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What Macs have you always wanted?
- Thread starter dmmcintyre3
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Powerbook G3 (Pismo, Lombard, Wallstreet) with one of those G4 upgrade cards installed.
Considering I just sold off six of my Powerbook G3's I'd say they are pretty common, but the G4 Upgrade cards are rare as hens teeth.
I'd install Debian 8.1 W/ IceWM or LXDE, and use Nano & G++ for software development.
(After of course I installed an IDE to M-SATA adapter with a 850 EVO SSD) and upgraded the RAM to the max 1GB.
I've got so many G3 CPU cards in my desk (Even a 400Mhz one!) I would trade them all for a single G4 card.
Considering I just sold off six of my Powerbook G3's I'd say they are pretty common, but the G4 Upgrade cards are rare as hens teeth.
I'd install Debian 8.1 W/ IceWM or LXDE, and use Nano & G++ for software development.
(After of course I installed an IDE to M-SATA adapter with a 850 EVO SSD) and upgraded the RAM to the max 1GB.
I've got so many G3 CPU cards in my desk (Even a 400Mhz one!) I would trade them all for a single G4 card.
This generation of PowerBooks can only use up to 128GB with their native drive controller unless you use a special driver. Even with the driver, OS X still has to be installed fully in the first 8GB on a Wallstreet (and perhaps the Lombard also, I can't remember). Because of this 128GB limitation, I use a Dual CF to IDE adapter with two 128GB CF cards in my Pismo for 256GB total of relatively fast storage, since each CF is seen as a separate drive.
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Now I have added:
iMac (2010 27 2.93 with DP TDM)
MacBook Pro 13" 2010 (2.66, BD-RE, 16GB, 1.12TB WD Black2)
Power Mac G5 Quad (16GB, 2x 2TB)
Macintosh Classic (4MB, 4GB)
PowerBook 520c (33, 12MB, 8GB)
Power Macintosh 9500 (700 G4, 1.5GB, 750GB, zip, jazz, PCCC)
PowerBook G3 (466 Wallstreet, 512MB, 120GB)
PowerBook G4 12"
Indigo iBook
And only the elusive TAM remains...
My top "wants" at the moment:
1. Finish up my Compact collection, which will require a 128K, Plus, SE/30, and Color Classic. For the sake of completeness I should also get a plain 512K(not 512Ke). I think I may have the Plus lined up-I'm guessing that the Color Classic may actually be the tough one of the bunch
2. Macintosh II, although again I'm working a deal on one at the momment
3. Quadra 840AV
4. Powerbook G3 "Kanga"(this is the only G3 powered Apple computer I don't have)
5. TAM
Somewhere along the way, I'm going to try and fill out my collection of the various colors of iMac G3 and Clamshells. I haven't made this a top priority, but do tend to buy them when a chance at a color I don't have comes up.
1. Finish up my Compact collection, which will require a 128K, Plus, SE/30, and Color Classic. For the sake of completeness I should also get a plain 512K(not 512Ke). I think I may have the Plus lined up-I'm guessing that the Color Classic may actually be the tough one of the bunch
2. Macintosh II, although again I'm working a deal on one at the momment
3. Quadra 840AV
4. Powerbook G3 "Kanga"(this is the only G3 powered Apple computer I don't have)
5. TAM
Somewhere along the way, I'm going to try and fill out my collection of the various colors of iMac G3 and Clamshells. I haven't made this a top priority, but do tend to buy them when a chance at a color I don't have comes up.
I finally got a TAM. its ok, good enough to say i got one. have done the sub woofer fix already, plastics are horrible, but i have already identified resistor and changed a 6500 board into a TAM chiming board. Will not make boot chime without a sub installed. therefore it must be in a 6400 or 6500 case.
Oddly enough, a couple were sold in September (one US, one Austria) and another in the UK just before that. Perhaps people are starting to offload these.
Alright its my turn 
Ive always wanted, like many others, a Imac G4 the last model 20", I wanted to buy one of the "ibook guy's indigo ibook clambshells, and lastly perhaps one of the Powermacintosh G3 B/w models.
Ive always wanted, like many others, a Imac G4 the last model 20", I wanted to buy one of the "ibook guy's indigo ibook clambshells, and lastly perhaps one of the Powermacintosh G3 B/w models.
Alright its my turn
Ive always wanted, like many others, a Imac G4 the last model 20", I wanted to buy one of the "ibook guy's indigo ibook clambshells, and lastly perhaps one of the Powermacintosh G3 B/w models.
I still want to get a sunflower iMac G4, just need to find the space for one! I've got two Indigo iBooks - just saved a 'dead' one from eBay. Need to find a couple replacement keys before I let it move on.
