This page lists some of the best software for the Classic Mac OS – System 6 through Mac OS 9.2.2 – in my admittedly biased opinion. Listings are alphabetical, and some programs have OS X versions as well as classic ones. Many links are to archived files in my Dropbox.
Category Archives: Low End Mac
- 'Book Value
- 'mini value
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- iBasics Classic iBasics articles for the Classic Mac OS
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- Maximize Your Mac Jason Schrader's tips on getting the most out of your Mac hardware.
- Bluetooth & Wifi Upgrades
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- Menagerie of Macs
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- Moore's Mailbag
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- Plays Well with Others
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- Stop the Noiz - Frank Fox tries to cut through the static and get to the facts.
- Taking Back the Market - Tim Nash on how Apple can retake its markets.
- Tangerine Fusion
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- The 'Book Page
- The Efficient Mac User
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- The Mac Pack Rat The every day adventures of a Macintosh Pack Rat. Repairing and using lower end machines for productive daily work.
- The Mobile Mac
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- Things Macintosh
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- Unofficial SuperMac Support Site
- Using WordPress - Tips on using WordPress, particularly as deployed at Low End Mac.
- View from the Classroom
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- Vintage Mac Living
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- Welcome to Macintosh
- In House with Low End Mac
- Working with Vintage Macs
- Zis Mac - Alan Zisman on Macs, iOS, and other tech.
Palm Computing was largely the creation and vision of one man, Jeff Hawkins. Palm first brought tablet computing to consumers in the form of PDAs (but was beaten by Apple and its scions). The later – and more momentous – goal was to bring consumers to PDAs through simple and very fast user interfaces. This […]
I’ve just finished wading through 6+ years worth of press releases from Gartner Group, digging out quarterly PC sales results from Holiday Quarter 2008 through 2nd Quarter 2016. Why? Because the global PC market is in decline, and I wanted to see how Mac sales compared to Windows sales.
For nearly as long as I’ve published Low End Mac, we’ve had the “Road Apples” category for Macs that we felt didn’t live up to their potential (here’s an archive link to the 1998 Road Apples index). Sometimes it was because of hardware architecture. Sometimes it was because of unnecessary memory ceilings. And much of […]
I’ve been using a standup desk in my home office, and my recent job manufacturing high pressure air hoses required me to stand most of the day. A standing desk makes it easier to move around than sitting in a chair, but it can be hard on your body in other ways.
Prior to 2006, PowerBook was consistently one of the most respected and lusted after brands in the portable computing market.
While most early Mac clones depended on Macintosh ROMs to function, NuTek spent four years reverse engineering the ROMs in a clean room in its quest to produce a legal Mac clone. It didn’t exactly succeed.
One of the less well known Mac clone lines, MaxxBoxx was released in Germany in July 1997 to fill the needs of users with very demanding applications.
Most early Mac clones were built around 8-16 MHz 68000 CPUs or 16-40 MHz 68030 chips, but the 68000 Dash 30fx ran its 68030 at a blazing 50 MHz – 25% faster than the “wicked fast” Mac IIfx, which was the fastest computer on the market when it went on sale in March 1990. The Dash […]
In addition to building the first commercial portable Mac, the WalkMac, Chuck Colby also developed the first Mac tablet, which he called the Colby Classmate™ Portable Computer. It was introduced at the August 1991 Macworld Expo in Boston. The Classmate is built around a Mac Classic logic board. It has a built-in trackball and membrane […]
You may not remember the Atari ST family, a series of computers based on the same 8 MHz Motorola 680×0 CPUs as the early Macs. They never really carved out a niche in the US, although they were moderately popular in Europe. The STs offered PC compatible floppy drives, a DOS-compatible filing system, and GEM, […]
Perhaps the best known early portable Mac clone came from Outbound systems. It was announced in August 1989, just weeks before Apple unveiled the Macintosh Portable. The Outbound Portable Plus uses the same 68000 CPU as the Plusand SE, but runs it nearly twice as fast at 15 MHz. It has a unique built-in pointing […]
Thanks to Richard Savary for sending information about the Dynamac. Mentioned in Byte (May 1988), the jet black Dynamac EL weighs 18 pounds, uses an 8 MHz 68000 CPU, has an 800K floppy, and shipped with 1 MB RAM (expandable to 2.5 MB or 4 MB). It was essentially a portable Mac Plus. The electroluminescent (EL) screen supports […]
