Correcting David Pogue's quote on 24-bit color on the Quadra 800

[David Cook]

In the book, Macworld Mac Secrets, pages 482-483, David Pogue claims about the Quadra 800: "Interestingly, this model can't produce 24-bit color (the "millions of colors" setting) on any monitor, no matter how much VRAM or what video card you buy for it -- Apple deliberately crippled this machine to enhance the attractiveness of the Quadra 900 and 950 models." (https://archive.org/details/macworldmacsecre00pogu/page/482/mode/2up)

Really? Here is a period-appropriate commonly-available Apple-brand Macintosh Display Card 8*24 displaying 24-bit color on a Quadra 800 using the original launch system software (7.1).


Secondly, the Quadra 900 had been discontinued and replaced by the 950 nine months prior to the introduction of the Quadra 800. So, the reference to crippling the 800 to make the 900 more attractive doesn't make sense.

What David should have said was "For many types of work, 16-bit color is sufficient..." and "Users still have many good choices of third-party 24-bit boards." Oh, that's exactly what Macworld said on page 118 when they reviewed the machine back in April 1993.

MacWorld 9304 April 1993 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

MacWorld 9304 April 1993

archive.org

Unfortunately, Pogue's quote has made it onto the Wikipedia pages for both the Quadra 800 and Quadra 950. So, unless anyone knows of evidence that Pogue was partially correct, I'll edit that quote out of those Wikipedia pages in the coming days.

- David

 

[Phipli]

In the book, Macworld Mac Secrets, pages 482-483, David Pogue claims about the Quadra 800: "Interestingly, this model can't produce 24-bit color (the "millions of colors" setting) on any monitor, no matter how much VRAM or what video card you buy for it -- Apple deliberately crippled this machine to enhance the attractiveness of the Quadra 900 and 950 models." (https://archive.org/details/macworldmacsecre00pogu/page/482/mode/2up)

Really? Here is a period-appropriate commonly-available Apple-brand Macintosh Display Card 8*24 displaying 24-bit color on a Quadra 800 using the original launch system software (7.1).
View attachment 61861

Secondly, the Quadra 900 had been discontinued and replaced by the 950 nine months prior to the introduction of the Quadra 800. So, the reference to crippling the 800 to make the 900 more attractive doesn't make sense.

What David should have said was "For many types of work, 16-bit color is sufficient..." and "Users still have many good choices of third-party 24-bit boards." Oh, that's exactly what Macworld said on page 118 when they reviewed the machine back in April 1993.
View attachment 61862

MacWorld 9304 April 1993 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

MacWorld 9304 April 1993

archive.org

Unfortunately, Pogue's quote has made it onto the Wikipedia pages for both the Quadra 800 and Quadra 950. So, unless anyone knows of evidence that Pogue was partially correct, I'll edit that quote out of those Wikipedia pages in the coming days.

- David

The built in video can't do 24bit, regardless of how much video RAM you fit (even if you have enough for the resolution). But yes, this doesn't impact video cards. They do 24bit.

There are also things online that say the 840av can't do Millions, which I believed, until I noticed they do. Quite often people seem to think the 840 is just a tweaked 800, but it isn't. For example, the video in the 840 is closer to the 8100 AV card.

 

[David Cook]

built in video can't do 24bit

Yes. Agreed. Built-in video is limited to thousands (16-bit) in the Quadra 800.

The statement "or what video card you buy for it" is what caused me concern. I think his quote should be removed from Wikipedia for both the factual errors and the remarks that followed.

 

[Phipli]

The statement "or what video card you buy for it" is what caused me concern. I think his quote should be removed from Wikipedia for both the factual errors and the remarks that followed.

I'll edit it now. I've corrected a few things over the last while. My favorite was the 840 page that said you could run OS9 using a PPC card in the nonexistent PDS slot, and that the programmers buttons were on the front... under a picture of them not on the front.

 

[Phipli]

@David Cook changed it to this.

