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Remember when 300MHz was really fast?

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Apple Computer, circa 1997

World’s Fastest Home Computer
What’s a machine this fast doing at home? The Power Macintosh 6500 runs at blistering speeds of up to 300MHz.

World’s Fastest Laptop
The blazingly fast (240MHz) PowerBook 3400 gives you state-of-the-art multimedia, advanced communications capabilities, and flexible expansion options.

g5 cpuWe’ve come a long way, baby.



Apple Computer, circa 1997 World’s Fastest Home Computer What’s a machine this fast doing at home? The...
 

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Alex

C'mon guys. This ain't old. What about an Apple II+ or IIe or IIc. My Apple II+ had 48k ram...speed...what speed? BRUN LOAD...lol. You ain't seen anything unless you've been on a 300 baud modem. (even 110 baud!). Ah the old days... No, I am not old.

November 06 2004 at 7:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dark Wizard

I still have an old 233 file server for all of my MP3's works great.

October 18 2004 at 12:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Krioni

My first Mac was the 25 MHz Centris 650, bought at the beginning of my freshman year at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Drexel is home of the world's first Mac User Group. It was founded in the Fall of 1983, when a professor under a NDA came back from a visit to Apple, excited about a soon-to-be-announced computer he couldn't actually say much about. That's why Drexel's Mac User Group is called DUsers - they didn't even know the name of the computer they were forming a user group for. :-) Pretty cool, huh? Drexel also required all incoming freshman in 1984 to have a computer - and they were Macs. I actually managed to get a discarded Mac Plus, with Drexel U's logo painted on right next to Apple's.

October 11 2004 at 10:09 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bradley Dichter

The first Macintosh had a 7.8333MHz MC68000 processor which was 16 bit internally. Compared to the first IBM PC which was a Intel 8088 running at 4.77MHz It has 16K of RAM compared to the Mac's 128K RAM and 64K of ROM. Also the Mac had a 400K microfloppy, far better than the 160L minifloppy drive(s) the PC had. Of course the first PC came after the Apple II but before the Mac or the Lisa. By the way the Lisa had only a 5MHz processor and 16K ROM.

October 11 2004 at 9:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bradley Dichter

When the 25MHz Mac IIci was the popular model, Apple introduced the big box IIfx with special RAM and special SCSI terminator. 40MHz 68030 processor, wow! Of course superceded by the Quadra series the next year (1991) with a 25MHz 68040 processor, but the clock speed was still 40MHz two years later with the top of the line Quadra 840AV. Not until the first NuBus PowerMacs did the clock speed rise in 1994. That was some bragging rights for a IIfx owner.

October 11 2004 at 9:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter

With it's 40MHz 68030, it was blindingly fast. And only $9900! Yes, I used that to compile MacApp stuff back in 1990. Gads, does that make me old...

October 11 2004 at 1:53 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Laurie

I remember spending $1200 to upgrade my B&W Classic (back in the days when B&W meant black and white, instead of blue and white) from a paltry 1MB RAM and 20MB hard drive, to 4MB RAM and a 40MB hard drive. I also remember being in awe of a 14.4 modem, as compared to the 9600 baud I was used to. And who can forget the ground-breaking peer-to-peer Mac file swapping app... Z-term!

October 09 2004 at 4:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Duncan

When _I_ started using Macs we only had one floppy drive and were glad of it, too! We didn't have "hard disks" or "CDs" that kids these days use. We had two colors: Black and white, and liked them, too!

October 09 2004 at 12:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bill

I've owned Macs from the beginning. When the Mac II was introduced in 1987, 15.67 MHz was *lightning fast*. Now my dual 1.8 G5 runs some benchmarks 20,000x more quickly than my original ~ 6Mhz Mac. Puts things in perspective.

October 09 2004 at 11:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mary-Ann Horley

My old 1998 333mhz iMac was still faster then my boyfriends 1.3Ghz PC in 2002!

October 09 2004 at 7:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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