Remodel Your Mac-1994-11-15-(for under $1,000)-Chris Oakes

Don't turn that Mac II into a boat anchor just yet. A spate of processor, hard disk, and other upgrades can bring your system into the '90s for under $1,000.

CPU Upgrades

No matter what kind of work you do on your Mac II, adding a 68040 CPU board to your system will give your work a welcome speed boost. If you're just word processing or doing simple spreadsheet work, your return on investment won't be very high. But if you run frequent searches through databases with thousands of records, or spend your workday in PageMaker, Quark, or Photoshop, a new CPU could cut into your daydreaming. An 040 upgrade will end sluggish searches and scrolls, and will cause your applications to spring open, and your images to redraw in a flash.

These days, only DayStar and Mobius offer 68040 upgrades for the Mac II line and the SE/30 for under $1,000 (see Table 1). You can choose a CPU upgrade from either company if you use an SE/30, IIx, IIcx, IIci, or IIsi. But if you drive a Mac II, IIvx, or IIvi, your only 040 upgrade option is DayStar. Mac IIci and IIsi owners might want to wait until DayStar releases their PowerPC upgrades in the coming months.

Although some of DayStar's upgrades are more expensive than Mobius's Speedsters, they're a better bet. DayStar's boards cause fewer compatibility problems and provide slightly bigger speed boosts. But if your budget is tight - and Mobius confirms your hardware and software are compatible with their products - a Mobius board can save you hundreds of dollars.

Upgrade Spotlight: CPU Accelerator

Installed: DayStar Turbo 040i & Mobius Speedster 040.

Experience: Despite some major component removal, surprisingly easy. Still, not for the fumbly fingered. This upgrade required me to remove the IIcx's large power supply, then jimmy the existing CPU out of its socket. Luckily, the job is made easier with a supplied CPU "puller."

Once the CPU is out, you plug an adapter into its vacant socket and connect the 68040 accelerator board to the adapter. Piece of cake.

Both accelerators required the same amount of work, but DayStar's documentation is clearly superior, sporting full-color photographs that illustrate each step along the way. If doing the upgrade yourself seems too daunting, DayStar will do it for free. (So will Mobius, but you have to split the shipping charges.) Warning: Some IIx's and IIcx's have a soldered CPU and must go to the accelerator company for removal.

- CO

Which upgrade is right for you? Some issues to consider:

Clock Speed. Clock speed, measured in megahertz (MHz) or millions of cycles per second, is one important indication of how fast a processor can execute instructions. In general, buy the 68040 with the fastest clock speed you can afford, and give clock speed priority over a math coprocessor or floating point unit (FPU). For example, Mobius's 25MHz upgrade probably won't give the 20MHz IIsi much of a boost.

Math Coprocessor. A math coprocessor or FPU is dedicated to quickly performing complex mathematical operations with a high level of precision. Programs that are optimized for an FPU - statistical programs, spreadsheets that use array formulas, CAD programs, and the like - will churn through complex math, three-dimensional rendering, and other tasks in a flash. If you don't use these kinds of programs, you don't really need a coprocessor.

Cache. A processor cache is a chunk of dedicated high-speed RAM on the upgrade board that stores recently used processor instructions and data. A cache speeds performance by reducing the number of times your processor has to run to the hard disk or scan through system memory for instructions it uses regularly. Almost all CPU upgrade boards come standard with 128K of cache.

While the DayStar and Mobius product lines are closely matched in terms of clock speeds, coprocessors, and caches, Mobius acknowledges that their products are 5 to 15 percent slower than DayStar's - a frank admission that I confirmed with my informal benchmarks.

Compatibility. Your CPU upgrade won't do much good if it won't work - or work smoothly - with your present hardware and software. Mobius CPU upgrades have had compatibility problems in the past with products such as FWB's JackHammer SCSI accelerator and 170MB hard disk drives manu-factured by Quantum.

Known unresolved incompatibilities of Mobius's CPU boards: System 7's virtual memory scheme is not supported. Although Mobius claims their boards work with Adobe Photoshop's built-in virtual memory program, you won't be able to run programs like RAM Doubler or Optimem, nor can you use sound-sampling hardware and video accelerators that employ digital signal processors, such as DayStar's Charger series.

