Just the other day I saw a photo of the old Mac SE/30. One of my all time favorite Macs. And that reminded me of the Snow White Design Language of the time (1984-1990). And how advanced it was. Just compare it to a PC from that time to see how far ahead Apple was. Thinking of that era, I was reminded of my old Mac IIci I bought in 1989 and how much I missed it for a decade after I moved on. Even now, the Mac IIci evokes all kinds of great vibes from back in the day.
The Mac IIci was a beast! It was fast (25 MHz 68030), came with a speedy FPU (68882, also at 25 MHz), and had ample expansion thanks to lots of RAM slots, one PDS, and 3 NuBus slots — and SCSI for all kinds of speedy (at least at the time) external extension (lost of HDDs…). But best of all, it could be opened with just two latches that snapped open the lid (see this photo) exposing all card slots and drives. But at the same time this Mac was compact (by the standards of those days) and light, unlike the II/IIx/IIfx (hence the c in the name). I loved this Mac to death. And when the Quadra 700 was released in 1991, I had Apple upgrade one of my 2 IIci to a Quadra 700 (like the program they had before offered to upgrade a Mac SE to the SE/30) which gave it lots of extra life thanks to the awesome 68040.
Anyway, I still get all nostalgic thinking about the great Mac IIci. And had I known that 35 years later I would still be thinking that way about it, I would have kept every single one I ever got my hands on. In working order too. I still should have one of my old IIci stashed away in a distant relative’s storage — no idea what condition it is in these days and since it’s so far away I doubt I’ll be reuniting with it any time soon. /sniff Anyway, for now, just a few images as a tribute to one of the greatest Macs I ever enjoyed using.
Great system. I think the IIci was the pinnacle of industrial design. Functional. Good looking. And can be completely disassembled and reassembled without any tools (except for screwing the disk drives to the mounting sleds.
An incredible breath of fresh air compared to my SE which (like all the Classic-style Macs) requires a long-handled Torx screwdriver to get into. But I can somewhat understand it there, since there is a CRT inside and you don’t want casual users touching high voltage parts.
My Quadra 840av was almost as good as the IIci. There were a few thumbscrews to remove the cover and most parts would just come out, although there was a screw or two mounting the motherboard to the chassis.
I completely fell in love with my Quicksilver 2002 PowerMac. That case was a pleasure to open, close and work in. And Apple included mounting brackets for up to four internal hard drives in addition to the optical drive and optional Zip drive (which I bought). I think it was a mistake for them to abandon this case concept with the G5 systems, but maybe there were technical reasons (cooling?) that made it impractical.
For me, it would be the PowerMac G4 and PowerMac G5 systems I used for work in the 2000s. Not just the hardware, but the design and feel of OS X back then. Windows 2000 & XP looked okay at best by comparison, and it wasn’t until Windows 7 that Redmond finally caught up. (Then threw it away with Windows 8, a retrograde step in so many ways.)
Perhaps the one I have the best memories of was the Performa 6400. It ended up with maxed out RAM, a big (for the day) hard drive, a G3 in the L2 cache slot, and an OrangePC co-processor (running Windows 95 and 98) in one PCI slot and an ethernet card in the other. That was my Marathon machine, and even after I moved on, I used it to run IPNetRouter so it would dial up an internet connection and serve it to other macs around the house (which lasted until the first gray Airport flying saucer took over the job).
I think my second favourite was a PB2400c, which was not sold here in Canada, but I managed to get one from Small Dog Electronics. There was just one Mac dealer in my province, and a trip there was like going to Mecca. I’d just sit in the shop and soak in the goodness!
Same here. I ran it with Apple’s Portrait Display (4-bit gray scale, IIRC) and Apple’s color display (probably the same model as in your picture). Mirroring what you said, I never should have let it go.
Classic II was my first home Mac. In the early 90s, it was later replaced by a B&W G3 and then later a Dual-G5 with a bunch of eSATA drives – a veritable Photoshop image factory.
The $DAYJOB workhorse and favorite Mac was a IIci with 4 MB memory. Multiprotocol networking was a breeze and less expensive and much more reliable than using Wintel machines. AppleTalk Suite, DECnet, TCP/IP, and IPX/SPX coexistence over the developing TCP/IP company network was a key use of this system. It also provided remote terminal access to various UNIX and Linux systems and later ran a web server. One day, on a lark, I plugged in two more display adapter and used three Apple High Resolution CRT displays. It worked fine but the office furniture was bending under the load, so I reverted to one display.
To the best of my recollection, the Apple invoice for the IIci, 12" RGB display, and various software was just under $10,000 in around 1992 (+/-).
I agree the IIci was a great computer, and I fondly recall my Quicksilver dual processor unit, but the SE/30 was my first Mac (after many years in the ][ camp) and it was a great machine, and that’s the Mac for which I am most nostalgic.
My first Mac was a Performa, so not a lot of nostalgia there.
Contrary to a lot of sentiment, I know, my favorite Mac was my “Darth Vader Signature Edition” (Trashcan, 2013 Mac Pro). Sitting on top of a Sonnet Echo 15, I’d never had a fraction of that power in so little desk space.
I made good future-needs judgement on the setup I ordered. Never had any hardware problems. Got one of the first shipped, (reluctantly) retired it when the Mac Studio shipped.
I also recall my Quicksilver Dual-Processor fondly.
I really loved the Wallstreet PowerBook G3 with its curvy case so it wouldn’t slide out of your hand and its bays for swapping in an extra battery and floppy/CD/HD drives. At the time it had a huge color screen and only weighed 7.2 lbs (according to Apple).
I still have my Wallstreet PowerBook G3 with Zip drive, CD/DVD drive, and floppy drive slide-ins for the bay. It all works and I fire it up about twice a year for…nostalgia.
My husband and I still have our very, very beloved SE30s. Unfortunately they are not functional any more, but we still keep them as a reminder of how wonderful they were.
It’s a good idea to do that with any vintage computer, but especially laptops with passive matrix screens.
I had left my old PowerBook 1400cs in a closet for over a year, and I was crestfallen to open it up and see that it had contracted a bad case of screen rot (aka vinegar syndrome), where the polarizer film in the display degrades and detaches from its substrate.
It still booted and worked well when connected to an external display, but the display was ruined. It’s technically possible to repair, but it’s a project, and it rarely yields perfect results.
It’s too bad; it’s otherwise a great machine, upgraded with a G3, max RAM, and a display card. I have it set up to dual boot into MacOS 8.6 and 9.1. I’ll probably pull any worthwhile files and then put it on eBay as a parts machine.
My favorite vintage Mac is the PowerMacG5 I splurged on when it came out. It is a beautiful machine, and it still was able to run TidBits the last time I tried a few months ago. Unfortunately, the 17-inch Studio Display I bought with it was my worst Mac disappointment; it failed in a few years and was the last Apple external display I bought.
The vintage Mac that makes me nostalgic is the LC II “pizza box,” which I paired with a 13"(?) Sony Trinitron monitor. This system was the upgrade from my Mac Plus. I remember how wonderful it was to see the Finder and my favorite apps in color!
The LC also could utilize the optional Apple IIe card so you could still run your old programs along with the Mac ones. Many schools utilized the LC models for that reason at the time.
weighed 7.2 lbs (according to Apple).
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