Thank you for the nostalgia trip on the extended Torx T15. Although yours looks like it would be at home in a sword sheath.
I still have a standard (short) version of that T15 with the handle shaved down. Years ago I had an urgent need to open one at work and could not wait for a specialty part to be shipped. Once the handle was thinned enough to fit in the carry-handle space, you just needed a pair of pliers to break the tightened screw and then it was a fairly easy task.
While I appreciate the overall design of the case that allowed for picking up and moving a Mac with just one hand, a little extra space could have been made in the handle gap to allow for a normal size T15.
Various models over the years for work and home. First work one was the Mac SE. Due to dearth they were all handed on to various people whenever I upgraded.
The only one I regret not keeping is the iMac G4 (half golf ball)
I suspect that was deliberate. Jobs always hated the idea of a computer with user-accessible insides (diametrically opposite to Woz’s preference). He wanted the Mac to be closed up and not upgradable. Macs with expansion capabilities (like the Mac II line) were developed (I think) due to customer demand over his objections.
Hence the use of Torx screws instead of Phillips and placing two of them deep within the handle where most people can’t get at them.
Sadly, that attitude persists to this day - hence Apple Silicon macs that have absolutely no internal upgrade capability and screws with custom heads (pentalobe and tri-point) in iPhones and Watches.
The PowerBook G4 was replaced by the first MacBook Pro (Intel Core Duo) in Jan 2006. But those MBPs still used an aluminum chassis built in a similar fashion to the PB. Unibody MBPs weren’t introduced until October of 2008.
That’s the way I remember it being reported at the time; also, that this was one of the (many) things that Jobs and John Sculley, the CEO of Apple, clashed on.
According to the trade press rumors, Jobs wanted a non-expandable, closed Mac, and Sculley wanted expansion capabilities – particularly SCSI ports for allowing external hard discs to be used with the Mac. Which was something many of us wanted at the time. Oh, the “fun” of incessant floppy disc swapping…
I think this is one of the reasons Jobs’ departure from Apple in 1985 wasn’t looked at as an unalloyed disaster. It was felt that Sculley would be able to push expansion capabilities for the Mac, allowing users to leverage 3rd party hardware. And indeed, it came to pass.
Thank you, all, for your lists. It brings back many memories from the last, almost 30 years of using Macs, my only computers, although I did have a Performa with a DOS card.
I’ll look and add my Macs. Although, I’ve only purchased about 6 since 1995, I have about 12-15 in the basement.
I started with the original 128, and cannot remember all of the models I’ve had over the years, but the one that I have the fondest memory of was the Cube. I’m a musician, and it was quiet, and very kool looking. The Cube.
I found my full list of Macs. It might seem excessive, but I was buying for my medical office (AppleTalk over PhoneNET!), wife, son and my mother!
PB100
LCII
LCIII
IIsi
540c
6400
clamshell iBook tangerine
clamshell iBook blueberry
white iBook x3
2400c
pismo
TiBook
Powerbook 12" x3
iMac indigo
MBP 15 aluminum x3
MBP 15 unibody x4
MBP 13 x2
iMac G5
MacPro G5
MBA x3
M1 MBA
M2 MBA
iMac 21.5" x2
eMate x2
Message Pad 100
iPod Touch x3
iPhone 4, 5, 8 x2, SE x2
iPad
iPad 2
Stylewriter I
Stylewriter II x3
Laserwriter PS
ColorStylewriter
Airport Graphite x2
Airport Snow x3
Airport Extreme
Airport Express x2
Airport TimeCapsule x4
Granted, there were still some sharp edges to be aware of, but that was the beginning of a period of glorious accessibility. This reminds me of one owned Mac that I forgot to include in my list: Mirror door G4 tower.
Agreed. The PowerMac G4 systems all used variations on this enclosure. It was a pleasure working inside mine. One of the things I’d love Apple to bring back (40th Anniversary Mac Pro? )
Oh, another almost-forgotten technology! I remember running twisted-pair station wire between my spouse’s office on our home’s first floor and my office on the second floor, so that she could print to the LaserWriter Plus.
Which I forgot to put on my original list. My Mac SE was a package that came with an ImageWriter II. I acquired the LW+ used for about $4,000 in 1988, and maybe 6 years later opened it up and replaced the original motherboard with an (I think) “Accelawriter” board that also doubled the resolution in one dimension, so it became a 600x300dpi printer.
That printer was a beast, and was in its second home with me for 12 years.
One of my old employers used a PhoneNet network throughout the office. Each office had a phone jack that was wired up to a PhoneNet Star Controller hub. So the Macs would each have a PhoneNet transceiver connecting it to the wall, so we could all share files and printers with each other.
Slow, but it worked.
This was later upgraded to Ethernet, with the Macs incapable of hosting Ethernet ports actually using SCSI Ethernet adapters to get them connected. (Ours were very similar to the one linked here, but used Thin Ethernet cabling to match the LAN.)
I have an SE/30 that I have been meaning to open up, but I don’t know what happened to my old case cracking kit. In a box in the attic, I suppose. It’s actually the same SE/30 I bought back in 1989 and sold seven or more years later. After another decade or so, it found its way back to me, upgraded by its interim owner with a PDS color video card.
I bought a LaserWriter in 1989 and we used it in our print shop until I sold it in 1999. It still worked fine. I also included an original 512 Mac that still worked, if you could find something basic you needed to do. Those old Mac’s were super machines. Only the changing technology made them obsolete.
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