Hard Disk Upgrades

Most people buy new hard disks when scrounging for disk space, running Disk Doubler, or archiving files onto floppy disks every day begins to wear thin. When the time comes to consider a new hard disk, don't just think big. Think fast. Nothing can snuff out the benefits of a speedy CPU like a slow hard drive.

Every time you open an application, create a new file, or save changes to a file, you - and the Mac's CPU - wait for the hard disk to read or write data to disk. Small to medium-sized Word and Excel files are tolerable, but if you manipulate ungainly image files or update massive databases, the cure is a new, faster, more capacious hard disk.

What makes one drive faster than another? The most relevant measures of disk speed are average access time, rotational speed (in rpm), and sustained data transfer rate. Different manufacturers calculate these specs in different ways, so they don't allow for exact comparisons. But you can use the specs to get a rough idea of how fast a drive is.

Average access time is the average time in milliseconds (ms) the drive head takes to locate a given sector on the disk and start reading data. (Average seek time is shorter: it's just the time the drive head takes to reach a given track.) A drive with an average access time in the range of 15ms to 17ms is speedy enough for a Mac II, and it's fairly affordable.

Rotational speed is how fast the disk platter actually spins. The faster it spins, the faster data will be scooped up. Most drives spin at 3600 rpm, but you will find models that hit up to 5400 or even 7200 rpm.

Data transfer rate is measured in megabytes per second (MB/sec). A new drive with a data transfer rate beyond 2MB/sec won't do your old Mac much good. The Mac II, IIx, IIcx, and IIvx only support a maximum transfer rate of 1.4MB/sec, while the IIci and IIsi top out at 1.8MB/sec. However, buy for the future - you may want to use your new hard drive in a Power Mac someday. Since Power Macs can crank data transfer rates up to 3.8MB/sec, you'd do well to buy a drive that can run at this pace.

Of course, if the drive isn't large enough to house all your system resources and applications and still leave ample room for your work files, it won't matter how fast it is. How much storage is enough? The golden rule is to buy as much storage as you can afford, but 230MB is a comfortable minimum these days. However, if you're working with the likes of Photoshop, Quark, QuickTime, big databases, or clip art collections, go to the max.

Finally, should you get an internal or external drive? An external drive is easier to install, can supplement rather than replace your present internal drive, and can be plugged right into another Mac when yours needs repairs or when you eventually buy that new Power Mac.

Upgrade Spotlight: Hard Disk

Installed: Quantum ProDrive LPS 270 (internal) & La Cie Tsunami 330 (external).

Experience: Internal drive - A hassle, but not rocket science.

External drive - Easy.

Installing internal drives involves some screwdriver work. You must detach the old drive and attach the new drive to the mounting brackets inside your Macintosh. Almost any internal drive you buy for the Mac II will be formatted, and factory configured as SCSI device 1. If for some strange reason it isn't, formatting programs like La Cie's Silverlining can do the job without you having to flip a switch.

External drives are much easier to install. You set their SCSI address, connect them to your SCSI port, turn them on, and go. They're always preformatted, but still come with formatting utilities should you need to reformat them later. The Tsunami's SCSI address is changed using three DIP switches. Most drives, including La Cie's QDrives, employ much friendlier switching methods, such as a push button.

- CO

Internal drives are usually $70 to $100 cheaper because they don't require their own cases, power supplies, or fans. Plus, an internal drive doesn't add fan noise or take up space on your desktop.

The contenders for your storage dollar listed here should all perform acceptably. Hard disk technology has been around for years, and reliability is pretty much a given. The things to look for? How much your money buys in terms of storage, speed, and warranty. Many companies price their drives to draw you to bigger sizes, and it's often a good deal. Another $40 can buy you scads more storage. If the price fits your budget, go for it - no disk is too big.

La Cie's external Tsunami line, available only via mail order from the company, is down to a single 340MB product. It's a deal at $319, but it has a couple of drawbacks. It's difficult to set up and it's a bit noisy, which may bug some users. Setup is difficult because you must fiddle with three DIP switches to set the SCSI address.

La Cie's QDrive is quieter than the Tsunami and available at retail dealers and via mail order from such companies as The Mac Zone (800/248-0800) and Mac Mall (800/222-2808). Prices will vary, but you can expect to pay around $400 for the 270MB drive, $450 for the 340MB, and $500 for 540MB. Corresponding internal versions are $250, $340, and $425 respectively, and all come with a one-year warranty. La Cie, 800/999-0143.

