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Look up that old Mac: Mac model databases

Every now and then it may be fun or useful to look up an old Mac system, especially when troubleshooting aspects of it. Here are some resources for looking up specific system information on older Apple products.

Topher Kessler MacFixIt Editor
Topher, an avid Mac user for the past 15 years, has been a contributing author to MacFixIt since the spring of 2008. One of his passions is troubleshooting Mac problems and making the best use of Macs and Apple hardware at home and in the workplace.
Topher Kessler
2 min read

Every now and then, having the ability to look up old Mac models can be fun. If not for nostalgic reasons, you might be needing to help someone revive an old Mac and wish to look up some of the specifications and capabilities of the system. For instance, if you have some spare RAM modules and wish to see if they can be used in an old Mac, then checking the Mac's RAM type as well as its maximum supported RAM may be useful information to have.

You can always use a search engine like Google to find information about an old Mac system, but it is also useful to have a central resource or two where you know models are listed. Wikipedia has some good entries on various Mac systems and product lines, but even those can be organized differently and make finding information be a bit difficult.

To accommodate those who like to have information on past Apple products, there are several resources available:

  1. Apple-History
    One of these resources is Apple-History, which is a database that covers past Mac modes. The site is a fairly simple design, and offers options to sort products by release date, product family, and the processor used in them.

  2. Shrine of Apple
    Shrine of Apple is a new Apple product site, and while the name may be a bit amusing and definitely thought up by die-hard Apple fans, the site does have quite a bit of information about Apple products, including some very high-quality images of practically every Apple product on the site. The site's design is rather elegant; systems are categorized by product family. While not as complete as Apple-History, it does offer more details on non-Mac products such as displays and disk drives that Apple has offered.

  3. MacTracker
    A final option for looking up past Apple products is MacTracker, which is a free application that has a regularly updated database of Macs, servers, software, and peripheral devices. MacTracker is perhaps the most extensive and complete database of Apple products that I have come across, and it has a number of neat features like offering links to firmware updates and instructions on user-upgradable components like memory.

Do you have a good resource for looking up older Mac model information? If so then share them below in the comments.



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