G3 iBook --I remember when I first saw one and thought, "Can't decide if it's less a computer and more a statement." I really liked that little laptop.
G3 iMac --I loved the G3 iMac, esp. Snow and Flower Power. ☺️
G4 Cube --I remember seeing one in Circuit City and I still regret not buying it. I just loved the look of it but the price was out of my league at the time (college).
A G3 iMac felt like something I could sit in front of for hours, writing, playing games, etc. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for OS 8/9.
(Today, I feel their designs are modern, austere, almost soulless--there's nothing, I feel, cozy nay hygge about their products anymore.)
G3 iMac --I loved the G3 iMac, esp. Snow and Flower Power. ☺️
G4 Cube --I remember seeing one in Circuit City and I still regret not buying it. I just loved the look of it but the price was out of my league at the time (college).
A G3 iMac felt like something I could sit in front of for hours, writing, playing games, etc. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for OS 8/9.
(Today, I feel their designs are modern, austere, almost soulless--there's nothing, I feel, cozy nay hygge about their products anymore.)
does the apple newton count? i used to have a EMate when i was 5 however it was thrown away after the power supply broke. i'm very sad because they mostly don't show up in the UK (cheap that is)No Macs they still sell because just about everybody on here wants that
I have always wanted a:
20 inch iMac G4 - Best design by Apple ever.
Titanium PowerBook G4. Why? I just have always liked those. I even had one for about a month with broken hinges. I still used it (as my main Mac) with the broken hinges.
Black MacBook - any model Why: it would be great for web browsing on the go because it is so small and a MBA is underpowered (rev A) and has a non replaceable battery and a hinge issue. Also the MBA would be more of a thief target.
2.33 GHz MacBook Pro Why: It is the fastest non unibody MacBook Pro with a reliable graphics card.
Apple I, IIs and Lisa's count too!
So as a kid we had a Macintosh SE dual floppy, then I had a Performa 575 while my parents had a Power Macintosh 7100/66, and my last Mac was a Power Computing pizza box (I forget the model but I remember 603e @ 180 MHz).
I personally always wanted a Quadra 840av, and a Power Macintosh 8100/80. After the clones I was off into PC land. I poke around on eBay from time to time but haven't found the ones. I'd love to get a setup for Graphic Simulations F/A-18 Hornet, Flying Nightmares (my introduction to PowerPC was the Flying Nightmares display at CompUSA in Newark, CA), the Marathons, Pathways into Darkness, Myth, and also some of the older original graphical games like Spectre, Dark Castle, Apache Strike!, Vette, that I played when I was a kid.
I personally always wanted a Quadra 840av, and a Power Macintosh 8100/80. After the clones I was off into PC land. I poke around on eBay from time to time but haven't found the ones. I'd love to get a setup for Graphic Simulations F/A-18 Hornet, Flying Nightmares (my introduction to PowerPC was the Flying Nightmares display at CompUSA in Newark, CA), the Marathons, Pathways into Darkness, Myth, and also some of the older original graphical games like Spectre, Dark Castle, Apache Strike!, Vette, that I played when I was a kid.
i'm a powerpc nut:
mac mini g4 1.5ghz
powerbook g4 17" 1.67ghz late 2005
powerbook g4 12" 1.5ghz
imac g4 20" 1.25ghz
powermac g3 beige
there were other machines that i would have wanted in the past, but which i now own, the ones i listed here are those which i want but don't own yet.
mac mini g4 1.5ghz
powerbook g4 17" 1.67ghz late 2005
powerbook g4 12" 1.5ghz
imac g4 20" 1.25ghz
powermac g3 beige
there were other machines that i would have wanted in the past, but which i now own, the ones i listed here are those which i want but don't own yet.
I want just one that I really can't live without --figuratively, my cMP makes me very happy-- and that is Lisa. Not just any Lisa but the one with the 15 mb [sic] hard drive and (whatever passed for an ungodly amount of ram back in 1983) and it would not hurt if one of the "designer desks" offered at the time could be found but I could just get a poster of the shelf above an IBM PC and all the books eh?!
I suspect that many, if not most, around these forums are too young to have ever seen the machine that made compaq outside of a museum. However, one of the deepest mysteries of the universe is the surprisingly brisk sales of a machine that only existed because IBM chose to go with the, even then, commodity hardware PC on the basis of a rumor but did not go with CP/M because the creator had an odd sense of humor. Had they gone with CP/M, luggable machines already existed with a screen as large as the one that would eventually be used on the compaq machine. The Osbourne 1 had the metal box that made it "a business machine, not a toy" and came bundled with WordStar but was hamstrung by a 5" monitor. The KayproII had the 9" "big screen" and the multiple floppies, as well as the metal case and both had been available for two years prior to the compaq. It also had a big plus --from the point of view of vintage computing-- that capacitors were plugged rather than soldered in. CP/M was extremely popular at the time so the issue was not "obscure software" and I cannot imagine that a difference of one pound would keep anyone waiting for two years.