Quantum, which owns La Cie, manufactures the drive mechanism for La Cie drives and other vendors. Quantum doesn't sell its drives to end users, but some dealers will sell them slightly above their cost. For example, the 270MB Pro Drive LPS I installed in my test machine is priced by one dealer at $249 and comes with a two-year warranty from Quantum. Quantum, 800/624-5545.

FWB's drives have a great track record, and the company is known for good support and thorough docu-mentation. The 270MB Hammer PE 270 has a suggested retail price of $429. Like the sound of another 60MB? Pay only $40 more for the Hammer PE 330MB drive. And for another $100, you'll get a whopping 730MB with the Hammer PE 730. The internal counterparts to these drives are even more temptingly priced: $339, $379, and $549. Two-year warranty is standard. FWB, 415/474-8055.

MicroNet's Advantage series feature sub-15ms average access times and transfer rates from 1.7MB/sec and up - formfit for a Mac II. External models are available with 270MB, 340MB, and 500MB for $395, $425, and $495, respectively. Internal versions, not dramatically cheaper, are $365, $395, and $465. Available through dealers, the drives have a one-year warranty. MicroNet, 714/453-6000.

Procom Technology offers a few drives in our price range. The 270MB external MD 270 has a street price of around $450; the 340MB MD 340 sells for around $650. The internal 240MB MU 240 can be found for about $350, and a 340MB version for about $500. Procom has a good reputation, but their wares ain't cheap. All drives require an installation kit (cables, mounts, and software), which adds an extra $35 or so to the price tag. Two-year warranty. Procom, 714/852-1000.

Two good options from Peripheral Land Inc. are the 270MB Turbo 270, with a street price of $363 ($288 for the internal version), and the 540MB Turbo 540 for $500 ($425 for the internal drive). The Turbo 270 has a two-year warranty, the Turbo 540, a three-year warranty. PLI, 510/657-2211.

No matter what you buy, remember that regular maintenance makes a world of difference in performance. Even the fastest drive will bog down over time as more and more files become fragmented. Back up your drive and then use a disk defragger/optimizer regularly. Norton Utilities and MacTools both offer solid defraggers and other useful disk utilities that can save both disk and data.

Video Accelerators

There's nothing worse than waiting for an image to redraw, or even a menu to pop open. A video accelerator can speed up such operations and boost resolution and color output.

Of course, reducing your finger-drumming time - and displaying more and sharper colors on-screen - can cost as much as $1,000. Note too, that you'll get an even bigger shot in the arm if your system already has a CPU upgrade. The exceptions are application-specific boards like the DayStar Charger, discussed later, which offers imaging acceleration only for Fractal Design's Painter, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Premiere.

Most Mac II's come with 8-bit, 256-color video setup, and that's enough for many users. But more and more users are bumping their heads against this color ceiling. A 16-bit board can generate 32,768 colors; a 24-bit board, up to 16.7 million colors.

Of course, it won't matter how many thousands of colors your video card and monitor can display if you typically work with 8-bit images. (For example, America Online's News Plus service displays news photographs only in 256 colors.) Make sure your primary image sources - online services, PhotoCD and clip art collections, office and service bureau scanners - provide 16-bit or 24-bit color images before you upgrade your video.

Boosting the resolution (the number of pixels displayed on-screen) will sharpen your images and postpone your next trip to the optician. To get to the next level - 832x624 and 1,024x768 resolution - you'll have to break down and buy a high-resolution video card. Just remember that some monitors can't display these higher resolutions, so make sure yours can before you buy.

Mac IIvx owners are the only lucky exception. Although IIvx's came with only 8-bit video, you can get 16-bit color output simply by adding more VRAM. Remove the old 256K SIMMs on the card, plug in two 512K VRAM SIMMs, and your IIvx will display 16-bit, 640x480 color output on 13- and 14-inch monitors. (You only need to add 512K to display 16-bit color on a 12-inch monitor.) Two 512K VRAM chips run around $70 and are available from most computer dealers and mail order houses.

Finally, if you plan on upgrading your Mac II and later plugging that snazzy video board into a Power Mac, hold on. Power Macs come with 16-bit color built-in. Unless you plan on buying a 24-bit video card for your Mac II, a video upgrade may not be a wise investment.

