Keen computer collector Melissa Maloney has a lot of iPods. A LOT of iPods. And quite a few computers too, including an ancient Canon Cat.
I saw her stuff and wanted to ask her: Why do you have so many iPods? What’s the appeal of these old computers? So I did. And here’s what she said.
CULT: Why do you have so many iPods? Do you actually use them all, or just one or two (and if so, which ones)?
MELISSA: Well, I got my first iPod for Christmas back in 2003, a 10GB 3rd Gen Classic. I was content with a single iPod for the next four years, but then I upgraded to an 80GB 6th Gen Classic in 2007. Then I decided to get a 1st Gen Shuffle off of eBay just because I thought it was svelte.
For a while, I didn’t get anymore iPods. Then my niece asked me to fix her 1st Gen Nano. It was such a beautiful little thing, I just had to have one. I started looking on eBay to see how much I could pick up older iPods for. I got a 2nd Gen Mini, and that 1st Gen Nano. Then of course I wanted a 1st Gen Classic.
I watched for a few weeks and found a nice 1st Gen Classic for a good price. By then I had a nice selection and decided that one of each model would make a nice collection. I already had a collection of classic Macs and Apple IIs, and this seemed like a natural extension.
I try to use each of them once in a while. In my car I switch between my Classic 3rd Gen and my Classic 4th Gen. I keep music on the 3rd Gen and audio books on the 4th Gen. I carry the 5th Gen Nano with me because of the pedometer. At work I usually listen to the 4th Gen Nano or 6th Gen classic. The 3rd Gen Nano lives in a bedside radio. The rest get used less frequently.
CULT: If you don’t use them all, why do you keep the old ones? What’s the appeal of collecting?
iPods are to today what the Atari 2600 is to the early 1980s, or a jukebox is to the 1950s. When people think of this decade, iPods are going to be one of the symbols of this time period. Not only are they an icon of our times; they are fantastic little pieces of technology.
I think iPods (and Apple products in general) have striking industrial design; a wonderful mix of beauty and functionality.
I don’t see this as something most people will be into collecting today (though I am by no means the only, or most fanatical collector at the moment); but 20 years from now, I definitely see people getting nostalgic over their first iPod. I figure, why wait?
CULT: Tell us more about your Mac 128K, and your Canon Cat. Why have you got them, what is it about them that interests you so much?
MELISSA: I got my first computer back in 1996 for college, a Performa 6320. I had used LCs in my high school art class and really liked them, so when I needed a computer for college, I wanted a Mac, despite the salesman who tried to steer me toward a PC.
In 1998, I was at a local thrift store when I saw a Mac Plus. It sounded awesome, to have a second computer, old though it might have been, for just $13. Mind you, when I was a kid we never got a computer it was ‘too expensive’ and we’d ‘just use it for games.’
To get something that was once so unobtainable for $13… how could I pass it up? And let’s face it… compact Macs are cute. They’re the big-eyed puppies of vintage computers.
Well, I got the little guy home, and he didn’t work. I cracked him open and tightened everything, but all he did was make a flipping noise (later I would discover it was a bad analog board). Other than not working, though, I really liked the Mac Plus… so I found someone on the internet across town who had a Platinum Mac Plus with a keyboard and mouse for $20.
I loved it. I found all sorts of games and stuff I downloaded for it … once I realized I needed 800K floppies and not 1.44MB ones.
The Mac Plus piqued my interest in these old machines. Then a few months later I found a Mac Classic at another thrift shop; it was at least as cute as the Mac Plus, and it had an internal hard drive. Then I decided to buy a used PowerBook Duo 230 so I would have a computer for a trip. While on that vacation, I found a Mac 128K, by then I knew what it was, and had to have it.
The more I found these old computers, the more I learned about them, and which ones are collectible. Before I started collecting, I had no idea what some of these old computers were worth… a few months before I got the Mac Plus I had seen a Lisa 2/Mac XL at a thrift store. I didn’t know what it was, but had considered buying it just because it was a computer. Alas, the $50 the store wanted was beyond my budget at the time. Mind you, I was only a year out of high school at the time.
Now I know better. I still can’t believe I found a Canon Cat. I had read about it online a few weeks before I found it… it sounded like something I’d never even see, but then there it was, on a grungy shelf at a Goodwill store. It almost makes up for the Lisa. Mainly though, I’ve stuck to old Macs and Apple IIs, though I have a few others, like a few old Commodores and a Compaq Portable II.
These old systems are getting harder to find… some are getting snatched up by collectors like me, some are getting trashed or recycled by people who don’t know or appreciate the historic, aesthetic, and sometimes monetary value of these wonderful machines. I still do occasionally find them in places other than eBay. Recently I got a PowerBook 170 for $4. Not long ago, I picked up an Apple II+ from 1979. But I’m still looking for that Lisa.
