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.
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 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 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 amidst a group of Windows boxes that were built by a local company before those quickly became outdated and were replaced by a bunch of Gateway machines.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.
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 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!
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
i love how u make videos its relaxing and good to watch everything just feels right love to see a video on old hardware running morden stuff but keeping the look with newer os from win or mac keep up the great video man
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 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.
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.
Back in the day, CD-ROMs normally came with audio out, which meant you could play CDs with no load at all on the CPU. You had a headphone jack on the front and internal connection to the soundcard. Some also had digital audio out to connect to the soundcard. Much more convenient than pointlessly having the OS decode the audio then re-encode it, and have the audio stall if you're doing something CPU intensive. We've gone backward.
@@ian_b Yup grew up with a Dell XP machine, too young to get into upgrades but would've been so into it. If I still had that machine I'd be searching for drives like this.
I found out that XLR8 was bought by Interex (Bankrupt in 2000 then bought by Tripp Lite), a computer peripheral business from my hometown. Between that discovery and the papers about NCR's R&D dept in my home city talking about their contribution to the creation of SCSI, I've been learning all sorts of things about my hometown I didn't know before.
You should look into Daystar Digital. They where out of Flowery Branch, right up the road. Their clone was the Genesis MP and they are absolute beasts.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
I really love how you can easily replace the CPU as if it was a game cardridge. you don't need knowledge on what CPU socket you need, what heatsync, what thermal paste, you just need to know if it fits.
Modern CPU's can't be passively cooled and a lot of them practically need water cooling. Hard to implement a one size fits all air cooler when there is so many case sizes as well.
I do miss those days though. Very different than now in a lot of ways but yeah passively cooling is so different than the space heaters that they've become now, that basically need to be constantly cooled off lest your entire computer system meltdown.
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.
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 remember back in the day so many people in tech journalism were saying how Apple needed to ditch their hardware and just become a software company. The idea was that they just licensed their operating system the way Microsoft did. My question has always been, what software did they make besides Mac OS? Later after OSX they were building a lot more software, but in the System 7 and System 8 days? I don't think they'd have very many products besides Mac OS and Mac OS was pretty antiquated compared to many other operating systems. I was a PC girl, dual booting Linux and Windows but you couldn't help but see all the articles, it was a fascinating time.
I actually use this exact machine as the primary lab controller on my electronics bench, using a GPIB card and LabVIew 5. Have video recorded of it's overhaul, pending editing but it is now a G4 400MHz with Radeon 9200 graphics, modern sata ssd, and more, on OS 9.2.1... Love the PowerTower Pro.
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!
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.
You should give a class on YT narration. So many creators seem to end up in this grating volume and cadence, you and Techmoan and LGR manage to be really informative AND listenable.
Best compatible USB PCI card needed to have the "NEC" chipset.. remember the closeout sale at the PowertComputing site in Round Rock TX just a bunch of cases and parts, just enough to build a Frankenstein PowerBase 240 ($159 CHEAP in those days) Tower with Powerlogix card.. miss those overclocking days... great video
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.
Lol missing the Power Computing website held the above image 16:58 saying "Busted for Speeding" as their tech is what brought on the G3/G4 which included a hardware hack to the 603e and 604e which allowed them to rebrand them as G3 and G4. It was a pleasure to work on the great many models of PC macs as I did. I did keep one of the older tower for years as my daily mac driver, replacing it with a second Gen iMac blueberry.
Back when I was going to my local JC back in the late 90s I wanted one so bad but there was no way I was going to afford that. Especially after they started getting crazy hard to find.
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.
XLR8 is probably pronounced "accelerate"🙂 One of the first PCs I used was an old Mac of a similar era, but I've never had the pleasure of using one of these clones before. Looks amazingly expandable. I wish more modern PCs were as upgradeable.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
This was an amazing trip down memory lane. I bought a used Power Tower from a friend in 2000. It's somewhere in my garage under an inch of dust. I don't have the heart to throw it out because of its nostalgic value. Also, I love how you mentioned "SCSI voodoo!" I thought I was the only person who used that phrase. LOL Back in the day, getting all of the external Glyph Tech narrow SCSI HDD's, 1GB Jaz drives, and Yamaha 2x CD-R to work was always a crap-shoot. Great video - thanks!
