In the late 1980s and early 1990s, computing made a great leap forward with the advent of 16-bit microcomputers like the Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST. The Apple II, introduced in 1978, was a phenomenally successful platform, eventually coming to possess a 20% share of the personal computer market in the US. But by […]
Category Archives: Low End Mac
- 'Book Value
- 10 Forward
- 75 Mac Advantages
- Adam's Apple
- Apple Archive
- Apple Before the Mac
- Apple Everywhere
- Apple History
- Apple, Tech, and Gaming
- Back & Forth
- Benchmarks
- Best Tools for the Job
- Building Bridges
- Classic Mac Nostalgia
- Classic Mac OS Software
- Classic Restorations
- Collection Spotlight
- Compleat Guides
- CustoMacs
- Developer Transition Kits
- Different Branches
- Digital Fossils
- Down but Not Out
- Early Mac Clones
- Edelweiss
- Embracing Obsolescence
- Empowered
- Hacking Your Mac
- iBasics
- iBasics Classic iBasics articles for the Classic Mac OS
- iMac Channel
- In My Palm
- Interviews
- iOS & iDevices Articles about iOS and iOS devices: iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
- iOS Accessories
- iOS Apps
- iOS Hardware iOS devices and accessories.
- iTed Talks
- Kitchens Sync
- Leo and Mac
- Linux to Mac
- Low End Campfire Discussion Campfire style storytelling of Apple finds, exciting discoveries and more.
- Low End Mac FAQs
- Low End Mac Mailbag
- Low End Mac Round Table Low End Mac round table discussion.
- Low End Mac Tech Journal
- The Serker Files
- Mac "Extras"
- Mac Accessories
- Mac CPU Upgrades
- Mac Daniel
- Mac Fallout Shelter
- Mac Gaming
- Mac Happens
- Mac History
- Mac Lab Report
- Mac Life
- Mac Metamorphosis
- LinuxPPC Chronicles
- Mac Musings
- Mac OS X Software
- Mac Resources
- Mac Restorations
- Mac Scope
- Mac to Windows Articles about using Macs and Windows PCs together.
- Mac UK
- Mac USB & FireWire
- MacInSchool
- Macinthoughts
- MacPaint and Its Children
- Matt's Macs
- Maximize Your Mac Jason Schrader's tips on getting the most out of your Mac hardware.
- Bluetooth & Wifi Upgrades
- Memory Upgrade Options
- Menagerie of Macs
- Miscellaneous Ramblings
- Moore's Mailbag
- My First Mac
- My Turn
- Older G4 Macs in the Age of Leopard
- One More Thing
- Online Thrifter
- Orchard
- Overclocking Your Vintage Mac
- Plays Well with Others
- PPC Linux
- Printer Reviews
- Reality Check
- Recycled Computing
- Second Class Macs
- SETI on Mac
- Software FAQs
- 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
- Tech Spectrum
- Tech Stuff
- The 'Book Page
- The Efficient Mac User
- The Lite Side
- Bumper Snickers
- The Low End Designer
- 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
- The Odyssey
- The Power of Mac
- The Practical Mac
- The Productive Mac
- The Review Vault
- The Road Warrior
- The Rumor Mill
- The Value Equation
- Things Macintosh
- 10 Commandments of the Church of Macintosh
- Triassic Mac
- Unofficial SuperMac Support Site
- Using WordPress - Tips on using WordPress, particularly as deployed at Low End Mac.
- View from the Classroom
- Busman's Holiday
- Teacher Tools
- View From the MacCave
- Vintage Mac Living
- Vintage Mac Workhorses
- Welcome to Macintosh
- In House with Low End Mac
- Working with Vintage Macs
- Zis Mac - Alan Zisman on Macs, iOS, and other tech.
As a computer manufacturer, Apple gets a strangely distorted press. Its position as the only serious commercial competitor to Microsoft guarantees that every move the company makes is documented – and often distorted.
The Apple III was meant to be Apple’s bold entry into the business market; it ended as Apple’s first commercial failure and put the company into financial uncertainty. It was also responsible for sprouting both the Lisa and Macintosh projects, efforts that would save Apple. Wendell Sander, father of the Apple III. Photo courtesy of […]
Realizing that the Apple II would not sustain Apple forever, the Sara project began. The main idea of Sara was to create a more powerful and capable Apple II. It would include 128 KB of RAM, an integrated floppy drive, and a high resolution display – 80 columns wide instead of the Apple II’s 40.
If you think the original Macintosh was an impressive piece of design and engineering, you may find Apple’s Lisa even more innovative.
For most Mac users, Apple’s Lisa isn’t even a footnote in Mac history. The $10,000 computer is rarely remembered as the Mac’s mother – and those who do remember it also tend to recall how Apple dumped thousands upon thousands of unsold Lisas in a Utah landfill when the computer was discontinued.
Apple’s Lisa was the predecessor of the Macintosh that introduced the mouse, the graphical user interface, and the integrated all-in-one design that would characterize the earliest Macs – and later on the iMac. Through its brief lifespan (May 1983 to April 1985), Apple sold about 80,000 Lisas before the Macintosh completely eclipsed it. (Larry Tesler, […]
I ran across images of some Apple prototypes created during the early years of Macintosh design – things like a cube-shaped Mac, a MacBook notebook, and a table-like device among them.
Although it was invented by Doug Engelbart in 1963, the computer mouse wasn’t an instant success. That had to wait for the 1980s and the introduction of computers with graphical user interfaces (GUIs).
