Bong! . . . :-) . . . Welcome to Macintosh!
As Welcome to Macintosh rolls on, so does our Legends of 68K
series. I'm taking a look at all the vintage Mac websites out
there, interviewing the founders as well as others, to learn their
stories in their own words about how they got started, what
separates them from other sites as well as some fun questions.
Our first interview was with Jag of
Jag's House, the first vintage Mac website on the scene. Today we
move on to another site that has done a lot for the vintage Mac
community - the 68k Macintosh
Liberation Army (68kMLA for short).
The 68kMLA can be summed up by their Mission Statement:
To quote vintage Apple manuals: "Read me
first!"
Whenever there is a lost and forlorn 68k Mac,
we'll be there.
Whenever there is a used 68k Mac auction, we'll be
there.
Whenever there is a good 68k Mac deal on http://www.gadling.com/2008/02/01/best-prank-ever-stopping-time-at-grand-central-station/,
we'll be there.
Whenever someone in the community needs 68k Mac
assistance, we'll be there.
Whenever someone insults the pride of a 68k Mac,
we'll be there (to beat them with a 2 x 4 with a 10" nail driven
through it).
We are the 68k Macintosh Liberation Army.
Some of us are collectors, some are dealers, some
are just fanatics. Some are involved in direct operations, and some
act on behalf others. But we all share a common goal: the
successful liberation and implementation of 680x0 series Macintosh
computers. The 68k Macintosh Liberation Army defines liberation as
the removal of a 68k Mac from unloving and unappreciative
surroundings. Once liberated, a 68k Mac can be implemented into
one's home network, a child's bedroom, a bathroom, etc. All around
the world, dirty and unwanted 68k Macs are being hidden away,
retired from active duty. "Where?" you might ask. Closets,
cupboards, storage rooms, and even under beds! These are not safe
places for unassuming 68k Macs. After being put there, these Macs
are practically destined for life in the garbage! The mission of
the 68k Macintosh Liberation Army is to put an end to this evil 68k
torture.
At the very least, these Macs must be taken from
their "death row," checked, booted, and given some maintenance (a
can-of-compressed-air assault, new PRAM battery and a fresh OS
install). If you can find a way to return these Macs to active
duty, then you have found out what it really means to be a member
of the 68kMLA. Just remember: every 68k Mac can be a source of
happiness and joy for many others. 68kMLA soldiers realize that
every 68k Mac is special, every model has its merits, and almost no
computer should be turned down. Even those with little space should
accept 68k Macs, if only to pass it on to a friend (or foe, for
that matter) who has not yet experienced 68k bliss. Youngsters can
also benefit from and appreciate their own computers even if it may
be just an LC. There are 68k Macs which are rare, valuable, or
powerful. Likewise, there are 68k Macs which aren't rare, valuable,
nor powerful. But these machines are really of no more intrinsic
stature than any other Mac. ALL Macs have a right to be loved! And
at the end of the day, this is what the 68k Macintosh Liberation
Army is all about (that and violent assault of people who blaspheme
the Quadra 950/840av series and/or think that classic Macs actually
are just portable televisions)."
I recently interviewed the founder of the 68kMLA along with some
of the staff/moderators:
Tommy Thomas: Hey gang! It's great to get to meet you! How was
the idea for 68kMLA born?
Coxy: Well, just over five years ago now, I and many
others were quite active on the MacAddict Forums. The "main
founders" in particular were all people that read and posted in the
Vintage Macs sub-forum, helping people out and swapping tidbits of
information. One day there was a post about someone who had
liberated a Mac from certain doom, and the idea and the name stuck
around.
In typical youthful enthusiasm there was a flurry of
organization, web design, and drafting of a mission statement, etc.
which quickly lead to the MLA outgrowing the MacAddict Forums.
Eventually we had a small website (with grandiose plans for a large
one) on the old Apple free hosting scheme, iTools, and then our own
set of forums hosted on LiteratureClassics.com.
LCGuy: One day, MacScuzzy started a
thread in the Vintage Macs forum on MacAddict forums called, "I
just liberated a Mac", where he talked about how he "liberated" a
Macintosh Classic. After that,
FireWire Is Fast got a Macintosh Color Classic and started another thread
saying that he had "liberated" a Mac as well.
Then MacScuzzy said to FireWire, as a joke, "Hey, maybe we
should make an army and go around liberating poor old 68k Macs
;)". FireWire, among others, thought he was actually
serious, and a few of us actually decided to start a "68k Macintosh
Liberation Army".
