do you mean that capture Miro cards? F.. expensive but the only way to import analogue video into mac for editing. Very few years later mini dv solved the problem and decimated the costs.
I remember having a PowerComputing clone for a short while. It was a desktop model, not a tower. Had to be in the early 2000s when I got it second-hand. I don't think I ever did much with it, sadly, as my real Mac assimilation didn't happen until the Intel switch a few years later. Watching this video made me a bit nostalgic for physical computer media, too. I loved me a good Zip disk back in the day, and there was always something so satisfying about the (pretty much Apple exclusive) floppy eject mechanism - and the sound that came with it!
I was in my early 20s and three years out of art school (SCAD) when the clones hit the market. My beloved Quadra 700 was no longer cutting it... so I splurged on a PowerComputing PowerCenter 132 (my first / sadly not last / significant credit card purchase). Did some of my best animation work on that machine (Form•Z and Electric Image). It was a solid machine. That said, the MiroMotion DC20 capture card that came with... I never was able to get it (or the warranty replacement card) working. PowerComputing compensated with a TwinTurbo video card. For the time, it was a solid performing video card and made 21" CRTs just sing with Premiere, Photoshop and Form•Z work. Such a great era, the early-and-on 90s. It was the wild west for digital graphic design, burgeoning WWW, Mac gaming... really fond memories.
I used to use one of these back when I was a graphic artist to render complex 3d graphs in mathematics. They were definitely necessary back in the mid to late 90s for that
As an avid Mac user back in the 90's, I remember the Power Tower Pro and was very tempted to switch from my Mac IIsi. Thanks for the memory refresh. Great video.
I had a Umax tower at one time growing up, I remember it being quite a lovely little machine for what it was, and it played Mac Quake in software mode nicely too, but it had OS9 and was kind of sluggish with that.
I worked at a graphic design and pre-press business during this time. When the clones became available we immediately stopped buying Apple products and bought clones. The print business was already starting to decline at the time and our profit margins were very thin. Being able to get faster cheaper machines was key to the business surviving. Although I left that business to start a different career, when I visited the place in the early 2000s they were still using many of the clones to do work on - of course running older versions of the Mac operating system.
Had a PowerBase 180 (603e processor) mini-tower that I ordered new from Power Computing back in the day, with that same 17" Sony trinitron display shown here. I remember how excited I was when UPS dropped it off - that thing was a beast of an upgrade from my LC II, and very well-built. I remember getting the very letter you showed, from Apple also... wish I still had it!
I was just commenting about this on another forum. Way back in 1998 I had gone over to a friend of a friends house here in Japan. This guy had a PowerComputing PowerTower Pro! It was the fasted PowerMac compatible computer when he got it in 1996 or 97 when he got it. It was still freaking awesome at the time! By that time, Jobs had returned to Apple and I think they eventually just bought PCC or something.
This is a very interesting machine, as my first PC, back when I still so young I was barely able to speak or walk, was its contemporary, only it was a Windows one, not a Mac. Granted, it was either from a smaller company or assembled on demand, as, at the time, I don't think there were any major computer companies in my country.
We replaced our aging compact Macs at my college newspaper with Power Computing machines. They were not the tower models, but the horizontal desktop models. They were night and day performance-wise compared to what we'd been using up until then. We even got approved for a tabloid size printer to replace our old LaserWriter. Gosh, we felt so professional after all those upgrades, and they helped us be more creative with our layouts and graphics. Good times.
I worked at Power Computing the last few months of it's existence. I was as a member of the company's support team for it's foray into the Wintel market- a decision made after Jobs killed the MAC Clone licensing program. They never grew into a sizeable company. The building that housed the company is now a Gold's Gym that is situated just across Dell in Round Rock, TX. I was one of the last people to leave the company as it began to shut down operations. Handling multiple functions from technical support, RMA and regulatory processes and public relations. Unfortunately I didn't qualify for any of that Apple stock that Apple gave to Power Computing employees.
The module you're trying to put in the cache slot at about 7:40 is a ROM module, not a cache. The PowerTowerPro's ROM is soldered down, but the other Power Computing models used a ROM DIMM.
I remember back in 99, I got a PowerMac 7600 as part of a school closure sale lot on Ebay, wasn't just one 7600, since it was a lot of 10 per sale. Sadly I ran into the same issue with the L2 cache as you did, and IIRC, Apple was notorious even back in the day with variations between models, even 603/604 based PowerMacs. I remember I got a L2 cache stick, and it was apparently meant for the tower PowerMac's, similar board to that of the PowerComputing one, not the desktop models from about the same time. Funny enough, one of the Mac's in the lot had a Twin Turbo 128, and was exactly what I needed to get on the journey of learning graphic design and 3D as a teen.
I bought a refurbished PowerTower back in either 97 or 98 for around $1000. It was such a great deal at the time with a 604 at 120Mhz. I think a PowerMac 7600 at the time was at least $2500.
DIMM is a Dual In-line Memory Module. They can be FPM, EDO, SDRAM or DDR. Or something even more exotic. The RAM is "industry standard" for the time as far is it goes for UNIX and NT workstations and Servers. Especially those of the PPC and Pentium Pro ilk.
Please do a video on AlphaSmarts! Such an interesting and all but forgotten word processing idea for classrooms. I remember using them in elementary school before the possibility for kids to have access to computers in the classroom all the time.
