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Before there was Boot Camp, there were DOS Compatibility Cards
With our zippy Intel Macs able to eagerly boot up Windows 7 in Boot Camp, VMWare, Parallels, and VirtualBox, it's difficult to fathom that it was ever a problem to run Microsoft operating systems on our Apple boxes. The situation wasn't that good just a scant 15 or so years ago. Back in the bleak days before the triumphant return of Steve Jobs to 1 Infinite Loop, Apple had a broad and confusing product line. Since DOS and Windows 3.1 were already entrenched in business worldwide, Apple knew that they had to have a way for Macs to run Microsoft operating systems in order to gain any sort of traction in the corporate world. Edible Apple ran a wonderful retrospective yesterday that looked at Apple's DOS Compatibility Cards. These were basically PCs on a NuBus or PCI cards that were inserted into a slot in the Mac, using the Mac's power supply, floppy and hard drives, and keyboard and mouse. Sporting such amazing CPUs as the Intel 486SX running at a whopping 25 MHz clock speed, the original cards worked with the Centris 610 and Quadra 610 and were released in 1994. By the next year a second edition was released with an Intel 486DX/66, and was targeted at the PowerMac 6100 and Performa 6100. Further research shows that there were several subsequent cards that included even faster Pentium and Cyrix 6x86 processors, were called "PC Compatibility Cards," and were designed for use in other PowerMac models. I can recall acquiring one of the Pentium-based cards and using it to try to entice our one DOS holdout department to move to Macs (they didn't). Today's Windows compatibility is the best it has ever been on the Mac platform, and usually the only "hardware upgrade" required is to add some inexpensive RAM to the host Mac. Things might sometimes change slowly, but at least in the world of technology, the change is usually for the best.
Digital cliff could drop more antenna TV viewers than anticipated
When the analog cutoff happens next year, some OTA watchers will need to trade in the bunny ears for upgraded or external antennas (even if they have digital TVs or converter boxes) to continue getting reception. The FCC's estimates on how many viewers will be affected by the "digital cliff" -- weak analog signals can be fuzzy, but still viewable, while digital is clear but simply drops out after a point -- have been disputed market research firm Centris. The numbers vary depending on your particular 'hood and its topography, but Centris' research found the FCC's estimates of 60-75 miles before signal dropout was really more like 35 miles in Las Vegas, Philadelphia and St. Louis. Additionally, it figures as many as 80 percent of viewers have antennas that won't be able to adequately receive digital signal. Anyone planning on picking up a new antenna with that converter?
Rig of the Day: Pizza box
Ah, the pizza box Macs: Flat, broad squares of loveliness. I knew someone who had a Centris 660AV just like this one, which she refused to replace up until only two or three years ago (and its replacement was a 350MHz G3 iMac). Sometimes it's hard to let go."old workhorse" posted by glug.For the month of April, the theme for our Rig of the Day will be "Vintage Macs" in honor of Apple's anniversary. If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. Let's see your vintage Macs (Apples and Newtons, too)! We'll select an image every day to highlight.Speaking of flat vintage Macs, does anyone have a nice shot of a TAM out there?
