SuperMac was once a major player in the Macintosh video market, building graphics cards, monitors, and the legendary Video Spigot. SuperMac was acquired by Radius, it’s primary competitor in this market, in 1994.
Tag Archives: SuperMac
Umax acquired the Macintosh clone operation and SuperMac name from Radius, going on to become one of the more innovative clone makers. Their corporate goal was to make quality Mac OS computers at prices that would give PCs a run for their money, something I believe they succeeded at.
Over the summer of 1997, Apple brought the era of authorized Macintosh clones to an end to keep Apple solvent.*
From Accelerate Your Mac!, September 20, 2000.
The SuperMac C500 and C600 are unique among Macintosh clones. They were the first clones to use a ZIF socket for easy processor replacement. Umax made processors in speeds from 140 to 280 MHz, as well as the CacheDoubler, which provides a double-speed (80 MHz) level 2 cache four times as large as the 256 […]
A unique feature of the SuperMac S900 and S910 is their second processor slot. This slot accepts a proprietary CPU card and allows these machines to function as dual-processor computers without the need to remove the primary CPU and the expense of a dual-processor card.
2000: I left off last time blasting CompUSA for their antics, and I received a lot of interesting emails (mostly from CompUSA store owners) commenting about how my remarks were “unprofessional” and “insulting.”
2000: My week started out with me deciding to upgrade to Mac OS 8.5. I hadn’t heard of too many problems with 8.5 running on a SuperMac S900. The only question that remained was where to find it because it is out of print.
2000: This has turned into something of an interactive article. Everything in black was written by Eric. The blue text contains my comments as an S900 owner. Dan Knight, publisher Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was my SuperMac S900.
The Umax SuperMac C500 and C600 were the first “Power Macs” to have their CPU in a ZIF socket, making upgrades very easy. Having a C500/200 at work and finding an incredible garage sale special on upgrades from Small Dog Electronics, I decided to test the 240 MHz upgrade and the CacheDoubler.
How an application runs, and what gains in speed may be seen on a multi-processor (MP) Mac OS computer, can be confusing. Understanding a little of how multi-processing works with software applications will help you properly set your expectations when selecting applications designed for MP and begin using them.
There are plenty of sites offering installation and troubleshooting advice for Mac OS 8.5 – at least for the Power Mac user. Since neither Apple Computer nor Umax Corporation provides any support for Mac OS 8.5 on SuperMacs, this page exists to cover problems specifically noted by users of the Umax SuperMac series of Macintosh […]
The Umax SuperMac J700 was the first Power Mac clone that I benchmarked. My J700 shipped with a 180 MHz 604e CPU, and has 104 MB of memory and a Quantum Fireball 2110 hard drive installed. It shipped standard with an ixMicro Twin Turbo 128 video card, which I replaced with an ixMicro Ultimate Rez 3D […]
SuperMacs is a forum for users of Umax SuperMac computers. This group doesn’t cover SuperMac video cards, monitors, or any other products with the SuperMac brand name – only SuperMac computers produced by Umax.