I would be a little happier if I could get an original "Fat Mac" with the add-on math co-processor and the 512k aftermarket ram and maybe even ecstatic with a 1024k with a hard drive. Regardless of which Mac could be found, for the real magic show, you just have to have the bag Apple sold for the Mac. At 16.5 pounds, an original Mac was "throw it in a bag and go" light and it had a 9" screen that had such a high resolution that better could only be found on a Lisa that sat at a far better position than any of the luggables. So many complaints about the Mac being closed are bandied about that I have come to believe that none of these people ever opened an IBM PC; it was easier to mess with only because there was no monitor whose capacitor discharge would be the death of you but it wasn't an Apple II in any sense. Although I remember a kind of RS-232 port being available, I have read of adapters that were available so I am somewhat confused because I thought the LaserWriter plugged into the Mac over RS-232. Apparently, it was 422 but still, it could connect to testing equipment that was widely used and available at the time.
None of these machines were inexpensive in any way but the prices were, given what you got, for the time, very reasonable. Today, when people write about these things they speak of the PC being cheaper but neglect to point out that they are speaking of an entry level machine without a monitor or a keyboard and that IBM wanted quite a bit of money for a modest resolution monitor that always seemed to me like an oversight fixed with a VT-100 terminal. So, 37 years later, why is there still that weird "Macs are for the "creatives"" that translates, in some way or another, in business parlance, in the worst possible context, to something like "hippies" even though content is what customers buy and what sells ads? Initially, it even sold better than the PC and yet, people still talk about the Mac as a failure?! Maybe, being able to "Think Different" leads to "Insanely Great" ideas when a mind is allowed to be open to new possibilities?
Since this is a wish about specific hardware for specific reasons, I will leave the topic of software alone with two statements: by 1985 there was nothing you could do in a PC that could not be done at least as well on a Mac with the exact same software. The version of UNIX that Apple created was POSIX and System V interface compliant and as close to System V r4 as one could get at the time --the full specification had not been released at the time-- and was widely praised for what it did with UNIX; you could have all the arcane and obscure you wanted. Although, I suspect that most people back then looked at a blinking cursor with the same resignation that a cow on its way to the slaughter house but they would loathe to admit the envy they felt --certainly, the old boot screen with the smiling Mac was endearing-- when someone unpacked a Mac on their desk.
So what do I want? I want to use an Apple IIe to create a kind of game show "show" wherein a Kaypro II, a compaq luggable, and an IBM PC are put on scales next to a Mac of similar vintage. An old style display would show the weights (think "The Price is Right") and when the Mac's weight was shown, the system would play a sound over and over while flashing the lights around it. An actress would then jump up and down while yelling and effusively hugging a statue of Bob Barker. Incidentally, this is not sexist, I almost think that it was done on purpose but I don't recall many guys showing much excitement when they won and Bob Barker let them off with just a handshake and a pat on the back.
Still, it would be nice if I could demonstrate that we live in an insane asylum or something by having people lug a compaq through O'Hare next to a guy pushing a cart with a Mac in a bag sitting in the basket. Even so, I would settle for a PDP-11 (One could argue that it is the prototype Mac since the 6800 is basically a PDP-11 on a chip), the aforementioned Mac, and a compaq luggable because, soon, no one will believe that people actually bought something that was twice the weight as something else just so they could lug it from airport concourse to airport concourse for the dubious privilege of working on something so egregiously unergonomic that it might even be illegal to work on something like that today!
IBM almost used the 68k on the PC but Motorola could not deliver on time and, in a kind of weird train of ironies, the 8088 was chosen instead even though the 68k was the superior product. I will need to encase one of each of the processors in lucite and make them into paperweights.
I suspect that many, if not most, around these forums are too young to have ever seen the machine that made compaq outside of a museum. However, one of the deepest mysteries of the universe is the surprisingly brisk sales of a machine that only existed because IBM chose to go with the, even then, commodity hardware PC on the basis of a rumor but did not go with CP/M because the creator had an odd sense of humor. Had they gone with CP/M, luggable machines already existed with a screen as large as the one that would eventually be used on the compaq machine. The Osbourne 1 had the metal box that made it "a business machine, not a toy" and came bundled with WordStar but was hamstrung by a 5" monitor. The KayproII had the 9" "big screen" and the multiple floppies, as well as the metal case and both had been available for two years prior to the compaq. It also had a big plus --from the point of view of vintage computing-- that capacitors were plugged rather than soldered in. CP/M was extremely popular at the time so the issue was not "obscure software" and I cannot imagine that a difference of one pound would keep anyone waiting for two years.
