All the Macs I've Loved Before

Macs I Have Known and Loved

The 30th anniversary of the Mac has reminded me of all the delightful Macs I’ve known and loved over the years. Some of them were better than others but each of them stands out in their own way.

  1. Mac 512KE 1 that had been upgraded with a Mac Plus ROM and 2.5MB of RAM and the addition of external SCSI. Still with an 800KB floppy drive, though.
  2. Quadra 630
  3. Power Mac 6100
  4. PowerBook Duo 280c
  5. Power Mac 7500
  6. Power Mac G3 (Beige desktop)
  7. Power Mac 9500 180MP baller workstation that ran BeOS and Mac OS 9
  8. PowerBook G3 Wallstreet
  9. PowerMac G3 Blue & White
  10. PowerBook G3 Lombard 2
  11. PowerMac G4 Yikes
  12. PowerMac G4 Sawtooth
  13. PowerMac G4 SnakeBite Dual G4
  14. iBook Dual USB
  15. PowerBook G4 Ti
  16. iMac DV SE
  17. PowerBook G4 12”
  18. PowerMac G5 Omega dual 1.8GHz
  19. iMac 17” iMac4,1
  20. MacBook Black
  21. MacBook Pro 2,1 or 2,2
  22. iMac 24” still got it
  23. MacBook Air still got it
  24. MacBook Air 11” core 2 duo 3
  25. MacBook Air 13” core 2 duo still got it
  26. Retina MacBook Pro 15” still got it

In the racks of fine datacenters:

  1. Power Mac G3 (Beige tower)
  2. Mac Mini G4 (hungus)
  3. Xserve G5 Cluster Node (autobahn)

Hacs (ahem)

These are self-built systems built for OS X but aren’t Macs. They’re fickle and bitchy like a Blue & White G3. I often tell people that having a Hacintosh is a lot like flying the Millennium Falcon — they’re fast hunks of junk that require frequent tune-ups and a completely different set of limitations and restrictions from Apple’s hardware. My Hacintoshing probably needs some better documentation because hobbyist computing is more on the fringe than it has ever been.

  1. Hacintosh 1: Yorkfield Intel Core 2 quad-core 9550 (12M of cache, ladies)
  2. Hacintosh 2: SandyBridge Intel Core i7 2600K
  3. Hacintosh 3: Haswell Intel Core i7 4790K still got it

Apple’s 30 Years of Mac

Apple’s Thirty Years of Mac site has a delightful interactive timeline and user stories. With a design and performance heritage that rivals some car companies (think Audi, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, VW) there is surely a Mac for every user as time goes on.

  1. System 6.0.5 and MultiFinder ftw 

  2. The first PowerBook to receive a model designation of PowerBook, i.e. PowerBook1,1. 

  3. I accepted payment in tacos for this notebook. I’m not even fucking around.