25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work
9:39 pm, January 23rd, 2009, Leander Kahney
Story and photos by Natalie Guillén
SANTA FE, New Mexico — As Arch Sproul unpacked half a dozen Macintosh Classic IIs, all six of his employees hovered around in excitement.
It was fall of 1992, and most of the employees had never used a computer before.
Today, four of those original computers are still in use, working overtime seven days a week at the Virginia Trading Post arts and crafts store, nestled next to dozens of other shops downtown. They are used mainly as cash registers, scanning bar codes, and keeping tabs on inventory.
The machines are rare examples of aging Macs that are still in daily use. They are a testament to the utility and longevity of the Mac, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on Sunday.
Currently the three Mac Classic IIs (1991) and the single Power Macintosh 7500/100 (1992) are linked through ethernet to a newer server on a Mac Desktop G3 in an upstairs office.
It was in 1980 that Sproul opened the Virginia Trading Post. He’d obtained a perfect location, right in the middle of Santa Fe’s downtown tourist plaza.
By 1991, he was looking for a point of sale system made by Apple. According to Sproul, his friends were having nothing but problems from their IBM systems.
Choosing two employees, Sproul began teaching them the basics. As Sproul pecked at the keys after unwrapping the Macintosh Classic IIs, employee Maria Castillo peered over the shoulders of her co-workers, anxious to understand. When they finished, Sproul noticed Castillo’s eagerness and asked if she had learned everything from watching.
“Yep. I got it,” said Castillo.
“She was really into learning,” said Sproul explained this week. “She was so smart and so good with it, I made her my manager.”
A former Apple executive, Charles Redmond, flew out from New Jersey to help Sproul install POS-IM software (point of sale inventory management), owned by Ensign systems, onto the new computers.
“They [the Mac Classic IIs] were ridiculously expensive for that time: $2,000 for a classic with 20 megabytes of memory,” remembered Sproul. “It looked like a little R2-D2, from Star Wars.”
Though Sproul sold the store in 2003, he keeps in touch with the new owners, and hasn’t heard any plans to upgrade the equipment.
“The first couple of years were wonderful,” recalls Castillo, the only former employee still working at the trading post. “I used to love them, but now I hate them.”
Every morning, after whirring to life, the classic machines register the date as “August 27th, 1856.” It is simple to reset. In recent months, the computers have been taking longer and longer to access inventory, so Castillo has been recording it by hand.
Sproul has only fond memories. “I was so excited back then. We thought this was screaming, such a fast computer!”
Today customers always notice the classic computers, laughing as they wonder aloud if the machines should be behind glass as collectors editions or more commonly, used as a fishbowl at home.
Admitting that every computer has it’s own use, the former owner of Virginia Trading Post concurs that any Mac over a decade old cannot suffice for many of today’s jobs, much less, utilizing the world-wide web.
The newest program loaded onto the Power Mac is Windows Excel98, because all upgrades after that are only offered on CD, and these old classics only take disks.
“In a time where people were always looking for bigger, faster, better – well, these got the job done, and they still do,” concluded Sproul.
His worthy investment might even outlast him.
Posted by Leander Kahney in 25 Years of Mac, News, Top stories | Comment on this article
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A very interesting article, I like to see old macs put in use.
And they say macs are not business…..
king, on January 24th, 2009 at 2:07 am
[...] Full Story [...]
25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work | dralnuX.com, on January 24th, 2009 at 5:10 am
We retired a 1998 server – ran 24 hours day non-stop – cept’ twice to clean out the dust … Still runs but had to update to 10.5 – otherwise we would still be running with filemaker 4.0 and our database ……
Ansel, on January 24th, 2009 at 11:16 am
[...] 25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work [...]
Happy Birthday Macintosh | Urban Mainframe, on January 24th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
i can beat that.
we still have two apple //e with their original green screens and floppy drives running some educational software here at work.
firesign, on January 26th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
[...] can see some really old Macs pulling serious duty over on Cult of Mac as well. But I want to know what you readers are running in the way of older Macs. What’s the [...]
Apple Bloog » Blog Archive » How old is your oldest working Mac?, on January 27th, 2009 at 10:00 am
[...] crapper wager whatever rattling senior Macs actuation earnest obligation over on Cult of Mac as well. But I poverty to undergo what you readers are streaming in the artefact of senior Macs. [...]
How old is your oldest working Mac? | IPHONE NEWS, on January 27th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Thats great to know that there are some old macs out there.
I got a 1989 Mac SE that boots up faster than my Win98′ Compaq.