Cinemafia: Thanks to the grassroots archives of the posts
at MAF that we've preserved, you can literally read how it started
just as if you were there back in 2001. However, what you can't
read is the general atmosphere of Apple culture at the time.
OS X had just come out of beta, the new Macs coming out were
faster and faster (and more and more expensive). It was really the
turning point for the obsolescence of not only 68k Macs but all of
the beige machines. The 68kMLA was on many levels a reaction to
that change.
Tom: I was enlisted into the MLA quite late. I joined the
old forums through Applefritter sometime in 2002
and was promoted to General to help out with phpBB modding and bug
fixing on the new forums in 2004. So I really missed the beginning
of the forums. I'll let the others take these ones.
Tommy: When did you realize, "Hey, there's something here
that people might like?"
Coxy: Hmm, I imagine it was right in the first flurry of
activity, since we had many people interested, adding information
to their forum sigs, our own very first trolls, etc.
LCGuy: I think it was mostly when others in the Vintage
Macs forum decided to join the 68kMLA that we realized that we
actually had something that was a very good idea.
Cinemafia: I think once people started realizing, "Hey,
there's other people out there who purposely collect old Macs like
me," it became cool. There was a great sense of acceptance, where
we were suddenly no longer just pack rats (at least to each
other).
Tommy: Did you ever have another idea for what the 68kMLA
would be like other than how it turned out?
Coxy: Not really, bit I had thought that our website
would be a fair bit better by now.
LCGuy: Originally, I don't think there was actually a
plan for us to have a forum; we were mostly just a bunch of guys
hanging out in the Vintage Macs forum at MacAddict talking about
"liberating" Macs. However, after we had plenty of discussion on
the subject, a moderator at MacAddict kindly asked us to get our
own forum, as we were not affiliated with MacAddict in any way,
shape, or form. In the long run, though, it has actually benefited
us having our own forum; I think that the forum has really made the
community what it is today.
Cinemafia: In the early days I'd really hoped there would
be more opportunity to do things offline. I had some ideas about
working with various MUGs and having regular, in-person meetings
and the like. Unfortunately, as with any Net community, this just
turned out to be too difficult to pursue. However, I think things
have worked out wonderfully despite it.
Tommy: What's the best thing about doing what you do
here?
Coxy: I would say the best thing is our large group of
members who have a collective knowledge which is extremely
impressive. We might not have an answer for everything, but I
really love to see someone sign up with a problem that's had them
stumped for a while and then a domain expert can give some strong
advice within a few posts.
LCGuy: In my opinion, the best thing about being a mod
[moderator] at the 68kMLA is knowing that I'm helping others keep
their old Apple Macintosh computers up and running and still doing
useful tasks. It makes me feel good knowing that I'm helping other
people and at the same time keeping the old Macs out of landfills
and on desks.
Tom: Getting 5 stars beside my posts.
Tommy: I can tell you personally, in the time I've lurked
on the 68kMLA, you have not only helped me, but you've helped a
lot of people who've had problems with their Macs. There
have been plenty of times that I've stumbled upon the answer to my
question by reading other people's posts.
What makes the 68kMLA different or stand out from other websites
out there?
Coxy: I don't think the MLA is so different from anywhere
else, really; we were simply filling a particular niche.
LCGuy: I think the main thing that makes the 68kMLA stand
out from other forums is the community. At a lot of computer forums
I've been to, it is usually frowned upon to talk about platforms
other than what the forum covers, and on some you can even get
flamed for it. However, on the 68kMLA, we have many users from many
different backgrounds.
Even though our main focus is on the vintage Macs, our members
use a wide variety of platforms: vintage Apple Macintosh, Mac
OS X, Apple I/II/III, Lisa, Windows, DOS, Unix/Linux,
Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari, NeXT, SGI, Sun, etc. And in the Lounge,
discussion on all these platforms is welcomed. Because of this, I
find that the 68kMLA is the only computer related forum that I need
to visit these days.
Cinemafia: There certainly are other community sites that
have some focus on legacy Macs, or computing in general. I like to
think that the 68kMLA is the closest-knit of those, however. I
think part of this is the pioneering spirit of our founders, who
had the idea to create the community under the guise of a military
unit. As tongue-in-cheek as it is, I think this has helped foster a
sense of camaraderie among the members that you don't necessarily
find elsewhere.
