Tri-Booting a Mac Pro 2,1

Hi Low Enders! It’s the Bash man again, with another happy episode of trials and tribulations getting my Mac Pro 2,1 in a stable triple boot state (queue crickets, darkness, and crackling campfire as you roast marshmallows and read on).

The Pismo at 20: An Enduring Legacy

Hi Low Enders! It’s been a while, but like a fine wine some vintage Macs just get more sought after with age.  One of those happens to be the PowerBook G3 “Pismo”.   The Pismo PowerBook was announced this very day 20 years ago while Apple was in the middle of their “Think Different” campaign […]

RCA MM36100 – Amazing “Under the Radar” Consumer CRT Display

Dear Low End Mac Friends: It’s been a while.  Life and other typical duties keep one busy, but when something extraordinary comes up, there’s always time to talk about it with our community.  In this article, I will be discussing an interesting piece of hardware (a display to be precise) – the RCA MM36100.   […]

DVI Scaler for All Low End Mac and Gaming Needs

Greetings Low End Mac friends! It’s been a while since I have written an article solely dedicated to Apple Tech and Gaming, but this one fits the bill perfectly. A while back I had gotten a hold of a Sony Trinitron KV-36HS420. I covered that TV in the article TV Technology: No ‘Catch-All’ Solution for Low […]

My Oldest Low End Mac, a MacBook Pro, Turns 10 Years Old

A Mac I acquired brand new ten years ago this month, the first aluminum unibody MacBook Pro, is now the oldest of three modern low-end Macs I currently own which I have purchased (not counting two vintage ones that were given to me), and the story of how it became my computer was the result […]

SIP: A Lesser Known Security Feature Built into Modern Macs

Macs are known to be generally more secure than their PC counterparts and relatively free of virus and malware attacks. But with the rise in popularity of Apple computers in recent years — thanks first to the so-called iPod halo effect and the iPhone, which brought on the dawn of the iOS ecosystem — the […]

Power Mac G5: Cheap Power, Easy Upgrades

Apple did a very nice thing when it introduced the Power Mac G5 in June 2003 – it introduced a line that would use the same upgrade options across the board. Well, until the dual-core models shipped in October 2005, which we will mostly ignore in this article.

The Long and Short of Keyboard Cables

The earliest Macs with their all-in-one design used a simple coiled keyboard cable similar to what telephones used to use – and the perfect length for use on the desktop. But in 1987, we got the Mac II, a powerhouse computer that could sit on your desk or be set vertically on the floor beneath […]

The Late 2018 Mac mini Value Equation: Wow!

The Mac mini has been one of the most affordable desktop Macs ever made since the original G4 model was introduced in January 2005 at US$499 and $599. The entry-level price has varied over the years, jumping $100 with the first Intel Mac minis in 2006. The 2014 model started at $499 with a 1.4 […]

Mac mini (Late 2018)

The Mac mini seems to be the Mac that Apple forgets about for years between updates. The 2014 model came out two years after the 2012, and the 2018 a whole four years after the 2014. It may have been a long wait, but the new model is a huge step forward from the Late […]

Low End Communities on Facebook

In addition to lowendmac.com and our communities on Google Groups, Low End Mac has had a presence on Facebook since December 2008 – and we’ve had requests to create new Facebook groups for similarly low-end interests.

Up Close and ‘Personal’ with Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (1955-2011), the co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc., left us on this date seven years ago, having passed away on October 5, 2011, from a personal battle with pancreatic cancer. Today, on the seventh anniversary of his untimely passing, I take a fond look back at the three times I witnessed his […]

Programs for Your Palm

Palms were designed to be a digital replacement for a paper planner. There were simple built-in programs with the business customer in mind. And there were people that happily used those built-in programs to keep track of appointments, lists, bits of information, and expenses.

Minolta CLC: The First Semi-intelligent SLR Metering System

The first SLRs had clip-on external light meters, and those meters eventually became standard components. Unfortunately with interchangeable lens cameras, the meter’s coverage only matched the standard lens and perhaps a 35mm wide-angle lens. It wasn’t through-the-lens (TTL) metering, but at least it eliminated the need to carry a separate light meter. The Topcon RE […]