AppleTalk, LocalTalk, and PhoneNet

From nearly the beginning, Macs have supported built-in networking using a protocol known as AppleTalk. While networking is common today, outside of large businesses and institutions, networked computers were the exception in the mid 1980s. Out-of-the-box networking was a major selling point for the Mac.

Mac OS 9 Isn’t Dead Yet

The final release of Mac OS 9 occurred ten years ago, in 2001. Mac OS X was launched that same year, and Steve Jobs symbolically buried his old nemesis in 2002. The old Mac OS survived for another few years, running on dual-booting G4s or as Classic Mode under OS X, until the release of the Intel […]

A Macintosh Undelete Odyssey

It happens to us all – accidentally deleting a file. Or a folder full of files. Or worse! This time it was at the end of a Friday afternoon with a new client, transferring data from his old computer to a new one. The process took many hours, the client left for a while, and […]

Finding a New Home for Your Old Mac

New Macs are cool. They’re shiny, fast, sexy machines that can turbocharge your work and play. Apple is happy to sell you a new one as often as you can afford it! But whether you stay on the cutting edge or live the full Low End Mac philosophy, you will inevitably reach the day when […]

Moving Files from Classic Macs to Modern Ones

As someone who works with classic Macs (Macs that can boot the Classic Mac OS), I get contacted occasionally by people who still have files on the hard drives of their old Macs but aren’t sure how to move them to a newer machine. These are typically SCSI-based systems with floppy drives. They might also […]

Multiroom Audio with iTunes

These days many people have some or most of their music libraries on their computers, and that is often managed with Apple’s free iTunes software. It’s very nice to have such quick and easy access to your music library, but by default this plays back only in the room where the computer is located. Wouldn’t […]

Step-by-Step Guide to Manual Mac System Migration

Since the early days of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, Apple has provided a wonderful utility – initially part of Setup Assistant and later (in OS X 10.4 Tiger) renamed Migration Assistant – to help move data between your old and new Macs. With this utility and a Mac booted into FireWire Target Disk Mode, or […]

Tales of Old Mac Data Retrieval

2008 – Macs have been around for a long time, waxing and waning in popularity – 24 years as of this writing. Many people have used Macs in grade school or college, as business users, or personally, and have old data and software stored on floppy disks, SyQuest cartridges, hard drives, etc. from these Paleolithic […]

Software to Remotely Control and Reboot Your Mac

Part 1 of this series covers general considerations and Apple-supported methods available for remote system control that will generally work on any version of Mac OS X (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, and Leopard) – and even OS 9. This article addresses some commercial solutions that also support multiple OS versions, along with how to force-reboot a remote Mac. Part […]