October 10, 1993: Apple ships its Macintosh Color Classic II, the last of the 9-inch compact Macs.
Also known as the Performa 275, the Color Classic II will eventually become something of a collector’s item, since Apple released it only in Canada, Asia and Europe.
July 29, 1993: Apple releases the Macintosh Centris 660av, a computer packed with innovative audiovisual features. These include an AppleVision monitor with microphone and speakers, and a port that can work as a modem with a telecom adapter. It also comes with the first Apple software to recognize and synthesize speech.
At the relatively low price of $2,489, this was one of the first great affordable multimedia Macs.
June 28, 1993: Apple ships the Macintosh LC 520, an “all-in-one” Mac targeted primarily at the education market.
The first Macintosh ever shipped with a non-optional 2x CD-ROM drive, it is designed to capitalize on schools’ growing multimedia requirements.
What makes people start collecting vintage Macs? There are many reasons. Some folks want to play abandoned games or use old software on original hardware. Some simply don’t know how to transfer files, and thus keep their old machines as a giant backup, just in case.
I collect old Macs because I care deeply about history. I want to have an informed perspective on the past so I can better understand trends of user-interface design and the evolution of technology.
My first vintage computer was a Macintosh Classic I bought on eBay for about $80. After lifting it out of its shipping box, I reached around the back to flip on the power switch and watch it boot. I loved hearing the whir of the hard drive, the fans humming and the delightful blip!-blip!-blip! noise the disk drive made when reading a floppy.
Apple computers are highly collectible. They span the entire history of personal computing. The company’s unwavering design philosophy, always pushing ease of use, means even the oldest and weirdest Apple computers are never hard to figure out. The historical lineup spans all different kinds of form factors and designs. Not to mention, they look rad.
So, you want to collect old Apple computers, too? Where do you start, and what do you want? Here’s a quick guide to buying classic Macs. These tips should get you started and help you avoid common pitfalls. (If you want to go even deeper, we also provide some links to further reading on the subject.)
Using a 1984-era Macintosh 128K and various retro tools, Pinot W. Ichwandardi painstakingly crafted a beautiful pixel art drawing of one of New York City’s most stunning skyscrapers.
Ichwandardi created his stunning image of the Flatiron Building one pixel at a time, a process he calls “pixel knitting” due to its time-intensive nature. But the incredibly detailed artwork isn’t even the point.
“The most rewarding thing from it is the process,” the 50-year-old designer told Cult of Mac.
It just goes to show that even a Mac that’s nearly 40 years old can still be used to make amazing pieces artwork. And you can buy a print of Ichwandardi’s Flatiron Building art — printed on a vintage dot-matrix printer, naturally!
Luke Miani isn’t afraid to take a header when it comes to buying used Macs on eBay. He’ll scoop up piles of Apple laptops in various states of disrepair, then swap out parts or fix them up as needed. His ultimate goal? Scoring a sweet deal — and dishing out some serious knowledge.
Miani dutifully documents his eBay adventures, then shares the fruits of his labor with a growing audience on YouTube. We talked with Miani about his operation, and you can get the scoop in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Also inside: All the latest Apple news, plus helpful how-tos for iPhone, iPad and AirPods Pro owners.
The Soviet Union may have collapsed. But Vladimir Lenin, the country’s first leader, lives on, thanks to an audiovisual show still running on a small network of Apple II computers at a museum outside Moscow.
The Apple II is as revered by geeks as Lenin is by nostalgic Communists. Both proved revolutionary. And while the carefully edited story of Lenin might seem interesting to museum-goers, the unvarnished tale of the vintage Apple tech is more compelling.
Adam Rosen was happiest standing over an old Mac computer, all pulled apart with wires sticking out and components scattered across his kitchen table.
Rosen knew this part of him might never land him a wife. Who could appreciate a home where each room was a gallery of old working Apple computers?
This private Vintage Mac Museum lost its devoted docent on Aug. 31 when Rosen, 53, died from pancreatic cancer.
Yesterday, I wrote about the massive conceptual difference between Mac and iPad, and mentioned that I still use a 2010 iMac. Today, I thought I’d explain how I managed to keep it going for so long.
Spoiler: It was pretty easy, although it required some simple home surgery from time to time. The only sad part is that the current lineup of iMacs almost certainly won’t last as long, at least not without professional attention.
Here’s how I kept my Mac running for a decade.
You could safely assume that computer hackers and people who knit have little to talk about. One activity is clearly analog and seemingly old-fashioned while the other pre-occupies the mind of a tech geek.
Fabienne Serriere blows up that assumption by being both. She combines the two rather different activities to make eye-catching scarves imprinted with Mac ROM code.
Adam Rosen’s collection of vintage Macs doesn’t make him a hoarder, but he acknowledges it doesn’t make him an obvious choice for a husband, either.
In several rooms of Rosen’s Boston home you’ll find a love story nonetheless. The rooms are shrines to a high school sweetheart that matured and grew more sophisticated with time, a friendly face still aglow with “hello.”
If you have an Apple Watch on your wrist and an old Mac in your heart, the design company elago has a stand that will take you back in time.
The Apple Watch rests on the W3 stand behind a silicon housing that is a cute scale model of a 1984 Macintosh computer monitor, incorporating the watch face so it appears you have a little working Mac.
Apple fans in the Big Apple are misty eyed this week as a beloved repair shop gets ready to close its doors for good.
Tekseve, with a true genius bar of technicians unmatched by any modern Apple Store, has been forced out of its Manhattan location after nearly 30 years because of high rents and retail competition. Its collection of rare old Macs that were on display will be auctioned off next Tuesday.
Phil Schiller says Apple is too busy “inventing the future” to “celebrate the past” by building a museum.
So if you are in search of history on the 40th anniversary of Apple’s founding, you might want to travel to Georgia. There, a guy named Lonnie Mimms has taken over an old CompUSA building and meticulously crafted a tangible timeline that would make Apple’s futurists — perhaps even Schiller — pause with nostalgia and pride.
Apple’s marketing team creates gorgeous ads that show every minuscule detail of new iPhones, but what would the images look like if they were produced using the original Macintosh and MacPaint?
Some redditor with way too much time on his or her hands decided to dig out an old Mac and find out, and the results are actually pretty fantastic.
One man’s astonishing collection of Apple gear is for sale on eBay right now, making an instant Mac museum just a click away for the right bidder. The auction starts at $100,000, with a Buy It Now price of $300,000 — a drop in the bucket for a certain CEO who’s on his way to the billionaire’s club.
“I would love for Tim Cook to buy it all,” said seller Steve “Mac” Abbott in an email to Cult of Mac running down his list of ideal buyers. “First it means he would want to display it, unlike Steve [Jobs], and that Apple would sponsor its own history…. Next would be a well-heeled Apple guy, and after that whoever can convince me that it can be seen. Then, ‘Show me the money.'”