Have you done any videos on the Radius Mac Clones? I had the 110 Mhz PPC 601 tower with a Media 100 kit and the RAM maxed out using IBM branded SIMMs. Extremely heavy, all thick steel case that required removing a huge number of screws to remove some components. To achieve a high enough write speed for Media 100 I had to stripe a RAID 0 volume across drives connected to both SCSI buses.
Had a 250 with the 400MHz G3 upgrade back in 2014 from a rummage sale. They were great machines. I sold my 400MHz card last year at a swap meet and still have the rest of the machine, but it's in very rough shape after getting manhandled in a move. I'm probably going to part it out.
Great video! I actually brought my power tower pro 250 back from my parents house this weekend. It’s booting but no video. i’m assuming the problem is the stock video card? I tried it on a different monitor, no joy. I also put the video card into a different slot, no joy. Is there anything else I should try before I go look for an old legacy video card? Thanks!
I own a PowerMac 7600. I've owned it for years. It came with a PPC 604e cpu, 32 mb of ram and 1gb hard drive. I bought a 350 mhz G3 upgrade for it. I easily get that cpu up to 400 mhz. I upgraded the ram to something like 256 mb too, something that would have been insane back in the day. Oh and a Ati rage 128 mac edition video card. I can boot anything from Mac OS 7.5 to Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. It's a neat mac. I have many of the Macintosh magazines from the day reviewing these clones. In many ways I aways thought the idea was kind of silly. Apple is Apple and anything that costs Apple can't exist long. The clones was an example of this. But the idea wasn't without merit. It was thought that the risc cpus like 601 and 604 would help AIM (Apple IBM and Motorola) dominate the market and help break Intel and thus Microsofts virtual monopoly. It didn't of course happen. But it's not as if the respective companies deeply invested themselves in doing that either. They made CPUs, systems and a few alternative operating systems then kind of walked away.
Ooouuu, i had that 225. Its like time machine going to my earlier days. I was a mac man up to 2002 scaling down after introduction of osX 10.0 which i just hated. Double g4, grey imac, grey clamshell and 2x 12 inch + 1x 15 inch power books finished my over 10 years and over 60 in total machines (+ external scsi flat and film scanners, cd burners, both omegas, syquest, zips, laser & ink printers, idiotic dvd- drives, first wacoms and more) apple adventure. Still got plus/minus 20 complete (and maybe working) incl futured power pc, black and white tulips (table top performa with philips tv tuners in it and remotes = direct pre-imac). Got to undust the strorage and move few cubic meters of stuff one day to get there and check whats salvable.
I love my PowerCenter Pro, Its such a fun machine to mess with. If you want to upgrade the GPU, you can use the RADEON 7xxx cards from a G5 Xserve (Apple p/n 630-6487) and they work great in mac OS8 and os9. I HIGHLY recommend upgrading the PSU in these, the powercomputing ones were not good or stable. Also, Don't forget to install aftermarket CDROM drivers for the sony drive, classic mac OS doesn't like playing with non-apple optical drives without it. Also, It looks like you may have inadvertantly grabbed a ROM module from a different unit, instead of a Cache module. The Cache module I have has 4 quad package chips on it. The one you got looks like my ROM module from my powercenter.
Going to be pedantic here, X is "times" only in math, it's either 8 "X" (/ecks/) or 8-speed for a drive. You're not multiplying drives here, so "times" isn't applicable. :p
I think that the USB card worked but they was not hot swappable if you powered down and boot with the USB drive already inserted it should see it but anyway great video and a nice blast from the past.
I worked for the service agent for these devices here in Australia. Thankfully we didn’t just service these devices because once Apple ended the clones the work very quickly dried up.
Fascinating, cheers! 17:07 so glad Apple stayed in the hardware biz - their designs were the most awesome draw to their computers; many of the clones were so ugly that I just didn't lust after them...
I bet that because Apple happened to be going bankrupt when they were licensing Mac OS, this scared apple enough to never allow something like this again.
I wouldn’t say the Apple clones nearly killed Apple, it was Apple’s stubbornness by making too many overpriced products and limited specs! Apple was also screwing retailers and educational buyers. The clones were cheaper and more customizable than the original Macs!
@@James_Ryan the clones look like bland PCs, but most computer buyers care about price and quality, not style! My school had a desktop Mac clone, because it was easier to upgrade for libraries and they only bought the all in one Macs because the built in monitors and simplicity.
@@James_Ryan A classic Apple sheep lol This is why the company has hit an unprecedented level of success.. They can, and do, get away with 'almost' anything because their loyal fan base will continue to back them to the hilt while holding their wallets out freely. I mean, That is true power! You have to admire that at least. Who said BRAND isn't everything? Steve proved that wrong 😂
Apple still goes their proprietary route with not swapping to usb-c connector on iphones and making more waste with proprietary stuff when nearly all manufacturers already swapped.
@@1sonyzz I really hate most of the proprietary connectors, because most third party accessories aren’t going to work with those awful connectors, and you have to get a dongle just to connect a common peripheral! That’s why I love USB connectors, because we hated those printer connectors!
Pre-iMac Apple is pretty wild. Clone machines, upgrade cards from 68K to PowerPC (imagine if they did that for M1), cases that could disassembled with a single screw… as I much as I prefer the later Macs design-wise, I wish Apple would reemphasize that kind of modularity.
There never was a true "clone" era as there never were any "clones" in the PC sense of the word. What they were is rebranded Macintoshes. This is probably one of the major reasons it was never a success. Why buy a real Mac with its overpriced accessories when you get a real mac with cheap and common accessories? Also, Apple learned the wrong lessons from IBM. They saw the clones as the key to the success of the IBM PC, but apparently didn't notice IBM was on the verge of leaving the PC market it created because it simply could not compete with commoditized PCs. While the PC became undisputed king, IBM went into irrelevance.
