I’ve recently been listening to Jason Snell’s excellent 20 Macs for 2020. Even though it’s several years old at this point its been a really great trip down memory lane and really enjoyable in terms of revisiting old macs that I both knew about, and some that my family actually owned. In light of that I wanted to make my own little record of of Macs that I’ve owned or at least considered “mine” in some respect.
Mac SE/30
The SE/30 was the first computer that lived in our house. I have memories of my dad bringing a Mac home from his work a few times and setting it up on the kitchen table (probably a Mac Plus or an SE), but the SE/30 was the first computer that I used and learned to love. While I’m sure I did other things, what I remember most vividly was using MacPaint to create a series of art pieces. For some reason they were all “paintings” of Primate enclosures. I made grass on the bottom of the frame, hung swinging lines and ropes from trees to the ground – everything my apes needed.
In a way that probably has deep psychological meaning that I’ve not uncovered, I named these works of art “POWER1” incrementing the number. I know I got as far as POWER5, but I don’t think I made any more than that. When we were moving to a new computer, my father informed me that the art wouldn’t make the transition to the new machine. I’m not clear why this is the case as I’m sure there were tools for migrating the files from whatever version of MacPaint we had to the new machine. I had asked about getting a color computer and my dad said he was planning on it but the files wouldn’t work with the new computer.
The SE/30 didn’t came out in 1989, which means we had this computer when I was in 3rd or 4th grade.
Macintosh IIci
Shortly after its release we got a Macintosh IIci. I believe it was sometime in 1991 or 1992?
The Mac IIci was the computer on which I did everything. This is where I plumbed the depths of the Macintosh. Where I learned everything about extensions, shareware, SCSI, System 7. I learned to type on this machine. While I learned a little from Mavis Beacon teaches Typing I think it’s more likely that I learned to type just because I was writing email or in chatrooms.
In 1992, my parents bought me a years’ subscription to AOL, which was amazing at the time. I know in later years it was very looked down upon but AOL was a lot of fun for a kid like me. And I was able to connect to some friends who also used the service.
In 1994 or 95 after doing some under-the-table work for a family friend, I went down to the local Egghead Software and purchased a game I’d had my eye on for months: The Journeyman Project on CD-ROM. It cost $60 (in retrospect that really is a crazy amount for a game, most AAA games with dozens of hours of gameplay don’t cost that much these days.)
It wasn’t until 30 some-odd years later that I realized how insanely expensive this computer was. The list price on release was $6269. Not only that, but my father purchased a video card (Rasterworks, or something like that) to run the 14″ monitor with. We also had a CD-ROM (with a tray!), and an NEC Laser Printer.
Centris 650
The Centris 650 was the computer that my dad had at his Apartment after my parents divorced. I loved this machine because it was so fast and so new. Mostly I remember playing Myst on it. Also among the discs that had come with it was something called Nautilus – which turned out to be a subscription CD-ROM, sort of a software magazine. It had software demos, and media on it. A few years later this kind of thing became popular to bundle with a magazine subscription. My favorite was MacAddict.
PowerMac 6100
I don’t recall how we ended up with this, except I think at the time my Mom was dating an IT guy who had access to some used hardware being sold off. The 6100 was the entry level of the PowerPC line of Macs, but hey, it was a PowerPC. I used this machine in my late teen years for all my internet shenanigans, which included IRC, a Transformers MUSH, building webpages, playing Myst (again). If I was home, I was almost certainly sitting at the desk with this thing. The Startup sound on this one was a light guitar twang, instead of a synthesizer chord.
iMac G3 (Lime)
As a graduation gift, my mother got me a Lime Green iMac G3. I think I knew it was coming, as my mom had asked me about the color. The hardware on this machine was limited, but it should be noted how big of a jump this was for me. The previous machine (the PowerMac 6100) ran at 66Mhz. This machine ran at 333Mhz – Five times the clock speed. Shortly after getting it I replaced the stock mouse with a Microsoft Intellimouse – a possibility because of the iMac having included USB ports. It was quite expensive ($75 at Circuit City if memory serves), but worth having. It felt a little “wrong” purchasing a product of “the enemy”, but it was a darn good mouse. I used it for something like 10 years.
