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Launched 1996, the 6400 was available in two versions, with a 180 or a 200MHz processor. This is the slightly weaker one. Its original 16MB RAM have been upgraded to 48, the maximum is 136.
The onboard video isn't exciting, but typical for the machines of its time: 1MB of VRAM gives thousands of colors at 800×600 or 256 colors at 1024×768. Never mind though, this one is equipped with a Picasso VillageTronic card capable of some incredible resolutions, getting the last out of my AppleVision 1710 Display.
What it lacked in video, it made up in sound: this model has a built in subwoofer that, pardon the expression, really rocks. If you want external speakers, be sure to plug them into the back, the front plug is for headphones and will mute this subwoofer, too. Unless you have fairly good speakers, stick to the built-in sound.
The slide-in mainboard arrangement is very similar to the Performa 630, and it has a similar array of slots, but with the addition of two PCI slots. So I thought I could install the Ethernet adapter from my spare 630. I was wrong. The 630 has a COMM slot, the 6400 a COMM II slot. Physically, it is the same, just soldered in the other way round, so it's not very obvious and it took me a while to figure out why it wouldn't fit in. Guess I'll get me a PCI network card instead.
According to the now sadly defunct
Virtuelles
Computermuseum, this Mac was nicknamed
Brüllwürfel in Germany, due to its advanced
sound capabilities. Brüllwürfel could be loosely
translated as screaming cube
, it's hip slang for small
multimedia speakers with a bad signal-to-noise ratio.
Like all the early tower Macs, the 6400 has a vacant accessible drive bay, which was most often used for a zip drive but could accomodate a harddisk as well. First, of course, you had to open the case.
You will find two buttons under the front of the 6400. They will be between the two front feet. Press them up and pull outward on the front cover. There are three pressure fit tabs up each side of the front cover. I found using a flat head screw driver helped to pry them free as I was pulling the cover out. Be careful not to damage the cover. The top bezel removes the same way but does not have the 2 buttons and is in much tighter. Next locate a screw in the back of the system very close to the top. Unscrew it and slide back the top cover about an inch then lift up straight. Now you have access to the wiring through a cutout on top of the system and the bay area through the front. Reinstall in reverse order. You will have to buy a SCSI mounting kit.
(Mind that Apple's warranty didn't cover the plastics. If you really wanted to swap drives, you were supposed to have it done by an authorized technician.)
Problems don't end there. Just like the Peforma 630, the 6400 has a SCSI CD-ROM drive, but an IDE harddisk. Therefore the internal SCSI interface is relatively slow, good enough for a zip drive, but not entirely satisfying for a harddisk. Some users have chosen to install a seperate SCSI card, but you have only two PCI slots to go with.
An interesting question is whether you couldn't put in a second IDE drive in the usual master/slave arrangement. I found nothing about that.
The upper drive bay is a 5¼" bay with power and 50 pin SCSI cables. The cables in the upper drive bay will drive any narrow SCSI 2 compatible device. To secure the device in the bay, a 5¼" drive sled is required. Obtaining one of these in the UK can be the first snag as most dealers either won't supply the sled or will only supply 3½" ones. They can be found by shopping around. These are standard parts and are the same as the sleds for the 5¼" bays found in other Power Macintoshes.
There is a second snag when fitting a 3½" device using this sled. The sled comes with screw holes for attaching a 3 1/2" device that position the device at the front of the bay. However, in this position, the cables in the bay are too short to reach. Fully securing the 3½" drive using a 5¼" sled requires a conversion kit that allows the 3½" drive to be attached at the rear of the bay. These are available from any good electronics or computer parts shops.
Of course, if you want to install a zip drive you need to exchange the upper bezel. Complete kits are still sold. They cost about $25.
Of course, first and foremost I tried out some games. But it's not a quantum leap compared to the Performa 630. Independent game development for the Mac pretty much came to a halt in the mid-90s, so there are very few games that require a PowerMac. Some games take advantage of the higher screen resolutions, with some it's a liability, because they only run at 640×480 anyway, and you have to set the resolution to that or play in a window. But it has become my favorite Mac for playing desktop games. Anyway, below you will find a list of all the games I have tried, and my experiences.
| Darwin's Dilemma | Puzzle | 90 |  |
|
| Ishido | Puzzle | |
||
| Jotto ][ | Puzzle | 93 | |
|
| SimCity 2000 | strat | |
||
| SimTower | sim | 94 |  |
|
| Wolfenstein 3D | FPS | |
||
| Keibot | Puzzle | 95 | |
|
| Super Othello | Othello | 96 |  |
|
| Connect 4 (M.M.) | Connect 4 | 97 | |
Miles Michelson |
| Diablo | RPG | |
||
| Kalaha | Mancala | 98 |  |
|
| MacStones | Puzzle | 99 | |
Craig Landrum |
| Waurie | Mancala | 01 |  |
David Grogono |
SimCity 2000