Tom: The community on the forums, although small, is
fantastic. I guess because old Macs are a bit of a niche, we get
lots of like-minded people on the forums. It's just got an
atmosphere that I haven't really experienced anywhere else.
Tommy: That's something else I've noticed, to touch on
what LCGuy mentioned. A lot of forums I've been on will flame you
to death for mentioning other platforms or OSes, but 68kMLA isn't
afraid to think "outside the box" or, better yet, "outside the
Mac". And you definitely get the feeling of a close-knit group.
Each person brings a different flavor to the table.
How important are the moderators to the 68kMLA? I ask this
question because I was once a Community Leader on AOL (from 2001
until the program closed in 2005). Now I volunteer for three forums
on CompuServe. I know from these experiences how moderators and
chat hosts keep things running.
Coxy: Ah, very important. Even for such a nice website we
get a good share of trolls, scammers, and spammers. Keeping the
environment clean is imperative to keeping the community
functioning and drawing in new members, too.
LCGuy: The moderators are an important part of the
68kMLA. When members have fights and things like that, we're always
there to clean up the remains. When members ask for new features to
be added to the forum, we evaluate them, and if necessary,
implement them. We keep the forum free from scammers, spammers, and
members who don't follow the rules. If it wasn't for the
moderators, the 68kMLA would not be what it is today.
Cinemafia: I think any Net community is only as strong as
its mods; however that being said the 68kMLA is perhaps the best
example of a self-moderated forum as I can imagine. Though we
certainly aren't the largest forum out there, we do have our share
of problems, and our members are very good about dealing with them
or reporting them to our mods as quickly as possible.
Tom: I try to be fairly hands-off in moderation and just
remain part of the community. Unless there's a serious problem, I
try to let the community play it out by themselves. I'm there if
needed, though. But the team we have are great if there's a
problem.
Tommy: That's the way I try to be, Tom. I try to be
hands-off until a major problem comes up. That's how I moderate on
the forums I volunteer for on CompuServe.
Have you ever had an instance where someone would have to be
banned from the forum?
Coxy: Heh, yes indeed. Discounting random spammers and
bots, we have had some people malicious enough to generally try to
bribe other mods, guess passwords, and generally be a pain in the
butt. As far as I know this hasn't happened in quite a while,
though.
LCGuy: We've had a couple of incidents, yes, I'm not
going to go into any details though.
Cinemafia: Yes, two come to mind actually.
The first of these was someone who I recently mentioned in a
thread regarding the demise of my Quadra 840av. Back in 2003, this person
was basically scamming several 68kMLA members into sending them
Macs and other hardware they wanted to sell or trade, but never
actually held up their end of the bargain. They would use a series
of weird, but semi-plausible excuses to delay doing so
indefinitely. They weren't just targeting 68kMLA users, though
. . . they had been running the same scam over at
Applefritter simultaneously. Eventually we figured out what was
going on and banned their username, email address, and IPs (as did
AF). Since then we've tried to be more careful in policing the
Trading Post to keep such a thing from happening again.
The other was much more recent and took place in the spring of
this year. This person was very articulate and very passionate
about vintage Macs. Maybe a little too passionate . . .
anyway, they started making very pointed statements about their
place on the 68k Mac "totem pole". Eventually they became extremely
defensive about this, to the point of being abusive. We (the Mods
and Admins) discussed the actions of this person at length and were
somewhat confused, because in our dealings with outside of the
forum he seemed to be a very reasonable person. Unfortunately,
public actions on the forum spoke more loudly than personal ones,
so we reluctantly decided to show him the door.
Tom: We've had to ban a few actual members in the past,
but most of the bannings are of spammer accounts. Even though we
are a pretty small forum, we still have a lot of spam bots signing
up and posting links. We try and clean up things as quickly as
possible though, and (as Cinemafia said before) the community as a
whole is fairly good at letting us know if they notice
anything.
Tommy: Speaking of posts, there was one I ran across on
the 68kMLA Forums. I had posted a message in the Lounge a week or
so ago, and someone brought up something about the infamous "hat
incident". Someone even put up a link to the thread where the said
"hat incident" took place. I looked it over and thought it was
really funny. If anything it showed me how lighthearted and how
humorous people that visit the 68kMLA are.
Could any one of you tell the readers out there about the said
"hat incident"?
