Regarding the 575 vs 580

[Guybrush3pwood]

I've been wanting to buy a 575 for years, but I can never seem to find any via craigslist or any other local sources and I've been unlucky in getting any off of ebay (won once, arrived completely smashed to bits). I'm getting to the point where I feel like maybe I should just buy a 580 off ebay and call it a day. Thoughts on this? Should I just keep waiting or is the 580 a worthy substitute?

 

[Bunsen]

It's roughly the same machine.  The major differences are that the 580 doesn't have the nice Sony Trinitron display, and that it uses an internal IDE drive, which makes it easy to upgrade or replace compared to SCSI drives.  So that's one minus and one plus.  Depends which of those is more important to you.

 

[Guybrush3pwood]

How's the display on the 580? Surely not as good as the 575, but bad?

 

[unity]

I did not know that about the display.

 

[68krazy]

The display on the 520/550/575, once you recap and adjust the analog board, is absolutely stunning. Gorgeous picture tube.

 

[Bunsen]

It's adequate.

One other difference to note is that the logic boards are not interchangeable between the 575 and 580.  Though they are both slide-in edge-connector types, the pinout is different.  The 575 belongs to the 68k Performa / LC / Colour Classic family, and the 580 to the 630 / 5xxx / 6xxx family.

 

[Cory5412]

Adequacy seconded.

The display on the 520-575 is very beautiful, but if you can't find one and you want that type of machine, then your remaining choice is the LC580. That could have some benefits in the way of cheaper modern storage options (IDE to CF adapter) and in general, if you were used to pretty cheap CRTs in the '90s, you won't really notice that this one is "bad" -- but if you were used to expensive Apple-branded Trinitrons, then you may notice that the one in the 580 isn't quite as good as the one in the 575 and older.

If you haven't really used CRTs in a few years and you don't have like an LC520 right next to you to compare, you may not notice the "worse" display at all.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Video I/O slot/TV Tuner is a very big plus for the 580 along with the MPEG Media System.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

Keep in mind shipping an LC5xx is a risky proposition, especially if the seller doesn't package it adequately.

 

[Guybrush3pwood]

Keep in mind shipping an LC5xx is a risky proposition, especially if the seller doesn't package it adequately.

Yup, already ran into that once. I died a little on the inside.

 

[Bunsen]

Do you still have any usable parts from that?

 

[Schmoburger]

I find the 580 display cringeworthy in all honesty, however I had a 575 for some time, as well as the Diamondtron CRT Studio display and the beautiful Pismo LCD to compare with... Basically all the best monitors apple ever had, so I guess really any cheap 14" CRT is going to be hard to swallow by comparison.

For what the machine can do, it is adequate however. And a cool simple little hack I did involved using a 6xxx series logic board with the 580 backing plate screwed in and creating a nice compact little AIO Powermac... albeit a fairly slow one. However back in the early 2000's when I did it, it was still a usable machine in this guise.

 

[olePigeon]

Assuming he got a 580, can you do a CRT swap from a 575?

 

[Gorgonops]

Technicalities about the monitor itself aside I don't think the bezel of a 580 would fit over a 575's tube. As I recall Triniton tubes are shaped differently than conventional shadow mask CRTs, enough so that you wouldn't be able to snug the Trinitron up snugly to the plastic.

 

[Guybrush3pwood]

Do you still have any usable parts from that?

No, it was completely blasted. I think I saved a floppy drive and that was it. The lady used plastic bags as padding.

 

[Bunsen]

The Trinitron tube's front face is vertically flat, ie only curved left to right.  As the 580 uses a non-Trinitron tube with curvature in both the horizontal and vertical planes, changing one over will involve either shaving the bezel or leaving a gap round the edges - and that's leaving aside any electrical / signal / wiring problems you might run into.

On the other hand, if you happen to find a 52xx or 53xx PowerMac / Performa / LC someplace, it's been shown that a 580 or 630 logic board will slot right in and work, creating a sort of plus-sized 580.  The performance issues with 52xx and 53xx mainboards so crippled the onboard PowerPC - itself not the fastest of the bunch to start with - that it's arguably an upgrade to convert them to 68k.
 
NB the 54xx and 55xx mainboards were greatly improved over their predecessors and don't suffer from the same problems.  Those machines are probably best left unmolested.