Before Apple ever had their own custom in-house silicon with the debut of the A4 chip on the iPhone 4, there were Samsung chips. The first few iOS devices relied on these early chips, while every device since the first iPad sports a chip made by Apple. These are the known as the “A-Series” SOCs, […]
Category Archives: Tech History
Everyday when you see any sort of graphic in a GUI (graphical user interface), or in any printed media such as a billboard, poster, etc; they relate to different image file formats. Each format was created for specific purposes. While some are universal, others are less known about, and a few are difficult to interact […]
Nearly a quarter-century ago, the second generation Quicksilver Power Mac G4 was announced alongside an updated, brighter 20-Inch Apple Cinema Display. The 2002 Quicksilver Power Mac G4 started at 800 MHz for the base model at $1,599 USD, with a single processor. (Pictured: A community member’s Quicksilver used as a Pro Tools rig in […]
16 Years Ago today, Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPad – a third category device between iPhone and MacBooks touted as being “far better at some key things“, such as: Web Browsing, Email, Photos, Video, Music, Games, and eBooks. Originally shipping with a custom build of iPhone OS 3.2 that allowed wallpaper changing, […]
That’s my question for you today – which Mac was your first, or which one caught your attention to show an interest in Apple computers? For myself, the journey started in 2008-2009. I was a PC user then in 2008, was having issues with my old modified Gateway PC, and a friend of the family […]
Does anyone remember the smooth intro from the iPhone 17 launch on September 9th? You may come across a brand new Apple commercial strikingly much like the intro to the iPhone 17 launch stream, called “Design is how it works“. The video stuck out to me in the creative way they showcased Apple design, using […]
On October 5th 2011 around 3 PM pacific time, Steve Jobs passed away at his Palo Alto home at the age of 56. A founding member of Apple, a CEO who turned his company around, a human being whose vision not only defied his critics, but changed the very nature of how we interact with […]
Since Mid-2002, Apple computers started using DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory), the first model being an Xserve G4 1.0, shipping with 266 MHz PC-2100 DDR. . . As of September 2025 the latest iteration is DDR5, with DDR6 planned for 2027, and current Apple silicon devices are using LPDDR5X, a low-power […]
Looking back over the years.. many smartphones, iPod touches, and mp3 players shared slight iterations of the same rectangular design centered around a touchscreen. Many contrivances were iterated upon over time to get to where we are today, but not every device was so memorable. . . Right now if you have a 4th generation […]
When the Apple Macintosh debuted in January 1984, it revolutionized personal computing with its intuitive graphical user interface and accessible creative tools. Among these, MacPaint stood out as a groundbreaking raster graphics editor. It empowered users to create digital art with unprecedented ease. Its journey from LisaGraf to QuickDraw to MacSketch, culminating in the iconic […]
When the Dual-Core PowerPC 970MP third-generation G5 CPUs came out in Mid-2005, Apple had to start using a brand new Mid Bridge chip for the Macs along with it. Since the AMD 8131 only had PCI-X bridges and no PCIe bus, they couldn’t keep the old chip, replacing it with the BCM5780. (Above: Block diagram […]
Have you ever wondered why there’s an AMD chip on the back of your Power Mac G5’s logic board, or what it’s even doing there? For higher end Mid-2003 thru Early 2005 Power Mac G5s, that’s the PCI-X “Mid Bridge” chip. This is what handles all your expansion cards! Although, it doesn’t appear in Late-2005 […]
Here’s a write-up about another fascinating Twiggy disc. It contains several early demos that are also mentioned in Andy’s book and on his website, Folklore.org. . The disc boots into Finder 2.0 (25-Jul-82). I think the most interesting early demo was an early prototype for the Finder, written by Bruce Horn and myself in the […]
Four years ago today, the world saw the first Apple Silicon Mac to come out after the initial set of three shipped alongside the transition to Apple Silicon. While the M1 Mac mini gets your foot in the door and lets you “BYOB”, some were looking for that familiar all-in-one which also provides a great […]
1998: In the computer world, it is all too easy to get so bedazzled by the latest and greatest that one’s vision becomes clouded. Currently, the latest and greatest PowerBooks are the G3 Series II “PDQ” models, and they are indeed fabulous machines.
June 26th 1998: ClarisWorks doesn’t get nearly the respect it deserves. For a paltry $99 you can have a modular suite of applications that does everything 90% of users ever need to do with a computer. How many of us actually utilize the power features of fatware like Microsoft Office?
Apple has had some amazingly closed systems, some with not quite enough expansion, and a few that had so many expansion options that the mind boggles. This article takes a brief look at the most expandable Macs every by CPU.