About The Rumor Mill

Okay, for those of you unsure about The Rumor Mill, here’s the lowdown: it’s a farce. There are no contacts at Apple Computer. There are no leaks from anyone reaching us. There is no Anne Onymus.

LEM Swap Australia

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’ve already launched LEM Swap UK and LEM Swap Canada. Today we start LEM Swap Australia. We’ll be adding LEM Swap USA soon.

Apple Will Be Apple

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in nearly 30 years using Macs, it’s that Apple will be Apple. They will change things for the better. They will change things for the worse. And they rarely change their mind.

Sonnet QuadDoubler Accelerators

Michael Roeder reports: I bought my Macintosh Centris 610 way back in 1993. It’s been a reliable and fun replacement for my Mac Plus. Because I have some way cool computers at work, I haven’t had the need to buy a new Mac of my own.

16 MHz MicroMac Performer for Mac SE

Luca Fornari reports: About a year ago, a friend of mine gave me a Mac SE (you know the type: 68000 8 MHz, 2.5 MB RAM). A real snail, almost useless, but it was so cute I decided to keep it and put in 4 MB so I could run some software on it – mostly […]

LEM Swap Canada

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’ve already launched LEM Swap UK, LEM Swap Canada, and LEM Swap Australia so we can learn from a smaller group before launching a group for the larger US audience.

Best Mac Pro Prices

Apple completely overhauled the Mac Pro in 2013, eliminating things like drive bays and expansion slots in favor of a radical new design that includes two video cards along with the fastest SSDs available. For those who need drive bays or expansion slots, there are lots of older Mac Pros to pick from starting below $200!

Best Mac mini Prices

Apple last updated the Mac mini in Late 2014, moving to a 1.4 GHz dual-core low-power Intel i5 CPU that can Turbo Boost to 2.6 GHz on the entry-level model and a very powerful 2.6 GHz i5 on the “better” Mini (power hungry users can upgrade that to a 2.8 GHz i5 or 3.0 GHz i7). System memory can no longer […]

Best Classic Mac OS Prices

Although the Classic Mac OS remains useful, it’s getting hard to find at a reasonable price. We hope these links help you do so, whether for System 6, Mac OS 9.2.2, or something in between.

Memory Upgrades: Mac LC 580, Performa 580

The Mac LC/Performa 580 shipped with 4 MB soldered on the motherboard and two 72-pin SIMM sockets for memory expansion – twice as many as the LC 550 and 575 – for up to 52 MB total system memory, the most possible in any 500-series Mac. Like other 500-series Macs, it has a slide-out motherboard.

Memory Upgrades: Mac TV

The Mac TV is pretty much a black LC 550 with a built-in TV tuner and a remote control for the TV portion of the computer. It has 4 MB soldered on the motherboard and comes from the factory with a 1 MB 72-pin SIMM in its only memory socket. Mac TV only had one […]

Memory Upgrades: Mac IIvx, IIvi; Performa 600

The Mac IIvx, Mac IIvi, and Performa 600 were odd ducks, running a 16 MHz motherboard when most of Apple’s other machines were already faster than that. Since the IIvi had a 16 MHz 68030 CPU, that wasn’t a bottleneck, but the IIvx and Performa 600 had 32 MHz CPU, which were hobbled by the […]

The Mac Plus 30 Years On

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.