As we learned this week, the 2013 trash can Mac Pro is going to … well … the trash can. Apple has promised a new “modular” Mac Pro for sometime after 2017.
In the light of this news, I thought it would be interesting to look back a model, to the “cheese grater” Mac Pros Apple sold from 2006 until 2013. It was a flexible, expandable, powerful desktop computer.
Imagine that.
Glenn and Shannon Dellimore own at least two original Apple I computers built in 1976 by Steve Wozniak, Dan Kottke, and Steve Jobs. The couple recently purchased one of the computers at auction for $365,000 and then lent it to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum for an exhibition. The hand-built machine is in such good condition that they were able to boot it up and run a simple program.
As tradition dictates on these anniversaries, I’ve rounded up a bunch of links for your enjoyment:
Peter Hartlaub at the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Apple II Forever” was an event staged by a company still working out the bugs.
The April 24, 1984, press and exhibitor gathering was late to start and later to finish. Apple executives sat on the kind of metal folding chairs that one would find at a recreation center singles dance. Steve Jobs — hair feathered gloriously — hadn’t quite settled into his permanent turtleneck-and-jeans uniform yet, choosing a bow tie, suspenders and Velcro-strapped Nike high-tops.
Pierre Lorenzi has built something wonderful:
HyperCardPreview is an Mac OS X application that can display HyperCard stacks, with an look very faithful to the original. It makes the stack files alive again in the Finder with their real icons, so they don’t appear as “binaries”, and provides a QuickLook plug-in.
It can only visualize the stacks: it can’t modify them, and it can’t execute them. But it lets the user inspect the stacks, backgrounds, cards, buttons and fields, see theirs scripts and get their text contents.
This month at MacStories, I wrote up the first-generation iBook G3:
Close your eyes and picture a Mac laptop. It has a small screen in a case unique among a sea of PC notebooks. It runs without a fan, and has impressive battery life. The trackpad is smooth and the keyboard is responsive.
Now open your eyes. Is this what you had in mind?
Apple’s full-sized iPod had a good run: from 2001 to 2014, when the iPod classic was discontinued. Over its lifespan, it saw many changes improvements, including the ability to show photos and play video.
There aren’t a ton of read me files on Apple’s old support site, but the eMate 300 is there:
As a result of Apple’s extensive testing of this product, we’ve developed this guide of helpful hints and troubleshooting tips for using your eMate 300.
Apple’s weird, education-only Newton clamshell turns 20 years old today. I’ve rounded up some reading on the product:
What’s the most important thing to come out of Switzerland? Chocolate? Clocks? Neutrality? The largest, most expensive scientific experiment in history which may eventually unlock the very secrets of the universe and unify our understanding of the smallest particles with that of the largest of heavenly bodies? No, none of these things. The answer is, of course, is the Internet.
With that intro, Nutter goes on to write one of the best pieces on the history of Web tools that I’ve seen, complete with a look at its future.
For a cool $99,995, you can add it to your collection.
Yours truly, over on MacStories:
Over the last 37 years, Apple has shipped 46 different models of standalone display.
I nearly drowned in a sea of beige to pull out some gems.