I remember the PowerTower quite well! My local library had one specifically to provide a Mac for the public's use... amidst a group of Windows boxes that were built by a local company before those quickly became outdated and were replaced by a bunch of Gateway machines. The PowerTower never got upgraded or replaced because very few people used it for much of anything beyond running a few programs that the library only had available for Macs. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time playing Myst on that machine because they didn't have the Windows port. But it was a beast for its time! It survived for nearly a decade -- as a matter of fact, I think it was still there right up until the library moved to its current building in 2003. I don't know what became of it after that, but that move included a complete tech overhaul, and I never saw it again, so it could very well (sadly) be in a landfill somewhere.
7:45 since this power clone uses a 604e and probably the same base logicboard/chipset/cache as the powermac 8500/9500 higher end models, you could try a their cache module into the power tower slot; I bet if it physically fits it will work (electrically).
I have a lot of nostalgia for these. My parents had a StarMax 3000 tower. Think it was the 200Mhz model. Thing was a beast at the time. I saw it in their basement recently. Dunno if it still works.Would be an interesting world today had these Mac clones actually taken off.
The trouble is back then the hardware was decent but the OS was not. These days the OS is a lot better and the whole ecosystem is lightyears ahead of the Mac OS classic days. Plus while I detest their "OSX appliances" I really wish everyone could use their ARM processors.
What a gorgeous machine, and an outstanding tour as always, Colin! I was going to look and see if I had that cache module around, but looks like you solved it (I picked up a few boxes of misc memory at VCF East a year or so back with some cache modules).
I have some kind of Mac Clone like that in my storage shed. In about 2004 I took possession of it for a lawsuit - the lawyer asked me to keep it intact for when the case went to trial. And that was last I heard about the trial! I think that 18 years later it is probably safe for me to stop storing it.
Importantly, these machines were supposed to adhere to the new "Common Hardware Reference Platform" which was supported by Digital (Alpha) and MIPS and would have ultimately allowed running Windows NT, which vs MacOS 7, was a no-contest. Apple absolutely did not have a proper OS to compete at all and Jobs knew it.
Yeah trying to describe it to people now people would think you're totally making it up and would call you a dirty liar. It's crazy this ever happened looking at how apple is now. But it's not a surprise that it all got shut down once Steve came back. I mean holy crap by late 97 it was essentially all over. That's crazy.
Having USB on older machines is really great as it makes data transfer so much easier. Gladly my Pentium 233 MMX mainboard already has USB, so I can use modern USB sticks under Win98SE and even DOS6.22 (the latter I have to reboot when plugging ins sticks though). Also have Zip drives lying around but don't use them.
I myself had a powerbase 200 which was also a powercomputing product, just wasn't impressed once mac os 8 came out, that I couldn't use. Apple wouldn't allow it. So yea and my brother to at the time was testing waters on his own computers with Linux, I later joined in 2010 onwards as I felt more comfortable with all the distros available.
Great video. I still have my PTP225 that I got in 1997. It's been sitting under my desk for years and is quite dusty. I pulled the battery after your recommendation here. Power Computing really aced Apple's product line in terms of features and price (though I don't recall paying $5K for my 225). I remember looking at the Performa line and the PTP just offered so much more at what I remember being a comparable price. Mine is pretty dusty but it does have a Newer Tech CPU upgrade card (with gold cooling fins - don't recall whether this was a faster 604e or G3) and no problems with the original cache. It also has an upgraded ethernet card and USB card in two PCI slots, as well as the original video card and a second video card to drive the twin RasterOps 19" CRT monitors I used back then. I added a Yamaha 8-4-24 CD burning drive and it was also kitted out with both a Zip and Jaz drive from iomega. As far as RAM, it has four matched cards but I don't recall how much RAM. This was a great machine and I loved using it. I later replaced it with the grey G4 with the funky handles, but it's great to see this video about one of the best Macs ever made. I think I might have that RasterOps monitor somewhere in the basement, if you're interested.
Oh yes the beige mac clones. It wasn't that you didn't have a choice on the PC. If you ignored the white. You could pick from several sizes and designs of tower and desktop cases. The problem is was cost. You had to pay more $$$ for it and tons of generic built clones used cheap and ugly looking white cases.
Cool, cool, cool. I had a PowerCenter 150 (604 @150 mhz, 1 GB HDD, 56 MB of RAM, Mac OS 7.5.3). Man, I WISH I'd hung onto it, it would be a great retro & collector's item now.
Use to run software Mac emulation on my Amiga. It was faster than a true mac. Also fun was running Amiga OS with the Mac emulator in the background. LOL.
PowerComputing was the top performance clone maker because they pushed the machines as hard as possible. They were supposed to release a model with a 60MHz bus but I don't think it ever happened since none of Apple's Tsunami custom support chips were rated over 50MHz and PCC probably couldn't get enough that were stable at 60MHz. Also, if I had the choice between the sturdy and easy-to-use case of a PowerTower Pro vs. the cheaply built and difficult-to-service 9500, it's not hard to see why more people would've preferred the PowerTower Pro (or Umax S900 or Daystar Genesis): Apple's desktop designs were atrocious in the mid-90s. That "L2 cache" card you found is actually a ROM for one of the earlier G1/NuBus models (they used ROM SIMMs, both Apple and clones), and the similar G1 L2 cache modules would also be incompatible here. If you want to go back to the stock CPU, check around for a G2/PCI cache module. They're not uncommon, but you may have trouble finding a 1MB variant. As for USB, look for anything with an OPTi FireLink chipset. These were shipped onboard USB-based Macs for years and are trouble-free. Also any NEC USB 2.0 chipset (though you won't get the 2.0 speeds in Classic Mac OS).