Like CPU accelerators, video accelerators are now available from just a handful of vendors. Two of the biggest manufacturers of Mac video boards - E-Machines and SuperMac - have been acquired by Radius. At press time, RasterOps said its video card line is undergoing "adjustments" that will make current model and pricing information obsolete. That leaves us with the Radius line to examine, along with some SE goodies and a specialty board.

Upgrade Spotlight: Video Accelerator

Installed:Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24XP

Experience: Grandpa could do it.

Installing the video accelerator card is a breeze. You simply insert a card into a NuBus slot, put the Mac's lid back on, and connect your monitor to the card's external port.

- CO

The Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24XP offers 24-bit color for monitors up to 16 inches. This seven-inch NuBus card will fit comfortably in Macs new and old. The PrecisionColor Pro 24XP's maxi-mum resolution is 832x624 and it sells for a mere $599. Radius, 800/227-2795.

In terms of video, the SE/30 is really a Mac II in disguise. It can display colors, but only on an external monitor. You can add more colors to your SE/30's external display with products from Lapis Technologies. The company's $499 ProColor Server 8/16 supports 16-bit color on monitors measuring up to 17 inches, and 8-bit color on 21-inch monitors. Resolution maxes out at 832x624 on 17-inch and smaller monitors, and 1,152x872 on 21-inch monitors. If you want photo-realistic 24-bit output, step up to the $599 ProColor Server 8/24, which supports 1,152x878 on displays up to 17 inches in size. The $699 ProColor Server 8/24x will do the same job for 21-inch displays. Lapis Technologies, 800/435-2747.

Finally, a goody for image-editing pros. If you live and breathe Fractal Design's Painter, Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Premiere, check out DayStar's $579 Charger board. The Charger uses two 64MHz DSP chips to accelerate graphics functions in these programs by at least 300 percent, according to DayStar. That means warp speed blurs, rotates, and resizes, among other accelerated effects.

DayStar bundles a number of programs with the Charger. PicturePress includes JPEG compression, a file converter, and a utility that creates searchable thumbnails of images on disk for easier tracking. DayStar, 800/962-2077.

CD-ROM Drives

Many Mac modems ship with a CD-ROM drive built right in, and for good reason. America is going multimedia mad, and a CD-ROM drive is the best way to get at it. Everything from virtual reality games to business databases to computer software is being served up on CD-ROM, and a computer without a CD-ROM drive will soon be as rare as one without a hard disk.

That doesn't mean you have to add a CD-ROM drive to your Mac II right now. But a CD-ROM drive does open the way to a mindboggling variety of content, such as shareware and clip art collections, databases like Books in Print and national telephone listings, encyclopedias and educational titles rich with photos and narrated video, and the latest cinematic space-age adventure games. If you're hankering to explore the world of multimedia, here's some guidance on choosing the right CD-ROM drive.

Upgrade Spotlight: CD-ROM

Installed: NEC 3Xp Plus

Experience: A cinch.

Adding an external CD-ROM drive involves connecting the drive to the Mac with a SCSI cable, and installing the provided driver software on the hard disk.

I didn't have to change the drive's SCSI address. But if I did, it would take flipping three DIP switches. Disabling the termination (so the Mac could see other devices further down the SCSI chain) would take one more switch flip.

If I'd been at all confused, NEC's documentation would have easily cleared things up.

- CO

Unlike the other upgrades considered in this feature, adding a CD-ROM drive won't speed up your system - on the contrary. CD-ROM drives are slower than floppy disk drives, although they have the capacity of high-end hard disks. A hard disk's speed is measured in tens of milliseconds and megabytes per second; a CD-ROM drive's speed is measured in hundreds of milliseconds and kilobytes per second.

Yet new models are getting faster and faster. Access times for double-speed drives hover in the 300-350ms range, and quad-speed drives are closing in on 200ms. Transfer rates have also jumped, from the 150KB/sec range to 600KB/sec.

It's the data transfer rate that determines whether a drive is single-speed (150KB/sec), double-speed (300KB/sec), triple-speed (450KB/sec), or quad-speed (600KB/sec). Most drive manufacturers are jumping directly from double-speed, today's standard, to quad-speed, and prices for these faster drives should tumble in the next six months. Just remember that, contrary to vendor hype, a quad-speed drive is not four times faster than a single-speed unit. Transfer rates are only one part of the CD-ROM performance picture.