If you remember the "fun" of SCSI, you likely remember the line "Have you tried waving a dead chicken over it yet?" when discussing SCSI problems... Put a terminator on the last device on the chain - no, put a terminator with a passthrough directly on the SCSI port on the computer! No! Put the terminator after the third device! AUGH!!! I give up! Somebody find me a dead chicken!
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 have a 2012 mbp 13 inch and to keep it relevant i did the usual upgrades plus the latest macos 12.6....not a huge mac fan but they do some amazing work within that ecosystem!
I distinctly remember these clones, and believe they there was some type of clone in the Apple corner of the Comp USA. I just remember our new Macs in school (in like 96) feeling slow in just 1 year, and I think that's what steered me away from wanting one of these. These days, I really like them for media and creation, but still like using windows. Not sure why they just can't copy Windows' application snapping to the T...MS won't care if they do!
What a trip down memory lane. I had this exact Power Computing Power Tower Pro, running an imagesetter. And had planned to buy more, due the speed, expansion and price. I was sad to see them go, but Steve Jobs brought Apple back and made some excellent machines. I use Power Macs now and grumble about the prices every time I need a new one and contemplate switching to Windows… but never do.
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.
You sometimes cannot boot from 3rd party CD drives/burners in an older Macintosh. The Apple 8x drive was most likely installed to allow booting from CD (especially 7.5). Having a CD-drive _and_ a CD-burner was often used to copy CDs. The 4x/12x Teac CD-R55s was a very widely used CD-burner with the Mac in the late 90s. The 'cache-module' you showed was most likely a ROM module. The PowerTower should allow up to 60MHz bus speed but you might have to remove the older 32 and 16 mb RAM modules. 256Mb ist most likely all you need for typical tasks nowadays.
Thanks for bringing me back the memory of my old days when working in that industry. BTW, your tone and pitch sound very much the Lock Picking Lawyer alike.... 🙂
I looked at one of those, years upon years ago - Would have been a replacement for my PowerMac 7500. But I found a couple of toys to fit it, including a dual G4 processor card, jacked up the RAM, and ended up with a machine hotter than the PTP for less than a quarter of the price. Ran it until it became impossible to run the new x86-only 'ware, and update/upgrade paths became nonexistent. That was one helluva machine...
ISTR I had an AIX PowerPC 'Bull Escala' running my Social Services Oracle DB . 40 users for that system. Tough as old boots and replaced it with another Bull/AIX machine. mid to late 90s then early 2000.
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.
(9:24) I never heard of that! I'm going to have to really look into getting one for my 2001 iMac so I wouldn't have to adjust the CRT screen settings every time. I do like the creative name!
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.
Re: USB PCI cards - cards with an ALi chipset were notorious for being unstable, and unreliable on Macs, especially in OS 9. In OS X they'd often cause my Power Mac G4 to lock up on a black screen when put to sleep. Generally, PCI cards with an NEC chipset work much better in my experience across OS X and OS 9, but they're harder to find and can be more expensive too.
I seem to remember 3rd party USB cards having their own drivers most of the time. These days it's a little easier to find drivers by the chipset and get yourself a deal, but in the classic Mac OS days it was so challenging to find Mac compatible cards unless they were by a Sonnet or OWC or something.
I was considering the PowerTower series during this era, and their discontinuation made me strongly consider switching to Windows. Had Amelio not pushed for more industry-standard components with the G3 tower/desktop I probably wouldn't have stuck with Apple until 2018.
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.
Other people do videos on boring old computers they acquire. Collin gets the ones which have all kinds of crazy sh!t inside. That is why his channel is so awesome! 🖥️
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Power 120 with a Radius VideoVision Studio. Oh the memories!
I got one of these when i went to university, using my student loan to buy it. Cost just over £2000 (UK). It shipped with an extra 96Mb of ram from the retailer (taking it to 128mb) and over time i added a voodoo 3 graphics card, USB card and a DVD player to replace the CD player which failed.
My uncle worked for PCC from the start, leaping from Apple. I still have swag, mugs, mouse pads, pin, shirts, sweaters, posters. PCC is just as interesting for its ability to capitalize on this market, willingness to challenge Apple, and ultimate demise at the hands of Jobs.