Keep in mind we're talking about Apple stuff here, always expensive. Even the clone stuff was crazy expensive as we saw so putting a burner in there wouldn't be out of place at all at the time.
To be fair, throughout the 2000s, Apple offered very easy to open and upgradable towers like the Powermac G3, G4, G5, and the Intel aluminum cheese grater Mac Pro.
Honestly most customers don’t care about upgradability anymore, which makes sense since unlike decades ago, the technology advancements have slowed down a lot. Back in the 90s even though it’s a joke from a weird Al song, it was really true that machines went obsolete in months. These days without customer pressure it’s cheaper to design and build systems without upgradability, and of course it probably also helps sales by forcing people to replace machines more frequently.
This is a very interesting machine, as my first PC, back when I still so young I was barely able to speak or walk, was its contemporary, only it was a Windows one, not a Mac. Granted, it was either from a smaller company or assembled on demand, as, at the time, I don't think there were any major computer companies in my country.
Learned to video edit on a power tower pro 180, with miromotion motion cards and a Jaz drive. Brutal on Adobe premier 4.0 but also futuristic. Very similar to what I used. It was wacky our HS had these.
14:53 haha wow, don't usually see my small-ish midwestern hometown on retro PC parts very often! I've also never heard of that INTEREX, Inc./XLR8 company either. Hmm, there's a Google search in my future...
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu You've seen other instances? It's not as small/po-dunk as some might think, but it's mostly known for aviation - Beechcraft started here, big Cessna presence and Boeing (now Spirit) has massive production facilities here. There's half a million people in Sedgwick County, over 300k of that in Wichita.
@@VidweII I mean I'm always blown away when I see something like this and it says Wichita Kansas or Wyoming or anywhere in the midwest/middle America that is about as synonymous with tech products as coastal states are known for things like wheat, corn or potatoes. I know it exists I know it does (or did anyway) but it just seems so weird considering is the last place I would think of for stuff like that especially Apple stuff. I know it was a different time but dang that's extra crazy.
In October 1997, you could get even a branded PC with a Pentium II 300Mhz with 4x the RAM, 7GB HDD for 1000$ Less than one of these. Apple would come out with the Powermac G3 Beige later that year, which was a big step forward. :D
I had several of those Twin Turbo cards in blue and white G3’s in my “garage pile of Macs”. I wasn’t aware that they were high-end workstation cards.
do you mean that capture Miro cards? F.. expensive but the only way to import analogue video into mac for editing. Very few years later mini dv solved the problem and decimated the costs.
@@billdolar9995
I was going to say that came along with like the iMac and stuff didn't it.
Really early on with Steve Jobs return.
I remember having a PowerComputing clone for a short while. It was a desktop model, not a tower. Had to be in the early 2000s when I got it second-hand. I don't think I ever did much with it, sadly, as my real Mac assimilation didn't happen until the Intel switch a few years later. Watching this video made me a bit nostalgic for physical computer media, too. I loved me a good Zip disk back in the day, and there was always something so satisfying about the (pretty much Apple exclusive) floppy eject mechanism - and the sound that came with it!
I was in my early 20s and three years out of art school (SCAD) when the clones hit the market. My beloved Quadra 700 was no longer cutting it... so I splurged on a PowerComputing PowerCenter 132 (my first / sadly not last / significant credit card purchase). Did some of my best animation work on that machine (Form•Z and Electric Image). It was a solid machine. That said, the MiroMotion DC20 capture card that came with... I never was able to get it (or the warranty replacement card) working. PowerComputing compensated with a TwinTurbo video card. For the time, it was a solid performing video card and made 21" CRTs just sing with Premiere, Photoshop and Form•Z work.
Such a great era, the early-and-on 90s. It was the wild west for digital graphic design, burgeoning WWW, Mac gaming... really fond memories.
I used to use one of these back when I was a graphic artist to render complex 3d graphs in mathematics. They were definitely necessary back in the mid to late 90s for that
As an avid Mac user back in the 90's, I remember the Power Tower Pro and was very tempted to switch from my Mac IIsi. Thanks for the memory refresh. Great video.
I had a Umax tower at one time growing up, I remember it being quite a lovely little machine for what it was, and it played Mac Quake in software mode nicely too, but it had OS9 and was kind of sluggish with that.
I worked at a graphic design and pre-press business during this time. When the clones became available we immediately stopped buying Apple products and bought clones. The print business was already starting to decline at the time and our profit margins were very thin. Being able to get faster cheaper machines was key to the business surviving. Although I left that business to start a different career, when I visited the place in the early 2000s they were still using many of the clones to do work on - of course running older versions of the Mac operating system.
Had a PowerBase 180 (603e processor) mini-tower that I ordered new from Power Computing back in the day, with that same 17" Sony trinitron display shown here. I remember how excited I was when UPS dropped it off - that thing was a beast of an upgrade from my LC II, and very well-built. I remember getting the very letter you showed, from Apple also... wish I still had it!
