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| Author | My Macintosh Love Affair (Read 4008 times) | ||
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Shady Intent
1 MB  Posts: 1 
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on: February 26, 2011, 13:46
Hello ALL! I'm a digital artist from Southern California. My story details my 27-year "relationship" with Macs: I'm 33 now, but I was just a kid when I used my first Mac. I was about 8, so when my Mom came home with a new Macintosh 512k (with carrying case!) in '85, I was totally stoked, since it blew away our Commodore 64, even without color. My Mom was offered a job at ProVUE in sales. These guys were on the cutting edge, so me & my bro got all the latest OACC game releases... I STILL have a few of them, along with my precious Mac 512k. It's sporting a crazy ethereal-blue & white, airbrushed paint job (I did it when I was younger), but it all works... Fired it up yesterday, and played Loderunner, in fact. After a few years, I moved on to a PC, since that's what all the new games were on (1990), and that's all my parents would buy. I've had a PC ever since, but I'm not a hater. I just couldn't afford a good Mac. From '96 (or so), I worked for a company called EIS in Moorpark, CA. We made a sweet interface card that allowed you to print, or "RIP" printing-press-ready docs/images directly from a Mac 68k/PPC to a Linotype-HELL or Dainippon Screen (big-as-a-room, pre-press, film-output) scanner. I used a 6100/60 (LC, rev 2?), since I worked the front office, mostly. I don't remember what System version I used, but this is when I first explored the web with a Mac (much easier than Windows back then). I also got to use the first "blue" PPC tower there. Those were good times... In 1999, I traded something for one of those Mac-clones (a Power Computing 95xx clone tower). Me & my roomies worked for a game company (we were serious geeks), so we payed the $200+ install and $200+ a month fee to get cable internet (yes, in 1999). So I bought a SCSI Barracuda and started downloading TONS of software for this new PPC. I left for the weekend with the Mac downloading stuff. I was very excited. Unfortunately, the thing overheated in the garage that I lived in and crashed my band-new 8 Gig Barracuda. I was devastated. I traded the thing for a stereo. I didn't touch another Mac until my family's web design company needed a Mac to test our stuff on. We got the original iMac, blue/white. I still have the HDD and memory, but I wish we had kept it! Around the same time, I noticed what looked like a Mac 512k at a garage sale in Simi Valley, CA. It was the guy's brother's old Mac and he sold it to me for $10 if i promised to "take all the cables and junk". Turns out, it was a Mac SE/30 (!!!) and I got a BOX of different apple cables (essentials, plus all kinds of weird variations on AppleTalk. For example, one set uses small hubs and telephone cables). The whole experience had me all excited about old Macs! I have always loved the simplicity, refinement and quality of the 68ks and I started finding that people were practically THROWING them away! So I scooped up as many as I could find, but I didn't have a lot of cash and I didn't look too hard. Here's what I still have in my collection (whole systems): • 9500/200 Rev. B (Sonnet Crescendo 233mhz CPU daughter card, Rage64 & 468mb with all 12 slots filled) • Centris 610 (64mb & VRAM) • Mac IIci (Cache card & Daystar P33 x030 CPU Upgrade Card, Spec/24 IV Video [from an 8100] and 128mb. WHAT a MACHINE! My favorite right now.) • SE/30 (64mb & 4gig Barracuda) • Color Classic (stock, but loaded up) • IIsi • LC • LC II • My old Mac 512k (StyleWriter and Apple 3.5 external drive, among other things) I have a list of Mac parts that might make an eBay reseller salivate. I love all kinds of computers and I've been building by collection for years. Stuff like MC68k & XC68k CPUs, SIMMs (30 & 72 pin), DIMMS, S0-DIMMS, etc. I put a XC6040RC33 (from an old rack-mount server) in the Centris 610 and it runs great! My stuff was in storage until a few months ago. Since then, I've been plugging in different SCSI drives to see what treasures they hold. I especially enjoy the snapshot of the times an old system disk represents. Many of these drives haven't been spun up since their previous owners sold or gave them away. My 9500/[233] Was running 8.x when I got it years ago, but I loaded 9.1 on it (from the iMac's CD) and had it on the net around 2005. Now it's setup with a System 7.5.5 disk and a System 9.1 disk, but that disk won't boot up right now. System 7.5.5 is roaring fast on this machine! I found this awesome site when I was searching for software and hardware info to get my Macs up and running again after all these years. I have to buy a few more batteries and sort out some issues, but they all run OK now. Compare that to my experience trying to get my old Sun SPARCstations running and you can truly appreciate the refined simplicity of most old Apple hardware and software. I am totally amazed at System 7's ability to load up on SO MANY different architectures. It's a sweet bit of code! Sorry for rambling... I have no one to share this info with, usually. |
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