I would be a little happier if I could get an original "Fat Mac" with the add-on math co-processor and the 512k aftermarket ram and maybe even ecstatic with a 1024k with a hard drive. Regardless of which Mac could be found, for the real magic show, you just have to have the bag Apple sold for the Mac. At 16.5 pounds, an original Mac was "throw it in a bag and go" light and it had a 9" screen that had such a high resolution that better could only be found on a Lisa that sat at a far better position than any of the luggables. So many complaints about the Mac being closed are bandied about that I have come to believe that none of these people ever opened an IBM PC; it was easier to mess with only because there was no monitor whose capacitor discharge would be the death of you but it wasn't an Apple II in any sense. Although I remember a kind of RS-232 port being available, I have read of adapters that were available so I am somewhat confused because I thought the LaserWriter plugged into the Mac over RS-232. Apparently, it was 422 but still, it could connect to testing equipment that was widely used and available at the time.
None of these machines were inexpensive in any way but the prices were, given what you got, for the time, very reasonable. Today, when people write about these things they speak of the PC being cheaper but neglect to point out that they are speaking of an entry level machine without a monitor or a keyboard and that IBM wanted quite a bit of money for a modest resolution monitor that always seemed to me like an oversight fixed with a VT-100 terminal. So, 37 years later, why is there still that weird "Macs are for the "creatives"" that translates, in some way or another, in business parlance, in the worst possible context, to something like "hippies" even though content is what customers buy and what sells ads? Initially, it even sold better than the PC and yet, people still talk about the Mac as a failure?! Maybe, being able to "Think Different" leads to "Insanely Great" ideas when a mind is allowed to be open to new possibilities?
Since this is a wish about specific hardware for specific reasons, I will leave the topic of software alone with two statements: by 1985 there was nothing you could do in a PC that could not be done at least as well on a Mac with the exact same software. The version of UNIX that Apple created was POSIX and System V interface compliant and as close to System V r4 as one could get at the time --the full specification had not been released at the time-- and was widely praised for what it did with UNIX; you could have all the arcane and obscure you wanted. Although, I suspect that most people back then looked at a blinking cursor with the same resignation that a cow on its way to the slaughter house but they would loathe to admit the envy they felt --certainly, the old boot screen with the smiling Mac was endearing-- when someone unpacked a Mac on their desk.
So what do I want? I want to use an Apple IIe to create a kind of game show "show" wherein a Kaypro II, a compaq luggable, and an IBM PC are put on scales next to a Mac of similar vintage. An old style display would show the weights (think "The Price is Right") and when the Mac's weight was shown, the system would play a sound over and over while flashing the lights around it. An actress would then jump up and down while yelling and effusively hugging a statue of Bob Barker. Incidentally, this is not sexist, I almost think that it was done on purpose but I don't recall many guys showing much excitement when they won and Bob Barker let them off with just a handshake and a pat on the back.
Still, it would be nice if I could demonstrate that we live in an insane asylum or something by having people lug a compaq through O'Hare next to a guy pushing a cart with a Mac in a bag sitting in the basket. Even so, I would settle for a PDP-11 (One could argue that it is the prototype Mac since the 6800 is basically a PDP-11 on a chip), the aforementioned Mac, and a compaq luggable because, soon, no one will believe that people actually bought something that was twice the weight as something else just so they could lug it from airport concourse to airport concourse for the dubious privilege of working on something so egregiously unergonomic that it might even be illegal to work on something like that today!
IBM almost used the 68k on the PC but Motorola could not deliver on time and, in a kind of weird train of ironies, the 8088 was chosen instead even though the 68k was the superior product. I will need to encase one of each of the processors in lucite and make them into paperweights.
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I have gone back and forth over the last year about getting a Mac SE or SE/30. What has held me back was how much will I actually use it, and then how much more (beyond the purchase price of the actual computer) will I spend to get it on the Internet and possibly add more memory.
In the interim, I purchased a gutted SE/30 (it has the screen but not the motherboard) for about $40 to place on my bookshelf. So I at least can look at a classic Mac.
In the interim, I purchased a gutted SE/30 (it has the screen but not the motherboard) for about $40 to place on my bookshelf. So I at least can look at a classic Mac.
I wonder if you could put in a raspberry pi and connect it to the screen...