I was just commenting about this on another forum. Way back in 1998 I had gone over to a friend of a friends house here in Japan. This guy had a PowerComputing PowerTower Pro! It was the fasted PowerMac compatible computer when he got it in 1996 or 97 when he got it. It was still freaking awesome at the time! By that time, Jobs had returned to Apple and I think they eventually just bought PCC or something.
i love the relaxed vibe, a fine example of how to make a video
This is a very interesting machine, as my first PC, back when I still so young I was barely able to speak or walk, was its contemporary, only it was a Windows one, not a Mac. Granted, it was either from a smaller company or assembled on demand, as, at the time, I don't think there were any major computer companies in my country.
I’ve never heard them called bird connectors before, I usually only called them floppy power connectors!
We replaced our aging compact Macs at my college newspaper with Power Computing machines. They were not the tower models, but the horizontal desktop models. They were night and day performance-wise compared to what we'd been using up until then. We even got approved for a tabloid size printer to replace our old LaserWriter. Gosh, we felt so professional after all those upgrades, and they helped us be more creative with our layouts and graphics. Good times.
Okay, I want one of these for my collection..
Also, a video on the creation of L2 cache would be neat.
I worked at Power Computing the last few months of it's existence. I was as a member of the company's support team for it's foray into the Wintel market- a decision made after Jobs killed the MAC Clone licensing program. They never grew into a sizeable company. The building that housed the company is now a Gold's Gym that is situated just across Dell in Round Rock, TX.
I was one of the last people to leave the company as it began to shut down operations. Handling multiple functions from technical support, RMA and regulatory processes and public relations. Unfortunately I didn't qualify for any of that Apple stock that Apple gave to Power Computing employees.
The module you're trying to put in the cache slot at about 7:40 is a ROM module, not a cache. The PowerTowerPro's ROM is soldered down, but the other Power Computing models used a ROM DIMM.
I remember back in 99, I got a PowerMac 7600 as part of a school closure sale lot on Ebay, wasn't just one 7600, since it was a lot of 10 per sale. Sadly I ran into the same issue with the L2 cache as you did, and IIRC, Apple was notorious even back in the day with variations between models, even 603/604 based PowerMacs. I remember I got a L2 cache stick, and it was apparently meant for the tower PowerMac's, similar board to that of the PowerComputing one, not the desktop models from about the same time. Funny enough, one of the Mac's in the lot had a Twin Turbo 128, and was exactly what I needed to get on the journey of learning graphic design and 3D as a teen.
Had this exact model, it was a blast - louder than it needed to be, but nice to expand and work with. Keyboard was terrible.
When stating the price of these machines, always include the official apple prices for a similar machine ;)
I bought a refurbished PowerTower back in either 97 or 98 for around $1000. It was such a great deal at the time with a 604 at 120Mhz. I think a PowerMac 7600 at the time was at least $2500.
DIMM is a Dual In-line Memory Module. They can be FPM, EDO, SDRAM or DDR. Or something even more exotic. The RAM is "industry standard" for the time as far is it goes for UNIX and NT workstations and Servers. Especially those of the PPC and Pentium Pro ilk.
Please do a video on AlphaSmarts! Such an interesting and all but forgotten word processing idea for classrooms. I remember using them in elementary school before the possibility for kids to have access to computers in the classroom all the time.
Have you done any videos on the Radius Mac Clones? I had the 110 Mhz PPC 601 tower with a Media 100 kit and the RAM maxed out using IBM branded SIMMs. Extremely heavy, all thick steel case that required removing a huge number of screws to remove some components. To achieve a high enough write speed for Media 100 I had to stripe a RAID 0 volume across drives connected to both SCSI buses.
The key to Mac compatibility with those USB expansion cards is getting one with an NEC chipset.
So these were basically like official Hackintosh...
2:52 Just noticed that the headline in the ad reads "It does 0-60 in 3 nanoseconds" "Fuzzy dice *ot* included"
Yeah, part of the text was lost when the magazine was scanned.
Wow, nice catch there.
Totally missed that.
some of the best late 90's/early 2000's digital video I captured was on a DC20 miro PCI card
A friend of mine had one of these. He ran a beta of OSX on it - the first time I had ever seen OSX.
I had my 2007 imac ever since a council clean up and ive used it since 2020 when i found it
Had a 250 with the 400MHz G3 upgrade back in 2014 from a rummage sale. They were great machines.
I sold my 400MHz card last year at a swap meet and still have the rest of the machine, but it's in very rough shape after getting manhandled in a move. I'm probably going to part it out.
What camera do you currently use for your videos? Looks great!
Great video! I actually brought my power tower pro 250 back from my parents house this weekend. It’s booting but no video. i’m assuming the problem is the stock video card? I tried it on a different monitor, no joy. I also put the video card into a different slot, no joy. Is there anything else I should try before I go look for an old legacy video card? Thanks!
I swear every computer had this design growing up... kinda surprised don't see stack cases anymore
Would absolutely own a MAC like this. :)
The daystar genesis was the absolute king of the clones, awesome machine.
I own a PowerMac 7600. I've owned it for years. It came with a PPC 604e cpu, 32 mb of ram and 1gb hard drive. I bought a 350 mhz G3 upgrade for it. I easily get that cpu up to 400 mhz. I upgraded the ram to something like 256 mb too, something that would have been insane back in the day. Oh and a Ati rage 128 mac edition video card. I can boot anything from Mac OS 7.5 to Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. It's a neat mac. I have many of the Macintosh magazines from the day reviewing these clones. In many ways I aways thought the idea was kind of silly. Apple is Apple and anything that costs Apple can't exist long. The clones was an example of this. But the idea wasn't without merit. It was thought that the risc cpus like 601 and 604 would help AIM (Apple IBM and Motorola) dominate the market and help break Intel and thus Microsofts virtual monopoly. It didn't of course happen. But it's not as if the respective companies deeply invested themselves in doing that either. They made CPUs, systems and a few alternative operating systems then kind of walked away.
