Vintage Mac

The last time I used Apple computers was in university in the mid-90s, and I remember enjoying the experience. The pianist in my jazz quartet was trying to get rid of his old one, so I volunteered to take it for experimentation and fun. Plus, I know that music and MIDI apps usually work better on Macs, and I'm interested in trying that stuff out.

I brought it home last week and plugged it in, excited that it even had a ethernet port that I might use to connect to the web. But knowing so little about Macs anymore, I couldn't even figure out how to configure its TCP/IP settings properly, and I hit a wall fairly fast.

Then a little while ago, I googled the model number to see what I could find about the specs. Needless to say, I was disappointed:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_performa/stats/mac_performa_580cd.html

This puppy has a 33 MHz processor, a 500 MB hard drive, a 14" monitor and 8 MB of RAM. It was built in 1995.

Ouch. As cute as it is, all it appears to be good for is playing solitaire. Netscape 2.02 is its installed web browser. The machine seems to work quite well, but yeesh! One thing I have to mention though is how strikingly similar Windows XP is to this OS, MacOS 7.5. Apple was doing ten years ago what Microshaft has been trying to emulate ever since. How quaint.

Anyone have any recommendations as to what kind of useful thing I can do with this, including donation? (But who would want it? It weighs 40 pounds, for God's sake!)

more old Apple info

http://www.apple-history.com/

Damn, I just blew an HOUR reading this, among many other pages. I just read a whole first-hand history of how the graphical user interface (GUI) came to be, the genesis of the WYSIWYG display, and some amazing archival photos and ads for the very first Apple computers in 1976. How totally, incredibly trippy. The first Apple didn't even come with its own case -- you had to built one yourself!!!

millennialhippy suggested that I turn that old Performa I have into a fishtank. It's worth $35 somewhere, I've heard, but really, there must be a practical use for the damn thing. I wonder if it can run Linux...