Happy Birthday Macintosh
09:32 on Saturday, January 24, 2004 • 5 responses
Jan 24, 2004 marks the Apple Macintosh’s 20th anniversary. What you think about Macs, they were (and to some extent, are) undeniably one of the most important devices in the history of computing.
Macs I’ve had over the years:
- SE/30: 16MHz 68030 CPU and 16MHz 68882 FPU, making it the fastest Mac in that form factor for quite some time. It had a whopping 32 MB of RAM and a fine-tastic 9” 1 bit screen with a resolution of 512 x 342
- IIfx: The machine used to render some scenes in Terminator II. Bought it at substantial discount when I worked for Apple in college. It had a 40MHz 68030 and came stock with 16MB of RAM. Upgrading the machine to 32MB of RAM cost me $450. I started coding on this machine, writing Photoshop plug-ins, databases, games, and ‘desk accessories’ (anyone remember those?!). Towards the end its power supply went to shit, so I had to run the machine with the cover off and a floor-standing fan blowing into it. Not pretty, but it worked. Just before I sold the machine, I ponied up for a new power supply—mostly because I didn’t want to give up my fan.
- Radius System 100: My first and last Macintosh clone. 110MHz PPC 601, loaded with 264MB RAM. All three NuBus slots were filled on this machine—one with a video card, one with a ProTools audio interface (no TDM), and one with a SampleCell II card. I wrote a lot of music and published a few books with this machine.
- PowerMac G3: The blue and white one, 350MHz G3 processor with 512MB RAM. Poog used this machine until last year (it ran Panther remarkably well), and now it sits triumphantly in a cardboard box in the bedroom.
- PowerBook 2400c: To date still my favorite PowerBook. Small (4.4 lbs), nimble, had a great screen, decent specs (240MHz PPC 603, 48MB RAM), and I took it everywhere. Died a miserable death due to a logic board failure.
- PowerBook G3 Lombard): 333MHz model, 512MB RAM. Still in use by a composer in Chicago, I believe. My least favorite PowerBooks. Too big and heavy to take anywhere. Great screen, though.
- PowerBook G4/500: My first foray into a desktop replacement machine. Maxed this thing out with RAM (1GB) and HD (60GB) upgrades. With the exception of the crappy video chipset, quite capable, still in use by Poog.
- PowerBook G4/1GHz (titanium 15”): Maxed this one out too. I love this machine, though it’s quite noisy and not particularly suitable for use in an audio studio. Had no desire to upgrade it until I started doing all my digital photo stuff in 16-bit, which can be somewhat torturous. Kind of wish the metal PowerBooks traveled as well as the iBooks. Might figure out some way to sell this machine in favor of a G4 iBook or 12” PowerBook, which would be more ideal for my kind of travel.
Very rarely do I buy machines when they first come out (did this only with the PB G4/500, and I wish I hadn’t). I usually buy refurbs or discontinued models, mostly because I get them for really cheap and I don’t really buy into the idea that a computer is rendered less capable just because something better has been released. With that in mind (they’ll probably release new models next week but the refurb price on the CPU was too good to pass up), I’d like to announce the newest setup in etherfarm’s Macintosh family:
