Fancy seeing an original Macintosh 128k, signed by Steve Wozniak? Want to feast your eyes on Apple’s first “portable” computer, which tipped the scales at nearly 16 pounds? How about eyeballing a rare Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, the only computer Cupertino ever made that was delivered to customers in a limo, and installed by Apple employees wearing tuxedos?
If you answered “yes” to all these questions, then there’s one more to ask: Are you willing to catch a flight to Kyiv, Ukraine — approximately 6,000 miles from Apple’s home in Cupertino — to look at them in person?
The folks at MacPaw, the developers behind CleanMyMac X, ClearVPN and a number of other Mac apps, have done what many Apple fans dream of. They are building their very own museum to showcase the computers that made Apple (and, by extension, MacPaw) what it is. While it’s quite the trek for American Apple fans to get to, it sounds like it could be a great stop on your journey if you’re ever in the area.
Building a dream collection
“The exhibition will not only include rare tech pieces, but also posters and [the] NeXT visual identity book which cost $100,000 for Steve Jobs back in 1986,” Julia Petryk, head of PR for MacPaw, told Cult of Mac. “[There are] 323 exhibits, fascinating stories about Apple’s behind the scenes, and one big [overall] mission to befriend humans and technology.”
Photo: MacPaw
The Macs in the museum come from a couple of sources. One big collection came from Tekserve, a repair shop-turned-influential Apple dealer in New York. The MacPaw team won an auction to pick assorted “gems” from the Tekserve collection. Still others come from a collector in Poland.
“The museum is still in progress,” Petryk said. “MacPaw is planning to open it by the end of the year and then it will be available to all tech lovers and creators. We’re also working on its digital version with no boundaries and more space for ideas and experiments. It will not be just a reproduction of the physical tour, but a full-blown online [version].”
One of the neat parts of Apple fandom, I’ve found, is just how wide it goes. Apple may wear its “Designed by Apple in California” label as a badge of honor, but the reality is that you’ll find Apple fans in every country — from the United States to Dubai to, yes, the Ukraine. And each as obsessive as the last.
Until Apple finally launches an official museum that fans have been dreaming of, it’s the private collections where the company’s history lives on.
What’s the best Apple collection you’ve ever seen? Let us know in the comments below.