In addition to its access speed and transfer rate, a CD-ROM drive's performance is affected by the cache built into the drive. Like most caches, a CD-ROM drive's cache keeps recently accessed data in special high-speed RAM for quick access. The bigger the cache, the more data it can hold and the faster the drive performs. Most drives have at least a 64K cache. For multimedia applications, look for drives with 256K.

How fast should your drive be? Some double-speed drives have been known to beat quad-speed units. If money's tight and you're running less demanding multimedia titles, you can certainly get by with a double-speed drive. However, wait a few months and quad-speed units should have very competitive prices.

A nice extra with any CD-ROM drive is the ability to read photos stored on a PhotoCD. PhotoCDs are a handy way to get high-quality color images into desktop published documents and presentations. This alone may be reason enough to buy a CD-ROM drive. All of the drives listed below are PhotoCD compatible.

The internal versus external question is easy to solve. Unless you have a IIvx, there's no room inside your Mac II for an internal CD-ROM drive. That means you'll have to buy an external drive. The upside: installation is a breeze and hooking it up later to another Mac is simple indeed.

Some notable drives:

Apple offers affordable double-speed performance with its $335 AppleCD 300e Plus, the same drive offered as an option with new Macs. The 300e Plus has a 256K cache, a data transfer rate of 342KB/sec, and a respectable average access time of 290ms. The solidly built drive does away with the standard disc "caddy," and instead employs an audio-CD-style slide-out drawer. The drive comes with a choice of three CD-ROM titles. For IIvx owners, the internal version is the AppleCD 300i Plus, which sells for $315.

For the multimedia-hungry, Apple's Multimedia Kit for Macintosh includes this drive plus AppleDesign Powered Speakers II, headphones, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, and your choice of three titles. Suggested retail is $479. Apple, 800/776-2333.

Procom's double-speed offering is the $399 MacCD-DX. The DX sports a 320ms average access time, a 300KB/sec data transfer rate, and a 64K cache. As with the Apple drive, you load discs via a tray. The list price is $399, but you can find units for under $350. Procom, 800/800-8600.

Chinon's CDA-535 is a double-speed drive boasting a 300KB/sec transfer rate, a 250ms access time, and a 256K cache. The price is also competitive: $379. Chinon, 800/441-0222.

PLI lists its MS 200 CD-ROM at a pricey $499, but says street prices run about $359. This double-speed drive not only works with both Macs and PCs, but carries impressive specs: a 330KB/sec transfer rate, a 200ms average access time, and a 256K cache. PLI, 510/657-2211.

The $419 NEC 3Xp Plus is the most expensive drive in our lineup, but in some ways, it's the most attractive. You'll find this triple-speed drive on the street for well under $400. It boasts the highest transfer rate in the group - a whopping 500KB/sec, plus a 256K cache, and 240ms average access time.

Like the PLI drive, the 3Xp can be used with both Macs and PCs. To load a disc, you just pop open the lid on this slim, 2.5-pound unit and place it on a spindle, just like a portable audio CD player. NEC, 708/860-9500.

To Upgrade Or Not

Transforming your Mac II into the latter-day equivalent of a Quadra has its limits, not to mention financial risks. If your Mac II was already pretty beefy to start with - a big hard disk, lots of RAM, and so on - it can make sense to stretch your investment a little bit farther with an upgrade. If you're stuck with an earlier, underpowered Mac II - the kind with 4MB of RAM and an 80MB hard disk - bite the bullet and step up to a newer system. A basic Quadra 630 with 4MB of RAM and a 250MB hard disk can be had for as little as $1,200. And though Power Macs are pretty pricey, you should definitely put one on your shopping list if that beloved Mac II needs not just one component upgrade, but three, or even two.

Chris Oakes writes Computer Currents' "Creative Mac" and "Mac Ways" columns.

To RAM Or Not To RAM

Adding more RAM to your Mac II is a good idea - up to a point. Adding RAM can extend your Mac's usefulness, make programs like Photoshop move a little quicker, and minimize the use of the Mac's slower virtual memory scheme. Your remodeled Mac (especially one running System 7.x) should have at least 8MB of RAM; jumping to 12MB costs another $200 - a reasonable proposition.

But don't get RAM happy. For starters, your Mac II RAM investment isn't mobile - the chips won't fit in newer Macs. If you really need a fast system with gobs of RAM, break down and buy that Power Mac. RAM ain't cheap and you might as well pour it into a thoroughly modern system instead of a souped up Mac II.

- CO