I mean I definitely did but we've swung so widely in the opposite direction in the modern day that it's oddly refreshing to go back to the "beige days". Things changed very quickly especially with Mac after the iMac and it's colorful plastic. That really did change what computers looked like.
What I never liked about it is that there are seemingly many more shades of beige than there are of dark gray and black! Plus as the beige systems aged, different parts changed color differently.
Wow. . .those HDD prices! I don't recall what I paid for any Mac I had in the 90s or how much I paid for all the drives, external enclosures and other crap except for one. It was a Quantum 700MB drive that I paid $700 circa 1994 just so I didn't have to wait for the load times on Myst (I must have really been into that series).
We have a mac clone where I work; someone brought it in for recycling. I said to put it aside, knowing that there aren't many still in the wild. It's a power computing with a G3 upgrade card.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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. 👌
Interesting! I was never an Apple user, but I appreciated this trip down memory lane.
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 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!
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...
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
i love how u make videos its relaxing and good to watch everything just feels right love to see a video on old hardware running morden stuff but keeping the look with newer os from win or mac keep up the great video man
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 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
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.
The audio jack and volume dial on the CD burner..... I love that.
Back in the day, CD-ROMs normally came with audio out, which meant you could play CDs with no load at all on the CPU. You had a headphone jack on the front and internal connection to the soundcard. Some also had digital audio out to connect to the soundcard. Much more convenient than pointlessly having the OS decode the audio then re-encode it, and have the audio stall if you're doing something CPU intensive. We've gone backward.
@@ian_b Yup grew up with a Dell XP machine, too young to get into upgrades but would've been so into it. If I still had that machine I'd be searching for drives like this.
I found out that XLR8 was bought by Interex (Bankrupt in 2000 then bought by Tripp Lite), a computer peripheral business from my hometown. Between that discovery and the papers about NCR's R&D dept in my home city talking about their contribution to the creation of SCSI, I've been learning all sorts of things about my hometown I didn't know before.
You should look into Daystar Digital. They where out of Flowery Branch, right up the road. Their clone was the Genesis MP and they are absolute beasts.
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.
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.
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
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).
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 😜
I really love how you can easily replace the CPU as if it was a game cardridge. you don't need knowledge on what CPU socket you need, what heatsync, what thermal paste, you just need to know if it fits.
Modern CPU's can't be passively cooled and a lot of them practically need water cooling. Hard to implement a one size fits all air cooler when there is so many case sizes as well.
Yes, I loved doing that with my Pentium II cartridges of the same era, it was such a breeze to upgrade!
I do miss those days though.
Very different than now in a lot of ways but yeah passively cooling is so different than the space heaters that they've become now, that basically need to be constantly cooled off lest your entire computer system meltdown.
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.
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 remember back in the day so many people in tech journalism were saying how Apple needed to ditch their hardware and just become a software company. The idea was that they just licensed their operating system the way Microsoft did.
My question has always been, what software did they make besides Mac OS?
Later after OSX they were building a lot more software, but in the System 7 and System 8 days? I don't think they'd have very many products besides Mac OS and Mac OS was pretty antiquated compared to many other operating systems.
I was a PC girl, dual booting Linux and Windows but you couldn't help but see all the articles, it was a fascinating time.
Ali USB cards were a massive PITA on the PC market too - they were known for it when I was building those "early" towers.
I actually use this exact machine as the primary lab controller on my electronics bench, using a GPIB card and LabVIew 5. Have video recorded of it's overhaul, pending editing but it is now a G4 400MHz with Radeon 9200 graphics, modern sata ssd, and more, on OS 9.2.1... Love the PowerTower Pro.
i love the relaxed vibe, a fine example of how to make a video
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!
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.
You should give a class on YT narration. So many creators seem to end up in this grating volume and cadence, you and Techmoan and LGR manage to be really informative AND listenable.
Best compatible USB PCI card needed to have the "NEC" chipset.. remember the closeout sale at the PowertComputing site in Round Rock TX just a bunch of cases and parts, just enough to build a Frankenstein PowerBase 240 ($159 CHEAP in those days) Tower with Powerlogix card.. miss those overclocking days... great video
Coming from someone that was born in July of 96 that was cool to see the disk drive come out and seeing JULY 1996
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.