Cinemafia: As for the hat thing . . . I'm going
to let one of the other guys chime in on it!
Tom: Basically, iMac600 posted about an "exciting new
announcement" but didn't reveal any of the details, so someone
asked whether this secret announcement was a 68kMLA hat. The rest
of the thread was basically people discussing hats! It's worth a
read, because it's rather funny.
Tommy: With that, here's a link to the said "hat
incident" for our viewers to read: http://68kmla.net/viewtopic.php?t=5024
Tommy: What's the coolest thing that's happened in
68kMLA's history?
Coxy: We've had a few Slashdottings to certain members'
websites and articles, but nothing too major.
LCGuy: In my opinion, one of the coolest things that has
happened in the 68kMLA's history was when Danamania became famous
with the news that she had managed to get Mac OS X booting on
a Centris 650 (using PearPC).
Cinemafia: I think the coolest thing about us is that we
have a lot of people who are not only really knowledgeable about
old Macs, but also really passionate about them. I believe that we
are one of the best online sources for getting help with the many
problems that are specific to older Macs.
Tom: On a personal level, being promoted to a
General.
Tommy: LCGuy, that's amazing! I can't imagine that
running OS X on a Centris 650 would be much fun, but it's
amazing nonetheless!
Tommy: Do you consider the 68kMLA a legend in it's own
time?
Coxy: In a way, yes, since the story-behind-a-story of
people's ranks and member histories, etc. helps to really build an
interesting (even if quite fanciful) environment.
LCGuy: Definitely. It's a one-of-a-kind community. I've
been to a lot of forums in my time, but there is nothing quite like
the 68kMLA.
Cinemafia: I hope so! We would really like to leave a
legacy, and even if by some unfortunate events we weren't actively
running the 68kMLA, it would always live on as an archive of all
the crazy things we've done with these machines.
Tom: Definitely.
Tommy: What do you want everyone who reads this article
to know about the 68kMLA, especially if they've never visited
before?
Coxy: It's quite a friendly place, and if you're at all
interested in Classic Macs and hardware, there's usually a couple
of threads at any one time that are quite fascinating and/or
informative!
LCGuy: The main thing I'd like people to know is that
although sometimes people make jokes about PowerPC (and Intel) Macs
as being "contraband", the truth is that we like all Macs great and
small, from the original 1984
Macintosh right up to the brand new Mac Pro.
Cinemafia: That we really like to help people, and that
we also really like to have a lot of fun. I suppose fun is a
relative term, especially for those unfamiliar with the
particularly nerdy world of retro-computing. But we do like to goof
off and not take ourselves so seriously.
I'd also like people to know that despite our focus on Macs,
we're not your typical "Mac Fan Boys". In fact, we're probably
among the most vocal in expressing our disagreement with the some
of the choices Apple has made.
Tom: It really is the best place to discuss any and all
vintage Macs, so come and check us out if you have an old machine
sitting around looking for a good use!
Tommy: Cinemafia, I'm also not a fan of some of the
choices Apple has made, even though I think a lot of what
Apple has done is cool!
When you look at the future of 68kMLA, what do you see?
Coxy: Hmm, I think we'll carry on much as we are now,
helping people out with more and more powerful as it too becomes
vintage.
LCGuy: This is a bit of a hard one . . . all I
can really say is "Wait and see". For example, five years ago I
never imagined that the 68kMLA would become what it is today. We've
managed to come as far as we have in the past five years, and I
think it will be really interesting to see what we can do, and
where we can go in the next five years.
Cinemafia: I have a lot of ideas, mainly about expanding
beyond just the forum. We've already done this a bit with the
gallery, wiki, etc. But, I want to help create a very rich and
seamless community for people who are just now discovering what you
can do with older Macs to come to. I also really want to get more
into the environmental aspect of keeping these machines out of
landfills, I think this is certainly a byproduct of what we do, but
not really something we proactively think about.
Tom: More liberations all around!
Tommy: Speaking of more liberations all around
. . . for all who don't know, The 68k Macintosh
Liberation Army celebrates it's fifth anniversary this year! Any
special way you guys plan to celebrate?
LCGuy: Not really . . . mostly just bringing up
memories from the early days and stuff like that.
Cinemafia: We possibly would have missed it, too, if I
hadn't been looking through the grassroots threads from the MAF. I
don't remember exactly why I was looking through them, but I
realized that they were just a couple weeks short of being exactly
five years old and started spreading the news that our fifth
anniversary was coming up.
