Prior to 1986, the best Mac had 512 KB of memory with no expansion path, a 400 KB floppy drive, and no standard way of connecting a fast hard drive. The Mac Plus, introduced on January 16, 1986, changed all that.
Author Archives: Daniel Knight
The PowerPC platform had a long life on Macs. The first Power Macs arrived on March 14, 1994, 10 years after the first Mac – the Power Mac 6100, 7100, and 8100, running the PowerPC 601 CPU at speeds of 60, 66, and 80 MHz respectively. The PowerPC G5 came to the iMac in August 2004, over […]
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History is one of my favorite podcasts. Then again, I majored in English, history, and philosophy in college, so I like history to begin with. If you enjoy history at all, I think you’ll find this podcast a treat.
I’ve been using smartphones for years, starting with a Palm Centro during my last months with Verizon, just before we switched to AT&T and my wife and I each got an iPhone 3GS. Modern smartphones go through batteries much more quickly than old “dumb” phones ever did.
We’re expanding Low End Mac with new recommendation articles, which will generally be shorter than full fledged in-depth reviews. We’ll be sharing our thoughts on what software, services, games, podcasts, devices, accessories, and more items we think might benefit you.
Back in the days of reel-to-reel tape and tape hiss interfering with high frequency sound, Dolby Labs made a name for itself with Dolby Noise Reduction, which recorded high frequencies at a higher volume and played them back with an equivalent amount of volume decrease to reduce the impact of tape hiss. Now Dolby wants […]
The PowerPC platform had a long life at Apple. The first Power Macs arrived on March 14, 1994 – the Power Mac 6100, 7100, and 8100 running the PowerPC 601 CPU at speeds of 60, 66, and 80 MHz respectively. The ultimate Power Mac was the G5 Quad, which had two 2.5 GHz dual-core CPUs […]
Apple introduced the $10,000 Lisa in 1983 and the $2,500 Macintosh in 1984. Both used the 68000 CPU. The Atari ST, based on the same processor, arrived in 1985 at just $799 – or $999 with color, which the Mac didn’t have yet.
Back in the early days of personal computing, benchmarks were usually written in BASIC and tweaked for each competing brand of computer and BASIC in use. This article looks at some popular benchmarks from the 8-bit era of home computing.
The most important development in 1983 was the Personal Computer Price War. Texas Instruments had nearly destroyed Commodore International when TI began selling fully assembled calculators for less than Commodore and other calculator makers paid for components. Jack Tramiel, Commodore’s founder, vowed revenge.
Apple shook up the Mac world when it announced in June 2005 that it would switch from PowerPC to Intel CPUs within a year. A lot of longtime Mac users felt betrayed. And when Apple introduced the first Intel Macs at the January 2006 Macworld Expo, we were shocked at how soon Apple had begun […]
The Apple Display Connector (ADC) was Apple’s proprietary modification of the DVI (Digital Visual Interface) connector that combines analog and digital video signals, USB, and power in a single cable. Apple’s goal was to reduce cable clutter and simplify the process of connecting a new monitor to a Mac. This was especially nice with monitors […]
If you’ve never heard of the Motorola 68060 CPU, there’s a good reason for it. Apple never used it. Atari never used it. And the only Amiga that used it only did so after Commodore had gone bankrupt and been acquired by another company. There have also been some processor upgrades built around the 68060.
We are embarking on a new project, bringing our LEM Swap group, an email list we launched over 15 years ago, into the Facebook era. We started with LEM Swap UK and have since added LEM Swap Canada and LEM Swap Australia so we can learn from a smaller group before launching other national or regional groups.
Before Facebook, before Twitter, before MySpace, before Yahoo, before bulletin board systems, before usenet – in fact, way before the first computer – Hugo Gernsback created the first social media networks.
Apple, Atari, and Commodore Amiga all made personal computers based on the Motorola 680×0 family of processors. This article covers models introduced since the start of 1991. For earlier models, see Timeline of 680×0 Computers, 1980-1990.
I upgraded my memory past 8 MB, but a bunch of memory seems to be missing or used by the OS. Where did it go?
Although it is best known for its use in Macintosh, Atari ST, and Amiga computers, the Motorola 68000 family of CPUs predates the Macintosh by five years.
In November 1983, Tandy entered the world of PC compatibles with one of the most powerful MS-DOS computers to date, the 8 MHz 80186-based Tandy 2000. This was long before IBM released the 6 MHz IBM Personal Computer/AT in August 1994.
Texas Instruments (TI) had been a pioneer in transistor, integrated circuit, and semiconductor design, and it was a major player in the calculator market. However, it took its time entering the home and business computer markets and fared poorly in both areas.
In 1977, Radio Shack became one of the first companies to sell personal computers, but it didn’t have a model with color graphics until 1980. This is the story of the Radio Shack Color Computer.
The Atari 2600 was once the king of gaming consoles, but Atari was a late entrant to the personal computing field.
In 1977, there were three home computers: The Apple II, the Commodore PET, and the TRS-80, which was sold at 3,500 Radio Shack stores across the United States. Apple and Commodore used the MOS Tech 6502 CPU in their computers, but Radio Shack chose the Zilog Z-80.
Best known for the Commodore 64, the best selling single model in the history of computing, Commodore International was one of the first companies to enter the personal computing market and the first with a million-selling computer. Its first model was the Commodore PET.
Prior to the September 1986 introduction of the Apple IIGS, every Apple II computer ran an 8-bit 1 MHz 6502 processor, used 5-1/4″ floppy disks, had a very limited color palette, and sound was nothing to write home about. The Apple IIGS changed all of that.
The Apple II family was known for its expansion options – eight slots for adding capabilities. Inevitably one held a floppy controller, typically one held a parallel printer card, and another might have a serial card for a modem or printer. Some bought Microsoft’s Z-80 SoftCard to run CP/M. But for most users, most slots remained empty.
The Apple II and II Plus had been a runaway success for Apple, establishing it in the home, the school, and, thanks to VisiCalc, the workplace. Even though that was true, these models had some shortcomings that were addressed when the Apple IIe was introduced in January 1983.
Although the Apple 1, introduced in April 1976, had been a big success among the hobbyist crowd, people who didn’t mind assembling their own computer and designing a case for it, it was not part of the ready-to-go personal computer revolution of the late 1970s. That’s where the Apple II comes in.
Apple has a very impressive track record. It is the only personal computer company to have survived from the early days of 8-bit computing while once mighty Commodore, Radio Shack, and Atari no longer exist or long ago stopped making personal computers.
With Apple on an annual development cycle for Mac OS X, it’s interesting to see what patterns develop between the official launch of one version and the launch of the next version. Today we look at Yosemite’s first year.