Lol missing the Power Computing website held the above image 16:58 saying "Busted for Speeding" as their tech is what brought on the G3/G4 which included a hardware hack to the 603e and 604e which allowed them to rebrand them as G3 and G4. It was a pleasure to work on the great many models of PC macs as I did. I did keep one of the older tower for years as my daily mac driver, replacing it with a second Gen iMac blueberry.
That Sonnet Crescendo G3 card at the end. Wow I remember that being lusted after in the day. That purple colour was everything.
Back when I was going to my local JC back in the late 90s I wanted one so bad but there was no way I was going to afford that. Especially after they started getting crazy hard to find.
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.
XLR8 is probably pronounced "accelerate"🙂 One of the first PCs I used was an old Mac of a similar era, but I've never had the pleasure of using one of these clones before. Looks amazingly expandable. I wish more modern PCs were as upgradeable.
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.
Nice!
Just a heads up, when cleaning such as you did, better to spray the cloth and not the keyboard.
I had one of these. The expandability on it was awesome!
Okay, I want one of these for my collection..
Also, a video on the creation of L2 cache would be neat.
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.
Brings back memories... Thank you!
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 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.
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
This was an amazing trip down memory lane. I bought a used Power Tower from a friend in 2000. It's somewhere in my garage under an inch of dust. I don't have the heart to throw it out because of its nostalgic value. Also, I love how you mentioned "SCSI voodoo!" I thought I was the only person who used that phrase. LOL Back in the day, getting all of the external Glyph Tech narrow SCSI HDD's, 1GB Jaz drives, and Yamaha 2x CD-R to work was always a crap-shoot. Great video - thanks!
If you remember the "fun" of SCSI, you likely remember the line "Have you tried waving a dead chicken over it yet?" when discussing SCSI problems... Put a terminator on the last device on the chain - no, put a terminator with a passthrough directly on the SCSI port on the computer! No! Put the terminator after the third device! AUGH!!! I give up! Somebody find me a dead chicken!
I’ve never heard them called bird connectors before, I usually only called them floppy power connectors!
Always an interesting to look back at what was cutting tech.
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.
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.
"Some even had 2 processors. But that's a story... for when I aquire it and shoot a video about it..."
14:55 This is a very nice shot
i have a 2012 mbp 13 inch and to keep it relevant i did the usual upgrades plus the latest macos 12.6....not a huge mac fan but they do some amazing work within that ecosystem!
Had this exact model, it was a blast - louder than it needed to be, but nice to expand and work with. Keyboard was terrible.
I distinctly remember these clones, and believe they there was some type of clone in the Apple corner of the Comp USA. I just remember our new Macs in school (in like 96) feeling slow in just 1 year, and I think that's what steered me away from wanting one of these. These days, I really like them for media and creation, but still like using windows. Not sure why they just can't copy Windows' application snapping to the T...MS won't care if they do!
You do do an incredible job with your videos and I loved this one!
What a trip down memory lane. I had this exact Power Computing Power Tower Pro, running an imagesetter. And had planned to buy more, due the speed, expansion and price. I was sad to see them go, but Steve Jobs brought Apple back and made some excellent machines. I use Power Macs now and grumble about the prices every time I need a new one and contemplate switching to Windows… but never do.
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.
Great video as always. I do enjoy the relaxed vibe your content has. Keep up the great work.
Hey Colin, how’s it going? I love all the research and company history offered in this video, fantastic video!
You sometimes cannot boot from 3rd party CD drives/burners in an older Macintosh. The Apple 8x drive was most likely installed to allow booting from CD (especially 7.5). Having a CD-drive _and_ a CD-burner was often used to copy CDs. The 4x/12x Teac CD-R55s was a very widely used CD-burner with the Mac in the late 90s. The 'cache-module' you showed was most likely a ROM module. The PowerTower should allow up to 60MHz bus speed but you might have to remove the older 32 and 16 mb RAM modules. 256Mb ist most likely all you need for typical tasks nowadays.
Thanks for bringing me back the memory of my old days when working in that industry. BTW, your tone and pitch sound very much the Lock Picking Lawyer alike.... 🙂
I looked at one of those, years upon years ago - Would have been a replacement for my PowerMac 7500. But I found a couple of toys to fit it, including a dual G4 processor card, jacked up the RAM, and ended up with a machine hotter than the PTP for less than a quarter of the price. Ran it until it became impossible to run the new x86-only 'ware, and update/upgrade paths became nonexistent. That was one helluva machine...
