Is it worth maxing the RAM in older computers? This has been a long-asked question, one I see on mailing groups regularly.
Category Archives: Low End Mac
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Apple has finally replaced the last 17″ iMac, a holdover white model that has only been available to the education market at the same US$899 price as this new model. At 2.0 GHz, the new education iMac is 25% slower than the low-end consumer model and comes with half the RAM (1 GB) and half […]
Apple upgraded the Xserve to the same Nehalem CPUs found in the Mac Pro. Even though the clock speed of these chips is lower than on the 2008 Xserve, the efficiencies of the Nehalem architecture power it well past last year’s models. The Nehalem chips also support Hyperthreading, so each core can emulate two cores, […]
2009-04-07: Dan Knight, Low End Mac’s publisher, informs us that today marks 12 years since he first posted some old Mac profiles on his personal website and started building Low End Mac.
2009 – I had an email Monday from my daughter, who is the current custom users of our old WallStreet PowerBook, telling me that she had succeeded in getting OS X 10.4 .11 Tiger installed on the venerable ‘Book. This was particularly interesting, because I had myself failed in several attempts over the years that I […]
2009 – I finally switched to using my new Unibody Aluminum MacBook for production – just over five weeks after it touched down here. That isn’t how I had expected things to unfold, but I ran into some unanticipated snags in the transition from my long-established and highly evolved workflow on my previous Macs to […]
With the latest model announcement from Apple, it seems that people are thinking more about building a “Hackintosh” than ever before. I can’t say that I blame them.
This page covers CardBus WiFi hardware that is compatible with Mac OS X. CardBus uses a 32-bit data bus that’s faster than the 16-bit bus used by PCMCIA/PC Card devices, which are covered in WiFi PC Cards Compatible with PowerBooks Running Mac OS X.
This page covers PCMCIA/PC Card WiFi hardware that is compatible with Mac OS X. Some of these devices are also compatible with the Classic Mac OS; all of them are reported to work with OS X.
Older Macs may not have a slot for Apple’s AirPort Card – and even if they do, you may want higher throughput than 802.11b WiFi offers. 802.11g will give you nearly five times as much bandwidth.
This page covers PCMCIA/PC Card WiFi hardware that is compatible with the Classic Mac OS. A few of these devices are compatible with Mac OS 8.6; all of them are reported to work with Mac OS 9, and most also have drivers available for some versions of Mac OS X.
Older Macs may not have a slot for Apple’s AirPort Card, and even if yours does, you may want higher throughput than 802.11b WiFi offers – 802.11g will give you nearly five times as much bandwidth.
There is no shortage of GUI FTP programs, but kicking it old school on the command line allows you to easily automate uploads and downloads. The best part is, there is nothing to install. Everything you need waits patiently behind the warm glow of a Terminal session.
It’s been 14 months since Apple introduced the 2008 Mac Pro, and the 2009 Mac Pro is a big step forward: every configuration uses quad-core Intel Xeon Nehalem CPUs for even more power. Each core has its own 256 KB Level 2 (L2) cache, and each quad-core CPU shares an 8 GB Level 3 (L3) […]
Apple has updated the iMac with Nvidia graphics as a standard feature (the Early 2008 iMac used Radeon graphics, although there was an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GS build-to-order option for the 24″ model). The low-end iMacs use the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU found in current MacBooks and the new Mac mini, while the high-end […]
Apple updated the iMac with Nvidia graphics as a standard feature (Early 2008 iMacs used Radeon graphics, although there was an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GS build-to-order option). The low-end iMacs use the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU found in the Early 2009 MacBook and the Early 2009 Mac mini, while the high-end iMacs use GeForce GT graphics. (ATI […]
Apple updated the iMac with Nvidia graphics as a standard feature (Late 2008 iMacs used Radeon graphics). The low-end Early 2009 iMacs use the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU found in Early 2009 MacBooks and the Early 2009 Mac mini.
After over a year and a half without a change, Apple finally updated the Mac mini in March 2009. As widely anticipated, the new Mac mini adopts Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics, the same GPU found in the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro – and it finally gets 802.11n WiFi as well (and 802.11a for […]
I’m a keen follower of Mac web browsers, so when Apple released a new version of Safari – even a beta – I had to try it. Most owners of low-end Macs know they are for basic uses and browsing the Web, so finding a good browser that performs at a reasonable speed is vital […]
In the previous Welcome to Macintosh article, I started a series called Classic Macintosh Veterans. It’s where we interview you, the Classic Macintosh user. Our first interview was with John Meshelany Jr. Today, I interview Scott Baret, who is also a member of the 68k Macintosh Liberation Army, where he’s also known as Scott Baret.
2009 – Two weeks after it arrived, progress with my new Aluminum Unibody MacBook is proceeding slowly. I had imagined that I would have switched over to it for production by now, but things have not gone as smoothly as I had hoped – not, I hasten to add, due to any problems with the […]
As we should remember from earlier episodes, I received a first generation (1G) iPod touch from my beloved wife. At the time, the only bummer was the fact that the second generation (2G) touch had the ability to use a microphone.
2009 – Others have published their thoughts on the Best Mac Ever, the 10 Best Macs, and the 25 Best Macs, but I’m taking a different approach. I want to identify the 25 most important Macs ever, clones included. (In some cases, I’ll lump together two or more models that were introduced simultaneously.)
2009 – Brooke Crothers of CNET News states that the “PowerPC platform never lived up to the hype” and “the PowerPC platform had really failed long before 2005.” The evidence: the fact that Apple switched to Intel in 2006 and that some of the first-generation dual-processor G4 Power Macs ran hot. I beg to differ.
The iMac DV ClockUp page was originally posted at <http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~t-imai/imacde1.html> and is no longer available there. We have adapted that information for the benefit of those who wish to overclock slot-loading iMacs.
Do I really need a netbook? I mean, I’ve got an iPod touch – and am I pleased with it!
The iMac ClockUp page was originally posted at <http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~t-imai/imace1.html> and is no longer available there. We have adapted that information for the benefit of those who wish to overclock tray-loading iMacs. The original author is not known to us.
2009 – My Apple Certified Refurbished (ACR) 13″ 2.0 GHz Late 2008 Aluminum MacBook arrived last Thursday afternoon, just a couple of hours short of a week after I ordered it, having been air-shuttled by FedEx back and forth across the continent twice, from Rancho Cordova, CA, to Memphis, TN, to Calgary, Alberta, to Halifax, […]
2009 – After equivocating for nearly three years about what hardware would become my vehicle for transitioning to the Macintel experience, I’ve finally made a decision. Last Thursday afternoon I ordered a 2.0 GHz Late 2008 Unibody Aluminum MacBook from Apple Canada – an Apple Certified Refurbished unit for Can$200 (14%) off the price of […]
Our friends in Cupertino are at it again, according to our MacMole. This time Apple is finding new ways to get Macs into the workplace almost invisibly.