Ooouuu, i had that 225. Its like time machine going to my earlier days. I was a mac man up to 2002 scaling down after introduction of osX 10.0 which i just hated. Double g4, grey imac, grey clamshell and 2x 12 inch + 1x 15 inch power books finished my over 10 years and over 60 in total machines (+ external scsi flat and film scanners, cd burners, both omegas, syquest, zips, laser & ink printers, idiotic dvd- drives, first wacoms and more) apple adventure. Still got plus/minus 20 complete (and maybe working) incl futured power pc, black and white tulips (table top performa with philips tv tuners in it and remotes = direct pre-imac). Got to undust the strorage and move few cubic meters of stuff one day to get there and check whats salvable.
Wouldn’t XLR8 be pronounced accelerate?
Enjoyed this article and thanks keep it up
I love my PowerCenter Pro, Its such a fun machine to mess with. If you want to upgrade the GPU, you can use the RADEON 7xxx cards from a G5 Xserve (Apple p/n 630-6487) and they work great in mac OS8 and os9. I HIGHLY recommend upgrading the PSU in these, the powercomputing ones were not good or stable. Also, Don't forget to install aftermarket CDROM drivers for the sony drive, classic mac OS doesn't like playing with non-apple optical drives without it. Also, It looks like you may have inadvertantly grabbed a ROM module from a different unit, instead of a Cache module. The Cache module I have has 4 quad package chips on it. The one you got looks like my ROM module from my powercenter.
I got a smile when he said the price, noting current complaints about GPU pricing.
Couldn't you just install the ZIP drive in the top drive bay and not use the power adapter cable at all?
Going to be pedantic here, X is "times" only in math, it's either 8 "X" (/ecks/) or 8-speed for a drive. You're not multiplying drives here, so "times" isn't applicable. :p
Yes, I know it's got different enunciations, I'm just being silly. :p
Btw, how would it feel to run yellow dog Linux on that monster? It would definitely run your USB for sure! 👍🏼💪🏼😎🤤
I have a G4 version of that Sonnet card, if you'd like it :)
That XLR8 card is NUTS. I have one of those, too :D
I could definitely put a G4 card to use if you have one to spare!
I remember those things back in the day never could afford one.
Thanks for the interesting video Colin
I think that the USB card worked but they was not hot swappable if you powered down and boot with the USB drive already inserted it should see it but anyway great video and a nice blast from the past.
Didn't they try sellimg the systems with another OS tied to it ?
I worked for the service agent for these devices here in Australia. Thankfully we didn’t just service these devices because once Apple ended the clones the work very quickly dried up.
when did ben 10 start making upgrade cards for macs?
I would 3rd party all the new age accessories to bring this bad boy to its maximum potential.
Fascinating, cheers! 17:07 so glad Apple stayed in the hardware biz - their designs were the most awesome draw to their computers; many of the clones were so ugly that I just didn't lust after them...
I bet that because Apple happened to be going bankrupt when they were licensing Mac OS, this scared apple enough to never allow something like this again.
Imagine if Sony said yes to installing Mac OS on their VAIO
This is the third video I have watched on this channel. Done subscribe your channel 📝👌🏻
• watch from Malaysia 🇲🇾
Depreciated from thousands of pre-inflation dollars to a donation, and then up again by retro speculators.
Kind of ironic that when Apple tried to open on its own platform it gets its ass kicked. No wonder they've always tried to be proprietary.
I wouldn’t say the Apple clones nearly killed Apple, it was Apple’s stubbornness by making too many overpriced products and limited specs! Apple was also screwing retailers and educational buyers. The clones were cheaper and more customizable than the original Macs!
Fully agreed on all points, but the clones were just ugly - I only lusted after Apple's hardware despite the high price tags and lower specs...
@@James_Ryan the clones look like bland PCs, but most computer buyers care about price and quality, not style! My school had a desktop Mac clone, because it was easier to upgrade for libraries and they only bought the all in one Macs because the built in monitors and simplicity.
@@James_Ryan A classic Apple sheep lol
This is why the company has hit an unprecedented level of success.. They can, and do, get away with 'almost' anything because their loyal fan base will continue to back them to the hilt while holding their wallets out freely. I mean, That is true power! You have to admire that at least. Who said BRAND isn't everything? Steve proved that wrong 😂
Apple still goes their proprietary route with not swapping to usb-c connector on iphones and making more waste with proprietary stuff when nearly all manufacturers already swapped.
@@1sonyzz I really hate most of the proprietary connectors, because most third party accessories aren’t going to work with those awful connectors, and you have to get a dongle just to connect a common peripheral! That’s why I love USB connectors, because we hated those printer connectors!
The clone era is always so interesting, it's wild to me how Apple let others build machines when nowadays it seems like the last thing they'd ever do
The best era, shame it was downhill from there.
Pre-iMac Apple is pretty wild. Clone machines, upgrade cards from 68K to PowerPC (imagine if they did that for M1), cases that could disassembled with a single screw… as I much as I prefer the later Macs design-wise, I wish Apple would reemphasize that kind of modularity.
@@RisingRevengeance because it was unsurvivable. It was killing. Apple as a company.
