Apple Macintosh Performa 5400/180 Directors Edition - Review and Upgrades!
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2022
- Hi! Thanks to www.pcbway.com for sponsoring this video
Just because something is rare, does it make it good?
Today we have a look at this strange Australian special model, the Directors Edition Macintosh.
Not much different to a standard 5400, the Directors Edition shipped with an extra 6MB of RAM for a total of 24MB and a larger 2.4GB hard drive. They also included an AV capture and TV tuner card. And they had a fancy label on the front.
These originally shipped without any L2 Cache for the CPU, making them slightly compromised. Thankfully we have had a generous donation from / richsrandomretroreviews in the form of a 256MB stick of L2 cache! So we can pop it in and see just how much performance it provides.
Along the way we will fix a borked install of System 8 and restore it to it's original shipping condition, fixing a few software and performance issues in the process.
We also connect a Sega Master System II to it for a bit of silliness.
Also, the graphite keyboard looks great, but feels terrible.
Thanks for watching.
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#apple #sega #performa - Наука та технологія
I always loved the 5400.
My primary school (Birkdale South) had a bunch of them. Two in our classroom networked with the two in the neighbouring classroom. They even had a Director's edition in the library.
Nostalgia is a powerful drug.
Thank you, for sharing this "blast from the past" a Power Mac Performa 5400/180 (the Aussie only Directors Edition). In the United States in the mid-1990's, this was my first ever Apple computer All-in-One system but in the traditional "tan" color. Mine came with the Apple Video capture card system and Apple TV/FM radio card system with its matching black remote control. While, this computer died decades ago, about 15-yeras ago, I picked-up for a replacement an All-in-One 5500/275, which has the same design style and look. After adding my Apple video card, TV/FM radio card, and G3 processor upgrade card it was as if, my old original system had come back to life. Because, who would own an Apple desktop computer system that does not turn "on" and turn "off" with, just a simple Apple remote control (smile...smile).
Great story! Thanks for sharing. I’d love to get hold of a remote, that would be so much fun.
@@TheBasementChannel Thank you, for your reply to my post. I just checked on Ebay and a few sellers have these Mac Performa vintage black remote controls. Wishing you happy shopping (smile...smile).
Awesome video! What a wonderful, horrible, terrible and beautiful machine!
Thanks! Yes it really is all of those things at once 😂 A lot of shortcomings can be overlooked when you are this pretty!
Hey Sean, do you think this Mac can be heavily modded?
When I was younger I had a Performa 5200/CD and I remember that Mac OS 8 was sluggish. I think mine originally came with Mac OS 7.6.1.
I seem to recall that some of the common extensions at that time would cause slowdowns like this, and removing them would speed up Mac OS 8.
I remember constantly fiddling with things because I wanted the cool new look of Mac OS 8 but with the speed of Mac OS 7.
Who knows what had been done to this machine to cause it to run so slow. OS8 should be fine on a 180MHz machine, I might try and install it and see how it goes.
So nostalgic, thanks for the awesome video!
when you get to a upload so early its still 360p.
The cache has always been an important component for any cpu; unfortunately, having certain characteristics, it has always been very expensive, it was difficult to find it even in some Mac Quadra based on 68040/30. Undoubtedly it speeds up many cpu operations; Silicon Graphic has always used them in its computers, even large ones because they allow applications to reside inside them and make the machines fast and snappy. The secondary problem in the first Mac PPc was the access times to the system ram due to slow buses and the video card, always considered a tail.
Super jealous of this one! What an awesome collection piece :) Thanks for the great videos.
Nothing like your amazing collection! Looking forward to more of your content!
I have one exactly the same. I’m the original owner, still have all the manuals and software etc am looking to sell it. I’m in Sydney
@@DeeBeeAU that’s awesome! Get in touch with Josh above, he’s near Sydney and might be interested!
@@DeeBeeAU definitely interested! Send me a DM via my channel if you’re keen to sell 😊 thanks
Very cool and rare system! And yeah that riser is for a PCI card, WAY better than the NIC in the other Performa, just gotta find a PCI NIC that supports Mac OS
Yes I had a play yesterday with some of my old pc parts and found a Ethernet card, installed the driver (for os8 but 🤷♂️) and hey presto, it works!
Here in the UK I have a black performa like yours, with the TV card and such. I'll need to check the specs on it... and fix it! Stopped working on me not long ago, but interesting that it's also black but without the "Directors Edition" on it
That’s cool! From what I’ve read, there where a few 5400s that came in black. The Aussie versions came with the tv tuner card as standard and a bit of extra ram, and of course the “directors edition’ label. But nothing that couldn’t be ordered off the shelf with any Performa (except the label!) good luck fixing yours, be careful with those plastics!