In the era of the Sony Walkman™, it was inevitable someone would create a WalkMac. That’s what Chuck Colby called his portable when it was introduced in 1987. The Colby WalkMac was the first portable, battery-powered Mac. It was available in two configurations: SE ($4,498) and SE/30 ($6,798). Battery life was about three hours. For […]
This could be the rarest Mac compatible ever made. Outside of a few prototypes, only about 100 McMobiles were ever made. The first prototype (pictured here) used Mac Plus parts in a Plexiglas case to produce a 15 pound laptop with 15-30 minutes of battery power – that’s a bit lighter than the Mac Portable […]
Since Brazil didn’t allow the import of microcomputers until 1993, anything users wanted had to be made in and for the local market. For those who wanted a Macintosh, Unitron created the Mac 512, essentially a clone of the 512 KB “Fat Mac”. Unitron Mac 512, the first Macintosh clone. Rainer Brockerhoff from Brazil writes, […]
Honestly, if they didn’t keep dropping support for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in new versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Flash, I’d have almost no reason to have OS X 10.9 Mavericks on my Late 2008 13″ Aluminum MacBook (that’s a 2013 OS on a 2008 computer). But my Mid 2007 Mac mini is limited […]
The scroll wheel came late to Macs. In fact, although every version of Mac OS X includes support for a scroll wheel, no Apple mouse has ever had a scroll wheel. The closest they ever came was the scroll ball in the Apple Mighty Mouse.
I will be the first to admit that I have always considered the iMac G4 to be an odd looking computer. A coworker gave me an old one a few months ago, and I finally got the right power cord to set it up. It’s changed my opinion of the machine.
We’re sounding like a broken record here, but what was Apple thinking by offering a 4 GB Early 2015 MacBook Air that shipped with OS X 10.10 Yosemite – an operating system that limps along with 4 GB of system memory and cries out for 8 GB? I hope most users had the sense to […]
Macintosh games do not come more classic than the Marathon series. And now you can play all three on your modern Mac courtesy of the Aleph One project.
15 years in the making, Duke Nukem Forever brings back classic first person shooters and over the top sexism to the gaming world.
At Worldwide Developer Conference 2016, Apple reveals a new name for OS X. Hello, macOS.
The iPhone 5 and 5c will both receive iOS 10, making them the lowest supported iPhones in the new iOS version.
Playing older PC games on your modern Mac used to be tricky. Boxer takes the hassle out of it.
Apple corrects an error on their website which caused confusion over which iDevices would receive iOS 10.
Apples 2016 Worldwide Developer Conference has just finished – what does it mean for your iDevice and Mac?
Apple really messed up with the Early 2014 MacBook Air. The base version had just 4 GB of memory, and it shipped with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the last version of OS X to run comfortably with 4 GB of memory. It’s a good thing Apple also offered an 8 GB option for those planning […]
Apple messed up with the Mid 2013 MacBook Air. It shipped with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, and the base version had just 4 GB of memory. That was enough to run Mountain Lion and OS X 10.9 Mavericks, but OS X 10.10 Yosemite and beyond really want more memory. It’s a good thing Apple […]
Apple updated the MacBook Air again in June 2012, moving to faster Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs, making 4 GB of memory standard, and gaining USB 3. For the first time, the MacBook Air had an 8 GB option.
Apple updated the MacBook Air in July 2011, migrating to the far more efficient Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs, adding Thunderbolt connectivity, and going to a 6 GBps SATA Rev. 3 drive bus to further improve SSD performance. Sadly, Apple continued to sell a 2 GB version, which was scarcely adequate for the OS […]
In October 2010, Apple added an 11″ model to the MacBook Air line – and a new low in CPU speeds for the line. On the plus side, the pokey 1.8″ hard drives were history, and the line was now 100% SSD – and it had a 4 GB memory option plus a new graphics […]
The Mid 2009 MacBook Air was essentially a speed-bumped version of the Late 2008 MacBook Air. It runs at up to 2.13 GHz – almost 15% faster by clock speed – but it is still limited to 2 GB of RAM.
Where the original MacBook Air was a certifiable Road Apple due to its slow PATA drive bus, horribly slow 1.8″ hard drive, and fixed 2 GB of memory, the Late 2008 MacBook Air isn’t quite as bad. Yes, it is still limited to 2 GB of RAM, but at least it uses SATA for its […]
When Apple introduced the original MacBook Air in January 2008, 2 GB seemed like plenty of memory. This was the era of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which ran very comfortably with 2 GB – even with graphics eating up 144 MB of system memory. But limited memory was not the MBA’s only problem.