There never was a true "clone" era as there never were any "clones" in the PC sense of the word. What they were is rebranded Macintoshes. This is probably one of the major reasons it was never a success. Why buy a real Mac with its overpriced accessories when you get a real mac with cheap and common accessories?
Also, Apple learned the wrong lessons from IBM. They saw the clones as the key to the success of the IBM PC, but apparently didn't notice IBM was on the verge of leaving the PC market it created because it simply could not compete with commoditized PCs. While the PC became undisputed king, IBM went into irrelevance.
@@DanaTheInsane For sure but it was far better for the consumer. Apple may be doing better now but it's worse than ever for their customers.
Interesting! I was never an Apple user, but I appreciated this trip down memory lane.
I remember the PowerTower quite well! My local library had one specifically to provide a Mac for the public's use... amidst a group of Windows boxes that were built by a local company before those quickly became outdated and were replaced by a bunch of Gateway machines. The PowerTower never got upgraded or replaced because very few people used it for much of anything beyond running a few programs that the library only had available for Macs. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time playing Myst on that machine because they didn't have the Windows port. But it was a beast for its time! It survived for nearly a decade -- as a matter of fact, I think it was still there right up until the library moved to its current building in 2003. I don't know what became of it after that, but that move included a complete tech overhaul, and I never saw it again, so it could very well (sadly) be in a landfill somewhere.
10/10 video as always. Editing, pacing, narration, camerawork. All top notch. 👌
7:45 since this power clone uses a 604e and probably the same base logicboard/chipset/cache as the powermac 8500/9500 higher end models, you could try a their cache module into the power tower slot; I bet if it physically fits it will work (electrically).
I may have one of those as spare
I have a lot of nostalgia for these. My parents had a StarMax 3000 tower. Think it was the 200Mhz model. Thing was a beast at the time. I saw it in their basement recently. Dunno if it still works.Would be an interesting world today had these Mac clones actually taken off.
Please try it
After watching this, I suspect an Apple might have passed through my hands without even knowing it (the SCSI drive made me wonder).
The trouble is back then the hardware was decent but the OS was not. These days the OS is a lot better and the whole ecosystem is lightyears ahead of the Mac OS classic days. Plus while I detest their "OSX appliances" I really wish everyone could use their ARM processors.
This is why I like you and Action Retro.
Yeah they both rock for different awesome reasons lol
How did you comment 3 days ago if this video just now????
@@SPARTAN_Cayde-26 patreon
@@SPARTAN_Cayde-26 he's likely a patron like I am...
What a gorgeous machine, and an outstanding tour as always, Colin! I was going to look and see if I had that cache module around, but looks like you solved it (I picked up a few boxes of misc memory at VCF East a year or so back with some cache modules).
I wish we had Mac clones today. Mac Pro sucks.
The 'cache' card at 7:40 looks like a ROM DIMM to me, with it's HH and HL marked chips indicating Hi and Lo.
Nice!
Just a heads up, when cleaning such as you did, better to spray the cloth and not the keyboard.
For insane PowerMac (Clones)-Upgrades -> -> Action Retro or Mac84 😂
Nice ai upscaled images bruv
I have some kind of Mac Clone like that in my storage shed. In about 2004 I took possession of it for a lawsuit - the lawyer asked me to keep it intact for when the case went to trial. And that was last I heard about the trial! I think that 18 years later it is probably safe for me to stop storing it.
Please elaborate on That 😜
Importantly, these machines were supposed to adhere to the new "Common Hardware Reference Platform" which was supported by Digital (Alpha) and MIPS and would have ultimately allowed running Windows NT, which vs MacOS 7, was a no-contest. Apple absolutely did not have a proper OS to compete at all and Jobs knew it.
The clone era is always so interesting, it's wild to me how Apple let others build machines when nowadays it seems like the last thing they'd ever do
Yeah trying to describe it to people now people would think you're totally making it up and would call you a dirty liar. It's crazy this ever happened looking at how apple is now. But it's not a surprise that it all got shut down once Steve came back. I mean holy crap by late 97 it was essentially all over. That's crazy.
If apple hardware and software was allowed by other manufacturers, the IBM PC as we know would be dead so would windows
aps they was part of my area i seen on the sticker kcmo
Having USB on older machines is really great as it makes data transfer so much easier. Gladly my Pentium 233 MMX mainboard already has USB, so I can use modern USB sticks under Win98SE and even DOS6.22 (the latter I have to reboot when plugging ins sticks though). Also have Zip drives lying around but don't use them.
Why did people remove the L2 cache card when upgrading the CPU? Was there a real technical reason?
"Some even had 2 processors. But that's a story... for when I aquire it and shoot a video about it..."
Ali USB cards were a massive PITA on the PC market too - they were known for it when I was building those "early" towers.
nice documentary man too bad mac os isn't universal like windows
I myself had a powerbase 200 which was also a powercomputing product, just wasn't impressed once mac os 8 came out, that I couldn't use. Apple wouldn't allow it. So yea and my brother to at the time was testing waters on his own computers with Linux, I later joined in 2010 onwards as I felt more comfortable with all the distros available.