What a nice macintosh! I just wondered which system disk you used, is it the special edition for directors edition or just a normal system disk for performa 5400?
Why thank you! It’s just a normal 5400, painted black and with the capture card included as standard, so no special software needed. The standard install has everything needed to run the capture card as this was an option on other macs of the era.
Another great video!! And woohoo! Glad it's working and super interesting to see the results of before and after. I run Mac OS 8 on my 25MHz LC475 and it's nowhere near as slow as it was on your 5400. Shame about the Ethernet card. The slot on the 5400 looks a bit like PCI. Perhaps you could get 90 degree PCI riser (if such a thing exists) and then get a compatible PCI Ethernet card in?
Yes watching the video back I noticed it was labelled PCI, and it already has a 90 degree riser in it, so just have to find a compatible Ethernet card 👍 thanks for the cache, I couldn’t believe how much difference it made, even to graphics. I think the OS8 install was borked, I might try and upgrade to 8 and see how it goes. The 5200CD was running 8 when I got it and felt much snappier than the 5400 at half the speed!
@@TheBasementChannel Had I known your plans, I could have sent you an Apple compatible PCI ethernet card....
@@RichsRandomRetroReviews 😂🤦♂️
Hey Rich! I also own a 5400 DE but without L2 cache. I really love this black shape mac and want to upgrade it to have a faster performance. Do you still have this cache? I did a lot of research online and it is really hard to find a seller whos selling this 20-25-35 pin cache
@@michaellee4874 I bought it and sent it to TheBasement as a gift - so no I don't have it any more - sorry :(
The white slot is a PCI bus. Just comparing the board from 5400/180 its the same logic inside my 6400/200 #820-0828-A , The PM6400/200 has a 220Watts PSU the same as the 5400/180 I have a 64mb RAM 604e + Sonnett G3 250mhz in the cache port , TV Tuner, Asante NIC, Modem..... I think I'll take aprt my 5200CD paint it black, etch the Director's Edition Done ;)
Thanks for the info! I’ve since put a pci LAN card in mine for networking fun.
What speed is your IDE drive? Have you tried maxing the RAM to 136MB?
I could not see any harddrive there! And one question: what was the first version of operating system when system was so slow?
I think it was running 8.x before hand. The hdd is in a sled underneath the motherboard tray. Thanks for the comment!
I got one of these but was disappointed that I couldn't get the display to run at a reasonable refresh rate. Mine has the motherboard from a 6400/180 in it because the original board had acid damage. Is this one stuck at 800x600 60hz and 640x480 67hz too? CRTs are great and all but 60hz makes my eyes hurt.
Apple kept trying to save a few bucks over the life of the Performa, releasing some models (5260) that only had a 14”display like you mention. The 5200, and 5400 both have 15” shadow mask displays and are capable of 832x624 @75hz. I was running in 800x600 60hz for the video to reduce scan line issues while filming.
These machines would look much nicer had these used Trinitrons like the LC575s.
The world is full of compromise. Thanks for watching!
I have the power macintosh 5400 in white unopened in the box... idk what uts worth
Schrödinger’s Mac, is both working and broken at the same time, and if you never open the box it will always simultaneously be both of those realities.
mac os 8 worked well on my performa
if only it was the 5500 version, same black colour but faster PowerPC CPU (no Directors Edition label tho).
Tbh by the time the machines are this old I don’t think the bump in performance makes much difference 😂
@@TheBasementChannel perhaps but the speed was a lot faster and may have had up to a 512k L2 cache. faster would be better no matter what really, and then any kind of solid state drive instead of a HD reduces one of the biggest bottlenecks to speed no matter what computer it is.
Whats the value?
Whatever someone is willing to pay.
Great looking machine, shame it was so crippled out the gate.
Yes, a result of mid 90s apple when it was governed by the marketing department instead of engineers. “Never mind about the compromised performance, paint it dark gray!”
Only the 52xx/53xx were crippled. Apple completely fixed the issues with the 54xx and later 5500. Those were awesome machines. I had a 5500 upgraded with a Sonnet G3 CPU upgrade card as my main computer from 2001 to 2004 and the only thing it could not do was 3D games!
Cringed watching you press down on the main board, flexing it. You can secure those modules with one hand, fingers underneath, thumb on top.
Thanks for taking time out to comment