There were a lot of ideas going around to celebrate; one of mine
being to have a podcast with all the founders. This didn't really
work out, but I still do want to start a 68kMLA podcast at some
point.
Tom: We've had plans to do a few different things, though
most of them haven't come to much. Our first official birthday
didn't come to much . . . maybe we'll get something
organised for the second.
Questions About Apple & Computing
Tommy: What was your first Apple or Mac?
Coxy: Our family first had an LC 575, but my first computer was an
original LC pizzabox.
LCGuy: The first computer I ever used was an Apple IIe at
my primary school back when I was in Grade 1 (1991). The first Mac
we had at home was our LC III, which
we purchased brand new in 1993. It was a 4/80 configuration, with a
14" Macintosh Color Display, an Apple Extended Keyboard II, an ADB
Mouse II, an Apple CD 300, and a StyleWriter II, running System
7.1. I still have this Mac, and it still runs every bit as well as
it did the day we picked it up from the shop.
Cinemafia:
The first Apple product I owned, which was also the first computer
I owned, was a Mac Plus. My dad
bought it new back in 1986, and brought it home for my brother and
I to play (and learn) with. I was 8 at the time, and although it
was the whole family's, it would eventually become mine. I used it
up until the mid 90's, and for several years even self-produced an
underground magazine with it.
Tom: An LC III, 12 MB RAM, 80 MB [hard drive], 14"
Performa Plus display, external third party CD-ROM, and StyleWriter
II. We bought it off a friend of the family when they upgraded in
1995/96-ish. I'd been using Macs at school and other friends'
houses for some time before that though.
Tommy: LCGuy, you started out like I did, on an Apple
IIe. You just couldn't beat the games on those IIes, could you?
What was it about Apple that made you say, "Wow man, that's
cool!"?
Coxy: Interestingly enough, probably because that's what
I started with. It only grew from then on mostly in part due to an
"us vs. them" attitude in the old computing holy wars.
LCGuy: It was the machines, really. Back when I first
started out with Macs, in 1993/94, PCs just seemed bland and
boring. To me, they were business machines, used for boring tasks
such as word processing, spreadsheets, and accounting.
Macs, however, seemed much cooler, as at that time Apple was
really getting into the whole multimedia thing, and as an 8-10 year
old kid, I was blown away at a lot of the cool things that a
multimedia Mac was capable of. Sure, PCs were capable of this back
then as well, but they still seemed like boring business machines
to me, compared to the Mac.
Cinemafia: For me it was always the creative side of
Apple. From the beginning there were choices made at Apple, even if
only in their unique industrial design scheme, that made doing
artistic work with them better. When someone would say that Macs
were only good for doing multimedia, I would actually be proud.
Tom: I don't know, really; I just grew up with the Mac OS
and always liked the way it worked. I've also always been a fan of
the design of Macs. They've always just looked so much better than
PCs . . . even when both were "boring" beige boxes.
Tommy: What was your first PC experience?
Coxy: Hard to say, really; probably playing games at
friends' houses or doing data entry into a DOS program called
TimeChart for my Dad.
LCGuy: My first PC experience was in 1996, when I changed
from an all-Mac school to a school that had a mix of both Macs and
PCs. My first time with a PC was with a Pentium 75 running Windows
95. I really didn't like it at first; I couldn't figure out the
Windows interface at all - it just didn't make sense to me the way
the Mac did. I had to go to the library and borrow some
instructional videos just so that I could figure out how to do
things such as saving files that were a no-brainers on the Mac. (I
couldn't get my head around the 3 letter file extensions that
Windows requires, mostly.)
Cinemafia: I honestly didn't have a lot of experience
using a PC until high school. I guess I was fortunate that up until
then all the schools I went to either had Apple IIs or Macs of some
sort to work on. In high school, though, using a PC was pure
business. The types of things that were taught on them were much
more mundane, like typing.
I went to an art high school, though, and I remember one year my
class won a new Gateway PC. They delivered it and even installed
some software on it that should have catered to us, like Painter
and Photoshop. However, after the initial interest wore off, it
never really got used much.
Tom: Some friends had a PC running Windows 3.1. I guess
that was probably the first PC I used. Can't remember that much
about it, except that it had Wolfenstein on it.
Check back on Friday for the
conclusion of my interview with the 68kMLA. 
Go to the Legends of 68k
index.