Great video. I still have my PTP225 that I got in 1997. It's been sitting under my desk for years and is quite dusty. I pulled the battery after your recommendation here. Power Computing really aced Apple's product line in terms of features and price (though I don't recall paying $5K for my 225). I remember looking at the Performa line and the PTP just offered so much more at what I remember being a comparable price. Mine is pretty dusty but it does have a Newer Tech CPU upgrade card (with gold cooling fins - don't recall whether this was a faster 604e or G3) and no problems with the original cache. It also has an upgraded ethernet card and USB card in two PCI slots, as well as the original video card and a second video card to drive the twin RasterOps 19" CRT monitors I used back then. I added a Yamaha 8-4-24 CD burning drive and it was also kitted out with both a Zip and Jaz drive from iomega. As far as RAM, it has four matched cards but I don't recall how much RAM. This was a great machine and I loved using it. I later replaced it with the grey G4 with the funky handles, but it's great to see this video about one of the best Macs ever made. I think I might have that RasterOps monitor somewhere in the basement, if you're interested.
Oh yes the beige mac clones. It wasn't that you didn't have a choice on the PC. If you ignored the white. You could pick from several sizes and designs of tower and desktop cases. The problem is was cost. You had to pay more $$$ for it and tons of generic built clones used cheap and ugly looking white cases.
Cool, cool, cool. I had a PowerCenter 150 (604 @150 mhz, 1 GB HDD, 56 MB of RAM, Mac OS 7.5.3). Man, I WISH I'd hung onto it, it would be a great retro & collector's item now.
I had a PowerCenter 132. It was a nice machine, even though it was based on a 7200. I eventually put a G3 CPU card in it and a better graphics card.
Use to run software Mac emulation on my Amiga. It was faster than a true mac. Also fun was running Amiga OS with the Mac emulator in the background. LOL.
PowerComputing was the top performance clone maker because they pushed the machines as hard as possible. They were supposed to release a model with a 60MHz bus but I don't think it ever happened since none of Apple's Tsunami custom support chips were rated over 50MHz and PCC probably couldn't get enough that were stable at 60MHz. Also, if I had the choice between the sturdy and easy-to-use case of a PowerTower Pro vs. the cheaply built and difficult-to-service 9500, it's not hard to see why more people would've preferred the PowerTower Pro (or Umax S900 or Daystar Genesis): Apple's desktop designs were atrocious in the mid-90s.
That "L2 cache" card you found is actually a ROM for one of the earlier G1/NuBus models (they used ROM SIMMs, both Apple and clones), and the similar G1 L2 cache modules would also be incompatible here. If you want to go back to the stock CPU, check around for a G2/PCI cache module. They're not uncommon, but you may have trouble finding a 1MB variant. As for USB, look for anything with an OPTi FireLink chipset. These were shipped onboard USB-based Macs for years and are trouble-free. Also any NEC USB 2.0 chipset (though you won't get the 2.0 speeds in Classic Mac OS).
LMAO CD burners were NOT common in the late 90s. You basically had to be rich to have one
In 1998, one could buy a basic IDE CD-RW drive for $300.
Keep in mind we're talking about Apple stuff here, always expensive.
Even the clone stuff was crazy expensive as we saw so putting a burner in there wouldn't be out of place at all at the time.
@@ThisDoesNotCompute which was a significant amount of money
So strange to see a MAC so upgratable without any parts soldered to the mother board
To be fair, throughout the 2000s, Apple offered very easy to open and upgradable towers like the Powermac G3, G4, G5, and the Intel aluminum cheese grater Mac Pro.
@@ryanvacation7319 Not since tim cook came to head of Apple. Since then each year it is getting bad
Honestly most customers don’t care about upgradability anymore, which makes sense since unlike decades ago, the technology advancements have slowed down a lot.
Back in the 90s even though it’s a joke from a weird Al song, it was really true that machines went obsolete in months.
These days without customer pressure it’s cheaper to design and build systems without upgradability, and of course it probably also helps sales by forcing people to replace machines more frequently.
spraying and wiping your keyboard is not cleaning it properly
Brings back memories... Thank you!
They could have given windows a run for its money if they let this continue
This is a very interesting machine, as my first PC, back when I still so young I was barely able to speak or walk, was its contemporary, only it was a Windows one, not a Mac. Granted, it was either from a smaller company or assembled on demand, as, at the time, I don't think there were any major computer companies in my country.
Learned to video edit on a power tower pro 180, with miromotion motion cards and a Jaz drive. Brutal on Adobe premier 4.0 but also futuristic. Very similar to what I used. It was wacky our HS had these.
Beautiful Mac! I've become more enamored of clones lately ❤
you should try and find a Mac Voodoo2 card and try in this
14:53 haha wow, don't usually see my small-ish midwestern hometown on retro PC parts very often! I've also never heard of that INTEREX, Inc./XLR8 company either. Hmm, there's a Google search in my future...
Not going to lie anytime I see something that says Wichita Kansas I'm like what?! computers?! Kansas?!
Really?!
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu You've seen other instances?
It's not as small/po-dunk as some might think, but it's mostly known for aviation - Beechcraft started here, big Cessna presence and Boeing (now Spirit) has massive production facilities here. There's half a million people in Sedgwick County, over 300k of that in Wichita.
@@VidweII
I mean I'm always blown away when I see something like this and it says Wichita Kansas or Wyoming or anywhere in the midwest/middle America that is about as synonymous with tech products as coastal states are known for things like wheat, corn or potatoes.
I know it exists I know it does (or did anyway) but it just seems so weird considering is the last place I would think of for stuff like that especially Apple stuff. I know it was a different time but dang that's extra crazy.
In October 1997, you could get even a branded PC with a Pentium II 300Mhz with 4x the RAM, 7GB HDD for 1000$ Less than one of these. Apple would come out with the Powermac G3 Beige later that year, which was a big step forward. :D