1998 – If you’ve seen the snail, you love the snail. Apple’s incredible new ad pulls no punches, bragging to the world that a Power Mac G3 is up to twice as fast as a Pentium II PC.
1998 – It’s the talk of the Internet: Apple has apparently inked an exclusive deal with CompUSA as the only national (U.S.) Macintosh reseller.
It had to happen sooner or later: First, Apple dropped support for the Mac 128K and 512K. After all, with single-sided floppies, too little RAM, and no SCSI port, they could no longer be considered serious productivity machines. The last version of the Mac OS to support these computers was 4.1, introduced in 1986.
“Should You Buy Disposable PCs?” is the cover story in the February 1998 issue of Byte. It is certainly an intriguing question.
During Macworld San Francisco came the rumors that Claris would discontinue Emailer. With freeware Eudora Lite and the emailer in Internet Explorer 4.0, perhaps people would be unwilling to pay for Emailer.
A source in Kitsap, Washington, writes, “I read the articles about the Grand Rapids (MI) Schools trying to go to PC only, and I couldn’t help but relate to the problems in Grand Rapids. The South Kitsap (WA) School District, where I live and where my wife teaches, is going through the same horror. I […]
The SuperMac J710 was the last new model from Umax, and only about 50 were ever produced.
Low End Mac began on April 7, 1997. The first editorials were published on July 15, 1997. All editorials are by Dan Knight unless otherwise noted.
Can you say beleaguered? That became the word most associated with Apple in 1997.
This information is about what are commonly referred to as the x200 series of Performas and Power Macs. These machines, with the exception of the Performa 6360, were all PowerPC 603 or 603e machines with severe hardware problems.
It is out of sheer desire to help others overcome the year-long disaster that I went through, that I would like someone to be able to document this somewhere. Please take note, this affects all Centris 610 and Quadra 610 machines, but not the 660av.
Rather than have six separate pages for the remaining case studies, all of which are quite brief, I’m combining them all on a single page.
My workplace computer is a Power Mac 7600 with 48 MB of RAM. For some reason, it doesn’t want to run RAM Doubler, so I have virtual memory set to 96 MB to provide enough memory for Photoshop, FrameMaker, Netscape Communicator, GraphicConverter, and the other memory hungry applications I run regularly.
In early December 1997, MacWeek announced a new version of RAM Charger. Version 8 is fully compatible with Mac OS 8. As I would discover, it is also a big improvement over RAM Charger 3.
1997 – RAM Charger is a sophisticated memory manager for the Macintosh. It works on any Mac (compare this with RAM Doubler, which requires a 68030 or better and at least 8 MB of RAM). The current version works transparently, allowing you to simply install it and forget it on any Mac running System 7 […]
1997 – Surprising to many, the first Macs didn’t have SCSI. The Apple design team created a compact, closed box with a disk drive, CPU, monitor, 128 KB of RAM, keyboard and mouse ports, a floppy drive port, and two serial ports. The serial ports were the secret – they could support a 230.4 Kbps […]
Apple has done some remarkable things with its third generation Power Mac, the Beige G3s. (The first generation Power Macs used NuBus, and the second switched to PCI.) The motherboard is smaller than in earlier Power Macs, leaving room for one more drive in the same type of desktop case used for the 7200-7600.
The Beige G3 is a third-generation Power Mac. It has a new motherboard with a faster system bus than earlier models, a third-generation PowerPC CPU, uses a completely different type of memory, has a different way of upgrading the CPU, and includes a personality card slot. The Power Mac G3 comes in desktop and minitower […]
1997: Three months ago I wrote an editorial, “Why Macs Need Parallel Ports.” It struck a nerve. In response to “To Print or Not To Print” by JM Pierce, I present an updated version.
This PowerBook G3 was the first Mac designed around the PowerPC 750 (a.k.a. G3) processor, beating the first G3 Power Macs by less than a week. It was the world’s most powerful notebook computer when it was released in late 1997.
Apple introduced the first G3-based Macintosh on November 10, 1997. The PowerBook G3, also called the 3500 or Kanga, took the proven Power Mac 3400 design and put it on overdrive.
The Millennium was essentially a Genesis MP or MP+ built from components purchased from DayStar when it left the Macintosh clone market.
The MaxxBoxx 960 is based on the Tsunami motherboard (also used in the Power Mac 9600) and shipped with 180-225 MHz PowerPC 604e CPUs. The cube-shaped case has 10 drive bays. MaxxBoxx clones were only sold in Germany.
The MaxxBoxx 930 was based on the Tsunami motherboard (also used in the Power Mac 9600) and shipped with a 233-333 MHz Power PC 604e CPU. MaxxBoxx clones are cube-shaped and have a whopping 10 drive bays. MaxxBoxx computers were only sold in Germany.
I’m a 35mm photographer from way back. I got my first camera in ninth grade, my first SLR system in tenth, and my first new 35mm SLR less than a year later. I’ve owned and used Miranda, Minolta, and Olympus cameras, before settling on an autofocus Nikon last year.
April 1998 – The following editorial was written some months after the explosion caused by a letter from Dan Updegrove, Director of Information Technology at Yale, advising incoming students to buy Windows computers instead of Macs. In light of an article in Rumpus (no longer online), the Yale student newspaper, Low End Mac reprints the […]
The MaxxBoxx 730/200 is based on the Tanzania II motherboard (also used in the Power Mac 6500) and shipped with a 200 MHz PowerPC 604e CPU. The cube-shaped case has a whopping 10 drive bays. MaxxBoxx clones were only sold in Germany.
1997: This is what we all want to do: Buy a new computer. The key is to remember that, compared with any 680×0-based Mac, the slowest PowerPC (PPC) Mac absolutely rocks.
Rhapsody was Apple’s code name for what eventually became Mac OS X. Yellow Box became the OS X interface, and Blue Box became the Classic Environment, which allowed OS X users to continue to use Classic Mac OS software on their PowerPC Macs through Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Red Box, the planned PC Environment […]
1997: My, but we live in interesting times! Apple, consistently the most innovative vendor of personal computers and operating systems, has twice changed CPU platforms (from 6502-based Apple 1, II, and III to 680×0-based Lisa and Macintosh, to PowerPC-based Power Macintosh) and is on the verge of introducing a new (to Mac users) operating system […]
1997: The entire Mac world has been on a roller coaster ride for the last year. Good news: Power Computing, Motorola, Umax, Daystar, and others were making Mac OS computers. They were offering performance, features, and prices that made them a legitimate alternative to Apple’s own hardware. They seemed to be growing the Mac market […]
I have a horrid confession to make: I like Microsoft Word. Oh, and I balance my budget at home using Excel spreadsheets. And I use Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) for my web browsing.
The 6000-series was the first and only Mac clone built using a CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) motherboard. It was the only Mac clone with a G3 on the motherboard. It was also the last StarMax model, as Motorola exited the Mac clone business at the end of 1997.
You’ve decided to keep your old Mac and increase its capabilities. It’s users like you that keep the add-on manufacturers in business. Modems and CD-ROMs are usually external and can easily move from one Mac to another, so I won’t be addressing them.
Since you’re here, I’ll assume you have a low-end Mac (any Mac or clone that doesn’t have a G3). There are many factors to consider in deciding whether you’re better off upgrading your current Mac or buying a newer computer.