ISTR I had an AIX PowerPC 'Bull Escala' running my Social Services Oracle DB . 40 users for that system. Tough as old boots and replaced it with another Bull/AIX machine. mid to late 90s then early 2000.
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.
(9:24) I never heard of that! I'm going to have to really look into getting one for my 2001 iMac so I wouldn't have to adjust the CRT screen settings every time. I do like the creative name!
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.
Re: USB PCI cards - cards with an ALi chipset were notorious for being unstable, and unreliable on Macs, especially in OS 9. In OS X they'd often cause my Power Mac G4 to lock up on a black screen when put to sleep.
Generally, PCI cards with an NEC chipset work much better in my experience across OS X and OS 9, but they're harder to find and can be more expensive too.
I had a Umax Mac clone in my office at my first IT job, using this 2nd device to manage the small Mac environment along with the Windows/Novell one.
I seem to remember 3rd party USB cards having their own drivers most of the time. These days it's a little easier to find drivers by the chipset and get yourself a deal, but in the classic Mac OS days it was so challenging to find Mac compatible cards unless they were by a Sonnet or OWC or something.
I was considering the PowerTower series during this era, and their discontinuation made me strongly consider switching to Windows. Had Amelio not pushed for more industry-standard components with the G3 tower/desktop I probably wouldn't have stuck with Apple until 2018.
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.
aps they was part of my area i seen on the sticker kcmo
After watching this, I suspect an Apple might have passed through my hands without even knowing it (the SCSI drive made me wonder).
At 6minutes When you set the graphics card down on the grid and the line matched perfectly between the pins! omg, heaven
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.
My 1st Mac - Second-hand PowerComputing PowerBase 180.
Would it be able to run MasOS 10 if I would like to see it done in a feature video
Other people do videos on boring old computers they acquire. Collin gets the ones which have all kinds of crazy sh!t inside.
That is why his channel is so awesome! 🖥️
Power 120 with a Radius VideoVision Studio. Oh the memories!
I got one of these when i went to university, using my student loan to buy it. Cost just over £2000 (UK). It shipped with an extra 96Mb of ram from the retailer (taking it to 128mb) and over time i added a voodoo 3 graphics card, USB card and a DVD player to replace the CD player which failed.
Fun video! I had a UMAX C500 which used the 603e, and I loved it. It cost me less than a grand (barely.)
My uncle worked for PCC from the start, leaping from Apple. I still have swag, mugs, mouse pads, pin, shirts, sweaters, posters. PCC is just as interesting for its ability to capitalize on this market, willingness to challenge Apple, and ultimate demise at the hands of Jobs.
I had a PowerCenter Pro 210 which I absolutely loved.
It's funny to see that even back in the 90's Hackintoshes still had better specs then current Macs.
I will never tire of that 90s beige aesthetic.
I mean I definitely did but we've swung so widely in the opposite direction in the modern day that it's oddly refreshing to go back to the "beige days". Things changed very quickly especially with Mac after the iMac and it's colorful plastic. That really did change what computers looked like.
What I never liked about it is that there are seemingly many more shades of beige than there are of dark gray and black! Plus as the beige systems aged, different parts changed color differently.
Your analysis was flawless. It's explain clearly why Apple never try to license the OS again.
Wow. . .those HDD prices! I don't recall what I paid for any Mac I had in the 90s or how much I paid for all the drives, external enclosures and other crap except for one. It was a Quantum 700MB drive that I paid $700 circa 1994 just so I didn't have to wait for the load times on Myst (I must have really been into that series).
Beautiful Mac! I've become more enamored of clones lately ❤
The key to Mac compatibility with those USB expansion cards is getting one with an NEC chipset.
We have a mac clone where I work; someone brought it in for recycling. I said to put it aside, knowing that there aren't many still in the wild. It's a power computing with a G3 upgrade card.
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.
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.
When stating the price of these machines, always include the official apple prices for a similar machine ;)
Is this 1MB 2nd-Level cache compatible with PM6100 ? I am searching such a thing for years!
Why did people remove the L2 cache card when upgrading the CPU? Was there a real technical reason?
The Mac clones are so much fun to play with.
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.