Have you ever looked at a Mac and wondered, “Just how much memory will this thing hold?” or “How fast is the processor?” Maybe you thought about buying a used Mac, but you wanted to find out more about what version of OS X it will support. How do you know?
There are two wonderful tools that, together, will tell you all you could ever want to know about a Mac and then some. We’ll discuss both of them here.
If You’re in Front of the Mac
If you want to know about a Mac in front of you, the quickest way to find out about the machine you’re using is to go the “Apple” menu in the upper RH corder and choose “About this Mac”. If you’re using Mac OS X, you’ll get a box that looks like this:
Here, you’ll learn about what version of OS X you’re using (10.4.10 in this example), what processor you machine has, how fast it is, and how much memory you have. For 80% of the times you need to know, this is all you’ll need.
If you need more details, the best way to find out all about it is to use the “System Profiler”. And it’s incredibly easy to get to. Just click that “More Info…” button you in the “About this Mac” window.
System Profiler opens up and shows you all kinds of details about your Mac. It will look slightly different between versions of OS X, but you’ll pretty quickly get the hang of it. It can be kind of fun to see all the gory details of which USB devices are attached or how much video memory you have. (Well, fun if you’re me.)
If You’re Not in Front of the Mac
How can you tell about a Mac that’s not in front of you? There’s two ways, the official way and the easy way.
The official way is to go to Apple’s specifications web site:
http://support.apple.com/specs/
The easy way is to use a program called “MacTracker”. I find this little gem invaluable in my line of work. You may find it handy, or at least entertaining.
http://mactracker.dreamhosters.com/
It can tell you all the details of nearly any Apple product every released. There’s notes about the products, and for some Macs, even a recording of the start-up chime. That was a trip down memory lane for me. I still remember the guitar strum of my first PowerMac 6100/60. Ah… Good times…
