There’s still more haul from VCF Midwest, and from what Dan Bashur generously gave me on the way back (thank you again!). I don’t remember which table I bought this from, but here it is. There have been many revisions of the MacBook Pro design, but this one’s my favorite (aesthetically) – looks like a […]

The post “Unboxing” a 15-Inch 2007 MacBook Pro appeared first on Low End Mac.

If you’re someone who already has an older DSLR (or you just picked one up), one way you can see how your photos turned out is through the camera’s screen – if it offers one. Not all DSLRs have the same features, and many from the 2000s – 2010s range have depreciated enough to become […]

The post Using iBook G3 as a companion for older DSLRs appeared first on Low End Mac.

Within the pile of laptops I brought home from VCF Midwest, one of them was a $5 parts bin 2006 1.83 GHz Core Duo MacBook, from the Wisconsin Computer Club! While digging through I saw this was from 2006 based on the bottom cover, hoping it would be the earlier Core Duo – here it […]

The post Restoring a 2006 Core Duo MacBook (32-Bit) appeared first on Low End Mac.

As seen recently on Action Retro’s YouTube Channel there’s a brand-new Mac 128K out there! Pico Micro Mac is headed by Ron’s computer Videos, it’s about the size of an Altoids box, it’s super light, and even has VGA display out! Built using microcontrollers, you can get a fully functioning Macintosh for a mere $19.99 […]

The post Pico Micro Mac (v3), an Altoids Box-sized Mac 128K appeared first on Low End Mac.

Until the ATAPI 6.0 (ATA-6, ATA/100) standard, IDE drives on mostly any computer were limited to a capacity of 137 GB. The first Mac to supersede this limitation was the Revision B Quicksilver Dual 1.0 Power Mac G4 (Logic Board 820-1342-B), whereas the first iMac with Ultra ATA/100 was the 1 GHz 17″ from 2/4/03. […]

The post Upgrading an Indigo iMac G3’s Boot Disk to 500 GB appeared first on Low End Mac.

This was the absolute best weekend I’ve had in a really long time, and I can’t wait to have more of these adventures (I’m smiling on the inside)! VCF Midwest was an absolute blast (and even a bit overwhelming with how much there was!), met some acquaintances and familiar faces.     Also met up […]

The post Vintage Computer Festival Mid-West 2026 – Part 1 appeared first on Low End Mac.

The average width of a human hair is around 50 to 120 micrometers (µm), or anywhere between three and five thousandths of an inch. Now let’s take five thousandths (0.005) of an inch and divide it by 63,500, which equals 2 nanometers – that is the transistor size inside the A20 Pro chip powering iPhone […]

The post A20 Pro vs A19 Pro Benchmarks appeared first on Low End Mac.

On March 6th 2014, Apple released Mac OS X 10.9.3 Mavericks Beta, which included built-in support for several new display options at the time: 4K displays can now have a “retina” resolution, and now there’s an option to enable 60 Hz. Prior to this update, 4K support was spotty.   (Pictured: Mac Pro 2,1 using […]

The post Getting a 4K60 display going on a Mac Pro 2,1 appeared first on Low End Mac.

So you have a spare set of Mac Pro parts laying around, or wanna trick-out a Mac Pro with some modifications? While in the process of building my own Mac Pro 1,1 -> 2,1 project working on getting a RocketRAID 2720SGL going in El Capitan, I realized I didn’t really have a spare SFF-8087 (36-pin […]

The post Adapting a cMP SAS/SATA drive bay wire harness for RAID cards appeared first on Low End Mac.

In a continued effort of looking at all the different odds and ends of our website, one of the issues gnawing at me was how non-latin alphabet letters suddenly disappeared off of Low End Mac, instantly converting text from multiple languages into “????”. Today, Low End Mac restores/converted all posts dating back to 1997, over […]

The post Site Update – Language support added appeared first on Low End Mac.

Crack! Dammit. Another piece of brittle ’90s Apple plastic bites the turns to dust. Last week, I finally assembled enough parts to build a working Quadra 605. I know, I know.. the 605 is one of Apple’s more boring machines, but there was a hole in my collection that needed filling. The little 605 fits perfectly […]

The post Building a Vintage Quadra 605 for my Collection appeared first on Low End Mac.

A Little History My first experience with a Quadra 950 was back when they were new. Mike Bean, then president of the Arizona Macintosh User’s Group, had one. It was big. It was loud. It was fast… and it was beige. I loved it! Mike also had a Workgroup Server 95, the Unix-based file-server version […]

The post Fun with a Quadra 950 and a Whole Lot of RAM appeared first on Low End Mac.

By this point this iMac had seen many iterations of items used as a computer case for one length of time or another: a wooden board, a shelf, and then a drawer from a tossed out table. Why not a proper open air style case?     There’s nothing particular which makes this case more […]

The post Repacking a 20-Inch 2006 iMac onto an open air case appeared first on Low End Mac.

The iPhone X is a testament to device longevity, and durability. I gave mine to a family member when upgrading to an Xs Max in Late 2018, who held onto it all these years through a few different protective cases. Today I got it back where it’ll remain in my collection, after they upgraded to […]

The post The X, a Pro, and Air: 10 Years of iPhone design appeared first on Low End Mac.

Back in early 2018 I wrote one of my first articles as a writer for Low End Mac, covering how to get 64 GB of RAM working in your Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) or Mac Pro 2,1 (2007). At the time, the project felt like a massive risk considering the cost of the RAM, and […]

The post Install 64 GB of RAM in your Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 – 2026 Edition appeared first on Low End Mac.

You heard that right, an entire GPU crammed into a compact PCMCIA card. What looks like an unassuming adapter for PowerBooks and PCs to hook up an external monitor, turns out to have an entire Trident Cyberblade XP2 chip crammed in there.     Featuring many supported resolutions including up to 2048 x 1280 @60Hz […]

The post Village Tronic VTBook: a whole GPU on a PCMCIA card appeared first on Low End Mac.

It seems like I may have stumbled into a solution for getting Photoshop on the M2 Air sooner rather than later. Initially the idea was to get Photoshop CS4 working in a Leopard VM on UTM, downsizing it somehow, and fitting it onto my Mac’s tiny 256 GB SSD. After trying out the “reclaim space” […]

The post Trying out Photoshop in an OS X Tiger VM appeared first on Low End Mac.

While the project started back in February and was attempted to be finished then, it has finally been done in its first iteration. This means mostly every navigation page (including everything on the navigation bar, tech specs, software index, etc;) can be displayed from bezel to shining bezel, without pinching to zoom. See: Introducing – […]

The post “Widescreen” UI view mode v1.0 now complete appeared first on Low End Mac.

Whether you’re dropping an OWC Mercury Accelsior AHCI into an old Mac Pro, are replacing a 2.5″ SATA HDD with an SSD, or deal with mostly any Mac made after 2012, Solid State Drives have become the predominant choice as the primary boot drive in nearly every modern computer. Flash storage has been used for […]

The post The different types of SSDs in your computer appeared first on Low End Mac.