So to everyone out there with the old mac’s keep ‘em runnin’.
Bryce Howard, on January 27th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
fantastic stuff… although they should last that long for what they cost in those days
Seriously though, that is great stuff.
mellow7, on February 7th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Hi just a small correction,
The PowerMac 7500/100 was introduced in late 1995 shortly after the PowerMac 7200 (PowerPC Macintoshes didn’t appear until 1994).
-cheers from julz @P
Julian Skidmore, on February 13th, 2009 at 1:02 am
We have 7 year old Power Macs at our school and they still work flawlessly everyday. Throw video rendering, Photoshop, Livetype, and Motion at them and they have absolutely no problem crunching through them. It’s just amazing how long they last.
a person, on March 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
>$2,000 for a classic with 20 megabytes of memory
It’s worse than it sounds. That would be 20 Mb of disk. The classic couldn’t take anywhere near that much RAM. I don’t remember where the classic maxes out, but my SE/30 had only 5 Mb.
Bozo, on March 23rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
we have old macs in our wood tech class, we use them to design stuff.
Garrett, on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
So what? I have a 1982 IBM XT that runs perfectly fine. This means nothing.
Phil, on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Tell them to go and pick up some new batteries for the Macs so that the clock is right. The old ones are probably dead and starting to corrode!
Andrew Jung, on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
yeah, I’d use that to run my business. what a joke.
Bob Haldoff, on March 23rd, 2009 at 2:18 pm
7 years is nothing, the G4 tower i got for before going off to uni is almost 9 years old now, and even that doesn’t hold a candle to the LC575 and Apple IIc my dad still has running in his basement. ahh, nothing beats some good ol’ california games on a green and black screen.
b, on March 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
they really need a new POS system.. my god.. tracking inventory + pos on those machines must be a headache.
great they still work, thats cool as hell.. but comon.
chrisp, on March 23rd, 2009 at 5:41 pm
post a list of “classic” PCs that are still running and you’d need more servers to host it. I get the unique value of such a list though. We should post a list of mainframe networks or AOL users.
madscientist, on March 23rd, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Sounds like the PRAM batteries are dead. Simple fix, just have to be careful not to touch the monitor tube of the Classic. The other Macs are much safer and easier to change the battery in. Man, I wish I was in Santa Fe again. I’d simply volunteer my time to fix them. I mean, if they worked fast before there’s no reason to believe they shouldn’t still. A dead PRAM battery can slow the performance as well.
And besides, it’s a small tourism business. Not a Fortune 500 corporation.
ThePenciler, on March 23rd, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I paid $3500 for an SE30 from (the late) Sun Computers and under $2000 for a Centris 650. In both instances, their logic (mother?) boards went south. These are the great, wonderful computers for the rest of us? I’ve never, ever had such problems with all of the Wintel machines that I have owned. I paid about $500+ for a Mac Mini (PowerPC) which would not have been enough to repair the SE30.
Paul Schnitzel, on March 23rd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
really amazing…Bill just see, your copies work only for 5 years or so….
Sachin, on March 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Nice to look back at Technlogy
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Mike James, on March 24th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Man, I’ve heard of business owners who know how to pinch a penny … but this one wins some kind of Galactic Parsimony Award (or C.A.B. award)
TJ, on March 24th, 2009 at 1:16 am
In a short while, they’ll just chuck all five Macs into the garbage and get one $300 netbook and that will run everything the Macs did. Apparently netbooks will replace all computers. I’m sure the new owner has no love for Macs or else he would have upgraded to newer Macs. I’m rather surprised that the displays lasted as long as they did, though.
Constable Odo, on March 24th, 2009 at 4:27 am
Any old computer can still be used for a business in a specific task (inventory, dedicated word processing, database, etc…) I’m sure there are a lot of TRS-80 model 100s out there still being used for data entry in the field. Some small shops in China probably still use the abacus.
Daniel B., on March 24th, 2009 at 4:51 am
the wow … hmm … started 1981 really. but this stuff is just amazing! i bet if more mac evangelists read about this store, behold, they’ll soon have more people coming into the store checking out the macs than their actual arts, crafts and pottery – i mean, I’d go there to check it out. will be close soon, so hope i recall
and all that’s left to say is: powerbook g3 bronze keyboard, g4 ibook 1ghz, and powermac g5 1.5GHz – all running – and the pm daily(!) doing graphics, video and sound multi tracking. there’s just something about a mac thats hard to explain …
FrankEEE, on March 24th, 2009 at 5:33 am
I have an Amiga 1200 and it works perfectly since 1993. I have an 68030 at 50 MHZ accelerator with 16 MB RAM and it runs quite fast.
