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.

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 […]

The post Upgrading a Quadra 605/LC 475 Board – The Hard Way 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.

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.   […]

The post Making a RocketRAID 2720SGL work in El Cap: SATA III in a 2006 Mac Pro appeared first on Low End Mac.

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, […]

The post Apple Silicon – M5 Ultra chip specs appeared first on Low End Mac.

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: – […]

The post Apple Silicon – M6 chip specs 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.

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) […]

The post 15 New software repository additions: August 11th 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.

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 […]

The post Recent site changes and updates: Week of August 9th 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.

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 post Restoring a Macintosh Plus and Convincing It to Work With BlueSCSI 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.

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: […]

The post PowerPC CustoMac: A Dual 800 B&W G4 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.

Earlier this year Low End Mac covered a brand-new browser for PowerPC Macs called PowerFox, testing it out on a few machines as well as a VM. On July 14th 2026 Jazzzny released a new update for PowerFox, which feels noticeably improved from the last time this browser was covered.     PowerFox also gains […]

The post PowerFox mid-summer update: Now available for PowerPC G3 appeared first on Low End Mac.