it’s beautifully miminalistic and it was very powerful by 2013 standards, but it lacked hard drive bays and expansion slots, two features that generally define a professional level computer.

Using an iPhone in the Google Universe

The world certainly has changed since the late 1990s, when there were only two significant personal computing platforms – Windows with about 95% of the market, Mac at about 5%, and a tiny sliver of Linux users. Today we have mobile operating systems and another personal computing choice, Chrome OS. But what if you want […]

Used iPhones Are Undermining the iPod touch

In October 2001, Apple introduced the original 5 GB iPod with FireWire as its only data and charging port. Steve Jobs previewed the original iPhone in January 2007 – ten years ago and just over five years after iPod introduction. The iPhone shipped at the end of June 2007, and released the first iPod touch […]

Using an iPhone 6 Plus as an iPad nano

I love the huge 5.5″ 1920 x 1080 pixel display on the iPhone 6 Plus, but it’s such a large device that I wouldn’t want to stick one in my pocket and use it as my phone. The thing is huge – but there are other uses for it.