And my A500 works since 1988!!!!.
Mikel, on March 24th, 2009 at 6:14 am
[...] Source:http://cultofmac.com/25-years-of-mac-classic-macs-still-at-work/7468 [...]
25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work « Internet Making Money, on March 24th, 2009 at 6:57 am
I always tell my friends who are waiting until their PC starts up that my 9 year old laptop still beats the start up time of any new PC. I love the Macs I have, new and old.
Thanks for sharing.
They do last longer than any other computer!
Sheevaun, on March 24th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Some of you have old computers and think it is no big deal because they still run. The question is, are they used in a business setting, even for simple things? Having it at home and able to run is not the same thing.
As for the computers running slower. My guess is that they haven’t cleaned up the inventory database in a long time and it is taking longer and longer to find things in it.
As others have noted, the battery on the motherboard should be replaced which would fix the computer showing the wrong date when it boots up.
Sabon, on March 24th, 2009 at 8:19 am
That 4th photo down – the dude looks like Sylar taking a break from unzipping people’s heads open. Maybe the ancient Macs makes him realize that they couldn’t possibly possess a power he’d want. ;-p
Joking aside, my first Mac was the “awesome” Fat Mac (Mac 512K) which I got just months before the Mac Plus came out. I skipped ahead later to the Mac SE, which really was a decent computer (and probably the most direct ancestor of the Mac Classic cited here). Later on, I got a Performa 575, then a PPC 6100, 8500, first gen. iMac, 3rd gen. iMac, and finally a PPC Mac Mini. Some day I may actually get a decent Mac again, but for now I’m on Ubuntu and (gag!) Vista for my laptops.
Greg, on March 24th, 2009 at 9:05 am
I always tell my friends who are waiting until their PC starts up that my 9 year old laptop still beats the start up time of any new PC. I love the Macs I have, new and old.
Thanks for sharing.
They do last longer than any other computer!!
alexx, on March 24th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I went from an LC II, when I was a university student way back before the dawn of time, to an Intel Mac Mini in October 2007. Wonder how long this Mac will last?
Troy Banther, on March 24th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
[...] 25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work | Cult of Mac As Arch Sproul unpacked half a dozen Macintosh Classic IIs, all six of his employees hovered around in excitement. [...]
links for 2009-03-24 « Mandarine, on March 24th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Mac is wonderful!很好很强大ï¼Âã™ã°らã—ã„ãÂÂ!
Runger, on March 26th, 2009 at 2:30 am
That’s nothing compared to this:
http://it.compvter.wikia.com/wiki/Selenia_GP160
The labels on the “floppies” suggest that this monster was still being used regularly in 2003.
Biffuz, on March 30th, 2009 at 12:54 am
I have a IIci I upgraded with a PowerMac card running OS 8.1.
I have a SE/30 with 50mhz accelerator and the Xceed gray scale video card
I have a fully loaded and mint NeXT Turbo Cube w/Dimension board
I’m playing Ultima V on a Color Classic with Apple IIe card
Next up is to get my A2000 (last rev version) running a 68060 and OS 3.5
I love these old computers, but for the most part I try not to leave them on for very long as some of them are pushing 30 years old. Once they break they’re (for the most part) done.
James, on March 30th, 2009 at 7:25 am
[...] it used to be like 20, 30 or 100 years ago and how people did the same things. One great ideas was 25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work (a great article about a business owner who still uses her old school [...]
» Taking Social Media Beyond the “Top 10 List”, on April 6th, 2009 at 2:04 am
[...] it used to be like 20, 30 or 100 years ago and how people did the same things. One great ideas was 25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work (a great article about a business owner who still uses her old school [...]
Taking Social Media Beyond the “Top 10 List†| Search Marketing, on May 8th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
[...] it used to be like 20, 30 or 100 years ago and how people did the same things. One great ideas was 25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work (a great article about a business owner who still uses her old school [...]
Taking Social Media Beyond the “Top 10 List” | Need A Job?, on November 6th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
[...] it used to be like 20, 30 or 100 years ago and how people did the same things. One great ideas was 25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work (a great article about a business owner who still uses her old school [...]
Taking Social Media Beyond the “Top 10 List” | Peer Marketing Group, on December 9th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
[...] it used to be like 20, 30 or 100 years ago and how people did the same things. One great ideas was 25 Years of Mac: Classic Macs Still at Work (a great article about a business owner who still uses her old school [...]
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