Macintosh Quadra 800 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Infuriatingly, an article by the design engineer describing the circuit has fallen off the internet, so I've done my best and hope nobody rolls it back. The issue is they often hold published data in higher esteem than correct data. :/

 

[joshc]

Infuriatingly, an article by the design engineer describing the circuit has fallen off the internet,

Do you still have the link for it?

 

[Phipli]

Do you still have the link for it?

It isn't on the wayback machine, do you have somewhere else?

http://www.enteract.com/~ralentz/old/mac/hardware/dale-adams/video-quad8-centris.html

http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/hardware/dale-adams/

Dale Adams' Mac Informative Essays

 

[joshc]

It isn't on the wayback machine, do you have somewhere else?

http://www.enteract.com/~ralentz/old/mac/hardware/dale-adams/video-quad8-centris.html

http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/hardware/dale-adams/

Dale Adams' Mac Informative Essays

Dale Adams on the Fall '93 '040 Macs

Interleaved Memory on Centris 650 & Quadra 800

Quadra 700 & 900 On-Board Video Capabilities

Centris & Quadra 800 Video Capabilities

 

[Phipli]

Dale Adams on the Fall '93 '040 Macs

Interleaved Memory on Centris 650 & Quadra 800

Quadra 700 & 900 On-Board Video Capabilities

Centris & Quadra 800 Video Capabilities

Cheers - it was telling me that "this page hasn't been archived". Made the mistake of believing it

 

[Phipli]

Marketing research data has shown that a very large percentage of Quadra users do not use the onboard video, but rather use an accelerated video card capable of driving a 2-page display at 24 bpp. Since it was not reasonable to burden the price of every C610, C650 and Q800 with the cost of a 2-page 24 bpp frame buffer, the 24 bpp feature was dropped altogether (with a net result of a substantial decrease in cost).

I.e. buy a 24bit card if you want 24bit video.

 

[joshc]

Made the mistake of believing it

The pages appeared to be moved to a different domain and I think there were some broken links involved.

Wayback's system is quite complex - different snapshots can exist for the same page, so sometimes a previous snapshot will be OK but a later snapshot says it doesn't exist. There is no direct link between the two. So it's easy to mistake this as, it has no archive of that page at all, when it indeed does.

 

[Phipli]

different snapshots can exist for the same page, so sometimes a previous snapshot will be OK but a later snapshot says it doesn't exist. There is no direct link between the two

Oh, I know. I tried at least three dates.

The thing I hate is how if you follow a link it will often jump forward in time to a snapshot from after the page went dead and you get caught by some dumb redirect they've archived.

 

[joshc]

Annoyingly Wayback will also take an existing/current site's robots.txt and therefore wipe out all its old archives if the current site says it doesn't want to be archived. This has resulted in a lot of sites being removed from the wayback for no good reason.

 

[Phipli]

Annoyingly Wayback will also take an existing/current site's robots.txt and therefore wipe out all its old archives if the current site says it doesn't want to be archived. This has resulted in a lot of sites being removed from the wayback for no good reason.

I've seen that happen.

Then there are the companies that have an European, UK and US website... Formac for example. Companies that were bought by others and the wayback keeps jumping to the new pages with redirects to the useless parent companies site (Interware) and various other things.

And form request download pages

 

[olePigeon]

Is it a hardware issue or ROM issue? Could 24-bit mode be enabled with a custom ROM?

 

[Phipli]

Is it a hardware issue or ROM issue? Could 24-bit mode be enabled with a custom ROM?

Hardware. Its RAMDAC doesn't support 24bit.

 

[David Cook]

changed it to this.

Perfect! I like how the reference points to a technical page with notes from the original engineer.

 

[thellmer]

Glad you updated it as it was that very page that made me question it over on a FB Forum. But my Quadra 800 is living proof that 24 bit works fine with a 24 bit card. I am looking at Millions of colors on mine via the Apple 8-24 Nubus card as we speak

 

[Phipli]

I corrected the bit that implied the 8200 was sold  instead of the 7200 in Europe too. Both were available in the UK, not sure about elsewhere, but the UK is still geographically in Europe, and was in the 90s too.

 

[Bolle]

not sure about elsewhere

Same here in Germany… we have both 7200 and 8200.