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My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted
articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things
Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your
submission to Dan Knight
.
He posed a question I feel compelled to answer. I started collection
Macs when I acquired my first to the collection, none better than a
mint Mac 128K with
all the trimmings back in 1994.
In those days, I was working on a Performa 405 upgraded to the hilt with a
40 MHz processor and a whooping 10 megs of RAM (max for that model). But I was so drawn to
the simplicity of the 128 that I had to find out what the rest of the
old line had to offer.
Well, I made it my goal that if I got one machine from a particular
line that I must finish by getting all the other units from that
line. So here we are eight years later, and here's what the collection
boasts.
I won't go into detail on the Apple scanners, printers, hard drives,
CD-ROMs, tape drives, modems, etc. that are floating around in boxes in
my basement. Other computers worth mentioning in my home are:
Commodore Pet, 64 (old & new), 128, Vic 20, Plus 4; Osborne I,
II; Heathkit H8, H16; Tandy Model 100, 120, 1400hd; Laser 128.
Where have I found all these Macs? Garage sales, schools who give me
first dibs before trashing them, eBay, and
the nice people who want to find homes for their old Macs.
All the Macs I have are in working order and have found their places
all around my home. And, yes, just like a stray dog each Mac has a
personality. My wife has been very . . . shall I say civil in
regards to the Macs; then again she was a PC user before she met
me.
Now I don't want to start a contest, but I felt responsible to face
the fact that I am obsessed with Macs. And to answer John's question, I
enjoy the Mac TV, Quadra 840av, PPC 8500, and PowerBook 100 the
best.
May good fortune come my way when these machines are actually worth
something. Then again, my next of kin may bury all these Macs with me
just like Apple buried all those Lisas in Utah.
Further Reading on the Legend of the Landfill Lisas
Apple Lisa. "In 1989 Apple buried thousands of Lisas in
landfill. Apple had had enough with the Lisa line, and in 1989 rented
some land in Utah at the Logan Landfill."
Apple Lisa. "In the end, Apple buried an unknown number of Lisa
in a landfill in Utah...."
Byte magazine, September 1984. "When Macintosh arrived in 1984
at $2495, the Lisa was doomed. In 1989, the last 2,700 Lisas were
buried in a Utah landfill."
Binary Dinosaurs: Apple Lisa 2. "When the last Mac XL
came off the production line in Carrolton Apple gathered all remaining
stocks and buried the lot in a landfill they'd bought in a little place
called Logan, Utah."
The
Apple Lisa S.A.Q. "Sales of the XL continued into 1986. Finally, in
the later eighties, pressured by shareholders and seeking a tax break,
Apple gutted its remaining Lisae and buried all non-useable parts in a
high-security landfill in Utah (supposedly near Logan)."
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
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RAM (max for that model). But I was so drawn to
the simplicity of the 128 that I had to find out what the rest of the
old line had to offer.
