My First Mac

Old Macs Are Practical, Not Just Nostalgic

- 2007.12.05

John Carlson's Why We Acquire Macs hits home with me.

I started late (1997) but have had dozens of Macs pass through my hands &endash; I still have my first one, the Road Apple PowerBook 150 that got me through Law School, and will keep it despite my basement purge/cleanup that I'm presently going through &endash; three Centris 610s, three Power Mac 6100s, a 7100, and a 5400, as well as five Mac monitors, a still-working-but-falling-apart PowerBook 165c, the remains of a dead TiBook, and two StyleWriter printers are heading to the electronic recycling center this weekend.

Despite this, my basement will still hold a Mac Classic (stored), a spare PowerBook 150, three G3 iMacs (I hope to give to nieces/nephews), two G4s (being upgraded for the kids to use Leopard), and a Cube (for me to play with), while upstairs we have an eMac (for the wife) and an iBook (for me).

Power Mac G4 Cube

I'm not sure what the fate of my PowerBook 3400c will be ( eBay?), and I might end up with a Lombard for the kids from Craigslist. So despite disposing of 10 Macs, I will still have 12 Macs in the house. I can only imagine how many I would have if I had kept some of my favorites &endash; a Mac Portable, a PowerBook 180c, my Indigo clamshell iBook 366, or my wife's old Plus - or if I had an unlimited budget.

Last year, I had occasion to put a few of the old Macs to use &endash; a neighbor needed ClarisWorks files off of old 800K diskettes, and I was able to help him thanks to my collection.

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