I remember that I let my friend Mike edit his feature length Predator sequel on that iMac. Tragically somewhere toward the end of the process, the file got corrupted and the whole editing process had to be done again.
PowerMac G4
This was the first Mac that I bought with my own money. After graduating high school, I worked full time while living at home, and had a lot of disposable income. I bought it with a 19″ ViewSonic CRT monitor. I was so pleased to have what was nearly the top of the line.
I took this to university with me, and when coming home for the Christmas break I carried it on the plane and shoved it under the seat in front of me. Surprisingly, it fit. I took it with me because I was doing work for my job while I was at home.
I wrote the first LiveJournal Mac client on this machine. I wrote it in RealBASIC, a sort of VisualBASIC for the Mac. The app was a mess. I barely knew what I was doing, and called Brad Fitzpatrick in for a little help. He didn’t know anything about Macs, but he did know a lot about programming and did something magical that made it work. One of the sins of that app was that I stored the user’s password in a file in cleartext. I think I understood at the time it was a bad idea, but relied on obscurity to save me. Unfortunately my poor architecture made it challenging to update. Some random user chewed me out online saying Mac users always got the short end of the stick – that the lack of updates was a priorities issue and once again Mac users were being ignored. It was interesting to be on the other side of those comments.
Even though it’s been well over a decade since I got rid of this machine, I actually still have the box.
PowerBook G3
My first year of being married, my wife and I were going to school and living in a basement apartment. I’d taken to arbitraging computer equipment and one of the things I ended up with was a PowerBook G3. At this point it was pretty old. The G4 “TiBook” had come and gone and we were into the Intel era. This computer wasn’t super useful, but I did use it to play The Journeyman Project 2, which was the only game in the series I hadn’t played. The man who sold this to me gave me everything: the PowerBook, a portable cd drive, a battery, and an Apple shoulder bag which I thought was quite cool (It even had a pocket for a Newton!) After I passed it on, I kept the bag.
iMac 2008
I got this iMac in 2008 as you may have guessed from the heading. This was sort of an interesting direction for me because the iMac is decidedly not a pro machine. But the 24” iMacs were gorgeous, and powerful.
At one point the Hard Disk in my iMac failed. Unlike my G4 tower, the iMac was very much not accessible. The most it supported was upgrading the ram. Still, I wanted to try, so I got some suction cups, removed the glass, the screen, and the internals and replaced the drive. I was very proud of myself. Later the video card failed. I ended up paying whatever the Apple Store something like $600 to replace it.
I gave it to my father after I’d replaced it with a laptop. He used it until he passed away and it came back to me. After that I donated it to my local Makerspace.
Dell Vostro A90..?! (2009)
This one is a bit of a cheat, but I think worth putting here. A few years after Apple made the transition to Intel x86 architecture, Hackintoshes started to appear. Among them, somebody figured out that the 9″ Dell Mini – a netbook entry from Dell – was mostly compatible with Mac OS X. I was fascinated by the whole thing and made one. We didn’t have it for long. The netbook form factor didn’t turn out to be a lasting one, and a 9″ display for a modern Mac didn’t work well (though for the original Mac, it was just right!) I eventually sold it to some guy on Craigslist.
MacBook Pro (13” 2014)
A Christmas gift in 2014, I just celebrated the 10th anniversary of owning this machine. It’s travelled with me internationally, I’ve used it for all kinds of purposes from gaming to writing, to programming. This was the first computer that I started journaling on.
As of this writing, this laptop serves as the driver for my Pick and place machine.
MacBook Pro (14″ 2026)
There was a little while when I thought that my 2014 MBP would be my last. I didn’t like some things that Apple had done with their laptops, and I didn’t like some things that Apple was engaging with as a company. But after a brief stint as a Linux user, and lots of investigating Framework laptops I decided that I really just wanted another Apple Laptop. (I will note that Framework just came out with a new 13″ that looks really appealing, but I’ve concluded that I am at my core a Mac user)
It is a fantastic machine in every respect. The only downside I have to offer is that it’s not available in the Midnight color they offer on the MacBook Air. But the Space Black color does a little to evoke The PowerBook so I appreciate that.
