Matt's Macs

A Quadra after All These Years!

Hardware and Software Closure

- 2001.03.15 - Tip Jar

This column was first published in the MUGOO Newsletter in August 2000.

With Mac OS 8.1 installed, my Mac and I enjoyed some degree of stability. The bugs in 8.0 had been eliminated Performa 635 for the most part. However, having 8.1 meant setting aside 40% of my 250 GB hard drive for the OS. It was necessary to use my 100 MB Zip drive to run applications such as Netscape. My 20 MB of RAM was a being fully utilized with no margins or buffer. My Mac was working, but it was being pushed to the limit.

At the time, I was at a crossroads: Do I buy a new Mac. To me the question was: Is my Mac maxed out? The answer was no. There were still upgrades to RAM, hard drive, MPEG and TV/Tuner cards, not to mention after-market pricing for a scanner and digital camera. My choice was to buy an iMac or upgrade.

I kept my Performa and bought the card. I now enjoyed fun watching Star Trek while working on Quicken spreadsheets. I learned to take color pictures using my video camera attached to the TV tuner card and using Quick cam digitizing video software. Yes!

Reality hit with processing movies and pictures. I need more RAM, hard drive space, and speed to manipulate photos and movies. Again the choice, an iMac or an upgrade. Below were my choices:

ITEM	Old	New	Price
CPU	68LC040	68040	$40
RAM	20 MB	36 MB	$75
Hard Disk	250 MB	4.3 GB	$120
Total Upgrade Price			$235
iMac			$999
Serial/SCSI to USB interface			$25+
Total New Mac Price			$1024+

The price to upgrade my 1994 vintage Performa (now Quadra) was 25% of the cost of an iMac. The choice to upgrade my Performa to make it a full grown, no holds barred Quadra was easy.

At this time, my Quadra has run flawlessly for seven months. No more crashes or out of memory messages. I noticed immediate gains in performance after installing additional RAM and the 4.3 GB hard drive. The increases were very modest, but nonetheless very apparent, especially when touching up a picture using Adobe Photo Deluxe.

And now I am saving for a G4 with a 17 inch monitor, and I count pennies while watching Star Trek.

Next Time: The movies!

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Opinions expressed are those of their authors and may not reflect the opinion of Cobweb Publishing. Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all.
Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2016 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, Mac Pro, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it, and we don't share the information we have with others. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Page not found - Low End MacLow End Mac Page not found - Low End MacLow End Mac

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
Macgo Blu-ray Player
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay

Advertise

at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Matt's Macs

A Quadra after All These Years!

Hardware and Software Closure

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Welcome Image and Text

Main menu

Welcome to Low End Mac

Navigation Bar

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Tags

Welcome Image and Text

Main menu

Welcome to Low End Mac

Navigation Bar

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Tags

Favorite Sites

Affiliates

Advertise

Welcome Image and Text

Main menu

Welcome to Low End Mac

Navigation Bar

Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Archives

Tags