PM 6500/250

[risc_management]

I managed to liberate a sweet Power Macintosh 6500/250 yesterday. I also received the Multiscan 15AV monitor and Color StyleWriter 4100 that often accompanied it in educational purchases for free.

It's replaced my 8600/200(G4350) as my primary vintage workstation for now. The 250 603ev is quite snappy, and I love the case design for a change. I tossed 9.2.2 on her, and she's maxed with 128 MB of RAM. 9.2.2 and Macintosh Manager (to my MMgr and AppleShare IP server) work flawlessly. The monitor is also perfect. No yellowing on either.

The 4100 is localtalk-compatible, so she's another addition to my AppleTalk network on my localtalk segment.

Edit: I'm contemplating throwing a 7200 RPM 20 GB IDE HD in her. I wonder if the increased spindle speed will improve drive performance. I'm not really sure what the spindle speed of the WD 4 GB drive they shipped with is. I do know the controller only supports transfer speeds in the range of 8-15 MB/s. Clarify if I'm incorrect on that, as I don't have many ATA Macs other than new ones.

 

[coius]

I think they only did like 5MB/s. It wasn't until the Beige G3 that they increased the IDE to EIDE @ 16MB/s

 

[risc_management]

I think they only did like 5MB/s. It wasn't until the Beige G3 that they increased the IDE to EIDE @ 16MB/s

That's disappointing, but it does ring a bell about the G3 being the first EIDE Mac.

 

[MultiFinder]

Nice score! The 6500's a nice machine for OS 9. I have a 6500/225 and absolutely love it. The only pesky thing about it is the 128 meg RAM limit, which also pretty much keeps it an OS 9 machine. It's still nice though

 

[risc_management]

Nice score! The 6500's a nice machine for OS 9. I have a 6500/225 and absolutely love it. The only pesky thing about it is the 128 meg RAM limit, which also pretty much keeps it an OS 9 machine. It's still nice though

Thanks! I think you mentioned you've been using your 6500 more lately, right?

I have actually wanted a 6500 since 1997. Like the 8/9600, I couldn't afford it back then and was stuck on a 6100/60 and 8100/80. Now I have both (too bad I was 10 years late...)

The sad part is, she was blazing fast when she came out. Now everyone talks about how limited the entire 5/6xxx line was.

 

[MultiFinder]

Nice score! The 6500's a nice machine for OS 9. I have a 6500/225 and absolutely love it. The only pesky thing about it is the 128 meg RAM limit, which also pretty much keeps it an OS 9 machine. It's still nice though

Thanks! I think you mentioned you've been using your 6500 more lately, right?

I have actually wanted a 6500 since 1997. Like the 8/9600, I couldn't afford it back then and was stuck on a 6100/60 and 8100/80. Now I have both (too bad I was 10 years late...)

The sad part is, she was blazing fast when she came out. Now everyone talks about how limited the entire 5/6xxx line was.

I use my 6500 all the time, even though I have a dual 500 G4 and MacBook sitting right in front of me

Well, they are limited by todays standards. However, in the context of their time, they were fairly nice. The 6500/300 was the first computer (Mac or PC) to hit 300MHz The only thing that I find limiting in any way is the 128 meg RAM limit. Other than that it's a fantastic machine. Oh, and by all means, put a larger HDD in it. You'll find yourself using it alot, and it's bound to get filled up quickly

 

[Mike Richardson]

Our second Mac ever was a Power Macintosh 6500/250, we got it with the 17" display, and Color StyleWriter 4100, all brand new, I think it totaled $3000 or something, and of course a few months later Beige G3s came out > I still have all of it here. I even got an old OS X version running on it.

As for the hard drive. Mine came with a Quantum 4 GB which failed after about 4 years of use. I replaced it with a Seagate 40 GB and it was noticeably faster booting up and loading applications. So go ahead and drop in a newer hard drive, it will help.

 

[Dan 7.1]

agreed, i put a 7200rpm 15gb maxtor drive with 8mb cache into my 6500/225 and it sped up nicely.

they're great machines. i'd recommend 8.6 on it personally, doesn't take up too much ram yet still has all the best features of os9.

 

[Unknown_K]

I would think most 5400 RPM drives would saturate the IDE bus on a 6500.