From January 1984 through April 1987, all Macs were beige. Then Apple introduced “platinum,” a more business-like gray. That wasn’t enough, as we all discovered with the iMac in May 1998.
Author Archives: Daniel Knight
Launched in April 1997 as part of my personal website, The New Low End Mac User has evolved and grown. At this point, we’ve served up somewhere around 6.5 million web pages. Wow! This article looks at some important site developments in 1999.
What better way to end the year than to look back at the successes of 1999 – especially Apple’s.
The best and word of 1999 (and very subjective):
After releasing the industry’s most radically fresh desktop design and the most popular computer in 1998, what do you do for an encore?
Links originally on the No Hype 56k Modem Home Page. Links verified March 2018.
Apple released its 1999 10-K form, which provides an overview of the past fiscal year as well as a look ahead. 1999 was a very impressive year.
Every version of the Mac OS is ready for Y2K, but some programs for the Mac suffer from Y2K problems.
The Umax SuperMac C500 and C600 were the first “Power Macs” to have their CPU in a ZIF socket, making upgrades very easy. Having a C500/200 at work and finding an incredible garage sale special on upgrades from Small Dog Electronics, I decided to test the 240 MHz upgrade and the CacheDoubler.
I couldn’t believe it – a US$19 USB extended keyboard! At that price, it was worth a try. From the photo (below), it looked like a match for the Apple Extended Keyboard layout, or at least very close.
1999: I watched my first DVD, Blade Runner: Director’s Cut, on a 300 MHz Blue and White Power Mac G3 with a 20″ monitor. It worked, but I get a smoother picture with my DVD player and TV at home.
I’ve been using a different mouse and keyboard this week. I didn’t have to, but I wanted the full USB experience.
1999 – From the day Steve Jobs announced the Power Mac G4, we’ve all known the Yikes! model was temporary. We pretty much expected it to be discontinued before Macworld Expo at the end of January – and probably before the end of 1999. Well, Apple quietly did it. If you go to the Apple […]
This page covers G3 upgrades that fit in the Level 2 cache socket of the Power Macintosh 4400, 5400, 5500, 6400, 6500, 7220; Performa 54xx, 6360, and 64xx; Twentieth Anniversary Mac; StarMax 3000, 4000; Power Computing PowerBase; Umax SuperMac C500, and C600. Check with the manufacturer of the upgrade to see which models are compatible.
For those of us who cut our teeth with 8-bit computers in the late 1970s, dot pitch wasn’t an issue. A monitor might display 320 dots horizontally by 200 vertically. On a 13″ monitor (the norm back then) with 12″ viewable, you’d have about 9.5″ horizontally. That’s 0.75 mm per pixel, so a horizontal dot […]
1999 – I enjoyed your article, Is It Time to Buy an iMac? Personally, I’m still using my 6-1/2 year old Quadra 800 quite successfully. I know that $5,500 was a lot of money back in Spring ’93, and I’m squeezing every last bit of power out of it. For most tasks, it seems about […]
I have yet to see a 15″ CRT monitor that looks crisp at 1024 x 768, or even a 19″ one that does justice to 1280 x 960 or 1280 x 1024 resolution. Yet these monitors are often rated for these settings, and often even higher ones.
1999: Please note that Freewwweb has not only gone out of business, but their domain has been purchased by a porn site. We are retaining this article written by Rob Myers for historical interest but have removed all links to the domain. Dan Knight, publisher.
1999 – I just read your advice about upgrading or replacing an older Mac, and my Performa 636CD works pretty well for my purposes (except no RealAudio). I had a logic board swap done about 1-1/2 years ago so I could add a 486 card for Windows 95 (it’s easier for me to adapt to […]
1999: The “I” in iMac must stand for inferior. Because after installing Mac OS 9 on your iMac, you’ll feel inferior to your little computer. OS 9, Apple’s latest operating system for the Mac, is sure to make your iMac work for you.
1999: Transistor density has been doubling roughly every eighteen months like clockwork for 40 years now. That’s Moore’s Law in a nutshell.
The Mac II uses a 16 MHz 68020 CPU. The hard drive is an ancient 5.25″ 80 MB Apple-branded Quantum drive – the one that originally shipped with this machine in 1987 – formatted with Apple HD SC Setup 7.3.5.
Supporting a over 80 Macs in three locations, consistency is very important. Most of the Macs at work are still running System 7.5.5. Newer ones are generally on Mac OS 8.1 or 8.6. We use the Apple ADB Mouse (in its various incarnations) almost exclusively, along with the Contour UniMouse on Macs without ADB ports.
1999: One of the more interesting stories of the past week was the decision of MacTimes to close its doors and try to auction off its domain name on eBay for a cool $100,000. As I write this, there are 12 hours to go – and no bidders.
Intel recently christened “the chip formerly known as Merced” with the newly coined name ITANIUM. (Yes, they really do want it in all caps. Tough.)
Five years ago, my employer was spending about $3,600 for a Power Mac 6100/66 with 16 MB of memory (so much!) and a 230-500 MB hard drive. And Apple’s extended keyboard, which was a separate item back then. And an Apple 14″ color monitor.
The Power Macintosh 6100 (a.k.a. the Perform 6110 series) shipped in two speeds: a 60 MHz version introduced on March 14, 1994 as one of the first Power Macs, and a 66 MHz version introduced on January 5, 1995. Until I benchmarked a 6100/60, 6100/66, and 6100/66 with 256 KB level 2 (L2) cache, I assumed the […]
1999: With apologies to Accelerate Your Mac! for the headline, I hope you were as shocked at Apple’s arrogance on Wednesday as I was.
I’ve had some time to watch the Kihei iMac/Mac OS 9 announcement online and read the Kihei developer notes. I’m more impressed with the new iMacs than ever.
1999 – Imagine something smaller, lighter, and far less expensive than an iBook. Imagine writing on a keyboard with no Mac attached. That’s one way of looking at the AlphaSmart 2000, the device I’m writing this review on.
