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Mac Daniel #21

For Web Work, Should I Replace My Quadra?

25 November 1998

NCS sent this letter: I have a Quadra 650 running on System 7.5 with 56MB RAM and a HD of 250 MB. I also have an external 3GB HD. I use this machine at home, for surfing, and for administration purposes of my small business. I also use it to design web pages in HTML and run Photoshop (web images).

So far it works OK. But now I would really like to buy a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver or use Netscape Communicators' Composer, but all these are either not compatible or require a PowerPC to run. Even the recent upgrade from Adobe PageMill only runs on a PowerPC.

Is there a cheap way to upgrade to a PowerPC (I like the new G3 desktop series but am not ready to spend my money yet on them) or maybe I just should look for a 68040 compatible good WYSIWYG editor? (If they exist at all.)

My problem is mostly budget related at this moment. Sell, upgrade or buy software?

Mac Daniel writes: I managed to do a fair bit of web work on a Centris 610, which had about half the power of your Quadra 650. It wasn't fast, but I could work in Claris Home Page (a nice WYSIWYG editor), Photoshop, and GraphicConverter. Still, the computer was a real bottleneck.

In June, I sold my Centris and bought a UMAX SuperMac J700/180, the rough equivalent of a Power Mac 7300/180. It was a night-and-day difference. And I considered US$800 a very reasonable price at the time. Compared with adding a CD-ROM, larger hard drive, accelerator, and memory to my Centris, I came out several hundred dollars ahead buying a new computer with much more power than the Centris could dream of.

The used Mac market is pretty incredible. Prices are dropping faster than expected, thanks to the affordable iMac and the fact that nobody knows if Mac OS X will work on anything not designed around a G3 processor.

As I've mentioned several times in the past, the Power Mac 7500 is a great step up for anyone who doesn't already have a Power Mac. It starts out with a nice 100 MHz PowerPC 601, but you can replace that very inexpensively with a used 132-200 MHz 604 card -- or more expensively with G3 cards in the 220-400 MHz range.

I've seen basic 7500s for as little as US$550 (without CD-ROM) -- and rarely for more than US$800. Other good buys would be the SuperMac J700 or S900: both have more expansion slots and drive bays than the 7500.

If you're making money doing web work on your Quadra 650, the increased speed of a Power Mac could pay for itself in a few weeks.

Recent Mac Daniel & Friends columns

• Backing up your Mac, Charlie Ruggiero, 2/4/2000
• Connecting Macs, Chris Lawson, 2/1/2000
• Raising the dead, Manuel Mejia Jr., Mac Daniel, 1/18/2000
• Storage Devices for Older Macs, Manuel Mejia Jr., 12/31/1999
• SCSI or IDE hard drive?, Charlie Ruggiero, 12/28/1999
• Why System 6 for Mac IIs?, Manuel Mejia, 12/13/1999
• Should I Wait for OS X?, Dan Knight, 11/29/1999
• Why System 6 for Compact Macs?, Manuel Mejia, 11/26/1999
• Should I buy a USB card?, Charlie Ruggiero, 11/23/1999
• Online with a PowerBook Duo, Julie Fugett, Mac Daniel, 11/17/1999
• more on the Mac Daniel index

Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the index to see if we've already addressed your problem recently -- and look in the archive if it's not in the recent columns. If not, visit our staff page for the names of several people who may be able to help you.

Dan Knight, webmaster, Low End Mac

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