Chapter 2. The Macintosh Family

Clifford Colby is the chapter editor.

Mike Breeden (MB), Christopher Breen(CB), David Morgenstern (DM), Jason O'Grady (JOG), and Daniel Drew Turner (DT) are the chapter coauthors.

Sharon Zardetto Aker (SA) was the editor of the seventh edition of The Macintosh Bible, from which portions of this chapter are taken.

At first, picking which Mac to buy was a snap: In 1984 you paid $2,495 for the original Macintosh, and Apple threw MacWrite and MacPaint in with the deal. Your big choice: Did you want an Apple carrying case for $99?

Ten years later, your choices were more varied—and bewildering. For example, just in the Performa line, at one time or another you could pick from (or wade through) the Performa 520, the Performa 5320CD, the Performa 630CD DOS Compatible, the Performa 6218CD, the Performa 6360, and 50-something other Performa models.

To make sense of any of it, you had to know processor speeds, if you wanted PCI or NuBus slots, how fast the CD-ROM drive read data, how big the hard drive was, and a dozen other speeds and sizes. In the past three years, Apple has whittled down its products to four trim lines—one portable model for consumers and another for professionals; one desktop model for consumers and another for professionals. As a Mac shopper, however, you still have to pick from removable storage options, networking transfer rates, battery lives, and of course, processor speeds. This chapter will get you going on what all that hardware inside your Mac does and help you sort through the machines that make up Apple's four hardware categories. (Other chapters—including Chapter 4, “Memory;” Chapter 5, “Storage;” Chapter 7, “Peripherals;” and Chapter 20, “Networking”—go much further. And for more guidance on what is the right Mac for you, check out Appendix A,“Buying Macs.”)

In This Chapter

Mac Innards

Understanding the CPU

Memory and RAM Caches

Starting Up Your Mac

A Bus Runs Through It: Graphics/Video and I/O

The Ages of the Desktop Macintosh

The Thoroughly Modern Mac: The Power Mac G4 Series

G4 Cubed

The Arrival of the PowerPC G3

The Golden Age and Pioneer Power Macs

Opening the Closed Box

A Macintosh by Any Other Name

PowerPC Pioneers

The iMac: Back in Fashion

Look and Feel

There's No Future in the Past

Looking Forward

She Comes in Colors

Jumping Ahead

PowerBooks: Macintosh to Go

Honey, I Shrunk the Mac!

Displays

Input Devices

Batteries

Power Management

The Energy Saver Control Panel and Pane

File Synchronization

Expansion Bays

PowerBook Upgrades

Travel Survival Tips

What to Bring

Power Management and Other Issues

Early PowerBook Models

The Mac Portable

The PowerBook 100, 140, 170

The PowerBook Duo

The PowerBook 500

The PowerBook 5300

The PowerBook 1400

The PowerBook 2400

The PowerBook 3400

The PowerBook G3

The PowerBook G3 (Kanga)

The PowerBook G3 Series 1998 (Main Street, Wall Street, PDQ)

The PowerBook G3 Series 1999 (101, Lombard, Bronze)

The PowerBook 2000 (102, Pismo, FireWire)

The PowerBook G4

The iBook

Upgrades

RAM

Storage

CPU Upgrades

Types of CPU Upgrades

PCI Cards

AGP Cards