Where to start?

That is the question not just for this blog, but for the project that will be its primary subject.

I have a sizable collection of vintage computers, consisting of 70+ machines from a handful of different manufacturers. My primary interest is Apple. I've been a Mac user since 1993, when my best friend received a Macintosh Quadra 605 for Christmas. One year later, for Christmas, I received my first computer, a used Macintosh IIsi that my mom bought from a co-worker. It had 9 MB RAM, 40 MB HD, and a 20 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU. I purchased my second computer in 1997, a Mac PowerBook Duo 270c. A laptop. The Duo and IIsi were my main computers until my first new computer purchase - The iMac, in 1998.

After that it is all kind of a blur...

How did I come to acquire 70+ computers? Honestly, I'm not quite sure. It just kind of happened. I'm not even sure where they all came from.

The collection is relegated to a corner of my basement, where it resides out of sight, sitting on crude shelving that is long overdue for replacing - and certainly not ideal for displaying these vintage machines.


My goal is to blog my experiences while I catalog, sort, test, repair, mourn those that cannot be repaired, and reminisce about about one of my favorite hobbies, that I have sadly neglected for several years now. For now the blog layout is bland and basic. This should improve eventually. I've been sitting on this blog Idea for 4 years now, so it's time to just get started!

Disclaimer: I am not a writer. I don't play one on television. I wouldn't know where to begin to impersonate one. I punctuate like I've never even heard of the English language. Thank you.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The NeXT Mac

Image
It has been five months since the passing of Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I was a bit distracted when Mr. Jobs passed and I wasn't able to give the proper respect that someone would expect to give to the passing of one of their idols. For as long as I live, I will never be able to forget the date Steve died. The next day my wife gave birth to our first children, twin boys, on 10/6/2011. March 2012 marks 15 years since I first learned that Apple acquired NeXT and Steve Jobs would be returning to the company. It's hard to believe that much time has gone by, but I remember it very well. Back in 1997, although I had only been using Mac's for about four years (and only owned one for two years) I was very staunch in my belief that the Mac was the superior platform, and could never see myself as a Windows user. I was a senior in high school at the time, and had carefully woven my way into a position where I was doing all of the technical support for m
Read more

Apple II Serial Terminal

Image
One of my on-again, off-again, side-projects has been getting my Apple //e setup as a dumb terminal for OS X. I've been tinkering with this for about 9-years now, but never really had a setup I was happy with. I occasionally re-visit the project, but could never dedicate the time to get it right. In my ideal setup, I wanted one monitor that handles multiple devices (Atari 7800, G5, Apple //e, etc...). For the most part my Dell 20" LCD has served me well, but o ne source of dissatisfaction with regards to the Apple //e is how it handled the composite video output in 80-column mode. The video would twitch every few seconds which is very annoying and tough to read. About a week ago, the display started to fail. The screen would go black after several minutes of use. I suspect that the inverter is failing, but don't want to just throw $100 at a hunch. For $150, I decided to replace it with a 22" 1080p HDTV instead of a new monitor, primarily because of the variety of
Read more

Guided Access - Toddler Proofing for iOS

I’m sure there are many people already using Guided Access on their iOS 6 devices, but for those with small children who don’t know about it, I thought this would be a tip worth mentioning. My wife and I are flying with our 17-month-old twin boys for the first time next month, and I have been looking for ways to allow them to use my iPhone and my wife’s iPad - should they get cranky - without constantly hitting the Home button or pausing videos. After exhaustively searching for the best solution, I stumbled across a new feature in iOS 6 called Guided Access. Guided Access allows you to disable touching on all or part of the screen, all hardware buttons, and motion sensors. To enable Guided Access, go to Settings/General/Accessibility and tap the Guided Access button in the Learning section. After turning on Guided Access and setting a Passcode, launch the App of your choice and triple-click the Home button to configure the interface elements you wish to block. To disable certain parts
Read more