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 Logic Board In a previous article, I mentioned that I had a Quadra 605 logic board with a bad microprocessor. The 605 uses a MC68LC040RC25, a 25 MHz 68040 without a floating-point unit (FPU). It was perfectly adequate for most home users at the time, but the lack of an FPU and relatively modest […]
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 […]
I’m shaking with excitement, everyone. After being up all night working on getting this RocketRAID 2720SGL working with OS X El Capitan on my Mac Pro 1,1 -> 2,1, I’m happy to say it works! It was quite the multi-step process/rabbit-hole. Why am I so excited? This 1,1/2,1 now has SATA III 6.0 Gb/s. […]
This page details the full hardware profile of the Apple Silicon M5 Ultra chip. Note: This article covers a recently released chip, and not all specs are currently known. This article will be updated as soon as it is possible to discover more about the M5 Ultra. Name: M5 Ultra Chip Released: August 25th, […]
This page details the full hardware profile of the Apple Silicon M6 chip. Note: This article covers a recently released chip, and not all specs are currently known. This article will be updated as soon as it is possible to discover more about the M6. Name: M6 Chip Released: August 25th, 2025 Codename: – […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
For a little while now, Low End Mac has maintained a small freeware/abandonware software repository to share with our readers and help get the most out of your Mac, where it makes the most sense for you. Intro Part of what makes any depreciating computer platform fun to play with (as well as usable) […]
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 […]
In continuation of the site updates posted before, we will continue covering changes in the form of periodic posts whether they’re big or small. We want our readers to see the changes done to the site, many small ones can be time consuming and hard to notice. . This article reflects site updates for the […]
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 […]
Many more years ago than I care to admit, I took a C programming class in college. The computers in the university labs were all Macintosh Pluses, and nearly all of them had a single floppy drive. (Photo for illustration: Tomas Martinez – Macintosh Plus with an external Hard Drive – URL) Stepping into […]
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 […]
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 […]
Back from the Low End Mac mailbag is a heavily customized Dual 800 Quicksilver G4, which looks like a custom B&W G3 on the outside. This community member also swapped out or modified some of the plastic pieces up front, added a gauge cluster, made the colors match, and threw in some upgrades. They write: […]
