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: Mercury On-The-Go FW800+USB2 up to 1.0TB. Bus Powered, no external power supply needed. Macworld Editors Choice, CNET Very Good Starting from $99.97, 500GB $159.99. 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.

Classic Macs in the Intel Age

A Vintage Mac Network Can Be as Useful as a Modern One

- 2008.04.08 - Tip Jar

Bookmark in del.icio.us

My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .

You may have read my earlier LEM article about my PowerBook 150 and my plans for a Vintage Mac Network at home. Well, I picked up a Classic II, two PowerBook 100s, System 7.0 in original boxing, and a never opened LocalTalk set.

I got it all for free. The guy was giving his Macs away because he had no need for them. He said he had about 20 Macs at home.

When I got home, I powered up the Classic II. System 7.5.3 was installed - and it was quite slow, so I installed 7.1 instead, and now the machine works like a charm.

Next, I had a look at the PowerBooks. The guy said one of them had a power issue, rarely powering on. I turned on the working one, and it refused to find an operating system, so I booted from the included 7.0 installer disks. No hard drive was found. Wierd. I could hear the SCSI drive powering up and making noise. I decided to try another disk: the disk of choice became a PowerBook 150 Utilities disk. I popped it in, but now the PowerBook was even more weird. It would power on, then the drive would rattle for a while, and finally the screen would turn black with white lines. Then it would play the "Bong" and do the same thing.

I have yet to solve the problem. The next step will be gutting the broken PowerBook to get a working computer out of the two. When I've done that, you'll get another article about my adventures.

Now to talk about my Vintage Network: It's great. The old Quadra 610 serves me well as a printer server, and the ImageWriter printer, although noisy, works great. I am able to share the printer and my Internet connection between all of the old Macs in my house using LocalTalk.

All of my old Macs are running System Software 7.1, except for the Quadra, which is running 7.5.3. Every Mac is useful. My Classic II is a wonderful writing machine, the Quadra is a reliable server, and the PowerBook 150 is just an awesome laptop for all of my daily Classic tasks.

I have also got a network adapter for the Classic II. I will try to get it on the Web, although I doubt it will work, since it has only 4 MB of RAM. I think it will be great for staying in touch with my friends and the great LEM emailing lists using Eudora. I might even upgrade the RAM to full-blown 10 MB and get iCab on it.

So what's my conclusion? Well, it's the fact that a home network consisting of Macs all running System 7.1 (along with a small 7.5 server) on LocalTalk is just as functional (although not as fast) as a new home network using new G4s, G5s, and Intel Macs with ethernet or WiFi. So whenever my new Macs and PCs give up, my trusty 68k Macs will always be ready to work.

Next time: Fixing up a broken PowerBook 100 and making it an email laptop and word processor.

Discuss Carl Nygren's articles on Info-Mac.

Go to the index of articles by Carl Nygren.

Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.

Recent My Turn articles

Using Low End Macs for Internet Radio, 08.18. When the local public radio station moved classical music to HD radio, it was time to find another way to listen. An old iMac with iTunes solved the problem.
'That's Not a Computer', 07.30. Salvaging a broken PowerBook by turning it into a desktop computer.
Upgrading a Digital Audio G4 to work better in Leopard, 06.02. In its original configuration, the dual 533 MHz Power Mac G4 was slow with Mac OS X 10.5, but add the right upgrades, and it runs Leopard quite nicely.
My 4 favorite PowerBooks, 05.28. The PowerBook 150 has a big screen for a vintage PowerBook, the 165c has color, the 100 is diminutive, and Lombard has USB and a great keyboard.
More in the My Turn index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Power Mac 4400, Nov. 1996 - Apple does cheap to compete with clones - and nobody is impressed.
Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
November 7 in LEM history: 00: PowerBook Lite dreams - Our first Macs - 01: OS 9, OS X, or Linux? - 02: Xserve for the classroom - 03: Panther on slot-loading iMacs - High capacity Lombard/Pismo battery - 05: Clean keyboard residue from laptop screen with ROR - SeaMonkey - 06: Dan Bricklin, inventor of the spreadsheet - Turn any Mac into a gameshow buzzer - 07: The transforming PowerBook 1400 - PowerBook 540 on Compact Flash
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.03. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 8-core. $2,299; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.26 8-core, $2,799; 2.93, $4,999.
Best iPhone Deals, 11.03. New 8 GB iPhone 3G, $$99; refurb 16 GB 3GS, $149; new, $199; 32 GB, $299.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.03. Used 867 MHz SperDrive, $348; 1 GHz, $499; 1.33 Combo, $298; SD, $559; 1.5 Combo, $448; SuperDrive, $589.
Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; G4/366, $49; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733 MHz, $69; 933 MHz, $209; 1.25 GHz dual, $299.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.02. Used 2.0 GHz, $800; 2.2, $900; 2.4, $1,000; refurb 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,949; 3.06, $2,169; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Mac mini Deals, 10.30. Used 1.33 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.42, $389; 1.5, $419; 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $350; Core 2, $439; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $770; Server, $990.
Best G4 iBook Deals, 10.30. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $225; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1 GHz, $349; 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz SuperDrive, $498.
Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 10.30. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.5 CD, $4; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

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.