Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: We Make DIY Upgrading Easy! Maximize your Apple MacBook / MacBook Pro. Up to 8.0GB Memory, up to 1.0TB HD & More. Easy Guide + Free, Detailed Installation Videos. Click here

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Apple Archive

Quadras Still Useful

- 2000.08.25

When released in 1991, the 25 MHz Quadra 700 and 900 were the fastest computers available. It was what all the graphics professionals were using. Having a 33 MHz Quadra 800 or 40 MHz 840av in 1993 was like having a PowerMac G4/500 today.

Although Quadras are getting on, they are by no means useless. There is a lot you can do with them. Remember, the Quadra was an incredibly advanced machine in its day. Some of the things you can do with a Quadra are get on the Internet, check email, do word processing, and run Quicken to keep track of finances.

To use the Internet, you can use a browser like Netscape Navigator 4.0.8. You can also try Internet Explorer 4.0. Navigator is slower, but it is still able to work with secure sites. Internet Explorer is faster and loads pages more quickly, but it is unable to work with secure sites or current QuickTime versions and movies. You can obtain Netscape at the Netscape FTP site. Internet Explorer can be found on old MacAddict CDs as well as CDs from books such as "Mac Secrets" and the "Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible".

For email, both Claris Emailer Lite and Outlook Express 4.0 work well. Emailer Lite is great for simple things and single accounts. It is easy to use, quick, and provides a number of features. It's free, but Apple is no longer giving it out. You can find it on the Apple Internet Connection CD or on some of the Performa CD's.

However, I prefer Outlook Express. It, too, is free and provides multiple account support and even an address book. Outlook Express can usually be found at the same places you can find Internet Explorer 4.0.

For word processing, you can use everything from ClarisWorks/AppleWorks to Microsoft Word. AppleWorks 5 works great on most 68K Macs, provides a lot of features, and can do spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and some limited communications.

There is also WordPerfect. It's a great program with many features. For some reason, it never caught on. WordPerfect has been bought and sold a few times, but nowadays Corel owns it. They had been giving out a free copy of Word Perfect 3.5e on their website.

For a while, there was a pretty good "works" program called Symantec GreatWorks. Apple even bundled it with a couple of their Performa computers in the early 90s. If you happen to have a copy, you may want to install it on your Quadra. It's a pretty good program, and runs pretty fast. As a point of interest, it will even run great on a G3 with OS 8.6. ClarisWorks, versions 2-5, will also work great. A later version of ClarisWorks, AppleWorks 5, will run great on any Mac from a Mac II to a G4.

Then, of course, there is the word processor that everyone has heard of - Microsoft Word. Quadras word great with Microsoft Word 6, if you have a copy, and you can also use older versions such as 5.0 or 5.1.

If you want, you can even use the whole Microsoft Office version 3.0 (with Microsoft Word 5.1, Excel 4, and PowerPoint 3.0) or the 4.2 suite, which includes Microsoft Word 6.0.1, Excel 5, and PowerPoint 4.

To keep track of finances, you can install programs such as Quicken 4, which will run pretty fast, but you can use 98 if you have a large hard drive and at least 8 MB of RAM.

You can do all these things on an old Quadra. If you find you don't need your Quadra, try to find someone who could use it. My suggestion is to donate it to a school, or if you don't want to fill out paperwork, just find a teacher who needs a computer for the classroom and give it to him or her.

A Quadra is still a useful computer these days. However, a Quadra is not a G4. You cannot expect it to be. If you do need something that fast, you'll need to get an iMac or G4.

Recent Apple Archive articles

iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
More in the Apple Archive index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: iMac Core Duo, Jan. 2006 - The first Intel-based iMacs ran at 1.83-2.0 GHz, came with 17" and 20" displays.
Group of the Day: Mac Pro List is for those using a Mac Pro.
November 23 in LEM history: 99: Should I buy a USB card? - 01: Can a low-end Mac be an only Mac? - Palm Desktop without a PDA - CyberDog saves the day - 05: How Consumer Reports could compare Macs fairly - Speakers for your Mac - Living with the hi-res 15" PowerBook - Birth of the PowerBook - Daystar 1.9 GHz iMac G4 upgrade - 1.92 GHz PowerBook upgrade
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.17. Used 1.83 GHz, $750; 2.16, $800; 2.33, $900; refurb 2.4, $1,299; 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,899; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.17. Used 400 MHz, $50; 933 MHz, $80; 500 dual, $60; 867 dual, $90; 1 GHz dual, $150; 1.25 GHz dual, $225; 1.42 GHz, $499.
Best Mac OS X 10.5 Deals, 11.17. "Leopard" upgrade, $80; single user license, $135; 5 users, $173; Mac Box Set, 5 users, $230; Server, 10 users, $340; unlimited, $850. Shipping included.
Best Mac mini Deals, 11.16. Used 1.42 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.66 GHz Core Solo, $419; 2.0 Core 2, $450; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $769; Server, $990.
Best iBook G4 Deals, 11.16. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $210; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz, $479; SuperDrive, $498.
Best iPod shuffle Deals, 11.16. Used 1 GB, $35; 4 GB, $65; refurb 1 GB, $39; 2 GB, $59; new 2 GB, $55, 4 GB, $75. New and refurb prices include shipping.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.