On May 16, 2006, Apple introduced the consumer MacBook, the 13.3″ replacement for the old 12″ and 14″ iBooks. The first MacBooks had a wider 1280 x 800 display (vs. 1024 x 768 for G4 iBooks) and used Intel’s Core Duo processors. The biggest differences between the consumer MacBook and the MacBook Pro are the […]
Apple last updated the 13″ MacBook in May 2010 and discontinued it with the introduction of the Mid 2011 MacBook Air, although it was still available in the education channel for a while after that. The final model claimed up to 10 hours of wireless productivity, has a 2.4 GHz CPU, and uses Nvidia’s 320M graphics processor.
If you’re at all interested in the early history of Macs, especially the Mac OS, you owe it to yourself to bookmark Mac Floppy or put it in your RSS news feed. Billed as, “A look back at the Mac’s past when the best things in life fit on a floppy,” it’s an enjoyable reminiscence […]
There have been so many iMac models since Apple switch to Intel processor back in 2006 that we’ve found it easier to divide Intel iMac deals into two page. This page covers the more recent iMacs, which ship in 21.5″ and 27″ sizes. The other page covers older models, which came in 17″, 20″, and […]
The late 90s saw Apple take on it’s iconic range of devices beginning with i – starting a whole era of products. Has this era ended?
I took a trip to my local Apple Store ‘Chapelfield, Norwich’ to have some repair work done. How was it?
Apple has created a lot of successful products in its time, but they haven’t always hit home runs. Today we’re looking back at machines that many of you will remember, some of you won’t, and those that do would probably rather forget: the x200 series.
Remember the old days, back when Apple used names for its computers? Well I sure do, and I have a lot of fond memories of machines with names such as Performa, Centris, and Quadra. Sure the names were meaningless, but it made the machines sound that much more important.
Finding the status of your iDevice battery couldn’t be easier, thanks to the new version of the long running Coconut Battery tool.
Apple made some interesting choices when it designed the new 12″ MacBook, which is the thinnest, lightest Retina Display Mac notebook ever. But its US$1,299 price is higher than the new 13″ MacBook Air, 13″ MacBook Pro, and new 13″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Where’s the best value?
As technology marches forward, old tech gets left behind. Some of us have been using Macs since the 1980s and have experienced a lot of it, but the 1998 introduction of the iMac probably takes the cake for offending the most – and the 12″ MacBook may take second place.
The Early 2015 MacBook Air (MBA) gets another speed bump, gains Thunderbolt 2, and is rated at 12 hours in the field – and if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power. Built around 5th-generation low-power Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, the Early 2015 MBA has Intel HD Graphics […]
The Early 2015 MacBook Air (MBA) uses 5th-generation Intel Core processors and finally gains Thunderbolt 2. The 5th-generation low-power Intel Core i5 and i7 processors include Intel HD Graphics 6000. The stock CPU is a 1.6 GHz Core i5 with Turbo Boost to 2.7 GHz, and the 11-incher can be configured with a 2.2 GHz Core i7 that […]
The big news about the Early 2015 13″ Retina MacBook Pro is its adoption of the same Force Touch trackpad introduced with the 12″ MacBook. It’s also faster than its predecessor and has improved graphics. The base model has a 2.7 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost to 3.1 GHz, and the better model […]
The Flash Player hack for PowerPC has once again been updated – this time to 16.1.
Do you want the features of a modern iPhone without the expense. I take a look at the 2010 iPhone 4 as a budget handset.
iCloud contacts are great if you have iOS6 upwards. I show you how to export your iCloud contacts for use on older iDevices or other smartphones.
Way back in the Mac II era, someone discovered that certain Mac NuBus video cards could support slightly higher resolutions than the standard 640 x 480 pixels – but only with certain displays. This discovery gave birth to MaxAppleZoom, a $25 shareware control panel by Naoto Horii designed to support those higher resolution.
Radius was founded in May 1986 by Burrell Smith, Andy Hertzfeld, and other members of the original Mac team. Radius produced the first full-page display for the Macintosh, introducing the Radius Full Page Display for the Mac Plus. Other products included accelerators for the Mac Plus and Mac SE, video cards, monitors (including the first screen […]
What? It’s 2015, and it’s iPhone rumour time. Will we see a follow up to the iPhone 5c? Will Apple release a speed bumped iPhone 6 and 6 Plus? Or are they planning something different?
The rumour mill is rife with thoughts on Apple’s next version of iOS. What will we see next in Apple’s next generation mobile operating system?
Weather apps serve a basic purpose, to tell the weather, but Authentic Weather brings a new, rather rude edge.
Umax acquired the Macintosh clone operation and SuperMac name from Radius, going on to become one of the more innovative clone makers. Their corporate goal was to make quality Mac OS computers at prices that would give PCs a run for their money, something I believe they succeeded at. From the entry level C500 to […]
It can be frustrating when your beloved iDevice cries that it is full, but what can you do? I check out a new Mac tool called PhoneExpander that claims to easily free up some space.
Over the years, we’ve covered using a CompactFlash (CF) card with an IDE adapter to replace a laptop’s hard drive and make it quieter. As it turns out, there’s a lot we didn’t know about this subject until recently.
In my previous article, I looked at HTML5 video support in browsers compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard on PowerPC Macs. Today we’re looking at video performance on YouTube, which recently made HTML5 video its default.